The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

THE CELTIC MYSTERIES. 131
be said -of all places to which a giant was a party. 57
All
ancient temples consecrated to
religious worship, in whatever
country, for the practice of all idolatrous nations
was uniform in this
particular, had places of initiation con-
four stones at the entrance, and he had heard old folks say that there
had been four stones in the centre, but he could not recollect them.
Those at the entrance he remembered very well, and they were destroyed
by the landlord of the public house by the side of Arthur's
Round Table, and his servant man. But, added he, I think they did
wrong to meddle with these ancient things, for one of the men soon
after hanged himself, and the other lost his reason. What must have
been the veneration for this place," exclaims Mr. Briggs, "in the days
of its greatest glory, when such a striking relic of superstitious re-
spect is still fostered among the peasantry of the neighborhood !"
Arthur's Round Table is a circular earthwork, one hundred and ten
and has an elevated circular table in
yards in diameter in the whole ;
the centre of forty yards in diameter, which is surrounded by a ring
twenty yards wide and the whole is encompassed by a fifteen yards
ditch. It is situated on a piece of elevated ground near Eamont
bridge, and is wholly covered with a fine greensward. It bears no
marks of dilapidation. It is composed wholly of earth, and there is
not a stone about it, nor does it appear that there ever was. It is
now the theatre of an annual wrestling match, at which those gentlemen
of the county, who have not previously obtained the honour,
are formally installed knights of the Round Table ; of which order,
Thomas Wyberg, Esq., is the present Grand Master. It was in such
places as this that the Britons used periodically to assemble for the
which were instituted to
purpose of witnessing the sports and games
prove the strength and agility of their youth, and to amuse the peo-
ple. (Borl. Ant. Corn., p. 195.)
67 In Cumberland, they have a legend respecting a monster of this
nature, who resided in a cave on the banks of the river Eden. He is
represented to have been a terror to all the surrounding country. His
name was Isir. He subsisted by spoiling the neighbouring fields of
their cattle, and when hard pressed by hunger, did not hesitate to
drag men into his cave and devour them. When he washed his face,
says the tradition, he placed his right foot on one side of the river,
and his left on the other. The Rev. Gr. Hall, of Rosegill, to whom I
am indebted for this legend, adds, " this giant, like all other giants,
died and went the way of all flesh. When he died, tradition does not
say ; but it does say that he was buried in Penrith churchyard ; and
that the stones called the giant's gravestones, mark his grave and the
length of his body." This is evidently a legend of initiation transferred
from mythology to romance. The rites, as we have seen, were
most commonly performed in caverns, and beside the pellucid waters
of a running stream, where such conveniences could be placed in
conjunction ; for candidates, during a certain part of the ceremony,
were immersed, and figurately said to be metamorphosed into
fishes. The giant's name was strictly mythological. The mysteries
of Britain were sacred to Ceridwen, who was the same as Ceres or
Isis, and she is represented by Taliesin as a giantess. (Welch. Arch.,