The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

IN BRITAIN. 141
I remained nine months an infant in her womb; 85
I have been Aedd, 36
returning to my former state ;
37 been an offering before the sovereign I ; have died ; I
38 have revived and ; conspicuous with 39
my ivy branch;
I have
I have been a leader, and by my bounty I became poor. 40
Again was I instructed by the cherisher with red fangs. 41
Of what she gave me 42
scarcely can I utter the great
praise that is due." 43 And in his poem of Cad Goddeu,
the same poet gives a further account of his numerous
adventures during the ceremony of initiation. "I have
been a spotted adder on the mount ; I have been a viper
in the lake; 44 I have been stars among the superior
chiefs; I have been the weigher of the falling drops,
drest in my priest's cloke and furnished with 45
my bowl."
These extraordinary transformations were undoubtedly
effected by means of masks, shaped like the heads of
those animals46 which the aspirant was feigned to
represent,
and garments composed of their skins. 47
85
Alluding to the pastes or cromlech.
36 The helio-arkite god, or his priest.
37 When presented to the archdruid after initiation.
36 Another allusion to the cromlech, in which the aspirant suffered
a mythological death and revivification.
39 It has been already observed that the aspirant was crowned with
ivy.
40 A mystical poverty was the characteristic of
the process of initiation.
a candidate during
41 Ceridwen.
43 Instruction in all mysteries and sciences, human and divine.
43 Dav. Druid, p. 573.
44
Serpents, as we have already seen, were much used in all
ancient mysteries.
the
)5 Dav. Druid, p. 544.
46
Figures of men with the heads of animals are very common on
the monuments of Egypt. (Vid. the plates to Belzoni's Researches.)
Dr. Pococke says (Descrip. of the East, vol. i., p. 95,) "in some of
the temples I have observed that the human body has always on it the
head of some bird or beast."
4T From a tradition of this practice arose that prevailing opinion,
that "the spectres of Britain were hellish, more numerous than those
of Egypt, of which some are yet remaining," says Gildas, "strangely
featured and ugly, and still to be seen both within and without the
forsaken walls, looking stern and grim, after their usual manner."
(Gibson's Camd., xxxv.) The practice was continued as a mummery
or holiday sport down to a comparatively recent period. "There was
a sport," saysStrutt, (Sports, p. 188,) "common among the ancients,
which usually took place in the Kalends of January, and probably
formed a part of the Saturnalia, or feasts of Saturn. It consisted in