The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

IN BRITAIN. 143
voices of men uttering discordant cries. His timidity
increasing, he would naturally attempt to fly, without
knowing where to look for safety. Escape was, however,
impossible, for wherever he turned, white dogs, with
shining red ears, 52
appeared to bay at his heels. Thus he
53
was said to be transformed into a hare j evidently in allusion
to the timidity which was the natural consequence
54
of all the horrors to which he was necessarily exposed.
The gigantic goddess, Ceridwen, in the form of a proud
mare, 55
emerging from behind the veil, now seized the
astonished candidate, and by main force bore him away
to the mythological sea of Dylan, into whose purifying
stream he was immediately plunged by the attendant
priest, and hence he was said to be changed into a fish 56
j
52 Tale of Pywll. The Druids were habited during the performance
of these ceremonies in while vestments, and crowned with red diadems.
Dogs were generally considered to be effective agents under supernatural
circumstances. Morgan, in his history of Algiers, gives a curious
instance of this. He says, that "the Turks report, as a certain
truth, that the corpse of Heyradin Barbarosa was found, four or five
times, oft of the ground, lying by his sepulchre, after he had been
there inhumed ; nor could they possibly makejiim lie quiet in his grave,
till a Greek wizard counselled them to bury a black dog together with
the body. This done, he lay still, and gave them no farther trouble."
53 Hanes Taliesin. The tale of Pywll, however, likens the aspirant
to a stag.
54 1 am inclined to think that the career of the aspirant was fre-
quently contested by real or imaginary opponents to prove his personal
courage. These contests were probably of a nature somewhat
similar to the subsequent practice of the Crasaders during the process
of admission into the superior orders of knighthood. The following
passage in the poem of Gododin, (Song xxii., Dav. Druid., p. 365,)
generally, and perhaps truly, referred to the slaughter of the Britons
at the fatal banquet given by Hengist to Vortigern, at Stonehenge,
forcibly points out the probable danger which surrounded the candidate
"
at this period of the initiation. Whilst the assembled train were
accumulating like a darkening swarm around him, without the semblance
of a retreat, his exerted wisdom planned a defence against the
pallid outcasts with their sharp pointed weapons."
56 Or rather fiend mare. She is here represented as a monstrous
animal, compounded of a mare and a hen. (Dav. on British Coins.)
56
Dylan, according to Mr. Davies, (Druid, p. 100.) was the patriarch
Noah ; and his sea, the Deluge ; and he cites the following
passage from Taliesin's Cad Goddeu in support of his opinion.
" Truly I was in the ship
With Dylan, son of the sea,
Embraced in the centre
Between the royal kneee,