The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

156 1 he Highland Monthly.
Till I again return.
May I be the white swan,
As a queen above them.
I will wash my face
That it may shine like the nine rays of the sun,
As the Virgin Mary washes her Son with warm
milk ;
May restraint be on my tongue,
Beauty on my countenance ;
The palm [or arm] of Mary around my neck,
The palm [or hand] of Christ on my face,
The tongue of the Mother of Jesus in my mouth,
The eye of the aiivireacJi (?) between them ;
And m.ay the taste of honey be of every word
T utter till I return.
Here we have a wonderful combination of agencies with
the view of attaining a successful end—iron, symbolic of
hardness and endurance ; the horse, of strength ; the
serpent, of cunning ; and
the deer, of swiftness. Then we
have the incantator presented to us pure and queenly as
the white swan, with beaming countenance, with tongue
under restraint but uttering honeyed words. He is under
the guardianship of the Virgin and her Son.
On reaching the Court, our litigant, with his right foot
on the threshold, repeats the following words :
Translated
—
'• Gu'm beannaiche 'Dia an tigh
—
Bho bhun gu bhragh ;
M' fhacal-sa os cionn na bhios a stigh,
'S am facail-se fo m' throidh."
" May God bless this house
From floor to ceiling ;
May my word be above all others within.
And their words under my feet."
In a paper on " Druidism" by Mr Macbain in the Celtic
Magazine [vide Vol. VHL, p. 570], we have a reference to
the serpent's &gg, and to Pliny's account of it. " A Roman
knight was making use of it in Court to gain an unfair
verdict, and for this was put to death by Claudius the