Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

106 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race[130]appeared crowded with people before invisible.”“Here,” observed Mr. Alfred Nutt, “we have the antiqueritual carried out on a spot hallowed to one of the antiquepowers, watched over and shared in by those powers themselves.Nowhere save in Gaeldom could be found such a pregnantillustration of the identity of the fairy class with the venerablepowers to ensure whose goodwill rites and sacrifices, originallyfierce and bloody, now a mere simulacrum of their pristine form,have been performed for countless ages.” 102Sinend and the Well of KnowledgeThere is a singular myth which, while intended to account forthe name of the river Shannon, expresses the Celtic venerationfor poetry and science, combined with the warning that they maynot be approached without danger. The goddess Sinend, it wassaid, daughter of Lodan son of Lir, went to a certain well namedConnla's Well, which is under the sea—i.e., in the Land of Youthin Fairyland. “That is a well,” says the bardic narrative, “at whichare the hazels of wisdom and inspirations, that is, the hazels ofthe science of poetry, and in the same hour their fruit and theirblossom and their foliage break forth, and then fall upon the wellin the same shower, which raises upon the water a royal surgeof purple.” When Sinend came to the well we are not told whatrites or preparation she had omitted, but the angry waters brokeforth and overwhelmed her, and washed her up on the Shannonshore, where she died, giving to the river its name. 103 This mythof the hazels of inspiration and knowledge and their associationwith springing water runs through all Irish legend, and has beenfinely treated by a living Irish poet, Mr. G.W. Russell, in thefollowing verses:“>A cabin on the mountain-side hid in a grassy nook,102 “The Voyage of Bran,” vol. ii. p. 219.103 In Irish, Sionnain.