Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER I: THE CELTS IN ANCIENT HISTORY 33by Strabo and by references in Irish legends, 25 were the reallysovran power in Celtica. All affairs, public and private, weresubject to their authority, and the penalties which they couldinflict for any assertion of lay independence, though restingfor their efficacy, like the mediæval interdicts of the CatholicChurch, on popular superstition alone, were enough to quell [47]the proudest spirit. Here lay the real weakness of the Celticpolity. There is perhaps no law written more conspicuously inthe teachings of history than that nations who are ruled by priestsdrawing their authority from supernatural sanctions are, just inthe measure that they are so ruled, incapable of true nationalprogress. The free, healthy current of secular life and thought is,in the very nature of things, incompatible with priestly rule. Bethe creed what it may, Druidism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, orfetichism, a priestly caste claiming authority in temporal affairsby virtue of extra-temporal sanctions is inevitably the enemy ofthat spirit of criticism, of that influx of new ideas, of that growthof secular thought, of human and rational authority, which arethe elementary conditions of national development.The Cursing of TaraA singular and very cogent illustration of this truth can bedrawn from the history of the early Celtic world. In the sixthcentury A.D., a little over a hundred years after the preaching ofChristianity by St. Patrick, a king named Dermot MacKerval 26ruled in Ireland. He was the Ard Righ, or High King, of thatcountry, whose seat of government was at Tara, in Meath, andwhose office, with its nominal and legal superiority to the five25 In the “Tain Bo Cuailgne,” for instance, the King of Ulster must not speakto a messenger until the Druid, Cathbad, has questioned him. One recalls thelines of Sir Samuel Ferguson in his Irish epic poem, “Congal”:“... For ever since the time When Cathbad smothered Usnach's sons in thatfoul sea of slime Raised by abominable spells at Creeveroe's bloody gate, Doruin and dishonour still on priest-led kings await.”26 Celtice, Diarmuid mac Cearbhaill.