Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER II: THE RELIGION OF THE CELTS 45mythical literature and the art of the Celt have probably sprungmainly from the section represented by the Lowland Celts ofBertrand. But this literature of song and saga was producedby a bardic class for the pleasure and instruction of a proud,chivalrous, and warlike aristocracy, and would thus inevitably bemoulded by the ideas of this aristocracy. But it would also havebeen coloured by the profound influence of the religious beliefsand observances entertained by the Megalithic People—beliefswhich are only now fading slowly away in the spreading daylightof science. These beliefs may be summed up in the one termMagic. The nature of this religion of magic must now be brieflydiscussed, for it was a potent element in the formation of thebody of myths and legends with which we have afterwards todeal. And, as Professor Bury remarked in his Inaugural Lectureat Cambridge, in 1903:“For the purpose of prosecuting that most difficult ofall inquiries, the ethnical problem, the part played by race inthe development of peoples and the effects of race-blendings,it must be remembered that the Celtic world commandsone of the chief portals of ingress into that mysterious pre-Aryan foreworld, from which it may well be that we modernEuropeans have inherited far more than we dream.”The ultimate root of the word Magic is unknown, butproximately it is derived from the Magi, or priests of Chaldeaand Media in pre-Aryan and pre-Semitic times, who werethe great exponents of this system of thought, so strangelymingled of superstition, philosophy, and scientific observation.The fundamental conception of magic is that of the spiritualvitality of all nature. This spiritual vitality was not, as inpolytheism, conceived as separated from nature in distinct divinepersonalities. It was implicit and immanent in nature; obscure,undefined, invested with all the awfulness of a power whoselimits and nature are enveloped in impenetrable mystery. In itsremote origin it was doubtless, as many facts appear to show,[60]