Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER II: THE RELIGION OF THE CELTS 57hieroglyph for godhead and a well-known magical emblem, isalso represented on this stone. Again, in a brochure by Dr.Oscar Montelius on the rock-sculptures of Sweden 48 we finda reproduction (also given in Du Chaillu's “Viking Age”) ofa rude rock-carving showing a number of ships with men onboard, and the circle quartered by a cross—unmistakably a solaremblem—just above one of them. That these ships (which, likethe Irish example, are often so summarily represented as to bemere symbols which no one could identifiy as a ship were theclue not given by other and more elaborate representations) weredrawn so frequently in conjunction with the solar disk merelyfor amusement or for a purely decorative object seems to memost improbable. In the days of the megalithic folk a sepulchral [73]monument, the very focus of religious ideas, would hardly havebeen covered with idle and meaningless scrawls. “Man,” as Sir J.Simpson has well said, “has ever conjoined together things sacredand things sepulchral.” Nor do these scrawls, in the majority ofinstances, show any glimmering of a decorative intention. But ifthey had a symbolic intention, what is it that they symbolise?Solar Ship from Loc mariaker, Brittany(After Ferguson)Solar Ship from Hallande, Sweden(After Montelius)The Ship Symbol in EgyptNow this symbol of the ship, with or without the actualportrayal of the solar emblem, is of very ancient and very [74]48 “Les Sculptures de Rochers de la Suède,” read at the Prehistoric Congress,Stockholm, 1874; and see G. Coffey, op. cit. p. 60.