Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

io6 Old Irish Religions.
we are told of the revenge one took upon a woman— " Being
safe from the eyes of the household, she muttered some
words, and, drawing a Druidic wand from under her
mantle, she struck her with it, and changed her into a
most beautiful wolf-hound." The Limian reminds one of
the classical Incubi and Succubi. Yet Kennedy admits
that "in the stories found among the native Irish, there
is always evident more of the Christian element than
among the Norse or German collections."
The story about Fintan's adventures, from the days of
the Flood to the coming of St. Patrick, " has been regarded
as a Pagan myth," says one, " in keeping with
of Transmigration."
the doctrine
In \hQ Annals of Clomnaaioise we hear of seven magicians
working against the breaker of an agreement. Bruga of the
Boyne was a great De Danaan magician. Jocelin assures
us that one prophesied the coming of St. Patrick a year
before his arrival. Angus the Tuath had a mystic palace
on the Boyne. The healing stone of St. Conall has been
supposed to be a remnant of Tuath magic ; it is shaped
like a dumb-bell, and is still believed in by many.
In spite of the Lectures of the learned O'Curry, declaring
the story to be " nothing but the most vague and general
assertions," Irish tradition supports the opinion of Pliny
that, as to magic, there were those in the British Isles
"capable of instructing even the Persians themselves in
these arts." But O'Curry admits that "the European
Druidical system was but the offspring of the eastern
augurs " and the
;
Tuaths came from the East. They wrote
or repeated charms, as the Hazvasjilars of Turkey still
write NusJias. Adder-stones were used to repel evil spirits,
not less than to cure diseases. One, writing in 1699, speaks
of seeing a stone suspended from the neck of a child as a
remedy for whooping-cough. Monuments ascribed to the