Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

—,
IrisJi Gods.
, ,
is
sivreal, or swrealleacht, the pillared temple of the Druids.
He derives teanipuL from tionicJial, round, as tlie sun.
Taking Dia as both god and day, he gets Dia Sol, Dia
Luan, Dia Moirt (death), Dia Ceadion (the first god), Dia
Ardion (the high God), Dia Beanion (the woman god),
Dia Satharn (Saturn). After all, we may perceive, with
Max Mliller, that "the whole dictionary of ancient religion
is
made up of metaphor."
Ihe P'rench author of Sirius, who perceives in that
star the origin of all thundering or barking gods, has a
god of thunder in the Celtic T-aran, which is T affix to
the sound made by a dog.
" The Celtic priests, or Druids," says he, " who, like the
Egyptian priests, had adopted the Chien-Levrier for a
symbol, called themselves the ministers of an Unknown
God, descended, it is said, upon earth, as Thoth, under a
human form, and having all the characteristics of that
Egyptian god, with the head of a dog; benefactor of
Humanity, Supreme—civilizing Legislator, Poet and Musician,
Kingof Kards, Inventor and Protector of Agriculture,
Regulator of Waters, Protector in Darkness, raised to the
Presidency in a circle of stones, P^ounder of sacred ceremony,
Model-priest, invoked under the name of P^ather."
All that is very Welsh, and cannot be applied to Ireland.
The Welsh Triads have had claimed for them a greater
age than modern critics are disposed to allow. Many of
the Welsh gods therein recorded are of doubtful pagan
origin, and belonged rather to the mysticism that crept into
Europe from the East during the early Middle Ages.
The Irish—except where their Bards came under the
influence of the same wave of oriental or Gnostic learning
of olden time knew little oi Addon, the seed-bearer in
himself;
Aninio)i,\\r\\.]\o\}X beginning; Cdi, the mystery; Ih-'^i.
the just ; Duv, he is ;
Dovydd, regulator ; Dcon, separate