Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

154 Old Irish Religions.
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many respects, resemble those of the Spaniards a thousand
years after."
In the vaulted stone building at Knockmoy, Galway Co.,
assumed by some to have been a temple of the Tuatha, and
next which sacred spot an abbey was subsequently erected,
is a figure, taken for Apollo, bound to a tree, pierced with
arrows, yet slaying the Python with his dart.
Other three
figures represent, in their crowns and costume, Eastern
divinities, before whom another person is approaching.
These have been conjectured to be the three, Chanchasm,
Gonagom, and Gaspa, who obtained the perfect state of
Nirvana before the birth of Godama, founder of Buddhism.
The mythological figures to be seen at the chapel of
Cormac, the King and Bishop of Cashel, are not less strange
in a Christian edifice than the heathen argha witnessed on
a banner in some English churches.
They are, to say the
least, in a novel situation.
The Lion of Cashel, with its tail over its back, and a head
partly human, is confronted by a centaur shooting an arrow.
The figure's helmet is said to be like that of an Irish
warrior in the tenth century. The two mythological hares,
devouring foliage of the shamrock appearance, present a
more striking character. Anna Wilkes was led to exclaim
"The supposed Cuthite remains at Cashel bear striking
resemblance to some of the Ninevite sculptures ;
Nergal^
or Nimrod, the winged lion, as exhibited in the British
Museum, is a remarkable imitation of the winged lion of
Cashel."
Were these, and similar sculptures, survivals of older
faiths in the minds of the artists .?
They were not fancies
of their own, but they reflect past phases of heathenism.
Superstitions ever indicate former beliefs.
It is not a little surprising to notice, in the ancient