Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

i6o Old Irish Religions
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the extreme ends of the chains, made a hole in the god's
tongue, who looks smiling towards those he leads."
The foreigner turned for explanation to a Gaul, who
said, "We Gauls do not suppose, as you Greeks, that
Mercury is speech or language, but we attribute it to
Hercules, because he is far superior in strength." They
thought Hercules, as speech, should draw men after him,
with their ears tied to his tongue.
As to Wales—though some patriotic Welsh will not
allow that their people ever were so degraded—there were
idols, like that of Darvell-gadarn at St. Asaph. From a
report on the Welsh, in 1538, we learn that they " come
daily a pilgrimage unto him, some with kine, others with
oxen or horses, and the rest with money." The old writer
shows the respect paid to this idolatrous survival : remarking,
"A common saying amongst them, that whosoever will
offer anything to the said images of Darvell-gadarn, he
hath power to fetch him or them that so offer out of hell
when they are damned."
Scotland, too, had its idols. In a letter from Mr.
Donald Clark to the author, several years ago, that gentleman
added—" Since the above was written, an image of a
female has been dug up from a moss in North Lochaber,
of black oak, in good preservation, and about five feet long,
which goes far to show that they had deity houses with
images in North Britain also." Yet, as a linguist, he
declared, " But there is nothing in their language to show
that they worshipped those images—only venerating them."
Apologists of other nations might say as much of their
own ancestors' veneration of images.
King Laoghaire, contemporary with St. Patrick, was the
worshipper of Crom Cruach, described as a
The Tripartite Life of the Saint called it " a crooked
pillar of stone.
stone of adoration." As Magh-Sleacht meant field of