Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

198 Old Irish Religions.
like enterprises during the summer, but frequently lose a
battle in winter. In Egyptian paintings, the winter sun
is represented with only a single hair on the head ;
this
reminds one of Samson,—a word derived
from SJieviesh,
the sun—losing strength in the loss of hair.
The shaving of the head, so as to leave a circular, bare
spot, is a very ancient practice, and was done in honour
of the sun, by certain priests of Jupiter and other deities.
Mahomet forbade that idolatrous habit of his Arab
disciples. Rhys calls the tonsure in Britain and Ireland,
" merely a druidical survival."
While the image of the sun was, down to the great
Revolution, carried in the priestly processions of Brittany,
while Christians now, as the Peruvians used to do formerly,
stand the plate-image of the sun upon the altar, and while
we, though aesthetically, honour the
sun-flower, we cannot
too rudely condemn the ancient Irish for their reverent
bowing to the material author of all earthly life.
FIRE-WORSHIP.
From the earliest time, the sun has been the object of
human adoration. But the common flame itself, being
destructive, yet beneficial, while ever mounting upward as
if disdaining earth contact, became with most races of
mankind a religious emblem, if not a Deity.
Pyrolatreia, or fire-worship, was once nearly universal.
The Moloch of the Canaanites, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians,
was the divinity of various nations under different
names. Moloch was not the only deity tormenting simple
maids and tender babes with fire. The blazing or fiery
cross, in use among Khonds of India, was well known in
both Ireland and Scotland. The Egyptians, with more
modern Africans, have reverenced flame.