Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

2 24 ^^^'^ Irish Religions.
still honoured at Mecca, Benares, and elsewhere. Herodlan
names one worshipped by the Phoenicians, since it fell
from heaven. In a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, by our
Neapolitan Minister, the antiquary Sir William Hamilton,
there is an allusion to a standing stone at Isurnia, that
was duly dedicated to Saints Cosmo and Domiano.
Astle, F.R.S., in 1798, remarked— "The ancient practice
of consecrating pagan antiquities
to religious purposes has
been continued to modern times."
ANIMAL WORSHIP.
That religion was early associated with
animals admits
of no question. The Apis worship of Egypt prevailed
several thousand years before Christ.
xAnimals have served
as Totems to the tribes of America and other parts, but
have been certainly regarded as religious symbols in most
lands. The four Evangelists are to this day symbolized
by such creatures. How far this reverence, from association
with an idea, degenerated into absolute worship of the
living thing, is a well-recognized fact of history.
Every one knows that the twelve signs of the Zodiac,
to distinguish periods of time, were named after animals,
and are so to this day. The Chinese cycle is called after
the rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, goat, monkey,
cock, dog, and pig. Abel Remusat notes " the cycle of
twelve animals, imagined by the Kirghis, and now in
through nearly all eastern Asia."
use
Irish literature is full of tales respecting animals, particularly
in connection with sorcery. Cats, dogs, bulls,
cows, horses, and boars, figure largely therein. St. Kiaran
frustrated the mischief intended by a cat, in the discharge
of a red-hot bar from a blacksmith's forge. Because so