Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Animal Worship, 231
times, the pig was held as sacred in Ireland as it is held at
the present day in the religious systems of India and China."
It was his expressed opinion that " all the legends of
porcine animals, which abound in Ireland, Wales, and
Scotland, had reference to the suppression of a form of
idolatry, analogous to, if not identical with, the existing
worship of the Hindoo deity, Vishnu, in his Avatar as a
Boar."
Certainly, the Irish, like the Germans, are still admirers
of the pig. Witches and pigs are mixed up in stories ;
but,
then, Gomme's EtJinology in Folklore tells us— " The connection
between witches and the lower animals is a very
close one." It has been affirmed that the footmarks of St.
Manchan's cow can yet be distinguished upon the stones
it walked over in Ireland.
Animals were known to be offered by Irish and Scotch
down to the last century, and it is recorded that a calf
was publicly burnt in 1800 by Cornishmen to stop a
murrain. A sheep was sometimes offered for the like
purpose in some parts of England. In 1678 four men were
tried " for sacrificing a bull in a heathenish manner in the
Island of St. Ruffus—for the recovery of health of Cirstane
Mackenzie." Animals were also killed in honour of St.
Martin's day.
A remarkable story is quoted by the President of the
Folklore Society, from an old writer, of sheep being offered
to a wooden image in times of sickness. The skin of the
sheep was put
round the sick person, and the neighbours
devoutly ate the carcase. This occurred at Ballyvourney,
County Cork. The story is related in the Folly of
Pilgrimages.