Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

252 Old Irish Religions.
One need not be alarmed at the discovery, that not only
the Cross, but the Crucifixion, was a sacred symbol many
hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus. Yet, in
Christianity, a different and more moral and elevated idea
became associated with the figure of a crucifix. Mithras,
as the Sun, is represented as crucified at the winter
solstice. Vishnu, Buddha, and Indra were, also, said to
have been crucified on the cross. The Scandinavians
had a crucifixion of the sun ceremony on the shortest
day.
Ireland, like other lands, had Pre-Christian crucifixions.
The most remarkable one seen by us was that at Glendalough.
The Persian head-dress, and the ancient kilt, were
observed with the oriental crown. That character was
afterwards imitated in Christian times, as some suppose,
down to the twelfth century.
Clonmacnoise has the figure fully clothed and crowned.
The figures of Knockmoy, Galway, and Cashel wear the
kilt of the East. As has been remarked, "The Hindoo
Puranas corroborate to an iota this our Knockmoy crucifixion."
That of India refers to the death of Sulioahana
upon the tree. The Knockmoy figure has the same sort of
philibeg, or kilt, as that worn by the arms-extended Deity
in
Nubia.
Another peculiarity noticed in some of the Irish Pre-
Christian illustrations of the Crucifixion is the absence of
nails ; the legs being bound with cords at the ankles.
The
Cords, also, pass round the chest, and under the arms.
arms are not fully outstretched, but rather hang downward.
At Monasterboice the figure is bound by cords. As Keane
observed— " Such a mode of representing the crucifixion
never could have occurred to the early Irish Christian
missionaries and bishops, who are universally allowed to
have made the Scriptures their chief study." The crown