Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

:
52 IrisJi D7^iuds,
to Finnen, a Magus (Druid) of Baal or Belus, and to
Easbad, named Aedha, son of Beg, and told them she was
barren. The Reataire (chief Druids) then consecrated some
water, of which she drank, and conceived ;
and the produce
of her womb was a white lamb.
'
Woe
!
is me ' said Mu-
so,' replied
'
ghain,
'
to bring forth a four-footed beast.' Not
Finnen, ' for your womb is thereby sanctified, and the
lamb must be sacrificed as your first-born.' The priests
blessed the water for her, she drank, and conceived. Say
the priests, 'You shall now bring forth a son, and he shall
be King over Ireland.' Then Finnen and Easbad Aedha
blessed the Queen and the seed of her loins, and giving
her more consecrated water, she drank of it, and called
his name AedJi Slaines, because he was saved from the
sacrifice."
Well might Vallenccy exclaim, " The whole of this story
is strong of Chaldaean Paganism, and could not have been
invented by any Christian monks whatever."
Cuchulainn of Ulster was much given to magic. He
caught birds by it. He left his wife to be with a lady in
fairy-land. Caught by spells, he was brought back home.
He drank the draught of forgetfulness that he might not
remember fairy-land, and she drank to forget her jealousy.
All this is in Leabhar na-h-Uidhre.
When the Danaans raised a storm to drive off the invading
hosts of Milesians, this was the spell used by Milesius,
as told in the Book of Invasions — " I pray that they
reach the land of Erinn, these who are riding upon the
great, productive, vast sea— that there may be a King for
us in Tara,—that noble Erinn be a home for
the ships and
boats of the son of Milesius."
By the 14th Canon of the Synod at Armagh, as asserted
for the year 448, a penance was exacted for any soothsaying,
or the foretelling of future events by an inspection