Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

Phenian, or Phoenician dialect, to heal, and scalp, a rock, on which it is surmised "that a temple was built to perform healing miracles." In either case the true interpretation has been elicited from the Cimmerian, or Celtic; whether the medicus practised as a Druid meddyg, a Punic fider, or an Irish Feathair, i. e., a teacher, or a doctor, on an as, a plane, or on an alp, a craggy rock, or exclusively on a rock abutting on the plane, as as-alp, or scealp.

The Пarako, though mentioned in Herodotus, are not embraced in the category of Grecian gods, yet still come within the compass of the Cimmerian, as imaged off-shoots of its primeval Asiatic stock, and were early borrowed by the Phoenician and Carthaginian mariners to form the figureheads of their commercial navy. The obsolete expression p'atas, or ffatas, is derived from ffâd, 'a mask,' and tas, a fascia, a band, a fillet whereby to form a grouped-head as a grotesque representation of their heroes whom they invoked in time of danger during their oceanic voyages. The Spaniards and the Maltese have not yet given up this pagan absurdity. Now, let us see how others have derived this term. "Some," says Vallancey, "from the ignorance of the Grecian authors, have thought that it was an ape, from its afhnity to πιθηκος.” "Monsieur Morin agrees with Scaliger, and both think it should be read fatas; the letter p with an hiatus being equal to f; they therefore ascribe this divinity to Vulcan, the supreme deity of the Egyptians, remarkable for his skill and knowledge." [But where, in all this, is the derivation and interpretation ?] Fathas, in Irish, signifies 'skill, knowledge, and also divine poetry.' But M. Bullet very justly derives Patakoi from the (Cimbro) Celtic pat vel vat vel bâd, a boat, a skiff; to which may be added that oichi signifies champions,-and thence bâd, oichi, or Patakoi, may signify main champions, or skilful mariners."

Whether these Scaligerian or Bulletian derivations throw any new or extra light on the dwarfish figure-heads of Phoenician ships described by Herodotus, I leave the philological and historical student to decide for himself as to the naturalness of each interpretation.

From the examples already given of the unmistakeable Cimmerian origin of Hellenistic and Roman theogony, I find I must draw a line of demarcation somewhere, as I only purported to give a dozen Hyperborean plagiarisms to satisfy the unrequited appetite of the root-eating school of detractors; and must now proceed to discuss the mysterious contents of a bardic druidical document that will necessarily entail on us a flying visit to the far east, even to the Babylonian and Ninevehian banks of the

Pereth and Hiddekel, in quest of other gods or goddesses, who, also, must have had a corresponding share of universal wonderment in days of yore, and who, directly, or indirectly, have something to do, as will be seen in the sequel, either by way of comment or illustration, with our Britannia antiquissima, and the Παμπαλαιοι Δρυιδαι of an immemorial world.

Gronyn bâch o wîr etto yn erbyn y byd.

[blocks in formation]

LET us pursue this subject from another point of view, and try to work out afresh the problem as partially developed by Taliesinian formulæ in reference to Bel and his worship. The subjoined passage from Taliesin, and supposed to be an immemorial liturgical formula of devotion, will, I trust, when analogically examined and put into juxtaposition with authors of the past, help to interpret shades of thought in connection with objects of druid worship, hitherto but ill understood. True it is that the enigmatical language in which the ideas are clothed was adopted on certain fixed principles of reticence and exclusiveness, so that the outer world, uninitiated in the classics of the druids, might not penetrate the veil of mystery attached to the ceremonial. The Sibylline phraseology, so to speak, independently of the sentiments therein contained, must have seemed as figurative and enigmatical to the audience of that day as the knowledge of Latin is to the spell-bound majority of Papal adherents, or as the style and allusions of Bantine or Ugubian tables, or the roots of primeval Umbrian or Etruscan formulæ are incomprehensible to the un-Celtic classic of our own day, however prominent or imposing his learning as regards the elementa et semina rerum vel radices linguarum mortuarum.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

This paragraph has been very skillfully handled and paraphrased by two of our most accomplished Cimbric scholars, the Rev. E. Davies, and Owen Pughe, L.L.D., as follows :—

DAVIES.

Y rhodd yn yr aur gorn
Yr aur gorn yn y llaw
Y llaw ar y gyllell

Y gyllell ar flaenor y praidd
Yn ddifriff yr addolaf dydi
Buddrodydd Feli

A Manhogan y brenin

A gedwi anrhydeddau Bel
Sef Ynys Beli.

PUGHE.

Diod mewn aur gyrn
Aurgyrn mewn llaw
Llaw mewn gwaith
Gwaith mewn cymdeithas
Yn gyfrwys i'th folianaf

Ar blaenoriaieth oddwrth Feli
Ap Manhogan y twysog
A gedwi anrhydeddau
Ynys fel Beli.

With regard to these apparently antagonistic interpretations, Carnhuanawe, the Cimbric historian, intimates his belief that it is next to impossible to base any definite or well-regulated tenets of druidism upon fragmental portions so antique and mystified.

However mysterious or Cabiric the text may be as a tout ensemble, to the generality of readers, yet methinks I seem to view gleams of Eastern light issuing forth in all the formal meed of ceremonial praise and worship, as personified in Bel, during the prehistoric age of Ynys Fel-the Honey Isle of the Hyperborean sea, centuries, probably, prior either to its Cimbric or Grecian designations of Ynys Prydain, Albion, or Boıravvia, respectively.

By collating the two readings with each other and the text, and by comparing them with Homeric and Virgilian synonymes, we shall be able to arrive at something like a tangible and intelligible result. This process of reconciliation will be still further elucidated by a future study of Babylonian monograms as revealing correlative adhesiveness to Assyrian theogony.

The officiating priest or druid, then, is made to say, by one annotator,

"Yn gyfrwys i'th foliannaf

"A'r Blaenoriaeth oddiwrth Feli."

"With subtleness will I give praise unto thee
"And the supremacy from Beli,

"Son of Manhogan, the king."

acording to the other,

"With seriousness will I pay
thee worship,
"Thou Bel, bestower of gifts."

The questions to be propounded, therefore, are: To whom was praise or worship given? From whom and to whom was supremacy delegated and conferred? At what period did this druidical act of devotion approximately originate?

Allusions to a "Creator, the arranger and architect of the universe," as introduced in the older philosophy of the druidical system, are, apparently, thrown out here and in various parts of Taliesin as pearls to be sought after and examined, when patriarchal worship was paid originally to the Supreme Being under the name of Ïau, Jah, Duw, Iôr, Esus, or Hesus. Thus did the Persians and Etruscans worship Diw and Esar, as also did the Latins their Deus or primary divinity.

To arrive at anything like a solution to this difficult problem, recourse must be had to extraneous combinations of conflicting principles, which, for distinction's sake, I shall briefly designate by the epithets-eternal versus ex atomic, designed in opposition to accidental; God-worship in antagonism to hero-worship, or man deified; the Druidical or Pythagorean at variance with what is Epicurean, both in its tendency and results.

Now, in the first place, the expression Ynys Fel, as already hinted at, pre-supposes an antiquity immemoriably in advance of any recorded history, that is, in patriarchal centuries bordering on the flood, when the very name of Hellas was, as I have already hinted, an uncoined word to Hebrew, or Greek or Punic Gentile. The chaotic gap of the then worship is necessarily undocumentary. We must, therefore, descend in the scale of time, and analyse what we can get.

The term Bel must now attract our attention. It is either an appellative or a representative of the Deity. If the former idea be meant, traces of such divinely-alleged character will not be wanting in those regions of the east whence his worship took its rise, and where it was celebrated; if the latter acceptation be understood, and particeps nominis et Umbræ, the difficulty will, perhaps, admit of a solution, even in the midst of nominal incumbrances.

[ocr errors]

Now, Bel, or Baal in the Hebrew and Phoenician languages, was originally deemed to have been the true God, the Supreme Lord, Owner, and Master of the Universe,'" dal Bòrea all A' ustro, dal mar Indo al Mauro." This noachidic interpretation, however, as regards the former, was discarded at a very early period, as only a trace of it is to be found in one of the minor prophets, till, in the lapse of ages, it altogether lost the savour of its divine essence, and gradually degenerated into a mere human lord, husband, or owner,' and was made to represent the sun, under the deification or beatification of an illustrious hero, and, eventually, 'the God of War,' which expression, under its synonymes of Beli and Bela in the Cimmerian and Hebrew languages of a still later date, came to signify 'havoc, war, or destruction,' in the former, and corruption, ravage, ruin,' in the latter.

[ocr errors]

6

In the cognate Armorican language, however, Bel (as Bal in the Punic or Beal of the Gaedhil or Gwyddel) still retains a very

6

slight adumbration of its former self in its actual signification of 'power, knowledge, and authority,' as in the phrase 'Dre he feli,' 'through or by his authority,' as well as in the Irish balg, a man of erudition.' In Brittany, it is even now adopted as an appellation for a priest, as Bel-eg-as I can personally attest, from a short residence in that interesting and hospitable country.

In the Septuagint version » Bel, or y Beal, is rendered by Hoakλns, a term equivalent to one of the early Cimmerian celebrities of antiquity, surnamed indiscriminately Wrchol, Ourchol, Archol, Archles, from his prerogatives of wrch, 'high, elevated, distinguished,' or arch, chief, principal,' and ol or oll, all, whole, wholly,' and corresponding with the acoustic Phoenician form of 'Orcul, or Orc-ul, 'light of all.'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

In reference, then, to this Archol, Wrchol, or Orcul, certain expressions, philologically inapplicable to those who claim him either as an indigenous Syrian Orcul, or ŋpakλns, will be found so intimately connected with the Cimmerian as to furnish us with another link of allied support and identification.

Given, the term Carcharian dog, to find a result. What did this expression signify in the fable, as propagated in Greece, respecting Hercules?

I refer sceptics to the Hellenic source, if any, of their own cherished and fabled predilections.

The modern Latino-Græcists, in their suicidal attempts at the root extraction of our term, seize at random upon кap or χαρ, the penultimate or antepenultimate of Kapxapos, from its meaningless resemblance to, and illogical deduction from a Hebrew word accidentally ending in r, with or without a correlative application.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Let us imagine the whole of the borrowed term to be dissyllabic or trisyllabic, as καρ, χαρ-ος, οι καρχαρ. Now, the os, being terminal and having no legs to stand upon,' must, of course, be thrown overboard. There remain then two syllables-kap and χαρ. Either the one or the other is slighted, as an unworthy and useless member of Greek, Hebrew, and Phoenician societies. Let car, gratia exempli, be ignored. Xap, then, is cut and dried' from the Hebrew Saw, called ger, and then the whole term is forced to be very cutting'; upon this the saw, being probably rusty from want of lingual oil, they accordingly render it 'very rough and very rude': yea, after a while, it turned out very 'wicked,' in consequence of a further unfortunate deficiency of grease. The ger or saw eventually corroded, and then it became very 'snappish' as a hungry, half-fed dog would be apt to do, and metamorphosed itself into two, i. e., the one (take which ever syllable you like) became a silent, the other a noisy, an empty-headed academic, member of the Græcian house of representatives. But, unfortunately for the above sample of rooted wisdom, there is another

« ПредишнаНапред »