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mound. All the great myths are manifold in meaning, and replete with complex significations.

Mr. Phené, likewise, found several other serpentmounds, surrounded with so-called Druidical remains, among the Eildon and Arran hills. All these are more or less akin to the reptile mounds discovered by Messrs. Squier and Lapham, always in connection with sacrificial. or sepulchral remains. The position of the altar in the circle or oval at the head of the serpent is identical with that of the Argyleshire mound, the head in each case lying towards the west. The American mound is, however, on a larger scale than its Scotch cousin, being altogether a thousand feet long. It points towards three rivers, thus indicating the reverence for the triple symbol-another instance of which occurs on the hill known as Lapham's Peak, on whose lofty summit three artificial mounds were found, carefully constructed of stone and earthmaterials which must have been transported thither with very great labour.

According to Stukely, there were formerly in his time, 1723, two wavy serpentine avenues forming the Ophite symbol, at the great temple of Avebury in Wiltshire, but were more perfect in his time than they are now, many great stones having been broken up by the farmers in his time, and the work of destruction still continuing mercilessly when Deane wrote in 1830.

In the British Isles there are comparatively few traces to be found of serpent worship: yet, considering how commonly the adoration of the sun and serpent are linked together, and that both are said to have been reverenced by the Druids, it is worthy of note that, till within the last century, all manner of customs for the good of crops were kept up on the days which in olden times were observed as sun-festivals.

Perhaps the most interesting trace that still remains to us of the midsummer homage to the sun, is a custom which, for ages unknown, has been observed at Stonehenge, and which acquires double importance in these days, when this, and all kindred buildings, are set down

as being either merely sepulchral, or else the memorials of old battles. Mr. William Beck writes, that every year, on the 21st of June, a number of people assemble on Salisbury Plain, at 3 a.m. in the chill of early dawn, and make for the circles of Stonehenge, from the centre of which, looking north-east, a block of stone, set at some distance from the ruin, is so seen that its top coincides with the line of the horizon, and if no mist prevail, the sun as it rises on this, the longest day of the year, will be seen coming up exactly over the centre of the stone, known from this circumstance as the Pointer. Mr. Beck has himself repeatedly witnessed this interesting proof of the solar arrangement of the circles of Stonehenge; has watched the sun thus come up over the Pointer, and strike its first ray through the central entrance to the socalled altar-stone of the ruin. He points out how this huge stone is set at such an angle that at noon it marks the shadow like the gnomon of a sun-dial.

THE DEISUL.

"One of the most common superstitions in the Hebrides is the practice of the Deisul, that is, a turn southward, following the course of the sun, such as the custom of rowing a boat sunwise at first starting, or of walking thrice sunwise round any person to whom one wishes good luck. At the new year, when the sun begins its yearly revolution, a cow's hide used to be carried thrice round the house, following the course of the sun.

"The word deisul is derived from deas,1 the right hand, and sul, the sun; the right hand being always kept next to that object round which the turn was made. I believe deas literally means the south, which lies on the right hand when the face looks eastward; but the word is used to denote everything which is right and well doing. The Gaelic for east is ear, from eiridh, to rise. West, on the contrary, is iar, after. A person turning against the

1 In Welsh, Sunday is called Dydd Sul; the right hand, Deheulaw; and the South, Deheu.

course of the sun faces the west, and everything goes unlucky. His right hand will then be to the north, tuath, and the very word tuathaisd denotes a stupid person; hence the words deisul and tuaithail are in Gaelic equivalent to right and wrong.

"This contrary turn from right to left was called tuaphol, or widdershins, or cartua-sul; and by the Latins, sinistrorum. Thus evil-doers and malignant witches began the devil's work by so many turns against the course of the sun.

"Some idea of the mysterious virtues attached to these sunwise turns may, perhaps, be the reason that the Jews, in several different countries, thus march seven times round their newly-coffined dead. The same customs

were common to the Greeks, Romans and the ancient Gauls. Virgil mentions them among the funeral rites of Pallas, when the mourners first marched thrice in sad procession round the funeral pile, then mounting their steeds, again made the same sad circuit three times amid wails of sorrow.

"Among the Santhals (aborigines of India) the corpse is carried thrice round the funeral pyre, and laid thereon; the next of kin then makes a torch of grass, and after walking three times round the pile in silence, touches the mouth of the deceased with the flaming brand, averting his own face. After this the friends and kindred gather round, all facing the south, and set fire to the pyre. The same ceremony is observed by every devout Hindu. In the days of Suttee, now happily gone by, the wretched young widow must thus go thrice sunwise round the funeral pyre whereon lay the body of her deceased husband, before she ventured to lie down beside him to await her horrible death. I have myself often watched, either the Brahmins or the nearest relations of the dead, walk thrice sunwise round the funeral pyre before they applied the torch. In their pilgrimage around the holy city of Benares, and other places of pilgrimage, they follow the same course. With them, however, this homage to the sun is a natural part of their daily worship, where

in he is adored as the true light of Brahma, filling earth and heaven, the foe of darkness, the destroyer of every sin. Therefore the worshipper bows to the great cause of day, and making a turn towards the south, exclaims, 'I follow the course of the sun. As he in his course moves through the world by the way of the south, so do I, following him, obtain the merit of a journey round the world by way of the south.' The devout Mohammedan completes his meritorious pilgrimage to Mecca by making the circuit of the Caaba seven times sunwise.

"At our own tables, the bottles are always sent round following the course of the sun, and to reverse their journey has always been held unlucky. Should a bottle be thoughtlessly diverted from its course, a true Highlander will turn it round before sending it on.

"A screw and all machinery is made to turn sunwise. "There is also a strong prejudice against burying the dead on the north side of a church, due to the same reverence for the sun (the source of all purity and light); towards whose rising the sleepers were to look as they lay with their feet turned eastward. The abode of the evil spirit lay to the north, away from the sun's gracious influences. Hence the crowd of graves invariably found on the south side of almost every country churchyard throughout the kingdom. Another curious custom of the Highlands is, that before the coffin leaves the house, a couple of chairs are laid on the ground, and the coffin is set standing across them. When it is raised, the chairs are kicked over, to symbolize that the dead has no further use for anything on earth.

"A striking analogy exists between the symbols considered sacred in the planetary worship of Ceylon and those which we find sculptured on the ancient monoliths of Great Britain; stones which we believe to be relics of a faith almost identical with the Bali. Not only do we find elaborately carved crescents, discs, double wheels, and crowns linked together by a royal sceptre, such as might naturally suggest themselves as emblems of the sun, but we also find fish, geese, serpents, and highly

idealised elephants and camels, the three last-named being creatures which would scarcely have presented themselves to the minds of our ancestors, had not some tradition of these unknown forms reached them from the eastern world. It is, therefore, very remarkable to find that the elephant, the crescent, and the goose, are sacred symbols in common use on the sculptures of Ceylon. It is also remarkable that another emblem found on these stones, namely, the figure of a man cutting the throat of a bull, should be identical with the symbol of the Persian sun-god, Mithras."

LLANDEGLA YN IAL.

We find there are traces of the worship of the sun still in existence at Llandegla, where the epileptic patient is, or was, directed to go three times sunwise round the Holy Well there, where he was to wash himself and cast in an offering. He was then to carry a cock thrice sunwise round the well, and thrice round the church, and was himself to lie all night beneath the Communion Table, with his head resting on the Bible.

BELTANE, BEIL-TEINE, OR BAAL'S FIRE.

It was customary for the Highlanders in the beginning of the present century to meet on the moors on the 1st of May, and after cutting a round table in the green sod, by digging such a trench round it as to allow of their sitting in a great circle, to kindle a fire in the middle, and cook a mess of eggs and milk, which all shared. Then they baked oat-cakes, a bit for each person present, and one bit was burnt black. These cakes were shuffled in a man's bonnet, and each person, blindfold, drew one. Whoever got the black bit, had to leap three times through the flames. The original meaning of which was that he became a sacrifice to Baal, and doubtless, in old days was actually offered up; the object 1 From the Hebrides to the Himalayas, by Miss Gordon Cumming.

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