Celtic Mythology and Religion: With Chapters Upon Druid Circles and Celtic Burial (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Celtic Mythology and Religion: With Chapters Upon Druid Circles and Celtic BurialThe following work, all save from page 105 to the end, appeared in the Celtic Magazine in 1883-4, and is here reprinted from the Magazine type. Hence it is that it is reproduced "with all its imperfections on its head," and the critic must be asked, before condemning details at least, to note the list of corrections appended to this preface.The intention of this series of papers was to popularise the subject of Mythology, and to apply its principles to the elucidation of Celtic beliefs, tales, and traditions. I wished to place clearly before my Gaelic brethren the exact position which the religious beliefs of the Celts held in the European kinship, to clear up the misty subject of "Druidism," and to reconstruct, from the shattered materials to hand, the Pantheon of their Gaelic ancestors. This I undertook, knowing that in the last part of my object - the rehabilitation of the Gaelic Olympus - my results must only be tentative, for the material for reconstruction is difficult to deal with, and much of it is in MSS. unedited.Since these papers began to appear in print, events have travelled with more than usual rapidity both in the field of general and of Celtic Mythology. It was last year that Mr Andrew Lang delivered his lively attack against the "orthodox" school of mythologists, and it was also last year that M.D' Arbois de Jubainville's important works on Celtic Literature and Mythology appeared. Mr Lang's attack has certainly driven the older school from several of their positions, but he has by no means overthrown either the importance of language in the development of myth, or the fact that the sun, the sky, the powers of wind and storm, and the change of day and night were the most prominent factors in the creation of the deities and powers of the ancient mythologies.