Rendel Harris who has, to quote his own words, “audaciously affirmed that Apollo was only our apple in disguise," further concludes: "It is tolerably certain that Apollo in the Greek religion is a migration from the more northerly regions and his mythical home is somewhere at the back of the north wind". While I am in sympathy with many of Dr. Harris' findings, it is, however, difficult to accept his conclusions that the Olympian divinities were merely 'personifications of, or projections from the vegetable word" the greater probability seems to me that the Apple was named after Apollo rather than Apollo from the Apple similarly the mandrake was in greater likelihood an emblem of Venus rather than Aphrodite a projection from the Mandrake. The Venus of the Gael was Bride or Brigit, "The Presiding Care," who was represented with a brat in her arms: there is an old Spanish proverb to the effect that "An ounce of Mother is worth a ton of Priest"; nowhere was Woman more devoutly idealised than among the Celts, and it is more probable that the conception of an immaculate Great Mother originated somewhere in Europe rather than in the sensuous and woman-degrading East. Of the legends of Ireland Mr. Westropp has recently observed: "When we have removed the strata of euhemerist fiction and rubbish from the ruin, the foundations and beautiful fragments of the once noble fane of Irish mythology will stand clear to the sun": "Whether," said Squire, "the great edifice of 1In The Lost Language of Symbolism I anticipated this opinion. 2 Writing of the Pied Piper story Mr. Ernest Rhys observes: "There is every reason to believe that Hamelin was as near home as Newton, Isle of Wight, and that the Weser, deep and wide, was the Solent ".-Preamble to Fairy Gold (Ev. Library). 3 Proc. of Royal Irish Academy, xxxiv., C., No. 8, p. 140. Celtic mythology will ever be wholly restored one can at present only speculate. Its colossal fragments are perhaps too deeply buried and too widely scattered. But even as it stands ruined it is a mighty quarry from which poets yet unborn will hew spiritual marble for houses not made with hands." FINIS APPENDIX A. IRELAND AND PHOENICIA. The following extract is taken from Britain and the Gael: or Notices of Old and Successive Races; but with special reference to the Ancient Men of Britain and its Isles.-Wm. Beal, London, 1860. PLAUTUS, a dramatic writer, and one of the great poets of antiquity, who lived from one to two centuries before the Christian era; was mentioned in the last section. In his Pænulus, is the tale of some young persons said to have been stolen from Carthage, by pirates, taken to Calydonia, and there sold; one of these was Agorastocles, a young man; the others were two daughters of Hanno, and Giddeneme, their nurse. Hanno, after long search, discovered the place where his daughters were concealed, and by the help of servants who understood the Punic language, rescued his children from captivity. Plautus gives the supposed appeal of Hanno, to the gods of the country for help, and his conversations with servants in the Punic language, are accompanied with a Latin translation. The Punic, as a language, is lost, and those long noticed, but strange lines had long defied the skill of learned men. But at length, by attending to their vocal formation (and all language, Wills states, is addressed to the ear). It was discovered by O'Neachtan, or some Irish scholar, that they were resolvable into words, which exhibited but slight differences from the language of Keltic Ireland. The words were put into syllables, then translated by several persons, and these translations not only accorded with the drama, but also, with the Plautine Latin version. The lines were put to the test of more rigid examination, placed in the hands of different persons one of whom was Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore. They were also given to different Irish scholars for translation, to persons who had no correspondence with each other on this subject, nor knew the principal object in view; and by the whole the same meaning was given. Bohn's edition, by H. T. Riley, B.A., is before the writer; but from the edition used by the late Sir W. Betham, some few lines from Plautus, with the Gaelic or Irish underneath, are given, and the eye will at once perceive how closely the one resembles the other. Milphio, the servant of Agorastocles, addressed Hanno and his servants in Punic, and asked them "of what country are you, or from what city?" The following is the reply, and the supposed appeal of Hanno to the god, or gods of the country : Plautus. Irish. English. Plautus. Irish. English. Plautus. Plautus. Plautus. English. Plautus. Plautus. Hanno Muthumballe bi Chaedreanech. Hanno Muthumbal bi Chathar dreannad. I am Hanno Muthumbal dwelling at Carthage. Nyth al O Nim ua-lonuth sicorathissi me com syth. Chim lach chumyth mum ys tyal myothi barii im schi. Lipho can ethyth by mithii ad ædan binuthi. Byth lym mo thym noctothii nel ech an ti daisc machon. Forsake me not! my earnest desire is now disclosed, which is Uesptis Aod eanec Lic Tor bo desiughim lim Nim co lus. Gan ebel Balsameni ar a san. Guna bil Bal-samen ar a san. O that the good Bal-samhen (i.e. Beal the sun) may favour them. Act v. scene 1 and 2. |