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The voyage of Bran, son of Febal, to the land of the living
The voyage of Bran son of Febal to the land of the living Author:Kuno Meyer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XV THE RELATION OF IRELAND TO CHRISTIAN AND CLASSIC ANTIQUITY The possible influence of Christianity upon the Irish re-birth legends; must be disc... more »arded ; the Conall Cernach and Aed Slane birth-stories—The alleged Irish origin of Erigena's pantheism ; must be rejected—The classical statements respecting the Pythagoreanism of the Celts ; their import, value, the historic conditions under which they took shape, the legitimate deductions to be drawn from them—Necessity for studying the Greek conceptions out of which Pythagoras formed his doctrine. ' The leading examples of the re-birth theme in early Irish mythico-romantic literature have now been laid before the reader, and the conclusions which may fairly be drawn from them have been set forth. Searching for analogies for a possible origin, we naturally turn in the first place to Christianity and its doctrines. The central incident of the Christian scheme, the Incarnation, weighty with consequences ofsuch incalculable import, in itself striking, picturesque, and presented, even in the canonical gospels, with sufficient realism to enable its apprehension by the minds of a race in the culture stage of the early Irish, might well be expected to have exercised a profound and far-reaching influence upon their imaginations. There are good reasons, as will presently be seen, not only for dispensing with, but for decisively discarding Christian agency in the formation of these Irish legends. Before adducing them, the problem may profitably be discussed on general grounds. Is it then, or is it not, lihely that Christian literature should be the source of the stories set forth in the preceding chapters? I italicise the word likely, as likelihood is all we can attain in such an investigation, and whether or not we are held...« less