of the surrounding parishes, we are told, go to it in procession, headed by their five great banners and their priests ringing bells and chanting psalms. On arriving, the rector of the canton dips the foot of the cross in the water, and it is sure to rain within a week's time.[1] This ingenious compromise between Christ and Merlin has probably no exact parallel in this country: we have no bannered processions to the temenos of an effete Jupiter: we have rain-prayers instead.
There is an Irish tale which is worth citing here, as it gives a somewhat detailed account of a spot sacred to a god, to be identified probably with the subject of this lecture. It relates to an adventure which happened to Diarmait or Dermot, a well-known hero of Goidelic romance, of whom much is said in Irish legend and romance. Diarmait and Finn mac Cumaill once on a time set out in search of certain of the hitter's men who had been carried away by a wizard chief, and they sailed together towards the west till they came near a steep cliff which seemed to reach to the clouds. Leaving Finn and his party below, Diarmait undertook to climb the cliff and search the island, and after incredible perils and exertions he found himself on the top. "He now looked inland"—to give the story in the words of Dr. Joyce[2]—"and saw a beautiful country spread out before him:—a lovely, flowery plain straight in front, bordered with pleasant hills, and shaded with
- ↑ Ib. i. 225, where Lady Ch. Guest quotes from Villemarqué's charming account of his Visite an Tombeau de Merlin, in the Revue de Paris, Vol. xli. pp. 47—58.
- ↑ Old Celtic Romances, translated from the Gaelic (London, 1879), pp. 246—259, 266.
