Solemn oaths might be sworn under the sanction of the sun or moon or some other elemental part of the cosmos (see Vow). But if such oaths were broken, terrible retribution might follow. The worst fear was that the sky might fall down.
In the Irish folk-tale The Cattle Raid of Cuailnge, the Ulstermen are rebuked by the severed head of Sualtaimh for coming too sluggishly to the aid of the hero Cii Chulainn as he alone defends the province. Conchobar, King of the Ulstermen, answers the head:
“A little too loud is that cry, for the sky is above us and the sea all around us, but unless the sky with its showers of stars fall upon the surface of the earth or unless the ground burst open in an earthquake, or unless the fish-abounding, blue-bordered sea come over the face of the earth, I shall bring back every cow to its byre and enclosure, every woman to her own abode and dwelling, after victory in battle and combat and contest. ”
This was a mighty oath the king was swearing on behalf of his people. If he and his people did not do as he promised, natural catastrophe would overwhelm them.
Similarly, when the inhabitants of the Adriatic coast were asked by Alexander the Great what they feared most, they said they feared no one; their only fear was that the sky might fall down on them.
SKY HORSEMAN
The wheel god on horseback represents a particular aspect of the god: the dominion of life over death. Where he is shown with a wheel, he usually holds it in his left hand as if it were a shield; his wrist passes between the spokes to hold onto the reins of his horse. More distinctive still are the monsters under the horse’s hooves. They represent the dark forces of the Earth and Underworld, and the sky god is riding them down, trampling them underfoot. This is a very specific scene from Celtic myth.
The more sophisticated carvings at first sight look like classical equestrian groups, and they are found only in the western provinces of the Roman Empire, but they are heavy with mythic significance and symbolism. Above all, they were raised in honor of the Celtic sky god. They were well and truly raised, too, on top of lofty columns, and there were about 150 of them. These “Jupiter columns” or “Jupiter-Giant columns” were very imposing monuments. The one that stood at Hausen-an-der-
Zaber near Stuttgart has been reconstructed and it looks like a miniature Nelson’s Column.
The stone base was eight-sided or four-sided, displaying images of gods to do with the sun, moon, and planets, and inscriptions to Jupiter or Juno. On top of the plinth is a tall pillar decorated with foliage patterns to suggest that it represents a tree: the Hausen column was decorated with oak leaves and acorns, the oak being sacred to Jupiter in the Roman world.
The symbolism of the pillar-tree is interesting in itself Possibly there were early, crude versions made of wood, which in turn were based on even earlier sacred trees. The column may represent a pillar to support the sky, or it may be there to hoist the sculpture of the sky god as near as possible to the celestial world. Or it could symbolize the link between the two worlds, like the beanstalk mJack and the Beanstalk. On top is a Corinthian capital, which supports the sculpture of the sky horseman trampling the monster. The overall height of the monument at Merten was 49 feet (15m).
The sculpture at the top is the key to the monument’s meaning. The image is a horseman riding over a humanoid monster whose legs are in the form of snakes. This may ultimately reflect depictions of a Greek myth in which the Olympian gods do battle with the earthly Titans, as the Titans are shown with snake limbs. But the classical battle never shows a horse. The horse is purely Celtic, and is intended to show that the rider is the sun god or sky god. Rider and rearing horse together show Jupiter as Celtic sky lord, the quintessence of sky, light, goodness, and the life-force. Jupiter is in a dualistic conflict with his opposite: an earthbound, dark, and probably evil monster. The dualism may incorporate ideas of good and evil, light and darkness, day and night, higher and lower aspects of mythic beings, and perhaps even life and death. Seen in this way, the set-piece drama shown on the Jupiter column is a major key to Celtic religious thought.
A Jupiter column once stood in the Roman town of Cirencester. A formal inscription has survived that records its restoration in the Roman period, but “under the old religion.” It was rebuilt by a governor of the province of Britannia Prima, Lucius Septimius, a citizen of Rheims. Diocletian did not divide Britain into four provinces until AD 296, so the restoration must be later than that. The interesting reference to “the old religion” may refer to the pagan revival that happened during the reign of the Emperor Julian in the middle of the fourth century AD. The very flnely carved Corinthian capital of the Cirencester column survives.
But it must be their ambitious size that strikes us most about the Jupiter columns. They must, incidentally, have been expensive to build. They now exist only in a fragmentary state, and the remains show signs of deliberate vandalism. It may well be that Christians deliberately set out to topple and deface these very conspicuous monuments to pagan beliefs.
The magic spear in Celtic lore usually has to be forged by a certain smith for a certain purpose. Lieu, for example, might be slain only with a spear that has taken a whole year to make, and that has only been worked at on a Sunday, during the time when Mass is celebrated. Because he is divine, he is magically protected in a number of ways; he cannot be killed on foot or on horseback; he may not be killed indoors or out in the open. The only way he envisages that he can be killed is in a bath on a riverbank, with a thatched, round roof above the bath; he would have to place one foot on the back of a goat and the other on the edge of the bath. Then, and only in that position, might he be killed with the spear (see Myths: The Four Branches of the Mabinogi).
The smith himself is invariably an uncanny figure, and it must be suspected that the character is a borrowing from Greek or Roman mythology, where the smith-god Hephaistos or Vulcan cuts a very similar figure. The ancestry of the cunning smith god probably reaches right back to the Bronze Age, where the first creations of metal objects—and swords and spears in particular—must have seemed pure magic.
The Irish smith-god Gobhniu prepares the spear that kills Balor, the Fomorian Cyclops god. It is Lugh, the grandson, who plunges the spear into the single eye of
Balor, in revenge for the killing of his father, MacKineely.
Lugh, the sun god, owns a magic spear that seems to symbolize the sun’s rays. His spear has a life of its own, and a thirst for blood. It can only be kept from killing by soaking its point in an infusion of poppy leaves. When the day of battle comes, the spear may be lifted from this narcotic anesthetic brew. Then it shouts and lashes itself into a frenzy, giving off flashes of flame. Once freed, it hurls itself into the enemy ranks, dealing death in an orgy of slaughter).
SPELL
The natural and spirit world can to some limited extent be controlled by chanting spells. This is the magical equivalent of prayer. Several seventeenth-century manuscripts offer magic spells for gaining power over fairies: some to call them up, and some to get rid of them—a kind of pest control:
An excellent way to get a Fayrie, but for myselfe I call Margaret Barrance but this will obtaine any one that is not already bound.
First get a broad square christall or Venus glasse in length and breadth 3 inches, then lay that glasse or christall in the bloud of a white henne 3 Wednesdays or 3 Fridays: then take it out and wash it with holy aqua and fumigate it: then take 3 hazle sticks or wands of a yeare growth, pill them fayre and white, and make so longe as you write the spiritts name, or fairies name, which you call 3 times, one every sticke being made flatt one side, then bury them under some hill whereas you suppose fairies haunt, the Wednesday before you call her, and the Friday followinge take them uppe and call hir at 8 or 3 or 10 of the clocke which be goodplannetts and howres for that turne: but when you call, be in cleane Life and turne thy face towards the east, and when you have her bind her to that stone or Glasse.
Here, much easier, so long as you can speak Latin, is a call to the Queen of the Fairies:
Micol o tu micoll regina pigmeorum deus Abraham: deus Isaac: deus Jacob; tibi benedicat et omnia fausta danet et concedat Modo venias et mihi moremgem veni. Igitur o tu micol in nomine Jesus veni cito ters quatur bead in qui nomini Jesu veniunt veni Igitur O tu micol in nomine Jesu veni cito qui sit omnis honor laus et gloria in omne aeturnum. Amen Amen.
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