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Additional resources for The Religion of the Ancient Celts (Celtic, Irish)
The opposite bile have been ash-trees, and from one among them the Fir Bile, "men of the tree," have been named—perhaps a totem-clan. [674] The lives of kings and chiefs seem to have been hooked up with those bushes, most likely as representatives of the spirit of plants embodied within the tree, and lower than their shadow they have been inaugurated. yet instead for the king used to be slain, so no doubt those pre-eminent sacred timber have been too sacred, an excessive amount of charged with supernatural strength, to be slash and burned, and the annual ritual will be played with one other tree. yet in time of feud one tribe gloried in destroying the bile of one other; or even within the 10th century, whilst the bile maighe Adair used to be destroyed by means of Maelocohlen the act used to be seemed with horror. "But, O reader, this deed didn't go unpunished. "[675] Of one other bile, that of Borrisokane, it was once stated that any apartment during which a fraction of it used to be burned may itself be destroyed by means of fireplace. [676] Tribal and private names element to trust in descent from tree gods or spirits and maybe to totemism. The Eburones have been the yew-tree tribe (eburos); the Bituriges possibly had the mistletoe for his or her image, and their surname Vivisci signifies that they have been known as "Mistletoe males. "[677] If bile (tree) is attached with the identify Bile, that of the ancestor of the Milesians, this can aspect to a couple fable of descent from a sacred tree, as relating to the Fir Bile, or "men of the tree. "[678] different names like Guidgen (Viduo-genos, "son of the tree"), Dergen (Dervo-genos, "son of the oak"), Guerngen (Verno-genos, "son of the alder"), indicate filiation to a tree. although those names turned traditional, they exhibit what had as soon as been a residing trust. Names borrowed at once from bushes also are found—Eburos or Ebur, "yew," Derua or Deruacus, "oak," and so on. The veneration of bushes transforming into beside burial mounds or megalithic monuments used to be most likely a pre-Celtic cult persevered by means of the Celts. The tree embodied the ghost of the individual buried lower than it, yet this kind of ghost may perhaps then rarely be differentiated from a tree spirit or divinity. Even now in Celtic districts severe veneration exists for timber turning out to be in cemeteries and somewhere else. it really is harmful to chop them down or to pluck a leaf or department from them, whereas in Breton churchyards the yew is assumed to unfold a root to the mouth of every corpse. [679] the tale of the grave of Cyperissa, daughter of a Celtic king within the Danube quarter, from which first sprang the "mournful cypress,"[680] is hooked up with common legends of bushes starting to be from the graves of fanatics until eventually their branches intertwine. those embrace the assumption that the spirit of the useless is within the tree, which was once hence probably the item of a cult. circumstances of those legends ensue in Celtic tale. Yew-stakes pushed throughout the our bodies of Naisi and Deirdre to maintain them aside, grew to become yew-trees the tops of which embraced over Armagh Cathedral. A yew sprang from the grave of Bailé Mac Buain, and an apple-tree from that of his lover Aillinn, and the head of every had the shape in their heads.