|
|
History of Atlantis by Lewis Spence
Index | Chapter: 1 | 2 |3 | 4 |5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |9 | 10 |11 | 12 |13 | 14 |15 | 16
CHAPTER IX.
ATLANTIS IN BRITAIN
In the ancient books of Wales and Ireland there exist traditions which, if compared with the myth of Atlantis, cannot be accounted for by any other theory than that they were originally derived from it. The traditional material in the ancient books of Wales which deals with the subject of lands submerged by cataclysm is of such extent that to contain it in its entirety an entire volume would be necessary. Before attempting a justification of the theory that the flood-legends of Wales relate to the Atlantean catastrophe, we may, perhaps, examine a few of the better known of these.
In the book of Caradoc, of Nantgarvan, which dates from the twelfth century, and the book of Jevan Brechva, Thomas Jones of Tregarn, in 1601, found certain of the verses known as the Triads of the Isle of Britain. These were printed by the Rev. Edward Davies in his Celtic Researches (London 1804). Under the caption of "The Three Awful Events of the Isle of Britain," we read that these consisted of:
"First, the bursting of the lake of waters, and the overwhelming of the face of all lands, so that all mankind were drowned, excepting Dwyvan and Dwyvach, who escaped in a naked vessel (without sails) and from them the Island of Britain was re-peopled.
"The second was the consternation of the tempestuous fire, when the Earth split asunder, to Annwn (the lower region) and the greatest part of all living was consumed.
"The third was the scorching summer, when the woods and plants were set on fire by the intense heat of the Sun, and multitudes of men and beasts and kinds of birds, and reptiles, and trees, and plants were irrecoverably lost."
The deluge alluded to in the first triad was the bursting of the Lake of Llyn Llion. Practically the same story is recounted of Llyn Tegid, near Bala, in Merionethshire, and, as the late Sir John Rhys remarked, "probably all the other lakes of Wales were supposed to have had inhabitants wealthy in herds of cattle, and in our time each mere is supposed to have been formed by the subsidence of a city, whose bells may even now be at times heard merrily pealing."
That the memory of a submerged land should be so universal in Wales surely indicates a tradition most ancient and deep-seated. "The Druids," says Davies "represent the deluge under the figure of a lake, called Llyn Llion, jthe waters of which burst forth and overwhelmed the face of the whole earth. Hence they regarded a lake as the just symbol of the deluge. But the deluge itself was viewed, not merely as an instrument of punishment to destroy the wicked inhabitants of the globe, but also as a divine lustration, which washed away the bane of corruption and purified the earth for the reception of the just ones, or of the deified patriarch and his family. Consequently, it was deemed peculiarly sacred, and communicated its distinguishing character to those lakes and bays by which it was locally represented."
The Lake of Llion, then, in the minds of the Welsh of the twelfth century, stood for a mythic symbol of deluge and catastrophe by water. Of a somewhat different class is the tradition of the Cantref of Gwaelod, or the "Submerged Hundred," which recounts how the Plain of Gwyddneu was drowned. "This," says Professor Lloyd, "first makes its appearance in a poem in the Black Book of Carmarthen (530, 54a), written in the last part of the book, and, therefore, about 1200. This poem has often been translated; there is, for instance, an English version in Meyrick's 'History of Cardiganshire* (2), 153, and a modern Welsh one in Cymru Eu (p. 6). The best is, however, the most recent, that of Sir J. Rhys in the ' Cymmrodorion Transactions' for 1892-3 (pp. 14-16), from which it appears that the Plain of Gwyddneu was overwhelmed by the sea by reason of the wickedness of its inhabitants, who had given themselves up to eating and drinking and insolent pride of heart. The person who let loose this judgment upon the land was a maiden, perhaps called Margaret ('Mererid'), who at a time of feasting suffered the waters of a magical well which was under her charge to escape and overflow the country round. . . . Such was the primitive story; it is supplemented in one point by the compiler of the earliest form of the Pedigrees of the Saints (also dating from about 1200), who speaks of five * Saints ' as sons of King Seithennin of the Plain of Gwyddno, whose realm was swallowed up by the sea. For the germ of the modern legend, which is in many ways a very different one, we have to look to the third series of Triads, belonging to the sixteenth century; the third of the Three Arrant Drunkards of Britain (a festive group unknown to the older triadic literature) is there said to be Seithennin, the Drunken, King of Dyfed, who, in his cups, let the sea loose over the Lowland Hundred, a region of fair cities and the patrimony of Gwyddno Garanhir, King of Ceredigion. The well-maiden has now disappeared, Seithennin has become the author of the mischief, and the drowned kingdom is no longer his, but that of his neighbour Gwyddno.
But the famous embankment has still to be introduced into the story. It was to the antiquary Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt (1592-1667) that the idea first occurred of connecting the story of the Lowland Hundred with the natural causeway near Harlech called by the peasantry, in that age as in this, 'Sarn Badrig' or St. Patrick's Causeway. The popular explanation, no doubt, was that this was the saint's private road home to his beloved Ireland, but for Vaughan it is 'a great stone wall made as a fence against the sea,' which he has no difficulty in supposing to have once been a rampart of the buried realm. Lewis Morris, in the next century, took the same view, and, remembering the poem in the Black Book, added a suggestion of his own, 'that by drunkenness the flood-gates were left open* (Celtic Remains, p. 73; cf. p. 390). But one more touch was needed to give the narrative its modern form; the business of the flood gates must be specially laid at the door of Seithennin, who must play the part of the drunken lockman. This is done in Owen's Cambrian Biography (1803); under the patronage of so influential a student of Welsh antiquities, the story as thus rounded off won great popularity and furnished an attractive theme for literary treatment. Englishmen were made familiar with it by the fascinating pages of The Misfortunes of Elphin; for Welshmen it was vigorously told in the verse of Hiraethog and leuan Glan Geirionydd."
Davies quotes the record of the catastrophe as given in the Triads: "'Seithinin, the Drunkard, the son of Seithin Saidi, King of Dyved, in his liquor let in the sea, over Cantre'r Gwaelod, so as to destroy all the houses and lands of the place, where prior to that event, there had been sixteen cities, the best of all the towns and cities of Wales, excepting Caerleon upon Usk. This district was the dominion of Gwyddnaw Garanhir, King of Cardigiawn.
The event happened in the time of Emrys, the sovereign. The men who escaped the inundation came to land in Ardudwy, in the regions of Arvon, and in the mountains of Snowdon, and other places which had hitherto been uninhabited.
This is, undoubtedly, the substance of an old Mabinogi, or mythological tale, and ought not to be received as authentic history. For, in the first place, Cardigan Bay did exist in the time of Ptolemy, who marks the promontories by which it is circumscribed, and the mouths of the rivers which it receives, in nearly the same relative situations which they retain at present. But neither Ptolemy, nor any other ancient geographer, takes notice of one of those sixteen cities, which are said to have been lost there in the sixth century.
"In the next place, we know enough of the geography of Wales, both ancient and modern, to form a decisive conclusion, that a single Cantrev or hundred, never did contain sixteen towns, which would bear the slightest comparison with Caerleon, such as it was in the supposed age of Gwyddno.
"Again: the incident is generally represented as having happened, in consequence of someone having neglected to close a sluice; a cause inadequate, surely, to the alleged effect. And the omission is imputed to a son of Seithin Saidi, King of Dyved, a character whom we have already traced into the regions of mythology."
This legend is, of course, nothing more or less than a Welsh version of the legend of Ys, the submerged city of Brittany, the story of which is told in my Legends of Brittany; or it would probably be more correct to say that both tales have a common origin, and are deeply embedded in the Celtic tradition of the past. Be it noted moreover that both agree with the Atlantis tradition in the circumstance that the land was overwhelmed in consequence of the wickedness of its inhabitants.
A similar story is told of Lake Savadda in Brecknockshire, which is retailed by Davies as follows:
"The site of the present lake was formerly occupied by a large city; but the inhabitants were reported to be very wicked. The king of the country sent his servant to examine into the truth of this rumour, adding a threat, that, in case it should prove to be well founded, he would destroy the place as an example to his other subjects. The minister arrived at the town in the evening. All the inhabitants were engaged in riotous festivity, and wallowing in excess. Not one of them regarded the stranger or offered him the rites of hospitality. At last, he saw the open door of a mean habitation, into which he entered. The family had deserted it to repair to the scene of the tumult, all but one infant, who lay weeping in the cradle. The royal favourite sat down by the side of this cradle, soothed the little innocent, and was grieved at the thought that he must perish in the destruction of his abandoned neighbours. In this situation the stranger passed the night; and whilst he was diverting the child he accidentally dropped his glove into the cradle. The next morning he departed before it was light, to carry his melancholy tidings to the king.
"He had but just left the town when he heard a noise behind him, like a tremendous crack of thunder mixed with dismal shrieks and lamentations. He stopped to listen. Now it sounded like the dashing of waves; and presently all was dead silence. He could not see what had happened, as it was still dark, and he felt no inclination to return into the city : so he pursued his journey till sunrise. The morning was cold. He searched for his gloves, and, finding but one of them, he presently recollected where he had left the other. These gloves had been a present from his sovereign. He determined to return for that which he had left behind. When he was come near to the site of the town, he observed, with surprise, that none of the buildings presented themselves to his view, as on the preceding day. He proceeded a few steps. The whole plain was covered with a lake. Whilst he was gazing at this novel and terrific scene, he remarked a little spot in the middle of the water; the wind gently wafted it towards the bank where he stood; as it drew near, he recognized the identical cradle in which he had left his glove. His joy on receiving this pledge of royal favour was only heightened by the discovery that the little object of his compassion had reached the shore alive and unhurt. He carried the infant to the king, and told his majesty that this was all which he had been able to save out of that wretched place.
"This little narrative evidently contains the substance of one of those tales, which we call Mabinogion, that is, tales for the instruction of youth in the principle of Bardic mythology. And it seems to have for its object a local and impressive commemoration of the destruction of a profligate race by the waters of the deluge.
"Such traditions of the submersion of cities in the lakes of the country, or of populous districts, by the intrusion of the sea, are current all over Wales."
These legends are obviously not accounts of actual historical occurrences, but memories of some far-distant catastrophe which overtook the Celtic race in another environment.
In the poem of the bard Taliesin, called "The Spirits of the Deep," Arthur, in his mythological character, is alluded to in connection with a great deluge or similar
catastrophe. The composition in question is obscure in verbiage and import, and evidently, as Turner observes, "involved in mythology." Davies believed the poem to allude "to the mysteries of the British Bacchus and Ceres," which were connected with "diluvian mythology," but admits that "another hand might be more dexterous in moving the rusty wards which guard these mysteries." The poem states that "Thrke the number that would have filled Prydwen (Arthur's ship) we entered into the deep; excepting seven, none have returned to Caer Sidi" (Place of the Circle).
The second stanza of this mysterious song proceeds to praise the lore "which was four times reviewed in the quadrangular enclosure." "We went," it concludes, "with Arthur in his splendid labours."
Farther on, the bard sings: "In the quadrangular enclosure, in the island with the strong door, the twilight and the pitchy darkness were mixed together."
This passage and that which precedes it, appear to me to enshrine a vivid memory of the Atlantean tradition. The reader will recollect that, in Plato's account, the city of Atlantis was said to be divided into zones or circles of land and water, and in a previously published work, The Problem of Atlantis, I brought a great deal of proof to bear that the circular plan of Atlantis was copied in many subsequent city-sites. The passage which summed up these resemblances is as follows:
" Starting then from a knowledge of the Atlantean design as described in Plato, we find that is reflected not only in that of Carthage, but in numerous other ancient sites scattered over the length and breadth of those areas where we might expect to find architectural remains approximating to the Atlantean model on the one hand along the entire stretch of the Mediterranean, and on the other along the sea-coasts of the Western Atlantic to Britain and Ireland. It will not serve to regard them as arising in historical succession from east to west. The Iberians, the builders of these venerable monuments, did not originate in the eastern region of the Mediterranean, so that it is impossible to regard that sphere as the starting-point of their architectural history."
The fifth stanza of this weird lay also casts further light upon its Atlantean significance:
"I will not redeem the multitudes with trailing shields. They knew not on what day the stroke would be given, nor what hour in the serene day Cwy (the agitated person) would be born, or who prevented his going into the dales of Devwy (the possession of the water). They know not the brindled ox with the thick head-band, having seven score knobs in his collar."
This obviously refers to the populace of a country unconsciously awaiting the shock of catastrophe by deluge. As regards the allusion to the ox, "in almost every British memorial of the deluge" writes Davies, "the ox is introduced." The ox or bull was, it will be recalled, the sacred animal worshipped in Atlantis.
The song quoted above evidently refers to the escape from deluge of a company of persons under the leadership of the mythological Arthur. These were, it would seem, the leaders or aristocracy of the island alluded to, who had little or no anxiety for the populace, and saved themselves by flight. The circular or quadrangular nature of the city they abandoned is mentioned, and it is hinted that from it they carried with them the memory and apparatus of their sacred mysteries.
But do we find in the ancient Welsh traditions any reminiscences more definite of the lost Atlantis, reminiscences which would justify us in saying that our British forefathers associated the tradition of a submerged country with a region in the Atlantic? These appear to be indicated in the legends relating to Arthur and Lyones or Lyonesse, and the Isle of Ayallon,
In the first place it is clear that the Lake Llion, whose legend we have already discussed, is nothing more or less than a legend of oceanic submergence adapted to a Welsh locality that indeed the traditions relating to Lake Llion and Lyonesse have a common origin. Nor will it be difficult to prove that Lake Llion, Lyonesse, Avallon and Atlantis are merely names for one and the same oceanic locality.
Let us examine first the traditions associated with the Isle of Avallon. The site of Avallon was regarded by the Celts of Britain as lying in the western ocean. The name has been explained as implying Insula Pomorum, or the Isle of Apples, although the spelling of the word with two "lls" rather seems to signify "Isle of Apple Trees." By Geoffrey of Monmouth it was equated with the dragon-guarded Isle of the Hesperides. A similar account of it is given by an anonymous poet cited in Ian Morti's edition of Geoffrey (pp. 425-6) the verses being ascribed by Usher to the British bard Gildas. From internal evidence in these poems and from William of Malmesbury, it appears that the Insula Avallonia or Ynys Avallach signified the island belonging to a King Ayallach, who resided there with his daughter. This Avallach is identified by the Harleian MS as the son of Beli and Annu, and by Rhys with Evalach, the wounded Fisher King of the Grail Legend.
Atlantis, it is needless to say, has been again and again identified with the Island of the Hesperides which contained the sacred apples, so that the association of Avallon with that insular paradise equates the British with the Platonic locality, and Avallon stands revealed as the Atlantis of Plato. If the equation be justified, we must then be prepared to find in Avallach, the King of the island, Atlas in his British form, and in Beli and Ahnu, his parents, the Greek Poseidon and Cleito of the Platonic tradition.
Seeking for the moment for further associations between the localities of Avallon and Atlantis, before we deal with their respective rulers and inhabitants, we find in the legend of the "Revolving Castle" entered by Peredur, an incident peculiarly Atlantean. This is to be found in the Welsh Seint Greal. The passage runs thus:
"And they rode through the wild forests, and from one forest to another until they arrived on clear ground outside the forest. And then they beheld a castle coming within their view on level ground in the middle of a meadow; and around the castle flowed a large river, and inside the castle they beheld large spacious halls with windows large and fair. They drew nearer towards the castle, and they perceived the castle turning with greater speed than the fastest wind they had ever known. And above on the castle they saw archers shooting so vigorously that no armour would protect against one of the discharges they made. Besides this, there were men there blowing in horns so vigorously, that one might think one felt the ground tremble. At the gates were lions, in iron chains, roaring and howling so violently that one might fancy the forest and the castle uprooted by them."
This Revolving Castle Rhys unhesitatingly equates with the Castle of the Grail, the abode of the Fisher King. We find this mysterious stronghold mentioned also in one of the poems of Taliesin, in which he says:
" Perfect is my chair in Caer Sidi:
Plague and age hurt him not who's in it
They know, Manawydan and Pryderi.
Three organs round a fire sing before it,
And about its points are ocean's streams,
And the abundant well above it,
Sweeter than white wine the drink in it."
The name "Caer Sidi" signifies "revolving place," and is identified by Rhys with the "Revolving Castle." We will recall that this Caer Sidi was alluded to as the insular locality abandoned by Arthur and his companions on the occurrence of a deluge. This, therefore, identifies the Revolving Castle with an oceanic locality once over-whelmed by deluge. The circumstance of the legend seem to associate it with a locality prone to cataclysm, and on the whole we appear to have an indubitable memory of the Atlantean site. It is situated "on level ground in the middle of a plain or meadow," as was Atlantis, and, like it, is surrounded by a "mighty ditch or fosse." The ground trembles and the castle whirls as if in the throes of an earthquake. The lions which surround it typify the natural forces of destruction. It is, according to the poem, of an insular character. "About it are ocean's streams." "The word used," says Rhys, "is banneu or ban" (meaning points) and this connects the place with the Benwyk of Arthurian romance, the island kingdom of King Ban. It also implies that it had four corners or angles, which seems to associate it with the "Isle of the Four Precious Walls" in the Irish saga of "The Voyage of Maeldune." These walls met in the centre, and consisted respectively of gold, silver, copper and crystal. This is Atlantis over again, the walls of which were constructed of gold, silver and orichalcum or copper. Let us compare Plato's account with that in the Welsh Seint Greal.
(1) In the Welsh account Peredur rode through wild forests, "from one forest to another." Plato says that the country surrounding Atlantis was deeply afforested.
(2) The Revolving Castle is situated on level ground in the middle of a meadow. Atlantis was built "on a level plain."
(3) Around the Revolving Castle "flowed a large river." "The plain,'* says Plato, "was encompassed by a mighty ditch or fosse, which received the mountain streams and the outflow of the canals."
(4) Caer Sidi is "The Revolving or Circular Place." Atlantis was also built in circular form.
(5) "I will not redeem the multitudes with trailing shields," says the singer in "The Spoils of the Deep" of the people of Caer Sidi. The landowner in Atlantis, says Plato, "was bound to furnish the sixth part of a war-chariot, so as to make up ten thousand chariots, two horses and riders upon them, a light chariot without a seat, and an attendant and charioteer, two heavily-armed infantrymen, two archers, two slingers, three stone-shooters, three javelin-men, and four sailors, to make up the complement of twelve hundred ships."
(6) "They" (the multitudes, the plebeians) "know not the brindled ox with the thick head-band." "Near the temple of Poseidon in Atlantis," says Plato, "grazed the sacred bulls, and these the ten kings of the island periodically offered up in sacrifice. . . . They put on azure robes and judged offenders." They were, in short, an aristocracy of the cult of the bull or ox, unknown to the multitude.
Perhaps these comparisons render more clear the Atlantean origins of the Welsh legends of Caer Sidi and Avallon, and we may now proceed to examine still other British myths which deal with insular or submerged localities in the hope of finding further evidence.
In Celtic folklore there stands out, almost pre-eminently, the figure of Morgan le Fay, the fata, fate or fairy associated with the sea. She is, says Rhys, the same as that Morgan who, in the Isle of Avallon, had the charge of healing Arthur of his wounds, and is the Lady of the Lake, the foster-mother of Launcelot, the imprisoner of Merlin. Morgan means "the offspring of the sea," and we may take it that she represents the ocean in its phase of the great abysm of forgetfulness or oblivion. Mor is Welsh for "the sea," and perhaps Morgan represents that sea which Pliny in his Natural History tells us the dead had to pass to reach the realm of King Cronus, or Time. The sea to the Celts was indeed the pathway to the Other-world , a notion which is to be encountered in many mythologies, and the Celtic Place of the Dead is invariably located in the Western Ocean. Thus it appears probable that the place to which all souls were supposed to depart after death was associated with a locality formerly inhabited by the living, the Place of the Ancestors, the original home. Early man invariably believed that after death he would join his ancestors in an environment of unterrestrial bliss, and elsewhere I have collected so many myths and legends to show that this idea was connected in some cases with submerged localities that it scarcely appears needful to traverse the ground once more.
In the first place, let us enumerate these localities, other than those already mentioned, which the Celts of Britain believed to have been submerged. Some of them were actually to be found in Wales itself. Thus Llyn Tegid, near Bala, in Merioneth, is of this class. Indeed, Rhys has placed it on record that, "in our time each mere is supposed to have been formed by the subsidence of a city whose bells may even now be at times heard merrily pealing." This proves at least that the idea of submerged lands had taken a strong hold upon the imagination of the Celts of Britain. Wherefore? Myths of this class do not spring up "naturally," but can be shown to have had a long traditional genealogy behind them, and in the event to have originated in some historical fact.
The overflowing of coastal tracts by the sea is also an extension of this tradition of submergence. In some cases, of course, this may actually have occurred, but in others it appears to be nothing but a localisation of a much more ancient tradition of submerged oceanic localities. The legend of the "Bottom Hundred" has already been cited. Akin to it is that of the sunken city of Aberdovey, the bells of which can be heard ringing in Gwydno's realm. Says Rhys: "The Euhemeristic account of the submersion of Gwydno's plain is that it occurred in consequence of the neglect of a certain Seithennyn, whose business it was to take care of the embankments and their flood-gates ; he, one day heavy with drink, forgot all about his charge, and the catastrophe took place. The oldest account, however, is contained in a short poem in the Black Book of Carmarthen; and it is by no means such a commonplace story: for the author of the poem knows nothing of Seithennyn 's drunkenness, as he merely characterises him as a person of weak intellect, while he lays the entire blame on a damsel whom he terms the Well Minister or Fountain Servant. What her duties exactly were we are not told ; but she had probably the charge of a magic well, as in the corresponding Irish story of Lough Neagh ... in which the neglect to keep the lid on the magic spring resulted in an inundation, a catastrophe foretold by the idiot of the family, who occupies there the place of Seithennyn in the Welsh version. Now, the name of the woman who had charge of the well in the Irish story was Liban, which is in Welsh Llion, and occurs in the Welsh account of the deluge resulting from the bursting of Llyn Llion, or Llion 's Lake. Further, it is this lady's name probably in some one of its forms, or a derivative from it, that meets us in Malory's Liones" The genius of this country is a Dame Liones, the owner of Castle Perilous hard by the Isle of Avallon. Rhys attaches her country to the West Coast of Cornwall, "lying somewhere under the sea between Lundy and the Isles of Scilly. . . . Without dwelling," he says, "on the probable extreme antiquity of the myths underlying these romances, one may venture to point out that we seem to have evidence, dating from the early portion of the Roman occupation of this country, to the equation of some such a hero as Tristram or Lancelot with the Heracles of classical mythology; witness the fact that Ptolemy calls Hartland Point, Herakleous Akron, or the Promontory of Heracles."
The name Liones or Lyonesse, of course, equates with that of the mythical lake, Llyn Llion, which was supposed to have overwhelmed the world in its bursting, and, as has already been mentioned, it can also be associated with the sunken Land of Ys, of Breton legend. But it also seems to me to have an etymological as well as a traditional connection with Atlantis. Indeed, I believe the name Atlantis .to be merely a Hellenized version of the Celtic Llyn Llion or Lyonesse, just such, indeed, as the Greeks would give to a Celtic name. Take Llyn Llion, pronounced as most non-Celtic people would pronounce it (Lin Lion) and join to it the Greek ending "is," with the letter "t" added for the sake of euphony. One gets Lin-Lion-tis, Linliontis. It would seem then, that through some such association of the god Atlas with this Western locality, and through the confusion and Hellenisation of the name Llyn Llion, the name Atlantis may have arisen. Or may not the names Llyn Llion and Atlantis proceed from a common root ?
Atlas can readily enough be associated with the gods of Britain. He was of the Titan breed, and the brother of Albion, who, like him, was a son of Poseidon. Albion was the original tutelary god of Britain. Both Atlas and Albion contested the western passage of Heracles. According to Pomponius Mela, Albion with his brother Iberius (the god of Ireland) the sons of Poseidon, challenged and fought the Greek demi-god near Aries. Albion is also that Alba, from which Scotland takes her name of Albany. There was thus a family or gens of Titans connected with the Western Ocean, and if Albion and Iberius can be associated with the British Isles, to which, indeed, their names still powerfully adhere, it is only reasonable to assume that Atlas was also once the tutelary divinity of a Western land in the ocean with which myth persistently connects his name. Albion (Britain), Iberius (Ireland), Atlas (Atlantis). The sequence is precise, and it is hard to believe that if the two former names were attached to islands still extant that the third can be regarded as the deity of a locality which existed only in the mythical imagination, especially as the personages alluded to had the same progenitor, and all belonged to one and the same gens. There is no example in mythical history of a clan of ancestral figures issuing from one eponymous ancestor, some members of which were attached to actual, and the rest to mythical localities. Search the pages of the Old Testament, the Rig-Veda, the Eddas any body of traditional writings which supply ancestral genealogies and nowhere in their pages can such an anomaly be encountered.
Let us examine the Greek myth of Geryon, lord of an Atlantic isle, which has Celtic equivalents. Geryon was the ruler of the island of Erytheia, and was furnished with three heads, and a corresponding number of hands and feet. He was the owner of numerous herds of magnificent cattle of a purple-red colour which grazed near the Lands of the Sun, that is in the West, for his isle of Erytheia was situated in the Western Ocean, beyond the Pillars of Heracles, and enjoyed a salubrious climate. Heracles, in the course of his labours, sailed to the island in the golden bowl of the Sun, or the vessel in which the Sun was imagined to float back to the east during the night hours.
On landing in the island Heracles was attacked by Geryon's dog, Orthus, and his herdsman Eurytion, and slew both. Geryon, hearing of this, hastened after Heracles and attacked him, but was likewise slain by the hero, who then drove the cattle to the shore, and, with his horned spoil and Geryon's daughter, safely embarked in the golden bowl.
In almost precisely the same manner, Cuchulainn, the Irish Heracles, carries off the cows and daughter of King Mider of the Inis Fer Falga or Island of the Men of Falga. But more to the point is the circumstance that both Geryon and Mider, who resided in Atlantic islands, were, like the Atlanteans, possessed of a herd of sacred cattle.
We see, then, that the Atlantic island of British Celtic myth is in many of its circumstances the parallel of Atlantis. Not only is it an insular locality, but it boasted a city, Caer Sidi, which was built, like Atlantis, in circular form, surrounded by a great fosse, or canal, garrisoned by heavily-armed infantrymen, and its worship was connected in some manner with sacred cattle. We know, too, that it was thought of as having been overwhelmed by a flood or other cataclysm of nature.
The native myths of Britain contain further references to cataclysmic insular disturbances than those already referred to and associated more with volcanic or seismic upheaval than with flood. Plutarch in his De Defectu Oraculorum alludes to one of them as follows: "Demetrius further said, that of the islands around Britain many lie scattered about uninhabited, of which some are named after deities and heroes. He told us also that, being sent by the emperor with the object of reconnoitring and inspecting, he went to the island which lay nearest to those uninhabited, and found it occupied by a few inhabitants, who were, however, sacrosanct and inviolable in the eyes of the Britons. Soon after his arrival a great disturbance of the atmosphere took place, accompanied by many portents, by the winds bursting forth into hurricanes, and by fiery bolts falling. When it was over, the islanders said that some one of the mighty had passed away. For as a lamp on being lit, they said, brings with it no danger, while on being extinguished it is grievous to many, just so with regard to great souls, their beginning to shine forth is pleasant and the reverse of grievous, whereas the extinction and destruction of them frequently disturbs the winds and the surge as at present; oftentimes also do they infect the atmosphere with pestilential diseases. Moreover there is there, they said, an island in which Cronus is imprisoned with Briaerus keeping guard over him as he sleeps, for, as they put it, sleep is the bond forged for Cronus. They add that around him are many deities, his henchmen and attendants."
Now this myth is of great importance from more than one point of view. In the first place it refers to "islands around Britain," many of which are called after gods and heroes. Man and Skye, for example are so named. But some were uninhabited. Why? In all probability because at that period such volcanic or seismic disturbances as that described in the above passage were of constant occurrence. The islanders believed these storms and eruptions to be connected in some manner with the dead, that is, with those who dwelt in the West. Further, the allusion to Cronus as being imprisoned in a still more distant island "with Briaerus keeping guard over him as he sleeps," is, as Rhys justly remarks, a parallel with the sleep of Arthur in Avallon, the island which I have already shown to be in all likelihood one and the same with Atlantis. Nennius, too, describes how Benlli, a giant, having resisted St. Germanus, was, together with his entire court, burnt to ashes by fire from heaven. Now Benlli is also associated with the island of Ynys Benlli, or Bardsey, the locality in which Merlin disappeared in his house or ship of glass, and it too has been equated with Avallon.
Thus we find practically all the broader and more general circumstances of Plato's account of Atlantis duplicated in British tradition the belief in the submergence of a former insular marine locality situated in the West, its destruction by flood, volcanic or seismic agency, its possession of a city built in a certain peculiar manner, and having a religious cult connected with cattle. The inevitable conclusion is that Atlantean refugees or emigrants who had come closely in touch with them, must at some period have settled on British soil, and that the impression of the great catastrophe which had befallen their ancestors in the Atlantean continent remained undisturbed for centuries, acquiring a literary and religious significance which mere legend could never have achieved.
A study of Irish traditional lore also makes it clear that numerous Atlantean memories are enshrined therein. The Formorians of Irish legend were the Domnu, people of the deep sea, or Fomors, People of the Under Sea, of the country which had sunk beneath the waves. Like the Titans7they were a people of gigantic stature, and, like them, they waged war upon the gods, the Tuatha De Danann.
The Fenians, another early Irish race, were associated by tradition with the region about the Pillars of Hercules. Fenius Forsa, their eponymous ancestor, was the father of Nial, who married Scota, daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Fenius and his clan were banished from Egypt for refusing to join in the persecution of the Children of Israel and sojourned in Africa for forty-two years. They travelled through Canaan "near the altars of the Philistines," then passed between Rusicada and the hilly country of Syria until they came to Mauretania as far as the Pillars of Hercules, when they crossed into Spain.
Mile, leader of the Milesians of Spain, the Tuatha De Danann, was, with his people, exiled to an over-sea paradise in the west, described variously as "The Land of Promise," "The Plain of Happiness," "The Land of the Young," and "Breasal's Island." "Celtic Mythology," says Squire, "is full of the beauties of this mystic country, and the tradition of it has never died out. Hy-Breasail has been set down in old maps as a reality again and again."
The romance of the Fate of the Children of Turenn is replete with obvious allusions to the Atlantean tradition. The sons of Turenn were doomed, for the slaying of Kian, to procure certain magical objects, and setting sail in Manannan's Boat, they came first to the Garden of Hisberna (Hesperides) where they took the shape of hawks, and seized upon the golden apples which grew there. After other adventures, they landed in the realm of Asol, King of the Golden Pillars, from whom they received seven magical swine. The pillars in question appear to be the Pillars of Hercules.
The legend of the overflowing of Lough Neagh has already been alluded to as almost precisely the same as the Welsh tale of Seithennyn, but the saga of " The Voyage of Maildun" refers to a number of magical islands in the Atlantic and can scarcely be regarded as anything else than a direct folk-memory of the Atlantean group. One of the first islands which Maildun and his crew encountered was "The Terraced Isle of Birds." It was "a large, high island, with terraces all round it, rising one behind another," and populous with bright-plumaged birds, "a shield-shaped island, with terraces crowned." The Atlantides, the daughters of Atlas became, according to Squire, Mythology of the British Islands, p. 133. Diodorus, the Pleiades, and according to other classical authorities, birds. The height of the island and its terraced character appear to be reminiscent of the Atlantean legend.
In "a broad, flat island," Maildune and his companions discovered "a broad green race-course," which was used by the sea-folk for the sport of horse-racing. Plato tells us that a great race-course existed in Atlantis. They also came to an Island of Apples, resembling the Hesperides, and to an isle surrounded by a great wall, and on the morning of the third day to another island which was divided into two parts by a wall of brass running across the middle. On either side of the wall was a flock of sheep; and all those on one side were black, and on the other white. A very large man (a Cyclops doubtless) was herding the sheep. The next was a high island, divided into four parts by four walls meeting in the centre. The first was a wall of gold, and the others were of silver, copper and crystal. The "Island of the Big Blacksmiths" is also reminiscent of the Cyclops, and the "Country Beneath the Waves" seems to provide the last proof necessary to the acceptance of the theory that the whole saga is nothing else than a folk-memory of the Atlantean tradition.
The Iberian race, which has probably always been in the majority in Ireland, is, of course, the Azilian in a modern form. They . were, indeed, the Fomorians, the " Under Sea" people, the folk skilled in magic and the dark sciences. "Eternal battle between the gods, Children of Danu, and the giants, children of Domnu," says Squire, "would reflect, in the supernatural world, the perpetual warfare between invading Celt and resisting Iberian."
It is noticeable, too, that the Tuatha De Danann, another Irish race, were regarded as having come from "the southern isles of the World." They had dwelt in four great cities, in which they had learned poetry and magic Findias, Gorias, Murias and Falias, whence they had brought to Ireland their strange culture and certain relics, among others the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny (not that at Westminster, as is generally supposed, but that which still stands at Tara). That these cities were actual places seems most probable. It seems unlikely that a people would deliberately concoct names for regions where they had been settled for centuries.
Many folk-memories of an island-home in the Atlantic are found in Irish lore. The legend of St. Brandan, in the Book of Lismore, tells how Brandan, founder of the monastery of Clonfert, who lived in the seventh century, prayed that a "hidden land*' might be revealed to him, and an ancient tradition assures us that he wandered up and down the coast of Kerry "seeking for traditions of the Western Continent." For these he cannot have been encouraged to seek unless he already had some inkling of their presence there. Setting sail, he came to an island "under the lee of Mount Atlas," where he sojourned many years.
The legend of the island of Hy Breasil haunted the Irish imagination for centuries, and has been identified with the Tir-nan-og of Gaelic story.