The Future Life, or Land of the West

No more touching or inspiring belief was there among the ancient Irish, than in the hope of another life beyond the grave.

Nature restored the dead forest of winter to the wealth of foliage in spring; why should not the breathless form of man once more find joy in life?

But this happy thought, with our Islanders, was associated with two things—the sea-wave and the western sunset.

The soul of the Maori, it was said, took its flight to the Reinga, the northernmost promontory of New Zealand, and, from the branch of an overhanging tree, dropped into the ocean in search of its subaqueous home.

The Irish, in like manner, knew that his next tenement would be beneath the flood.

The dying Egyptian beheld with the eye of faith his spirit following the setting sun.

The Irish looked forward to the West as the place to which his ethereal nature would take its flight.

The roar of the Atlantic was music to his ears, for it was but the echo of the voices of his forefathers, and departed loved ones, in the western Land of the Blest.

Chronos slept in his palace of glass in Ogygia, Isle of the West. The Hesperides and its apples lay in the happy West. The Teutones went to the glass Isles of the West, as did the Norsemen and Celtiberians. Arthur was rowed to Avalon in the West. The Sacred Isles of the Hindoos were to the West. Christian hymns still speak of crossing the waters to Heaven. How many of us have been delighted with Faber's beautiful hymn—“The Land across the sea!”

The Gaulish Cocagne, the Saxon Cockaign, the Lusitanian Cocana, or Happy Land, were beyond the seashore. Prof. Rafinesque might well say, “It is strange, but true, that, throughout the earth, the place of departed souls, the land of spirits, was supposed to be in the West.”

“To Rhadamanthys of the golden hair,

Beyond the wide world's end; Ah! never there

Come storm or snow; all grief is left behind,—

And men immortal, in enchanted air,

Breathe the cool current of the Western Wind.”

Procopius had a story of the West. Thither the souls are conveyed by ghostly fishermen to an island for rest; and tales are told of ears detecting the calling over of names, as the boat touches the mystic strand, and wives and husbands being summoned to their arriving mates.

Erebos was the gloom that fell after sunset. The word in Assyrian was from eribu, to descend, as suns then dropped below. Odysseus turned to Erebos when offering his sacrifice to departed hero-gods. Ghosts were there wont to assemble, and might be seen flitting to and fro in the uncertain light.

The main entrance of Greek temples was in the East, so that the worshippers might face the Happy West.

Homer's reputed poems are unlike in their records of the dead. The Iliad knows no apotheosis; the Odyssey has it.

Coleridge observes, “In the Iliad, Castor and Pollux are mentioned in the ordinary language denoting death and burial, and no more. In the Odyssey, we have the account of their ultimate resuscitation, which finally became the popular fable.”

In Homer's Nekromanteia, we have the intercourse of Ulysses with the dead. He employs necromantic arts in his descent into Hades, which were strictly of a Babylonian character, and the whole description reminds us of the fabled descent of the Assyrian goddess to the Sheol. The ghosts gather round Ulysses at the smell of the blood of his offerings, and, inspired thereby, “expressed dark things to come.”

How far these old pagan views of the Future Life reached the shores of Erin may be seen in what follows in this chapter.

A perusal of Ossianic songs, as elsewhere noted, will give the popular conception of the Unseen World just before the reception of Christianity.

The Purgatory of St. Patrick might be, also, consulted for information upon the same subject.

As to what opinions were cherished on the reception of Christian truths, we may perhaps discover some in the writings of Eastern Fathers, upon the supposition of some that the earliest teachers of Erin came from the Levantine regions.

The following passages from their writings may exhibit some notions about the Hereafter prevalent in the early Oriental Church.

St. Basil trusted that “everything of wickedness in man shall cease.”

Gregory of Nazianzus, 370 A D. declares that “all will be loosed who groan under Tartarine chains.”

Clement, 190 A.D., hopefully says, “He, by the Father, will direct the salvation of all.”

Only Tertullian, from unfriendliness to the theatre, exults in seeing “the tragedians more tuneful under their own sufferings.”

The story of the Purgatory of St. Patrick declares another order of teaching, introduced later on into Erin, one more in consistency with the Babylonian “doctrine of devils,” and which still survives with its lurid light.

A recognition of Our Father is more elevating, helpful, and comforting.

The heathen Irish did certainly dwell upon a Land Beyond.

In Dr. Malden's Ossian and the Clyde we read, “When the warrior, who was also a hunter, reposed, his dog was laid beside him on the left, as if waiting his summons to attend his master on fields of air beyond the verge of earth—like Oscar's at Glenree, and like Cuthullin's by Lake Lego.”

In the Chapter on “Superstitions” are references to the ghost belief of other days.

In the account of the Land of Youth, given by the heathen Fenian Oisin to St. Patrick—when the hero was carried off from the field of battle by the golden-haired fairy Niamh—the region was divided into states under sovereigns, as in the Land of the Living. It lay beneath the waves in the West, in a lovely climate.

How easy it was in so blessed a place to lose ideas of time! When Oisin obtained leave from his beautiful captor to revisit earth, he alluded to the rapidity of time passed in this retreat by his three months' imprisonment—

“‘Three months!’ replied the Fair, ‘three months alone;

Know that three hundred years have roll'd away

Since at my feet my lovely phoenix lay.’”

In Dodsley's fairy collection, one King Porsuma was carried off by a Zephyr—the princess taking him for a phoenix, and conveying him, as in the case of Oisin, to Thierna-na-Oge, the paradise of eternal youth.

Then there was Flath-innis, the Island of the Good, which word is still the Irish for Heaven.

The distinguished historian, Lecky, has this allusion to another ancient fancy; saying, “Among the many half pagan legends that were connected with Ireland, during the Middle Ages, one of the most beautiful is that of the Islands of Life and of Death. In a certain lake in Munster, it is said there were two islands; into the first, Death could not enter, but age and sickness, and the weariness of life, and the paroxysms of fearful suffering were all known there, and they did their work, till the inhabitants, tired of their immortality, learned to look upon the opposite island as upon a haven of repose. They launched their barks upon the gloomy waters; they touched its shore, and they were at rest.”

Tradition says that one Creidé, the god of goldsmiths, had a magic palace beneath the western sea, where he was drowned, while bringing gold to Ireland from Spain.

Earl Desmond descended below Lough Gur, and has since been usually seen once in seven years. He is ultimately to escape as Oisin did.

The Grey Sheep's cave, near Kilkenny, is the outlet. A piper, long confined there, has been heard to play on his pipes upon a May-day morning.

Ireland was associated with the west by the old Welsh, or, as Professor Rhys observed, with Wales. Taliesin, the great Welsh Druid, was stolen by an Irish pirate vessel of the period, but he escaped in a magic coracle before reaching Erin.

The Land beneath the Sea was beyond Cardigan Bay, the Annwn of the old Sun. The Welsh Avalon, or Island of Apples, the everlasting source of the Elixir of Life, the home of Arthur and other mythological heroes, was in the Irish direction.

As Morien writes, “The district of Hades beneath the earth, and beyond the river, was the fairy-land of our ancestors, the source of the passive principle of life.”

The Spanish Bay of Souls lies west of Cape Finisterre. Ogygia was thought by Plutarch five days' sail west of Brittia.

The ancient Egyptian ritual spoke of the Happy West. The home of Calypso was in the west.

Bailly, writing to Voltaire, in 1778, said, “The giant Gyges (hundred-handed) inhabited the island of Atlantis, which is the same as Ogygia.”

The Bretons had their western Ifern, which was the Flaitheas, or Isle of Heroes, the Welsh Gwynvyd.

Vinland the Good was westward, as were the Fortunate Isles.

Spanish tales tells of seven cities below the western ocean, where still dwell Christians who fled from the Moors and some of whom return after hundreds of years.

America was probably visited by eastern voyagers long before Columbus knew it.

Mythical allegory may give meaning to these stories.

In the story of Cûchulainn's adventures through this mysterious realm, is a full detail of its palaces and landscapes.

The hero went thither in a bronze boat, which awaited his return thence. They who were admitted to a brief visit to the upper regions of earth were duly admonished, that if they once dismounted from their magic steeds, they would never again be able to return.

Bove Derg went to visit the Dagda deity at the Brugh of Mac-an-Og, where dwelt Augus Og, the god's son, and where Oscar and other Fenian heroes were entertained.

Fiachna is recorded to have come to Connaught from the agreeable plain, in order to obtain help in a contest with other deities. He disappeared in a lake, and fifty warriors dived in after him.

War was, with the Irish, as with other people of German or Norse descent, a most pleasant way of beguiling time in the world beyond.

Even Cûchulainn was induced to undertake his perilous voyage, that he might gain a goddess for a wife, by promising to help her family in a fight.

There they heard noble and melodious music of the gods, travelled from realm to realm, drinking from crystal cups, and entertaining themselves with their beloved.

No wonder that a hero returned thence declared to an Irish sovereign that not for his kingdom would he relinquish a single night with the gods.

In Irish so-called history, we read of the emigrations of Nemed, son of Agnomen, from Mag more, the great plain, or Trag mâr, the great coast, or Mag meld, agreeable plain. Nennius supposed this was Spain.

It was, however, the country from which all came, and to which at death all must return.

In the legend of Tuân mac Cairill, says M. Jubainville, Nemed's four thousand and thirty men, and four thousand and thirty women, voyaged from The Great Plain, and all died; i.e. went there again.

The same French writer remarked how the relations which had existed here were continued there, even to the repayment of debts contracted on earth.

“The life of the Dead,” said he, “in the mysterious region beyond the sea is for each a second edition, so to speak—of the life led by the departed on this side of the ocean.”

Parthalon was said in Irish legends to have come from Spain, not from the country of the Dead.

Tethra, conquered in the battle of Mag Tured, became King of the Dead beyond the ocean. Chronos, also, reigned over the departed.

The plain where these infernal deities dwelt was the Irish Mag cetne.

As the son of Manannân-mac-Lir returned to earth again, so did the Ossianic Find-mac-Cumaill, and Cailte; evidencing the Celtic belief in the soul's immortality.

According to some traditions, the Better-land of the Druids floated in Neamhagas, as the Trimurti of the East were said to do in Akass or celestial ether.

A bridge as fine as a hair, like Mahometans believe to this day, connects this world with that beyond, which they truly styled the Greater Island.

The inhabitants were robed in white at Murthemne, the flowery plain.

Sepulchral rites were as essential to the comfort of the Irish in their Sheol as to the Greeks in theirs. As burial of the body was required in the latter case, so was the funeral song, feast, or cry over the corpse of the former—more or less performed to this hour by their Christian descendants.

There would otherwise be dismal wanderings alone beside the Irish Styx, as with Homeric heroes.

Dermat, in company with a wizard, or Knight of the Fountain, descended a well, and came into a country of delightful flowers and trees, palaces and castles. There a lady fair cured Dermat of the wounds he had received in battle, besides entertaining him with music.

In the Fate of the Children of Turem MS., we read of the Island of Fincara, which was sunk beneath the waves by a Druidic spell long ago. Then, one Brian, in quite modern times, provided with a magic water dress and crystal helmet, saw most charming-looking ladies.

In the Voyage of Maildun, also, a privileged person was enabled to behold the Mog-Mell plains of pleasure, though these rather belonged to Fairydom.

In Plato, we have an account of banquets in Hades. In Irish MSS. are many references to the good things below.

There was a lesser god, Miders, married to Etain, one of the goddesses. The lady, tired of her situation, or company, came up, and obtained Eochaid-Airem, King of Ireland, for a husband. Miders followed the faithless one; but she declined any further connection with one “who has no genealogy, and whose ancestors are unknown.”

The forsaken one engaged the king in a game of chess, in which the loser was to grant the request of the winner. The king, losing, was requested to give up his wife. This he refused to do.

The disconsolate one then turned to win over the goddess. He sang to her of the Pleasant Plain, and invited her to return with him to a happier home than Ireland could give.

He would give her there more tasteful pork, sweeter milk, and more intoxicating beer.

There were rivers warm with hydromel, and even wine. Youth never aged, and love was not forbidden. All this, and more, may be read in the Lealthair na hllidhre.

The early Christian preachers tried hard to dispel these images of the heathen paradise, and that by details of a terrible Hell—the Avernus of the pagan Orientals.

In the early ecclesiastical writings of Ireland, there is the same strange medley of old pagan superstitions and supposed scriptural ideas, to be found in other lands of the period. But this is also mixed up with the Babylonian horrors that found their way into the Talmud, making the Jewish idea of the Future so different from that of the Prophets in Scripture. We have but to read of the so-called Purgatory of St. Patrick for an apt illustration.

The entrance to this Purgatory was that known to the heathen Irish as leading to the Nether World. But the application came centuries after the usually recognized date of the Saint, and was unknown to such writers as Nennius and Probus.

Irish tradition preserved the notion of descent into the lower regions, as with Oisin and others. Ecclesiastics, in like manner, record visits to St. Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Derg.

Henry of Saltrey, in the twelfth century, spoke of the Saint hearing there the cries of those in Purgatory.

The Knight Owain, in King Stephen's time, went down, and saw the horrors. Some were fastened down by their hair, to be bitten by fiery snakes; others were in molten metal, rivers of pitch, or lakes of cold. A wall of glass afforded sufferers a view of the joys of Paradise.

One monk, writing in the thirteenth century, affirms that any doubts as to Purgatory would be at once dispelled by going to Lough Derg. Froissart knew one who had been there.

William Staunton, 1409, saw “orrible bastes” tormenting men. Yet the Pope, in 1497, ordered the cave to be closed up, upon the report of a Dutch monk that there was no truth in the stories circulated concerning the locality.

Notwithstanding the papal authority, the superstition still exists, and vast numbers of pilgrims frequent the scene of St. Patrick's Purgatory.

The descent into hell by Istar, Orpheus, Hercules, &c., yet lives in the stories of Irish visitants to the lower regions.

The Irish traveller beheld there demons torturing men and women, “monsters yellow, white, great-mouthed; lions fierce, greedy; dragons red, black, brown, demoniac—a place wherein there are streams frozen, bitter, ever stinking, swift, of full fire,” &c., &c. Altogether, a disagreeable contrast to the happy Land beyond of Irish pagans.

They might have had no clearer vision than Homer's Greeks of the fate of the Dead, though their lively fancy pictured a pleasant home. They had some glimmerings of light beyond the deepening shadows, while conceiving the ghosts of the departed as conscious of the past, and not unmindful of beloved ones left behind.

Some wild roamers oh the rock-bound shores of Erin had a dim perception of a Better Land. The heart of the purer, the intelligence of the nobler, dreamed, however faintly, of a realm of peace beyond, of a scene of tranquil beauty, of a restful time in the fabled Isles of Happy Ones, where storms would be unknown, where never-withering flowers would greet the grateful eye, and where the Blessed West foretold repose.

We may fancy some white-haired sage of Erin, feeling the sands of life slowly but surely sinking, who would seat himself on the tempest-tossed cliffs beside the Atlantic, watching a sunset in those western waters, where the gradually lessening glow foreshadowed his own departure. There he might recall the friends of his youth, the deeds of manhood, and the lessons of age. There, too, he might weep at the recollection of loved ones gone before, and yet smile at the prospect of re-union in the country of Everlasting Youth. Such a man, at such a time, may well have imagination quickened to a perception of the Onward and Upward in the Inner Life of poor Humanity.