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Page 36
That is just the way I feel about it. After living for a whole week
in such close contact with the residence of St. David, I feel a real
interest in him. Just who he was and when he lived, if at all, is a
matter of no great importance.
* * * * *
Yet there are limits to the historical imagination. It must have
something to work on, even though that something may be very vague. We
must draw the line somewhere in our pursuit of antiquity. A relic may be
too old to be effective. Instead of gently stimulating the imagination
it may paralyze it. What we desire is not merely the ancient but the
familiar. The relic must bring with it the sense of auld lang-syne. The
Tory squire likes to preserve what has been a long time in his family.
The traveler has the same feeling for the possessions of the family of
humanity.
The family-feeling does not go back of a certain point. I draw the line
at the legendary period when the heroes have names, and more or less
coherent stories are told of their exploits, People who had a local
habitation, but not a name, seem to belong to Geology only. For all
their flint arrow-heads, or bronze instruments, I cannot think of them
as fellow men.
It was with this feeling that I visited one of the most ancient places
of worship in Ireland, the tumulus at Newgrange. It was on a day filled
with historic sight-seeing. We started from Drogheda, the great
stronghold of the Pale in the Middle Ages, and the scene of Cromwell's
terrible vengeance in 1649. Three miles up the river is the site of the
Battle of the Boyne. It was one of the great indecisive battles of the
world, it being necessary to fight it over again every year. The Boyne
had overflowed its banks, and in the fields forlorn hay-cocks stood like
so many little islands. We stopped at the battle monument and read its
Whiggish inscription, which was scorned by our honest driver. We could
form some idea of how the field appeared on the eventful day when King
William and King James confronted each other across the narrow stream.
Then the scene changed and we found ourselves in Mellefont Abbey, the
first Cistercian monastery in Ireland, founded by St. Malachy, the
friend of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. King William and King James were at
once relegated to their proper places among the moderns, while we went
back to the ages of faith.
Four miles farther we came to Monasterboice, where stood two great
Celtic crosses. There are two ruined churches and a round tower. Here
was an early religious establishment which existed before the times of
St. Columba.
This would be enough for one day's reminiscence, but my heart leaped up
at the sight of a long green ridge. "There is the hill of Tara!"
Having traversed the period from King William to the dwellers in the
Halls of Tara, what more natural than to take a further plunge into the
past?
We drive into an open field and alight near a rock-strewn hill. Candles
are given us and we grope our way through narrow passages till we come
to the centre of the hill. Here is a chamber some twenty feet in height.
On the great stones which support the roof are mystic emblems. On the
floor is a large stone hollowed out in the shape of a bowl. It suggests
human sacrifices. My guide did not encourage this suggestion. There was,
he thought, no historical evidence for it. But it seemed to me that if
these people ever practised such sacrifices this was the place for them.
A gloomier chamber for weird rites could not be imagined.
Who were the worshipers? Druids or pre-Druids? The arch�ologists tell us
that they belonged to the Early Bronze period. Now Early Bronze is a
good enough term for articles in a museum, but it does not suggest a
human being. We cannot get on terms of spiritual intimacy with the Early
Bronze people. We may know what they did, but there is no intimation of
"the moving why they did it." What spurred them on to their feats of
prodigious industry? Was it fear or love? First they built their chapel
of great stones and then piled a huge hill on top of it. Were they still
under the influence of the glacial period and attempting to imitate the
wild doings of Nature? The passage of the ages does not make these men
seem venerable, because their deeds are no longer intelligible.
Mellefont Abbey is in ruins, but we can easily restore it in
imagination. We can picture the great buildings as they were before the
iconoclasts destroyed them. The prehistoric place of worship in the
middle of the hill is practically unchanged. But the clue to its meaning
is lost.
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