Ossian Collection > Fingal

NOTES.
fires throughout the land should be extinguished, to be
rekindled from the fire sacred to the goddess; for this
the head of every house paid a tax to the chief druid, of
a scrubal, in value about three pence- With still greater
magnificence, the festival of Beal was celebrated on May
eve, at the grand temple of Uisneach. These, and the
other druid temples, St. Columba describes as having
been superbly decorated with images of the sun, moon,
and stars.
Attached to the principal temple were widely enclosed
groves, lakes, and gardens of pleasure, the entrance to
which was through gloomy caverns of immense extent ;
and thus those of the deluded multitude, who were initi-
ated into the mysteries, beheld, as they thought, the dis-
mal mansions of the unhappy, and the elysiura of the
blessed : to prepare them for which deception they were
previously enfeebled by long fasting, and by many strange
and terrifying visionary scenes, presented to them in the
solitude to which, for several days, they were obliged to
submit. ^
Folio 34.
To him then, with low-bended sword.
Spake Innisraone's magician lord.
Innismone, or Mona, (now Anglesey), covered with
stern fortresses, and perhaps a place of banishment to