It
is believed that Ireland was the "Garden of Phoebus" of the Western
mythologists.
The Greeks called Ireland the "Sacred Isle" and "Ogygia."
"Nor can any one," says Camden, "conceive why they should call it
Ogygia, unless, perhaps, from its antiquity; for the Greeks called
nothing Ogygia unless what was extremely ancient." We have seen that
Ogyges was connected by the Greek legends with a first deluge, and that
Ogyges was "a quite mythical personage, lost in the night of ages."
It appears, as another confirmation of the theory of the Atlantis origin
of these colonies, that their original religion was sun-worship; this,
as was the case in other countries, became subsequently overlaid with
idol-worship. In the reign of King Tighernmas the worship of idols was
introduced. The priests constituted the Order of Druids. Naturally many
analogies have been found to exist between the beliefs and customs of
the Druids and the other religions which were drawn from Atlantis. We
have seen in the chapter on sun-worship how extensive this form of
religion was in the Atlantean days, both in Europe and America.
It would appear probable that the religion of the Druids passed from
Ireland to England and France.
Pages:
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589