“Druidism is said to have acknowledged a Supreme Being, whose name was synonymous with the Eastern Baal, and if so, was visibly represented by the sun; and such remnants of the ancient worship as are still traceable in the language of the people, would indicate its having been a species of sun-worship. To this day the four leading points of the compass bear, in the terms which designate them among the Gael, marks of this. The east is _ear_, like the Latin _oriens_, from the Gaelic _eiridh_, ‘to rise;’ the west is _iar_, ‘after,’ used also as a preposition; the south is _deas_, and the north _tuath_; and it is in the use of these terms that the reverence for the solar luminary chiefly appears. _Deas_, ‘the south,’ is in all circumstances _right_; it is the _right_ hand, which is easily intelligible, from the relation of that hand to the south when the face looks eastward; and it is expressive of whatever is otherwise _right_. _Deas_ also means complete, trim, ready; whatever is _deas_, or southerly, is just as it should be. _Tuath_, ‘north,’ is the very opposite. _Tuathaisd_ is a ‘stupid fellow;’ _Tuathail_ is ‘wrong’ in every sense: south and north, then, as expressed in the words _deiseal_ and _tuathail_, are, in the Gaelic language, the representatives of right and wrong. Thus everything that is to move prosperously among many of the Celts, must move sunwise: a boat going to sea must turn sunwise; a man or woman immediately after marriage, must make a turn sunwise. There are relics of fire-worship too; certain days are named from fire-lighting; _Beallteine_, or ‘the first day of summer,’ and _saimhtheine_, ‘the first day of winter,’--the former supposed to mean the fire of Baal or Bel, the latter closing the saimhré, or summer period of the year, and bringing in the geamhré, or winter period, are sufficient evidence of this. There are places in Scotland where within the memory of living men the _teine eigin_, or ‘forced fire,’ was lighted once every year by the rubbing of two pieces of wood together, while every fire in the neighbourhood was extinguished in order that they might be lighted anew from this sacred source.”[89]
[Illustration: Stonehenge.--Copied by permission from Col. Forbes-Leslie’s _Early Races of Scotland_.]