Gaulish myth of the Druid Abaris

Commenting upon the Elphin „bairn“ Akerman observes that it is supposed to illustrate the Gaulish myth of the Druid Abaris to whom Apollo is said to have given an arrow on which he travelled magically through the air.

It is an historic fact that a physical Abaris visited Athens where he created a most favourable  impression; it is likewise a fact that Irish literature possesses the account of a person called Abhras, which perfectly agrees with the description of the Hyperborean Abaris of Diodorus and Himerius.

The classic Abaris went to Greece to whip up subscriptions for a temple: the Irish Abhras is said to have gone to distant parts in quest of knowledge, returning by way of Scotland where he remained seven years and founded a new system of religion.

In Irish Abar means "God the first Cause," and as in Ireland „cad“ (which is our „good“) meant „holy“, the magic word Abracadabra may be reasonably resolved into „Abra, Good Abra“.

As already mentioned the Irish cried „Aber!“ when rushing into battle, and the word was no doubt used likewise at peaceful feasts and festivals.

The inference would thus seem that the title of Abaris was assumed by the chief Druid or High Priest who personified during his tenure of office the archetypal Abaris.

It is well known that the priest or king enacted in his own person the mysteries of the faith; and it is

not improbable that chief Guedianus, whose sacred play was so rudely disturbed by St. Sampson, was personifying at the time the „Good Janus“ or Genius...

...Five miles N.-E. of Abury there stands on the summit of a commanding hill the natural great fortress known as Barbury Castle, surrounded by the remains of numerous banks and ditches.

The name Barbara-a duplication of Bar-is in its Cretan form Varvary, and it was seemingly the Iberian or Ivernian equivalent of "Very God of Very God," otherwise Father of Fathers, or Abracadabra...

Harold Bayley, ArchaicEngland,  Chapman & Hall LTD. London, 1919.

Photo: Pixabay/GDJ 
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