; Gaidoz, _ZCP_ i. 27.

[768] _Annales de Bretagne_, x. 414.

[769] _IT_ i. 50, cf. 184; _Folk-Lore_, vi. 170.

[770] Caesar, vi. 18.

[771] See p. 341, _infra_.

[772] Diod. Sic. v. 24; Appian, _Illyrica_, 2.

[773] Amm. Marcel, xv. 9.

[774] D'Arbois, ii. 262, xii. 220.

[775] _Antient Laws of Ireland_, i. 23. In one MS. Adam is said to have
been created thus--his body of earth, his blood of the sea, his face of
the sun, his breath of the wind, etc. This is also found in a Frisian
tale (Vigfusson-Powell, _Corpus Poet. Bor._ i. 479), and both stories
present an inversion of well-known myths about the creation of the
universe from the members of a giant.

[776] Sebillot, i. 213 f., ii. 6, 7, 72, 97, 176, 327-328. Cf. _RC_ xv.
482, xvi. 152.

[777] Sebillot, ii. 6.

[778] _LL_ 56; Keating, 117, 123.

[779] _RC_ xv. 429, xvi. 277.

[780] See p. 191, _supra_.

[781] Sebillot, ii. 41 f., 391, 397; see p. 372, _infra_.

[782] _Triads_ in Loth, ii. 280, 299; Rh[^y]s, _HL_ 583, 663.

[783] _RC_ xvi. 50, 146.

[784] Apoll. iv. 609 f.

[785] Strabo, iv. 4. 4.

[786] Arrian, _Anab._ i. 4. 7; Strabo, vii. 3. 8. Cf. Jullian, 85.

[787] _LL_ 94; Miss Hull, 205.

[788] _RC_ xii. 111, xxvi. 33.

[789] A possible survival of a world-serpent myth may be found in "Da
Derga's Hostel" (_RC_ xxii. 54), where we hear of Leviathan that
surrounds the globe and strikes with his tail to overwhelm the world.
But this may be a reflection of Norse myths of the Midgard serpent,
sometimes equated with Leviathan.

CHAPTER XVI.

SACRIFICE, PRAYER, AND DIVINATION.

The Semites are often considered the worst offenders in the matter of
human sacrifice, but in this, according to classical evidence, they were
closely rivalled by the Celts of Gaul. They offered human victims on the
principle of a life for a life, or to propitiate the gods, or in order
to divine the future from the entrails of the victim. We shall examine
the Celtic custom of human sacrifice from these points of view first.

Caesar says that those afflicted with disease or engaged in battle or
danger offer human victims or vow to do so, because unless man's life be
given for man's life, the divinity of the gods cannot be appeased.[790]
The theory appears to have been that the gods sent disease or ills when
they desired a human life, but that any life would do; hence one in
danger might escape by offering another in his stead. In some cases the
victi