the Cross was later
regarded also as a magical victory. Hence also lives of Celtic saints
are full of miracles which are simply a reproduction of Druidic
magic--controlling the elements, healing, carrying live coals without
hurt, causing confusion by their curses, producing invisibility or
shape-shifting, making the ice-cold waters of a river hot by standing in
them at their devotions, or walking unscathed through the fiercest
storms.[1151] They were soon regarded as more expert magicians than the
Druids themselves. They may have laid claim to magical powers, or
perhaps they used a natural shrewdness in such a way as to suggest
magic. But all their power they ascribed to Christ. "Christ is my
Druid"--the true miracle-worker, said S. Columba. Yet they were imbued
with the superstitions of their own age. Thus S. Columba sent a white
stone to King Brude at Inverness for the cure of his Druid Broichan, who
drank the water poured over it, and was healed.[1152] Soon similar
virtues were ascribed to the relics of the saints themselves, and at a
later time, when most Scotsmen ceased to believe in the saints, they
thought that the ministers of the kirk had powers like those of pagan
Druid and Catholic saint. Ministers were levitated, or shone with a
celestial light, or had clairvoyant gifts, or, with dire results, cursed
the ungodly or the benighted prelatist. They prophesied, used
trance-utterance, and exercised gifts of healing. Angels ministered to
them, as when Samuel Rutherford, having fallen into a well when a child,
was pulled out by an angel.[1153] The substratum of primitive belief
survives all changes of creed, and the folk impartially attributed
magical powers to pagan Druid, Celtic saints, old crones and witches,
and Presbyterian ministers.

FOOTNOTES:

[1093] _IT_ i. 56; D'Arbois, v. 387.

[1094] See, e.g., "The Death of Muirchertach," _RC_ xxiii. 394.

[1095] _HN_ xxx. 4, 13.

[1096] Zimmer, _Gloss. Hibern._ 183; Reeves, _Adamnan_, 260.

[1097] Kennedy, 175; cf. _IT_ i. 220.

[1098] See _RC_ xii. 52 f.; D'Arbois, v. 403-404; O'Curry, _MS. Mat._
505; Kennedy, 75, 196, 258.

[1099] D'Arbois, v. 277.

[1100] Stokes, _Three Middle Irish Homilies_, 24; _IT_ iii. 325.

[1101] _RC_ xii. 83; Miss Hull, 215; D'Arbois, v. 424; O'Curry, _MC_ ii.
215.

[1102] Keating, 341; O'Curry, _MS. Mat._ 271.

[1103] _RC_ xii. 81.

[1104] Miss Hull, 240 f.

[1105] Maury, 14.

[1106] Sebillot, ii. 226 f., i. 101, ii. 2