e world of the dead situated? M. Reinach has shown, by a
careful comparison of the different uses of the word _orbis_, that
Lucan's words do not necessarily mean "another world," but "another
region," i.e. of this world.[1175] If the Celts cherished so firmly the
belief that the dead lived on in the grave, a belief in an underworld of
the dead was bound in course of time to have been evolved as part of
their creed. To it all graves and tumuli would give access. Classical
observers apparently held that the Celtic future state was like their
own in being an underworld region, since they speak of the dead Celts as
_inferi_, or as going _ad Manes_, and Plutarch makes Camma speak of
descending to her dead husband.[1176] What differentiated it from their
own gloomy underworld was its exuberant life and immortality. This
aspect of a subterranean land presented no difficulty to the Celt, who
had many tales of an underworld or under-water region more beautiful and
blissful than anything on earth. Such a subterranean world must have
been that of the Celtic Dispater, a god of fertility and growth, the
roots of things being nourished from his kingdom. From him men had
descended,[1177] probably a myth of their coming forth from his
subterranean kingdom, and to him they returned after death to a blissful
life.

Several writers, notably M. D'Arbois, assume that the _orbis alius_ of
the dead was the Celtic island Elysium. But that Elysium _never_ appears
in the tales as a land of the dead. It is a land of gods and deathless
folk who are not those who have passed from this world by death. Mortals
may reach it by favour, but only while still in life. It might be argued
that Elysium was regarded in pagan times as the land of the dead, but
after Christian eschatological views prevailed, it became a kind of
fairyland. But the existing tales give no hint of this, and, after being
carefully examined, they show that Elysium had always been a place
distinct from that of the departed, though there may have arisen a
tendency to confuse the two.

If there was a genuine Celtic belief in an island of the dead, it could
have been no more than a local one, else Caesar would not have spoken as
he does of the Celtic Dispater. Such a local belief now exists on the
Breton coast, but it is mainly concerned with the souls of the
drowned.[1178] A similar local belief may explain the story told by
Procopius, who says that Brittia (Britain), an island lying o