ff the
mouth of the Rhine, is divided from north to south by a wall beyond
which is a noxious region. This is a distorted reminiscence of the Roman
wall, which would appear to run in this direction if Ptolemy's map, in
which Scotland lies at right angles to England, had been consulted.
Thither fishermen from the opposite coast are compelled to ferry over at
dead of night the shades of the dead, unseen to them, but marshalled by
a mysterious leader.[1179] Procopius may have mingled some local belief
with the current tradition that Ulysses' island of the shades lay in the
north, or in the west.[1180] In any case his story makes of the gloomy
land of the shades a very different region from the blissful Elysium of
the Celts and from their joyous _orbis alius_, nor is it certain that he
is referring to a Celtic people.

Traces of the idea of an underworld of the dead exist in Breton
folk-belief. The dead must travel across a subterranean ocean, and
though there is scarcely any tradition regarding what happens on
landing, M. Sebillot thinks that formerly "there existed in the
subterranean world a sort of centralisation of the different states of
the dead." If so, this must have been founded on pagan belief. The
interior of the earth is also believed to be the abode of fabulous
beings, of giants, and of fantastic animals, and there is also a
subterranean fairy world. In all this we may see a survival of the older
belief, modified by Christian teaching, since the Bretons suppose that
purgatory and hell are beneath the earth and accessible from its
surface.[1181]

Some British folk-lore brought to Greece by Demetrius and reported by
Plutarch might seem to suggest that certain persons--the mighty
dead--were privileged to pass to the island Elysium. Some islands near
Britain were called after gods and heroes, and the inhabitants of one of
these were regarded as sacrosanct by the Britons, like the priestesses
of Sena. They were visited by Demetrius, who was told that the storms
which arose during his visit were caused by the passing away of some of
the "mighty" or of the "great souls." It may have been meant that such
mighty ones passed to the more distant islands, but this is certainly
not stated. In another island, Kronos was imprisoned, watched over by
Briareus, and guarded by demons.[1182] Plutarch refers to these islands
in another work, repeating the story of Kronos, and saying that his
island is mild and fragrant, that peo