Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
And west, far west, beyond the seas, And worship knew on Celtic ground,
Beyond Tezcuco’s lake, With trumpets, drums, and bugles,
In lands where gold grows thick as peas, Before a trace in Lorn was found
Was known this holy snake. Of Campbells or Macdougalls.
And here the mighty god was known And here the serpent lies in pride
In Europe’s early morn, His hoary tale to tell,
In view of Cruachan’s triple cone, And rears his mighty head beside
Before John Bull was born. The shore of fair Loch Nell.
Here then we evidently have an earth-formed snake some 300 feet long, and 17 to 20
feet high, emerging in the usual manner from dark water at the base, as it were of
a triple cone—Scotland’s Mount Hermon, just as we so frequently meet snakes and
their shrines in the East. The whole neighbourhood of Loch Nell and Oban is quite
classic ground in Scottish history. On this coast lie the chief scenes of Ossian’s
poems—here also was a strong-hold of Highland kings; and close by, in Dunstaffnage
Castle, the celebrated stone on which they were crowned, and which England’s king
thought important enough to remove to Westminster. Here tho warrior chief Fingal,
who so valiantly held his own against Imperial Rome in the 3d century A.C.—and who
carried his country’s arms with credit into Ireland, the Orkneyes, and even Sweden—
used to hold great court; for nature is here kind to those who cannot congregate in
vast armies, and oppose disciplined troops in the plains. Precipitous mountains often
rising far above 2000 feet, deep dark lakes with treacherous morasses on every side, and
bleak, hard, stony, connecting valleys, where a hundred men could stem a thousand; and
an iron-bound coast, all thronged by a strong, brave, and in attack a desperate people;
constituted such a stronghold as neither foreign kings nor armies have ever cared to
encounter.
Miss Gordon Cumming thus describes her visit to the Serpent:—
“A three miles’ drive in a south-easterly direction brought us to the shores of Loch Nell, beyond
which Ben Cruachen proudly rears her triple crest, standing in dark relief against the delicate white
vapours which cling to her so lovingly, sometimes veiling, sometimes crowning, this stately queen, as they
float around her with ceaseless motion. The carriage-road winds along the shore, and through broken
‘hummocky’ ground, sometimes clothed with grass, sometimes with heather or bracken; and, but for
the presence of one of the few initiated, who had fortunately accompanied us, we should assuredly have
passed close below the heathery mound which forms the serpent’s tail (in fact, the road has been cut
right across the tip of it) without ever suspecting that it differed from the surrounding moorland. In
short, we should have been no wiser than our forefathers, who for centuries have passed and repassed
along the same beaten track, whence only an occasional sportsman or shepherd has had occasion to
diverge. It does seem strange, however, that not one of them, looking down from the higher ground to westward,
should ever have called attention to so remarkable a form, and one, moreover, which rises so conspicuously
from the flat grassy plain, which stretches for some distance on either side with scarcely an
undulation, save two artificial circular mounds, in one of which lie two sets of large stones, placed as in
a kistvaen. These circles are situated a short distance to the south or to the right of the serpent. The
head forms a circular cairn, on which, at the time of Mr. Phené’s first visit, there still remained some
trace of an altar, which has since wholly disappeared, thanks to cattle and herd-boys.
“This cairn was excavated on the 12th October 1871, and within it were found three large stones,
forming a megalithic chamber, which contained burnt bones, charcoal, and charred hazel nuts.”
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