us were frightened by an eclipse,
and much later Christian legislation forbade the people to assemble at
an eclipse and shout, _Vince, Luna!_[582] Such a practice was observed
in Ireland in the seventeenth century. At an earlier time, Irish poets
addressed sun and moon as divinities, and they were represented on
altars even in Christian times.[583]

While the Celts believed in sea-gods--Manannan, Morgen, Dylan--the sea
itself was still personified and regarded as divine. It was thought to
be a hostile being, and high tides were met by Celtic warriors, who
advanced against them with sword and spear, often perishing in the
rushing waters rather than retreat. The ancients regarded this as
bravado. M. Jullian sees in it a sacrifice by voluntary suicide; M.
D'Arbois, a tranquil waiting for death and the introduction to another
life.[584] But the passages give the sense of an actual attack on the
waves--living things which men might terrify, and perhaps with this was
combined the belief that no one could die during a rising tide.
Similarly French fishermen threaten to cut a fog in two with a knife,
while the legend of S. Lunaire tells how he threw a knife at a fog, thus
causing its disappearance.[585] Fighting the waves is also referred to
in Irish texts. Thus Tuirbe Tragmar would "hurl a cast of his axe in the
face of the flood-tide, so that he forbade the sea, which then would not
come over the axe." Cuchulainn, in one of his fits of anger, fought the
waves for seven days, and Fionn fought and conquered the Muireartach, a
personification of the wild western sea.[586] On the French coast
fishermen throw harpoons at certain harmful waves called the Three Witch
Waves, thus drawing their blood and causing them to subside.[587] In
some cases human victims may have been offered to the rising waters,
since certain tales speak of a child set floating on the waves, and
this, repeated every seven years, kept them in their place.[588]

The sea had also its beneficent aspects. The shore was "a place of
revelation of science," and the sea sympathised with human griefs. At
the Battle of Ventry "the sea chattered, telling the losses, and the
waves raised a heavy, woeful great moan in wailing them."[589] In other
cases in Ireland, by a spell put on the waves, or by the intuitive
knowledge of the listener, it was revealed that they were wailing for a
death or describing some distant event.[590] In the beautiful song sung
by the wife of Cae