on which, long before, the hero Fionn had
slipped.[1145]

Connected with the cult of stones are magical observances at fixed rocks
or boulders, regarded probably as the abode of a spirit. These
observances are in origin pre-Celtic, but were practised by the Celts.
Girls slide down a stone to obtain a lover, pregnant women to obtain an
easy delivery, or contact with such stones causes barren women to have
children or gives vitality to the feeble. A small offering is usually
left on the stone.[1146] Similar rites are practised at megalithic
monuments, and here again the custom is obviously pre-Celtic in origin.
In this case the spirits of the dead must have been expected to assist
the purposes of the rites, or even to incarnate themselves in the
children born as a result of barren women resorting to these
stones.[1147] Sometimes when the purpose of the stones has been
forgotten and some other legendary origin attributed to them, the custom
adapts itself to the legend. In Ireland many dolmens are known, not as
places of sepulture, but as "Diarmaid and Grainne's beds"--the places
where these eloping lovers slept. Hence they have powers of fruitfulness
and are visited by women who desire children. The rite is thus one of
sympathetic magic.

Holed dolmens or naturally pierced blocks are used for the magical cure
of sickness both in Brittany and Cornwall, the patient being passed
through the hole.[1148] Similar rites are used with trees, a slit being
often made in the trunk of a sapling, and a sickly child passed through
it. The slit is then closed and bound, and if it joins together at the
end of a certain time, this is a proof that the child will
recover.[1149] In these rites the spirit in stone or tree was supposed
to assist the process of healing, or the disease was transferred to
them, or, again, there was the idea of a new birth with consequent
renewed life, the act imitating the process of birth. These rites are
not confined to Celtic regions, but belong to that universal use of
magic in which the Celts freely participated.

Since Christian writers firmly believed in the magical powers of the
Druids, aided however by the devil, they taught that Christian saints
had miraculously overcome them with their own weapons. S. Patrick
dispelled snow-storms and darkness raised by Druids, or destroyed Druids
who had brought down fire from heaven. Similar deeds are attributed to
S. Columba and others.[1150] The moral victory of