The funeral-banquet descended to the Christian church from pagan times, and was too often profaned by heathen licence.
I have sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting on a white pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the wind of a gull, like Fair Haven.
An instinctive feeling that a proper name for God implicitly recognizes the existence of other gods may have had some influence; reverence and the fear lest the holy name should be profaned among the heathen were potent reasons; but probably the most cogent motive was the desire to prevent the abuse of the name in magic. If so, the secrecy had the opposite effect; the name of the god of the Jews was one of the great names in magic, heathen as well as Jewish, and miraculous efficacy was attributed to the mere utterance of it.
Pherae called in the help of the Phocian mercenaries, who had profaned Delphi, and Philip met with a check.
Eventually Turgeis established himself in Armagh, whilst his wife Ota settled at Clonmacnoise and profaned the monastery church with pagan rites.
