It is to be supposed that in speaking of the divinities worshipped by the Druids, Cæsar describes the unknown by the known, or calls this divinity Mercury, and this Apollo, or Mars, or Jupiter, because the attributes of the said divinities resembled those of the gods of the Grecian and Roman mythology; and that, if we possessed a more ample knowledge of the subject, we should find that the descent, pedigree, origin, and connection of the Druidical divinities had nothing whatever to do with those of the divinities in the classical mythology. Among the various derivations which have been given of the name of the Druids, the most probable seems to be that which brings it from drui, the Celtic word for an oak, corruptly written in the modern Irish droi, or more corruptly, draoi, and making in the plural druidhe. Drui is the same word with drus, which signifies an oak in the Greek language; and also, indeed, with the English word tree, which in the old form was written triu. We cannot name the Druids of England without thinking of our woods and national oaks. The things are inseparable in our imagination; yet it is remarkable that Cæsar nowhere has any mention of the sacred groves, and the reverence paid to the oak, which make so great a figure in the other accounts of Druidism, and which indisputably formed very important features in that religion. "If you come," says the philosopher Seneca, "to a grove thick planted with ancient trees, which have outgrown the usual altitude, and which shut out the view of the heaven with their interwoven boughs, the vast height of the wood, and the retired secrecy of the place, and the wonder and awe inspired by so dense and unbroken a gloom in the midst of the open day, impress you with the conviction of a present deity."2 These natural feelings of the human mind were turned to account by the Druids, even as they were in the other most primitive and simple forms of ancient superstition. Pliny informs us that the oak was the tree which they principally venerated, that they chose groves of oak for their residence, and performed no sacred rites without the leaf of the oak. The geographer Pomponius Mela describes the Druids as teaching the youths of noble families that thronged to them, in caves, or in the depths of forests. We have seen, in the 1 Casar de Bell. Gall. lib. vi. 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, as translated in the Penny Cyclopædia. 2 M. A. Seneca, Epist. 41. preceding chapter, that when (A.D. 61) Suetonius Paulinus made himself master of the Isle of Anglesey, he cut down the Draidical groves. These groves, says Tacitus, were "hallowed with cruel superstitions; for they held it right to stain their altars with the blood of prisoners taken in war, and to seek to know the mind of the gods from the fibres of human victims." The poet Lucan, in a celebrated passage on the Druids, has not forgotten their sacred groves: "The Druids now, while arms are heard no more, No Druidical grove, it is believed, now remains in any part of our island; but within little more than a century, ancient oaks were still standing around some of the circles of stones set upright in the earth, which are supposed to have been the temples of the old religion. These sacred inclosures seem, in their perfect state, to have generally consisted of a circular row or double row of great stones in the central open space (the proper lucus or place of light), and beyond these, of a wood surrounded by a ditch and a mound of earth. The sacred grove appears to have been usually watered by a holy fountain. The reverence for rivers or streams, springs or wells, is another of the most prevalent of ancient superstitions; and it is one which, having, along with many other Pagan customs, been adopted, or at least tolerated, by Christianity as first preached by the Roman missionaries, and being, besides, in some sort recommended to the reason by the high utility of the object of regard, has not even yet altogether passed away. The holy wells, to which some of our early monks gave the names of their saints, had, in many instances, been objects of veneration many centuries before; and the cultivation of the country, or the decay from lapse of time, which has almost everywhere swept away the antique religious grove, has for the most part spared the holy well. In the centre 3 Tacitus, An. xiv. 30. 4 Lucan, Pharsalia, i. 462; Rowe's translation. of the circle of upright stones is sometimes found what is still called a cromlech, a flat stone supported in a horizontal position upon others set MADEON HOLY WELL, Cornwall.-J. S. Prout, from his drawing on the spot. perpendicularly in the earth, being apparently the altar on which the sacrifices were offered up, and on which the sacred fire was kept burning. Near to the temple frequently rises a carnedd, or sacred mount, from which it is conjectured the priests were wont to address the people. The most remarkable of the Druidical superstitions connected with the oak, was the reverence paid to the parasitical plant called the misletoe, when it was found growing on that tree. Pliny has given us an account of the ceremony of gathering this plant, which, like all the other sacred solemnities of the Druids, was performed on the sixth day of the moon, probably because the planet has usually at that age become distinctly visible. It is thought that the festival of gathering the misletoe was kept always as near to the 10th of March, which was their New Year's Day, as this rule would permit. Having told us that the Druids believed that God loved the oak above all the other trees, and that everything growing upon that tree came from heaven, he adds, that there is nothing they held more sacred than the misletoe of the oak. Whenever the plant was found on that tree, which it very rarely was, a procession was made to it on the sacred day, with great form and pomp. First, two white bulls were bound to the oak by their horns; and then a Druid clothed in white mounted the tree, and with a knife of gold cut the misletoe, which another, standing on the ground, held out his white robe to receive. The sacrifice of the victims and festive rejoicings followed. The sacredness of the misletoe is said to have been also a part of the ancient religious creed of the Persians, and 1 An ancient baptistery, one mile north of Madron church, Cornwall. It was partially destroyed by Major Ceely, one of Cromwell's officers. The altar, pierced with a hole to receive the foot of the cross or an image of the saint, is still entire VOL. I. not to be yet forgotten in India; and it is one of the Druidical superstitions, of which traces still survive among our popular customs. Virgil, a diligent student of the poetry of old religions, has been thought to intend an allusion to it by the golden branch which Æneas had to pluck to be his passport to the infernal regions. Indeed, the poet expressly likens the branch to the misletoe. Quale solet silvis brumali frigore viscuin Fronde virere nova, quod non sua seminat arbus, -En. vi. 209. As in the woods, beneath mid-winter's snow, The entire body of the Druidical priesthood appears to have been divided into several orders or classes; but there is some uncertainty and difference of opinion as to the characters and MISLETOE PLANT,2 and Golden Hook offices of each. Strabo and Ammianus Marcellinus are the ancient authorities upon this head; and they both make the orders to have been three-the Druids, the Vates, and the Bards. It is agreed that the Bards were poets and musicians. Marcellinus says that they sung the brave deeds of illustrious men, composed in heroic verses, with sweet modulations of the lyre; and Diodorus Siculus 2 The misletoe, Viscum album, is a common parasite of appletrees and others, but the sacred misletoe of the Druids, growing on an oak, is rare. The golden hook is from Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire. 7 also mentions them in nearly the same terms. The Vates, according to Strabo, were priests and physiologists; but Marcellinus seems to assign to DRUIDS, from a bas-relief found at Autun.-From Montfaux. them only the latter office, saying that they inquired into nature, and endeavoured to discover NIMBUS OF GOLD, presumed to have been worn on the heau by Druids.-From Vallancey, Collect. de Reb. Hibernicis. the order of her processes, and her sublimest secrets. The Druids Strabo speaks of as combining the study of physiology with that of moral science; Marcellinus describes them as persons of a loftier genius than the others, who addressed themselves to the most occult and profound inquiries, and rising in their contemplations above this human scene, declared the spirits of men to be immortal. A remarkable fact mentioned by The figure crowned with a coronal of oak leaves (without which, or some such symbol, no act of their mysteries could be performed), and bearing a sceptre, is conjectured to represent an arch-Druid. The other figure holds in his hand a crescent, equivalent to the form of the moon on the sixth day of the month, which was the period ordained for the ceremony of cutting the misletoe. 2 Strabo, iv.; Ammian. Marcell. xv. 9; Diod. Sic. v. 31; Toland's Hist. of the Druids, pp. 24-29; Rowland's Mona Antigua, Marcellinus is that the Druids, properly so called, lived together in communities or brotherhoods. This, however, cannot have been the case with 10 DRUIDICAL INSIGNIA of gold, found in Ireland.-From the Archæologia. all the members of the order; for we have reason to believe that the Druids frequently reckoned among their number some of the sovereigns of the Celtic states, whose civil duties, of course, would not permit them to indulge in this monastic life. Divitiacus, the Eduan prince, who performed so remarkable a part, as related by Cæsar, in the drama of the subjugation of his country by the Roman arms, is stated by Cicero to have been a Druid. Strabo records it to have been a notion ඒ LIUTH MESSEATH, or Plate of Judgment, found in Ireland. From the Archæologia. among the Gauls, that the more Druids they had among them, the more plentiful would be their harvests, and the greater their abundance of all good things; and we may therefore suppose that the numbers of the Druids were very considerable. Toland, who, in what he calls his Specimen of the Critical History of the Celtic Religion and Learning, has collected many curious facts, has given us the following account of the dress of the p. 65; Borlase's Cornwall, p. 67; Macpherson's Dissertations, p. 203; Bouche's Histoire de Provence, i. 68; Fosbroke's Encyclopædia of Antiquities, ii. 662. 3 The Liuth Messeath is understood to have been worn upon the girdle of the Druid, and it bears a remarkable resemblance to the breastplate worn by the Jewish high-priest. This relic is composed of pure silver; in the centre is a large crystal, and smaller stones are inserted around it. Druids. Every Druid, he informs us, carried a wand or staff, such as magicians in all countries have done, and had what was called a Druids' seem to have acquired the knowledge of it from that island; and Ælian tells us that the Druids of Gaul were liberally paid by those who consulted them for their revelations of the future, and the good fortune they promised. Among their chief methods of divination was that from the entrails of victims offered in sacrifice. One of their practices was remarkable for its strange and horrid cruelty, if we may believe the account of Diodorus Siculus. In sacrificing a man they would give him the mortal blow by the stroke of a sword above the diaphragm, and then, according to rules which had descended to them from their forefathers, they would draw their predictions from inspection of the posture in which the dying wretch fell, the convulsions of his quivering limbs, and the direction in which the blood flowed from his body. There is reason to believe that the Druids, like other ancient teachers of religion and philosophy, had an esoteric or secret doctrine, in which the members of the order were instructed, of a more DRUID COLLAR OR GORGET of gold,' found in Ireland. From the refined and spiritual character than that which Archæologia. egg (to which we shall advert presently) hung about his neck, inclosed in gold. All the Druids wore the hair of their heads short, and their beards long; while other people wore the hair of their heads long, and shaved all their beards, with the exception of the upper lip. "They likewise," he continues, "all wore long habits, as did the Bards and the Vaids (the Vates); but the Druids had on a white surplice whenever they religiously officiated. In Ireland they, with the graduate Bards and Vaids, had the privilege of wearing six colours in their breacans or robes (which were the striped bracce of the Gauls, still worn by the Highlanders); whereas the king and queen might have in theirs but seven, lords and ladies five, governors of fortresses four, officers and young gentlemen of quality three, common soldiers two, and common people one." These particulars appear to have been collected from the Irish traditions or Bardic manuscripts. The art of divination was one of the favourite pretensions of the Druidical, as it has been of most other systems of superstition. The British Druids, indeed, appear to have professed the practice of magic in this and all its other departments. Pliny observes that in his day this supernatural art was cultivated with such astonishing ceremonies in Britain, that the Persians themselves might This article, called also Jodhan Morain, is supposed to have been worn on the neck of the judge when on the bench, and it was believed it would choke him if he gave unjust judgment. Some authorities say that it was called Morain from a great judge of that name, who formerly flourished in Ireland. "My surprise," says Governor Pownall (Early Irish Antiquities, Archeologia, vol. vii.), "was great when I found in Buxtorf, that Jodhan Morain was the Chaldee name for Urim and Thummim. Not satisfied they preached to the multitude. Diogenes Laertius acquaints us that the substance of their system of faith and practice was comprised in three precepts, namely, to worship the gods, to do no evil, and to behave courageously. They were reported, however, he says, to teach their philosophy in enigmatic apophthegms. Mela also expresses himself as if he intended us to understand that the greater part of their theology was reserved for the initiated. One doctrine, he says, that of the immortality of the soul, they published, in order that the people might be thereby animated to bravery in war; and he tells us that, in consequence of their belief in this doctrine, they were accustomed, when they buried their dead, to burn and inter along with them things useful for the living a statement which is confirmed by the common contents of the barrows or graves of the ancient Britons. He adds a still better evidence of the strength of their faith. They were wont, it seems, to put off the settlement of accounts and the exaction of debts (?) till they should meet again in the shades below. It also sometimes happened, that persons not wishing to be parted from their friends who had died, would throw themselves into the funeral piles of the objects of their attachment, with the view of thus accompanying them to their new scene of life. In this belief, also, the ancient Britons, with Buxtorf, I wrote to the learned Rabbi Heideck, now in London; his answer was satisfactory, and contained a dozen quotations from various Talmud commentators. In short, my friend the Rabbi will have it, that none but Jews or Chaldees could have brought the name and the thing to Ireland. . . . . . The measurement of this relic was nearly 11 in. at the caps or circles, by much the same in depth; and the weight was exactly 20 guineas." when they buried their dead, were wont to address | which are still continued by the Roman Catholics letters to their deceased friends and relations, of Ireland, making them in all their grounds, and which they threw into the funeral pile, as if the persons to whom they were addressed would in this way receive and read them. It has been conjectured that the fundamental principle of the Druidical esoteric doctrine was the belief in one God. For popular effect, however, this opinion, if it ever was really held, even by the initiated, appears to have been from the first wrapped up and disguised in an investment of materialism, as it was presented by them to the gross apprehension of the vulgar. The simplest, purest, and most ancient form of the public religion of the Druids seems to have been the worship of the celestial luminaries and of fire. The sun appears to have been adored under the same name of Bel or Baal, by which he was distinguished as a divinity in the paganism of the East. We have already had occasion to notice their observance of the moon in the regulation of the times of their great religious festivals. These appear to have been four in number: the first was the 10th PLAN OF Druidical Circle at AVEBURY.2-From Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire. of March, or the sixth day of the moon nearest to that, which, as already mentioned, was their New-year's Day, and that on which the ceremony of cutting the misletoe was performed; the others were the 1st of May, Midsummer Eve, and the last day of October. On all these occasions the chief celebration was by fire. On the eve of the festival of the 1st of May, the tradition is that all the domestic fires throughout the country were extinguished, and lighted again the next day from the sacred fire kept always burning in the temples. "The Celtic nations," observes Toland, "kindled other fires on Midsummer Eve, 1 The author of Britannia after the Romans, however, denies that the Celtic Beli or Belinus has any connection with the Oriental Baal or Bel. 2 This plan is taken from Stukeley's survey in the year 1724. Since that time this vast monument has become nearly obliterated, through the pillage of the stones for a variety of unworthy purposes. The site of the temple is a platform, bounded on the east by undulating hills, and within a short distance of the source of the Kennet, a tributary to the Thames. "This," Stukeley remarks, "might have been regarded as the grand national cathedral, while the smaller circles in different parts of the island might be compared to the parish or village churches." Numbers of detached stones, called grey weathers, lie in the neighbouring parts, and from this source the materials of the temple appear to have been selected. The number of these masses employed in the construction of the temple amounted to 650 stones. dimensions of these stones vary from 5 ft. to 20 ft. in elevation above the surface of the ground, and from 3 ft. to 12 ft. in bulk. One hundred vertical stones surrounded in a circle an area of about 1400 ft. in diameter, and bounding these stones, the work was completed by a deep ditch and a high bank, having two openings corresponding with the original avenues, although other two The carrying flaming brands about their corn-fields. This they do likewise all over France, and in some of the Scottish isles. These Midsummer fires and sacrifices were to obtain a blessing on the fruits of the earth, now becoming ready for gathering; as those of the 1st of May, that they might prosperously-grow; and those of the last of October were the thanksgiving for finishing their harvest." In Ireland, and also in the north of Scotland, the 1st of May, and in some places the 21st of June, is still called Beltein or Beltane, that is, the day of Bel Fire; and imitations of the old superstitiopenings have subsequently been broken in the mound. The inner slope of the mound measured 80 ft., and its whole extent and circumference at the top, according to Sir R. Colt Hoare, 4442 ft. The area within the mound is upward of 28 acres. About midway upon the inner slope was a terrace, apparently meant as a stand for spectators. Within the periphery of the great circle were two other small circles, one being a double circle of upright stones, with a single stone raised near the centre, which Stukeley calls the ambire or obelisk; this small temple consisted of forty-three stones. Another circle of forty-five stones, some of which are still standing, and of great size, stood a little north of the former, consisting also of two concentric circles, inclosing a group of three tall stones, called the cove. These composed the triple circle or temple. This work was distinguished from other similar monuments, by avenues of approach, consisting of double rows of upright stones, which branched off from the central work, each to the extent of upwards of a mile. One of these branched southward, turning near its extremity to the south east, where it terminated in two elliptical ranges of upright stones. This avenue was formed by 200 upright stones, being finished at its eastern extremity with fifty-eight stones. The width of the avenue varied from 56 ft. to 35 ft. between the |