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I.
ORIGIN.
ALTHOUGH the term Druid is
local, their religion was of deep root, and a distant origin. It was of
equal antiquity with those of the Persian Magi, the Chaldees of Assyria,
and the Brachmans of Hindostan.
It resembled them so
closely in its sublime precepts, in its consoling promises, as to leave no
doubt that these nations, living so widely apart, were all of the same
stock and the same religion-that of Noah, and the children of men before
the flood.
They worshipped but one
God, and erected to him altars of earth, or unhewn stone, and prayed to
him in the open air; and believed in a heaven, in a hell, and in the
immortality of the soul.
It is strange that these
offsprings of the patriarchs should also be corrupted from the same
sources, and should thus still preserve a resemblance to one another in
the minor tenets of their polluted creeds.
Those pupils of the
Egyptian priests, the Phœnicians, or Canaanites, who had taught the
Israelites to sacrifice human beings, and to pass their children through
the fire to Moloch, infused the same bloodthirsty precepts among the
Druids. As the Indian wife was burnt upon her husband's pyre, so, on the
corpses of the Celtic lords, were consumed their children, their slaves,
and their horses.
And, like the other nations
of antiquity, as I shall presently prove, the Druids worshipped the
heavenly bodies, and also trees, and water, and mountains, and the signs
of the serpent, the bull and the cross.
The doctrine of the
transmigration of souls which formed a leading theory on the system of the
Brachmans, of the Druids, and afterwards of the Pythagoreans was obtained,
through the Phœnicians, from Egypt, the fatherland of heathen mythology.
It cannot be denied that
they also honored inferior deities, to whom they gave the names of Hu and
Ceridwen, Hesus Taranis, Belenus, Ogmius, and the attributes of Osiris and
Isis (or Zeus and Venus) Bacchus, Mercury, Apollo, and Hercules. From the
sandy plains of Egypt to the icebergs of Scandinavia, the whole world has
rung with the exploits of Hercules, that invincible god, who but appeared
in the world to deliver mankind from monsters and from tyrants.
He was really a Phoenician
harokel, or merchant, an enterprising mariner, and the discoverer of the
tin mines of the Cassiterides. He it was who first sailed through the
Straits of Gibraltar, which, to this day, are called The Pillars of
Hercules: who built the first ship: who discovered the mariner's compass,
and the loadstone, or lapes Heractius.
It is gratifying to learn
that his twelve labors were, in reality, twelve useful discoveries, and
that he had not been deified for killing a wild beast and cleaning out
stables.
As the Chaldeans, who were
astronomers, made Hercules an astronomer; and as the Greeks and Romans,
who were warriors, made him a hero of battles; so the Druids, who were
orators, named him Ogmius, or the Power of Eloquence, and represented him
as an old man followed by a multitude, whom he led by slender and almost
invisible golden chains fastened from his lips to their ears.
As far as we can learn,
however, the Druids paid honors, rather than adoration to their deities,
as the Jews revered their arch-angels, but reserved their worship for
Jehovah.
And, like the God of the
Jews, of the Chaldees, of the Hindoos, and of the Christians, this Deity
of the Druids had three attributes within himself, and each attribute was
a god.
Let those learn who cavil
at the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity, that it was not invented by the
Christians, but only by them restored from times of the holiest antiquity
into which it had descended from heaven itself. Although the Druids
performed idolatrous ceremonies to the stars, to the elements, to hills,
and to trees, there is a maxim still preserved among the Welsh
mountaineers, which shows that in Britain the Supreme Being was never so
thoroughly forgotten and degraded as he had been in those lands to which
he first gave life.
It is one of those sublime
expressions which can be but faintly rendered in a foreign language.
"Nid dim oxd duw: nid duw
ond dim." God cannot be matter; what is not matter must be God."
V.
POWER.
THIS priesthood flourished
in Gaul and in Britain, and in the islands which encircled them.
In whichever country they
may first have struck root we at least know that the British Druids were
the most famous, and that it was a custom in the time of Julius Cæsar for
the Gallic students to cross the British channel to study in the
seminaries of the sister island.
But by that time, Druidism
had begun to wane in Gaul, and to be deprived of many of its privileges by
the growing intelligence of the secular power. It is generally
acknowledged that there were no Druids in Germany, though Keysler has
stoutly contested this belief and has cited an ancient tradition to the
effect that they had Druidic colleges in the days of Hermio, a German
Prince.
The learned SeIden relates
that some centuries ago in a monastery upon the borders of Vaitland, in
Germany, were found six old statues which being exposed to view, Conradus
Celtes, who was present, was of opinion that they were figures of ancient
Druids. They were seven feet in height, bare-footed, their heads covered
with a Greek hood, a scrip by their sides and a beard descending from
their nostrils plaited out in two divisions to the middle; in their hands
a book and a Diogenes staff five feet in length; their features stern and
morose; their eyes lowered to the ground.
Such evidence is mere food
for conjecture. Of the ancient German priests we only know that they
resembled the Druids, and the medicine-men of the American aborigines in
being doctors as well as priests.
The Druids possessed
remarkable powers and immunities. Like the Levites, the Hebrews, and the
Egyptian priests they were exempted from taxes and from military service.
They also annually elected the magistrates of cities: they educated all
children of whatever station, not permitting their parents to receive them
till they were fourteen years of age. Thus the Druids were regarded as the
real fathers of the people.
The Persian Magi were
entrusted with the education of their sovereign; but in Britain the kings
were not only brought up by the Druids, but also relieved. by them of all
but the odium and ceremonies of sovereignty.
These terrible priests
formed the councils of the state, and declared peace or war as they
pleased. The poor slave whom they seated on a throne, and whom they
permitted to wear robes more gorgeous even than their own was surrounded,
not by his noblemen, but by Druids. He was a prisoner in his court, and
his jailors were inexorable, for they were priests.
There was a Chief Druid to
advise him, a bard to sing to him, a sennechai, or chronicler, to register
his action in the Greek character, and a physician to attend to his
health, and to cure or kill him as the state required. All the priests in
Britain and all the physicians, all the judges and all the learned men,
all the pleaders in courts of law and all the musicians belonged to the
order of the Druids. It can easily be conceived then that their power was
not only vast but absolute.
It may naturally excite
surprise that a nation should remain so barbarous and illiterate as the
Britons undoubtedly were, when ruled by an order of men so polished and so
learned.
But these wise men of the
West were no less learned in human hearts than in the triplet verses, and
oral of their. fathers. They imbibed with eagerness the heathen rites of
the Phœnician Cabiri, and studied to involve their doctrines and their
ceremonies in the deepest mystery. They knew that it is almost impossible
to bring women and the vulgar herd of mankind to piety and virtue by the
unadorned dictates of reason. They knew the admiration which uneducated
minds have always for those things which they cannot understand. They knew
that to retain their own sway they must preserve these barren minds in
their abject ignorance and superstition.
In all things, therefore,
they endeavored to draw a line between themselves and the mass. In their
habits, in their demeanor, in their very dress. They wore long robes which
descended to the heel, while that of others came only to the knee; their
hair was short and their beards long, while the Britons wore but
moustaches on their upper lips, and their hair generally long. Instead of
sandals they wore wooden shoes of a pentagonal shape, and carried in their
hands a white wand called slatan drui' eachd, or magic wand, and certain
mystical ornaments around their necks and upon their breasts. It was
seldom that anyone was found hardy enough to rebel against their power.
For such was reserve a terrible punishment. It was called Excommunication.
Originating among the
Hebrews, and descending from the Druids into the Roman Catholic Church. It
was one of the most horrible that it is possible to conceive. At the dead
of night, the unhappy culprit was seized and dragged before a solemn
tribunal, while torches, painted black, gave a ghastly light, and a low
hymn, like a solemn murmur, was chanted as he approached. Clad in a white
robe, the Arch-Druid would rise, and before the assembly of brother-Druids
and awestricken warriors would pronounce a curse, frightful as a death
warrant, upon the trembling sinner. Then they would strip his feet, and he
must walk with them bare for the remainder of his days; and would clothe
him in black and mournful garments, which he must never change.
Then the poor wretch would
wander through the woods, feeding on berries and the roots of trees,
shunned by all as if he had been tainted by the plague, and looking to
death as a salvation from such cruel miseries. And when he died, none
dared to weep for him; they buried him only that they might trample on his
grave. Even after death, so sang the sacred bards, his torments were not
ended; he was borne to those regions of eternal darkness, frost, and snow,
which, infested with lions, wolves, and serpents, formed the Celtic hell,
or Ifurin.
These Druids were despots;
and yea they must have exercised their power wisely and temperately to
have retained so long their dominion over a rude and warlike race.
There can be little doubt
that their revenues were considerable, though we have no direct means of
ascertaining this as a fact. However, we know that it was customary for a
victorious army to offer up the chief of its spoils to the gods; that
those who consulted the oracles did not attend them empty-handed, and that
the sale of charms and medicinal herbs was a constant trade among them.
Although all comprehended under the one term DRUID, there were, in
reality, three distinct sects comprised within the order.
First, the Druids or
Derwydd, properly so called. These were the sublime and intellectual
philosophers who directed the machineries of the state and the priesthood,
and presided over the dark mysteries of the consecrated groves. Their name
was derived from derw (pronounced derroo) Celtic for oak, and ydd, a
common termination of nouns in that language, equivalent to the or or er
in governor, reader, &c., in ours.
The Bards or Bardd from
Bar, a branch, or, the top. It was their province to sing the praises of
horses in the warrior's feasts, to chant the sacred hymns like the
musician's among the Levites, and to register genealogies and historical
events.
The Ovades or Ovydd,
(derived from ov, raw, pure, and ydd, above explained) were the
noviciates, who, under the supervision of the Druids, studied the
properties of nature, and offered up the sacrifices upon the altar. Thus
it appears that Derwydd, Bardd, and Ovydd, were emblematical names of the
three orders of Druidism.
The Derwydd was the trunk
and support of the whole; the Bardd the ramification from that trunk
arranged in beautiful foliage; and the Ovydd was the young shoot, which,
growing up, ensured a prospect of permanency to the sacred grove. The
whole body was ruled by an Arch-Druid elected by lot from those senior
brethren who were the most learned and the best born.
At Llamdan in Anglesea,
there are still vestiges of Trér Dryw the Arch-Druid's mansion, Boadrudau
the abode of the inferior ones, Bod-owyr the abode of the ovades, and
Trér-Beirdd the hamlet of the bards.
Let us now consider these
orders under their respective denominations-Derwydd, Bardd, Ovyd; and
under their separate vocations, as philosophers musicians, and priests.
VI.
THE DERWYDD, OR PHILOSOPHERS.
DRUIDISM was a religion of
philosophy; its high-priests were men of learning and science.
Under the head of the
Ovydd, I shall describe their initiatory and sacrificial rites, and shall
now merely consider their acquirements, as instructors, as mathematicians,
as law-givers and as physicians.
Ammianus Marcellinus
informs us that the Druids dwelt together in fraternities, and indeed it
is scarcely possible that they could have lectured in almost every kind of
philosophy and preserved their arcana from the vulgar, unless they had
been accustomed to live in some kind of convent or college.
They were too wise,
however, to immure themselves wholly in one corner of the land, where they
would have exercised no more influence upon the nation than the Heads and
Fellows of our present universities. While some lived the lives of hermits
in caves and in hollow oaks within the dark recesses of the holy forests;
while others lived peaceably in their college-home, teaching the bardic
verses to children, to the young nobles, and to the students who came to
them from a strange country across the sea, there were others who led an
active and turbulent existence at court in the councils of the state and
in the halls of nobles.
In Gaul, the chief
seminaries of the Druids was in the country of the Carnutes between
Chartres and Dreux, to which at one time scholars resorted in such numbers
that they were obliged to build other academies in various parts of the
land, vestiges of which exist to this day, and of which the ancient
College of Guienne is said to be one.
When their power began to
totter in their own country, the young Druids resorted to Mona, now
Anglesea, in which was the great British university, and in which there is
a spot called Myrfyrion, the seat of studies.
The Druidic precepts were
all in verses, which amounted to 20,000 in number, and which it was
forbidden to write. Consequently a long course of preparatory study was
required, and some spent so much as twenty years in a state of probation.
These verses were in rhyme, which the Druids invented to assist the
memory, and in a triplet form from the veneration which was paid to the
number three by all the nations of antiquity.
In this the Jews resembled
the Druids, for although they had received the written law of Moses, there
was a certain code of precept among them which was taught by mouth alone,
and in which those who were the most learned were elevated to the Rabbi.
The mode of teaching by
memory was also practised by the Egyptians and by Lycurgus, who esteemed
it better to imprint his laws on the minds of the Spartan citizens than to
engrave them upon tablets. So, too, were Numa's sacred writing buried with
him by his orders, in compliance perhaps with the opinions of his friend
Pythagoras who, as well as Socrates, left nothing behind him committed to
writing.
It was Socrates, in fact,
who compared written doctrines to pictures of animals which resemble life,
but which when you question them can give you no reply. But we who love
the past have to lament this system. When Cambyses destroyed the temples
of Egypt, when the disciples of Pythagoras died in the Meta-pontine
tumults, all their mysteries and all their learning died with them. So
also the secrets of the Magi, the Orpheans and the Cabiri perished with
their institutions, and it is owing to this law of the Druids that we have
only the meagre evidence of ancient authors and the obscure emblems of the
Welsh Bards, and the faint vestiges of their mighty monuments to teach us
concerning the powers and direction of their philosophy.
There can be no doubt that
they were profoundly learned. For ordinary purposes of writing, and in the
keeping of their accounts on the Alexandrian method, they used the ancient
Greek character of which Cadmus, a Phœnician, and Timagines, a Druid, were
said to have been the inventors and to have imported into Greece. This is
a fac-simile of their alphabet as preserved in the Thesaurus Muratori.
Vol IV. 2093.
Both in the universities of
the Hebrews, which existed from the earliest times, and in those of the
Brachmans it was not permitted to study philosophy and the sciences,
except so far as they might assist the student in the perusal and
comprehension of the sacred writings. But a more liberal system existed
among the Druids, who were skilled in all the arts and in foreign
languages.
For instance, there was
Abaris, a Druid and a native of the Shetland Isles who traveled into
Greece, where he formed a friendship with Pythagoras and where his
learning, his politeness, his shrewdness, and expedition in business, and
above all, the ease and elegance with which he spoke the Athenian tongue,
and which (so said the orator Himerius) would have made one believe that
he had been brought up in the academy or the Lycceum, created for him as
great a sensation as that which was afterwards made by the admirable
Crichton among the learned doctors of Paris.
It can easily be proved
that the science of astronomy was not unknown to the Druids. One of their
temples in the island of Lewis in the Hebrides, bears evident signs of
their skill in the science. Every stone in the temple is placed
astronomically. The circle consists of twelve equistant obelisks denoting
the twelve signs of the zodiac. The four cardinal points of the compass
are marked by lines of obelisks running out from the circle, and at each
point subdivided into four more. The range of obelisks from north, and
exactly facing the south is double, being two parallel rows each
consisting of nineteen stones. A large stone in the centre of the circle,
thirteen feet high, and of the perfect shape of a ship's rudder would seem
as a symbol of their knowledge of astronomy being made subservient to
navigation, and the Celtic word for star, ruth-iul,
"a-guide-to-direct-the-course," proves such to have been the case. This is
supposed to have been the winged temple which Erastosthenes says that
Apollo had among the Hyperboreans--a name which the Greeks applied to all
nations dwelling north of the Pillars of Hercules.
But what is still more
extraordinary, Hecateus makes mention that the inhabitants of a certain
Hyperborian island, little less than Sicily, and over against
Celtiberia--a description answering exactly to that of Britain--could
bring the moon so near them as to show the mountains and rocks, and other
appearances upon its surface.
According to Strabo and
Bochart, glass was a discovery of the Phoenicians and a staple commodity
of their trade, but we have some ground for believing that our
philosophers bestowed rather than borrowed this invention. Pieces of glass
and crystal have been found in the cairns, as if in honor to those who
invented it; the process of vitrifying the very walls of their houses,
which is still to be seen in the Highlands prove that they possessed the
art in the gross; and the Gaelic name for glass is not of foreign but of
Celtic extraction, being glasine and derived from glas-theine, glued or
brightened by fire.
We have many wonderful
proofs of the skill in mechanics. The clacha-brath, or rocking-stones,
were spherical stones of an enormous size, and were raised upon other flat
stones into which they inserted a small prominence fitting the cavity so
exactly, and so concealed by loose stones lying around it, that nobody
could discern the artifice. Thus these globes were balanced so that the
slightest touch would make them vibrate, while anything of greater weight
pressing against the side of the cavity rendered them immovable.
In Iona, the last asylum of
the Caledonian Druids, many of these clacha-brath (one of which is
mentioned in Ptolemy Hephestion's History, Lib. iii. cap 3.) were to be
found at the beginning of this century, and although the superstitious
natives defaced them and turned them over into the sea, they considered it
necessary to have something of the kind in their stead, and have
substituted for them rough stone balls which they call by the same name.
In Stonehenge, too, we find an example of that oriental mechanism which is
displayed so stupendously in the pyramids of Egypt. Here stones of thirty
or forty tons that must have been a draught for a herd of oxen, have been
carried the distance of sixteen computed miles and raised to a vast
height, and placed in their beds with such ease that their very mortises
were made to tally. The temples of Abury in Wiltshire, and of Carnac in
Brittany, though less perfect, are even more prodigious monuments of
art.
It is scarcely to be
wondered at that the Druids should be acquainted with the properties of
gunpowder, since we know that it was used in the mysteries of Isis, in the
temple of Delphi, and by the old Chinese philosophers. Lucan in his
description of a grove near Marseilles, writes:--"There is a report that
the grove is often shaken and strangely moved, and that dreadful sounds
are heard from its caverns; and that it is sometimes in a blaze without
being consumed."
In Ossian's poem of Dargo
the son of the Druid of Bet, similar phenomenon are mentioned, and while
the Celtic word lightning is De'lanach, "the flash or flame of God," they
had another word which expresses a flash that is quick and sudden as
lightning--Druilanach, "the flame of the Druids."
It would have been
fortunate for mankind had the monks of the middle ages displayed the
wisdom of these ancient priests in concealing from fools and madmen so
dangerous an art. All such knowledge was carefully retained within the
holy circle of their dark caves and forests and which the initiated were
bound by a solemn oath never to reveal.
I will now consider the
Druids of active life-the preachers, the law-givers, and the physicians.
On the seventh day, like
the first patriarchs, they preached to the warriors and their wives from
small round eminences, several of which yet remain in different parts of
Britain.
Their doctrines were
delivered with a surpassing eloquence and in triplet verses, many
specimens which are to be found in the Welsh poetry but of which these two
only have been preserved by the classical authors. The first in Pomponius
Mela.
"Ut forent ad bella
meliores,
Æternas esse animas,
Vitamque alteram ad manes."
"To act bravely in war,
That souls are immortal,
And there is another life after death."
The second in Diogenes
Laertius.
"To worship the Gods,
And to do no evil,
And to exercise fortitude."
Once every year a public
assembly of the nation was held in Mona at the residence of the
Arch-Druid, and there silence was no less rigidly imposed than in the
councils of the Rabbi and the Brachmans. If any one interrupted the
orator, a large piece of his robe was cut off--if after that he offended,
he was punished with death. To enforce Punctuality, like the Cigonii of
Pliny, they had the cruel custom of cutting to pieces the one who came
last. Their laws, like their religious precepts, were at first esteemed
too sacred to be committed to writing-the first written laws being those
of Dyrnwal Moelmud, King of Britain, about 440 B. c. and called the
Moelmutian laws; for these were substituted the Mercian code or the laws
of Martia, Queen of England, which was afterwards adopted by King Alfred
and translated by him into Saxon.
The Manksmen also ascribe
to the Druids those excellent laws by which the Isle of Man has always
been governed. The Magistrates of Britain were but tools of the Druids,
appointed by them and educated by them also; for it was a law in Britain
that no one might hold office who had not been educated by the Druids.
The Druids held annual
assizes in different parts of Britain (for instance at the monument called
Long Meg and her Daughters in Cumberland and at the Valley of Stones in
Cornwall) as Samuel visited Bethel and Gilgal once a year to dispense
justice. There they heard appeals from the minor courts, and investigated
the more intricate cases, which sometimes they were obliged to settle by
ordeal. The rocking-stones which I have just described, and the walking
barefoot through a fire which they lighted on the summit of some holy hill
and called Samb'in, or the fire of peace, were their two chief methods of
testing the innocence of the criminal, and in which they were imitated by
the less ingenious and perhaps less conscientious judges of later days.
For previous to the ordeal
which they named Gabha Bheil, or "the trial of Beil," the Druids used
every endeavor to discover the real merits of the case, in order that they
might decide upon the verdict of Heaven--that is to say, which side of the
stone they should press, or whether they should anoint his feet with that
oil which the Hindoo priests use in their religious festivals, and which
enables the barefoot to pass over the burning wood unscathed.
We may smile at another
profanity of the Druids who constituted themselves judges not only of the
body but of the soul. But as Mohammed inspired his soldiers with sublime
courage by promising Paradise to those who found a death-bed upon the
corpses of their foes, so the very superstitions, the very frauds of these
noble Druids tended to elevate the hearts of men towards their God, and to
make them lead virtuous lives that they might merit the sweet fields of
Fla'innis, the heaven of their tribe.
Never before since the
world, has such vast power as the Druids possessed been wielded with such
purity, such temperance, such discretion. When a man died a platter of
earth and salt was placed upon his breast, as is still the custom in Wales
and in the North of Britain. The earth an emblem of incorruptibility of
the body--the salt an emblem of the incorruptibility of the soul.
A kind of court was then
assembled round the corpse, and by the evidence of those with whom he had
been best acquainted, it was decided with what funeral rites he should be
honored. If he had distinguished himself as a warrior, or as man of
science, it was recorded in the death-song; a cairn or pile of sacred
stones was raised over him, and his arms and tools or other symbols of his
profession were buried with him. If his life had been honorable, and if he
had obeyed the three grand articles of religion, the bard sang his requiem
on the harp, whose beautiful music alone was a pass-port to heaven.
It is a charming idea, is
it not? The soul lingering for the first strain which might release it
from the cold corpse, and mingle with its silent ascent to God. Read how
the heroes of Ossian longed for this funereal hymn without which their
souls, pale and sad as those which haunted the banks of the Styx, were
doomed to wander through the mists of some dreary fen. When this hymn had
been sung, the friends and relatives of the deceased made great
rejoicings, and this it was that originated those sombre merry-makings so
peculiar to the Scotch and Irish funerals.
In the philosophy of
medicine, the Derwydd were no less skilled than in sciences and letters.
They knew that by means of this divine art they would possess the hearts
as well as the minds of men, and obtain not only the awe of the ignorant
but also the love of those whose lives they had preserved. Their sovereign
remedy was the missoldine or mistletoe of the oak which, in Wales, still
bears its ancient name of Oll-iach, or all-heal, with those of Pren-awr,
the celestial tree, and Uchelwydd, the lofty shrub.
When the winter has come
and the giant of the forest is deserted by its leaves and extends its
withered arms to the sky, a divine hand sheds upon it from heaven a
mysterious seed, and a delicate green plant sprouts from the bark, and
thus is born while all around is dying and decayed. We need not wonder
that the mistletoe should be revered as a heaven-born plant, and as a type
of God's promise and consolation to those who were fainting on death's
threshold in the winter of old age.
When the new year
approached, the Druids beset themselves to discover this plant upon an
oak, on which tree it grows less frequently than upon the ash-crab or
apple tree. Having succeeded, and as soon as the moon was six days old,
they marched by night with great solemnity towards the spot, inviting all
to join their procession with these words: The New Year is at hand: let us
gather the mistletoe.
First marched the Ovades in
their green sacrificial robes leading two milk-white bullocks. Next came
the bards singing the praises of the Mighty Essence, in raiment blue as
the heavens to which their hymn ascended. Then a herald clothed in white
with two wings drooping down on each side of his head, and a branch of
vervain in his hand encircled by two serpents. He was followed by three
Derwydd--one of whom carried the sacrificial bread--another a vase of
water-and the third a white wand. Lastly, the Arch-Druid, distinguished by
the tuft or tassel to his cap, by the bands hanging from his throat, by
the sceptre in his hand and by the golden crescent on his breast,
surrounded by the whole body of the Derwydd and humbly followed by the
noblest warriors of the land. An altar of rough stones was erected under
the oak, and the Arch-Druid, having sacramentally distributed the bread
and wine, would climb the tree, cut the mistletoe with a golden knife,
wrap it in a pure white cloth, slay and sacrifice the bullocks, and pray
to God to remove his curse from barren women, and to permit their
medicines to serve as antidotes for poisons and charms from all
misfortunes.
They used the mistletoe as
an ingredient in almost all their medicines, and a powder was made from
the berries for cases of sterility. It is a strong purgative well suited
to the lusty constitutions of the ancient Britons, but, like bleeding, too
powerful a remedy for modern ailments. With all the herbs which they used
for medicine, there were certain mummeries to be observed while they were
gathered, which however were not without their object-first in enhancing
the faith of the vulgar by exciting their superstitions-and also in case
of failure that the patient might be reproached for blundering instead of
a physician.
The vervain was to be
gathered at the rise of the dog-star, neither sun nor moon shining at the
time; it was to be dug tip with an iron instrument and to be waved aloft
in the air, the left hand only being used. The leaves, stalks and flowers
were dried separately in the shade and were used for the bites of
serpents, infused in wine. The samulos which grew in damp places was to be
gathered by a person fasting-without looking behind him-and with his left
hand. It was laid into troughs and cisterns where cattle drank, and when
bruised was a cure for various distempers.
The selago, a kind of hedge
hyssop, was a charm as well as a medicine. He who gathered it was to be
clothed in white-to bathe his feet in running water-to offer a sacrifice
of bread and wine-and then with his right hand covered by the skirt of his
robe, and with a brazen hook to dig it up by the roots and wrap it in a
white cloth.
Prominent among the
juggleries of the Druids, stands the serpent's egg--the ovus anguinum of
Pliny--the glein neidr of the ancient Britons-the adderstone of modern
folk-lore. It was supposed to have been formed by a multitude of serpents
close entwined together, and by the frothy saliva that proceeded from
their throats. When it was made, it was raised up in the air by their
combined hissing, and to render it efficacious it was to be caught in a
clean white cloth before it could fall to the ground-for in Druidism that
which touched the ground was polluted. He who performed this ingenious
task was obliged to mount a swift horse, and to ride away at full speed
pursued by the serpents from whom he was not safe till he had crossed a
river.
The Druids tested its
virtue by encasing it in gold, and throwing it into a river. If it swam
against the stream it would render it possessor superior to his
adversaries in all disputes, and obtain for him the friendship of great
men. The implicit belief placed in this fable is curiously exemplified by
the fact of a Roman Knight of the Vocontii, while pleading his own cause
in a law suit was discovered with one of these charms in his breast and
was put to death upon the spot.
Their reverence for the
serpent's egg has its origin in their mythology. Like the Phœnicians and
Egyptians, they represented the creation by the figure of an egg coming
out of a serpent's mouth, and it was doubtless the excessive credulity of
the barbarians which tempted them to invent the above fable that they
might obtain high prices for these amulets, many of which have been
discovered in Druidic barrows, and are still to be met with in the
Highlands, where a belief in their power has not yet subsided; for it is
no uncommon thing when a distemper rages among men or beasts, for the
Glass-physician to be sent for from as great a distance as fifty miles.
These eggs are made of some kind of glass or earth glazed over, and are
sometimes blue, green, or white, and sometimes variegated with all these
colors intermixed.
For mental disorders and
some physical complaints they used to prescribe pilgrimages to certain
wells, always situated at a distance from the patient, and the waters of
which were to be drunk and bathed in. With these ablutions, sacred as
those of the Musselmen, were mingled religious ceremonies with a view to
remind them of the presence of that God who alone could relieve them from
their infirmities. After reaching the wells, they bathed thrice-that
mysterious number-and walked three times round the well, deis'iul, in the
same direction as the course of the sun, also turning and bowing from East
to West.
These journeys were
generally performed before harvest, at which time the modern Arabs go
through a series of severe purgings, and when English laborers, twenty
years ago, used systematically to go to the market town to be bled. The
season of the year--the exercise--the mineral in the water-above all the
strong faith of the patients effected so many real cures that in time it
became a custom (still observed in Scotland with the well of Strathfillan
and in many parts of Ireland) for all who were afflicted with any disorder
to perform an annual pilgrimage to these holy wells.
Caithbaid, an Irish
historian, speaks of the Druid Trosdan who discovered an antidote for
poisoned arrows, and there are many instances on record of the medicinal
triumphs of the Druids. They were more anxious to prevent disease than to
cure them, and issued many maxims relating to the care of the body, as
wise as those which appertained to the soul were divine. Of these I will
give you one which should be written in letters of Gold.
Bi gu sugach geanmnaidh
mocher' each.
"Cheerfulness, temperance and early rising.
VII.
THE BARDD, OR MUSICIANS.
AS there were musicians
among the Levites, and priests among the Phœnicians who chanted bare-foot
and in white surplices the sacred hymns, so there were bards among the
Druids. Who were divided into three classes.
I. The Fer-Laoi, or
Hymnists, who sang the essence and immortality of the soul; the works of
nature; the course of the celestial bodies; with the order and harmony of
the spheres.
II. The Senachies who sang
the fabulous histories of their ancestors in rude stanzas, and who with
letters cut from the bark of trees inscribed passing events and became the
historians of their nation. The Fer-Dan who were accustomed to wander
through the country, or to be numbered in the retinues of kings and
nobles, who not only sang enconiums upon the great warriors of the age,
but who wrote satires upon the prevailing vices, worthy of a Juvenal or a
Horace.
I can best give the reader
some idea of the style and power of their conceptions, by quoting some of
their axioms which have descended to us traditionally. They are in the
form of Triads, of which the subjects are, language-fancy and
invention-the design of poetry-the nature of just thinking-rules of
arrangement-method of description--e.g.
The three qualifications of
poetry--endowment of genius, judgment from experience, and happiness of
mind.
The three foundations of
judgment--bold design, frequent practice, and frequent mistakes.
The three foundations of
learning--seeing much, studying much, and suffering much.
The three foundations of
happiness--a suffering with contentment, a hope that it will come, and a
belief that it will be.
The three foundations of
thought--perspicuity, amplitude, and preciseness.
The three canons of
perspicuity--the word that is necessary, the quantity that is necessary,
and the manner that is necessary.
The three canons of
amplitude--appropriate thought, variety of thought and requisite thought.
How full of wisdom and
experience! what sublime ideas in a few brief words! These poets were held
in high honor by the Britons, for among a barbarous people musicians are
angels who bring to them a language from the other world, and who alone
can soften their iron hearts and fill their bold blue eyes with gentle
tears.
There is an old British law
commanding that all should be made freedmen of slaves who were of these
three professions. A scholar learned. in the languages--a bard--or a
smith. When once the smith had entered a smithy, or the scholar had been
polled, or the bard had composed a song, they could never more be deprived
of their freedom.
Their ordinary dress was
brown, but in religious ceremonies they wore ecclesiastical ornaments
called Bardd-gwewll, which was an azure robe with a cowl to it-a costume
afterwards adopted by the lay monks of Bardsey Island (the burial-place of
Myrrddin or Merlin) and was by them called Cyliau Duorn, or black cowls;
it was then borrowed by the Gauls and is still worn by the Capuchin
friars.
Blue which is an emblem of
the high heavens and the beautiful sea had always been a favorite color
with the ancient Britons, and is still used as a toilet paint by the
ladies of Egypt and Tartary. Blue rosettes are the insignia of our
students in the twin universities, and for the old Welsh proverb. Y gwer
las ni chyll mói liu, -True blue keeps its hue," one of our proverbial
expressions may be traced.
The harp, or lyre, invented
by the Celts had four or five strings, or thongs made of an ox's hide, and
was usually played upon with a plectrum made of the jaw-bone of a goat.
But we have reason to believe that it was the instrument invented by Tubal
which formed the model of the Welsh harps.
Although the Greeks (whom
the learned Egyptians nicknamed "children," and who were the most
vain-glorious people upon the earth) claimed the harp as, an invention of
their ancient poets, Juvenal in his third satire acknowledges that both
the Romans and the Greeks received it from the Hebrews. This queen of
instruments is hallowed to our remembrance by many passages in the Bible.
It was from the harp that David before Saul drew such enchanting strains
that the monarch's heart was melted and the dark frown left his brow. It
was on their harps that the poor Jewish captives were desired to play, on
their harps which swayed above them on the branches of the willow trees
while the waters of Babylon sobbed past beneath their feet.
And it was the harp which
St. John beheld in the white hands of the angels as they stood upon the
sea of glass mingled with fire, singing the song of Moses, the servant of
God, and the song of the lamb. The trunks of these harps were polished and
in the shape of a heart; they were embraced between the breast and the
arm; their strings were of glossy hair. In Palestine they were made from
the wood of the Cedars of Lebanon; in Britain of Pren-masarn, or the
sycamore. In their construction, the same mysterious regard was paid to
the number three. Their shape was triangular; their strings were three in
number, and their turning keys had three arms.
In later times the Irish,
who believe that they are descended from David, obtained an European fame
for their skill in the making of this instrument. Dante mentions the
circumstance, and the harp is still a mint-mark upon Irish coin.
The Bards from what we can
learn of them, neither debased their art to calumny nor to adulation, but
were in every way as worthy of our admiration as those profound
philosophers to whom alone they were inferior. We learn that, (unlike the
artists of later times) they were peculiarly temperate, and that in order
to inure themselves to habits of abstinence they would have all kinds of
delicacies spread out as if for a banquet, and upon which having feasted
their eyes for some time they would order to be removed. Also that they
did their utmost to stay those civil wars which were the bane of Britain,
and that often when two fierce armies had stood fronting each other in
array of battle, their swords drawn, their spears pointing to the foe and
waiting but for the signal from their chieftains to begin the conflict,
the Bards had stepped in between and had touched their harps with such
harmony, and so persuaded them with sweet thrilling verses, that suddenly,
on either side soldiers had dropped their arms and forgotten the fierce
resentment which had been raging in their breasts.
VIII.
THE OVADES, OR NOVICIATES.
IN writing of the Derwydd,
or Philosophers, I have written also of the high priests, or magicians for
magnus is but another name for priest, and in the Chinese and various
hieroglyphical languages, the same sign represents a magician and a
priest.
I have now to describe the
lower order of sacrificers who, under the direction of their masters, slew
the victims upon the altar, and poured out the sacramental wine.
The Ovades were usually
dressed in white, while their sacerdotal robes were of green, an ancient
emblem of innocence and youth, still retained in our language, but debased
and vulgarized into slang.
They are generally
represented with chaplets of oak-leaves on their brows, and their eyes
modestly fixed on the ground.
Having been carefully
trained in the Druidic seminaries, their memory being stored with the holy
triads, and with the outward ceremonies of their religion, they were
prepared for initiation into the sublime mysteries of Druidism. During a
period of probation, the Ovade was closely watched; eyes, to him
invisible, were ever upon him, noting his actions and his very looks,
searching into his heart for its motive, and into his soul for its
abilities.
He was then subjected to a
trial so painful to the body, so terrible to the mind, that many lost
their senses for ever, and others crawled back to the daylight pale and
emaciated, as men who had grown old in prison. These initiations took
place in caves, one of which still exists in Denbighshire. We have also
some reason to believe that the catacombs of Egypt and those artificial
excavations which are to be found in many parts of Persia and Hindostan
were constructed for the same purpose.
The Ovade received several
wounds from a man who opposed his entrance with a drawn sword. He was then
led blind-folded through the winding alleys of the cave which was also a
labyrinth. This was intended to represent the toilsome wanderings of the
soul in the mazes of ignorance and vice. Presently the ground would begin
to rock beneath his feet; strange sounds disturbed the midnight silence.
Thunder crashed upon him like the fall of, an avalanche, flashes of green
lightning flickered through the cave displaying to his view hideous
spectres arrayed against the walls.
Then lighted only by these
fearful fires a strange procession marched past him, and a hymn in honor
of the Eternal Truth was solemnly chanted by unseen tongues. Here the
profounder mysteries commenced. He was admitted through the North Gate or
that of Cancer, where he was forced to pass through a fierce fire. Thence
he was hurried to the Southern Gate or that of Capricorn, where he was
plunged into a flood, and from which he was only released when life was at
its last gasp. Then he was beaten with rods for two days, and buried up to
his neck in snow. This was the baptism of fire, of water, and of blood.
Now arrived on the verge of
death, an icy chill seizes his limbs; a cold dew bathes his brow, his
faculties fail him; his eyes close; he is about to faint, to expire, when
a strain of music, sweet as the distant murmur of the holy brooks,
consoling as an angel's voice, bids him to rise and to live for the honor
of his God.
Two doors with a sound like
the fluttering of wings are thrown open before him. A divine light bursts
upon him, he sees plains shining with flowers open around him.
Then a golden serpent is
placed in his bosom as a sign of his regeneration, and he is adorned with
a mystic zone upon which are engraved twelve mysterious signs; a tiara is
placed upon his head; his form naked and shivering is clothed in a purple
tunic studded with innumerable stars; a crozier is placed in his hand. He
is a king; for he is initiated; for he is a Druid.
IX.
RITES AND CEREMONIES.
A RELATION of the duties of
the Ovades as sacrificers will naturally lead us into a description of the
ceremonies of the priesthood, of their altars, their temples and their
objects of worship or veneration.
The clachan, or stone
temples of the Druids were round like those of the Chinese, the primitive
Greeks, the Jews, and their copyists the Templars. This shape was adopted
because it was typical of eternity, and also of the solar light--the word
circus being derived from the Phœnician cir or cur, the Sun. Like those of
the Thracians they were open at the roof, for the Druids deemed it impious
to attempt to enclose within a house that God, whose shrine was the
universe.
There were two celebrated
temples of the Druids, Abury in Wiltshire, and Carnac in Brittany, which
were built in the form of a serpent.
There is scarcely a spot in
the world in which the serpent has not received the prayers and praises of
men. At first an emblem of the sun's light and power, it is worshipped in
lands where the sun is not recognized as a Deity, for instance on the
coasts of Guinea where the negroes curse him every morning as he rises,
because he scorches them at noon.
The winged serpent was a
symbol of the Gods of Egypt, Phœnicia, China, Persia, and Hindostan. The
Tartar princes still carry the image of a serpent upon a spear as their
military standard. Almost all the Runic inscriptions found upon tombs are
engraved upon the sculptured forms of serpents. In the temple of the Bona
Dea, serpents were tamed and consecrated. In the mysteries of Bacchus,
women used to carry serpents in their hands and twined around their brows,
and with horrible screams cry, Eva! Eva! In the great temple of Mexico,
the captives taken in war and sacrificed to the sun, had wooden collars in
the shape of a serpent put round their necks. And water-snakes are to this
day held sacred by the natives of the Friendly Isles.
It was not only worshipped
as a symbol of light, of wisdom and of health, personified under the name
of God, but also as an organ of divination. Serpents formed the
instruments of the Egyptian enchanters, the fetich of the Hottentots, and
the girdles of the medicine-men of the North American Indians. The
Norwegians, too, of the present day, when hunting will often load their
guns with serpents to make them fortunate.
The serpent must have
obtained this world-wide worship from its beauty, and its wisdom. Subtle
in heart beyond all the beasts of the field; rapid and mysterious in its
wary footless movements, to which the ancients were wont to resemble the
aerial progress of the Gods; above all its eyes so bright, so lovely, so
weird in their powers of facinations, no wonder that it should excite the
awe and admiration of superstitious barbarians.
And they believed it
immortal, for every year they saw it cast its skin, wrinkled and withered
with age, and when they tried to kill it they found that it retained life
with miraculous pertinacity.
Finally it was the brazen
serpent elevated upon a cross that Moses erected in the wilderness, and
upon which all who gazes were saved from death; and it was this serpent
which Jewish and Christian writers have agreed in asserting to be a type
of the Messiah.
The cromleachs were the
altars of the Druids, and were so called from a Hebrew word signifying,
"to bow," and from the bowing of the worshippers who believed them to be
guarded by spirits.
They were constructed of a
large flat stone placed upon two rough pillars. These stones were always
unhewn, for by the Druidic law it was ordained that no axe should touch
the sacred stones, a precept which very strangely coincides with the
Mosaic law. "Thou shall not build an altar of hewn stones." Exod. xx, 25.
These cromleachs were also sepulchres, as is testified by the number of
urns and human bones that have been discovered beneath some few of them.
It is probable that their clachan were used for the same purpose, as the
Egyptian mummies were interred in the catacombs of the pyramids, and as we
bury bodies in the vaults of our churches.
We generally find them
situated on hills or mountains, which prove that the Druids entertained
the same reverence for high places as the nations of the East, and even
the Scandinavians, for we read in the Erybygga-Saga that when Thoralf
established his colony in the promontory of Thorsness in Iceland he
erected an eminence called Helgafels, the Holy Mount, upon which none
might look till they had made their ablutions under pain of death. And
sometimes by the side of a lake or running stream, for water was held holy
by the Druids, and they were even wont to propitiate its deities, by
offering it presents.
There was a Druidic temple
at Toulouse, on the borders of a lake into which the Druids threw large
quantities of gold, and in which Capion, a Roman knight, and his followers
miserably perished in an attempt to recover it. So, Aurum Tolosanum, "Gold
from Toulouse," became a bye-word among the Romans to express any accident
or misfortune.
In the islands surrounding
Britain and Gaul, especially in the Channel Islands where they are called
Pouquelays, these altars are very common. Islands were held sacred for
some reason by the ancients. They were often erected within the recesses
of the sacred grove beneath the shadow of an oak.
This, the fairest and
strongest of trees has been revered as a symbol of God by almost all the
nations of heathendom, and by the Jewish Patriarchs. It was underneath the
oaks of Mamre that Abraham dwelt a long time, and where he erected an
altar to God, and where he received the three angels. It was underneath an
oak that Jacob hid the idols of his children, for oaks were held sacred
and inviolable. (Judges II. 5. 6.)
From the Scriptures, too,
we learn that it was worshipped by the Pagans who corrupted the Hebrews
(Hosea. IV. v. 13. Ezekiah VI. 13. Isaiah I. v. 29.) Homer mentions people
entering into compacts under oaks as places of security. The Grecians had
their vocal oaks at Dodona. The Arcadians believed that stirring the
waters of a fountain with an oaken bough would bring rain. The Sclavonians
worshipped oaks which they enclosed in a consecrated court. The Romans
consecrated the oak to Jupiter their Supreme God, as they consecrated the
myrtle to Venus, the laurel to Apollo, the pine to Cybele, the poplar to
Hercules, wheat-ears to Ceres, the olive to Minerva, fruits to Pomona,
rose-trees to the river nymphs, and hay to poor Vertumnus whose power and
merits could obtain him nothing better.
The Hindoos who had no oaks
revered the Banian tree. When an oak died, the Druids stripped off its
bark, &c., shaped it reverently into the form of a pillar, a pyramid, or a
cross, and still continued to worship it as an emblem of their God.
Besides the clanchan and
cromleach there are many stone monuments remaining in various parts of
Gaul and Britain, which bear the. Druid stamp in their rudeness and
simplicity. These were sometimes trophies of victory, sometimes memorials
of gratitude, sometimes images of God. When erected they were anointed
with rose-oil, as Jacob anointed the first stone monument on record -that
which he raised at Bethel in memory of his dream.
The custom of raising plain
stone pillars for idolatrous purposes was afterwards adopted by the Pagans
and forbidden by the Mosaic law (Lev. XXVI. 1.) Mercury, Apollo, Neptune
and Hercules were worshipped under the form of a square stone. A large
black stone was the emblem of Buddha among the Hindoos, and of Manah
Theus-Ceres in Arabia. The Paphians worshipped their Venus under the form
of a white pyramid, the Thebans their Bacchus under that of a pillar, the
Scandinavians their Odin under that of a cube, the Siamese their
Sommonacodum under that of a black pyramid.
And in the temple of the
Sun at Cuzco, in Peru, was a stone column in the shape of a cone, which
was worshipped as an emblem of the Deity. Every one has heard of the Stone
of Memnon in Egypt, which was said to speak at sun-rise, and the remains
of which are covered with inscriptions by Greek and Latin travelers
bearing testimony to the fact.
There is a story in
Giraldus Cambrensis which proves that the Druids had the same
superstition. In his time, a large flat stone ten feet long, six feet
wide, and one foot thick served as a bridge over the river Alun at St.
David's, in Pembrokeshire. It was called in British Lech Larar, "the
speaking stone," and it was a tradition that if a dead body was
carried over the stone it would speak, and that with the struggle of the
voice it would crack in the middle, and that then the chink would close.
Keysler informs us that the
Northern nations believed their stone deities to be inhabited by fairies
or demons, and adduces an instance from the Holmveria Saga of Norway.
"Indridus going out of his
house lay in wait for his enemy Thorstenus, who was wont to go to the
temple of his God at such a particular time. Thorstenus came and, entering
the temple before sun-rise, prostrated himself before the stone-deity and
offered his devotion. Indridus standing by heard the stone speak, and
pronounce Thorstenus' doom in these words:
Tu huc
Ultima vice
Morti vicinis pedibus
Terram calcasti;
Certè enim antequam
Sol splendeat,
Animosus Indridus
Odium tibi rependet.
Heedless of thy approaching
fate
Thou treadst this holy ground;
Last step of life! thy guilty breast
Ere Phcebus gilds the ruddy East,
Must expiate
Thy murderous hate
Deep piere'd with crimson wound.
To fire, also, as an emblem
of the sun, the Druids paid peculiar reverence. Indeed fire would appear
to have been the chosen element of God. In the form of a flaming bush He
appeared to Moses. On Mount Sinai His presence was denoted by torrents of
flame, and in the form of fire he preceded the little band of Israelites
by night, through the dreary wilderness, which is perhaps the origin of
the custom of the Arabians who always carry fire in front of their
caravans.
All the great nations had
their holy fires which were never suffered to die. In the temple of the
Gaditanian Hercules at Tyre, in the Temple of Vesta at Rome, among the
Brachmans, the Jews, and the Persians were these immortal fires which
might not be desecrated by the breath of men, and which might be fed with
peeled wood alone. So also the American savages when they have gained a
victory, would light fires and dance round them.
The Druids thus conducted
their worship of the holy element. Having stripped the bark off dry wood
they poured oil of roses upon it, and lighted it by rubbing sticks
together, which is said to have been an invention of the Phœnicians. To
this they prayed at certain times, and whoever dared to blow the fire with
his mouth, or to throw dirt or dead beasts into it they punished with
death. They had circular temples consecrated to their never-dying fires;
into these the priests entered every day, and reverently fed the fire and
prayed to it for a whole hour, holding branches of vervain in their hands
and crowned with tiaras which hung down in flaps on each side of their
faces covering their cheeks and lips.
They also kindled the
Beltein, or fire of the rock on May-eve to welcome the sun after his
travels behind the clouds and tempests of the dark months. On that night
all other fires were extinguished, and all repaired to the holy mount to
pay their annual tribute to the Druids.
Then were held solemn
rites, and men and beasts, and even goblets of wine were passed through
the purifying flames. After which the fires were all relighted, (each from
the sacred fire) and general festivity prevailed.
In Cornwall there are
Karn-Gollowa, the Cairn of Lights, and Karn-Leskyz, the Cairn of Burnings
which names proves that the fiendish rites of Moloch and Baal were really
observed with all their impious cruelty in the island of Britain. From
these same blood-thirsty Phœnicians who had taught the Israelites to sin,
the Druids learnt to pollute their altars with human blood, and to assert
that nothing was so pleasing to God as the murder of a man.
In the golden age, men's
hearts softened and elevated by gratitude towards their Maker offered him
the choicest herbs and the sweetest flowers of the soil. But in the age of
iron, when men had learnt to tremble at their own thoughts, to know that
they were thieves, and liars, and murderers, they felt that there was need
of expiation.
To appease the God whom
they still believed to be merciful, they offered Him Blood. They offered
Him the blood of animals. And then they offered Him the most innocent and
beautiful of His creations--beautiful virgins and chaste youths--their
eldest sons, their youngest daughters.
Do you disbelieve me? read
as I have read all the great writers of the past, and then you will
shudder as I have shuddered at such terrible wickedness in man. Read
Manetho, Sanchionatho, Herodotus, Pausanias, Josephus, Philo the Jew,
Diodorus of Sicily, Strabo, Cicero, Cæsar, Macrobius, Pliny, Titus Livius,
Lucan, and most of the Greek and Latin-poets.
Read the books of
Leviticus, Deuteronomy, the judges, Kings, the 105th Psalm, the Prophesies
of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and many of the old fathers, and there you
will find that the Egyptians, the Israelites, the Arabs, the Cathaginians,
the Athenians, Spartans and Ionians, the Romans, the Scythians, the
Albanians, the Germans, Iberians and Gauls had adopted this cruel custom,
which like the practice of magic had risen in Phœnicia, and had spread
like a plague over the whole world.
The Egyptians sacrificed
every year a young and beautiful virgin, whom arrayed in rich robes, they
flung into the Nile. They also offered up men with red hair at the shrine
of Osiris.
The Spartans whipped boys
to death in sight of their parents before starting upon an expedition. The
natives of the Tauric Chersonesus hospitably sacrificed to Diana all the
strangers whom chance threw upon their coast. The Cimbri ripped their
victims open, and divined from their smoking entrails. The Norwegians used
to beat their brains out with an axe, the Icelanders by dashing them
against a stone. The Scythians cut off the shoulder and arm, and flinging
them in the air drew omens from the manner in which they fell upon the
pile. The Romans and Persians buried them alive. This mania for blood was
universal. Even Themistocles, the deliverer of Greece, had once sacrificed
three youths.
The ancient Peruvians, when
one of their nation was dangerously ill, sacrificed his eldest son or
youngest daughter to the solar deity, entreating him to spare the father's
life. And periodically at their religious festivals they murdered children
and virgins, drowning them and then sacrificing them. And the ancient
Mexicans forced their victims to lie down upon a pyramidical stone, and
tearing out their hearts, lifted them smoking towards the sun. I might
continue this long and disgusting catalogue of religious crimes, but let
us return to the Druids, who at least only sacrificed human beings in some
great and peculiar crisis.
The word sacrifice means an
offering of the cake, and there can be no doubt that those thin broad
cakes of the ancient Britons, which, with a libation of flour, milk, eggs,
and herbs, or milk, dew and acorns are still superstitiously offered in
the north of Britain, formed the usual sacrifice. They also offered the
boar, and it is not improbable that the hare, hen and goose which they
were forbidden to eat, but which Cæsar informs us that they reared causa
voluptatis, were used for sacrificial purposes.
The human victims were
selected from criminals or prisoners of war. In lack of these they were
chosen by lot, and it sometimes happened that Curtius-like they offered
themselves up for their country. Such a one was led into a sacred forest
watered by running streams. In the centre, a circular space surrounded by
grey and gigantic stones. Then the birds ceased to sing, the wind was
hushed; and the trees around extended their spectral arms which were soon
to be sprinkled with human blood. Then the victim would sing the Song of
Death.
The Druid would approach,
arrayed in his judicial robes. He was dressed in white; the serpent's egg
encased in gold was on his bosom; round his neck was the collar of
judgment which would strangle him who delivered an unjust sentence; on his
finger was the ring of divination; in his hand was a glittering blade.
They would crown the victim with oak leaves in sombre mockery. They would
scatter branches of the oak upon the altar. The voices of the blue-robed
Bards would chant a solemn dirge, their harps would tone forth sinister
notes.
Pale and stern the Druid
would approach, his knife uplifted in the air. He would stab him in the
back. With mournful music on his lips he would fall weltering in blood,
and in the throes of death. The diviners would draw round, and would
calmly augur from his struggles. After which, fresh oak-leaves would be
cast upon the blood-polluted altar, and a death feast would be held near
the corpse of the sacrificed.
X.
PRIESTESSES.
THE Druids had many rites
of divination--from the entrails of their victims--from the flight of
birds--from the waves of the sea--from the bubbling of wells-and from the
neighing of white horses. By the number of criminals causes in the year
they formed an estimate of the scarcity or plenty of the year to come.
They also used divining
rods, which they cut in the shape of twigs from an apple tree which bore
fruit, and having distinguished them from each other by certain marks,
threw them promiscuously upon a white garment. Then the Diviner would take
up each billet or stick three times, and draw an interpretation from the
marks before imprinted on them.
The ordering of these
divinations were usually placed in the hands of women who formed an order
of Sibylls among these ancient prophets. It has been the belief of every
age that women are more frequently blessed with the gifts of inspiration,
and that the mists of the future hang less darkly before their eyes than
before those of men.
And thus it was that women
were admitted to those holy privileges which none others could obtain
except with the learning and struggles of a lifetime, thus it was that
even the commonest women was admitted to that shrine from which the
boldest warriors were excluded.
There is, however, a
tradition that at one period both in Gaul and Britain, the women were
supreme, that they ruled the councils of state, that they led the armies
of war. That the Druids by degrees supplanted them, and obtained the power
for themselves. But to propitiate these women who had the blood of Albina
in their veins, they admitted them into their order, and gave them the
title of Druidesses.
They were eventually formed
into three classes.
I. Those who performed the
servile offices about the temple, and the persons of the Druids, and who
were not separated from their families.
II. Those who assisted the
Druids in their religious services, and who, though separated from their
husbands, were permitted to visit them occasionally.
III. A mysterious
sisterhood who dwelt in strict chastity and seclusion, and who formed the
oracles of Britain.
Such is the origin of
Christian mummeries. In all important events the Britons repaired to their
dwelling. Not even a marriage was consummated among them without
consulting the Druidess, and her purin, the seic seona of the Irish, viz.,
five stones thrown up and caught on the back of the hand, and from which
she divined. There are several instances recorded in classical history of
predictions from these priestesses which came true.
Alexander Severus had just
set out upon an expedition when he was met by a Druidess, "Go on, my
Lord," she said aloud to him as he passed, "but beware of your soldiers."
He was assassinated by his soldiers in that same campaign.
My next example is still
more peculiar. When Dioclesian was a private soldier he had a Druidess for
hostess, who found him every day reckoning up his accounts with a military
exactitude to which the army in those days was a stranger. "You are
niggardly," she said.
"Yes," he answered, "but
when I become an Emperor I will be generous."
"You have said no jest,"
replied the priestess, for you will be Emperor when you have killed a wild
boar--cum aprum occideris."
In our language this
prophecy loses its point, for there is a play upon the Latin word which
cannot be translated. Aper means both the name of a man and a wild beast,
and thus the prediction was wrapped in that wise ambiguity which has been
the characteristic of all human prophecy.
Dioclesian, whose ambition
gave him faith, was much perplexed with the double meaning of the word,
but hunted assiduously till he had killed so many wild boars, that he
began to fear he had taken the word in its wrong acceptation. So he slew
Aper, his stepfather, the assassin of Numerianus, and shortly afterwards
sat upon the imperial throne. In marble, as well as in ink, there are
memorials of the sect of Druidesses. The following inscription was
discovered at Metz in Normandy:
SILVANO
SACR
ET NYMPHIS LOCI
APETE DRUIS
ANTISTITA
SOMNO MONITA.
Of Druidic oracles we know
only of one at Kildare in Ireland; of one at Toulouse which ceased when
Christianity was introduced there by St. Saturnins; of one at Polignac
dedicated to Apollo, or Belenus, or Baal; and most celebrated of all that
in the island of Sena (now Sain) at the mouth of the River Loire.
This island was inhabited
by seven young women who were beautiful as angels, and furious as demons.
They were married but their husbands might never visit them. The foot of
man was not permitted to set foot upon their isle. When the mantle of
night had began to descend upon the earth, seven dusky forms might be seen
gliding to the shore, and springing into their wicker boats, which were
covered with the skins of beasts, would row across to the main-land, and
fondle with their husbands, and smile upon them as if with the sweet
innocence of youth.
But when the streaks of
light began to glimmer in the East, like restless spirits summoned back to
their daylight prison, strange fires would gleam from their eyes, and they
would tear themselves from their husband's arms. To them came the sailors
who fished and traded on the seas, and entreated them for fair winds. But
as they came and as they spoke, they shuddered at the sight of these women
whose faces were distorted by inspiration, whose voices seemed to be full
of blood.
When Christianity began to
prevail in the north, it was believed that these women, by culling certain
herbs at various periods of the moon, transformed themselves into winged
and raging beasts, and attacking such as were baptized and regenerated by
the blood of Jesus Christ, killed them without the visible force of arms,
opened their bodies, tore out their hearts and devoured them; then
substituting wood or straw for the heart, made the bodies live on as
before and returned through the clouds to their island-home.
It is certain that they
devoted themselves chiefly to the service of the Moon, who was said to
exercise a peculiar influence over storms and diseases-the first of which
they pretended to predict, the latter to cure. They worshipped her under
the name of Kêd or Ceridwen, the northern name for the Egyptian Isis. They
consecrated a herb to her, called Belinuncia, in the poisonous sap of
which they dipped their arrows to render them as deadly as those malignant
rays of the moon, which can shed both death and madness upon men.
It was one of their rites
to procure a virgin and to strip her naked, as an emblem of the moon in an
unclouded sky. Then they sought for the wondrous selago or golden herb.
She who pressed it with her foot slept, and heard the language of animals.
If she touched it with iron, the sky grew dark and a misfortune fell upon
a world. When they had found it, the virgin traced a circle round it, and
covering her hand in a white linen cloth which had never been before used,
rooted it out with a point of her little finger--a symbol of the crescent
moon. Then they washed it in a running spring, and having gathered green
branches plunged into a river and splashed the virgin, who was thus
supposed to resemble the moon clouded with vapors. When they retired, the
virgin walked backwards that the moon might not return upon its path in
the plain of the heavens.
They had another rite which
procured them a name as infamous and as terrible as that of the Sirens of
the South, who were really Canaanite priestesses that lured men to their
island with melodious strains, and destroyed them as a sacrifice to their
Gods. They had a covered temple in imitation probably of the two
magnificent buildings which the Greek colonists had erected at Massilia.
This it was their custom annually to unroof, and to renew the covering
before the sun set by their united labors. And if any woman dropt or lost
the burden that she was carrying, she was immediately torn to pieces by
these savage creatures, who daubed their faces and their white bosoms with
their victim's blood, and carried her limbs round the temple with wild and
exulting yells.
It was this custom which
founded the story told at Athens and at Rome, that in an island of the
Northern seas there were virgins who devoted themselves to the service of
Bacchus, and who celebrated orgies similar to those of Samothrace. For in
those plays, performed in honor of Dionusus, there was always a
representation of a man torn limb from limb. And in the Island of Chios,
as in Sena, this drama was enacted to the life. |
