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The Veil of Isis; Or, Mysteries of the Druids ....................................................................................................1

As those presents are always the most fashionable, and sometimes the most valued, which cannot be used, I

give you this book, which you will not be able to read, but which, perhaps, you will kindly preserve in

An author can pay no higher compliment to a friend than to dedicate to her a work upon which he has spent

much labor and anxiety. This effort of a young man to redeem a mistake, perhaps a fault, in his literary life,

deserves to be sealed with your name, for it is you who have repeatedly urged him to the task, and presided

THERE is no study so saddening, and none so sublime as that of the early religions of mankind. To trace

back the worship of God to its simple origin, and to mark the gradual process of those degrading

superstitions, and unhallowed rites which darkened, and finally extinguished His presence in the ancient

At first men enjoyed the blessings of nature as children do, without inquiring into causes. It was sufficient for

them that the earth gave them herbs, that the trees bore them fruit, that the stream quenched their thirst. They

were happy, and every moment though unconsciously they offered a prayer of gratitude to Him whom as yet

And then a system of theology arose amongst them vague and indefinite, as the waters of the boundless sea.

They taught each other that the sun, and the earth, the moon, and the stars were moved and illumined by a

Great Soul which was the source of all life, which caused the birds to sing, the brooks to murmur, and the sea

to heave. It was a sacred Fire which shone in the firmament, and in mighty flames. It was a strange Being

which animated the, souls of men, and which when the bodies died, returned to itself again.

They silently adored this Great Soul in the beginning, and spoke of Him with reverence, and sometimes

And soon they learned to pray. When those whom they loved lay dying, they uttered wild lamentations, and

flung their arms despairingly towards the mysterious Soul; for in times of trouble the human mind so

As yet they worshipped only the sun, the moon, and the starsand not as Gods but as visions of that Divine

They adored Him kneeling, with their hands clasped, and their eyes raised. They offered Him no sacrifices,

they built Him no temples; they were content to offer Him their hearts which were full of awe, in His own

temple which was full of grandeur. And it is said that there are yet some barbarous islands where men have

no churches nor ceremonies, and where they worship God, reflected in the work of His thousand hands.

But they were not long content with this simple service. Prayer which had first been an inspiration fell into a

system, and men already grown wicked prayed the Deity to give them abundance of wild beast's skins, and to

They ascended eminences, as if hoping that thus being nearer God, He would prefer their prayers to those of

their rivals. Such is the origin of that superstitious reverence for high places which was universal throughout

Then Orpheus was born. And he invented instruments which to his touch and to his lips, gave forth notes of

surpassing sweetness, and with these melodies he enticed the wondering savages into the recesses of the

forest, and there taught them precepts of obedience to the great Soul, and of lovingkindness towards each

There were men who had watched Orpheus, and who had seen and envied his power over the herd who

surrounded him. They resolved to imitate him, and having studied these barbarians, they banded together, and

called themselves their priests. Religion is divine, but its ministers are men. And alas! sometimes they are

The simplicity of men, and the cunning of their priests has destroyed or corrupted all the religions of the

These priests taught the people to sacrifice the choicest herbs and flowers. They taught them formulas of

prayer, and bade them make so many obeisances to the sun, and to worship those flowers which opened their

They composed a language of symbols which was perhaps necessary, since letters had not been invented, but

Thus the sun and moon were worshipped as emblems of God, and fire as an emblem of the sun, water as an

The serpent was to be worshipped also as an emblem of wisdom and eternal youth, since it renews its skin

And the bull, most vigorous of animals, and whose horns resemble those of the crescent moon.

The priests observed the avidity with which the barbarians adored these symbols, and increased them. To

worship the visible is a disease of the soul inherent to all mankind, and the disease which these men could

It is true that the first generation of men might have looked upon these merely as the empty symbols of a

Divine Being, but it is also certain that in time the vulgar forgot the God in the emblem, and worshipped that

which their fathers had only honored. Egypt was the fountainhead of these idolatries, and it was in Egypt

that the priests first applied real attributes to the sun, and to the moon whom they called his wife.

From the midst of chaos was born Osiris, and at his birth a voice was heard proclaiming"The ruler of all the

From the same dark and troubledwomb were born Isis the Queen of Light, and Typhon the Spirit of

This Osiris traveled over the whole world, and civilized its inhabitants, and taught them the art of agriculture.

But on his return to Egypt the jealous Typhon laid a stratagem for him, and in the midst of a banquet had him

shut up in a chest which exactly fitted his body. He was nailed down in his prison, which cast into the Nile

floated down to the sea by the Taitic mouth, which even in the time of Plutarch was never mentioned by an

When Isis learnt these sad new she cut off a lock of her hair, and put on her mourning robes, and wandered

through the whole country in search of the chest which contained the dead body of her husband.

At length she learnt that the chest had been carried by the waves to the shore of Byblos, and had there lodged

in the branches of a tamarisk bush, which quickly shot up and became a large and beautiful tree, growing

The king of the country amazed at the vast size the tree had so speedily acquired, ordered it to be cut down to

be hewn into a pillar to support the roof of his palacethe chest being still concealed in the trunk.

The voice which had spoken from Heaven at the birth of Osiris made known these things to poor Isis, who

went to the shore of Byblos and sat down silently by a fountain to weep. The damsels of the queen met her

and accosted her, and the queen appointed her to be nurse to her child. And Isis fed the infant with her finger

instead of with her breast, and put him every night into fire to render him immortal, while transforming

herself into a swallow she hovered round the pillar which was her husband's tomb, and bemoaned her

It happened that the queen thus discovered her, and shrieked when she saw her child surrounded by flames.

By that cry Isis was summoned back to her goddessform, and stood before the awestruck queen shining

She cut open the pillar, and took the coffin with her, and opened it in a desert. There she embraced the cold

She returned to Egypt and hid the coffin in a remote place: but Typhon, hunting by moonlight, chanced to

find it, and divided the corpse into fourteen pieces. Again Isis set out on her weary search throughout the

whole land, sailing over the fenny parts in a boat made of papyrus. She recovered all the fragments except

one which had been thrown into the sea. Each of these she buried in the place where she found it, which

And instead of the limb which was lost, she gave the phallus to the Egyptiansthe disgusting worship of

which was thence carried into Italy, into Greece, and into all the countries of the East.

When Isis died, she was buried in a grove near Memphis. Over her grave was raised a statue covered from

I am all that has been, that is, that shall be, and none among mortals has yet dared to raise my veil.

Beneath this veil are concealed all the mysteries and learning of the past. A young scholar, his fingers

covered with the dust of venerable folios, his eyes weary and reddened by nightly toil will now attempt to lift

These two Deities, Isis and Osiris were the parents of all the Gods and Godesses of the Heathens, or were

indeed those Gods themselves worshipped under different names. The fable itself was received into the

mythologies of the Hindoos and the Romans. Sira is said to have mutilated Brahma as Typhon did Osiris, and

As yet the sun and moon alone were worshipped under these two names. And as we have seen, besides these

twin beneficial spirits, men who had begun to recognize sin in their hearts had created an Evil One who

It is natural for man to fabricate something that is worse than himself. Even in the theology of the American

Indians which is the purest of the modem world, there is found a Mahitou or dark Spirit.

Osiris or the sun was now worshipped throughout the whole world, though under different names. He wag the

Mithra of the Persians, the Brahma of India, the Baal or Adonis of the Phoenicians, the Apollo of the Greeks,

the Odin Of Scandinavia, the Hu of the Britons, and the Baiwe of the Laplanders.

Isis also received the names of Islene, Ceres, Rhea, Venus, Vesta, Cybele, Niobe, MelissaNehalennia in

the North; Isi with the Indians; Puzza among the Chinese; and Ceridwen among the ancient Britons.

The Egyptians were sublime philosophers who had dictated theology to the world. And in Chaldcea arose the

first astrologers who watched the heavenly bodies with curiosity as well as with awe, and who made divine

And the Greeks and Romans who were poets, wreathed these names into legends. Each name was a person,

From these stories of the stars originated the angels of the Jews, the genii of the Arabs, the heroes of the

Now corruption grew upon corruption, and superstition flung a black and hideous veil over the doctrines of

religion. A religion is lost as soon as it loses its simplicity: truth has no mysteries: it is deceit alone that lurks

Men multiplied God into a thousand names, and created Him always in their own image. Him, too, whom

they had once deemed unworthy of any temple less noble than the floor of the earth and the vast dome of the

sky, they worshipped in caves, and then in temples which were made of the trunks of trees rudely sculptured,

and ranged in rows to imitate groves, and with other trunks placed upon them traversely.

Such were the first buildings of worship erected by man from no reverence for the Deity, but to display that

It may not be needless to remind some of my readers that a superior being must view the elegant temples of

the Romans, the gorgeous pagodas of India, and our own Gothic cathedrals with feelings similar to those with

which we contemplate the rude efforts of the early heathens, who deemed God unworthy of the fruits and

flowers which he himself had made, and offered to him the entrails of beasts, and the hearts of human beings.

We may compare an ancient and fallen religion to the ship of the Argonauts, which the Greeks desiring to

preserve to posterity, repairing in so many different ways, that at length there did not remain a fragment of

Let us pass over a lapse of years, and then contemplate the condition of these nations in whom religion had

been first born. We find the Egyptians adoring the most common of plants, the most contemptible of beasts,

the most hideous of reptiles. The solemnity and pomp of their absurd ceremonies held them up to the ridicule

"The walls shine with gold and silver, and with amber, and sparkle with the gems of India and Ethiopia: and

the recesses are concealed by splendid curtains. But if you enter the penetralia, and inquire for the image of

God for whose sake the fane was built; one of the Pastophori, or some other attendant on the temple

approaches with a solemn and mysterious face, and putting aside the veil suffers you to obtain a glimpse of

the divinity. There you behold a snake, a crocodile, or a cat, or some other beast, a fitter inhabitant of a

The priests of Egypt, always impostors, but once so celebrated, had now degenerated into a race of jugglers.

Also the Chald ans lived upon the fame of their fathers, and upon their own base trickeries.

The Brachmans or Brahmins, those priests of India, once so virtuous and so wiseah! they too had fallen.

Once they had forbidden the shedding of so much as an insects blood: one day in the year alone, at the feast

of Jagam, they were authorized to sacrifice the flesh of a beast, and from this many had refrained from

But now they had learnt from the fierce Scythians and from the Phoenicians who traded on their coasts to

sacrifice the wife upon her husbands pyreto appease the gentle Brahmah with the blood of men.

Now the angels who had presided over them became savage demons, who scourged them on to cruel

In the sacred groves where once the Brachman Fathers had taught their precepts of love, men emaciated,

careworn, dying, wandered sadly, waiting for death as tortured prisoners wait for their liberty.

But worse still, these wicked priests sought through the land for the most beautiful young women, and trained

them to dance in the temples, and to entice the devotees to their arms with lustful attitudes and languishing

looks, and with their voices which mingled harmoniously with the golden bells suspended on their feet. They

sang hymns to the Gods in public, and in private enriched the treasuries of the pagoda with their infamous

earnings. Thus a pure and simple religion was debased by the avarice and lewdness of its priests: till the

temples became a den of thieves: till prostitution sat enthroned upon the altars of the Gods.

Greece and Rome buried in sloth and luxury did not escape the general contamination. The emblem of

generation which Isis had bestowed upon the Egyptians, and which they had held in abstract reverence, had

now obtained a prominent place in the festivals of these nations as did the Lingam in those of the Hindoos. It

was openly paraded in processions in the streets: it was worn by Roman nations in bracelets upon their arms.

The sacred festivals and mysteries which they had received from the Egyptians, and for which the women

had been wont to prepare themselves by continence, and the men by fasting, were now mere vehicles for

depravities of the lowest kind. Men were permitted to join the women in their worship of Bacchus, of Adonis,

of the Bona Dea, and even of Priapus, and so dissolute did the Dionusia become, that the civil powers were

compelled to interfere with those of religion, and the Bacchanalia were abolished by a decree of the Roman

And the Jews, the chosen people of God, had not their religion changed? had not God, weary with their sins,

They worshipped Baalpeor, the Priapus of Assyria, they sacrificed their children to Moloch: they had

I will not go deeper into particulars so degrading to human nature. I will rather invite you to follow me to a

corner of the world where, at least for many ages religion was preserved in its pristine purity, and whose

priests, through a barbarous soldiery, were received as martyrs in heaven before they had learned to be

It was an isolated spot unknown to the world in the earlier ages of vice. It is now a kingdom renowned for its

It was encircled by the blue waters of the German and Atlantic Seas, and abounded in the choicest gifts of

It was called The White Island from those cliffs which still frown so coldly upon Gaul, and The Land of

Green Hills from its verdant mountains. Come with me to its shores, and I will show you its priests in their

white robes, and its warriors in the blue paint of war, and its virgins with their long and glossy yellow hair.

But first I will lead you back into the past, and relate to you why this land was called Albion, and why

AS travelers, who have lost their way by night, gaze ever towards the east for the first rays of light and hope,

so we who grope in the darkness of antiquity must direct our eyes to the land of the rising sun, whence

Danaus, King of Greece, had fifty sons, whom he married to the fifty daughters of his brother �gistus, King

of Egypt. But soon these women thirsted for dominion, and conspired secretly to slay their husbands and to

rule in their steads. But the youngest and the most beautiful had a tender heart, which crept from her lips in

words of warning to her father and her spouse. Then they were all seized and set adrift in ships upon the sea,

Here they staid and named it Albion, after Albina their eldest sister, and here they maintained themselves by

the chase, killing the deer and the boars, and wild bulls, and large birds which they found in the forests with

And while filled with meat and drink, and with lustful thoughts, they lay sleeping on the ground covered with

the skins of wild beasts, dark brooding spirits swept towards them from the sky, and encircled them with their

By these were born huge and hideous giants which soon bore others, till they filled the whole land with a

MEANWHILE Troy had fallen: the wanderings of Eneas were past: and Ascanius had died leaving behind

The son of Silvius loved a maid, who became pregnant. Then the wise men and women of the land were sent

for, and all those who knew songs of magic art. They cast. their lots and found sorrowful spells: that a child

would be born through whom both his father and mother would suffer death: that through their death he

would be driven from the land, and after a long time would be crowned with honor.

His mother died as she gave him to the world, and the child, whom they named Brutus, when he had become

His kindred banished him from the land, and he sailed sadly over the seastreams into Greece where he

headed an insurrection against Pandrasus the king, and with such success that the king offered him all his

ships, and treasures, and Imogen his only daughter if he would consent to seek another kingdom.

So Brutus, with his followers, like Eneas of old, sailed forth upon the waters in search of a new land.

After two days and two nights the sea became blue: the wild waves were hushed: they came to a desolate

island: its inhabitants had been slain by the pirates: the timid deer coursed over its wasted shores.

But they found there a marble temple, and within the fair and beautiful image of Diana.

Brutus with twelve wise men, and with Gerion, his priest, entered the temple while his followers remained

without. He bore a vessel of red gold in his hand: it was filled with wine and with the milk of a white hind

which he had killed. Having kindled a fire by the altar, he walked around it nine times. He called to the

goddess beloved of his heart: he kissed the altar and poured the wine and milk upon the fire.

"Lady Diana! loved Diana! High Diana!" he cried. "Help me in my need. Teach me whither I may go and

wherein I may dwell. And there I will make thee a lofty dwelling and honor thee with great worship.

Then he spread the hide of the white hind upon the altar, and kneeling upon it fell asleep. In his dreams he

beheld Diana floating towards him with sweet smiles. She laid her hands like a wreath of flowers upon his

Beyond Gaul in the west thou shall find a winsome land: therein thou shalt prosper. Therein is fowl: there is

fish: there dwell fair deer: there is wood: there is water: there is much desert: grim giants dwell in the land. It

For thirty days and thirty nights they sailed past Africa and over the lake of Silvius, and over the lake of

Philisteus: by Ruscikadan they took the sea, and by the mountain country of Azare. They fought with the

pirates, and gained from them such treasures that there was not a man in the fleet who did not wear gold and

pall. And by the pillars of Hercules they were encompassed by mermen who sing songs so sweet that

mariners will rest slothfully on their oars, and listen to them for days without wearying of their songs to

hearthese impeded them much with their wicked crafts, but they escaped them safely.

In a peaceful sea, and among the playing fish they came to Dartmouth in Totnes. There the ships bit the

It happened after many days that Brutus and his people were celebrating holy writs, with meat, with drink,

and with merry glee sounds: with silver and with gold: with horses and with vestments.

Twenty strong giants descended the hills: trees were their clubs: in the centre of their foreheads was a single

eye vivid as the blue ice. They hurled huge stones and slew five hundred of the Trojans. But soon the fierce

steel arrows of the Trojans whistled through the air, and blood began to spurt from their monstrous sides.

They tried to fly; but those darts followed them swift and revengeful, as birds of prey winged with the dark

Nineteen were slain and Geogmagog, their leader was brought bound before Brutus, who ordered a

wrestling match to be held between the giant and Corineus, a chieftain of his army.

Corineus and the giant advanced towards each other, they yoked their arms and stood breast to breast. Their

eyes gushed blood, their teeth gnashed like wild boars, their bones cracked. Now their faces were black and

swollen, now red and flaming with rage. Geogmagog thrust Corineus off his breast and drawing him back

broke three of his ribs with his mighty hand. But Corineus was not overcome, he hugged the giant grimly to

his waist, and grasping him by the girdle swung him over the cliff upon the rocks below.

Which spot is called "Geogmagog's leap" to this day. And to Corineus, the conqueror, was given a

Brutus having conquered the giant offspring of the treacherous sisters, built a New Troy, and erected

temples to the great Diana, and caused her to be worshipped throughout the land.

Which was named Britain after Brutus, the first man who set foot upon its shores.

FABLES are seldom actual impostures. They are usually truths disguised in gaudy or grotesque garments, but

so disguised that the most profound philosophers are often at a loss how to separate the tinsel from the gold.

But even when they remain insolvable enigmas, they are, at least, to be preferred to the etymological eurekas

and tedious conjectures with which antiquarians clog the pages of history, and which are equally false and

My fable of Albion is derived from the ancient chronicles of Hugh de Genesis, an historiographer now almost

forgotten, and is gravely advanced by John Hardyng, in his uncouth rhymes, as the source of that desire for

The story of Br� or Brutus was first published by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and was generally supposed to

have been a monkish fabrication, till it was discovered in the historical poems of Tyssilia, a Welsh bard.

It is worthy of remark that the boys of Wales still amuse themselves by cutting out seven enclosures in the

sward, which they call the City of Troy, and dance round and between them as if in imitation of the

In a poem by Taliesin, the Ossian of Wales, called The Appeasing, of Lhudd, a passage occurs, of which this

This is strong evidence in favor of the Ph nicians, at that time the piratescourges of the sea, but in the

"The first of the three chieftains who established the colony was Hu, the Mighty, who came with the original

settlers. They came over the Hazy Sea from the summer country, which is called Deffrobani, that is where

It maybe possible to reconcile these contradictions of history in its simplest state, to which I might add a

We learn fromJosephus that the Scythians, were called Magog i by the Greeks, and it is probable that these

(who certainly did migrate to Britain at a remote period) were the real aborigines, and the race alluded to in

the fourth Triad. That then the warlike race of Taliesin also migrated from another region of the East, and that

their battles with the Scythians gave rise to the fables of Brutus and Magog; for it was a practice, common

enough with illiterate nations, to express heroes in their wartales by the images of giants.

This superstition is somewhat borne out by the assertion of Tacitus and other classical writers, that at the time

of C�sar's invasion, there were three distinct races in Britain, especially contrastingthe redhaired,

largelimbed, and blueeyed Celts of the North, with the Silures of Devon, Cornwall, and the Cassiterides or

Scilly Isles, who had swarthy faces and dark curly hair, like the Iberi of Spain.

But let us pass on from such dateless periods of guesswork, to that in which The White Island first obtained

notice from those philosophers, and poets, and historians, whom now we revere and almost deify.

THE north of the island was inhabited by wild hordes of savages, who lived upon the bark of trees, and upon

the precarious produce of the chase; went naked, and sheltered themselves from the weather under the cover

The midland tribes were entirely pastoral. They lived upon the flesh and milk which their flocks afforded

While the inhabitants of the south, who had been polished by intercourse with strangers, were acquainted

with many of the arts of civilization, and were ruled by a priesthood which was second to none in the world

They manured their ground with marl, and sowed corn, which they stored in thatched houses, and from which

they took as much as was necessary for the day and having dried the ears, beat the grain out, bruised it, and

They ate little of this bread at their banquets, but great quantities of flesh, which they either boiled in water,

or broiled upon the coals, or roasted upon spits. They drank ale or metheglin, a liquor made of milk and

They lived in small houses built in a circular form, thatched with rushes into the shape of a cone; an aperture

Their dress was of their own manufacture. A square mantle covered a vest and trousers, or a deeplyplaited

tunic of braided cloth; the waist was encircled by a belt, rings adorned the second finger of each hand, and a

chain of iron or brass was suspended from the neck. These mantles, at first the only covering of the Britons,

were of one color, with long hair on the outside, and were fastened upon the breast by a clasp, with the poorer

The heads were covered with caps made of rushes, and their feet with sandals of untanned skin; specimens of

which are still to be met withof the former in Wales, of the latter in the Shetland Isles.

The women wore tunics, wrought and interwoven with various colors, over which was a loose robe of coarser

make, secured with brazen buckles. They let their hair flow at freedom, and dyed it yellow like the ladies of

ancient Rome; and they wore chains of massive gold about their necks, bracelets upon their arms, rings upon

They were skilled in the art of weaving, in which, however, the Gauls had obtained a still greater proficience.

The most valuable of their cloths were manufactured of fine wool of different tints, woven chequerwise, so

as to fall into small squares of various colors. They also made a kind of cloth, which, without spinning or

weaving, was, when worked up with vinegar, so hard and impenetrable, that it would turn the edge of the

They were equally famous for their linen, and sailcloths constituted a great part of their trade.

When they had finished the linen in, the loom, they had this curious method of bleaching it:

The flax having been whitened before it was sent to the loom, the unspun yarn was placed in a mortar where

it was pounded and beaten into water; it was then sent to the weaver, and when it was received from him

made into cloth, it was laid upon a large smooth stone, and beaten with broadheaded cudgels, the juice of

For scouring cloths, they used a soap invented by themselves, which they made from the fat of animals and

Distinct from these southern tribes, were the inhabitants of the Cassiterides, who wore long black garments,

and beards falling on each side of their mouths like wings, and who are described by Pliny as "carrying staves

It is probable that the nudity of the northern nations did not proceed from mere barbarous ignorance. We

know that savages are first induced to wear clothing, not from shame, but from vanity; and it was this passion

which restrained them from wearing the skins of beasts, or the gaudy clothes of their civilized neighbors.

For it was their custom to adorn their bodies with various figures by a tedious and painful process. At an early

age, the outlines of animals were impressed with a pointed instrument into the skin; a strong infusion of

woad, (a Gallic herb from which a blue dye was extracted) was rubbed into the punctures, and the figures

expanding with the growth of the body retained their original appearance. Like the SouthSea Islanders they

esteemed that to be a decoration which we consider a disfigurement, and these tatooings (which were used by

the Thracicans and by the ancient inhabitants of Constantinople, and which were forbidden by Moses, Levit.

Like the Gauls, who endeavored to make their bright red hair rough and bristly not for ornament, but as a

terror to their enemies, these Britons on the day of battle flung off their clothes, and with swords girded to

their naked sides, and spear in hand, marched with joyful cries against their enemies.

Also upon certain festivals they, with their wives and children, daubed themselves from head to foot with the

But the Picts, or painted men, as the Romans named them, colored themselves with the juice of green grass.

Hunting was their favorite exercise and sport, and Britain which was then filled with vast swamps and forests

The elephant and the rhinoceros, the moosedeer, the tiger and other beasts now only known in Eastern

climes, and mammoth creatures that have since disappeared from the face of the earth made the ground

tremble beneath their stately tread. The brown bear preyed upon their cattle, and slept in the hollow oaks

which they revered. The hyenas yelped by night, and prowled round the fold of the shepherd. The beaver

fished in their streams, and built its earthen towns upon their banks. And hundreds of wolves, united by the

keen frosts of winter, gathered round the rude habitations of men and howled from fierce hunger, rolling their

Their seas abounded with fish, but since they held water sacred they would not, injure its inhabitants for they

I will now consider the primeval state of trade in Britain, now the greatest commercial country in the world.

It was periodically visited by the Ph nicians, a crafty and enterprising nation whose commerce embraced the

whole of the known world, from the frozen borders of Scythia to the burning coasts of Africa and Hindostan;

whose vessels like the Spanish galleons and our own East Indiamen of old were equipped equally for trade or

war; who robbed the weak with their drawn swords, and the strong with their cunning arts; who traded with

Arabia for spices and precious stones; with Damascus for the Mesopotamian white wool, and for wine of

Aleppo, a beverage so costly that it was drunk by kings alone: with Jud a for fruits of the soil, corn,

grapehoney, oil and balm; with Armenia for mules and chariothorses, flocks and herds; with the shores of

the Baltic for amber; with Spain for minerals; with the Euxine for tunnyfish; with India for the cinnamon of

Ceylon, for cotton garments and for steel which sold in Arabia for twice its weight in gold, and of which the

It was not long before they discovered the lead and tin mines of Cornwall and the Cassiterides, which would

appear (from several flintheaded tools called celts lately discovered within them) to have been worked by

And as they were wont to exchange the pottery of Athens for the ivory of Africa, and live Jews for the gold

and jewels of the Greeks, so they bartered salt, earthenware and brazen trinkets with the Britons for tin, lead,

It was the policy of the Ph nicians (in which they were afterwards imitated by the Dutch) to preserve their

commercial secrets with the greatest jealousy, and to resort to extremes in order to protect their interests.

Although they had supplied tin and amber for several years to the Greeks, Herodotus, who had visited Tyre,

could only obtain very vague accounts as to the countries from which they had been obtained, and on making

inquiries respecting cinnamon and frankincense, was explicitly informed that the first was procured by

stratagem from the nests of birds built upon inaccessible crags, and the latter from a tree guarded by winged

Thereis also the story of the master of a Ph nician trader from Cadiz to the Cassiterides, who finding

himself followed by a Roman ship ran his own vessel ashore preferring death to discovery. The Romans were

also shipwrecked, and were drowned, but the patriot escaped to tell his tale at Tyre, and to receive from a

In spite of these precautions, either by accident, or by the treachery of some renegade Ph nician, or from the

colony of Phocians at Marseilles, the Greeks discovered the secret about three hundred years before the

Thus monopoly being ended, the commerce of the Britons was extended. and improved, and after the descent

of the Romans they exported not only tin and lead, but also gold, silver, iron, corn, cattle, slaves

huntingdogs, pearls, and those wicker baskets which Martial has immortalized in his epigrams.

It also appears that chalk was an article of their trade, by this inscription which was found with many others

Before describing the religion and superstitions of our earliest ancestors, which will bring me to the real

purpose of this book, I will add a few remarks upon their manners and peculiarities.

Curiosity, which is certainly the chief characteristic of all barbarous and semibarbarous nations, was

possessed by the Celts in so extraordinary a degree that they would compel travelers to stop, even against

their wills, and make them tell some news, and deliver an opinion upon the current events of the day. They

But the great failing of these Celts was their hastiness and ferocity. Not content with pitched battles against

their enemies abroad, they were always ready to fight duels with their friends at home. In fact, the end of a

British feast was always the beginning of a fray; two warriors would rise and fight each other with such

sangfroid that Athen us wrote in astonishment, Mortem pro joco habent, "They turn death into a joke;" and

it was from these spectacles that the Romans conceived and executed the idea of gladiatorial entertainments.

They feared nothing these brave men. They sang as they marched to battle, and perhaps to death. They shot

arrows at the heavens when it thundered; they laughed as they saw their own hearts' blood gushing forth.

And yet they were plain and simple in their manners; open and generous, docile and grateful, strangers to low

cunning and deceit, so hospitable that they hailed the arrival of each fresh guest with joy and festivities, so

warmhearted that they were never more pleased than when they could bestow a kindness.

Their code of morals, like those of civilized nations, had its little contradictions; they account it disgraceful to

steal, but honorable to rob, and though they observed the strictest chastity, they did not blush to live

This extraordinary custom induced Caesar to assert that they enjoyed each other's wives in common; but in

this he is borne out by no other authorities, and, indeed, there are many instances of this kind among

barbarous nations, who love, apparently, to hide their real purity with a gross and filthy enamel.

Richard of Circencester (probably alluding to Bath the aqu solis of the ancients) mentions, however, some

salt and warm springs used by the ancient Britons, from which were formed hot baths suited to all ages, with

"So highly rated is chastity among these barbarians, that if even the bare mention of marriage occurs without

Having thus briefly sketched the condition and employments of the early Britonshaving proved that our

ancestors were brave, and that their daughters were virtuous, I will now show you those wise and potent men

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 religionthat of Noah, and the

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 Ph nicians, 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

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 Ph nicians, from Egypt, the

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,

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

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

It is gratifying to learn that his twelve labors were, in reality, twelve useful discoveries, and that he had not

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

As far as we can learn, however, the Druids paid honors, rather than adoration to their deities, as the Jews

And, like the God of the Jews, of the Chaldees, of the Hindoos, and of the Christians, this Deity of the Druids

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."

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 C�sar for the Gallic students to cross the British

But by that time, Druidism had begun to wane in Gaul, and to be deprived of many of its privileges by the

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

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, barefooted, 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

Such evidence is mere food for conjecture. Of the ancient German priests we only know that they resembled

the Druids, and the medicinemen 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

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

It may naturally excite surprise that a nation should remain so barbarous and illiterate as the Britons

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 Ph nician 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

In all things, therefore, they endeavored to draw a line between themselves and the mass. In their habits, in

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

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

It was seldom that anyone was found hardy enough to rebel against their power. For such was reserve a

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

Clad in a white robe, the ArchDruid would rise, and before the assembly of brotherDruids 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

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

These Druids were despots; and yea they must have exercised their power wisely and temperately to have

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 emptyhanded, and that the

Although all comprehended under the one term DRUID, there were, in reality, three distinct sects comprised

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

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, in ours.

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

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

The whole body was ruled by an ArchDruid elected by lot from those senior brethren who were the most

At Llamdan in Anglesea, there are still vestiges of Tr�r Dryw the ArchDruid's mansion, Boadrudau the

abode of the inferior ones, Bodowyr the abode of the ovades, and Tr�rBeirdd the hamlet of the bards.

Let us now consider these orders under their respective denominationsDerwydd, Bardd, Ovyd; and under

DRUIDISM was a religion of philosophy; its highpriests 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 lawgivers 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 collegehome, 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

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

These verses were in rhyme, which the Druids invented to assist the memory, and in a triplet form from the

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

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

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 Metapontine tumults, all their mysteries and all their learning died

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

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 Ph nician, and Timagines, a Druid, were said to have been the inventors and to have imported

This is a facsimile 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

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

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, ruthiul,

This is supposed to have been the winged temple which Erastosthenes says that Apollo had among the

Hyperboreansa 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 Celtiberiaa description answering exactly to that of

Britaincould bring the moon so near them as to show the mountains and rocks, and other appearances upon

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

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

We have many wonderful proofs of the skill in mechanics. The clachabrath, or rockingstones, 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 clachabrath (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

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

The temples of Abury in Wiltshire, and of Carnac in Brittany, though less perfect, are even more prodigious

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

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

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 lightningDruilanach, "the flame of the Druids."

It would have been fortunate for mankind had the monks of the middle ages displayed the wisdom of these

All such knowledge was carefully retained within the holy circle of their dark caves and forests and which the

I will now consider the Druids of active lifethe preachers, the lawgivers, and the physicians.

On the seventh day, like the first patriarchs, they preached to the warriors and their wives from small round

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.

"Ut forent ad bella meliores, �ternas esse animas, Vitamque alteram ad manes."

"To act bravely in war, That souls are immortal, And there is another life after death."

Once every year a public assembly of the nation was held in Mona at the residence of the ArchDruid, 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 offif 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

writingthe 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,

The Manksmen also ascribe to the Druids those excellent laws by which the Isle of Man has always been

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

There they heard appeals from the minor courts, and investigated the more intricate cases, which sometimes

they were obliged to settle by ordeal. The rockingstones 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

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

Heaventhat 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

We may smile at another profanity of the Druids who constituted themselves judges not only of the body but

But as Mohammed inspired his soldiers with sublime courage by promising Paradise to those who found a

deathbed 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

Never before since the world, has such vast power as the Druids possessed been wielded with such purity,

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 earth an emblem of incorruptibility of the bodythe 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

If he had distinguished himself as a warrior, or as man of science, it was recorded in the deathsong; a cairn

or pile of sacred stones was raised over him, and his arms and tools or other symbols of his profession were

If his life had been honorable, and if he had obeyed the three grand articles of religion, the bard sang his

It is a charming idea, is it not? The soul lingering for the first strain which might release it from the cold

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 merrymakings 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

Their sovereign remedy was the missoldine or mistletoe of the oak which, in Wales, still bears its ancient

name of Olliach, or allheal, with those of Prenawr, 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

We need not wonder that the mistletoe should be revered as a heavenborn 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 ashcrab 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 milkwhite 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 Derwyddone of whom

carried the sacrificial breadanother a vase of waterand the third a white wand. Lastly, the ArchDruid,

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

An altar of rough stones was erected under the oak, and the ArchDruid, 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

They used the mistletoe as an ingredient in almost all their medicines, and a powder was made from the

It is a strong purgative well suited to the lusty constitutions of the ancient Britons, but, like bleeding, too

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 objectfirst in enhancing the faith of the vulgar by

exciting their superstitionsand also in case of failure that the patient might be reproached for blundering

The vervain was to be gathered at the rise of the dogstar, 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,

The samulos which grew in damp places was to be gathered by a person fastingwithout looking behind

himand with his left hand. It was laid into troughs and cisterns where cattle drank, and when bruised was a

The selago, a kind of hedge hyssop, was a charm as well as a medicine. He who gathered it was to be clothed

in whiteto bathe his feet in running waterto offer a sacrifice of bread and wineand 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

Prominent among the juggleries of the Druids, stands the serpent's eggthe ovus anguinum of Plinythe

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

groundfor 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

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

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

Their reverence for the serpent's egg has its origin in their mythology. Like the Ph nicians 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 Glassphysician to be sent for from as great a distance as fifty

These eggs are made of some kind of glass or earth glazed over, and are sometimes blue, green, or white, and

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 thricethat mysterious numberand 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

The season of the yearthe exercisethe mineral in the waterabove 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

Caithbaid, an Irish historian, speaks of the Druid Trosdan who discovered an antidote for poisoned arrows,

They were more anxious to prevent disease than to cure them, and issued many maxims relating to the care of

AS there were musicians among the Levites, and priests among the Ph nicians who chanted barefoot and in

I. The FerLaoi, or Hymnists, who sang the essence and immortality of the soul; the works of nature; the

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 FerDan 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

I can best give the reader some idea of the style and power of their conceptions, by quoting some of their

They are in the form of Triads, of which the subjects are, languagefancy and inventionthe design of

The three qualifications of poetryendowment of genius, judgment from experience, and happiness of mind.

The three foundations of judgmentbold design, frequent practice, and frequent mistakes.

The three foundations of learningseeing much, studying much, and suffering much.

The three foundations of happinessa suffering with contentment, a hope that it will come, and a belief that

The three canons of perspicuitythe word that is necessary, the quantity that is necessary, and the manner

The three canons of amplitudeappropriate thought, variety of thought and requisite thought.

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

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 languagesa bardor 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

Their ordinary dress was brown, but in religious ceremonies they wore ecclesiastical ornaments called

Barddgwewll, which was an azure robe with a cowl to ita costume afterwards adopted by the lay monks of

Bardsey Island (the burialplace 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 m�i liu,

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 jawbone of a goat. But we have reason to believe that it

Although the Greeks (whom the learned Egyptians nicknamed "children," and who were the most

vainglorious 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

In their construction, the same mysterious regard was paid to the number three. Their shape was triangular;

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 mintmark

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

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

I have now to describe the lower order of sacrificers who, under the direction of their masters, slew the

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 oakleaves on their brows, and their eyes modestly fixed on

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

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

The Ovade received several wounds from a man who opposed his entrance with a drawn sword. He was then

led blindfolded 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

Then lighted only by these fearful fires a strange procession marched past him, and a hymn in honor of the

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.

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

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

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 lightthe word circus being derived from the Ph nician 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

There were two celebrated temples of the Druids, Abury in Wiltshire, and Carnac in Brittany, which were

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

The winged serpent was a symbol of the Gods of Egypt, Ph nicia, 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 watersnakes 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 medicinemen 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 worldwide 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

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

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

ErybyggaSaga 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

And sometimes by the side of a lake or running stream, for water was held holy by the Druids, and they were

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 byeword among the Romans to express any

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

It was underneath the oaks of Mamre that Abraham dwelt a long time, and where he erected an altar to God,

It was underneath an oak that Jacob hid the idols of his children, for oaks were held sacred and inviolable.

From the Scriptures, too, we learn that it was worshipped by the Pagans who corrupted the Hebrews (Hosea.

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, wheatears to Ceres, the olive to Minerva, fruits

to Pomona, rosetrees to the river nymphs, and hay to poor Vertumnus whose power and merits could obtain

When an oak died, the Druids stripped off its bark, shaped it reverently into the form of a pillar, a pyramid, or

Besides the clanchan and cromleach there are many stone monuments remaining in various parts of Gaul and

These were sometimes trophies of victory, sometimes memorials of gratitude, sometimes images of God.

When erected they were anointed with roseoil, as Jacob anointed the first stone monument on record that

The custom of raising plain stone pillars for idolatrous purposes was afterwards adopted by the Pagans and

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 TheusCeres 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

And in the temple of the Sun at Cuzco, in Peru, was a stone column in the shape of a cone, which was

Every one has heard of the Stone of Memnon in Egypt, which was said to speak at sunrise, 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

Keysler informs us that the Northern nations believed their stone deities to be inhabited by fairies or demons,

"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 sunrise, prostrated

himself before the stonedeity and offered his devotion. Indridus standing by heard the stone speak, and

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

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

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

To this they prayed at certain times, and whoever dared to blow the fire with his mouth, or to throw dirt or

They had circular temples consecrated to their neverdying 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 Mayeve 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

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

In Cornwall there are KarnGollowa, the Cairn of Lights, and KarnLeskyz, the Cairn of Burnings which

names proves that the fiendish rites of Moloch and Baal were really observed with all their impious cruelty in

From these same bloodthirsty Ph nicians 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

But in the age of iron, when men had learnt to tremble at their own thoughts, to know that they were thieves,

To appease the God whom they still believed to be merciful, they offered Him Blood.

And then they offered Him the most innocent and beautiful of His creationsbeautiful virgins and chaste

Do you disbelieve me? read as I have read all the great writers of the past, and then you will shudder as I

Read Manetho, Sanchionatho, Herodotus, Pausanias, Josephus, Philo the Jew, Diodorus of Sicily, Strabo,

Cicero, C�sar, Macrobius, Pliny, Titus Livius, Lucan, and most of the Greek and Latinpoets.

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

The Egyptians sacrificed every year a young and beautiful virgin, whom arrayed in rich robes, they flung into

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.

This mania for blood was universal. Even Themistocles, the deliverer of Greece, had once sacrificed three

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

And the ancient Mexicans forced their victims to lie down upon a pyramidical stone, and tearing out their

I might continue this long and disgusting catalogue of religious crimes, but let us return to the Druids, who at

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

They also offered the boar, and it is not improbable that the hare, hen and goose which they were forbidden to

eat, but which C�sar 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 Curtiuslike 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

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

The voices of the bluerobed Bards would chant a solemn dirge, their harps would tone forth sinister notes.

He would stab him in the back. With mournful music on his lips he would fall weltering in blood, and in the

After which, fresh oakleaves would be cast upon the bloodpolluted altar, and a death feast would be held

THE Druids had many rites of divinationfrom the entrails of their victimsfrom the flight of birdsfrom

the waves of the seafrom the bubbling of wellsand 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

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

The ordering of these divinations were usually placed in the hands of women who formed an order of Sibylls

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

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,

I. Those who performed the servile offices about the temple, and the persons of the Druids, and who were not

II. Those who assisted the Druids in their religious services, and who, though separated from their husbands,

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

There are several instances recorded in classical history of predictions from these priestesses which came

Alexander Severus had just set out upon an expedition when he was met by a Druidess, "Go on, my Lord,"

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

"You have said no jest," replied the priestess, for you will be Emperor when you have killed a wild

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

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

So he slew Aper, his stepfather, the assassin of Numerianus, and shortly afterwards sat upon the imperial

In marble, as well as in ink, there are memorials of the sect of Druidesses. The following inscription was

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

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 mainland, and fondle with their husbands, and smile upon them as if with the sweet innocence

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

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

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 islandhome.

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 diseasesthe first of which they pretended to predict, the latter to cure.

They worshipped her under the name of K�d 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

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 fingera 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

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

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

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

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.

ON the South coast of Britain the people were thronging by hundreds to the seashore. It was to see a vessel

which was sailing past, and which had come from some strange country across the seas.

Its prow was adorned with a swan's head and neck made of bronze. Below the prow and projecting a little

above the keel was a brazen beak, which was called the rostrum and which had been invented by the

The stern was elevated and adorned with the figure of a God. There seated, they could distinguish the

prominent figure of a man who paddled a huge broadbladed oar backwards and forwards in the water, and

There were two masts made of firewood from the forests of Scandinavia, and a triangular sail suspended

The sides of this vessel presented an extraordinary sight. Three banks of rowers, raised above each other,

were plying their oars which swung in leather thongs, and which surrounded the ship with creamy foam, and

The Britons perched upon the rocks, or in their little wicker boats, continued to watch this ship till it had

disappeared, and then returned to their homes to relate this incident to their wives with Celtic garrulity.

It remained to them an enigma, till they received intelligence from the merchants of the main that the ship

was a Roman trireme, or war galley; that its commander was Caius Volusenus, and that he had been sent by

Julius C�sar the Divine, to explore the coasts of that country upon which he meditated an invasion.

In fact, it was this great general who, aspiring to outvie the conquests of Pompey, had determined to subdue

this island of Britain, which was then only known to the world. by some vague and exaggerated reports of the

ferocity of its inhabitants, the perils of its seas, the darkness of its sky, and the marvelous beauty of its pearls.

However, the remoteness of the country with the difficulty and danger of the enterprise were those obstacles

which form the steppingstones to greatness; while the precious stones and metals with which it was said to

abound, served to excite the cupidity of his soldiers whose souls were less open to those glorious passions

The brigands and pirates (that is to say the invaders) of those days even, considered it necessary to invent a

paltry excuse for some act of lawless oppression; and C�sar before he attacked the freedom and properties of

a nation, affirmed that it was in revenge for the assistance which a small tribe of Britons had rendered to his

The Britons terrified by this report, sent ambassadors to Rome. C�sar received them kindly, and sent

Commius, a Roman to whom he had given land in Gaul, as his ambassador in return.

The Britains violated the law of nations and put Commius in prison. C�sar invaded Britain.

Then the groves of the Druids resounded with the cries of victims, and blood flowed from the knife of the

sacrificer. Then the huge image of a bull made of wickerwork was erected, and filled with animals and men,

was set on fire, while the drums and cymbals of the priests drowned those piteous cries which strange to say

Then the Bards who before had sung the blessings of peace, and who had parted armies in their fierce strife,

sang the warhymns of their ancestors, and fired every heart with fortitude and emulation.

On the 26th of August, in the year 55 B.C., at about ten o'clock in the forenoon, C�sar reached the British

He sailed along the coast till he came to that low sandy plain on which the town of Deal Dow stands. It was

there that he intended to land, and there that the Britons, perceiving the prows of his vessels turned towards

The water was too shallow to admit of the galleys approaching close to land. The Romans had therefore to

wade through the sea under a cloud of arrows, and fighting with waves as well as with men. Thus they were

thrown into disorder, and the waters were reddened with their blood. But C�sar had commanded the

rowingboats to approach, in which were erected slings with divers instruments of war, and which darted

The Britons had begun to yield, but were rallying their courage as they saw that the Romans were fearing

those waves which bore past on their dark bosoms the corpses of their comrades. When the standardbearer

of the tenth legion invoked the gods and cried:"Follow me, if you do not wish me to lose my standard

among the foe; but if I lose my life, I shall have done my duty to Rome, and to my general."

The brave man sprang into the sea, with the brazen eagle held aloft, and his bright sword flashing in his hand.

The whole legion followed him, and after a long contest obtained a victory which had the Romans possessed

cavalry to pursue their routed enemy, would have been as sanguinary as it was glorious and decisive.

From that epoch indeed, Britain may be considered as a Roman state, and its after history as merely the

Under Julius C�sar, the rebellion of Cassebilanus compelled him to make a second expedition against

Augustus threatened to invade their island if the Britons continued to refuse to pay taxes. Intimidated by his

menaces, they sent ambassadors to Rome who implored the pardon of the Emperor, and brought him large

The Britons broke their oath under the reign of Caligula, who made grand preparations for an invasion of the

island, but who preferred leading his army against the ocean which he had conquered in this manner.

Having drawn up all his men in battle array upon the seashore, he caused the balistas, or slings, and other

instruments of war to be ranged before them; he then sailed in a wargalley some little distance into the sea,

returned, ordered his trumpeters to sound the charge, and the soldiers to fill their helmets with the shells from

the beach, which he stored as the trophies of a conquered enemy in the Capitol. Having commended the

courage of his soldiers and rewarded them profusely, he erected a tower upon the spot as if to prevent the

This display of imbecility naturally strengthened the Britons in their resolution to pay no taxes, and to

When Claudius C�sar came to the throne, he determined (partly on the advice of Bericus, a British outlaw) to

Aulus Plautius, was placed at the head of a large army, and after several fierce engagements returned to

Ostorius was sent to Britain in the same reign to quell an insurrection, and also returned successful, bringing

In the reign of the bloodthirsty Nero, Suetonius was appointed Governor of Britain. For two whole years he

made war upon the refractory Britons with great success, subduing fresh tribes and establishing garrisons.

But he had long perceived that there was an influence working against him, which was all the more powerful

because it was concealed. It was that of the Druids, who still possessed an extraordinary sway over the minds

of British warriors, and who animated them with promises of paradise to the defence of their country and

He discovered that the chief stronghold of the craft was the island of Mona, now Anglesea. It was to Mona

that the British chieftains resorted as an oracle, to learn their destinies and to receive the encouragements of

those whom they revered. It was to Mona that the wounded were borne, and were placed under the gentle

care of those physicians who knew the secret properties of all herbs and flowers. It was to Mona that the

Derwydd, weary with warfare had withdrawn, and for which they had deserted their magnificent seat at

This island is reported to have been one of the fortunate islands sung of by the Grecian poets, as the Elysian

fields. It was watered by clear streams it was clothed with fair meadows like a soft green mantle; it was full

of oaken groves sacred to the Gods, from which it was called Ynys Dewyll the dark and shadowy island.

It was in the year A.D. 61, that Suetonius resolved to invade this delicious retreat, and to carry the sword into

He forded the narrow channel which divides the isle from the mainland with his cavalry, while his infantry

crossed over in flatbottomed boats, called scaph�, and by which we learn that they landed near Llamdan

As the Romans landed, they were petrified by the horrible sight which awaited them.

It was night, and the British army dusky and grim, stood arrayed against them. Women clad in dark and

mournful garments, and carrying torches in their hands like the furies of hell, were running up and down the

ranks uttering loud wailing cries, while the Druids kneeling before them with hands raised to heaven, made

At some distance behind them, in the obscurity of a neighboring grove, twinkled innumerable fires.

At first, horrorstruck, they remained motionless: it was only when their generals exhorted them not to fear a

crowd of women and priests, and when a flight of arrows from the Britons assured them that they had really

flesh and blood foes to contend with, that they could be brought to advance to the charge with their usual

That night the Druids were burnt in the flames which they themselves had lighted.

But there were many who escaped into the recesses of the sacred groves, or by boat to the neighboring isles.

These only waited for an opportunity to excite the Britons to fresh struggles for their freedom, and such an

Prasutagus, King of the Iceni, having died, left the half of his property to C�sar and half to his daughters.

This which had been done to obtain the favor of the Romans had an opposite effect. His kingdom and palace

were plundered and destroyed, his daughters ravished, his queen beaten like a slave.

The Britons driven to despair by these outrages took arms under Boadicea, the widow of Prasutagus.

Then the image of victory which the Romans had erected, fell down without any apparent cause and

backwards as if it would give place to its enemies. And certain women, distempered with fury, went singing

by way of prophecy that destruction was at hand. And strange sounds were heard in the council house of the

Romans, and their theatre echoed with hideous howlings, and a bleeding sword was seen in the sky, and a

spectre in the arm of the sea, and the ocean was reddened as if with blood, and the shape of men's bodies

The Britons won several battles, and cruelly massacred all the Romans that they took captive without

It was already sung by the Bards who accompanied the army with their threestringed harps that Britain was

With ten thousand men he occupied a strong possession in a pass at the head of an open plain, with a thick

Here were drawn up the Roman cavalry, armed after the Greek fashion with spears and bucklers, and the

infantry in due order of battlethe velites with javelin and targetthe hastali with their shields and Spanish

The British army numbered 230,000 men, which was divided into their infantry, their cavalry, and their

warchariots. The infantry also was divided into three nations, which were subdivided into family tribes

Those of the South were habited like the Belgic Gauls in woolen tunics thickly woven with coarse harsh

wool; their legs and thighs covered with close garments, called Brach�. They wore also helmets of brass,

adorned with figures of birds or beasts rudely carved; iron breastplates, protruding with hooks; a long sword

hanging obliquely across their thighs; a shield ornamented with figures; and a huge dart whose shaft was of

The inland nations were clothed in the skins of beasts and armed with spears and bucklers.

The Caledonians went naked, armed only with long broad pointless swords, and short spears with round balls

of brass at the end, with which they used to make a noise before battle to frighten the horses of the enemy.

These Northern nations were of all the most resolute and troublesome enemies of Rome; for they could sleep

on bogs covered with water, and live upon the barks and roots of trees, and possessed a peculiar kind of meat,

a morsel of which no larger than a bean could protect them for days from hunger and thirst.

The cavalry were mounted upon small but hardy and mettlesome horses, which they managed with great

dexterity. Their arms were the same as those of the infantry, for they would often dismount from their horses

Their warchariots were adorned with beautiful carvings, and were guided by the flower of the nobility. They

were furnished with enormous hooks and scythes, which spread death around as they were driven at terrific

The plain was surrounded by carts and wagons in which, according to the Celtic custom, were placed the

wives and daughters of the warriors who animated them with their cries, and who tended the wounded that

In the midst of this army there was a woman standing in a chariot, clothed in a mantle, with a gold chain

round her neck, her face grave and stern, her yellow hair falling to the ground.

It was Queen Boadicea, who with her two daughters by her side, had come to die or to be revenged.

With a royal dignity sublime in its shamelessness she showed them her body covered with sore and ignoble

stripes; with a trembling hand she pointed to her two daughters disgraced and defiled; with a loud and fierce

voice she reminded them of their victories, and prayed to God to complete their work of vengeance.

"Ye Britons, she cried, are wont to fight under the conduct of a woman, but now I ask ye not to follow me

because I am descended from illustrious ancestors, nor because my kingdom has been stolen from me. I ask

ye to avenge me as a simple woman who has been whipped with rods, and whose daughters have been

ravished before her eyes. These Romans are insatiable, they respect neither the age of our fathers, nor the

virginity of our daughters. They tax our bodies; they tax our very corpses. And what are they? They are not

men. They bathe in tepid water, live on dressed meats, drink undiluted wine, anoint themselves with

spikenard and repose luxuriously. They are far inferior to us. Dread them not. They must have shade and

shelter, pounded corn, wine and oil, or they perish. While to us every herb and root is food, every juice is oil,

every stream wine, every tree a house. Come then, remember your past victories, remember the causes of this

war, and you will understand that the day is come when you must either conquer or die. Such at least shall be

a woman's lot; let those live who desire to remain slaves." So saying, she loosed a hare as an omen of victory

Suetonius cheered his veterans with a few emphatic words, and showed them with contempt the wild and

disorderly multitude which poured confusedly towards them. He bid the trumpets sound and the troops

Then arose a terrible strugglea nation fighting for its freedoman army fighting for its fame.

Alas! that sea of blood, that dreadful apparition, those figures in the sand were omens of Britain's downfall.

Fourscore thousand of its proudest warriors were slain; their wives and daughters were butchered, and

Thus ends the reign of the Druids; the priestkings of the North. Thus they were stripped of their crowns, and

their sceptres, and their regal robes, and compelled to fly to the islands of the Irish channel and the German

Sea, where they dwelt in hollow oaks and in little round stone houses, many of which still remain and are

In Gaul the work of destruction had been completed even prior to the time of Suetonius. This beautiful

religion had been proscribed by Tiberius ostensibly because it permitted human sacrifices, really because it

possessed a dangerous power. This prohibition had been afterwards enforced by Claudius, and the Druids

were massacred by the Romans wherever they were to be found. The priestesses of Sena were burnt by one of

Yet it is difficult to subroot an ancient religion by imperial edicts. The minds of men though prone to novelty

will frequently return fondly to their first faiths, as the hearts of maidens creep back to former and almost

In the fifth century, Druidism sprang back to life under the mighty Merlin, whose prophecies became so

famous throughout Gaul and Britain, and who forms so conspicuous a character in the Arthurian romances.

But these wee drops of the elixir vit�, which could only animate the corpse for a brief spacewhich but

gave vigor to the frame, and light to the eyes, as a lamp apparently extinguished will burst into flame ere it

We find many decrees of Roman emperors, and canons of Christian councils in the sixth, seventh and eighth

centuries against Druidism, and in the day of King Canute, the Dane, a law was made against the worship of

It is possible to discover many vestiges of the Druids and their religion in our times, and many peculiar

analogies between their superstitions and those of other nations and of other priests.

Having related how this order of Priests emanated from the Patriarchs; how they received their idolatrous and

ceremonial usuages from the Ph nicians; how they obtained a supreme power in those two countries which

ere now have struggled for the possession of the world; how they were attacked and annihilated by the

Roman soldiers, I shall leap over a chasm of centuries, and trace their faint footsteps in our homes, in our

THERE is no religion so pure and simple, and yet so mystic and divine as the religion of the Christians. What

need is there of arguments to prove that it is derived from heaven, for what mortal mind could have

conceived so grand and touching a principle, as that of a God who filled with love and pity could descend

from His throne of bliss and honor to save from destruction this one poor star, this one faint mote in the

To twelve men the dear Jesus left his precepts and commands. From the children of these men and of their

disciples sprang a noble flock who, like their great Master, suffered harsh words and cruel torments, and

When God rewarded them by shedding peace upon the church from without, dissensions from within played

Satan's work with her chastity and her love. Swords were then drawn for the first time by Christians against

each otherswords which never thence till now have been for a moment sheathed. The Christian religion is

divided into three established churches, the Church of Rome, the Church of Greece, and the Church of

England. Besides these, there are sects whose origins have been abuse upon the one hand, and ambition upon

Between the vulgar members of these three churches burns a heathenish and diabolical hatred. Its root is

jealousy. Each church affects to be the only ladder to heaven, and damns all such souls as refuse to ascend by

They are barbarians and place themselves in the same scale with the tribe of the Cherokee Indians, who

firmly believe that the Black Hawks will not be admitted to the pleasures of the happy hunting grounds

Between the doctrines and ceremonies of the Greek and Romish Churches, there are but a few delicate and

unimportant distinctions. Yet the Patriarch of the Church, every Holy Thursday, solemnly excommunicates

The Church of England, and the Church of Rome worship the same Christ. Between these two churches, as

between two armies, is waged a scandalous, vituperative war, and each fresh convert is a battle won.

The Romish Church was sullied by many abuses, which authorized a schism and a separation among its

members. Since many of those plaguespots still remain, it is right that this separation should continue. But a

dark and dangerous heresy has long been creeping silently into the heart of our religion, and converting its

ministers into false vipers who, warmed and cherished by the bosom of this gentle church, use their

They wish to transmit to our church those papist emblems and imagery, those ceremonies and customs which

are harmless in themselves, but which by nourishing superstition elevate the dangerous power of the priests.

We can at present be proud of our priesthood. They constitute a body of pious, honorable, hardworking men.

It is because they can exercise no undue power. Give them supreme power, and they will be Neros who will

The priesthood of the Druids stands almost alone in the history of the past. It was directed by men, with

minds elevated by philosophy and learned in the human heart. But read the religious history of other nations,

The priests invented a thousand Gods; the priests told a thousand lies; the priests instituted a thousand absurd

and horrible customs. Who first taught nations to be idolaters, to be murderers but the priests. Who instituted

the festival of the juggernaut, the Inquisition, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, but the priests.

Calvin, a priest of the Reformation, ordered his victims to be burnt with green wooda truly Christian

Aaron, a priest, manufactured a golden calf and taught the Jews to insult their God. And it was Caiaphas, a

high priest, who committed that murder of which the more virtuous heathen Pilate washed his hands.

Look everywhere, look everywhere, and you will see the priests reeking with gore. They have converted

popular and happy nations into deserts, and have made our beautiful world into a slaughter house drenched

Englishmen! they are planting images, they are performing ceremonies in your houses of worship which you

find it impossible to understand. They are hidden from your eyes by a dark veil; it is the veil of a Pagan

I would not raise this veil, and disclose the heathen origin of emblems and ceremonies which so many

I write then in the hope that the church may be preserved in its simplicityand its priesthood in that honor

and integrity which now, as a body, they possess to an extent unequalled in any instance that the

priesthistory of the past or the present can afford. It is indeed seldom that an English clergyman becomes a

wolf clothed in lambskin, and preys upon his flock under words and looks of religion.

But we know that power presents temptations, which minds fortified only by three years education at a

Before letters were invented, symbols were necessary to form a language; and it is still an argument of the

Greek and Romish Churches that pictures and images are the books of those who cannot read.

They say also that since man is not a disembodied spirit like the angels, it is also impossible that he can

worship the Deity with his heart alone. And it cannot be denied that dim and shadowy lights, sweet perfumes,

majestic processions and strains of music will elevate the soul towards God and prepare the mind to receive

Without objecting to the use of such aids to devotion, I wish to guard people from attaching a peculiar

sanctity to the bare aids in themselves, which is nothing less than idolatry. This I can best prevent by showing

them how they first came into a Christian Church. And in doing so, I shall depart little from the original

design of this chapter which is to investigate the vestiges of Druidism in the ceremonies of the Roman

Not only the ceremonies, but also the officers and many of the doctrines of the Church of Rome may be

The Pope of Rome exactly resembles the Secular HighPriest of ancient Rome, and in Latin his title is the

samePontifex Maximus. The office was probably an imitation of that of the ArchDruid, who, as I have

described, had supreme power over secular as well as ecclesiastical affairs, and who was surrounded by a

Senate of the Chief Druids, as the Pontifex Maximus was by Flamines, and the Pope by Cardinals.

The distinguishing sign of the flamen was a HAT; and "the cardinal's hat" is a European proverb.

The ArchDruid held his foot to be kissed on certain occasions by the common people. Julius C�sar who had

observed this custom, on being made Pontifex Maximus, compelled Pompey to do the same; in this he was

The tonsure of the Romish priests is the same as that of the priests of Isis whose heads were shaved, a

Their celibacy is also heathenish. Origen when emasculated himself, only imitated the Hierophantes of

Athens who drank an infusion of hemlock to render themselves impotent. St. Francis who, when tempted

with carnality, would throw himself naked on the snow making balls which he applied to his body calling

them his maid and his wife, did but copy Diogenes who lived in a tuba cloak, his coveringa wallet, his

kitchenthe palm of his hand, his bottle and cup; who in the searching heat of summer would lie naked on

the hot gravel, and in the harshest frost would embrace stone statues covered with snow.

Plato, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus and Zeno, the prince of Stoics, imposed celibacy upon their

disciples. The priests of Cybele, the Megabyzes of Ephesus and the priests of Egypt maintained the vow of

chastity. Eneas (�neid lib vi.) in passing through the infernal regions saw no priests there but such as had

It need not be proved that there were many hermits and orders of monks among the heathen. Even the

begging friars of the Romish church are not original. There was a tribe of lazy mendicant priests among the

heathens, against whom Cicero wrote in his Book of Laws, who used to travel from house to house with

sacks on their backs, and which were gradually filled with eatables by the superstition of their hosts.

Pythagoras established an order of nuns over whom he placed his daughter. The Roman vestals were nuns

who took a vow of chastity, and who, like Christian nuns that we have heard of, were punished with death if

There was a sisterhood of Druidesses at Kildare in Ireland, whose office it was, like the Roman Vestals, to

preserve a holy fire ever burning. They devoted themselves to the service of Brighit, the Goddess of Poetry,

of Physics, and of Smiths, and who is spoken of in the old Irish MSS. as the Presiding Care. When Druidism

was abolished, these priestesses became Christian nuns, and Brighit became St. Bridget, the tutelary saint of

Ireland. The fire was still preserved in honor of this Christian saint, and though extinguished once by the

Archbishop of London, was relighted and only finally extinguished at the suppression of the monasteries in

The dress and ornaments of the Romish priest are borrowed from the heathens. The Ph nician priests wore

surplices. Lambskin was worn by the Persian priests. The pelt, which the canons wear with the fur outward, is

a memorial of the custom of the early heathens, who having killed the beasts for sacrifice, flayed them and

taking the skins put them over their head with the fur outwards. On the saccos, or episcopal garment of the

Russian bishops are suspended small silver bells, which were also worn on the robes of the priests of Persia

The crosier, or pastoral staff of the Pope was also used by the Druids, and answers to the lituus of the Roman

The ArchDruid wore bands precisely resembling those which the Romish and English clergy wear now, and

which a short time ago the students of our universities were compelled to wear in their public examinations.

The fasts, penances and selftortures of the Romish priests find a parallel among the Yogees or

Gymnosophists of India, who wandered about the world naked as they had been born, sometimes standing on

one leg on the burning sandspassing weeks without nourishment, years without reposeexposed to the

sun, to the rain, to the windstanding with their arms crossed above their heads till the sinews shrank and

their flesh withered awayfixing their eyes upon the burning sun till their moisture was seared and their

When a Brahmin became a grandfather he gave up the management of his affairs to his son, and quitted the

city for the desert, the company of men for eternal solitude. He dressed in the bark of trees; he was not

permitted to wear linen nor to cut his nails. He bathed nine times a day; he read and meditated ever on the

Holy Vedas. At night alone he slept, and then on the bare ground. In the summer months he sat in the full

blaze of the sun, surrounded by four fires; in the four months of rain, he dwelt in a stage raised above the

water by four poles but unroofed; during the four winter months he sat all night in the cold water.

Soon his spirits would sink, and tired of life he was allowed to commit suicide, which was considered the

sure passport to heaven. Some burn themselves, some drowned themselves, some flung themselves from

The fast of Chanderayan consisted in eating one mouthful a day, and increasing a mouthful every day for a

month, and then decreasing a mouthful every day for the same length of time. A tribe of the Egyptian priests

fasted perpetually, abstaining from eggs which they considered liquid meat, and from milk which they

The members of the Greek Church are more scrupulous than those of Rome, for they will not eat eggs or fish

The religious rites of the Romish Church are closely assimilated to those of the heathens.

In the Dibaradan� or offeringoffire, the officiating Brahmin always rang a small bell. Also the

womenoftheidol, the dancing girls of the Indian pagodas had golden bells attached to their feet.

The wax tapers which are constantly kept burning in Roman Catholic churches remind us of the practice of

most of the ancient nations who preserved fires continually burning in their temples; for instance in the

pagodas of the Brahmins; in the sanctuaries of Jupiter Ammon; in the Druidic temple at Kildare; in the

The Egyptians used lamps in the celebration of their religious services. They had one festival which they

called The Feast of Lamps, which they used to celebrate by sailing down the Nile to the temple of Isis at Sais

by torchlight. Those who were unable to attend, lighted the lamps, which were small cups filled with salt and

It is curious that this Pagan observance should be still preserved by the Papists. A few years ago I was in the

house of a Roman Catholic at vesper time. "I cannot attend vespers today," he said, "so I do this." And he

fetched a glass saucer which was filled with oil, and lighted a wick which was floating in the midst. After

The Persians used a kind of holy water which was named zor. But it is needless to produce such instances.

Water, as a principle of generation, and as one of the four elements was revered by all heathendom. The very

aspersoire or sacred waterpot which the ancient Romans. used for their temple, may be found among the

Their turnings and genuflexions are copied from the deisuls of the Druids. The Druidic religious dances

which were performed in a circle, in imitation of the revolution of the heavenly bodies, are preserved to

posterity by the cardinals who advance to the Pope in a circle, by the Turkish dervishes, and by the French

The Persians used a long form of prayer for the ceremony of marriage, and the use of the ring on the third

finger of the left hand was known to a the ancients as Tertullian himself admits. In the Greek Church of

Russia the couple are crowned with garlands which are removed on the eighth day. This, an ancient Roman

observance, is not a traditional superstition of the Russians, but a ceremony authorized by their religion, and a

service in their liturgy. The veil which our brides wear is also a remnant of ancient Rome.

As is also the superstition among Papist that it is unlucky to marry in the month of May. Ovid records it in a

Nec vidu� t dis eadem nec virginis apta Tempora. Qu� nupsit non diuturna fuit. Hac quoque de caus� si te

Our funeral practice of throwing three handfuls of earth on the coffin, and saying : earth to earth, ashes to

ashes, dust to dust, was in use among the ancient Egyptians, and our mutes resemble the hired mourners of all

The Vedas are full of exorcisms against those evil spirits which, as the Hindoos supposed, crowded about the

sacrifice and impeded the religious rites. There are forms of exorcism used by Romish priests, and in the first

liturgy of Edward VI, there was a form of exorcism in the baptismal service which since has been erased.

The Romans used to consecrate their temples, when first built, with prayers and sacrifices, and sprinklings of

The mass is acknowledged by the Catholic priests to be a sacrificial service, and the host made of wheat flour

The ancient Persians carried their infants to the temple a few days after they were born, and presented them to

the priest who stood before the holy fire in the presence of the burning sun. He took the child and plunged it

into a vase full of water for the purification of its soul. After which it was anointed, received the sign of the

Such is the origin of infant baptism, of the font, and of the ceremony of signing the forehead with the figure

When the child had arrived at the age of fifteen years, the priest invested him with the robe called Sudra and

This is plainly the same as the Christian confirmation, before which the church does not permit us to receive

We first hear of the sacramental offering of bread and wine as used by Melchisedek. I have described it

among the ceremonies of Druidism. Among the Hebrews it was called qum whence our word "communion."

I have now to consider the great symbol of the Christian religionthe cross. Were it regarded as a mere

emblem of our Lord's suffering I should be silent upon the matter; but since it is an object of actual idolatry in

the Roman Catholic church, and threatens to become the same in our own, I must endeavor to correct the

This cross which the Roman Catholics worship on Good Friday by taking off their shoes and approaching it

on their knees, and reverently kissing it, was once as common a symbol among Pagans as the circle, the

In Ezekiel, IX. 46, we read that God directed the six destroyers to kill all whom they found in the city of

Jerusalem, except those on whose forehead the Taw was inscribed. This letter Taw is the last in the Hebrew

alphabet, and according to its ancient method of writing, exactly resembles a cross, as St. Jerome remarked

The crux ansata of the Egyptians, according to Ruffinus and Sozomen, was hieroglyphic, and imparted the

The was a phallic emblem in Egypt. Thereby also the Syrians and Phoenicians represented the planet Venus.

On some of the early coins of the latter nation, we find the cross attached to a chaplet of beads placed in a

circle so as to form a rosary, such as the Lamas of Thibet and China, the Hindoos and the Roman Catholics

On a Ph nician medal discovered by Dr. Clarke in the ruins of Citium, are inscribed the cross, the rosary and

The Vaishnavas of India mark one of their idols with crosses, thus and with triangles.

On the Egyptian monuments in the British Museum may be seen the mystic cross in great numbers of places,

and upon the breast of one of the mummies in the Museum of the London University is a cross exactly in this

The two principal pagodas of India, those of Benares and Mathura are built in the form of a cross. The

Mexican temples are built in the form of a cross and face the four cardinal points.

Crosses have been discovered on the Scandinavian "Mark" stones in the Scottish Isles, and there are many

ancient monuments in Great Britain which, but for the cross engraved upon them, would be considered

That the Druids, like the aborigines of America and the ancient conjurers of Lapland, revered the form of the

cross can hardly be doubted. Schedius de Mor. Germ. informs us that it was their custom to seek studiously

for an oak tree large and handsome, growing up with two principal arms in the form of a cross beside the

main stem. If the two horizontal arms were not sufficiently adapted to the figure, they fastened a cross beams

to it. Then they consecrated it by cutting upon the right branch in fair characters the word Hesus, upon the

middle stem, the word Taranis, upon the left branch Belenus, and over them the word Thaw.

The tree so inscribed, they would make their Kebla like the Jewish Jerusalem, the Turk's Mecca, and the

I can best explain the adoration of this symbol by deriving it from that constellation The Southern Cross,

which appears only in tropical skies and which perhaps the heathens, attracted by its beauty, learned to

worship, as they worshipped the sun for its God like grandeur, and the moon for its beneficent light. The

idolatry of the Roman Catholics is not confined to emblems. They have deified martyrs and other holy men,

It is true that they draw a distinction between the adoration which they pay to God, and the homage which

they pay to Saints, calling the one in the language of the schools Latria, from worship due to God only, and

the latter Dulia, from an inferior kind of worship. But this distinction is too delicate for the illiterate to

A plurality of Gods I have shown to be one of the abuses of ancient heathenism. In this abuse, they have been

imitated by the modern idolaters of Rome, not only in the abstract but in the concrete: there is not only

The Romans ridiculed the Gods of Egypt whom they themselves adored but under different names. They

So the Roman Catholics while pretending to abjure the Gods of heathenism have actually adopted many of

The petty divinities of the Pagans were deified men, and were intercessors with Osiris, Zeus or Jupiter, as the

The Chaldees divided the year into twelve months with an angel over each month. The saints perform the

same office in the Romish Calendar, and in several of the Greek churches there are twelve pictures for the

The divi, or inferior Gods of the Romans worked miracles; altars were erected in their honor with lights

continually burning before them; their relics were worshipped; convents were formed of religious men and

women who took the name of divus or inferior God, to whom they devoted themselves, such as the Quirinals

from Quirinus or Romulus; the Martiales from Mars; the Vulcanates from Vulcan. So also the Augustines

The Roman divi were tutelary Gods over various vocationsas Neptune over marinersPan over

shepherdsPales over husbandmenFlora over courtezansDiana over huntsmen. So the seamen, among

Catholics, pray to St. Nicholasthe shepherds to St. Windolinethe husbandmen to St. John the

The saints too have received the equipage of the divi. To St. Wolfgang, the hatchet or hook of Saturnto

In the same way as the Pagans worshipped these divi but stigmatized themApollo as a rake, Mercury as an

arrant thief, and Venus as a courtezan; there are things recorded by pious Catholics themselves of those Popes

which are infallible and of saints which are said to be in heaven, quite as little to their credit.

Minutius Felix jeers the Pagans for the vile drudgery they have put upon their Gods. "Sometimes," says he,

"Hercules is set to empty dung; Apollo turns cowherd to Ametus; Neptune hires himself to Laomedon as

So among the glorious miracles of the Holy Virgin, we find that she descends from heaven to bleed a young

man in the arm; to take the place of a naughty abbess who has eloped with a monk; to mend the gown of St.

Thomas of Canterbury who had torn it on a nail, and to wipe the sweat off the faces of the monks of

But as I have said before, there has been something more than imitation. There has been adoption. The

Roman Catholics have canonized several of the pagan gods. Bacchus, the God of topers, has become St.

Baccus, a worshipful saint of the perennial calendar; and Brighit, the Goddess of the Druids, St. Bridget, a

The most distinguishing feature of the Roman Catholic religion is the idolatrous worship of the Virgin Mary.

It is idolatrous, for to this woman whom it is palpable from Scripture that Christ treated as a being inferior to

himself, are rendered prayers and honors as numerous and high as those which are rendered to Him, and in all

They have made her immaculate, although she was the wife of a carpenter, and although the. brethren of

And as there was no mention made in Scripture of her death, they inferred that, like Enoch and Elijah and her

Holy Son, she had been taken up into Heaven. Upon this bare conjecture, the doctrine was assiduously

inculcated into the minds of the ignorant, and a service was introduced into the liturgy called "The

Bonaventura who was canonized a saint, and who is spoken of by his brothercatholics as the Seraphic

Doctor, wrote a book called "The Imitation of the Virgin Mary," after St. ThomasaKempis' wellknown

work, in which he exhorts all faithful catholic; to pray to the Virgin Mary by whose intercession their souls

In the Psalter which St. Bonaventura edited, he changes in each of the 150 Psalms the word Lord or God, for

that of Lady or Mary, interspersing in some much of his own composition, and adding the Gloria Patri to

"Praise our Lady of Heaven, glorify her in the highest. Praise her all ye men and cattle, ye birds of the heaven

and fishes of the sea. Praise her sun and moon, ye stars and circles of the planets. Praise her Cherubin and

Seraphin, thrones and dominions and powers. Praise her all ye legions of angels. Praise her all ye orders of

Theophilus Raynaud, a Jesuit of Lyons, in his work entitled Diptycha Mariana thus writes:

"The torrents of Heaven and the fountains of the great deep, I would rather open than close in homage of the

Virgin. And if her son Jesus has omitted anything, as to the preeminence of the exaltation of his own

mother, I a servant, I a slave, not indeed with effect, but with affection would delight in filling it up."

"In like manner are her feet to be blessed with which she carried the Lord, the womb in which she carried

him, the heart whence she courageously believed in him and fervently loved him, the breasts with which she

gave him suck, the hands with which she nourished him, the mouth and tongue with which she gave to him

the happy kisses of our redemption, the nostrils with which she smelled the sweetsmelling fragrance of his

humanity, the ears with which she listened with delight to his eloquence, the eyes with which she devoutly

looked upon him, the body and soul which Christ consecrated in her with every benediction. And these most

sacred members must be saluted and blessed with all devotion, so that separate salutations must be addressed

to the several members separately, namely, Hail Mary! two to the feet, one to the womb, one to the heart, two

to the breasts, two to the hands, two to the mouth and tongue, two to the lips, two to the nostrils, two to the

ears, two to the eyes, two to the soul and body. And thus in all there are twenty salutations which after the

manner of a daily payment with separate and an equal number of kneelings, if it can be done before her image

or altar, are to be paid to the glorious Virgin according to that psalm, (144). Every day will I give thanks unto

In the following extract from a little work published at Dublin, 1836, and entitled "The Little Testament of

"Mary! sacred name under which no one should despair. Mary! sacred name often assaulted but always

victorious. Mary! it shall be my life, my strength, my comfort. Every day shall I invoke it and the divine

name of Jesus. The Son shall awake the recollection of the mother, and the mother that of the son. Jesus and

Mary! this is what my heart shall say at my last hour if my tongue cannot. I shall hear them on my deathbed,

they shall be wafted on my expiring breath, and I with them to see THEM, know THEM, bless and love

"My soul," says the blessed Eric Suzon, is in the hands of Mary, so that if the judge wishes to condemn me,

the sentence must pass through this clement Queen, and she knows how to prevent its execution."

It even became a custom at one time in their church to date the Christian era not from the birth of the Christ,

but from the virgin mother of God. See Emanuel Acosta's Acts of the Jesuits in the East. Diling�. 1571. Ad

The question now naturally arises, why does the Virgin Mary receive this worship and these honors which are

You will be surprised when I tell you that this also is a remnant of heathenism.

In all nations, long before the Christian era, a female with a child in her arms had been worshipped. Among

the Egyptians it was Isis, among the Etruscans it was Venus, among the Phrygians it was Atys.

In fact as Isis was the original of the Proserpine, the Venus, the Diana, the Juno, the Maia and the Cere of

ancient Rome, so she was the original of the Virgin Mary of the Roman Catholic Church.

In the year 1747, a Mithraic monument was found at Oxforda female nursing an infantwhich Dr.

Stukeley proved to be a representation of the Goddess of the Year nursing the God Day.

It is indeed not improbable that Oxford with its seven hills, its river Isis, and the bull in its coat of arms had

been established by priests who, like the Druids, were acquainted with Egyptian lore.

An ancient Etruscan monument was discovered at Rome, the precise model of those pictures of the Madonna

In many churches on the continent, the Virgin Mary is represented with a lily or lotus in her hand. This plant

was sacred to Isis, and was held in reverence by the priests of Egypt and of India.

In the hymn of the Assumption, the Virgin is entreated "to calm the rage of her heavenly husband."

In the form of prayer called Litani� Lauritan�, there are more than forty addresses to the Virgin, invoking

her as the star of the sea, as the mystical rose, and by a variety of other heathen epithets.

In another prayer she is named amica stella, naufragis, and in Sanval's Historie des Antiquit�s de Paris, �toile

And the Holy Virgin is repeatedly invoked in the Romish liturgy as the Queen of Heaven.

Finally, on the 25th of March the ancient Phrygians devoted a festival to the mother of the Gods, which very

day still bears among Catholics and their Protestant imitators the name of Lady's Day.

All this does not impeach one iota or tittle of the truth of Christianity. I do not say that the Christians invented

a personage, and called her the Virgin Mary. I merely prove that the Roman Catholics pay those idolatrous

tributes to the Virgin Mary which their ancestors rendered to Isis in Egypt, or to Venus in Rome, and that

For instance, in the pictures of the Madonna and the Child, we see the Virgin's head encircled by a crescent

The one is a symbol of the new moon sacred to Isis, the latter an imitation of the radiance of the sun of whom

The spires and towers of our churches are also imitated from the pyramids and obelisks of antiquity. These

were erected as emblems of the sun's beams which fall pyramidically upon the earth.

Many of the heathen festivals are still celebrated by Christians. In the liturgy of the Greek Church there is a

ritual named "The Benediction of the Waters." A wooden temple, richly gilt and hung round with sacred

pictures, is erected upon the Neva at St. Petersburg when it is frozen, and a procession is formed by the

clerks, the deacons, the priests and the bishops dressed in their richest robes, and bearing the tapers and the

This is not unlike "The Feast of Lamps" before described, which the Egyptians partly celebrated on the Nile,

a river which in one of the prayers of the Greek Church is called "The Monarch of the Floods."

The conception of the Virgin Mary is represented on the same day (the 2nd of February) as that of the

miraculous conception of Juno by the ancient Romans. This, says the author of the Perennial Calendar, is a

It is also a remarkable coincidence that the Feast of AllSaints, which is celebrated by the Roman Catholics

on the 2nd of November and which retains its place in the Protestant calendar, should have been on the same

day as the Festum dei Mortis of the Romans, and should still be annually kept by the Buddhists of Thibet, and

by the natives of South America and as a Druidic custom by the rustic classes of Ireland.

It is also a remarkable coincidence that the Romans should have had their Prosipernalia, or Feast of Candles

or Candlemass in Februarytheir Palelia, or shepherd's feast on Midsummer Day which is sacred to St. John

the Baptist, and that the Romish Carnival should be held at the same time as the ancient Saturnalia, and

Thus we see that the Roman Catholics have been in the habit of celebrating Christian festivals upon days

which were held sacred by the heathens. Whether this was from mere slavish imitation, or from a fondness

for old associations, or from a desire to sanctify those days unhallowed by paganism it is impossible to say.

One of the most extraordinary examples of this custom is to be found in our grand festival of Christmas.

All will allow, I think, that there is no evidence to prove that the twentyfifth of December was the actual day

upon which Christ was born. And that He really arose on Easter Day can scarcely be believed, since the

fixing of that day was not arranged among the early Christians till after swords as well as words had been

I hope that I shall not weaken the genial feelings with which Christmas Day, that holiday of the year, is

greeted by the nation if I expose the real origin of the festival. But that I feel sure is impossible. It would need

something more than a few facts from old books to blot out all those happy associations which crowd around

that glorious festival, which though it may be celebrated on the wrong day is kept in the right manner.

I may, however, show those Christians who worship the letter and not the spirit, who attach more sanctity to

the day than to the festival, who set their children over grave books and who forbid them to laugh on that day

when there is a smile even on the poor man's lips, I may show those wordmongers, those silly Puritans,

those harsh blunderers in religion what honor they have paid to heathenism all their lives.

The festival of the twentyfifth of December, which we call Christmas, was observed by the Druids on that

day by lighting great fires on the tops of hills. The festival was repeated on the twelfth day afterwards, which

And even now there are certain rites performed under the sacred mistletoe on Christmas Day which certainly

The Jews also celebrated a festival on the twentyfifth of December which they called or the feast of light,

The twentyfifth of December too was the birthday of the God Mithra, and it was an old custom of the

And now I will explain when this day was first established as the birthday of Christ. The C nobite monks

finding that in their monasteries (most of which were pagan seminaries built before the Christian era) a day

had been from time immemorial dedicated to the God Sol as his birthday, and that he bore the name of

Lordthis Lord they conceived must be their Lord, and after many disputes the twentyfifth of December

was established as the anniversary of Christ, and so the Druidic festival of the winter solstice became a

The origin of Sunday is very similar; but while the heathen festival of Christmas has received a Christian

Such was the abhorrence which the early Christians felt for their persecutors, the Jews, that they were wont to

reject all that was Jewish, as the first Puritans rejected all that was Romish without considering its intrinsic

God had ordained the seventh day for man's rest and recreation. He had given forth that edict from Mount

Sinai not to the Israelites only, but to the whole world. But since the Jews faithfully kept this commandment,

the Christians hated the Sabbath and took a step which was wholly unauthorized by their Master, or by any of

The word Lord is heathen, and is equivalent to Baal in Chaldee and to Adonis in Phoenician. It first crept into

The Jews, in obedience to the law "thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain," never wrote or

spoke His name except on the most solemn occasions. And the first translators to avoid the frequent

repetition of the word, first used this hieroglyphic and afterwards the term which the Pagans applied to their

Now the Persians set apart every month four of these Lord's days or lesser festivals to the Sun. On these days,

they had more solemn service in their temples than on other days, reading portions of their sacred books and

But the most curious point of resemblance is that on these days alone they prayed standing. And in the

sixteenth canon of the Council of Nice to kneel in prayer on Sundays is forbidden.

Constantine, after pretending to be converted to Christianity, ordered the day Domini invicti Solis to be set

The early Christians were accused by the heathens of worshipping the sun, and Justin, as if loathing the very

Since it would be now almost impossible to restore our weekly day of rest to that day which God thought fit

to appoint, and which man thought fit to alter, I may be blamed for having made these disclosures which

But I have had my reason. It is to show the folly of those who go wordmongering, to make triumphant

comparisons between the Dayofthesun as observed by Christians, and God's Sabbath as observed by

Jews; who bring out their religion, their consciences, their bibles, their sternest faces and their best clothes

upon this day, and who believe or seem to believe that God sleeps all the week, and that if they go to church

It is not at this hour or at that hour that God is to be worshipped. Lipservices resemble the treacherous kisses

of a Judas, and the heart does not naturally aspire towards heaven at the striking of a clock or at the ringing of

Before concluding this chapter, I should wish to exculpate myself from the supposition that I have written in

I know that they can boast of many devout disciplesof many enterprising missionariesof many

conscientious priests. I know that they are not now more foolish and bigoted than the members of the

Protestant churches, as in former times the murderers of St. Bartholomew were no worse than the cruel

Calvin, nor Bloody Mary than James the First. In those days a remnant of the horrible custom of human

sacrifice was preserved by all alike. They martyred those of the same religion as themselves but not of the

same sect, burning them, drowning them, tearing them limb from limb like the Pagans of old, as offerings to

It is true that the Roman Catholics were the most ruthless in barbarity and the most ingenious in torture, but it

I know that Roman Catholic priests do not really worship those images of the saints to which they bend their

knees. But though they are not idolaters themselves, it cannot be denied that they have taught their disciples

I do not suppose that men of genius or even of education ever yet were, or ever could be image worshippers.

Listen to these words of the Emperor Julian, written in an age that is supposed to have been enslaved in

"The statues of the gods, the altars that are raised to them, and the holy fires that are burnt in their honor have

been instituted by our fathers as signs and emblems of the presence of the Gods, not that we should regard

I might quote fifty other passages to prove that in all idolatrous nations the priests and philosophers, though

affecting to be imageworshippers, have in their hearts scorned those pieces of wood and stone to which their

In papistry, there are as many dupes and as much idolatry as ever existed in Egypt, in Italy, or in Greece.

Witness a Roman Catholic service, and you will see heads bowed before stoneimages and prayers,

Study the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Is not that an instance of the emblem being forgotten in the God?

These abuses are melancholy to contemplate, for these alone it is which hold two Christian churches asunder.

These with the Platonic dogma of purgatory upon which no man can decide, and upon which therefore it is

English priests beware how you nurse idolatry; for those who do so, enchain not only others but themselves.

In the reign of Peter the Great, a law was passed by a synod of the Greek Church in Russia enacting that the

use of pictures in churches was contrary to the principles in Christianity, and that all such should be removed

The Emperor sanctioned this law, but feared to put it into execution lest it should cause a general

Superstition, born of Satan, fed and fostered by priests, like a hideous cuttlefish has cast its white and slimy

arms around the Harlot of Babylon, and. has bedaubed her with its black blood. Now she loves this blood and

knows not that it defiles her; she loves these embraces and knows not that they enslave her. But some day

aspiring to be free, she will attempt to rise from her grave of sand and foul weeds; and then seizing her in its

horrible arms, that demon who so long has triumphed over her will sink with her forever beneath the waves.

THERE is a divine and hidden science whose origin can only be discovered by the wavering lights of

It is now degenerated into a society of gluttons and winebibbers, who yawn while their Masters expound to

them those emblems which have excited the wonder of the greatest philosophers of the past, and who deem

that the richest gem of freemasonry, is the banquet which closes the labor of the Lodge.

And yet this order can boast of some learned and intellectual men, who endeavor to find the key to the hidden

language of symbols, and who appreciate at its true value the high honors which the initiated are permitted to

In spite of the abuses with which it has been degraded, in spite of the sneers with which the ignorant revile it,

No feelings can be compared with those which a young man feels when, attired in strange array,

blindfolded, the dagger pointed to his naked left breast, he is led through the mystic labyrinth, whose

The strains of solemn musicthe mysterious wordsthe low knock at the portalthe sudden blaze of

lightand the strange sight which await his eyes feeble and fluttering from their long imprisonment.

What awe he feels, as kneeling on his right knee, his left hand placed upon the Book of the Law, encircled by

the Masters in their robes of office, and the two white wands held over his head in the form of a cross, he

takes the oath of secrecy and faith, "to hail, conceal and never reveal the hidden mysteries of the fellowship"

And what pride flushes in his heart when the secret signs and keywords are imparted to him, and when the

white apron, a badge more glorious than the fabled Golden Fleece, or the Roman Eagle is tied round his

Surrounded by all those signs and symbols by which the ancient nations were wont to express the power and

presence of God, the Mason's Lodge resembles a scene of enchantment in the midst of this wilderness which

we call the world. And those who are thus assembled together in mystic robes, seem spirits of another age,

who have returned to hold their hidden meetings once more in the catacombs of the Egyptian pyramids, or in

the caverntemple sacred to Mithra, or in the subterranean labyrinths of the holy Druids.

The brethren seated in a circle, one of the Masters arises and advances to the midst. He relates to them a

"After the sun had descended down the seventh age from Adam before the flood of Noah, there was born

unto Methusael, the son of Mehujael, a man called Lamach who took unto himself two wives. the name of the

one was Adah, of the other Zillah. Now Adah his first wife, bare two sonsthe one named Jabel and the

other Jubal. Jabal was the inventor of geometry and the first who built houses of stone and timber, and Jubal

was the inventor of music and harmony. Zillah, his second wife, bare Tubal Cain, the instructor of every

artificer in brass and iron, and a daughter called Naamah who was the founder of the weaver's craft.

"All these had knowledge from above, that the Almighty would take vengeance for sin either by fire or by

water, so great was the wickedness of the world. So they reasoned among themselves how they might

preserve the knowledge of the sciences which they had found, and Jabal said that there were two different

kinds of stone of such virtue that one would not burn and the other would not sinkthe one called marble

and the other latres. They then agreed to write all the science that they had found upon these stones.

"After the destruction of the world, these two pillars were discovered by Hermes, the son of Shem. Then the

craft of masonry began to flourish, and Nimrod was one of the earliest patrons of the art. Abraham, the son of

Jerah, was skilled in the seven sciences and taught the Egyptians the science of grammar. Euclid was his

pupil, and instructed them in the art of making mighty walls and ditches to preserve their houses from the

inundations of the Nile, and by geometry measured out the land, and divided it into partitions so that each

man might ascertain his own property. And he it was who gave masonry the name of geometry.

"In his days, it came to pass that the sovereign and lords of the realm had gotten many sons unlawfully by

other men's wives, insomuch that the land was grievously burdened with them. A council was called but no

reasonable remedy was proposed. The king then ordered a proclamation to be made throughout his realms,

that high rewards would be given to any man who would devise a proper method for maintaining the

children. Euclid dispelled the difficulty. He thus addressed the king: 'My noble sovereign, if I may have order

and government of these lord's sons, I will teach them the seven liberal sciences, whereby they may live

honestly like gentlemen, provided that you will grant me power over them by virtue of your royal

"This request was immediately complied with, and Euclid established a Lodge of Masons."

This tale is curious as being the earliest account of an educational institution.

There are various traditions of minor interest relating to the patriarchal ages and to the wanderings of the

The Freemasons claim descent from that body of builders who, some from Ph nicia, and some from India,

came to Jerusalem to erect the temple of Solomon. They also assert that these masons were governed by the

same laws, and united by the same ties as those of the modern order, and in the initiation of a Mastermason

the following tradition is related respecting the death of the Ph nician Hiram Abiff, the master architect who

"There were fifteen fellowcraftsmen, who finding that the temple was almost finished, and that they had not

received the master's word because their time was not come, agreed to extort it from their master, the skilful

Hiram Abiff, on the first opportunity, that they might pass for masters in other countries and have masters'

wages. Twelve recanted and the other three determined to carry out the plot. Their names were Jubela,

Jubelo, and Jubelum. These three crafts knowing that it was always the master's custom at twelve at noon,

when the men were called off to refreshment, to go into the sanctum sanctorum to pray to the true and living

Godthey placed themselves at the three entrances to the temple, viz., at the west, south and east doors.

There was no entrance in the north, because thence the sun darts no rays. Thus they waited while he made his

prayer to the Lord, to have the word or grip as he came out, or his life. So Hiram came to the east door, and

Jubela demanded the master's word. Hiram told him he did not receive it in such a manner but he must wait,

and time and a little patience would bring him to it, for it was not in his power to deliver it except the three

Grand Masters were together, viz: Solomon, King of Israel, Hiram, King of Tyre, and Hiram Abiff.

"Jubela struck him across the throat with a 24inch gauge. He fled thence to the south door where he was

accosted in the same manner by Jubelo to whom he gave a similar answer, and who gave him a blow with a

square upon his left breast. Hiram reeled but recovered himself, and flew to the west door where Jubelum

gave him a heavy blow upon the head with a common gavel or setting maul which proved his death.

"After this they carried him out of the west door and hid him in a heap of rubbish till it was twelve at night,

when they found means to bury him in a handsome grave, six feet east and west, and six feet in height.

"When Hiram was missed, King Solomon made great inquiry after him, and not hearing anything of him

supposed him to be dead. The twelve crafts that had recanted hearing the said report, and their consciences

pricking them, went and informed King Solomon with white aprons and gloves as tokens of their innocence.

King Solomon forthwith sent them in search of the three murderers who had absconded, and they agreed to

make the pursuit in four parties, three going north, three south, three east, and three west.

"As one of these parties traveled down to the sea of Joppa, one of them sitting himself down to rest by the

"'O that I had my throat cut across, and my tongue torn out by the root, and buried in the sands of the sea at

low water a cable length from the shore, where the tide doth regularly ebb and flow twice in the course of the

twentyfour hours, than that I had been concerned in the death of our master Hiram.'

"'Oh! that I had my heart torn from under my naked left breast, and given to the vultures of the air as a prey,

"'But oh!' cried Jubelum. I struck him harder than you both, for I killed him. Oh! that I had had my body

severed in two, one part carried to the south, and the other to the north, my bowels burnt to ashes and

scattered before the four winds of the earth, rather than I had been concerned in the death of our master

"The brother that heard these sorrowful lamentations hailed the other two, and they went into the cleft of the

rock and took them and bound them, and brought them before King Solomon, when they owned what had

passed, and what they had done, and did not desire to live, therefore King Solomon ordered their own

sentences to be executed upon them, saying, 'They have signed their own deaths, and let it be upon them as

"'Jubela was taken out, and his throat cut across, and his tongue torn out by the root, and buried in the sands

of the sea at low water, a cable length from the shore, where the tide did regularly ebb and flow twice in the

"Jubelo's heart was torn from under his naked left breast, and was given to the vultures of the air as a prey.

"Jubelum's body was severed in two, one part was carried to the north, the other to the south, his bowels were

The real secret of Freemasonry, viz., its origin and purport, as yet remain an enigma and will probably ever

There are some authors who have fixed the source of this sacred and mysterious fountain within the oaken

Who assert that when Druidism was proscribed, its priests adopted various disguises and carried their

learning into various professions. Some became schoolmasters and taught science to the youth of Britain, as

they had once done in the forest seminaries of Mona. Some fortunetellers, the parents of the tribes of

gypsies who still retain a kind of brotherhood united by oaths and secret signs, and who at one time possessed

And others who formed themselves into a community resembling, if not in their power, at least in their

unanimity, that ancient body of priests who had once been the sovereigns of Britain.

At first I was inclined to believe that such was really the case, and that Freemasonry was no more than a

reproduction of Druidism in the Middle Ages. On searching for materials, I met with evidence in limine

which tended to confirm me in this conviction. There was a manuscript discovered in the Bodleian Library at

Oxford in 1696, which was supposed to have been written about the year 1436. It purports to be an

examination of one of the brotherhood by King Henry VI, and is allowed by all masonic writers to be

Its title is as follows: "Certain questions with answers to the same concerning the mystery of masonry written

by King, Henry the Sixth and faithfully copied by me John Leylande, antiquarian, by command of his

I give an extract modernizing the English of the original, which, though quaint, would be unintelligible to all

"What mote it be? It is the knowledge of nature, and the power of its various operations; particularly the skill

of reckoning, of weights and measures, of constructing buildings and dwellings of all kinds, and the true

"Where did it begin ?it began with the first men of the East, who were before the first men of the West, and

"Who brought it to the West?the Phoenicians who, being great merchants, came first from the East into

Phoenicia, for the convenience of commerce, both East and West by the Red and Mediterranean Seas.

"How came it into England?Pythagoras, a Grecian, traveled to acquire knowledge in Egypt and in Syria,

and in every other land where the Phoenicians had planted masonry; and gaining admittance into all lodges of

masons, he learned much, and returned and dwelt in Grecia Magna, growing and becoming mighty wise and

greatly renowned. Here he formed a great lodge at Crotona, and made many masons, some of whom traveled

into France, and there made many more, from whence, in process of time, the art passed into England."

This, I need not remind the reader, is a story very similar to those current respecting the first planting of

I also discovered as I thought, a key to the tradition of Hiram Abiff, which I have just related, viz., that it was

simply the story of Osiris (killed by Typhon the Evil Spirit, buried in a coffin and found by Isis) so corrupted

In the continuation of the story of Hiram, it is stated that the twelve crafts on discovering his body were

unable to raise it, and that King Solomon ordered a lodge of mastermasons to be summoned and said, "I will

go myself in person and try to raise the body by the master's grip or the lion's paw.

Now in a figure painted on a mummy at the Austin Fryar's of La Place des Victores, representing the death

and resurrection of Osiris, is seen an exact model of the position of the mastermason as he raises Hiram.

Jubela, Jubelo, Jubelum are merely variations from the Latin word jubeo, I command. The pretended

assassins are represented as demanding the master's grip and word from Hiram in an imperious manner.

A more satisfactory proof of the truth of this statement is contained in an astronomical notion of the Hindoos,

The Decans, or Elohim, are the gods of whom it is said the Almighty created the Universe. They arranged the

order of the zodiac. The Elohim of the summer were gods of a benevolent disposition: they made the days

long, and loaded the sun's head with topaz. While the three wretches that presided in the winter at the extreme

end of the year, hid in the realms below, were, with the constellation to which they belonged, cut off from the

rest of the zodiac; and as they were missing, were consequently accused of bringing Chrisna into those

Even allowing these premises to be true, it does not necessarily follow that the traditionary account of the

And indeed there is so much that is purely Hebrew in ceremonial masonry, that one is almost forced to

believe that the Freemasons of the present day are really descended from a body of architects, who, like the

Dionysiacks of Asia Minor, were united into a fraternal association and who erected the temple of Solomon.

In these ceremonies, however, and in their emblems there is much also that is Druidic, and if Freemasonry

did not emanate from Druidism, there can be no doubt that it sprang from the same origin.

I will trace out the affinity between the Masonic Order of the Present, and the Druid Order of the Past. It shall

be for the reader to decide whether these Masonic usages are vestiges of Druidism, or mere points of family

The initiations of Masons are so similar to those of the Druids, that any Mason reading my article upon the

The ovade wore a gold chain round his neck. And the apprentice when initiated has a silk cord, in masonic

parlance a cabletow, suspended from his throat. Like the ovade, the apprentice is blindfolded, and as the

former was led through the mazes of a labyrinth, the latter is led backwards and forwards, and in various

Thunder and lightning were counterfeited in the initiation of a Druid, and in that of the Royal Arch the

Companions fire pistols, clash swords, overturn chairs, and roll cannon balls across the floor.

And tests of fortitude though less severe than in former times are not unknown among Masons. The following

"A candidate for admission was usually very much excited. During a part of the ceremony she was conducted

to an eminence, and told to look down at what awaited her if she faltered in her duty. Beneath her appeared a

frightful abyss in which a double row of iron spikes were visible. No doubt her mind was in a chaos of

fanaticism, for instead of shrinking at the sight, she exclaimed "I can encounter all," and sprang forward. At

that moment a secret spring was touched, and the candidate fell not on the spikes, but on a green bed in

imitation of a verdant plain. She fainted but was soon recovered by her friends, when the scene having

I have already shown, I trust conclusively, that the Druidic mysteries were founded on those of the Egyptians,

and were analogous to those of Tyre, Persia and Hindostan; and that their moral doctrines and pristine

It will be easy to show that those of Freemasonry, if not a mere perpetuation of the Druidic were derived from

the same fountains, and that the secrets of this science and philosophy are hidden from us by the veil of Isis.

To the Egyptian candidate on his initiation, the Hierophant displayed the holy volume of hieroglyphics

So when the eyes of the apprentice are first released from darkness, he beholds the volume of the sacred law.

During the Persian initiations, the doctrine was enforced ex cathedra, from the desk or pulpit. So the Grand

Master sits on a throne before which the candidate kneels, pointing a dagger to his naked left breast and two

On the seal of the ancient Abbey of Arbroath in Scotland, is a representation which bears a curious

resemblance to the engraving on a seal used by the priests of Isis, and which Plutarch describes in his Essay

In all the ancient mysteries before an aspirant could claim participation in the higher secrets of the institution,

he was placed within the pastos or bed, or coffin, and was subjected to a confinement in darkness for a certain

This I have described to be practiced by the Druids. In some of their labyrinths, discovered in France, the

remains of cells have been found, and there was a dark cell of probation recently standing near Maidstone,

Kitt's Cotti Housefrom Ked (or Ceridwen) the British Isis, and cotti an ark, or chest.

So in the initiation of a Master Mason, the candidate is in some lodges buried in a coffin to represent the

The grand festival of Masonry is on Midsummer Day, which was also the grand festival of the Druids.

I have already instanced the symbol by which the Jews expressed the word 'Jehovah.' This letter jod was

believed by them to denote the presence of God, especially when conveyed in a circle. Masons also have a

word which they are not allowed to pronounce except in the presence of a full lodge, and they pay peculiar

Some of the Druidic monuments are simple circles with a stone standing in the midst, and the boss in the

The Masonic Lodge, like all Pagan temples, is built due east and west. Its form is an oblong square which the

ancients believed to be the shape of the world. In the west are two pillars surmounted by globes. The one on

the left is called Boaz, and is supposed to represent Osiris or the sun, the other Jachin, the emblem of Isis or

the moon. The floor is mosaic, and the walls are adorned with the various symbols of the craft.

The cross is one of the chief emblems in Masonry as it was in Druidism, and in all the Pagan religions. The

Taw is a badge in Royal Arch Masonry, and almost all the other varieties of the symbol are used in Masonry.

The key and the crosskeys are also mosaic symbols. They are supposed to be astronomical signs of Anubis,

An earofcorn is a prominent emblem in Masonry, proving that the order did not confine their intellects and

their labors to the building of houses, but devoted themselves also to agriculture.

A sprig of acacia is one of the emblems revered by the Masons, and answers to the Egyptian lotus, to the

myrtle of Eleusis, to the golden branch of Virgil and to the Druidic mistletoe. It is curious that Houzza which

Mahomet esteemed an idolHouzza so honored in the Arabian works of Ghatf�n Koreisch, Kenanah and

Salem should be simply the acacia. Thence was derived the word huzza! in our language, which was probably

The doctrines of Masonry are the most beautiful that it is possible to conceive. They breathe the simplicity of

That word which the Puritans translated "charity," but which is really "love"love is the keystone of the

In the lectures of the French Lodges the whole duty of a Mason is summed up in this one brief sentence:

"Aimezvous les uns les autres, instruisezvous, secourezvous, voil� tout noire livre, toute noire loi, toule

"Love one another, teach one another, help one another. That is all our doctrine, all our science, all our law."

Ah! rail against us bigoted and ignorant men, slander us curious and jealous women if you will. Those who

obey the precepts of their masters, and those who listen to the truths which they inculcate can readily forgive

We have no narrowminded prejudices; we do not debar from our society this sect or that sect; it is sufficient

for us that a man worships God, no matter under what name or in what manner, and we admit him.

Christians, Jews, Mahometans, Buddhists are enrolled among us, and it is in the Mason's Lodge alone that

they can kneel down together without feeling hatred, without professing contempt against their brother

IT is strange with what pertinacity the ignorant retain those customs which their fathers observed, and which

It is an attribute of human nature to hallow all that belongs to the past. It is impossible to look without

admiration upon a venerable building which has lived through centuries, an immortal work of art; it is natural

that we should also revere those customs which have descended to us by no written laws, by no kingly

Before I enter the homes of our peasants however, come with me to the mountains of Wales where we shall

find the true descendants, not only of the ancient Britons but also of the Holy Druids themselves.

I mean the Bards, or harpers, who still continue to strike melodious notes in this land of music and metheglin,

The Bards were always held in high reverence in Wales, and that is why they have lived so long. When the

priests had been swept away by the sword of the new religion, this glorious association of musicians

remained, and consented to sing praises to Jesus Christ the Redeemer, instead of to HU the pervading spirit.

Indeed it was said of Barach, who was chief Bard to Conchobhar Nessan, King of Ulster, that he described

the passion of Jesus in such moving words that the king, transported with rage, drew his sword and fell to

hacking and hewing the trees of the wood in which he was standing, mistaking them for Jews, and even died

By studying the old Welsh laws of Howel the good king (A. D.,940), one finds some curious matter

respecting the position which the Bards held at that time in the Court and country.

Y Bardd Teulu, or Court Bard (an appointment from which that of our poetlaureate probably originated) on

receiving his commission, was presented by the king with a silver harp, by the queen with a gold ring. He

held the eighth place at Court. He possessed his land free. At the three great festivals of the year, Christmas,

Easter, and Whitsuntide, he sat at the prince's table. On these occasions, he was entitled to have the disdain's

or stewardofthehousehold's garment for his fee. In addition to these perquisites, the king found him in

woolen robes, and the queen in linen, and he received a present from every maiden when she married, but

At regal feasts the guests were placed in threes; a tune called Gosteg yr Halen, "the prelude of the salt," was

sung as the saltcellar was placed before the king, and as they were served with meats, upon platters of clean

When a song was called for after the feast, the Oadeirfardd, or the bard who possessed the badge

ofthechair sang a hymn to the glory of God, and then another in honor of the king. After which, the

If the queen wished for a song after she had retired to her apartment, the Teuluwr, might sing to her, but in a

If a Bard desired a favor of the king, he was obliged to play one of his own compositions; if of a nobleman,

His person was held so sacred that whoever slightly injured him was fined VI cows and CXX pence, and the

murderer of a Bard was fined CXXVI cows. The worst murder in those days, like criminal conversations in

On a plundering expedition, the Bard received a large portion of the spoil. He preceded the warriors to battle,

An edict was issued by King Edward I. authorizing the massacre of the Bards, one of them having prophesied

the liberation of Wales. The murder of the last Bard has been beautifully described by Gray in one of his

Queen Elizabeth also issued a proclamation, but of a less sanguinary character against certain wandering

minstrels, who appear to have been among the musicians of those days what quacks are among our modern

M.D.'s. It also commissioned certain gentlemen to inquire into the various capabilities of the Welsh Bards,

and to license those who were most fit to represent the musical talent of their country.

This profound question was settled at an Eisteddfod, or a musical meeting of the Bard who contested once a

year for a silver harp. This practice which had existed from time immemorial is still continued in Wales, and

the transactions of the Aberffraw Royal Eisteddfod were published in the year 1849.

I know little of the peculiar character of Welsh music except that it is executed mostly in B flat. Partsinging

may be considered as a peculiarity of the Welsh bards. Extempore performances were common to all the

A kind of extempore composition is still exercised among the Welsh peasantry, and is called Penillion

singing. The harper being seated, plays one of his native airs while the singers stand round him and

There are many clerwyr, or wandering minstrels still in Wales. Like their predecessors, they are in the habit

of going from house to house, and of officiating, as our gypsy fiddlers do at all rustic festivals and weddings.

They have a curious tradition, that Madoc, a brother of one of the Kings of Wales, sailed from that country in

the year 1171 A. D. and was the first European settler in Mexico. Sir Thomas Herbert who wrote a scarce

book of travels in 1665, mentions it as a fact, and in Hackett's Collection of Epitaphs (1757) is this one:

We have it on the authority of a Captain Davies, and Lieutenant Roberts of Hawcorden in Flintshire, and

from a MS. entry in William Penn's journal, evidence collected by the famous Dr. Owen Pughe, that the

tribes of the Illinois, Madocautes, the Padoucas and Mud Indians spoke the Welsh language.

Without entering into a useless dissertation upon this subject, I will note a curious custom in which the

American Indians resemble the Welsh, viz., in the habit of carrying their canoes upon their backs from rapid

to rapid. Giraldus Cambrensis informs us that the Welsh used to carry their triangular boats from river to

river, which occasioned a famous dealer, named Bledherc, to say: "There is amongst us a people who when

they go out in search of prey carry their horses on their backs to the place of plunder; in order to catch their

prey, they leap upon their horses, and when it is taken, carry their horses home again upon their shoulders."

They worshipped the same symbols of God as the ancient Britishthe sun, the moon, fire, water, the serpent,

the cross, and in the course of this chapter I shall mention other customs common to both nations.

Among the peasantry of Great Britain and Ireland, there are observed not only those traditional customs

It may surprise the reader that the worship of fire with which our preachers and tractwriters jeer the

Spenser says that the Irish never lighted a fire without uttering a prayer. In some parts of England it is

considered unlucky for the fire to go out. They have a peculiar fuel with which they feed it during the night.

There are three days in the year on which the worship of fire is especially observedMayday, Midsummer

On the first of May which is called Beltan, or BelteinDay from the Druidic Beltenus, the Ph nician Baal,

the Highland herdsmen assemble on a moor, They cut a table in the sod, of a round figure, by casting a trench

in the ground of such circumference as to hold the whole company. They kindle a wood fire and dress a large

caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal and milk, taking care to be supplied with plenty of beer and whiskey as well.

The rites begin with spilling some of the caudle on the ground by way of a libation; on that, every one takes a

cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to some particular being, the

supposed preserver of their flocks and herbs, or to some particular animal the real destroyer of them. Each

person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob and flinging it over his shoulder, says: This I give to

thee, preserve thou my horses; this I give to thee, preserve thou my sheep, and so on. After that, they use the

same ceremony to the noxious animals. This I give to thee, oh fox! spare thou my lambs! this to thee, oh

They then knead another cake of oatmeal which is toasted at the embers against a stone. They divide this cake

into so many portions (as similar as possible to each other in size and shape) as there are persons in the

company. They daub one of these portions all over with charcoal until it is quite black. They put all the bits

into a bonnet and every one, blindfolded, draws. He who holds the bonnet is entitled to the last bit. Whoever

draws the black morsel is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal, and is compelled to leap three

When the feast is finished, the remains are concealed by two persons deputed for that purpose, and on the

This, you see, is a relic of the Druidic human sacrifices as well as of their fireworship. I will give two more

I have noticed the custom of the Druids in great extremities of constructing a large wicker engine, of filling it

with sheep, oxen and sometimes men, and setting light to it, as a mammoth sacrifice. Dr. Milner in his

History of Winchester, informs us that at Dunkirk and at Douay there has existed an immemorial custom of

constructing huge figures of wickerwork and canvas, and moving them about to represent a giant that was

killed by their patron saint. And St. Foix, in his Essay on Paris, describes a custom which is not yet abolished

in some of the small towns in France, viz., for the mayors on the Eve of St. John to put into a large basket a

dozen or two cats, and to throw them into one of the festive bonfires lighted upon that occasion.

To return to May Day. In Munster and Connaught the Irish peasants drive their cattle between two fires, as if

for purposes of purification. In some parts of Scotland they light a fire to feast by, and having thrown a

portion of their refreshments into the flames as a propitiatory sacrifice, deck branches of mountainash with

Precisely the same custom is observed by the natives of America and at the same period, i.e., that of the

In India there is a festival in honor of Bhavani (a Priapic personification of nature and fecundity), which the

Hindoos commemorate by erecting a pole in the fields, and by adorning it with pendants and flowers round

The Jews also keep a solar festival at the vernal equinox, on which occasion the Paschal lamb is sacrificed.

The Floridians and Mexicans erect a tree in the centre of their sacred enclosures around which they dance.

On May Eve the Cornish erect stumps of trees before their doors. On the first of the month the famous

Maypole is raised, adorned with flowers and encircled by the pretty country lasses who little know of what

On Midsummer Eve an involuntary tribute is paid by the peasants of Great Britain and Ireland to the shades

of their ancient priests, and to the Gods whom they worshipped, by lighting bonfires. The word bonfire, I

may observe, is by some called bonefire because they believe (without any particular reason), that their fuel

consisted of bones; by others boonfire, because the wood was obtained by begging. Utrum horum marvis

The cooks of Newcastle lighted fires on Midsummer Day in the streets of that town; the custom is general

almost all over Ireland, and as late as the year 1786, the custom of lighting fires was continued in the Druidic

Temple at Bramham, near Harrowgate in Yorkshire, on the eve of the summer solstice.

In the Cornish tongue, Midsummer is called Goluan, which means light and rejoicing. At that season, the

The Irish dance round these fires, and sometimes fathers, taking their children in their arms, will run through

On all sacred days among the Druids, they resorted to their different kinds of divination, and I should tire the

reader were I to enumerate half the charms and incantations which are made use of in the country on

I have always remarked that those divinations which were probably used by priests to foretell the fate of a

kingdom, or to decide upon the life or death of a human being, have now become mere methods of love

One will sow hempseed on Midsummer Eve, saying, Hempseed I sow, hempseed I hoe, and he that is my

true love come after me and mow. She will then turn round, and expects to see the young man who will marry

Another will pick a kind of root which grows under mugwort, and which, if pulled exactly at midnight on

the Eve of St. John the Baptist and placed under her pillow, will give her a dream of her future husband.

Another will place over her head the orphineplant, commonly called Midsummermen: the bending of the

leaves to the right or to the left will tell her whether her husband was true or false.

Bourne cites from the Trullan Council a species of divination, so singular, that it is impossible to read it

without being reminded of the Pythoness on her tripod, or the Druidess on her seat of stone.

"On the 23rd of June, which is the Eve of St. John the Baptist, men and women were accustomed to gather

together in the evening at the seaside or in certain houses, and there adorn a girl who was her father's

firstbegotten child after the manner of a bride. Then they feasted and leaped after the manner of Bacchanals,

and danced and shouted as they were wont to do on their holydays; after this, they poured into a

narrownecked vessel some of the seawater, and also put into it certain things belonging to each of them.

Then as if the devil gifted the girl with the faculty of telling future things, they would enquire with a loud

voice about the good or evil fortune that should attend them; upon this the girl took out of the vessel the first

thing that came to hand and showed it, and gave it to the owner, who, upon receiving it, was so foolish as to

The Druidic vervain was held in estimation on this day as we read in Ye Popish Kingdome.

Then doth ye joyfal feast of John ye Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great with lofty flame in every

town doe burne, And young men round about with maides doe dance in every streete, With garlands wrought

The following extract from the Calendar of the Romish Church, shows us what doings there used to be at

Rome on the Eve and Day of St. John the Baptistthe Roman Palesthe Druidic Belenus.

Waters are swum in during the night, and are brought in vessels that hang for purposes of divination.

It was on HallowE'en that the Druids used to compel their subjects to extinguish their fires, which, when the

annual diies were paid, were relighted from that holy fire which burnt in the clachan of the Druids, and which

Even now all fires are extinguished on HallowE'en, and a fire being made by rubbing two sticks together they

At the village of Findern in Derbyshire, the boys and girls go every year on the 2nd of November and light a

number of small fires among the furze growing there, which they call Tindles. They can give no reason for so

Throughout the United Kingdom there are similar divining customs observed to those which I have just

In Oxfordshire revels, young women will sometimes tuck their skirts (twisting them in an ingenious manner

round the ankles, and holding the ends in front of them) into a very good resemblance of men's trousers, and

dance round a candle placed upon the floor, concluding by leaping over it three times. The name of this

dance, too coarse to be written here, as the dance is to be described, betrays its phallic origin.

Then there is the "Dance round our coal fire," an ancient practice of dancing round the fires in the Inns of

Court, which was observed in 1733, at an entertainment at the Inner Temple Hall on Lord Chancellor Talbot's

taking leave of the house, when "the Master of the Revels took the Chancellor by the hand, and he Mr. Page,

who with the Judges, Sergeants and Benchers danced round the Coal Fire, according to the old ceremony

three times; and all the time the ancient song with music was sung by a man in a bar gown."

To defeat sorceries, certain persons appointed to do so are sent to raise the needfire. By any small river or

lake, or upon any island a circular booth of turf or stone is erected, on which a rafter of birchtree is placed

and the roof covered over. In the centre is set a perpendicular post, fixed by a wooden pin to the couple, the

lower end being placed in an oblong groove on the floor, and another pole placed horizontally between the

upright post and the leg of the couple into both of which the ends being tapered are inserted. This horizontal

timber is called the auger, being provided with four short spokes by which it can be turned. As many men as

can be collected are then set to work. Having divested themselves of all kinds of metals, they turn the pole

two at a time by means of the levers, while others keep driving wedges under the upright post so as to press it

against the auger, which by the friction soon becomes ignited. From this the needfire is instantly procured,

and all other fires being quenched, those that are rekindled both in dwelling houses and offices are accounted

sacred, and the diseased and bewitched cattle are successively made to smell them.

This contrivance is elaborate and its description not unnaturally awkward. It is however worthy of remark

Water was worshipped by the Druids, and was used by them for purification. The Welsh peasantry hold

sacred the rainwater which lodges in the crevices of their cromleachs or altars, and the Irish proverb "To

take a dip in the Shannon," would seem to show that its waters were held in the same superstitious reverence

The Druids besprinkled themselves with dew when they went to sacrifice, and it is a belief among the English

lasses that those who bathe their faces in the dew on May Day morning will have beautiful complexions.

It is a belief in Oxfordshire that to cure a man bitten by a mad dog, he should be taken to the sea and dipped

The regard still paid, however, to wells and fountains by the peasantry is the most extraordinary feature of

waterworship. In the early ages it prevailed with such strength, that the Roman Catholics fearing to combat

the custom christianized it by giving the holy wells the names of popular saints, and by enjoining pilgrimages

In some parts of England it is still customary to decorate these wells with boughs of trees, garlands of tulips,

At one time, indeed it was the custom on Holy Thursday, after the service for the day at the church, for the

Pilgrimages are still made by invalids among the poor Irish to wells, whose waters are supposed to possess

The well of Strathfillan in Scotland is also resorted to at certain periods of the year. The water of the well of

Trinity Gask in Perthshire is supposed to cure any one seized with the plague. In many parts of Wales the

Not only a reverence, but actual sacrifices are offered to some of these wells and to the saints which preside

In a quillet, called Gwern Degla, near the village of Llandegla in Wales there is a small spring. The water is

under the tutelage of St. Tecla and is esteemed a sovereign remedy for the falling sickness. The patient

washes his limbs in the well, makes an offering into it of fourpence, walks round it three times, and thrice

repeats the Lord's prayer. If a man, he sacrifices a cock; if a woman a hen. The fowl is carried in a basket first

round the well, after that into the churchyard and round the church. The votary then enters the church, gets

under the communion table, lies down with the Bible under his head, is covered with a cloth and rests there

till break of day. When he departs, he offers sixpence and leaves the fowl in the church. If the bird dies, the

cure is supposed to have been affected and the disease transferred to the devoted victim.

The custom of sticking bits of rag on thorns near these wells is inexplicable, as it is universal. Between the

walls of Alten and Newton, near the foot of Rosberrye Toppinge, there is a well dedicated to St. Oswald. The

neighbors have a belief that a shirt or shift taken off a sick person and thrown into the well will prognosticate

his fate. If it floats the person will recover, if it sinks he will die. And to reward the saint for his intelligence,

they tear a rag off the shirt and leave it hanging on the briars thereabouts, "where" says Grose, citing a MS.

in the Cotton Library, marked Julius F. vi. "I have seen such numbers as might have made a fayre rheme in a

That the Highlanders still believe in spirits which inhabit their lakes is easily proved. In Strathspey there is a

lake called Loch nan Spiordan, the Lake of Spirits. When its waters are agitated by the wind and its spray

mounts whirling in the air, they believe that it is the anger of this spirit whom they name Martach Shine, or

The Well of St. Keyne in the parish of St. Keyne, in Cornwall, is supposed to possess a curious property

A well there is in the west country, And a clearer one never was seen There is not a wife in the west country

An oak and an elm tree stand beside, And behind doth an ash tree grow, And a willow from the bank above

A traveler came to the Well of St. Keyne, Pleasant it was to his eye; For from cockcrow he had been

He drank of the water so cool and clear, For thirsty and hot was he; And he sat him down upon the bank,

There came a man from a neighboring town, At the well to fill his pail; On the wellside he rested it, And

Now, art thou a bachelor, stranger? quoth he, For an if thou hast a wife, The happiest draught thou hast drank

Or has your good woman, if one you have, In Cornwall ever been? For an if she have, I'll venture my life,

I have left a good woman who never was here, The stranger he made reply; But that my draught should be

St. Keyne, quoth the countryman, many a time, Drank of this chrystal well; And before the angel summoned

If the husband, (of this gifted well), Shall drink before his wife, A happy man thenceforth is he, For he shall

But if the wife should drink of it first, God help the husband then! The stranger stooped to the well of St.

You drank of the well I warrant betimes? He to the countryman said, But the countryman smiled as the

I hastened as soon as the wedding was done. And left my wife in the porch, But i'faith I found her wiser than

I must not omit to mention a method of divination by water, which is practiced at Madern Well in the parish

of Madern, and at the well of St. Ennys, in the parish of Sancred, Cornwall. At a certain period of the year,

moon or day, come the uneasy, impatient and superstitious, and by dropping pins or pebbles into the water,

and by shaking the ground round the spring so as to raise bubbles from the bottom, endeavor to predict the

future. This practice is not indigenous to Britain. The Castalian fountain in Greece was supposed to be of a

prophetic nature. By dipping a mirror into a well the Patr�ans received, as they supposed, omens of ensuing

sickness or health from the figures portrayed upon its surface. In Laconia, they cast into a lake, sacred to

Juno, three stones, and drew prognostications from the several turns which they made in sinking.

I will translate at length a pretty French story which I have met with, and which will adorn as well as

In the West of France the pin is endowed with a fabulous power, which is not without a certain interest. One

of its supposed attributes is the power of attracting lovers to her who possess it, after it has been used in the

toilet of a bride. Consequently it is a curious sight in La Vende� or Les DeuxS�vres, to see all the peasant

girls anxiously placing a pin in the bride's dress: the number being often so considerable that she is forced to

have a pin cushion attached to her waistband to receive all the prickly charms. At night, on the threshold of

the bridal chamber, she is surrounded by her companions, each one easily seizing upon the charmed pin,

In Brittany the pin is regarded as the guardian of chastity, a mute witness which will one day stand forth to

Some days before the wedding, the betrothed leads his future bride to the edge of some mysterious current of

water, and taking one of her pins drops it into the water. If it swims, the girl's innocence is incontestableif

on the contrary it sinks to the bottom, it is considered the judgment of heaven; it is an accusation which no

evidence can overcome. But as the peasant girls in Brittany never use any pins heavier than the long

blackthorn, which they find in the hedges, the severity of the tribunal is not very formidable.

On the 7th of December, a young peasant mounted on a strong cob, full of hope and gaiety, was seen urging

his way towards Morlaix with a handsome girl of twenty on a pillion behind him, her arm tenderly clasping

his waist. It was easy to see in their happy faces that they were two lovers, and from the direction which they

took, that they were going on a pilgrimage to try the charm of the pin at the fountain of St. Douet. Jean's

father was one of the richest landholders in the neighborhood, but above all the young ladies round him, he

Through all the glades of the wood with wild thyme and violets beneath their horses feet, they journeyed on

till they came to a wild and deserted plain, whence they plunged once more into the dark forests of Finisterre

filled with Druidical memories. It might have been those sombre shades which saddened them for a moment,

but it was only for a moment. jean feared not the trial, for he loved Margaret, and believed her to be an angel.

Now they were close to the sacred fountain, which burst through the crevices of a rock overgrown with moss

They dismounted, and Margaret, kneeling down, prayed fervently for some moments. Then rising, she gave

her left hand to her lover, and full of confidence, advanced toward the well. Alas! she had too much faith in

the virtue of the legend. Instead of a thorn pin, she took from a neckerchief one with a silver head which he

had given her. He pressed her fingers affectionately as he took it from her hand and dropped it into the well.

It disappeared instantaneously. Margaret sank to the ground with a heartbroken groan.

He raised her and placed her on his horse, but he did not speak to her, he did not caress her. In mournful

silence he walked by her side. Her arm could no longer embrace him. She was not his Margaret now. She was

He placed her down at her father's door, and stooping he kissed her on the forehead. It was a silent adieu he

Next morning her corpse was found underneath his window. There were no marks of violence upon her body;

the wound was in her heart; she had died a victim to a destestable superstition.

To the element of air we do not find our peasants pay any particular homage, unless the wellknown practice

of sailors of whistling for the wind in a dead calm, and of the Cornish laborers when engaged in winnowing

But the worship of the heavenly bodies has not yet died out among us' The astrologists of the middle ages

were but copyists of the ancient Chaldeans, and the lower classes to this day draw omens from meteors and

falling stars. General Vallancey, by the way, records a curious instance in his Collectanea de rebus

Hibernicis, of an Irish peasant who could neither read nor write but who could calculate eclipses.

When we consider how universal and how prominent was the worship of the sun in the world, it is almost

surprising that we do not find more vestiges of this idolatry. There are some few however.

It was once a custom of the vulgar to rise early on Easter Day to see the sun dance, for they fancied that the

reflection of its beams played or danced upon the waters of any spring or lake they might look into.

The sun shining on the bride as she goes to church is a good omen. The cloudy rising of the sun is a presage

of misfortune. The Highlanders, when they approach a well to drink, walk round it from east to west,

The Orkney fishermen, on going to sea, would think themselves in imminent peril, were they by accident to

turn their boat in opposition to the sun's course; and I have seen many welleducated people seriously

discomfited if the cards from the pack, the balls from the poolbasket, or the decanters at the diningtable

All the ancient dances were in imitation of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and were used in religious

worship. Such were the circular dances of the Druidsthe slower and statelier movements of the Greek

strophethe dances of the Cabiri or Phoenician priests, the devotional dances of the Turkish dervishes, the

Hindoo Raas Jattra or danceofthecircle, and the war dances of the American and other savage nations

Such also is the Round About, or Cheshire Round, which is referred to by Goldsmith in his Vicar of

But the best instance of sunworship is found in the fires lighted by the common Irish on Midsummer's Eve,

The fires which the Scotch Highlanders light on May Day are to welcome back the sun after his long

Crantz in his History of Greenland, informs us that the natives of that country observe a similar festival to

testify their joy at the reappearance of the sun, and the consequent renewal of the hunting season.

In matters of divination, the moon is supposed by the vulgar to possess a peculiar power. She was supposed

to exercise an influence not only over the tides of the sea, and over the minds of men, but also over the future,

When the moon is encircled by a halo, or is involved in a mist, when she is called "greasy," it portends

rainwhen she is sharp horned, windy weather. It is also a general belief among all classes that as the

In many of the old almanacs and books of husbandry, it is directed to kill hogs when the moon is increasing,

and the bacon will prove the better, in boiling; to shear sheep at the moon's increase; to fell handtimber from

the full to the change; to fell frith, coppice, and fuel at the first quarter; to geld cattle when the moon is in

In The Husbandman's Practice, or Prognostication for ever, the reader is advised "To purge with electuaries

the moon in Cancer, with pills the moone in Pisces, with potions the moone in Virgo," and in another place,

"To set, sow seeds, graft, and plant, the moone being in Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn, and all kinds of corne in

Cancer, to graft in March, at the moone's increase, she being in Taurus or Capricorn."

Werenfels in his Dissertation on Superstition, speaking of a superstitious man, writes, "He will have his hair

cut either when the moon is in Leo, that his locks may stare like the lion's shag, or in Aries that they may

stare like a ram's horn. Whatever he would have to grow he sets about when she is in the increase; for

whatever he would have made less he chooses her wane. When the moon is in Taurus, he can never be

persuaded to take physic, lest that animal which chews its cud should make him cast it up again; and if at any

time he has a mind to be admitted to the presence of a prince, he will wait till the moon is in conjunction with

the sun, for 'tis then the society of an inferior with a superior is salutary and successful."

The islanders of Sky will not dig peats (which is their only fuel) in the increase of the moon, believing that

In the parishes of Kirkwall and St. Ola, Orkney, none marry or kill cattle in the wane.

In Angus it is believed that if a child be put from the breast during the waning of the moon, it will decay all

the time that the moon continues to wane. I will mention two more instances of divination, one from Thomas

Hodge's Incarnate Divells, viz., "That when the moone appeareth in the springtime, the one horn spotted and

hidden with a blacke and great cloude from the first day of her apparition to the fourth day after, it is some

When the new moon appears with the old moon in her arms, or in other words when that part of the moon

which is covered by the shadow of the earth is seen through it, it is considered not only an omen of bad

weather, but also of misfortune, as we learn from the following stanza in the ballad of Sir Patrick Spence:

One might enumerate examples of this kind to volumes, and I fear I have already passed the limits of human

The feminine appellation is traditionally derived from the fable of Isis, who was entitled the wife of the sun.

The superstition of the maninthemoon, is supposed to have originated in the account given in the Book of

Numbers, XV. 32 et seq. of a man punished with death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath Day, though why,

it is difficult to explain. In Ritson's Ancient Songs we read, "The maninthemoon is represented leaning

upon a fork, on which he carries a bush of thorn, because it was for 'pycchynde stake' on a Sunday that he is

reported to have been thus confined." And in Midsummer Night's Dream, one of the actors says, "All I have

to say is to tell you that the lantern is the moon, I the maninthemoon, this thorn bush my thorn bush, and

The new moon still continues to be idolatrously worshipped by the vulgar of many countries.

On the night of the new moon, the Jews assemble to pray to God under the names of the Creator of the

The Madingoe Tribe of African Indians whisper a short prayer with their hands held before their face; they

At the end of the Mahometan Feast of Rhamadan (which closely resembles the Romish Carnival) the priests

await the reappearance of the moon, and salute her with clapping of hands, beating of drums and firing of

In the 65th Canon of the 6th council of Constantinople, A. D. 680, is the following interdiction: "Those

bonefires that are kindled by certaine people on new moones before their shops and houses, over which also

they are most foolishly and ridiculously to leape by a certaine antient custom, we command them from

henceforth to cease. Whoever therefore shall do any such thing, if he be a clergyman let him be deposedif a

No bonfires are now lit in honor of the new moon, but the common Irish on beholding her for the first time

English peasants often salute the new moon, saying: "There is the new moon, God bless her," usually seating

They also believe that a new moon seen over the right shoulder is lucky, over the left shoulder unlucky, and

That if they look straight at the new moon (or a shooting star) when they first see it, and wish for something,

The peasant girls, in some parts of England, when they see the new moon in the new year, take their stocking

off from one foot and run to the next stile; when they get there, they look between the great toe and the next,

In Yorkshire, it is common enough for an inquisitive maid to go out into a field till she finds a stone fast in

the earth, to kneel upon this with naked knees and looking up at the new moon to say:

She then retires backwards till she comes to a stile, and goes to bed directly without speaking a word.

The Irish believe that eclipses of the moon are effected by witchcraft, and this occasions me to narrate a

curious custom of the ancient Peruvians who were the Egyptians of the New World.

When the moon became eclipsed, they imagined that she was ill and would fall down and crush the world.

Accordingly as soon as the eclipse commenced, they made a noise with cornets and drums, and tying dogs to

trees beat them till they howled in order to awake the fainting moon who is said to love these animals, for

Since we find in a book, called Osborne's Advice to his Son, p. 79, that "the Irish and Welch during eclipses

ran about beating kettles and pans, thinking their clamor and vexations available to the assistance of the

higher orbes," it is probable that they made use of the same canine resources as the natives of Peru, and that

Having thus considered the worship of the elements and of the heavenly bodies extant among us, let us pass

There is no religious custom of the Russians so celebrated as that of presenting each other with eggs dyed and

stained, saying, "Christ is risen." To which the other replies "He is indeed," and they exchange kisses.

An egg was the Egyptian emblem of the universe, and it was from the Egyptians that all the Pagan nations,

and afterwards the Greek Christians derived this ceremony. They are used also by the Roman Catholics and

It is probable that it was also a Druidic ceremony, for it prevails in Cumberland and many other counties of

England. On Easter Monday and Tuesday the inhabitants assemble in the meadows, the children provided

with hard boiled eggs, colored or ornamented in various ways, some being dyed with logwood or cochineal;

others tinged with the juice of herbs and broomflowers; others stained by being boiled in shreds of

particolored riband; and others covered with gilding. They roll them along the ground, or toss them in the

air till they break when they eat thema part of the ceremony which they probably understand the best. They

This reminds us of the strange fable of the serpent's egg. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter many of these

eggs or adderstones are preserved with great reverence in the Highlands. There are also some traditions

Monsieur Chorier in his Histoire de Dauphin� informs us that in the divers parts of that county, especially

near the mountain of Rochelle on the borders of Savoy, serpents congregate from the 15th of June to the 15th

of August for purposes of generation. The place which they have occupied after they have gone, is covered

Camden relates that in most parts of Wales and throughout Scotland and Cornwall, it is an opinion of the

vulgar that about Midsummer Eve the snakes meet together in companies, and that by joining heads together

and hissing, a kind of bubble is formed which the rest by continual hissing blow on till it quite passes through

the body, when it immediately hardens and resembles a glass ring which will make its finder prosperous in all

his undertakings. The rings thus generated are called gleinu madroeth, or snake stones. They are small glass

amulets commonly about half as wide as our finger rings, but much thicker, of a green color usually though

Careu in his Survey of Cornwall says that its inhabitants believe that snakes breathing upon a hazel wand

produce a stone ring of a blue color, in which there appears the yellow figure of a snake, and that beasts

which have been bit by a mad dog or poisoned, if given some water to drink wherein this stone has been

The following custom is evidently a dramatic representation of the rape of the serpent's egg � la Pliny:

On Easter Monday, in Normandy, the common people congregate � la motte de Pougard which they

surround. They place at the foot a basket containing a hundred eggs, the number of the stones of the temple of

Aubury. A man takes the eggs and places them singly on the top of the tumulus, and then descends in the

same manner to return them to the basket. While this is doing, another man runs to a village half a league off,

and if he can return before the last egg is restored to the basket, he gains a barrel of cider as a prize, which he

empties with the cooperation of his friends, and a Bacchanalian dance round the tumulus ends the

Serpentworship is almost extinct, if not entirely so; . and the belief of the lower orders in Ireland that St.

Patrick expelled all the snakes and other reptiles from the island is perhaps derived from his having

However, it is considered unlucky in England to kill the harmless green snake; and there is a superstition

almost universally present, that it will not die till the setting of that sun, of which it was an emblem.

Its tenacity of life is indeed something marvelous. Mr. Payne Knight, in his work on Phallic worship, (which

I read at the British Museum, but which is somewhat absurdly excluded from the catalogue) states that he has

seen the heart of an adder throb for some moments after it had been completely taken from the body, and

Many of our ladies wear bracelets in the shape of a snake, as did the Egyptian dames of old. The lower orders

believe that a serpent's skin will extract thorns, and its fat is sold to London chemists at five shillings a pound

Most curious of all, is the superstition that by eating snakes one may grow young, and of which the three

"A gentlewoman told an ancient bachelor, who looked very young, that she thought he had eaten a snake. No

mistress, (he said) it is because I never meddled with any snakes which maketh me look so young. "Holy

He is your loving brother, sir, and will tell nobody But all he meets, that you have eat a snake, And are grown

Of stone worship there are still many vestiges. In a little island near Skye is a chapel dedicated to St.

Columbus; on an altar is a round blue stone which is always moist. Fishermen, detained by contrary winds,

bathe this stone in water, expecting thereby to obtain favorable winds; it is likewise applied to the sides of

people troubled with stitches, and it is held so holy, that decisive oaths are sworn upon it.

There is a stone in the parish of Madren, Cornwall, through which many persons are wont to creep for pains

in the back and limbs, and through which children are drawn for the rickets. In the North, children are drawn

through a hole cut in the Groaning Cheese, a huge stone, on the day they are christened.

To go into the cleft of a rock was an ancient method of penitence and purification. It may be remembered that

in the tradition of Hiram Abiff, the assassins were found concealed in a hollow rock, in which they were

To sleep on stones on particular nights is a cure for lameness with our peasants, though perhaps a hazardous

A Druidic monument of great historical interest is to be seen under the coronation chair in Westminster

Abbey. Originally called Liagfial, the Fatal Stone, by others Cloch na cineamhna or the Stone of Fortune, it

was that upon which the Kings of Ireland used to be inaugurated, and which, being enclosed in a wooden

chair, was, by the ingenuity of the Druids, made to emit a sound under the rightful candidate, and mute under

a man of bad title. It was superstitiously sent to confirm the Irish colony in Scotland, and it continued at

Scone as the coronation of the Scotch Kings, from the commencement of the Christian Era till 1300 A.

D.,when Edward I. imported it into England. It is still a superstition in the Highlands that those who lay their

Many of these monuments are approached with great reverence by the natives of Scotland and the Isles,

especially the Tighe nan Druidhneach in the Isle of Skye, little arched, round stone buildings capable of

holding one, where the contemplative Druid sat when his oak could not shelter him from the weather. The

common people never pass these without walking round them three times from east to west.

In Chartres, which teems with Druidic vestiges, a curious specimen of stone worship remains. At the close of

service in the cathedral, no one leaves the church without kneeling and saying a short prayer before a small

pillar or stonewithout polish, base or capitalplaced in a niche, and much worn on one side by the kisses

of the devout. This stone is rumored to be of high antiquity, even earlier than the establishment of

Christianityfor many centuries to have remained in a crypt of the cathedral where lamps were constantly

burningbut the stairs having been much worn on one side by the great resort of pilgrims to the spot, the

stone had been removed from its original site, to avoid the expenses of repairs. It was said to be a miraculous

stone, and that its miracles were performed at the intercession of the Virgin Mary.

There is a certain reverence paid by the peasantry to those caves in which the Druids held their initiatory

rites. Many of them are said to be inhabited by spirits, and there is one in the neighborhood of Dunskey,

Scotland, which is held in peculiar veneration. At the change of the moon it is usual to bring even from a

great distance infirm persons, and particularly rickety children whom they supposed bewitched, to bathe in a

As among the Druids it is still customary to place a platter of salt and earth upon the breast of the corpse in

many parts of Britain. Salt was held in great reverence by the Eastern nations as an emblem of

incorruptibility. So among us to spill salt is considered unlucky; it was only the other day that I saw a talented

and well educated lady overwhelmed with consternation at this mishap, but with admirable presence of mind

Hare was forbidden to the ancient Britons by their religion, and to this day the Cornish eat it with reluctance.

Boadicea also augured from the running of a hare; and a hare that runs across a path (to any one but a

The onion was an emblem of the deity among the Egyptians, perhaps also among the Druids, for it is a

custom in some parts of England for girls to divine by it, as Barnaby Googe in his translation of Naogeorgus'

In these same days young wanton gyrles that meete for marriage be, Doe search to know the names of them

that shall their husbands bee; Four onyons, five, or eight, they take, and make in every one Such names as

they do fancie most, and best to think upon, Thus nere the chimney them they set, and that same Onyon then

In matters of dress, there are not many traces of the Druids and the ancient Britons to be found.

The caps of rushes, however, which they wore tied at the top and twisted into a band at the bottom, may still

be seen upon the heads of children in Wales and some parts of England. In Shetland, the ancient sandals of

untanned skins are worn, and also, by fishermen in cold weather, the Druidic wooden shoes. I could not

discover their real origin during my visit there: some said they had been imported by the Dutch, others that

the Dutch had borrowed the idea from them; but in any case these wooden shoes, the sabots of the lower

The best instance of dress however, is the Highland plaid, which was the very garment worn by the Druid

Abaris, on his visit to Athens, and which is an extraordinary example of savage conservatism. From the

breachan of the Gauls and Britons, is derived our word breeches and also that inelegant but necessary article

Upon the subject of words I will also remark that our word fortnight or fourteen nights, is derived from the

Druidic habit of counting time by nights instead of days; and the word dizzy from their deisul, or circular

dance, (in Hebrew dizzel). I could give a multitude more, but ohe! jam satis est.

A very curious memorial of Druidism in the very bosom of victorious Christianity was discovered a few

years ago by the wellknown French Antiquary, M. Hersart de la Villemarqu�. It is a fragment of Latin

poetry which all the children in the parish of Nizon, Canton de PontAven, are taught to sing at school and in

church. The original poetry is almost the same as its Latin adaptation, except that in the latter various biblical

I will give the first strophe of the original, then its translation in the French of M. Villemarqu� which is too

Tout beau enfant blanc du Druide, tout beau r�pondsmoi; que veuxtu? te chanteraije?

Pas de division pour le nombre un, la n�cessit�uni que; la mort p�re de la douleur; rien avant, rien apr�s. Tout beau, c

Deux b ufs attel�s � une coque; ils tirent, ils vont expirerVoyez la merveille!

Il y a trois parties dans le monde; trois commencements et trois fins pour l'homme, comme pour le ch�ne; trois c�lestes, royaumes de Merlin; fruits d'or, fleurs brillantes, petits enfants qui rient.

Both of these dialogues are continued to the number twelve. In the Druidic version containing precepts on

theology, cosmogony, chronology, astronomy, geography, magic, medicine and history. The Latin version

teaching that there is one God, two testaments, three prophets, four evangelists, five books of Moses, six

pitchers at the marriage of Cana, seven sacraments, eight beatitudes, nine choirs of angels, ten

The resemblance of style and precept throughout is very striking, and a discovery which I have made of the

There is a peculiar song of the Oxfordshire peasants, the meaning of which had often perplexed me and

The song continues to the number twelve, each verse repeated after each as in the original versions above.

Most of these verses are local corruptions, and it is probable that in some parts of England a purer version is

retained. However, since the first refers to the One Deity, the second to "two white boys clothed in green,"

the fourth to "four gospel preachers," the seventh to the "seven stars," there can be no doubt as to its origin.

There is so superstitious a reverence paid by the lower orders in many parts of Britain to bees, that one is

The Cornishmen consider bees too sacred to be bought. In other counties, on the death of their proprietor, a

ceremonious announcement of the fact is made to them and a piece of funeral cake presented to them. It is

believed that were this omitted they would fly away. In Lithuania a similar practice prevails.

There is no clue to this, except in the circumstance that the beehive is one of the emblems of Freemasonry,

and like many other Druidic and Masonic symbols, e.g. the seven stars, the crosskeys, a favorite tavern sign.

For instance the one at Abingdon, under which is written the following jocose distich:

From the appletree the Druids were wont to cut their divining rods. And to this tree at Christmas, in Devon,

Cornwall and other counties a curious ceremony is paid. The farmer and his laborers soak cakes in cider, and

place them on the trenches of an apple tree, and sprinkling the tree repeat the following incantation :

After which they dance round the tree and get drunk on the cider which remains. They believe that if they did

I have now to consider the vestiges of mistletoeworship extant among the descendants of the Druids.

On Christmas Eve it was lately the custom at York to carry mistletoe to the high altar of the Cathedral, and to

proclaim a public and universal liberty, pardon and freedom to all sorts of inferior and even wicked people at

The mistletoe was considered of great medicinal virtue by Sir John Coldbatch for epilepsy and other

convulsive disorders. The mistletoe of the oak is used by the common people for wind ruptures in children.

Like the houzza! of the East, the mistletoe would seem to have a religious exclamation, as I judge from

It is still a custom in many parts of France for children to run down the street on New Year's Day, and to rap

In the island of Sein, there is a mistletoe feast which it is believed has been perpetuated by the Bas Breton

tailors who, strange to say, have been formed from time immemorial into a fine association. They are poets,

musicians and wizards who never contract marriages with strangers, and who have a language of their own,

At this feast there is a procession. An altar covered with green boughs is erected in the centre of a circular

space of ground. Thence they start, and thither marching round the island return. Two fiddlers form the

vanguard; they are followed by children carrying billhooks and oakbranches, and leading an ox and a

horse covered with flowers. After them a huge crowd which stops at intervals crying Guinan� voil� le Gui.

There is one more mistletoe custom which I had almost forgotten. Let us imagine ourselves in the hall of

some oldfashioned country mansion. Let it be Christmas night, and at that hour when merriment and wine

And now I will paint to you a young maiden who embraced in the arms of her lover is whirled round the hall,

her eyes sparkling, her white bosom heaving and her little feet scarce seeming to touch the floor. They pause

for a moment. An old lady with an arch twinkle in her eye whispers something to her partner, he nods and

They join the dance again, when suddenly he stays her in the centre of the hall. Above their heads droops

down a beautiful plant with pale white berries and leaves of a delicate green. He stoops and gives her the

kissunderthemistletoe. All laugh and follow his example till the scene vies the revels of the ancient

It is this picture which awakes me from a reverie into which I have long been buried. Reader! you have

sought with me for the first germs of religion in the chaos of youthful Time; you have dived with me into

those mysteries which the Veil of Isis held secret from our sight; you have sojourned with me among the

Let us now return from these caverns of learning to the glorious daylight of the Present, and to the