Gaelic Folklore (33): The Druids

 

The Druids. 

Pliny thought that the name "Druid" was a Greek appellation derived from the Druidic cult of the oak.  (Pliny, HN xvi. 249.)The word, however, is purely Celtic, and its meaning probably implies that, like the sorcerer and medicine-man everywhere, the Druid was regarded as "the knowing one." It is composed of two parts--dru-, regarded by M. D'Arbois as an intensive, and vids, from vid, "to know," or "see."  Hence the Druid was "the very knowing or wise one." It is possible, however, that dru- is connected with the root which gives the word "oak" in Celtic. speech--Gaulish deruo, Irish dair, Welsh derw--and that the oak, occupying a place in the cult, was thus brought into relation with the name of the priesthood. The Gaulish form of the name was probably druis, the Old Irish was drai. The modern forms in Irish and Scots Gaelic, drui and draoi, mean "sorcerer."

M. D'Arbois and others, accepting Cæsar's dictum that "the system (of Druidism) is thought to have been devised in Britain, and brought thence into Gaul," maintain that the Druids were priests of the Goidels in Britain, who imposed themselves upon the Gaulish conquerors of the Goidels, and that Druidism then passed over into Gaul about 200 B.C.  But it is hardly likely that, even if the Druids were accepted as priests by conquering Gauls in Britain, they should have affected the Gauls of Gaul who were outside the reflex influence of the conquered Goidels, and should have there obtained that power which they possessed.

Goidels and Gauls were allied by race and language and religion, and it would be strange if they did not both possess a similar priesthood. Moreover, the Goidels had been a continental people, and Druidism was presumably flourishing among them then. Why did it not influence kindred Celtic tribes without Druids, according to the hypothesis proposed, at that time? Further, if we accept Professor Meyer's theory that no Goidel set foot in Britain until the second century A.D., the Gauls could not have received the Druidic priesthood from the Goidels.

Cæsar merely says, "it is thought (existimatur) that Druidism came to Gaul from Britain." (Cæsar, vi. 13.) It was a pious opinion, perhaps his own, or one based on the fact that those who wished to perfect themselves in Druidic art went to Britain. This may have been because Britain had been less open to foreign influences than Gaul, and its Druids, un-affected by these, were thought to be more powerful than those of Gaul. Pliny, on the other hand, seems to think that Druidism passed over into Britain from Gaul. (Pliny, HN xxx.1)

Other writers--Sir John Rhŷs, Sir G. L. Gomme, and M. Reinach-support on different grounds the theory that the Druids were a pre-Celtic priesthood, accepted by the Celtic conquerors. Sir John Rhŷs thinks that the Druidism of the aborigines of Gaul and Britain made terms with the Celtic conquerors. It was accepted by the Goidels, but not by the Brythons. Hence in Britain there were Brythons without Druids, aborigines under the sway of Druidism, and Goidels who combined Aryan polytheism with Druidism. Druidism was also the religion of the aborigines from the Baltic to Gibraltar, and was accepted by the Gauls.

But if so, it is difficult to see why the Brythons, akin to them, did not accept it. Our knowledge of Brythonic religion is too scanty for us to prove that the Druids had or had not sway over them, but the presumption is that they had. Nor is there any historical evidence to show that the Druids were originally a non-Celtic priesthood. Everywhere they appear as the supreme and dominant priesthood of the Celts, and the priests of a conquered people could hardly have obtained such power over the conquerors. The relation of the Celts to the Druids is quite different from that of conquerors, who occasionally resort to the medicine-men of the conquered folk because they have stronger magic or greater influence with the autochthonous gods. The Celts did not resort to the Druids occasionally; according to the hypothesis proposed they accepted them completely, were dominated by them in every department of life, while their own priests, if they had any, accepted this order of things without a murmur. All this is incredible.

The picture drawn by Cæsar, Strabo, and others of the Druids and their position among the Celts as judges, choosers of tribal chiefs and kings, teachers, as well as ministers of religion, suggests rather that they were a native Celtic priesthood, long established among the people. Sir G. L. Gomme supports the theory that the Druids were a pre-Celtic priesthood, because, in his opinion, much of their belief in magic as well as their use of human sacrifice and the redemption of one life by another, is opposed to "Aryan sentiment." Equally opposed to this are their functions of settling controversies, judging, settling the succession to property, and arranging boundaries.

These views are supported by a comparison of the position of the Druids relatively to the Celts with that of non-Aryan persons in India who render occasional priestly services to Hindu village communities.  Whether this comparison of occasional Hindu custom with Celtic usage two thousand years ago is just, may be questioned. As already seen, it was no mere occasional service which the Druids rendered to the Celts, and it is this which makes it difficult to credit this theory. Had the Celtic house-father been priest and judge in his own clan, would he so readily have surren-dered his rights to a foreign and conquered priesthood?

On the other hand, kings and chiefs among the Celts probably retained some priestly functions, derived from the time when the offices of the priest-king had not been differentiated. Cæsar's evidence certainly does not support the idea that "it is only among the rudest of the so-called Celtic tribes that we find this superimposing of an apparently official priesthood." According to him, the power of the Druids was universal in Gaul, and had their position really corresponded to that of the pariah priests of India, occasional priests of Hindu villages, the determined hostility of the Roman power to them because they wielded such an enormous influence over Celtic thought and life, is unexplainable. If, further, Aryan sentiment was so opposed to Druidic customs, why did Aryan Celts so readily accept the Druids? In this case the receiver is as bad as the thief.

Sir G. L. Gomme clings to the belief that the Aryans were people of a comparatively high civilisation, who had discarded, if they ever possessed, a savage "past." But old beliefs and customs still survive through growing civilization, and if the views of Professor Sergi and others are correct, the Aryans were even less civilised than the peoples whom they conquered.  Shape-shifting, magic, human sacrifice, priestly domination, were as much Aryan as non-Aryan, and if the Celts had a comparatively pure religion, why did they so soon allow it to be defiled by the puerile superstitions of the Druids?

M. Reinach then argues that the Celts accepted Druidism en bloc, as the Romans accepted Oriental cults and the Greeks the native Pelasgic cults. But neither Romans nor Greeks abandoned their own faith. Were the Celts a people without priests and without religion? We know that they must have accepted many local cults, but that they adopted the whole aboriginal faith and its priests en bloc is not credible. M. Reinach also holds that when the Celts appear in history Druidism was in its decline; the Celt, or at least the military caste among the Celts, was reasserting itself. But the Druids do not appear as a declining body in the pages of Cæsar, and their power was still supreme, to judge by the hostility of the Roman Government to them. If the military caste rebelled against them, this does not prove that they were a foreign body. Such a strife is seen wherever priest and soldier form separate castes, each desiring to rule, as in Egypt.

Other writers argue that we do not find Druids existing in the Danube region, in Cisalpine territory, nor in Transalpine Gaul, "outside the limits of the region occupied by the Celtæ." This could only have weight if any of the classical writers had composed a formal treatise on the Druids, showing exactly the regions where they existed. They merely describe Druidism as a general Celtic institution, or as they knew it in Gaul or Britain, and few of them have any personal knowledge of it. There is no reason to believe that Druids did not exist wherever there were Celts. The Druids and Semnotheoi of the Celts and Galatæ, referred to c. 200 B.C. were apparently priests of other Celts than those of Gaul, and Celtic groups of Cisalpine Gaul had priests, though these are not formally styled Druids. (Diog. Laert. i. I; Livy xxiii. 24.) The argument based on lack of contrary evidence is here of little value, since the references to the Druids are so brief, and it tells equally against their non-Celtic origin, since we do not hear of Druids in Aquitania, a non-Celtic region.

The theory of the non-Celtic origin of the Druids assumes that the Celts had no priests, or that these were effaced by the Druids. The Celts had priests called gutuatri attached to certain temples, their name perhaps meaning "the speakers," those who spoke to the gods. Gutuatros is perhaps from gutu-, "voice" The existence of the gutuatri is known from a few inscriptions, and from Hirtius, de Bell. Gall.viii. 38, who mentions a gutuatros put to death by Cæsar. The functions of the Druids were much more general, according to this theory, hence M. D'Arbois supposes that, before their intrusion, the Celts had no other priests than the gutuatri.  But the probability is that they were a Druidic class, ministers of local sanctuaries, and related to the Druids as the Levites were to the priests of Israel, since the Druids were a composite priesthood with a variety of functions. If the priests and servants of Belenos, described by Ausonius and called by him ædituus Beleni, were gutuatri, then the latter must have been connected with the Druids, since he says they were of Druidic stock. (Ausonius, Professor. v. 7, xi. 24.)

Lucan's "priest of the grove" may have been a gutuatros, and the priests (sacerdotes) and other ministers (antistites) of the Boii may have been Druids properly so called and gutuatri. (Lucan, iii. 424; Livy, xxiii. 24.) Another class of temple servants may have existed. Names beginning with the name of a god and ending in gnatos, "accustomed to," "beloved of," occur in inscriptions, and may denote persons consecrated from their youth to the service of a grove or temple. On the other hand, the names may mean no more than that those bearing them were devoted to the cult of one particular god.

Our supposition that the gutuatri were a class of Druids is supported by classical evidence, which tends to show that the Druids were a great inclusive priesthood with different classes possessing different functions--priestly, prophetic, magical, medical, legal, and poetical. Cæsar attributes these to the Druids as a whole, but in other writers they are in part at least in the hands of different classes. Diodorus refers to the Celtic philosophers and theologians (Druids), diviners, and bards, as do also Strabo and Timagenes, Strabo giving the Greek form of the native name for the diviners, οὐάτεις, the Celtic form being probably vâtis (Irish, fáith). (Diod. Sic. v. 31; Strabo, iv. 4. 4; Timagenes apud Amm. Marc. xv. 9.) These may have been also poets, since vâtis means both singer and poet; but in all three writers the bards are a fairly distinct class, who sing the deeds of famous men (so Timagenes).

Druid and diviner were also closely connected, since the Druids studied nature and moral philosophy, and the diviners were also students of nature, according to Strabo and Timagenes. No sacrifice was complete without a Druid, say Diodorus and Strabo, but both speak of the diviners as concerned with sacrifice. Druids also prophesied as well as diviners, according to Cicero and Tacitus. (Cicero, de Div. i. 41. 90; Tac. Hist. iv. 54.) Finally, Lucan mentions only Druids and bards. (Phars. i. 449 f.) Diviners were thus probably a Druidic sub-class, standing midway between the Druids proper and the bards, and partaking of some of the functions of both.

Pliny speaks of "Druids and this race of prophets and doctors," (Pliny, HN xxx. i.) and this suggests that some were priests, some diviners, while some practised an empiric medical science. On the whole this agrees with what is met with in Ireland, where the Druids, though appearing in the texts mainly as magicians, were also priests and teachers. Side by side with them were the Filid, "learned poets," composing according to strict rules of art, and higher than the third class, the Bards. Filid, sing. File, is from velo, "I see".

The Filid, who may also have been known as Fáthi, "prophets," were also diviners according to strict rules of augury, while some of these auguries implied a sacrifice. Fáthi is cognate with Vates. The Druids were also diviners and prophets. When the Druids were overthrown at the coming of Christianity, the Filid remained as a learned class, probably because they had abandoned all pagan practices, while the Bards were reduced to a comparatively low status. M. D'Arbois supposes that there was rivalry between the Druids and the Filid, who made common cause with the Christian missionaries, but this is not supported by evidence.

The three classes in Gaul--Druids, Vates, and Bards--thus correspond to the three classes in Ireland-- Druids, Fáthi or Filid, and Bards. In Wales there had been Druids as there were Bards, but all trace of the second class is lost. Long after the Druids had passed away, the fiction of the derwydd-vardd or Druid-bard was created, and the later bards were held to be depositories of a supposititious Druidic theosophy, while they practised the old rites in secret. The late word derwydd was probably invented from derw, "oak," by someone who knew Pliny's derivation.

We may thus conclude that the Druids were a purely Celtic priesthood, belonging both to the Goidelic and Gaulish branches of the Celts. The idea that they were not Celtic is sometimes connected with the supposition that Druidism was something superadded to Celtic religion from without, or that Celtic polytheism was not part of the creed of the Druids, but sanctioned by them, while they had a definite theological system with only a few gods.

These are the ideas of writers who see in the Druids an occult and esoteric priesthood. The Druids had grown up side by side with the growth of the native religion and magic. Where they had become more civilised, as in the south of Gaul, they may have given up many magical practices, but as a class they were addicted to magic, and must have taken part in local cults as well as in those of the greater gods. That they were a philosophic priesthood advocating a pure religion among polytheists is a baseless theory. Druidism was not a formal system outside Celtic religion. It covered the whole ground of Celtic religion; in other words, it was that religion itself.

The Druids are first referred to by pseudo-Aristotle and Sotion in the second century B.C., the reference being preserved by Diogenes Laertius: "There are among the Celtæ and Galatæ those called Druids and Semnotheoi." (Diog. Laert. i. proem, Cæsar, vi. 13, 14; Strabo, iv. 4. 4; Amm. Marc. xv. 9; Diod, Sic, v. 28; Lucan, i. 460; Mela, iii. 2.) The two words may be synonymous, or they may describe two classes of priests, or, again, the Druids may have been Celtic, and the Semnotheoi Galatic (? Galatian) priests.

Cæsar's account comes next in time. Later writers gives the Druids a lofty place and speak vaguely of the Druidic philosophy and science. Cæsar also refers to their science, but both he and Strabo speak of their human sacrifices. Suetonius describes their religion as cruel and savage, and Mela, who speaks of their learning, regards their human sacrifices as savagery. (Suet. Claud. 25; Mela, iii.) Pliny says nothing of the Druids as philosophers, but hints at their priestly functions, and connects them with magico-medical rites. (Pliny, xxx. 1.)

These divergent opinions are difficult to account for. But as the Romans gained closer acquaintance with the Druids, they found less philosophy and more superstition among them. For their cruel rites and hostility to Rome, they sought to suppress them, but this they never would have done had the Druids been esoteric philosophers. It has been thought that Pliny's phrase, "Druids and that race of prophets and doctors," signifies that, through Roman persecution, the Druids were reduced to a kind of medicine-men.  But the phrase rather describes the varied functions of the Druids, as has been seen, nor does it refer to the state to which the repressive edict reduced them, but to that in which it found them. Pliny's information was also limited.

The vague idea that the Druids were philosophers was repeated parrot-like by writer after writer, who regarded barbaric races as Rousseau and his school looked upon the "noble savage." Roman writers, skeptical of a future life, were fascinated by the idea of a barbaric priesthood teaching the doctrine of immortality in the wilds of Gaul. For this teaching the poet Lucan sang their praises. The Druids probably first impressed Greek and Latin observers by their magic, their organization, and the fact that, like many barbaric priesthoods, but unlike those of Greece and Rome, they taught certain doctrines. Their knowledge was divinely conveyed to them; "they speak the language of the gods;" (Diod. Sic. v. 31. 4.) hence it was easy to read anything into this teaching. Thus the Druidic legend rapidly grew.

On the other hand, modern writers have perhaps exaggerated the force of the classical evidence. When we read of Druidic associations we need not regard these as higher than the organized priesthoods of barbarians. Their doctrine of metem-psychosis, if it was really taught, involved no ethical content as in Pythagoreanism. Their astronomy was probably astrological (See Cicero, de Div. i. 41.); their knowledge of nature a series of cosmogonic myths and speculations. If a true Druidic philosophy and science had existed, it is strange that it is always mentioned vaguely and that it exerted no influence upon the thought of the time.

Classical sentiment also found a connection between the Druidic and Pythagorean systems, the Druids being regarded as conforming to the doctrines and rules of the Greek philosopher. (Diod. Sic. v. 28; Amm. Marc. xv. 9; Hippolytus, Refut. Hær. i. 22.) It is not improbable that some Pythagorean doctrines may have reached Gaul, but when we examine the point at which the two systems were supposed to meet, namely, the doctrine of metempsychosis and immortality, upon which the whole idea of this relationship was founded, there is no real resemblance. There are Celtic myths regarding the rebirth of gods and heroes, but the eschatological teaching was apparently this, that the soul was clothed with a body in the other-world. There was no doctrine of a series of rebirths on this earth as a punishment for sin. The Druidic teaching of a bodily immortality was mistakenly assumed to be the same as the Pythagorean doctrine of the soul reincarnated in body after body.

Other points of resemblance were then discovered. The organisation of the Druids was assumed by Ammianus to be a kind of corporate life--sodaliciis adstricti consortiis--while the Druidic mind was always searching into lofty things, (Amm. Marc. xv. 9.) but those who wrote most fully of the Druids knew nothing of this.

The Druids, like the priests of all religions, doubtless sought after such knowledge as was open to them, but this does not imply that they possessed a recondite philosophy or a secret theology. They were governed by the ideas current among all barbaric communities, and they were at once priests, magicians, doctors, and teachers. They would not allow their sacred hymns to be written down, but taught them in secret, (Cæsar, vi. 14.) as is usual wherever the success of hymn or prayer depends upon the right use of the words and the secrecy observed in imparting them to others. Their ritual, as far as is known to us, differs but little from that of other barbarian folk, and it included human sacrifice and divination with the victim's body. They excluded the guilty from a share in the cult--the usual punishment meted out to the tabu-breaker in all primitive societies.

The idea that -the Druids taught a secret doctrine--monotheism, pantheism, or the like--is unsupported by evidence. Doubtless they communicated secrets to the initiated, as is done in barbaric mysteries everywhere, but these secrets consist of magic and mythic formulæ, the exhibition of Sacra, and some teaching about the gods or about moral duties. These are kept secret, not because they are abstract doctrines, but because they would lose their value and because the gods would be angry if they were made too common. If the Druids taught religious and moral matters secretly, these were probably no more than an extension of the threefold maxim inculcated by them according to Diogenes Laertius: "To worship the gods, to do no evil, and to exercise courage." (Diog. Laert. 6. Celtic enthusiasts see in this triple maxim something akin to the Welsh triads, which they claim to be Druidic!) To this would be added cosmogonic myths and speculations, and magic and religious formulæ. This will become more evident as we examine the position and power of the Druids.

In Gaul, and to some extent in Ireland, the Druids formed a priestly corporation--a fact which helped classical observers to suppose that they lived together like the Pythagorean communities. While the words of Ammianus--sodaliciis adstricti consortiis--may imply no more than some kind of priestly organization, M. Bertrand founds on them a theory that the Druids were a kind of monks living a community life, and that Irish monasticism was a transformation of this system.  This is purely imaginative. Irish Druids had wives and children, and the Druid Diviciacus was a family man, while Cæsar says not a word of community life among the Druids. The hostility of Christianity to the Druids would have prevented any copying of their system, and Irish monasticism was modelled on that of the Continent. Druidic organisation probably denoted no more than that the Druids were bound by certain ties, that they were graded in different ranks or according to their functions, and that they practised a series of common cults. In Gaul one chief Druid had authority over the others, the position being an elective one. (Cæsar, vi. 13.)

The insular Druids may have been similarly organised, since we hear of a chief Druid, primus magus, while the Filid had an Ard-file, or chief, elected to his office. (Trip. Life, ii. 325, i. 52, ii. 402; IT i. 373; RC xxvi. 33. The title rig-file, "king poet," sometimes occurs.) The priesthood was not a caste, but was open to those who showed aptitude for it. There was a long novitiate, extending even to twenty years, just as, in Ireland, the novitiate of the File lasted from seven to twelve years. (Cæsar, vi. 14.)

The Druids of Gaul assembled annually in a central spot, and there settled disputes, because they were regarded as the most just of men. (Cæsar, vi. 13; Strabo, iv. 4. 4.) Individual Druids also decided disputes or sat as judges in cases of murder. How far it was obligatory to bring causes before them is unknown, but those who did not submit to a decision were interdicted from the sacrifices, and all shunned them. In other words, they were tabued. A magico-religious sanction thus enforced the judgments of the Druids.

In Galatia the twelve tetrarchs had a council of three hundred men, and met in a place called Drunemeton to try cases of murder. (Strabo, xii. 5. 2.) Whether it is philologically permissible to connect Dru- with the corresponding syllable in "Druid" or not, the likeness to the Gaulish assembly at a "consecrated place," perhaps a grove (nemeton), is obvious. We do not know that Irish Druids were judges, but the Filid exercised judgments, and this may be a relic of their con-nection with the Druids. (Their judicial powers were taken from them because their speech had become obscure. Perhaps they gave their judgments in archaic language.)

Diodorus describes the Druids exhorting combatants to peace, and taming them like wild beasts by enchantment. (Diod. Sic. v. 31.) This suggests interference to prevent the devastating power of the blood-feud or of tribal wars. They also appear to have exercised authority in the election of rulers. Convictolitanis was elected to the magistracy by the priests in Gaul, "according to the custom of the State." (1 Cæsar, vii. 83.) In Ireland, after partaking of the flesh of a white bull, probably a sacrificial animal, a man lay down to sleep, while four Druids chanted over him "to render his witness truthful." He then saw in a vision the person who should be elected king, and what he was doing at the moment.  Possibly the Druids used hypnotic suggestion; the medium was apparently clairvoyant. Dio Chrysostom alleges that kings were ministers of the Druids, and could do nothing without them. (Dio, Orat. xlix.)

This agrees on the whole with the witness of Irish texts. Druids always accompany the king, and have great influence over him. According to a passage in the Táin, "the men of Ulster must not speak before the king, the king must not speak before his Druid," and even Conchobar was silent until the Druid Cathbad had spoken. This power, resembling that of many other priesthoods, must have helped to balance that of the warrior class, and it is the more credible when we recall the fact that the Druids claimed to have made the universe. 

The priest-kingship may have been an old Celtic institution, and this would explain why, once the offices were separated, priests had or claimed so much political power. That political power must have been enhanced by their position as teachers, and it is safe to say that submission to their powers was inculcated by them. Both in Gaul and in Ireland they taught others than those who intended to become Druids. (Cæsar, vi. 13, 14)

As has been seen, their teachings were not written down, but transmitted orally. They taught immortality, believing that thus men would be roused to valour, buttressing patriotism with dogma. They also imparted "many things regarding the stars and their motions, the extent of the universe and the earth, the nature of things, and the power and might of the immortal gods." Strabo also speaks of their teaching in moral science. (Cæsar, vi. 14; Strabo, iv. 4. 4.)

As has been seen, it is easy to exaggerate all this. Their astronomy was probably of a humble kind and mingled with astrology; their natural philosophy a mass of cosmogonic myths and speculations; their theology was rather mythology; their moral philosophy a series of maxims such as are found in all barbaric communities. Their medical lore, to judge from what Pliny says, was largely magical. Some Druids, e.g. in the south of Gaul, may have had access to classical learning, and Cæsar speaks of the use of Greek characters among them. This could hardly have been general, and in any case must have superseded the use of a native script, to which the use of ogams in Ireland, and perhaps also in Gaul,was supple-mentary. The Irish Druids may have had written books, for King Loegaire desired that S.Patrick's books and those of the Druids should be submitted to the ordeal by water as a test of their owners' claims. (Trip. Life, 284.)

In religious affairs the Druids were supreme, since they alone "knew the gods and divinities of heaven." (Lucan, i. 451.) They superintended and arranged all rites and attended to "public and private sacrifices," and " no sacrifice was complete without the intervention of a Druid." (Diod. v. 31. 4; cf. Cæsar, vi. 13, 16; Strabo, iv. 4. 5.) The dark and cruel rites of the Druids struck the Romans with horror, and they form a curious contrast to their alleged "philosophy."

They used divination and had regular formulæ of incantation as well as ritual acts by which they looked into the future.  Before all matters of importance, especially before warlike expeditions, their advice was sought because they could scan the future.

Name-giving and a species of baptism were performed by the Druids or on their initiative. Many examples of this occur in Irish texts, thus of Conall Cernach it is said, "Druids came to baptize the child into heathenism, and they sang the heathen baptism (baithis geintlídhe) over the little child," and of Ailill that he was "baptized in Druidic streams."  In a Welsh story we read that Gwri was "baptized with the baptism which was usual at that time." Similar illustrations are common at name-giving among many races, and it is probable that the custom in the Hebrides of the midwife dropping three drops of water on the child in Nomine and giving it a temporary name, is a survival of this practice. The regular baptism takes place later, but this preliminary rite keeps off fairies and ensures burial in consecrated ground, just as the pagan rite was protective and admitted to the tribal privileges.

In the burial rites, which in Ireland consisted of a lament, sacrifices, and raising a stone inscribed with ogams over the grave, Druids took part. The Druid Dergdamsa pronounced a discourse over the Ossianic hero Mag-neid, buried him with his arms, and chanted a rune. The ogam inscription would also be of Druidic composition, and as no sacrifice was complete without the intervention of Druids, they must also have assisted at the lavish sacrifices which occurred at Celtic funerals.

Pliny's words, "the Druids and that race of prophets and doctors," suggest that the medical art may have been in the hands of a special class of Druids, though all may have had a smattering of it. It was mainly concerned with the use of herbs, and was mixed up with magical rites, which may have been regarded as of more importance than the actual medicines used.  In Ireland Druids also practiced the healing art. Thus when Cúchulainn was ill, Emer said, "If it had been Fergus, Cúchulainn would have taken no rest till he had found a Druid able to discover the cause of that illness."  But other persons, not referred to as Druids, are mentioned as healers, one of them a woman, perhaps a reminiscence of the time when the art was practiced by women.  These healers may, however, have been attached to the Druidic corporation in much the same way as were the bards.

The Religion of the Ancient Celts, John Arnott MacCulloch, Chapter XX. [1911]

Thanks to Ellen Evert Hopman, for the pictures of the female druids, more on female druids: HERE

Gaelic Folklore (29): Gallic Bloodrites

Gallic Blood Rites: Pleasing the Gods, Terrifying the enemy.

Excavations of sanctuaries in northern France support ancient literary accounts of Violent Gallic rituals:

“When their enemies fall they cut off their heads and fasten them about the necks of their horses; and turning over to their attendants the arms of their opponents, all covered with blood, they carry them off as booty, singing a paean over them and striking up a song of victory, and these first-fruits of battle they fasten by nails upon their  p175 houses, just as men do, in certain kinds of hunting, with the heads of wild beasts they have mastered. 5 The heads of their most distinguished enemies they embalm in cedar-oil and carefully preserve in a chest, and these they exhibit to strangers, gravely maintaining that in exchange for this head some one of their ancestors, or their father, or the man himself, refused the offer of a great sum of money. And some men among them, we are told, boast that they have not accepted an equal weight of gold for the head they show, displaying a barbarous sort of greatness of soul; for not to sell that which constitutes a witness and proof of one's valour is a noble thing, but to continue to fight against one of our own race, after he is dead, is to descend to the level of beasts.”

Diodorus Siculus, V.29

Modern historians, relying on reports by Caesar and others, have characterized the religion of the Celts in Gaul as spontaneous rites, in contrast to the well-planned cultic practices of the Greek and Romans.

Archaeologists have now revealed that the Gauls did, in fact, build permanent ritual sites at places like Gournay-sur-Aronde and Ribemont-sur Ancre in northen France. Dated to the end of the fourth or beginning of the third century B.C. these cult centers were the work of warlike tribes called the Belgae, thought to have arrived in northern Gaul from central Europe at the end of the great Celtic invasions of the fourth century B.C.

The rituals performed at Gournay-sur-Aronde and Ribemont-sur-Ancre, however, went well beyond animal sacrifice, a commonplace rite among the Greeks and Romans, and included the triumphant display of the remains of enemies killed in battle or sacrificed to the gods of the underworld, from whom the Gauls believed they were descended.  Evidence from excavations at these sites suggests similarities between Gallic religion and Greek chtonic (underworld) cults. A sunken altar recovered at Gournay-sur Aronde is similar to a Greek escharon, also consecrated to underworld deities. Although Greeks and Romans used stone while the Gauls used wood and mud brick, Gallic sanctuaries, like their Greco-Roman counterparts, were rectangular in plan, between 90 and 150 feet to a side.  Imposing wooden palisades enclosed the sacred inner precinct of these sanctuaries, accessible only by a monumental eastward-facing gateway.

Access to the inner precincts would have been restricted to priests, initiates and aristocratic dignitaries: the majority of congregants would have stood in the flat, open space outside the enclosed area. A structure within the enclosure housed and further protected the sunken altar. Animal sacrifice was the most common ritual offering of the Gauls. Relying on ancient texts and Gallo-Roman sculptures, historians of religion have long believed the Gauls caught wild animals for this sacrifice. Excavations of the sanctuaries, however, have revealed that from the end of the fourth to the beginning of the second century B.C. the Gauls, like the Greeks, also sacrificed common domestic animals principally cattle, pigs and sheep. Priests would offer the divinity a skinned animal carcass, which remained on the altar until it had decomposed. The skulls were usually nailed to the gateway, probably to fend off evil spirits.

Corroborating the accounts of the first century B.C. Roman historian Diodorus Siculus and other ancients, excavation clearly shows that human sacrifice was practiced as well. In the interior corners of the sacred inner precinct at Ribemont-sur-Ancre, human bones belonging to nearly 1000 enemy warriors were burned as sacrificial offerings in open-topped ossuaries, square-shaped structures five feet to a side, adorned on the outside with crisscrossed bones. The priests first crushed the bones, probably to expose the marrow, where the Gauls, like the Greeks, located the soul on which underworld deities feasted. After breaking the bones, the priests dumped them into the hollow central chamber of the ossuaries where they were buried. That the Gauls sacrificially burned their enemies  would surely have daunted anyone planning to wage war against them. Upon approaching a ritual site, a potential attacker might have seen smoke from burning bones rising from the sacred precinct. Or he might have seen the captured armor of conquered enemies fastened to tall poles or a tangled assemblage of headless corpses lying along the outer wall.

Two thousand iron weapons and pieces of armor found by archeologists in a ditch adjacent to the sanctuary at Gournay-sur-Aronde were once displayed as intimidating war trophies. Examination showed that the swords and scabbards, war girdles, shields and lances were originally arranged as some 500 individual suits of armor, either standing on the platform of the gate way or hung from poles around the sacred inner precinct. The number of suits of armor in the deposit indicates nearly a century of battles and of intensive use of the sanctuary as a depository for war trophies that both commemorated tribal victory and informed other tribes of the consequences of war with the Belgae, whom Caesar in his Gallic War said were the bravest of the Gauls. The weapons, exposed for many years, fell to the ground when the wood and leather parts rotted: they were then ritually destroyed by the priests, a custom corresponding to a Roman practice described by the late first century A.D. historian Plutarch, and thrown into the ditch were they were found more than 2200 years later by archaeologists.

Evidence of human sacrifice was even more striking at Ribemont-sur-Ancre, where war trophies included headless human corpses and crushed, burned human bones. A particularly spectacular deposit of bones comprising some 80 skeletons was found outside the sacred area along the sanctuary’s outer wall. All headless, the skeletons had been piled up and tangled together along with weapons, the bodies contorted into unnatural positions. Beheading is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, recalling an account of the Greek historian and philosopher Posidonius, who travelled in Gaul at the end of the second century B.C. Posidonius related that Gallic warriors regularly cut of the heads of enemies conquered in battle to keep as personal trophies. Diodorus added that, after having cut off the head, the bodies and captured weapons were given to servants. Since no skulls have been found at Ribemont, it is likely that warriors indeed kept the heads of their enemies, leaving servants to create communal trophies of bodies and weapons found at the sanctuaries. A sanctuary may have also served as a communal trophy depository not only for victorious warriors of a particular tribe, but also for tribes allied in battle. Since different tribes often shared one or more gods, common trophies at cult sites may have facilitated treaties between them, secured by divine covenant.

The sanctuaries seem to have served a double function, martial and cultic. The Gauls designed them to celebrate victory in war and intimidate potential enemies while pleasing the gods of the underworld, whom they believed made them great warriors.

Considering the archaeological evidence from excavations at Gournay and Ribemont it is time to reevaluate our understanding of the religion and cultic sites of the Gauls. Ancient sources offer a promising jumping-off point for archaeologists who, with each new excavation, are clarifying some of the vague and confusing descriptions offered by Greek and Roman historians. The human remains and weapons at Ribemont are examples of the dedicatory heaps of booty piled up in consecrated areas that Caesar mentions in his account of the Gallic war. The human bones nailed to what ancient historians thought were Gallic houses we now understand to be intimidating ornaments for the permanent cultic sites. Little by little, archaology has added to our understanding of the warlike Belgae, whose brutality features so prominently in ancient literature.

 

Archaeology, vol. 54, no.2, 20001, J. L. Brunaux.

Gaelic Folklore (20): Sacrifice, Prayer, And Divination.

20.

Sacrifice, Prayer, And Divination.

What follows are descriptions and tales from an old source:

The Semites are often considered the worst offenders in the matter of human sacrifice, but in this, according to classical evidence, they were closely rivalled by the Celts of Gaul. They offered human victims on the principle of a life for a life, or to propitiate the gods, or in order to divine the future from the entrails of the victim. We shall examine the Celtic custom of human sacrifice from these points of view first.

Cæsar says that those afflicted with disease or engaged in battle or danger offer human victims or vow to do so, because unless man's life be given for man's life, the divinity of the gods cannot be appeased.  The theory appears to have been that the gods sent disease or ills when they desired a human life, but that any life would do; hence one in danger might escape by offering another in his stead. In some cases the victims may have been offered to disease demons or diseases personified, such as Celtic imagination still believes in,  rather than to gods, or, again, they may have been offered to native gods of healing. Coming danger could also be averted on the same principle, and though the victims were usually slaves, in times of great peril wives and children were sacrificed.  After a defeat, which showed that the gods were still implacable, the wounded and feeble were slain, or a great leader would offer himself.  Or in such a case the Celts would turn their weapons against themselves, making of suicide a kind of sacrifice, hoping to bring victory to the survivors.

The idea of the victim being offered on the principle of a life for a life is illustrated by a custom at Marseilles in time of pestilence. One of the poorer classes offered himself to be kept at the public expense for some time. He was then led in procession, clad in sacred boughs, and solemnly cursed, and prayer was made that on him might fall the evils of the community. Then he was cast headlong down. Here the victim stood for the lives of the city and was a kind of scape-victim, like those at the Thargelia.

Taranis

Human victims were also offered by way of thanksgiving after victory, and vows were often made before a battle, promising these as well as part of the spoil. For this reason the Celts would never ransom their captives, but offered them in sacrifice, animals captured being immolated along with them.  The method of sacrifice was slaughter by sword or spear, hanging, impaling, dismembering, and drowning. Some gods were propitiated by one particular mode of sacrifice--Taranis by burning, Teutates by suffocation, Esus (perhaps a tree-god) by hanging on a tree. Drowning meant devoting the victim to water-divinities.

Other propitiatory sacrifices took place at intervals, and had a general or tribal character, the victims being criminals or slaves or even members of the tribe. The sacrificial pile had the rude outline of a human form, the limbs of osier, enclosing human as well as some animal victims, who perished by fire. Diodorus says that the victims were malefactors who had been kept in prison for five years, and that some of them were impaled.  This need not mean that the holocausts were quinquennial, for they may have been offered yearly, at Midsummer, to judge by the ritual of  The victims perished in that element by which the sun-god chiefly manifested himself, and by the sacrifice his powers were augmented, and thus growth and fertility were promoted. These holocausts were probably extensions of an earlier slaying of a victim representing the spirit of vegetation, though their value in aiding fertility would be still in evidence. This is suggested by Strabo's words that the greater the number of murders the greater would be the fertility of the land, probably meaning that there would then be more criminals as sacrificial victims.  Varro also speaks of human sacrifice to a god equated with Saturn, offered because of all seeds the human race is the best, i.e. human victims are most productive of fertility.  Thus, looked at in one way, the later rite was a propitiatory sacrifice, in another it was an act of magico-religious ritual springing from the old rite of the divine victim. But from both points of view the intention was the same--the promotion of fertility in field and fold.

2.Toutates

Divination with the bodies of human victims is attested by Tacitus, who says that "the Druids consult the gods in the palpitating entrails of men," and by Strabo, who describes the striking down of the victim by the sword and the predicting of the future from his convulsive movements.  To this we shall return.

Human sacrifice in Gaul was put down by the Romans, who were amazed at its extent, Suetonius summing up the whole religion in a phrase--druidarum religionem diræ immanitatis.  By the year 0 A.D. it had ceased, though victims were offered symbolically, the Druids pretending to strike them and drawing a little blood from them.  Only the pressure of a higher civilisation forced the so-called philosophic Druids to abandon their revolting customs. Among the Celts of Britain human sacrifice still prevailed in  A.D.  Dio Cassius describes the refinements of cruelty practised on female victims (prisoners of war) in honour of the goddess Andrasta--their breasts cut off and placed over their mouths, and a stake driven through their bodies, which were then hung in the sacred grove.  Tacitus speaks of the altars in Mona (Anglesey) laved with human blood. As to the Irish Celts, patriotic writers have refused to believe them guilty of such practices,  but there is no a priors reason which need set them apart from other races on the same level of civilisation in this custom. The Irish texts no doubt exaggerate the number of the victims, but they certainly attest the existence of the practice. From the Dindsenchas, which describes many archaic usages, we learn that "the firstlings of every issue and the chief scions of every clan" were offered to Cromm Cruaich--a sacrifice of the firstborn,--and that at one festival the prostrations of the worshippers were so violent that three-fourths of them perished, not improbably an exaggerated memory of orgiastic rites.  Dr. Joyce thinks that these notices are as incredible as the mythic tales in the Dindsenchas. Yet the tales were doubtless quite credible to the pagan Irish, and the ritual notices are certainly founded on fact. Dr. Joyce admits the existence of foundation sacrifices in Ireland, and it is difficult to understand why human victims may not have been offered on other occasions also.

The purpose of the sacrifice, namely, fertility, is indicated in the poetical version of the cult of Cromm--

"Milk and corn

They would ask from him speedily,

In return for one-third of their healthy issue."

The Nemedian sacrifice to the Fomorians is said to have been two-thirds of their children and of the year's supply of corn and milk --an obvious misunderstanding, the victims really being offered to obtain corn and milk. The numbers are exaggerated,  but there can be no doubt as to the nature of the sacrifice--the offering of an agricultural folk to the divinities who helped or retarded growth. Possibly part of the flesh of the victims, at one time identified with the god, was buried in the fields or mixed with the seed-corn, in order to promote fertility. The blood was sprinkled on the image of the god. Such practices were as obnoxious to Christian missionaries as they had been to the Roman Government, and we learn that S. Patrick preached against "the slaying of yoke oxen and milch cows and the burning of the first-born progeny" at the Fair of Taillte.  As has been seen, the Irish version of the Perseus and Andromeda story, in which the victim is offered not to a dragon, but to the Fomorians, may have received this form from actual ritual in which human victims were sacrificed to the Fomorians.  In a Japanese version of the same story the maiden is offered to the sea-gods. Another tale suggests the offering of human victims to remove blight. In this case the land suffers from blight because the adulteress Becuma, married to the king of Erin, has pretended to be a virgin.

The Druids announced that the remedy was to slay the son of an undefiled couple and sprinkle the doorposts and the land with his blood. Such a youth was found, but at his mother's request a two-bellied cow, in which two birds were found, was offered in his stead.  In another instance in the Dindsenchas, hostages, including the son of a captive prince, are offered to remove plagues--an equivalent to the custom of the Gauls.

Human sacrifices were also offered when the foundation of a new building was laid. Such sacrifices are universal, and are offered to propitiate the Earth spirits or to provide a ghostly guardian for the building. A Celtic legend attaches such a sacrifice to the founding of the monastery at Iona. S. Oran agrees to adopt S. Columba's advice "to go under the clay of this island to hallow it," and as a reward he goes straight to heaven.  The legend is a semi-Christian form of the memory of an old pagan custom, and it is attached to Oran probably because he was the first to be buried in the island. In another version, nothing is said of the sacrifice. The two saints are disputing about the other world, and Oran agrees to go for three days into the grave to settle the point at issue. At the end of that time the grave is opened, and the triumphant Oran announces that heaven and hell are not such as they are alleged to be. Shocked at his latitudinarian sentiments, Columba ordered earth to be piled over him, lest he cause a scandal to the faith, and Oran was accordingly buried alive.  In a Welsh instance, Vortigern's castle cannot be built, for the stones disappear as soon as they are laid. Wise men, probably Druids, order the sacrifice of a child born without a father, and the sprinkling of the site with his blood.  "Groaning hostages" were placed under a fort in Ireland, and the foundation of the palace of Emain Macha was also laid with a human victim.  Many similar legends are connected with buildings all over the Celtic area, and prove the popularity of the pagan custom. Over the whole Celtic area a rich profusion of grave-goods has been found, consisting of weapons, armour, chariots, utensils, ornaments, and coins.  Some of the interments undoubtedly point to sacrifice of wife, children, or slaves at the grave. Male and female skeletons are often in close proximity, in one case the arm of the male encircling the neck of the female. In other cases the remains of children are found with these. Or while the lower interment is richly provided with grave-goods, above it lie irregularly several skeletons, without grave-goods, and often with head separated from the body, pointing to decapitation, while in one case the arms had been tied behind the back.  All this suggests, taken in connection with classical evidence regarding burial customs, that the future life was life in the body, and that it was a replica of this life, with the same affections, needs, and energies. Certain passages in Irish texts also describe burials, and tell how the dead were interred with ornaments and weapons, while it was a common custom to bury the dead warrior in his armour, fully armed, and facing the region whence enemies might be expected. Thus he was a perpetual menace to them and prevented their attack. 1Possibly this belief may account for the elevated position of many tumuli. Animals were also sacrificed. Hostages were buried alive with Fiachra, according to one text, and the wives of heroes sometimes express their desire to be buried along with their dead husbands. 

Of all these varieties of human sacrifice, those offered for fertility, probably at Beltane or Midsummer, were the most important. Their propitiatory nature is of later origin, and their real intention was to strengthen the divinity by whom the processes of growth were directed. Still earlier, one victim represented the divinity, slain that his life might be revived in vigour. The earth was sprinkled with his blood and fed with his flesh in order to fertilise it, and possibly the worshippers partook sacramentally of the flesh. Propitiatory holocausts of human victims had taken the place of the slain representative of a god, but their value in promoting fertility was not forgotten. The sacramental aspect of the rite is perhaps to be found in Pliny's words regarding "the slaying of a human being as a most religious act and eating the flesh as a wholesome remedy" among the Britons. (Pliny, HN xxx. . The feeding of Ethni, daughter of Crimthann, on human flesh that she might sooner attain maturity may be an instance of "medicinal cannibalism"). The eating of parents among the Irish, described by Strabo, was an example of "honorific cannibalism." This may merely refer to "medicinal cannibalism," such as still survives in Italy, but the passage rather suggests sacramental cannibalism, the eating of part of a divine victim, such as existed in Mexico and elsewhere. Other acts of cannibalism are referred to by classical writers. Diodorus says the Irish ate their enemies, and Pausanias describes the eating the flesh and drinking the blood of children among the Galatian Celts. Drinking out of a skull the blood of slain (sacrificial) enemies is mentioned by Ammianus and Livy, and Solinus describes the Irish custom of bathing the face in the blood of the slain and drinking it.  In some of these cases the intention may simply have been to obtain the dead enemy's strength, but where a sacrificial victim was concerned, the intention probably went further than this. The blood of dead relatives was also drunk in order to obtain their virtues, or to be brought into closer rapport with them.  This is analogous to the custom of blood brotherhood, which also existed among the Celts and continued as a survival in the Western Isles until a late date.

One group of Celtic human sacrifices was thus connected with primitive agricultural ritual, but the warlike energies of the Celts extended the practice. Victims were easily obtained, and offered to the gods of war. Yet even these sacrifices preserved some trace of the older rite, in which the victim represented a divinity or spirit.

Head-hunting, described in classical writings and in Irish texts, had also a sacrificial aspect. The beads of enemies were hung at the saddle-bow or fixed on spears, as the conquerors returned home with songs of victory.  This gruesome picture often recurs in the texts. Thus, after the death of Cúchulainn, Conall Cernach returned to Emer with the heads of his slayers strung on a withy. He placed each on a stake and told Emer the name of the owner. A Celtic oppidum or a king's palace must have been as gruesome as a Dayak or Solomon Island village. Everywhere were stakes crowned with heads, and the walls of houses were adorned with them. Poseidonius tells how he sickened at such a sight, but gradually became more accustomed to it.  A room in the palace was sometimes a store for such heads, or they were preserved in cedar-wood oil or in coffers. They were proudly shown to strangers as a record of conquest, but they could not be sold for their weight in gold.  After a battle a pile of heads was made and the number of the slain was counted, and at annual festivals warriors produced the tongues of enemies as a record of their prowess.

These customs had a religious aspect. In cutting off a head the Celt saluted the gods, and the head was offered to them or to ancestral spirits, and sometimes kept in grove or temple.  The name given to the heads of the slain in Ireland, the mast of Macha, shows that they were dedicated to her, just as skulls found under an altar had been devoted to the Celtic Mars. (A dim memory of head-taking survived in the seventeenth century in Eigg, where headless skeletons were found, of which the islanders said that an enemy had cut off their heads.) Probably, as among Dayaks, American Indians, and others, possession of a head was a guarantee that the ghost of its owner would be subservient to its Celtic possessor, either in this world or in the next, since they are sometimes found buried in graves along with the dead.  Or, suspended in temples, they became an actual and symbolical offering of the life of their owners, if, as is probable, the life or soul was thought to be in the head. Hence, too, the custom of drinking from the skull of the slain had the intention of transferring his powers directly to the drinker.  Milk drunk from the skull of Conall Cernach restored to enfeebled warriors their pristine strength,  and a folk-survival in the Highlands--that of drinking from the skull of a suicide (here taking the place of the slain enemy) in order to restore health--shows the same idea at work. All these practices had thus one end, that of the transference of spirit force--to the gods, to the victor who suspended the head from his house, and to all who drank from the skull. Represented in bas-relief on houses or carved on dagger-handles, the head may still have been thought to possess talismanic properties, giving power to house or weapon. Possibly this cult of human heads may have given rise to the idea of a divine head like those figured on Gaulish images, or described, e.g., in the story of Bran. His head preserved the land from invasion, until Arthur disinterred it,  the story being based on the belief that heads or bodies of great warriors still had a powerful influence. (Sometimes the weapons of a great warrior had the same effect. The bows of Gwerthevyr were hidden in different parts of Prydein and preserved the land from Saxon invasion, until Gwrtheyrn, for love of a woman, dug them up)  The representation of the head of a god, like his whole image, would be thought to possess the same preservative power. (In Ireland, the brain of an enemy was taken from the head, mixed with lime, and made into a ball. This was allowed to harden, and was then placed in the tribal armoury as a trophy.)

A possible survival of the sacrifice of the aged may be found in a Breton custom of applying a heavy club to the head of old persons to lighten their death agonies, the clubs having been formerly used to kill them. They are kept in chapels, and are regarded with awe.

Animal victims were also frequently offered. The Galatian Celts made a yearly sacrifice to their Artemis of a sheep, goat, or calf, purchased with money laid by for each animal caught in the chase. Their dogs were feasted and crowned with flowers.  Further details of this ritual are unfortunately lacking. Animals captured in war were sacrificed to the war-gods by the Gauls, or to a river-god, as when the horses of the defeated host were thrown into the Rhine by the Gaulish conquerors of Mallius.  We have seen that the white oxen sacrificed at the mistletoe ritual may once have been representatives of the vegetation-spirit, which also animated the oak and the mistletoe. Among the  In Ireland the peasantry still kill a sheep or heifer for S. Martin on his festival, and ill-luck is thought to follow the non-observance of the rite.  Similar sacrifices on saints' days in Scotland and Wales occurred in Christian times.  An excellent instance is that of the sacrifice of bulls at Gairloch for the cure of lunatics on S. Maelrubha's day (August th). Libations of milk were also poured out on the hills, ruined chapels were perambulated, wells and stones worshipped, and divination practised. These rites, occurring in the seventeenth century, were condemned by the Presbytery of Dingwall, but with little effect, and some of them still survive.  In all these cases the saint has succeeded to the ritual of an earlier god. Mr. Cook surmises that S. Maelrubha was the successor of a divine king connected with an oak and sacred well, the god or spirit of which was incarnate in him. These divine kings may at one time have been slain, or a bull, similarly incarnating the god or spirit, may have been killed as a surrogate. This slaying was at a later time regarded as a sacrifice and connected with the cure of madness.  The rite would thus be on a parallel with the slaying of the oxen at the mistletoe gathering, as already interpreted. Eilean Maree (Maelrubha), where the tree and well still exist, was once known as Eilean mo righ (the island of my king), or Eilean a Mhor Righ (of the great king), the king having been worshipped as a god. This piece of corroborative evidence was given by the oldest inhabitant to Sir Arthur Mitchell.  The people also spoke of the god Mourie.
insular Celts animal sacrifices are scarcely mentioned in the texts, probably through suppression by later scribes, but the lives of Irish saints contain a few notices of the custom, e.g. that of S. Patrick, which describes the gathering of princes, chiefs, and Druids at Tara to sacrifice victims to idols.

Other survivals of animal sacrifice are found in cases of cattle-plague, as in Morayshire sixty years ago, in Wales, Devon, and the Isle of Man. The victim was burned and its ashes sprinkled on the herd, or it was thrown into the sea or over a precipice.  Perhaps it was both a propitiatory sacrifice and a scape-animal, carrying away the disease, though the rite may be connected with the former slaying of a divine animal whose death benefited all the cattle of the district. In the Hebrides the spirits of earth and air were propitiated every quarter by throwing outside the door a cock, hen, duck, or cat, which was supposed to be seized by them. If the rite was neglected, misfortune was sure to follow. The animal carried away evils from the house, and was also a propitiatory sacrifice.

The blood of victims was sprinkled on altars, images, and trees, or, as among the Boii, it was placed in a skull adorned with gold.  Other libations are known mainly from folk-survivals.

Thus Breton fishermen salute reefs and jutting promontories, say prayers, and pour a glass of wine or throw a biscuit or an old garment into the sea.  In the Hebrides a curious rite was performed on Maundy Thursday. After midnight a man walked into the sea, and poured ale or gruel on the waters, at the same time singing:

"O God of the sea,

Put weed in the drawing wave,

To enrich the ground,

To shower on us food." 

Those on shore took up the strain in chorus.  Thus the rite was described by one who took part in it a century ago, but Martin, writing in the seventeenth century, gives other details. The cup of ale was offered with the words, "Shony, I give you this cup of ale, hoping that you will be so kind as to send plenty of seaweed for enriching our ground for the ensuing year." All then went in silence to the church and remained there for a time, after which they indulged in an orgy out-of-doors. This orgiastic rite may once have included the intercourse of the sexes--a powerful charm for fertility. "Shony" was some old sea-god, and another divinity of the sea, Brianniul, was sometimes invoked for the same purpose.  Until recently milk was poured on Gruagach stones in the Hebrides, as an offering to the Gruagach, a brownie who watched over herds, and who had taken the place of a god.

Prayer

Prayer accompanied most rites, and probably consisted of traditional formulæ, on the exact recital of which depended their value. The Druids invoked a god during the mistletoe rite, and at a Galatian sacrifice, offered to bring birds to destroy grasshoppers, prayer was made to the birds themselves.  In Mona, at the Roman invasion, the Druids raised their arms and uttered prayers for deliverance, at the same time cursing the invaders, and Boudicca invoked the protection of the goddess Andrasta in a similar manner.  Chants were sung by the "priestesses" of Sena to raise storms, and they were also sung by warriors both before and after a battle, to the accompaniment of a measured dance and the clashing of arms.  These warrior chants were composed by bards, and probably included invocations of the war-gods and the recital of famous deeds. They may also have been of the nature of spells ensuring the help of the gods, like the war-cries uttered by a whole army to the sound of trumpets.  These consisted of the name of a god, of a tribe or clan, or of some well-known phrase. As the recital of a divine name is often supposed to force the god to help, these cries had thus a magical aspect, while they also struck terror into the foe.  Warriors also advanced dancing to the fray, and they are depicted on coins dancing on horseback or before a sword, which was worshipped by the Celts.  The Celtiberian festival at the full moon consisted entirely of dancing. The dance is a primitive method of expressing religious emotion, and where it imitates certain actions, it is intended by magical influence to crown the actions themselves with success. It is thus a kind of acted prayer with magical results.

Divination

A special class of diviners existed among the Celts, but the Druids practised divination, as did also the unofficial layman. Classical writers speak of the Celts as of all nations the most devoted to, and the most experienced in, the science of divination. Divination with a human victim is described by Diodorus. Libations were poured over him, and he was then slain, auguries being drawn from the method of his fall, the movements of his limbs, and the flowing of his blood. Divination with the entrails was used in Galatia, Gaul, and Britain.  Beasts and birds also provided omens. The course taken by a hare let loose gave an omen of success to the Britons, and in Ireland divination was used with a sacrificial animal.  Among birds the crow was preeminent, and two crows are represented speaking into the ears of a man on a bas-relief at Compiègne. The Celts believed that the crow had shown where towns should be founded, or had furnished a remedy against poison, and it was also an arbiter of disputes.  Artemidorus describes how, at a certain place, there were two crows. Persons having a dispute set out two heaps of sweetmeats, one for each disputant. The birds swooped down upon them, eating one and dispersing the other. He whose heap had been scattered won the case. Birds were believed to have guided the migrating Celts, and their flight furnished auguries, because, as Deiotaurus gravely said, birds never lie. Divination by the voices of birds was used by the Irish Druids.

Omens were drawn from the direction of the smoke and flames of sacred fires and from the condition of the clouds.  Wands of yew were carried by Druids-- the wand of Druidism of many folk-tales--and were used perhaps as divining-rods. Ogams were also engraved on rods of yews, and from these Druids divined hidden things. (The Irish for consulting a lot is crann-chur, "the act of casting wood.") By this means the Druid Dalan discovered where Etain had been hidden by the god Mider. The method used may have been that of drawing one of the rods by lot and then divining from the marks upon it. A similar method was used to discover the route to be taken by invaders, the result being supposed to depend on divine interposition.  The knowledge of astronomy ascribed by Cæsar to the Druids was probably of a simple kind, and much mixed with astrology and though it furnished the data for computing a simple calendar, its use was largely magical.  Irish diviners forecast the time to build a house by the stars, and the date at which S. Columba's education should begin, was similarly discovered.

The Imbas Forosnai, "illumination between the hands," was used by the Filé to discover hidden things. He chewed a piece of raw flesh and placed it as an offering to the images of the gods whom he desired to help him. If enlightenment did not come by the next day, he pronounced incantations on his palms, which he then placed on his cheeks before falling asleep. The revelation followed in a dream, or sometimes after awaking. (Cf. the two magic crows which announced the coming of Cúchulainn to the other world (D'Arbois, p.  v. 0); Perhaps the animal whose flesh was eaten was a sacred one. Another method was that of the Teinm Laegha. The Filé made a verse and repeated it over some person or thing regarding which he sought information, or he placed his staff on the person's body and so obtained what he sought. The rite was also preceded by sacrifice; hence S. Patrick prohibited both it and the Imbas Forosnai.  Another incantation, the Cétnad, was sung through the fist to discover the track of stolen cattle or of the thief. If this did not bring enlightenment, the Filé went to sleep and obtained the knowledge through a dream. Another Cétnad for obtaining information regarding length of life was addressed to the seven daughters of the sea. Perhaps the incantation was repeated mechanically until the seer fell into a kind of trance. Divination by dreams was also used by the continental Celts.

Other methods resemble trance-utterance. "A great obnubilation was conjured up for the bard so that he slept a heavy sleep, and things magic-begotten were shewn to him to enunciate," apparently in his sleep. This was called illumination by rhymes, and a similar method was used in Wales. When consulted, the seer roared violently until he was beside himself, and out of his ravings the desired information was gathered. When aroused from this ecstatic condition, he had no remembrance of what be had uttered. Giraldus reports this, and thinks, with the modern spiritualist, that the utterance was caused by spirits.  The resemblance to modern trance-utterance and to similar methods used by savages is remarkable, and psychological science sees in it the promptings of the subliminal self in sleep.

The taghairm of the Highlanders was a survival from pagan times. The seer was usually bound in a cow's hide—the animal, it may be conjectured, having been sacrificed in earlier times. He was left in a desolate place, and while he slept spirits were supposed to inspire his dreams.  Clothing in the skin of a sacrificial animal, by which the person thus clothed is brought into contact with it and hence with the divinity to which it is offered, or with the divine animal itself where the victim is so regarded, is a widespread custom. Hence, in this Celtic usage, contact with divinity through the hide would be expected to produce enlightenment. For a like reason the Irish sacrificed a sheep for the recovery of the sick, and clothed the patient in its skin.  Binding the limbs of the seer is also a widespread custom, perhaps to restrain his convulsions or to concentrate the psychic force.

Both among the continental and Irish Celts those who sought hidden knowledge slept on graves, hoping to be inspired by the spirits of the dead.  Legend told how, the full version of the Táin having been lost, Murgan the Filé sang an incantation over the grave of Fergus mac Roig. A cloud hid him for three days, and during that time the dead man appeared and recited the saga to him.

In Ireland and the Highlands, divination by looking into the shoulder-blade of a sheep was used to discover future events or things happening at a distance, a survival from pagan times.  The scholiast on Lucan describes the Druidic method of chewing acorns and then prophesying, just as, in Ireland, eating nuts from the sacred hazels round Connla's well gave inspiration.  The "priestesses" of Sena and the "Druidesses" of the third century had the gift of prophecy, and it was also ascribed freely to the Filid, the Druids, and to Christian saints. Druids are said to have prophesied the coming of S. Patrick, and similar prophecies are put in the mouths of Fionn and others, just as Montezuma's priests foretold the coming of the Spaniards.  The word used for such prophecies--baile, means "ecstasy," and it suggests that the prophet worked himself into a frenzy and then fell into a trance, in which he uttered his forecast. Prophecies were also made at the birth of a child, describing its future career. Careful attention was given to the utterances of Druidic prophets, e.g. Medb's warriors postponed their expedition for fifteen days, because the Druids told them they would not succeed if they set out sooner.

Mythical personages or divinities are said in the Irish texts to have stood on one leg, with one arm extended, and one eye closed, when uttering prophecies or incantations, and this was doubtless an attitude used by the seer.  A similar method is known elsewhere, and it may have been intended to produce greater force. From this attitude may have originated myths of beings with one arm, one leg, and one eye, like some Fomorians or the Fachan whose weird picture Campbell of Islay drew from verbal descriptions.

Early Celtic saints occasionally describe lapses into heathenism in Ireland, not characterised by "idolatry," but by wizardry, dealing in charms, and fidlanna, perhaps a kind of divination with pieces of wood.  But it is much more likely that these had never really been abandoned. They belong to the primitive element of religion and magic which people cling to long after they have given up "idolatry."

The Religion of the Ancient Celts, By J. A. MacCulloch,  1911

Divination
Divination (Fiosachd). It is noticeable that the chief articles from which the Highland soothsayer drew his predictions, supplied him with a luxury. 

Shoulder-blade Reading (Slinneineachd). This mode of divination was practised, like the augury of the ancients, as a profession or trade. It consisted in foretelling important events in the life of the owner of a slaughtered animal from the marks on the shoulder- blade, speal or blade-bone. Professors of this difficult art deemed the right speal-bone of a black sheep or a black pig the best for this purpose. This was to be boiled thoroughly, so that the flesh might be stripped clean from it, untouched by nail or knife or tooth. The slightest scratch destroyed its value. The bone being duly prepared was divided into upper and lower parts, corresponding to the natural features of the district in which the divination was made. Certain marks indicated a crowd of people, met, according to the skill of the diviner, at a funeral, fight, sale, etc. The largest hole or indentation was the grave of the beast's owner (ùaigh an t-sealbhaduir], and from its position his living or dying that year was prognosti- cated. When to the side of the bone, it presaged death; when in its centre, much worldly prosperity (gum biodh an saoghal aige).

Mac-a-Chreachaire, a native of Barra, was a celebrated shoulder-blade reader in his day. According to popular tradition he was present at the festivities held on the occasion of the castle at Bàgh Chiòsamul (the seat of the MacNeills, then chiefs of the island) being finished.  A shoulder-blade was handed to him, and he was pressed again and again to divine from it the fate of the castle. He was very reluctant, but at last, on being promised that no harm would be done him, he said the castle would become a cairn for thrushes (càrn dhruideachun), and this would happen when the Rattle stone (Clach-a-Ghlagain) was found, when people worked at sea-weed in Baile na Creige (Rock-town, a village far from the sea), and when deer swam across from Uist, and were to be found on every dung- hill in Barra. All this has happened, and the castle is now in ruins. Others say the omens were the arrival of a ship with blue wool, a blind man coming ashore unaided, and that when a ground officer with big fingers (maor na miar mòra) came, Barra would be measured with an iron string. A ship laden with blue cloth was wrecked on the island, and a blind man miraculously escaped; every finger of the ground officer proved to be as big as a bottle(!), and Barra was surveyed and sold. 

When Murdoch the Short (Murchadh Gearr), heir to the Lordship of Lochbuy in the Island of Mull, circ. A.D. 1400, was sent in his childhood for protection from the ambitious designs of his uncle, the Laird of Dowart, to Ireland, he remained there till eighteen years of age. In the meantime his sister (or half-sister) became widowed, and, dependant on the charity and hospitality of others, wandered about the Ross of Mull from house to house with her family. It was always in the prophecy (san tairgneachd) that Murdoch would return. One evening, in a house to which his sister came, a wedder sheep was killed. After the meal was over, her oldest boy asked the farmer for the shoulder-blade. He examined it intently for some time in silence, and then, exclaiming that Murdoch was on the soil of Mull (air grunnd Mhuile), rushed out of the house and made for Lochbuy, to find his uncle in possession of his rightful inheritance. 

On the night of the massacre of Glencoe, a party of the ill-fated clansmen were poring over the shoulder-blade of an animal slain for the hospitable entertain-ment of the soldiers. One of them said, "There is a shedding of blood in the glen" (tha dbrtadh fuil sa ghleann). Another said there was only the stream at the end of the house between them and it. The whole party rushed to the door, and were among the few that escaped the butchery of that dreadful night.

It is a common story that a shoulder-blade seer once saved the lives of a company, of whom he him- self was one, who had 'lifted' a cattle spoil (crack), by divining that there was only the stream at the end of the house between them and their pursuers. 

A shoulder-blade sage in Tiree sat down to a substantial feast, to which he had been specially invited, that he might divine whether a certain friend was on his way home or not. He examined the shoulder-bone of the wedder killed on the occasion critically, unable to make up his mind. "Perhaps," he said, "he will come, perhaps he will not." A boy, who had hid himself on the top of a bed in the room, that he might see the fun, could not help exclaiming, "They cannot find you untrue." The bed broke, and the diviner and his companions, thinking the voice came from the skies, fled, When the boy recovered he got the dinner all to himself.

Superstitions of the highlands and islands of Scotland, by John Gregorson Campbell, 1900.

Picture source:
1. https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/454863631090703039/?lp=true
2. Ib.

Nico