The Student's Mythology / A Compendium of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Hindoo, Chinese, Thibetian, Scandinavian, Celtic, Aztec, and Peruvian Mythologies

by Catherine Ann White

Ques. How was the Druid priesthood divided?

Ans. Into three orders; the priests, the bards, and the Druids, properly so called.

Ques. What were the duties of the priests?

Ans. They studied the hidden laws of nature and the mysteries of earth and heaven. They offered public and private sacrifices, and obtained a knowledge of the future from the entrails and the blood of victims, or from the flight of birds. They also cured maladies with certain mysterious charms. The bards held a still higher rank: they preserved in their verses the mystic learning of the priests, the traditions of their race, and the great actions of their heroes. No sacrifice was duly offered without their sacred chant; they encouraged the warrior going to the field of combat, and received him on his return with notes of triumph. To live in heroic song was the aspiration of every Celtic warrior, and to the coward or traitor, there was no penalty so terrible as the denunciation of the sacred bards. Music was the only gentle art known to the rude tribes of Gaul and Britain, and they were, perhaps for this reason, the more susceptible to its influence. The character of these minstrels was peculiarly sacred in their eyes, on account of the gifts of prophecy and second sight which they were believed to possess in moments of inspiration.

The verses of the bards were never committed to writing, and a long and painful course of oral instruction was necessary before a candidate could be admitted to take his place in this influential class. According to Cæsar, twenty years was the ordinary novitiate required.

The bards of Gaul seem to have passed away with the religious system to which they belonged; but in the British islands, they continued, although divested of their sacred character, to be a highly esteemed and privileged class. We may judge of their influence in keeping alive the patriotic spirit of the people, from the fact that Edward I. ordered their extermination as the surest means of extinguishing the feeling of nationality among the Welsh tribes. In Ireland and Scotland, the bards gradually passed away with the decline of the feudal system, and the power of the native princes and chieftains whose glory they sung.

Ques. Who were the Druids, properly so called?

Ans. They were priests of the highest order, who remained secluded in caves and grottoes, or in the depths of oak forests, where they were supposed to study the deeper mysteries of nature and religion, and to consult more directly the secret will of the divinity. They were also the teachers of youth.

The Druids must have possessed some knowledge of the motions of the heavenly bodies, since they counted the year by lunations; astronomical instruments have also been found among the druidical remains in Ireland, which prove that they had made a certain progress in this science. Like the Persians, they mingled astrology and divination with their observations of the celestial bodies. The healing art was also practised by the Druids. The effect of their remedies was not, however, attributed to any natural cause, but rather to a mysterious virtue residing in certain plants, and rendered efficacious by the magic rites with which they were gathered.

The mistletoe, when found growing on the oak, was esteemed particularly sacred; it was an antidote against poison, a remedy in all diseases, and a preservative against the machinations of evil spirits. To possess the proper efficacy, it should be gathered in February or March, on the sixth day of the moon. As soon as the mistletoe was found growing on the no less sacred oak, the Druids assembled; a banquet and a sacrifice were prepared, after which a priest in white vestments cut the plant with a golden sickle while two others received it reverently into a white mantle spread beneath. Two milk-white heifers were instantly offered in sacrifice, and the rest of the day was spent in rejoicing. In like manner, the samolus, or marsh-wort, possessed no virtue unless it were sought fasting, and gathered with the left hand, without looking at it. They plucked the helago, or hedge hyssop, barefooted, and without a knife, after ablutions, and offerings of bread and wine. The vervain and other plants had also their distinct ceremonial.