Ancient Man in Britain

by Donald A. Mackenzie

CHAPTER XII
Druidism in Britain and Gaul

Culture Mixing—Classical Evidence regarding Druids—Doctrine of Transmigration of Souls—Celtic Paradises: Isles of the Blest, Land-under-waves, Fairyland, and "Loveless Land"—Paradise as Apple-land—Apples, Nuts, and Pork of Longevity—Mistletoe connected with the Oak, Apple, and Other Trees—Druids and Oracular Birds—Druids as Soothsayers—Thomas the Rhymer as "True Thomas"—Christ as the Druid of St. Columba—Stones of Worship—Druid Groves and Dolmens in Anglesea—Early Christians denounce Worship of Stones, Trees, Wells, and Heavenly Bodies—Vows over Holy Objects—Bull Sacrifices, Stone Worship, &c., in Highlands—"Cup-marked" Stones—Origin of Druidism—Milk-Goddesses and Milk-yielding Trees—European and Oriental Milk Myths—Tree Cults and Megalithic Monuments.

When the question is asked "What was the religion of the ancient Britons?" the answer generally given is "Druidism". But such a term means little more than "Priestism". It would perhaps be better not to assume that the religious beliefs of our remote ancestors were either indigenous or homogeneous, or that they were ever completely systematized at any period or in any district. Although certain fundamental beliefs may have been widespread, it is clear that there existed not a few local or tribal cults. "I swear by the gods of my people" one hero may declare in a story, while of another it may be told that "Coll" (the hazel) or "Fire" was his god. Certain animals were sacred in some districts and not in others, or were sacred to some individuals only in a single tribe.

In a country like Britain, subjected in early times to periodic intrusions of peoples from different areas, the process of "culture mixing" must have been active and constant. Imported beliefs were fused with native beliefs, or beliefs that had assumed local features, while local pantheons no doubt reflected local politics—the gods of a military aristocracy being placed over the gods of the subject people. At the same time, it does not follow that when we find a chief deity bearing a certain name in one district, and a different name in another, that the religious rites and practices differed greatly. Nor does it follow that all peoples who gave recognition to a political deity performed the same ceremonies or attached the same importance to all festivals. Hunters, seafarers, and agriculturists had their own peculiar rites, as surviving superstitions (the beliefs of other days) clearly indicate, while the workers in metals clung to ceremonial practices that differed from those performed by representatives of a military aristocracy served by the artisans.

Much has been written about the Druids, but it must be confessed that our knowledge regarding them is somewhat scanty. Classical writers have made contradictory statements about their beliefs and ceremonies. Pliny alone tells that they showed special reverence for the mistletoe growing on the oak, and suggests that the name Druid was connected with the Greek word drus (an oak). Others tell that there were Druids, Seers, and Bards in the Celtic priesthood. In his book on divination, Cicero indicates that the Druids had embraced the doctrines of Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher, who was born about 586 b.c., including that of the transmigration of souls.[108] Julius Cæsar tells that the special province of the Druids in Gaulish society was religion in all its aspects; they read oracles, and instructed large numbers of the nation's youth. Pomponius Mela[109] says the instruction was given in caves and in secluded groves. Cæsar records that once a year the Druids presided over a general assembly of the Gauls at a sacred spot in the country of the Carnutes, which was supposed to be the centre of Gaul. It is not known whether this holy place was marked by a mound, a grove, a stone circle, or a dolmen. The Archdruid was chief of the priesthood. Cæsar notes that the Germans had no Druids and paid no attention to sacrifices.

Of special interest is the statement that the Druids believed in the doctrine of Transmigration of Souls—that is, they believed that after death the soul passed from one individual to another, or into plants or animals before again passing into a human being at birth. According to Diodorus Siculus, who lived in the latter part of the first century a.d., the Gauls took little account of the end of life, believing they would come to life after a certain term of years, entering other bodies. He also refers to the custom of throwing letters on the funeral pyre, so that the dead might read them.[110] This suggests a belief in residence for a period in a Hades.

The doctrine of Transmigration of Souls did not, however, prevail among all Celtic peoples even in Gaul. Valerius Maximus, writing about a.d. 30, says that the Gauls were in the habit of lending sums of money on the promise that they would be repaid in the next world. Gaelic and Welsh literature contains little evidence of the doctrine of Transmigration of Souls. A few myths suggest that re-birth was a privilege of certain specially famous individuals. Mongan, King of Dalriada in Ulster, and the Welsh Taliessin, for instance, were supposed to have lived for periods in various forms, including animal, plant, and human forms, while other heroes were incarnations of deities. The most persistent British belief, however, was that after death the soul passed to an Otherworld.

Julius Cæsar says that Druidism was believed to have originated in Britain.[111] This cannot apply, however, to the belief in transmigration of souls, which was shared in common by Celts, Greeks, and Indians. According to Herodotus, "the Egyptians are the first who have affirmed that the soul is immortal, and that when the body decays the soul invariably enters another body on the point of death". The story of "The Two Brothers" (Anpu and Bata) indicates that the doctrine was known in Egypt. There are references in the "Book of the Dead" to a soul becoming a lily, a golden falcon, a ram, a crocodile, &c., but this doctrine was connected, according to Egyptologists, with the belief that souls could assume different shapes in the Otherworld. In India souls are supposed to pass through animal or reptile forms only. The Greek doctrine, like the Celtic, includes plant forms. Certain African tribes believe in the transmigration of souls.

In ancient Britain and Ireland the belief obtained, as in Greece and elsewhere, that there was an Underworld Paradise and certain Islands of the Blest (in Gaelic called "The Land of Youth", "The Plain of Bliss", &c.) The Underworld was entered through caves, wells, rivers or lakes, or through the ocean cavern from which the moon arose. There are references in Scottish folk-tales to "The Land-Under-Waves", and to men and women entering the Underworld through a "fairy" mound, and seeing the dead plucking fruit and reaping grain as in the Paradise of the Egyptian god Osiris. It is evident that Fairyland was originally a Paradise, and the fairy queen an old mother goddess. There are references in Welsh to as gloomy an Underworld as the Babylonian one. "In addition to Annwfn, a term which", according to the late Professor Anwyl, "seems to mean the 'Not-world', we have other names for the world below, such as anghar, 'the loveless place'; difant, the unrimmed place (whence the modern Welsh word difancoll, 'lost for ever'); affwys, the abyss; affan, 'the land invisible'." In a Welsh poem a bard speaks of the Otherworld as "the cruel prison of earth, the abode of death, the loveless land".[112]