Let us continue our tour of the town. Here is a man cleverly weaving baskets of wicker-work; yonder is a fisherman returning from the river, his broad back bearing a coracle, such as you may see on the Dee at Llangollen or on the rivers of South Wales to-day. Not far away is the metal-worker’s hut, where the craftsman is busy mixing his bronze, and moulding it into axes, lance-heads, and sword-blades. Another worker is busy chipping flints brought from the quarry in yonder chalk hills. The potter who labours close at hand kneads out his yellow clay and fashions his pots by hand, ornamenting them by pressing a notched stick or braid against the wet clay. Such is a British town in the most civilized part of the land a century or so before the coming of the Romans.
Room for the Druids! Their solemn progress, their patriarchal beards, their white robes of office, and the chaplets of oak leaves on their brows proclaim them at once. Priests, judges, magicians, and instructors of youth, they rule the Britons with a rod of iron. Their altars and idols are set deep in the gloomy shades of dense forests amidst the gnarled and twisted stems of aged oaks. The secrets of their cruel creed are close locked in their bosoms, and over all their words and works they cast a dread mystery that chills the heart of the boldest Briton in the land. Their word is law, their curse is death. Their richest treasures go unguarded save for the awe which they inspire. Deep in their forest shades they offer their mysterious sacrifices; sometimes human beings, imprisoned in huge wicker-work images, are burnt to death to appease the angry gods. The Druids claim to hold sway even over the spirits of the departed, and the Briton trembles as he hears the voices of tormented souls wailing in the night wind. Every shadow is a terror; every flying cloud is an omen of good or ill; every spring, river, and fountain has its guardian deity. Fire is the element which the Druids hold in the highest reverence; the sacred flame on their altars never dies.
Four times a year solemn festivals are held. On Midsummer Eve, New Year’s Day, May Day, and Hallowe’en the great Beltane fires are lighted, and Britons from near and far assemble for worship. The mistletoe growing on an oak is held sacred in the highest degree, and on the sixth day of the moon a feast is prepared beneath the hallowed branches. White bulls are dragged to the tree, and their broad foreheads are bound to its stem, their loud bellowings mingling with the strain of the wild anthem which the worshippers raise. When the beasts have been slaughtered as sacrifices, the chief Druid, clad in his flowing white robes, his golden collar and bracelets, ascends the oak, treading on the backs and broad shoulders of blindfolded slaves. With a golden pruning-knife he severs the mistletoe, and beneath him attendant Druids receive it on a white linen cloth. It is then distributed to the awed and expectant multitude, who carry home and carefully preserve a sprig of the all-healing plant. The Christmas mistletoe beneath which youths and maidens now make merry at the most sacred season of the Christian year annually recalls this heathenish rite.
Much of the Druids’ lore is imposture, but they have wrested from Nature some of her secrets. They know the stars in their courses; they are skilled in the lore of plants and the healing properties of herbs and simples. They practise the arts of public speaking and poesy. Their bards sing the songs of heroes, and inflame warriors with the lust of battle. But over all broods the cruel shadow of death, and men tremble as they pray.
Dread and mighty as these Druids are, the day of their doom is coming. Even now the Roman galleys are on the sea, and their prows are rising and falling as they furrow the heaving waters towards the white cliffs of Albion. Centuries will elapse before the gospel of love and mercy sweeps away the blood-stained rites of the Druids’ creed. The gods of Rome will destroy the deities of the isle. Jupiter and Mars will dethrone them; and in their train, how or when we know not, the message of Christianity will be whispered, until at length the daystar rises, never to set, on the forests of Britain.
Gone are the Druids, but their name still survives in the mountains and valleys of Wales, where the ancient Britons found their refuge in a later age. Our modern Druids love letters and music, and the other beautiful arts which touch and kindle souls. Theirs it is to encourage men and women to build the lofty rhyme, to weave the golden strands of melody, and to limn the loveliness of earth and sea and sky. Thus transformed, the Druid is a prophet of sweetness and light, not an enslaver of souls.
