Everywhere and in everything the Druids recognised this celestial Trinity: not only did their Hierarchy consist of three orders, i.e., Druids, Bards, and Seers, each group being again subdivided into three, but also, as we have seen, they uttered their Triads or aphorisms in triple form. There is little doubt that the same idea animated the Persian philosophy of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word, and Micah’s triple exordium: “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly”. The bards say distinctly: “The three mystic letters signify the three attributes of God, namely, Love, Knowledge, and Truth, and it is out of these three that justice springs, and without one of the three there can be no justice”.[608]
This is a simpler philosophy than the incomprehensibilities of the Athanasian Creed,[609] and it was seemingly drilled with such living and abiding force into the minds of the Folk, that even to-day the Druidic Litanies or Chants of the Creed still persist. Throughout Italy and Sicily the Chant of the Creed is known as The Twelve Words of Verita or Truth, and it is generally put into the mouth of the popular Saint Nicholas of Bari.[610] The Sicilian or Hyperean festival of the Bara has already been noted ante, [p. 320].
The British chant quoted ante, [page 373], continues: “What will be our three boys”? “What will be our four”? five? six? and onwards up to twelve, but always the refrain is—
My only ain she walks alane
And ever mair has dune, boys.
Fig. 326.—St. John. From Christian Iconography (Didron).
Fig. 327.—Christ, with a Nimbus of Three Clusters of Rays. Miniature of the XVI. Cent. MS. of the Bib. Royale. Ibid.