[APPENDIX E.]
THE DRUIDS AND CRETE.
Since the preceding pages were in the press I have come into the possession of La Religion des Gaulois by Jacques Martin (Paris, 1727). This standard writer favours the idea that druid is derived from the Celtic deru, meaning an oak, but he also makes a remarkable statement to the following effect: “If the opinion of P. Pezron was well founded one should also say that certain people of Crete whom one called Druites, because their country was full of oaks, made a trade of magic and enchantment, which is far removed from the truth and perhaps also from good sense” (vol. i., p. 176). In the same volume (pp. 406-7) Martin illustrates a Gaulish god whose name Dolichenius is curiously suggestive of Dalgeon, Telchin, Talgean, and Telchinea.
[L’ENVOI.]
Now if any brother or well-wisher shall conscientiously doubt or be dissatisfied, touching any particular point contained in this treatise, because of my speaking to many things in a little room: and if he or they shall be serious in so doing, and will befriend me so far, and do me that courtesy, to send to me before they condemn me, and let me know their scruples in a few words of writing, I shall look upon myself obliged both in affection and reason, to endeavour to give them full satisfaction.
H. B.
Overbye,
Church Cobham,
Surrey.