The more ancient sorcerers of Brittany deserve a word of notice. Magic among the Celtic peoples in olden times was so clearly identified with Druidism that its origin may be said to have been Druidic. Whether Druidism was of Celtic origin, however, is a question upon which much discussion has taken place, some authorities, among them Rhys, believing it to have been of non-Celtic and even non-Aryan origin, and holding that the earliest non-Aryan or so-called Iberian people of Britain introduced the Druidic religion to the immigrant Celts. An argument advanced in favour of this theory is that the Continental Celts sent their neophyte Druid priests to Britain to undergo a special training at the hands of the British Druids, and that this island seems to have been regarded as the headquarters of the cult. The people of Cisalpine Gaul, for instance, had no Druidic priesthood. Cæsar has told us that in Gaul Druidic seminaries were very numerous, and that within their walls severe study and discipline were entailed upon the neophytes, whose principal business was to commit to memory countless verses enshrining Druidic knowledge and tradition. That this instruction was astrological and magical we have the fullest proof.[50]
The Druids were magi as they were priests in the same sense that the American Indian shaman is both magus and priest. That is, they were medicine-men on a higher scale, and had reached a loftier stage of transcendental knowledge than the priest-magicians of more barbarous races. Thus they may be said to be a 246 link between the barbarian shaman and the magus of medieval times. Many of their practices were purely shamanistic, while others more closely resembled medieval magical rite. But they were not the only magicians of the Celts, for frequently among that people we find magic power the possession of women and of the poetic craft. The magic of Druidism had many points of comparison with most magical systems, and perhaps approximated more to that black magic which desires power for the sake of power alone than to any transcendental type. Thus it included the power to render the magician invisible, to change his bodily shape, to produce an enchanted sleep, to induce lunacy, and to inflict death from afar.
The arts of rain-making, bringing down fire from heaven, and causing mists, snow-storms, and floods were also claimed for the Druids. Many of the spells probably in use among them survived until a comparatively late period, and are still employed in some remote Celtic localities, the names of saints being substituted for those of Celtic deities. Certain primitive ritual, too, is still carried out in the vicinity of some megalithic structures in Celtic areas, as at Dungiven, in Ireland, where pilgrims wash before a great stone in the river Roe and then walk round it, and in many parts of Brittany.[51]
In pronouncing incantations the usual method employed was to stand upon one leg and to point with the forefinger to the person or object on which the spell was to be laid, at the same time closing one eye, as if to concentrate the force of the entire personality upon that which was to be placed under ban. A manuscript 247 possessed by the monastery of St Gall, and dating from the eighth or ninth century, includes magical formulæ for the preservation of butter and the healing of certain diseases in the name of the Irish god Diancecht. These and others bear a close resemblance to Babylonian and Etruscan spells, and thus go to strengthen the hypothesis often put forward with more or less plausibility that Druidism had an Eastern origin. At all magical rites spells were uttered. Druids often accompanied an army, to assist by their magical arts in confounding the enemy.[52]
There is some proof that in Celtic areas survivals of a Druidic priesthood have descended to our own time in a more or less debased condition. Thus the existence of guardians and keepers of wells said to possess magical properties, and the fact that in certain families magical spells and formulæ are handed down from one generation to another, are so many proofs of the survival of Druidic tradition, however feeble. Females are generally the conservators of these mysteries, and that there were Druid priestesses is fairly certain.
The sea-snake’s egg, or adder’s stone, which is so frequently alluded to in Druidic magical tales, otherwise called Glain Neidr, was said to have been formed, about midsummer, by an assemblage of snakes. A bubble formed on the head of one of them was blown by others down the whole length of its back, and then, hardening, became a crystal ring. It was used as one of the insignia of the Archdruid, and was supposed to assist in augury.
The herbe d’or, or ‘golden herb,’ was a medicinal plant much in favour among the Breton peasantry. It is the 248 selago of Pliny, which in Druidical times was gathered with the utmost veneration by a hand enveloped with a garment once worn by a sacred person. The owner of the hand was arrayed in white, with bare feet, washed in pure water. In after times the plant was thought to shine from a distance like gold, and to give to those who trod on it the power of understanding the language of dogs, wolves, and birds.
These, with the mistletoe, the favourite Druidical plant, the sorcerer is entreated, in an old balled, to lay aside, to seek no more for vain enchantments, but to remember that he is a Christian.
Abélard and Héloïse
The touching story of the love of Abélard and Héloïse has found its way into Breton legend as a tale of sorcery. Abélard was a Breton. The Duke of Brittany, whose subject he was born, jealous of the glory of France, which then engrossed all the most famous scholars of Europe, and being, besides, acquainted with the persecution Abélard had suffered from his enemies, had nominated him to the Abbey of St Gildas, and, by this benefaction and mark of his esteem, engaged him to pass the rest of his days in his dominions. Abélard received this favour with great joy, imagining that by leaving France he would quench his passion for Héloïse and gain a new peace of mind upon entering into his new dignity.