THE BRITISH DRUIDS, OR MAGI—ORIGIN OF FAIRIES—ANCIENT
SUPERSTITIONS——THEIR SKILL IN MEDECINE, &C.
The British Druids, like the Indian Gymnosophists, or the Persian Magi, had two sets of doctrines; the first for the initiated; the second for the people. That there is one God the creator of heaven and earth, was a secret doctrine of the Brachmans. And the nature and perfection of the deity were among the druidical arcana.
Among the sublimer tenets of the druidical priesthood, we have every where apparent proofs of their polytheism: and the grossness of their religious ideas, as represented by some writers, is very inconsistent with that divine philosophy which has been considered as a part of their character. These, however, were popular divinities which the Druids ostensibly worshipped, and popular notions which they ostensibly adopted, in conformity with the prejudices of the vulgar. The Druids well knew that the common people were no philosophers. There is reason also, to think that a great part of the idolatries were not sanctioned by the Druids, but afterwards introduced by the Phoenician colony. But it would be impossible to say how far the primitive Druids accommodated themselves to vulgar superstition, or to separate their exterior doctrines and ceremonies from the fables and absurd rites of subsequent times. It would be vain to attempt to enumerate their gods: in the eye of the vulgar they defied everything around them. They worshipped the spirits of the mountains, the vallies, and the rivers. Every rock and every spring were either the instruments or the objects of admiration. The moonlight vallies of Danmonium were filled with the fairy people, and its numerous rivers were the resort of genii.
The fiction of fairies is supposed to have been brought, with other extravagancies of a like nature from the Eastern nations, whilst the Europeans and Christians were engaged in the holy war: such at least is the notion of an ingenious writer, who thus expresses himself: "Nor were the monstrous embellishments of enchantments the invention of romancers, but formed upon Eastern tales, brought thence by travellers from their crusades and pilgrimages, which indeed, have a cast peculiar to the wild imagination of the Eastern people."[22]
That fairies, in particular, came from the East, we are assured by that learned orientalist, M. Herbelot, who tells us that the Persians called the fairies Peri, and the Arabs Genies, that according: to the Eastern fiction, there is a certain country inhabited by fairies, called Gennistan, which answers to our fairy-land.[23] Mr. Martin, in his observations on Spencer's Fairy Queen, is decided in his opinion, that the fairies came from the East; but he justly remarks, that they were introduced into the country long before the period of the crusades. The race of fairies, he informs us, was established in Europe in very early times, but, "not universally." The fairies were confined to the north of Europe—to the ultima Thule—to the British isles—to the divisis orbe Britannis. They were unknown at this remote era to the Gauls or the Germans: and they were probably familiar to the vallies of Scotland and Danmonium, when Gaul and Germany were yet unpeopled either by real or imaginary beings. The belief indeed, of such invisible agents assigned to different parts of nature, prevails at this very day in Scotland, Devonshire and Cornwall, regularly transmitted from the remotest antiquity to the present times, and totally unconnected with the spurious romance of the crusader or the pilgrim. Hence those superstitious notions now existing in our western villages, where the spriggian[24] are still believed to delude benighted travellers, to discover hidden treasures, to influence the weather, and to raise the winds. "This," says Warton, "strengthens the hypotheses of the northern, parts of Europe being peopled by colonies from the east!"
The inhabitants of Shetland and the Isles pour libations of milk or beer through a holed-stone, in honour of the spirit Brownie; and it is probable the Danmonii were accustomed to sacrifice to the same spirit, since the Cornish and the Devonians on the border of Cornwall, invoke to this day the spirit Brownie, on the swarming of their bees.
With respect to rivers, it is a certain fact that the primitive Britons paid them divine honours; even now, in many parts of Devonshire and Cornwall, the vulgar may be said to worship brooks and wells, to which they resort at stated periods, performing various ceremonies in honour of those consecrated waters: and the Highlanders, to this day, talk with great respect of the genius of the sea; never bathe in a fountain, lest the elegant spirit that resides in it should be offended and remove; and mention not the water of rivers without prefixing to it the name of excellent; and in one of the western islands the inhabitants retained the custom, to the close of the last century, of making an annual sacrifice to the genius of the ocean. That at this day the inhabitants of India deify their principal rivers is a well known fact; the waters of the Ganges possess an uncommon sanctity; and the modern Arabians, like the Ishmaelites of old, concur with the Danmonii in their reverence of springs and fountains. Even the names of the Arabian and Danmonian wells have a striking correspondence. We have the singing-well; or the white-fountain, and there are springs with similar names in the deserts of Arabia. Perhaps the veneration of the Danmonii for fountains and rivers may be accepted as no trivial proof, to be thrown into the mass of circumstantial evidence, in favour of their Eastern original. That the Arabs in their thirsty deserts, should even adore their wells of "springing water," need not excite our surprise, but we may justly wonder at the inhabitants of Devonshire and Cornwall thus worshipping the gods of numerous rivers, and never failing brooks, familiar to every part of Danmonium.
The principal times of devotion among the Druids were either mid-day or midnight. The officiating Druid was cloathed in a white garment that swept the ground; on his head, he wore the tiara; he had the anguinum or serpent's egg, as the ensign of his order; his temples were encircled with a wreath of oak-leaves, and he waved in his hand the magic rod. As regards the Druid sacrifice there are vague and contradictory representations. It is certain, however, that they offered human victims to their gods. They taught that the punishment of the wicked might be obliterated by sacrifices to Baal.[25] The sacrifice of the black sheep, therefore, was offered up for the souls of the departed, and various species of charms exhibited. Traces of the holy fires, and fire worship of the Druids[26] may be observed in several customs, both of the Devonians and the Cornish; but in Ireland may still be seen the holy fires in all their solemnity. The Irish call the month of May Bel-tine, or fire of Belus; and the first of May Lubel-tine, or the day of Belus's fire. In an old Irish glossary, it is mentioned that the Druids of Ireland used to light two solemn fires every year, through which all four-footed beasts were driven, as a preservative against contagious distempers. The Irish have this custom at the present moment, they kindle the fire in the milking yards; men, women, and children pass through or leap over it, and their cattle are driven through the flames of the burning straw, on the first of May; and in the month of November, they have also their fire feasts when, according to the custom of the Danmonians, as well as the Irish Druids, the hills were enveloped in flame. Previously to this solemnity (on the eve of November) the fire in every private house was extinguished; hither, then, the people were obliged to resort, in order to rekindle it. The ancient Persians named the month of November, Adur or fire Adur, according to Richardson was the angel presiding over that element, in consequence of which, on the ninth, his name-day, the country blazed all around with flaming piles, whilst the magi, by the injunction of Zoroaster, visited with great solemnity all the temples of fire throughout the empire; which, on this occasion, were adorned and illuminated in a most splendid manner. Hence our British illuminations in November had probably their origin. It was at this season that Baal Samham called the souls to judgment, which, according to their deserts, were assigned to re-enter the bodies of men or brutes, and to be happy or miserable during their next abode on the earth.
The primitive Christians, attached to their pagan ceremonies, placed the feast of All-Souls on the la Samon, or the second of November. Even now the peasants in Ireland assemble on the vigil of la Samon with sticks and clubs, going from house to house, collecting money, bread-cake, butter, cheese, eggs, etc., for the feast; repeating verses in honour of the solemnity, and calling for the black sheep. Candles are sent from house to house and lighted up on the Samon. (The next day.) Every house abounds in the best viands the master can afford; apples and nuts are eaten in great plenty; the nutshells are burnt, and from the ashes many things are foretold. Hempseed is sown by the maidens, who believe that, if they look back, they shall see the apparition of their intended husbands. The girls make various efforts to read their destiny; they hang a smock before the fire at the close of the feast, and sit up all night concealed in one corner of the room, expecting the apparition of the lover to come down the chimney and turn the shimee: they throw a ball of yarn out of the window, and wind it on the reel within, convinced that if they repeat the Paternoster backwards, and look at the ball of yarn without, they shall then also see his apparition. Those who celebrate this feast have numerous other rites derived from the Pagans. They dip for apples in a tub of water, and endeavour to bring up one with their mouths; they catch at an apple when stuck on at one of the end of a kind of hanging beam, at the other extremity of which is fixed a lighted candle, and that with their mouths only, whilst it is in a circular motion, having their hands tied behind their backs.[27]