During the three centuries while Britain remained a province of the Empire the Romanisation of the native religion had free scope, the spread of Christianity meanwhile striving with indifferent success to keep pace with it. “The larger half of the altars and shrines, discovered in Britain are simply set up to honour the ordinary gods of the Roman world.”[[24]] Among these latter were many strange divinities, who in origin were neither Celtic nor Roman, but were those of alien races led to Britain by the hope of profitable traffic or by compulsory military service.
Mithras, for example, whose worship was introduced at Rome under the Emperors, found in this way a place in the British pantheon.
There is no evidence to show that either nature worship or sun worship was the dominant religion of the Celts either before, during or after the Roman occupation. It is, of course, possible to say of the Romans that they practised both, but it is an abuse of language to say that they were either sun worshippers like the Egyptians or nature worshippers like the Phœnicians. The same holds good of the Celts.
Under Roman influence the days of the week received Latin names derived from the planetary system, all of which except Sunday (Dies Solis which became Dies Dominica) continued to be used by our lawyers until English took the place of Latin in the courts of record. In Cornwall, notwithstanding the Saxon invasion, the Latin names were retained until Cornish ceased to be a spoken and written language. Thus Sunday, Dies Solis became Dê Zil, Zil being the Cornish derivative of Sol and not a variant of the Cornish word Houl.[[25]] Until the Roman occupation the Celts reckoned time by nights, not days. Thus the first night (of the week if they had weeks) was the sixth night after new moon, that is when the moon was on the point of becoming half-full. Their year, therefore, consisted of thirteen months. The Celtic mind appears to have revelled in the realm of mystery. The practice of magic; the prevalence of human sacrifice; the numerous local divinities, with strange names preserved to us only in the dedications of their shrines, whose attributes and powers remain unknown; the hidden virtues of the mistletoe and the selago; above all, the secrets of the Celtic priesthood—the Druids—suggest, but unfortunately only suggest, a religious differentiation which carries us back to a period more remote than that of any religious system with which we are familiar.
Professor Sir John Rhys has attempted to show that Druidism was a pre-Celtic survival, the religious system, in short, of some race which preceded the Celts in Britain, and his judgment would doubtless have been accepted had there not been good evidence to show that the system was not peculiar to Britain but to the Celts themselves. It prevailed among the continental Celts just as it prevailed among those of Britain and Ireland. On the other hand, its affinities with classical mythology are not sufficiently pronounced at the time when it is first encountered to indicate an Ægean origin. When the original home of the Celt has been determined it may be possible to discover the home of his religion.
The Druids[[26]] were the interpreters of divine things to the Celtic conscience. They shared with the knights the administration of public affairs, expounded the ceremonial law and determined the times and modes of its application. Cæsar states, but not on good authority, that Druidism originated in Britain, and Tacitus, who lived towards the end of the first century of the Christian era, that Anglesey was its religious centre. An impressive picture is given of the scene (A.D. 60) which was presented to the army of Suetonius Paulinus preparing to attack that venerable sanctuary. “Along the shore was seen a dense line of armed warriors, while women were rushing about between the ranks garbed like the Furies, in black gowns, their hair flowing loose, and torches in their hands. The Druids were visible in the rear offering sacrifices to their gods, raising their hands to heaven, and calling down dire imprecations upon the head of the invader.”[[27]]
Of Druidical worship in Cornwall there is no direct evidence.[[28]] The kinship and intercourse and close relations, however, which subsisted between Cornwall, Wales and Ireland leave no room for doubt that Druidism was its religious system. It should be needless to observe that its megalithic remains, dolmens, circles, and the like, which were erected many centuries before the Celts appeared in Britain, had originally no connection with Druidism and that there is no evidence to show that they ever became identified with it.
Without stopping to compare Irish and Gaulish Druidism with that of Britain there is one point which claims attention and which, whether Druidical or essentially primitive and sporadic, bears witness to the existence of a cult which, occurring in Ireland, could not have been introduced by the Romans.
From the life of St. Patrick we learn that in Ireland idols of stone, sometimes adorned with gold, silver, or copper, and in particular one stone, that of Ceen Cruaich or Cronn Cruach, were worshipped by all the people of the land.[[29]] Practices similar though not necessarily identical—in other words idol worship—characterised the Cornish paganism of the sixth century. Henoc the biographer of St. Sampson relates an incident of such absorbing interest that a translation of the Latin,[[30]] however imperfect, will be welcomed. It was during the saint’s sojourn at Docco (St. Kew) that we read, “Now it came to pass, on a certain day as he journeyed through a certain district which they call Tricurius (the hundred of Trigg) he heard on his left hand (in sinistra parte de eo) to be exact, men worshipping (at) a certain shrine after the custom of the Bacchantes by means of a play in honour of an image. Thereupon he beckoned to his brothers that they should stand still and be silent while he himself, quietly descending from his chariot to the ground and standing upon his feet and observing those who worshipped the idol, saw in front of them, resting on the summit of a certain hill an abominable image. On this hill I myself have been and have adored and with my hand have traced the sign of the cross which Saint Sampson, with his own hand, carved by means of an iron instrument on a standing stone. When Saint Sampson saw it (the image), selecting two only of the brothers to be with him, he hastened quickly towards them, their chief Guedianus standing at their head, and gently admonished them that they ought not to forsake the one God who created all things and worship an idol. And when they pleaded as excuse that it was not wrong to keep the festival of their progenitors in a play, some being furious, some mocking but some of saner mind strongly urging him to go away, straightway the power of God was made clearly manifest. For a certain boy driving horses at full speed fell from a swift horse to the ground and twisting his head under him as he fell headlong, remained, just as he was flung, little else than a lifeless corpse.
“Then St. Sampson, speaking to the tribesmen as they wept around the body, said, ‘You see that your image is not able to give aid to the dead man. But if you will promise that you will utterly destroy this idol and no longer adore it I, with God’s assistance, will bring the dead man to life.’ And they consenting, he commanded them to withdraw a little further off and after praying earnestly over the lifeless man for two hours he delivered him, who had been dead, alive and sound before them all.