I M CRANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. V.
among wliich tliat by vervain was the most important*. As they are said to have affected the
study of nature called physiology by the Greeks, their predictions may not alvrays have been
Ul-founded. Divitiacus, the iEduan, a Druid and the friend of Csesar and Cicero, foretold events
partly from auguries, and partly from conjectures derived from the observation of natural
causes t. The soothsayers of certain tribes of the VindeKci pretended to determine whether the
unborn child was male or female J. PKny, who generally speaks of the Druids under the name
of Magi, says that in Britain in his time they stiU practised magic with strange and amazing
rites, which he compares with those of the Persians §. In the south-west of Britain, Solinus says,
divination was practised by women as well as men|l. It is indeed evident that the superstitious
reverence of the ancient Germans for the female sex existed also among the Gauls and Britons,
and that women were thought to be specially endued with an insight into futurity^. In Sena,
an island of the British sea, were the nine priestesses of the oracle of a Gallic divinity, who were
said to raise storms by their verses, change themselves into what animals they pleased, heal
diseases, and foretell events, though only to the sailors who came to consult them, in the same
way as at Samothrace**. Strabo only names female diviners when he describes the fearful
human sacrifices of the Cimbri. These were hoary-headed women in white dresses, their outer
tunics of fine Knen secured with fibulse, wearing bronze girdles and barefooted f t - Whether we
admit the Cimbri as a Celtic people or not, there can be little doubt that this description will
apply to the costume of the Druids of Gaul and Britain.
The highest order, or Druids proper, were priests and philosophers, who added to the study of
nature that of ethical philosophy, and divine and human lawJi. Mela alludes to their eloquence
and wisdom; Ammianus may picture them too favorably as despising all worldly affairs, and
after the example of Pythagoras, forming themselves into societies for the study of divine and
hidden tilings, and in the depths of forests, or in caves, instructing, during a noviciate often
of twenty years, the youth who resorted to them for that purpose §§. They held it unlawful to
commit their doctrines to writing, which were handed down oraUy, a great number of verses
being learnt by their disciples. Memory was assisted by these being often in triads. Pro-
* Pliny, lib. XXV. § 59. Thiswas probably a di-vination by
twigs, such as that practised by the ancient Scythians, Alani
and Germans. Herodotus, lib. iv. c. 67. Tacitus, Mor. Germ,
c. 10. Am. Marc. lib. xsxi. c. 2.
f Cicero de Divin. hb. i. c. 41. Cicero also notes the profound
attention paid to auspices by Deiotarus, king of the
Asiatic Celts aib. i. c. 15; ii. c. 37).
X strabo, lib. iv. c. 6. § 8.
§ Pliny, lib. xsx. § 4. The practice of magic and human
sacrifices had everywhere been connected, and Pliny implies
that the two were still associated in Britain.
II Solinus, c. 22.
^ Tacitus, Germ. c. 8. " Inesse quinetiam sanctum aliquid
et providum putant; uec aut consiha eanim aspernantur aut
responsa negligunt."—Hist. lib. iv. c. 61. "Vetere apud
Germanos more, quo plerasque feminarum fatidicas." All the
later notices in the third century, of the Druids of Gaul under
that name, are of Druidesses.
** Mela, lib. iii. c. 6. A tradition of the power over tempests
of these GallisentE, as Mela calls them, exists to this day
on the Armorican coast—as at Mont St. Michel (Weld,
"Brittany," 1856, p. 25). Strabo (Ub. iv. c. 4. § 6), from Artemidorus,
shows that divination by the feedingof birds(crows),
tripudium, was also practised on these shores. Omens were also
derived from the course of hares, as in the case of Boadicea ;
and this may be one reason why this animal was among those
which the Britons thought it unlawful to eat(B. G.hb.v.c. 12).
•ft Strabo, lib. vii. c. 2. § 3. The pes nudtis and garments
of white linen elsewhere adverted to in connexion with the
Druids, remind us of the same among Eastern and Semitic
people ; as the Egyptians (Herod, lib. ii. c. 37. 81) and Jews
(Exod. iii. 5 ; xxviii. 39 ; xxx. 19 ; xxxix. 27 ; xl. 31. Josh.
V. 15), and in the temple of Hercules at Gades (Sil. Ital.
lib. iii. V. 21).
J i Hence the name of Semnothei given to the Druids in
Suidas and Diogenes Laertius (Proem. § 1). If Diogenes, in
this place, really follow lost works of Aristotle and Sotion
(as some think his words imply), this notice of the " Druids
and Semnothei of the Celts and Gauls" will be the earliest
remaining, and prove that they were known to the Greeks more
than three centuries before our era.
§§ Mela, Ammianus, Csesar, foe. C!i. Lucan, lib. i. v. 454 ;
" nemora alta remotis
Incolitis lucis."
CHAP. V.] HISTORICAL ETHNOLOGY OB" BRITAIN. 115
bably to prevent their diffusion among the vulgar, they are said to have been obscure and
enigmatical*. No such obscurity, however, is to be observed in two verses, one of which is a
triad, preserved by Mela and Diogenes Laertius, in which reverence for the gods, justice and
fortitude are inculcated, and the immortality of the soul insisted on as an incentive to valour t-
In a less developed form the Druidical institute probably extended to Ireland. The vernacular
word Druidh is found in very ancient Irish MSS., and ia the Irish Nennius replaces the
Magi of the Latin, just as the converse is found in Pliny. The Magi, so often named in the lives
of the Irish Saints, were probably Druids. The life of St. Patrick shows that in the foui-th century
these Magi had great influence with the monarch Laeghaire, who is described as surrounded by
his Magi, Aruspices, and Incantatores, a threefold division very similar to that of the Druidical
order in Gaul and South Britain in the days of Csesari-
The druidical philosophy comprised astronomy and cosmogony; the stars and their motions,
the size and form of the world, which they taught to be immortal, though destined to catastrophes
from both fire and water §. The observation of the heavenly bodies, and especially of the moon,
was intimately connected with the druidical superstitions. The ovum anguimum, as pretended,
could only be taken on a certain day of the moon; the sacred verbena was cut after the rising of
Sirius, but when neither the sun nor the moon shone. On the sixth day of the moon, the
mistletoe was gathered; and from this day also the Druids dated the commencement of their
months, years, and saicula of thirty years ||. At the first quarter, or sixth day, near half the
disc of the moon is visibleTT; and there would have been light enough for the festivals, the celebration
of which extended into the night. Hence the sacred character of this day and its
selection for rites to which the people resorted from a great distance. The calendar must
have occupied much attention, in the regulation of these festivals. As did the Greeks and
peoples of the East, the Druids dated from the eves of days or sunsets; the days, months,
and years being so reckoned that the day followed the night**. Their astronomy seems to have
been of a rude and empirical kind, and it is not probable, as sometimes thought, that they were
acquainted with the luni-solar year of 365 days and 6 hours, prior to its adoption by Julius
Csesar; when through the Romans this would become known throughout Gaul, and at a later
period in Britain. They must, however, have had some expedient for the correction of their
rude lunar calendar, and they may have become acquainted with the Metonic cycle of nineteen
years from the Greeks of Massilia; a knowledge of which is at least attributed to the iasular
Hyperboreans, by the Abderite Hecatseus+t, three centuries before our era.
* Diog. Laert. Proem. § 5. See also what Diodorus
(lib. V. c. 31) says of the obscure style of the Gauls abounding
with hyperbole.
t Diog. Laert. Proem. § 6.
" Colendos deos.
Nihil malura faciendum,
Et exercendam fortitudinem."
Mela, lib. iii. c. 2.
" e ternas esse animas,
Vitamque alteram ad manes."
I Book of Armagh, fol. 3 b. Book of Eights, p. xlix.
Reeves, St. Columba, p. 73. Zeuss. Gram. Celt. p. 278.
§ A curious partial coincidence with Christian doctrine.
2 Peter, iii. 5-7, 10-13.
II Pliny, lib. xvi. § 95j lib. xxv. § 59; lib. xxix. J 12.
According to Marcellus Empiricus of Bordeaux, 4th century
A.D., the coltsfoot, or Gallic Calliomarcus, was gathered on a
Thursday at the wane of the moou.
^ To this may refer the crescent in the hand of the Druid in
the celebrated bas-relief of Autun. Montfaucon, L'Autiq. Exp.
** Ceesar, B. G. lib. vi. c. 18. The ancient Germans did
the same. " Nox ducere diem videtur " (Tac. Mor. Germ,
e. xi.). So also in the East, " And the evening and the morning
were the first day" (Gen. i. 5).
•ft Diod. lib. ii. c. 47. Thierry (Hist, des Gaulois, lib. iv.
c. 1), after Freret, conjectures that the Drnids corrected their
calendar by the intercalation of eleven moons, or eleven years
of thirteen moons each, in every s^culum of thirty years, by
which the equinoxes and solstices would be brought nearly
to the same periods of the same moons.