116 CRANIA BEITANNICA. [CHAP. V.
The Druids airogated to themselves a peculiar knowledge of the nature and powers of the
gods; but we are ignorant of their doctrines on these subjects*, though it is certain their religion,
as known to the Romans, was a gross polytheism. Caesar is generally thought to imply that the
Druids not only taught the immortality of the sou.1—»ora interire animas—but also that of
transmigration—aS aliia post niortém transiré ad aliosi. Diodorus refers to their opinion on
this subject as that of Pythagoras J. It is, however, clear that the words of Cajsar do not convey
the idea of the Pythagorean metempsychosis or transmigration into the lower animals; and it may
be, as a comparison of his words with those of Lucan and Mela suggests, that they do not imply
the retiu-n of the soul to this world in even a human form§. The funeral customs of the Gauls
are opposed to such a belief. It was common to devote to the funeral pile favourite slaves and
dependents, and many gladly destroyed themselves in order to share the future life with the
departed II. Letters even were thron-n on the pile, which it was thought would be received by
the dead to whom they were addressed. Money was lent on the promise of payment in another
world, where debts were to be paid and accounts settled Tf. These usages are inconsistent with
a belief in transmigration, and clearly imply that another world was anticipated in which the
business and pleasures of this life would be renewed**. According to Diodorus, the Celts
believed in an intermediate state, and that life recommenced " after a definite interval of years."
This is confli'med by the fact that desert islands were supposed to be the abode of disembodied
spirits. In the first century, an island, regarded with superstitious awe by the Britons, is described
by an eye-witness, as the supposed abode of genii and heroes, whose arrival and departure were
attended by tempestuous winds and storms f t - Pive centuries later, Procopius describes that
island or part of Britain, to which, as reported, the people of the opposite shore were superna-
* " Soils nosse deos, et cceli uumina Tobis,
Aut solis nescire datum."—Lucan, lib. i. T. 452.
t CiEsar, B. G. lib. ti. c. 14. Lucan (lib. i. T. 454—462)
seems to follow and amplify Csesar.
J: Diod. lib. T. c. 28. Valerius Maximus (lib. ii. c. vi. § 10)
says the same:—"persnasum habuerunt, animas hominnm
imraortales esse. Dicerem stultos, nisi idem braccati sensissent,
quod palliatus Pythagoras credidit." Pythagoras is
thrice named in connexion with the Druids, viz. by Diodorus,
Valerius Maximus and Ammianus, but only for the sake of
comparison. The notion, common to one class of writers, that
Abaris the Hyperborean was a Druid from Britain, who either
derived the doctrine of metempsychosis from Pythagoras, or,
as some more wildly imagine, communicated it to him, is altogether
without fonndation. Abaris is, by Suidas, called a Scythian,
and the son of Seuthes, which is altogether a Thracian name.
There is httle doubt, that, hke Anacharsis and Zamolxis, he
was a Scythian, or more accurately a Thracian from the borders
of Seythia, who visited Greece for instruction in manners
and philosophy. The term Hyperborean was used by the
Greeks in various senses, some ideal and mythical, others definitely
or indefinitely geographical; and hence the confusion.
The stories of the Hyperboreans who sent their offerings to
Delos, can hardly, as Phny (lib. iv. § 6) observes, be entirely
inventions, and they probably referred to the Thracian or
Scythian people, to whom Abaris belonged. (See Herodotus,
lib. iv. c. 33, for the use of wheat-straw in the Thracian sacrifices.)
Niebuhr (Roman History, vol. i. p. 85) regards the
accounts of them as a genuine tradition, but places them in
the north of Italy, near the Alps.
§ " Vobis auctoribus, umbroe
Non tacitas Èrebi sedes Ditisque profundi
Pallida regna petunt ; regit idem spkitus artus
Orbe alio ; canitis si cognita, vitse
Mors media est." (Lucan, i. 454-8.)
11 Csesar, B. G. lib. vi. c. 19. Mela, lib. iii. e. 2.
yj Diod. Valer. Max. Mela, foe. «Y. It is hardly probable that
funeral rites, which were chiefly apphcable to the wealthy and
powerful, were other than had the sanction of Druidical authority.
** Mr. Nash (TaUesin, or Bards and Druids of Britain, 1858,
p. 134), who adopts this view, has shown that the Welsh
poems attributed to Taliesin and the sixth century, often
thought to embody the doctrine of tlie metempsychosis, cannot
be the work of that bard or period, and that the allusions
m some of them to transformation into animals only express
the wild belief in magic common through Europe in mediieval
times. The Bardic Triads, learnedly edited byPictet ("Mystère
des Bardes sur Dieu, et la Transmigration des Ames," &c.,
1856), as remains of the old Celtic faith, are believed to
have been fabricated by Edward Williams (Lyric Poems,
1794).
t t Demetrius of Tarsus, aj).
Plutarch. Defect. Oracu).
c. 2, 18.
CHAP. V. ] HISTORICAL ETHNOLOGY OP BRITAIN. 117
Similar superstitions s turally constrained to convey the souls of the dead*, till linger on the
remote coasts of Ireland t-
The Druids sacrificed the animals taken in war to their gods, especially Hesus. They did
not go to war or engage in any enterprise without s a c r i f i c i n g human victims, or vowing to do so.
Disease and dangers of aU kinds were to be averted by the same means, as they held the dreadful
doctrine that where life was concerned the gods could only be appeased by a vicarious human
offering. Criminals were preferred for this purpose, but in their absence the mnocent were
ruthlessly sacrificed. In their most solemn deliberations a human victim was struck with a
sword, and from the mode of faUing, the contraction of the limbs, and the flowing of the blood,
the event of the enterprise was predicted. Captives were, by many tribes, kept prisoners for five
years to be burnt on piles with other victims. By others, the victims were crowded into large
figures of wicker-work, and so bui-ntj. These modes of sacrifice and divination were suppressed
by the Romans§, but Mela says, that though actual human sacrifices were abstained from, men
were still devoted to the gods and their blood tasted or sprinkled on the altars ||. Prom the known
conformity of the Druidical rites of Britain and the Continent, there could have been no doubt
of the practice of human sacrifices in these islands, even were there not the express testimony
of the historian as to those of Monal-. That the recollection at least, of such rites survived
the Roman sway in South Britain, is shown by the curious story preserved in Nennius **.
Some of the Druidical sacrifices were of a more innocent kind. Before the selago was
gathered, an offering of bread and wine was made; before the verbena, honey was presented
to the earth. Other superstitious rites were observed in coUecting these and other sacred
plants, as the samolusn. The person gathering Selago was to be clothed in white, the feet
bare and washed clean; he was to use no implements of iron, those of bronze probably, as in
several of the Roman sacred rites, being preferred to the more modern ones of iron tt- The Oak
* Procopius, Bell. Goth. Hb. iv. c. 20. The mention of the
"long wall cutting off a great portion of the island," clearly
identiEes the Brittia of Procopius with Britain. Gibbon and
Macaulay agree in this identification. Dr. Latham thinks
Heligoland or Eugen is intended.
t In the isles of Arran, the ancient Eaths are thought to
be inhabited by the spirits of the dead, whose voices are heard
in the wailings of the storm. Far to the west is fabled the
enchanted island of Ey Brmail, the paradise of the pagan
Irish. Weld, "Ireland," 1857, p. 41.
X Cffisar, B.G.Ub. vi. e. 16, 17. Cicero, pro Font. c. x. § 21.
Diodorus, lib. v. e. 31, 32. Strabo, lib. iv. e. 4. § 4, 5. Lucan,
lib. i. V. 444-7 ; lib. iii. v. 403-5. The Gauls of Asia had the
same custom. Sopater apud Athen. lib. iv. c. 16. Livy, lib.
xxxviii. c. 47. From a comparison of what Strabo (lib. vii.
c. 2. § 3) says of the mode of divination from human sacrifices
among the Cimbri, it is probable that those of the Gauls and
Britons were also performed in pubUc and on " raised platforms."
The summits of many cromlechs, or dolmens, all of
which are certainly not sepulchral, may have been the scene of
these rites. Altars, arte, are named by Cicero, Mela, Lucan, and
Tacitus in connection with the human sacrifices of the Gauls
and Britons. Lucan's words in reference to the Druidical
grove near Massilia, "structcc diris altarilus arcs," seem applicable
enough to such rude stone structures as the cromlechs,
still remaining in many countries formerly peopled by Celts.
§ Strabo, lib. iv. c. 4. § 5.
II Mela, lib. iii. c. 2. This change of custom had been
forced on the Gauls by the Eoman power. In ancient Greece
the symbolical substitution for human sacrifices, of the bloody
scourging of hoys or women at the altars of the gods, was
the result of advancing civilization. Pausan. lib. iii. c. 16.
§ 6 ; lib. viii. c. 23. § 1. (See Note t , p- post.)
^ Tacitus, Ann. lib. xiv. e. 30.
** Hist. c. 42; where see the reply of the "Magi" or
"Druids" to Vortigern: "Nisi infantem sine patre inveneris,
ut habeas qui occidatur, et arx de suo sanguine conspergatur,
nunquam sedificabitur in aetemum." Even the Irish saints of
the sixth century were not free from this superstition, as seen
in the story of the voluntary death of St. Oran, " to consecrate
the earth " of Hy, before its first church was built by Columba.
Eeeve's St. Columba, p. 203.
t t Hiny. lib. xxiv. § G2, 63 ; lib. xxv. § 59. The Samolns
aud Vervain were to be gathered with the left hand, the Selago
with the right, sine fem, but it was to be done as if a theft
were being committed. The rites of the Persian Magi may be
compared, Strabo, lib. xv. c. 3. § 14 ; Phny, lib. xxviii. § 56 ;
if indeed by the "Magi " in this last place the Druids are not
intended. Sprengel identifies the Druidical Selago with the
Club-moss, Lycopodium Selago ; and the Samolus with the
Brook-weed, Samolus Valerandi.
J J Virgil represents the herbs used in incantations as ga-
R