 CHAPTER 41 OF BULFINCH'S METHOLOGY, THE AGE OF FABLE BULFINCH'S METHOLOGY, THE AGE OF FABLE, by Thomas Bulfinch CHAPTER 41 THE DRUITS, IONA The druids were the priests or ministers of religion among the ancient Celtic nations in Gaul, Britain, and Germany. Our information respecting them is borrowed from notices in the Greek and Roman writers, compared with the remains of Welsh and Gaelic poetry still extant. The druids combined the functions of the priest, the magistrate, the scholar, and the physician. They stood to the people of the Celtic tribes in a relation closely analogous to that in which the Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia, and the priests of the Egyptians stood to the people, respectively, by whom they were revered. The druids taught the existence of one God to whom they gave a name, Beyal, which Celtic antiquaries tell us means the life of everything, or the source of all beings, and which seems to have affinity with the Phoenician Beyal. What renders this affinity more striking is that the druids as well as the Phoenicians identified this their supreme deity with the sun. Fire was regarded as a symbol of the divinity. The Latin writers assert that the druids also worshipped numerous inferior gods. They used no images to represent the object of their worship, nor did they meet in temples or buildings of any kind for the performance of their sacred rites. A circle of stones, each stone generally of vast size, enclosing an area of from twenty feet to thirty yards in diameter, constituted their sacred place. The most celebrated of those now remaining is Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, England. These sacred circles are generally situated near some stream or under the shadow of a grove or wide-spreading oak. In the center of the circle stood the Cromlec, or altar, which was a large stone placed in the manner of a table upon other stones set up on end. The druids also had their high places, which were large stones or piles of stones on the summits of hills. These were called cairns, and were used in the worship of the deity under the symbol of the sun. That the druids offered sacrifices to their deity there can be no doubt, but there is some uncertainty as to what they offered, and of the ceremonies connected with their religious services we know almost nothing. The classical Roman writers affirm that they offered on great occasions human sacrifices, as for success in war, or for the relief of dangerous diseases. Caesar has given a detailed account of the manner in which this was done. They have images of immense size, the limbs of which are framed with twisted twigs, and filled with living persons. These being set on fire, those within are encompassed by the flames. Many attempts have been made by Celtic writers to shake the testimony of the Roman historians to this fact, but without success. The druids observed two festivals each year. The former took place in the beginning of May, and was called Beltane, or Fire of God. On this occasion a large fire was kindled on some elevated spot, in honour of the sun, whose returning beneficence they thus welcomed after the gloom and desolation of winter. Of this custom a trace remains in the name given to Whitsunday, in parts of Scotland to this day. Sir Walter Scott uses the word in the boat song in The Lady of the Lake. Ours is no sapling chanced sown by the fountain, blooming at Beltane in winter to fade. The other great festival of the druids was called Sawan, or Fire of Peace, and was held at Hollow Eve, 1st of November, which still retains this designation in the Highlands of Scotland. On this occasion the druids assembled, in solemn conclave, in the most central part of the district, to discharge the judicial functions of their order. All questions, whether public or private, all crimes against person or property, were at this time brought before them for adjudication. With these judicial acts were combined certain superstitious usages, especially the kindling of the sacred fire from which all the fires in the district, which had been beforehand scrupulously extinguished, might be relighted. This usage of kindling fires on Hollow Eve lingered in the British Islands long after the establishment of Christianity. Besides these two great festivals, the druids were in the habit of observing the full moon, and especially the sixth day of the moon. On the latter they sought the mistletoe which grew on their favourite oaks, and to which, as well as to the oak itself, they ascribed a peculiar virtue and sacredness. The discovery of it was an occasion of rejoicing and solemn worship. They call it, says Pliny, by a word in their language which means, heal all, and having made a solemn preparation for feasting and sacrifice under the tree. They drive thither two milk-white bulls, whose horns are then for the first time bound. The priest, then, robed in white, ascends the tree, and cuts off the mistletoe with a golden sickle. It is caught in a white mantle after which they proceed to slay the victims, at the same time praying that God would render his gift prosperous to those to whom he had given it. They drink the water in which it has been infused, and think it a remedy for all diseases. The mistletoe is a parasitic plant, and it is not always nor often found on the oak, so that when it is found it is the more precious. The druids were the teachers of morality, as well as of religion. Of their ethical teaching a valuable specimen is preserved in the triads of the Welsh bards, and from this we may gather that their views of moral rectitude were on the whole just, and that they held and inculcated many very noble and valuable principles of conduct. They were also the men of science and learning of their age and people. Whether they were acquainted with letters or not has been disputed, though the probability is strong that they were, to some extent. But it is certain that they committed none of their doctrine, their history, or their poetry to writing. Their teaching was oral, and their literature, if such a word may be used in such a case, was preserved solely by tradition. But the Roman writers admit that they paid much attention to the order and laws of nature, and investigated and taught to the youth under their charge many things concerning the stars, and their motions, the size of the world and the lands, and concerning the might and power of the immortal gods. Their history consisted in traditional tales in which the heroic deeds of their forefathers were celebrated. These were apparently inverse, and thus constituted part of the poetry as well as the history of the druids. In the poems of Ocean we have, if not the actual productions of druidical times, what may be considered faithful representations of the songs of the Bards. The Bards were an essential part of the druidical hierarchy. One author, Pennant, says, the Bards were supposed to be endowed with powers equal to inspiration. They were the oral historians of all past transactions, public and private. They were also accomplished genealogists, etc. Pennant gives a minute account of the Eisteddfads, or sessions of the Bards and minstrels, which were held in Wales for many centuries long after the druidical priesthood in its other departments became extinct. At these meetings none but Bards of Merritt were suffered to rehearse their pieces, and minstrels of skill to perform. Judges were appointed to decide on their respective abilities, and suitable degrees were conferred. In the earlier period the judges were appointed by the Welsh princes, and after the conquest of Wales, by commission from the kings of England. Yet the tradition is that Edward I, in revenge for the influence of the Bards in animating the resistance of the people to his sway, persecuted them with great cruelty. This tradition has furnished the poet Gray with the subject of his celebrated ode, the Bard. There are still occasional meetings of the lovers of Welsh poetry and music held under the ancient name. Among Mrs. Hemons' poems is one written for an Eisteddfad, or meeting of Welsh Bards, held in London May 22nd, 1822. It begins with a description of the ancient meeting, of which the following lines are apart. Mids the eternal cliffs whose strength defied the crusted Roman in his hour of pride, and where the druids ancient Cromlech frowned, and the oaks breathed mysterious murmurs round, there thronged the inspired of yore on plain and height, in the sun's face beneath the eye of light, and bearing unto heaven each noble head stood in the circle where none else might tread. The druidical system was at its height at the time of the Roman invasion under Julius Caesar. Against the druids as their chief enemies, these conquerors of the world directed their unsparing fury. The druids, harassed at all points on the mainland, retreated to Anglesey and Iona, where for a season they found shelter, and continued their now dishonored rites. The druids retained their predominance in Iona, and over the adjacent islands and mainland, until they were supplanted, and their superstitions overturned by the arrival of St. Colombo, the apostle of the Highlands, by whom the inhabitants of that district were first led to profess Christianity. Iona One of the smallest of the British Isles, situated near a rugged and barren coast, surrounded by dangerous seas and possessing no sources of internal wealth, Iona has obtained an imperishable place in history as the seat of civilization and religion at a time when the darkness of heathenism hung over almost the whole of northern Europe. Iona, or Icon Kill, is situated at the extremity of the island of Maul, from which it is separated by a strait of half a mile in breadth, its distance from the Scottish mainland being thirty-six miles. Colombo was a native of Ireland, and connected by birth with the princes of the land. Ireland was at that time a land of gospel light, while the western and northern parts of Scotland were still immersed in the darkness of heathenism. Colombo with twelve friends landed on the island of Iona in the year of our Lord five sixty-three, having made the passage in a wicker boat covered with hides. The druids who occupied the island endeavored to prevent his settling there, and the savage nations of the adjoining shores incommodated him with their hostility, on several occasions endangering his life by their attacks. Yet by his perseverance and zeal he surmounted all opposition, procuring from the king a gift of the island, and establishing a monastery there, of which he was the abbot. He was unwirried in his labours to disseminate a knowledge of the scriptures throughout the highlands and islands of Scotland, and such was the reverence paid him that though not a bishop, but merely a presbyter and monk, the entire province with its bishops was subject to him and his successors. The Pictish monarch was so impressed with a sense of his wisdom and worth that he held him in the highest honour, and the neighbouring chiefs and princes sought his council, and availed themselves of his judgment in settling their disputes. When Columba landed on Iona he was attended by twelve followers whom he had formed into a religious body of which he was the head. To these, as occasion required, others were from time to time added so that the original number was always kept up. Their institution was called a monastery, and the superior an abbot, but the system had little in common with the monastic institutions of later times. The name by which those who submitted to the rule were known was that of Kaldes, probably from the Latin, Cultore's Dei, worshippers of God. They were a body of religious persons associated together for the purpose of aiding each other in the common work of preaching the gospel and teaching youth, as well as maintaining themselves in the fervour of devotion by united exercises of worship. On entering the order certain vows were taken by the members, but they were not those which were usually imposed by monastic orders, for of these which are three, celibacy, poverty, and obedience. The Kaldes were bound to none except the third. To poverty they did not bind themselves, on the contrary they seemed to have laboured diligently to procure for themselves and those dependent on them the comforts of life. Marriage was also allowed then, and most of them seemed to have entered that state. True, their wives were not permitted to reside with them at the institution, but they had a residence assigned to them in an adjacent locality. Near Iona there is an island which still bears the name of Island Namban, women's island, where their husbands seemed to have resided with them, except when duty required their presence in the school or the sanctuary. Campbell, in his poem of Ray Ulura, alludes to the married monks of Iona. The pure Kaldes were Albin's earliest priests of God, ere yet an island of her seas, by foot of Saxon Monk was trod. Long ere her churchmen by bigotry were barred from Holy Wedlock's tie, to as then that E. famed afar, in Iona preached the word with power, and Ray Ulura, beauty star, was the partner of his bower. In one of his Irish melodies Moor gives the legend of St. Sinanus and the lady who sought shelter on the island, but was repulsed. Oh hasten leave this sacred isle on Holy Bark ere morning smile, for on thy deck though dark it be, a female form I see, and I have sworn this sainted sod shall ne'er by women's foot be trod. In these respects and in others the Kaldes departed from the established rules of the Romish church, and consequently were deemed heretical. The consequence was that as the power of the latter advanced that of the Kaldes was enfeebled. It was not however until the thirteenth century that the communities of the Kaldes were suppressed and the members dispersed. They still continued to labour as individuals, and resisted the inroads of papal usurpation as best they might, till the light of the Reformation dawned on the world. Iona, from its position in the western seas, was exposed to the assaults of the Norwegian and Danish rovers by whom those seas were infested, and by them it was repeatedly pillaged, its dwellings burnt, and its peaceful inhabitants put to the sword. These unfavourable circumstances led to its gradual decline, which was expedited by the subversion of the Kaldes throughout Scotland. Under the reign of Popery the island became the seat of a nunnery, the ruins of which are still seen. At the Reformation the nuns were allowed to remain, living in community when the abbey was dismantled. Iona is now chiefly resorted to by travellers, on account of the numerous ecclesiastical and sepulchral remains that are found upon it. The principal of these is the cathedral or abbey church, and the chapel of the nunnery. Besides these remains of ecclesiastical antiquity there are some of an earlier date, and pointing to the existence on the island of forms of worship and belief different from those of Christianity. These are the circular cairns which are found in various parts, and which seem to have been of druidical origin. It is in reference to these remains of ancient religion that Johnson exclaims, that man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plains of Marathon, for whose piety would not grow warmer amid the ruins of Iona. In the Lord of the Isles Scott beautifully contrasts the church on Iona with the cave of Stapha opposite. Nature herself it seemed would raise a minister to her maker's praise, nor for a meaner use ascend her columns or her arches bend. Nor of a theme less solemn tells that mighty surge that ebbs and swells, and still between each awful pause from the high vault an answer draws, in varied tone prolonged and high, that mocks the organ's melody. Nor doth its entrance front in vain to old Iona's holy feign, that nature's voice might seem to say, well hast thou done, frail child of clay, thy humble powers that stately shrine tasked high and hard, but witness mine. End of Bullfinch's mythology, the age of the fabled by Thomas Spoolfinch.