CELTIC CUSTOMS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 143, 16 December 1908, Page 2

CELTIC CUSTOMS.

* LECTURE BY DR. TUDOR JONES. Dr. Tudor Jones delivered an interesting lecture at the Masonic Hall, Boulcottstreet, last evening, on Celtic customs, particularly referring to Wales and Welshmen. Mr. Tregear, Secretary for Labour, presided, and in introducing the lecturer expressed his sympathy with the colonial children j whose lives were not surrounded with the mythological and historical environment surrounding those of the young of older lands. After all, if everything came to be viewed in the cold light of mere logic, the world would be absolutely unbearable. Dr. Jones, who spoke until nearly ten o'clock, began by referring to his early years spent in the heart of Wales, and the psychic influences with which he was surrounded. , • He next dealt with the two peoples, the swart Iberians and the fair, blue-eyed Celts, who made up the ancient British people, showing where they differed in physical and racial characteristics. It had been made clear, he said, that in 1003 B.C. Britain was a civilised country. The national pride of the Cymri had kept the race so pure that even so late as twenty years ago an. Englishman was a rare person in the interior of Wales, and regarded with suspicion. The Anglo-Saxon race had never really understood the Celt, nor had the Celt properly understood the AngloSaxon. Dr. Jones, in dealing with Celtic characteristics, showed how jealous the people were, town against town, village against village, and even sometimes one half of a village divided by a river fiercely jealous of the other half on the other side of the river. He also dealt with the ancient Druidic religion, with its three orders of priesthood, a religion based upon communication between Ihis and another world — an ethereal envelope, enclosing the material world, the abode of the gods. The forests and mountains were peopled with spirits, and the folklore showed how strong was the belief in these beings of the unseen country. If his opinion were asked, he said, he would say that if two-thirds of Wales were Christian to-day, the remainder was purely Pagan. If that were so, then he was glad of it, because it represented something that Christianity did not bring with it. It represented that which Christianity could not represent. The lecturei-, in dealing with the Ceh tic character, showed that the Celt in emergency or calamity was absolutely indifferent to death, facing it without the slightest fear. This might explain to some extent the fac^-or it was the fact twenty years ago— that two-thirds of the officers and engineers sailing out of Liverpool to New York were Celts. A most interesting account was given of the sacredness of trees in Wales, a survival of the Druidical worship ; of the belief in the evil eye j of the simple occultism of the folk; of the marriage customs; ballad singers; premonitions, ghosts, and omens; and the lecture from beginning to end was manifestly much enjoyed.