WHO WERE THE DRUIDS?

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1928, 30 October 1926, Page 8

WHO WERE THE DRUIDS?

That itlfe Druids 'we-rle once the plriestly celebrants of (the antique sunworship once [practised Sin die British islands th'elre 'can foe no doubt whatever. The Welsh Eisteddfod us|ecli to be hjd.d as a “ gorsed,” ic-r court-)for lejltecrs and iriujsic, within a circle of stones with a large menhir <yr monolith in the middle. It was .'held fade to fade with the sun, in -.the eye' of Wghjt, and the Celtic Z&us qvssrfits (spiritual president. -*■-.•;?i/IBut we do not Ithereby conciuklie (that the users of the -stone circle were likewise th\q builders, and the " problem that preserit s itself is •wlbether the Celtic invaders of Britain ’.-were,- as is usually assumed, the ,/ipventors of D|niid|ism (say s Mr H. J, , M'assingha-m in tfoja London (Daily : ' : - rThe traditional view is that the •Drulids were •rJriedts of the sacred grove, the ibuild'elrs of Stonehenge, -the repositories of ancilenlt i wisdom, .science, arid letters. No daufojt (there ..is something in this popular idea] • ' Where it goes off tffie rails, II tli'inlc, is in linking th'a Druids a natural dijror, all the' satne',"since Druidism, as one .gathers from the Roman (evidence, did overlap into the Celtic pelriod, whi'ch began«in the middle of the late ißronze Age (about 1000 bjc.) - : The commonsense Objection to this theory that springs to the mind is--that the very laist Ithing that military nomads w)are likely to take with them on swift ancfo warlike expeditions was a Sedentary- priesthood, whiich was not merely a priesthood, foult a kind of iunivdnslty of the arts and sciences,,as exclusive as Oxford arid Cambridge. The Arch-ID,raid of Goidjslic (namely, Gaelic)' legend in (Ireland, bslsidles, w’as Simon Ma'gus, and he was one of the “ Fir-Bolgs,” who were tonsured, according to 'Gil das, Hike t)h}a Egyptian priests. A 'examination of Egyptian mythology reveals the fact, from many different angles,- that the 'Celtic; heroes regarded ithe Fir-IBolg as tfoe pre-Celtic colonists of Ireland whom they dlisjpos'sessed, and who were their demon toes. Turn Britain. The Celtic people Who showed th'a cleaite'st -traces of Drulidiism were the Goidels or Gaels, the earliest 'Celtic invaders whose descendants live ito -day in Ireland. th}a (Isle of Man, and North iScct-land. The Brytlidns, who (followed them, and ultimately inhabited .Brittany, Gaul, Wales, and 'Cornwall, were less familiar with Druidism.

The conclusion one can hardy avoid reaching is that the Druids were 'elite original priesthood (of thle Ancient Mariners who colonised Britain befolre Ithe Celts, and who left so many mysterious and imposing monuments upon the hills of our land —barrows, dolmens, stonte! circles and avenues, huge ‘Huirial cairns llik'et 'Silbury Hill, near Avebury (110 feet high, with a base of five acres), and massive oval eartfo'•works. The founders of such works could not have been mere nomads and floclcmasltins; while thie'ir burial customs b'eltray complex Ideas of immortality and the abode of Hie dead well in harmony with Druid'ical doctrine'.