By William Long, Esq. 129 



The Rev. John Bathurst Deane (an old and valued friend of the 

 writer, now unhappily deprived of sight), in his work, on the "Wor- 

 ship of" the Serpent " (18-!i'3), says that "the circle and the horse-shoe 

 were both sacred figures in the Druidical religion, as may be seen in 

 Stonehenge, where they are unitod ; the outer circles enclosing inner 

 horse-shoes. I cannot find any connection between the latter sym- 

 bol and the tenets of the Celtic religion, unless it be intended as a 

 representation of the moon " p. 370. 



Mr. Henry Lawes Long, in his interesting and learned work on" the 

 Early Geography of Western Europe," 1859, writes as follows : " It is 

 evident from the words of Csesar : ' The doctrine was discovered in 

 Britain, and imported into Gaul,' ^ that Druidism must have been the 

 religion of the first inhabitants of Britain, and found there by the more 

 recent settlers ; that is, that it was the religion of the Cy mry, and that 

 the Belgie settlers, upon so discovering it, became its converts, and 

 transmitted it to their parent states in Gaul. No duubt this 

 change took place many years before the time of Csesar, his ex- 

 pression ' existimatur ■* implies this, because it evidently relates to 

 a distant event : besides, some considerable time is necessary for 

 the thorough and universal establishment of Druidism in Gaul. 



. . . . The Cimbri were a portion of the extended Cymry 

 who occupied the whole of the western coast of Britain from the 

 Clyde, through Cumberland and Wales, to the south-western 

 extremity of Britain, comprising the counties of Somerset, Devon, 

 and Cornwall. It was here, then, that the Western Belgae, the in- 

 habitants of Wilts, whom 1 believe to have been Ambiaui, were brought 

 into contact with the Cymry, and from them they must necessarily 

 have received the Druidical religion, in the place of the superstition, 

 whatever it may have been, which they brought over with them 

 from the continent. The conversion of the Belgae to Druidism 

 would naturally have led to the erection of a temple in honour of 

 their new creed. Druidical remains, in the shape of rude circles of 



' " Disciplina h83C in Britannia reperta ; atque inde in Galliam translata esse, 

 existimatur, et nunc, qui diligentius earn rem co{<noscere volunt, plerumque 

 illo, discendi causa, proticiscuntur." — Cses. de Bell. Gall. lib. iv. 



VOL. XVI. NO. XLVI. K 



