594 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



meet them there chiefly as magicians and jugglers. They can turn 

 day into night, wind and sea obey their words, they can cause fire 

 and blood to rain. Such views as that man has power over the ele- 

 ments are found only among uncivilized peoples, who lack the concep- 

 tion of the supernatural. That the Druids were physicians is closely 

 connected with their calling as wizards, so also their gift of prophecy. 

 So great is their power that even St. Patrick imj^lores God to protect 

 him against the conjurations of the Druids. In old Irish literature 

 the word " drui " is used synonymously with " magus," and in the 

 new Celtic languages the word sorcerer stands for " Druid." 



The Druids are sorcerers and rain makers, who pretend that they can conjure 

 storm and snow, and frighten the people through fluttering wisps of straw and 

 other childish triclis. They soothsay by the observation of sneezing and other 

 omens, by their dreams after a festival, or by chewing raw horse flesh in the 

 presence of their idols, by the croaliing of their ravens and the chirping of tame 

 wrens, or by licking of a bronze blade, which was made i"ed hot in the fire of a 

 mountain ash. They are dressed, like the medicine men of the redskins or the 

 Angekoks of the Esquimaux, in ox skins, upon the head a bird cap with waving 

 plumes.^ 



In the mountains of Scotland, north of the Grampian Hills, the 

 aborigines remained longest independent, and therefore also longest 

 preserved the institution of the Druids as sorcerers, for we hear that 

 those who wish to learn the nefarious art of conjuring more thor- 

 oughly travel to Alba (Scotland). 



Pliny the Elder also says that Britain is in bad repute on account 

 of its magic arts, and from the narration of Tacitus of the destruc- 

 tion of the Druid sanctuary at Mona, it becomes evident that the 

 Druids were sorcerers. 



But how can it be explained that they should be described by the 

 writers of antiquity as philosophers, as teachers of a pure morality? 



In Gaul Druidism rested not on birth, but on the gaining and train- 

 ing of novices ; in Ireland, too, we find the Druids as teachers of the 

 youth, and of the Druid Cathbad it is expressly said that he is teach- 

 ing his pupils the Druidic science (druidecht). It can therefore be 

 safely assumed that also among the aborigines the art of conjuring 

 was conveyed through instruction and initiation. 



\Vliere the Gaels entered into friendly relations with them they, 

 no doubt, also endeavored to participate in that instruction, and we 

 find in Ireland not a closed Druid caste, but we know also poets who 

 were Druids ; even some kings, as the grandfather of the famous Irish 

 national hero Finn and King Connor's father, belonged to that 

 priesthood. Thus the Druids gradually became a Gaelic institution 

 and the priestly power of the king was also transferred to them so 

 that they held after him the highest rank; it even was the rule that 



1 Compare O'Curry's Lectures who, however, gives another explanation. 



