OEIGIN OF DRUIDISM POKORNY. 597 



How strange must it then appear that the oak is so rarely men- 

 tioned in the rich legendary literature of Ireland. Not a single 

 Irish superstition is known which is connected with the oak, and the 

 Druids in Ireland are never brought in relation to the oak. Their 

 sacred tree is the mountain ash, and they carry in their hands staffs 

 made of this wood. The Druid fire also is kindled with the wood 

 of the mountain ash. 



The peculiar fact that the oak plays no part whatever in the 

 life of the Irish Druids and in the superstition of the people can 

 only be explained by the assumption that the Druids were originally 

 priests of a people that did not know the oak cult. 



The Gauls who remained longer in their country were less under 

 the influence of the pre-Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles than 

 the Gaels, and therefore preserved alongside of the new Druid doc- 

 trine the old customs of their Indo-European ancestors. 



It is thus seen that the Druids must once have been the priests of 

 a people that did not know the oak cult. The oak cult of the Celts 

 is repeatedly attested ; hence the Druids can not originally have been 

 a Celtic priesthood. It is also known that Druidism took its origin 

 in the British Isles, and it can only be derived from a people which 

 inhabited those lands before the Celts. It has been seen that such 

 a people had existed in the British Isles and that it was strong 

 enough to exercise a decisive influence upon the conquering Celts; 

 it is also known that it is possible and often happens that a people 

 which is lower in the scale of civilization influences tlie religious 

 conceptions of a more advanced one. 



Aside from this, Druidism exhibits so many non-Indo-European 

 traits that on this account alone the origin of this priesthood must 

 be sought amongst a non-Indo-European people. 



It can therefore be maintained with great degree of certainty that 

 Druidism had its origin among a people that inhabited the British 

 Isles before the Celts, and probably belonged to those great tribes 

 who dominated western or northern Europe long before the first 

 Indo-European had planted his foot there. 



We can even determine the origin of this people still more defi- 

 nitely. Rhys doubts Caesar's statement that Druidism took its 

 origin in the British Isles, because the same pre-Celtic people is also 

 met with on the Continent, and the Iberians of western Europe had 

 Druids. But this difficulty can very well be solved if we assume that 

 Druidism had its origin among the prehistoric people of northern 

 Ireland, who were different from the Iberians. The analog;^^ with 

 the Germanic conditions described above thus becomes still clearer. 

 Caesar's assertion thus remains unshaken. 



