Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions
FRENCH DRUIDISM
The Deroo of Brittany were more
ancient, said Henri Martin, than those
Druids known to Romans; being "primitive Druids, a sacerdotal caste of old
Celts." Yet Forlong, who believed the Gallic coast tribes long traded and
intermarried with the Phœnicians, saw "abundant evidences for their
worshipping Astarte and Herakles." They were Saronidæ, or judges. They
were the builders, masons, or like Gobhan Saer, free smiths. Of Saer, O'Brien in
his Round Towers says--"The first name ever given to this body
(Freemasons) was Saer, which has three significations: firstly, free;
secondly, mason; and thirdly, son of God." Keane
calls him "one of the Guabhres or Cabiri, such
as you have ever seen him represented on the Tuath de Danaan Cross at
Clonmacnoise."
A Breton poem, Ar Rannou, a dialogue between a Druid and his pupil, is
still sung by villagers, as it may have been by their ancestors, the Venite
of Cæsar's story. The seat of the Archdruid of Gaul was at Dreux.
French writers have interested themselves in the Druidic question. The common
impression is that Druids were only to be found in Brittany; but other parts of
France possessed those priests arid bards. Certainly the northwest corner, the
region of megalithic remains, continued later to be their haunt, being less
disturbed there. It was in Brittany, also, that the before-mentioned Oriental
mysticism found so safe a home, and was nurtured so assiduously. But Druids were
equally known in the south, centre, and north-east of France.
Dijon Druids, or the Vacies, were described in 1621 by Guenebauld of
Dijon in Le Reveil de Chyndonax, Prince des Vacies Drvydes Celtiqves Düonois.
Upon the tomb of the Archdruid Chyndonax was found an inscription in Greek, thus
rendered by the Dijon author--
"En ce tombeau, dans le sacré boccage
Numbers of the learned went to view the inscription, and an urn found within
the tomb. Mithras was a form of Apollo, or the Sun. There are other evidences of
the southern Gaulish Druids using Greek characters, beyond Cæsar's assertions.
Du Dieu Mithras, est contenu le corps
De Chyndonax grand Prestre; mechant hors,
Les Dieux Sanneurs le gardent de dommage."
Guenebauld spoke of the prohibition of the Druidical religion by the Emperors
Augustus, Tiberias, and Claudius; adding that the Druids "furent chassez du
mont Drvys or Drvyde proche d'ostum, a cause de leur trop cruel sacrifice
d'hommes."
He declared that after the general Edict of Claudius "il ne s'en treuva
plus, parmy les Gaulois." When banished from Gaul, they retired to Britain,
though Druidesses were mentioned as being at Dijon in the time of Aurelian.
Beaudeau, in 1777, published Memoire à consuilter pour les anciens
Druides Gaulois, intended as a vindication of them against the strictures of
Bailly in his letters to Voltaire. He had a great belief in the astronomical
skill of the Druids, from their use of the thirty years cycle, the revolution
period of the planet Saturn.
At the Congress of Arras, in 1853, the question debated was--"Up to what
period Roman polytheism had penetrated into Belgic Gaul;--and up to what period
continued the struggle between Polytheism and Christianity?" The French
author remarks, "The Romans did but one thing--gave the names of their gods
to the divinities of the people of Fleanderland. And these divinities--what were
they? Evidently those of the country from which the people had been forced to
flee."
Dezobry and Bachelets, in their Dictionnaire de Biographie, &c.,
affirm that "the Celtic word derouyd (from de or di,
God, and rhoud or rhouid, speaking) signifies Interpreter of the
gods, or one who speaks from the gods. According to others, the etymology should
be, in the Gaelic language, druidheacht, divination, magic; or, better, dern,
oak, and wydd, mistletoe." Acknowledging the ancient renown of their
knowledge, it is admitted to be imperfectly known to us, though Pythagoreans
pretended to be the founders thereof. The French authors had the following
account of the Druids' great charm--
"They carried suspended from their neck, as a mark of dignity, a
serpent's egg--a sort of oval ball of crystal, that in the time of Pliny
tradition pretended to be the product of the foam
of a quantity of serpents, grouped and interlaced together. This egg has been
the origin of a crowd of superstitions, which, up to a century ago, were in
vogue in Cornwall, Wales, and the mountains of Scotland; they continued to carry
these balls of glass, called serpent stones, to which they attributed
particular virtues."
Druidesses of Gaul had a sanctuary on the Isle of Sena, Finisterre. Druidism
in France was condemned as late as 658, by the Council of Nantes; and, later on,
by the Capitularies of Charlemagne. Renan supposed that Druidism remained a form
exclusively national. Justin's remark, that "the Greek colony of Marseilles
civilized the Gauls," may help to explain how Gaulish Druids knew Greek,
and how some French writers traced Druidism to the Phocians of Southern Gaul.
Then, again, we have Ammianus Marcellinus saying, "The Druids were formed
into fraternities as the authority of Pythagoras decreed." Cæsar, in his
account of Gaulish Druids, had clearly in his mind his own country's faith. They
were like his own augurs, and their Archdruid was his pontifex maximus.
D'Arbois de Jubainville, in his account of Irish Mythology, has, of course,
references to the Druids. He lays emphasis on the difference between those of
Gaul and those of our islands. The judicial authority was vested in the Filé.
These need not, like the Druids proper celebrate sacrifices. He traces the word file,
a seer, from the same root as the Breton givelout, to see.
The French author records that Polyhistor, Timagenus, Valerius
Maximus, and
others wrote of the north-western men holding Pythagorean doctrines; but he
adds, that while a second birth was regarded by the Pythagoreans as a punishment
of evil, it was esteemed by the others as a privilege of heroes.
