DRUIDS. The Druids were a religious body which flourished in ancient times in Gaul and the British Isles. It is commonly supposed that they were so called be cause they were oak-worshippers, drits being the word for " oak " in Greek. In this connection it is worth noting that for ordinary purposes they used the letters of the Greek alphabet. But the likeness of drils to Druid may well be a mere coincidence. True, they venerated the oak, and preferred oak groves and oak leaves for their ceremonies and rites. But the worship of trees is a common feature in primitive religion. It is true also that they treated mistletoe with great reverence. " The mistletoe of the oak, which is a some what rare parasite, was gathered with great ceremony by the Druids, dressed in white robes; they detached it with a golden sickle, after sacrificing a white bull to the gods, and caught it in white cloths as it fell from the tree " (Reinach, 0.). But here again reverence for the mistletoe might almost be described as natural. In any case, it was not peculiar to the Druids. In the Teutonic myth of Balder (q.v.) all objects were put ender oath by Frigg (q.v.), not to harm Balder. But the mistletoe, which bad escaped notice, was used as an arrow against Balder, and proved fatal to him. Probably the Druids were not so called on account of their reverence for the oak but because of their reputation for wisdom and knowledge. They were " the far-seeing " (dru-vid). This seems to have been the character in which they were known to Caesar. To him they were the learned, or professional, class as distinguished from the military class on the one band and from the common people, on the other. To others they were even the philosophers as distinguished from those who were mere Seers (Yates). Posidonius and Strabo, for instance, dis criminate between the three classes : Bards, Seers, and Druids. The Druids seem to have gained the reputation of philosophers through the resemblance of some of their teaching to the Pythagorean philosophy. According to Caesar, the Druids spread from Britain to Gaul about 500 B.C. Reinach thinks that we have evidence in the
megalithic monuments that Druidism was fully de veloped earlier than this. He thinks that it flourished first in the neolithic period, particularly in Ireland. Then it spread to the continent. After the Roman conquest the Druids returned and rejoined their Irish confreres. The religious teaching of the Druids was not committed to writing. Their sacred principles and pre cepts were transmitted orally. This involved a great effort of memory, and accounts for the fact that the training of a novice lasted twenty years. The head of the clergy was called the Arch-Druid. He was elected for life. The clergy would seem to have ministered not merely as priests and healers, but also as arbitrators, judges, and teachers. Their teaching included astrology and history, as well as theology. The Druids were exempt from military service. According to Caesar, they used in some of their sacrifices great images of wicker work. Sometimes criminals were placed inside these effigies and burnt. It is doubtful, however, whether human sacrifice was common. It would seem to have sufficed to take a few drops of blood from the victim and to burn only the wickerwork dummy. E. Anwyl thinks that " the use of wickerwork, and the suggestion that the rite was for purifying the land, indicates a combination of the Ideas of tree-worship with those of early agricultural life." Suetonius says that the Em peror Claudius suppressed the Druids, but he would hardly seem to have done more than suppress some of their rites, if indeed he even did that. According to Diodorus Siculus, the Druids taught that after a certain number of years the souls of men came to life again and entered into other bodies. They would seem to have taught this kind of metempsychosis at first. Afterwards, however, they seem to have reduced the doctrine to "the migration of souls towards a region in the West " (Reinach). See Edward Anwyl; 0.; Unites, Mythes et Religion, 1904-190S; Chambers' Encycl.; cp. J. M. Robertson, C.M., and W. G. Wood-Martin.