Part 3

These strange balls were used medicinally by the Druids like the mistletoe; they employed them even in their religious ceremonies, and soon they became so rare, that only the wealthiest people could procure them, by paying their weight in gold. If the Druids had really at first been misled so as to adopt superstitious customs, which they repented of in their hearts, they soon found means to make these same superstitious rites beneficial to the people.

Unfortunately serpents’ knots, oaks, and their parasites, did not long satisfy a people ever desirous of new things. It is a well-known fact that innovations, however small may have been their first beginning, are sure to go on enlarging and increasing from day to day.

The old party of Tree worshippers, still numerous and very active as all old parties are, complained of the suppression of their companion-trees, the ancient family oracles, for the purpose of favoring {040}one single oak tree,--a tree which yet was not able, in spite of all the privileges it enjoyed, to put them into communication with _Estes_, the god of heaven.

This complaint was certainly not unfounded;--it had to be answered.

The Druids consisted of three classes:--

The Druids proper (_Eubages_, they were called in Gaul) were philosophers as well as scholars, perhaps even magicians, for magic was at that time nothing more than the outward form of science. They were charged with the maintenance of the principles of morality, and had to study the secrets of nature. The Prophets, on the other hand, knew how to interpret in the slightest breath of wind, the language of the holy oak, which spoke to them in the rustling of its leaves, in the soughing of the branches, in the low cracking heard within the trunk, and even in the earlier or later appearance of the foliage. There were, finally, the Bards, poets bound to the altar.

While the bards were singing around the oak, the prophets caused it to render its oracles. These oracles soon increased largely not only in Europe, but also in Asia Minor, where a Celtic colony, according to Herodotus, established in the land they had conquered the oracle of Dodona. Early Greece worshipped an oak tree, which Strabo, however, assures {041}us was a beech. There is no disputing about trees any more than about colors; but Homer calls it an oak, and an oak it must remain for us.

This new movement, grafted upon the simple worship of the Druids, did not stop here. After having for some time been accustomed to converse with Teut by means of a tree, the Celts were naturally surprised at seeing that, while trees could speak, living creatures remained silent, and were apparently deprived of the power of foretelling the future. Certain chieftains, especially, felt aggrieved, {042}upon setting out on a great campaign, that they were not allowed to carry the holy oak along with them, and in their intense devotion, fell upon the idea of consulting the nervous trembling of their horses and their sudden neighing in moments of surprise or terror,--for in order to be of prophetic nature the movements of the animals had to be involuntary and spontaneous. As this creed began to spread gradually, every man who was setting out on a journey or a warlike expedition mounted his horse in the firm conviction that he would be able to consult his four-footed prophet at any time during his absence from home, provided he was able to submit the omens to the learned interpretations of a soothsayer.

The Druid priests were not long in becoming seriously alarmed at these travelling oracles, liable as they naturally were to contradict each other.

As they had before chosen a single tree to be the sacred tree, so they now accepted as genuine omens only the symptoms noticed in certain horses which were bred within the sacred precincts and under their own eyes.

These horses, of immaculate whiteness and raised at public expense, were not employed for any work, and never had to submit to saddle or bridle. Wild and untamed, they roamed with fluttering manes in perfect liberty through the lofty forests. The freedom {043}of their movements gave naturally a safer character to their omens, and thus these prophetic horses, which formed almost a part of the druidical clergy, enjoyed for a long time the highest authority in all Celtic countries, when suddenly one fine day new rivals arose.

Other living creatures entered into competition with them, and these rivals of the horses were--shall I say it?--were women. These women discovered, all of a sudden, that they also were endowed, and in the very highest degree, with the gifts of second sight, of inspiration, intuition, and divination.

When public opinion appealed to the Druids to give their views on this claim, they admitted, according to the statement of Tacitus, that women had something more instinctive and more divine in them than men, nay, even than horses. Their sensitive organization predisposed them to receive the gift of prophecy, and hence “women indeed act more readily from natural impulse, without reflection, than from thought or reason.”

This last explanation, improper in the highest degree, does not come from Tacitus, nor from myself, God forbid! It is the exclusive property of the aforementioned Mr. Simon Pelloutier. Let every one be responsible for his own work!

The Druids treated the women just as they had {044}treated the horses, the mistletoe, and the trees. They acknowledged as true prophetesses only those who were already under the direct influence of the holy place and the sacred oak; that is to say, their wives and their daughters.

The principle of centralization of power is evidently not of modern origin.

Thus, there were now Druidesses, as there had been Druids before. The latter became the teachers of the young men; they taught their pupils the motions of the stars, the shape and extent of the earth, the divers products of nature, the history of their ancestors written in the form of poems which the bards recited; in fact, they taught them everything except reading and writing. Memory was as yet sufficient for all things. The priestesses, on the other hand, opened schools for the young girls; they taught them to sing and to sew, they initiated them into religious ceremonies and confided to them the knowledge of simples; nor was poetry neglected, as they had to learn by heart certain poems which were specially composed for their benefit. These verses, of somewhat doubtful {045}lyrical character, probably taught them how to make bread, how to brew beer, and other small details of the kitchen and the house.

The Druidesses practiced also medicine. This threefold prerogative of being physicians, prophets, and preceptors, finally raised them so high in the estimation of the nation, that when the priests of Teut were compelled to abandon their sanctuaries, they did not hesitate to confide them to their guardianship. They even presided in their own right, at certain ceremonies.

If one of them excelled by the frequency, the lucidity, and the reliability of her inspirations, as was the case at different times with the illustrious Aurinia, Velleda, and Ganna, whom the Roman emperors even deigned to consult through their ambassadors, the proud Druids placed her with humble submission, at the head of their own college of priests. During this female dictatorship, she became the arbiter of the destiny of nations, decided on peace and war, and controlled all the movements of great armies.

Caesar tells us that he once asked one of his German captives, why Ariovistus, their chieftain, had never yet dared to meet him in battle, and was told in reply, that the Druidesses, after a careful examination of the eddies and whirlpools of the Rhine, had forbid his engaging in action till the {046}time of the new moon. As a matter of course, the shrewd general profited by this information, and when the new moon appeared, the Germans were in full flight.

But the Rhine has not yet given its oracles, and the time has not yet come, when Ganna Velleda, and Aurinia condescend to grant audiences to Roman ambassadors.

We only wished to trace in a few outlines the future development of this institution of Druidesses, which we shall meet again in the days of its decline. {047}In the mean time, however, their influence and their power were daily growing. Were the Teutons at last satisfied? By no means. In spite of all the skill displayed by their diviners and the Druid-esses, they came to the conclusion, that neither the trembling foliage of the holy oak, nor the sudden starts, the wild leaps, and the more or less prolonged, loud neighings of the horses, afforded them sufficient excitement and perfectly reliable revelations. It occurred to them next, to consult animals, not in their outward manifestations, but in their still quivering entrails. This new ceremony could not fail to give to their religious worship a more serious aspect, and a certain savor of murder, which no doubt had its charms for a warlike people.

The Druids yielded once more, but they felt discouraged. What had become of that grand philosophic religion, which was content with prayer and meditation, and which they once--too fondly, perhaps--had hoped to be able to adapt to the nature of these barbarians?

They first consented to slay at the foot of the sacred oak, so long kept free from blood, a number of noxious beasts, like wolves, lynxes, and bears; but the turn of domestic animals came ere long, and they began to sacrifice sheep, goats, and finally man’s best companion in war, the horse. Not even the spotless white horses, heretofore looked upon {048}with such profound and superstitious reverence, were spared any longer.

And at each step forward in this bloody career, the Druids, always resisting, and always compelled to yield, made their last and their very last concession, vainly hoping that they might thus retain for a little while longer the power, which they felt was fast slipping from their grasp.

Encouraged by success, the reformers finally came to the question, whether the most acceptable offering to be presented to God, was not the blood of man? Is not man, of all created beings, the most noble and the most perfect? Perhaps they were inclined to carry the argument still farther, and to reason that among all men the most worthy to be chosen and the most likely to be acceptable to God, were the Druids themselves? But they took care not to ask too much at once. They held this final consequence of a great principle in reserve, requiring for the present nothing more than a common victim, anything that might come in the way, provided it was a human being.

It might have been expected, that when this abominable demand was made to hallow murder by committing it in the name of Heaven, the descendants and heirs of the ancient sages would have remembered their noble ancestors who had put an end to the first and quite inoffensive superstitions {049}of the early Celts. They ought to have veiled their faces, drawn back with horror, and recovering for once their former energy, appealed by means of the holy oak, the spotless horses, the soothsayers and the Druidesses, nay of heaven and earth itself, to the whole nation, calling upon them to anathematize the infamous petitioners. But they did no such thing. On the contrary they hastened to legalize such savage bloodshed by their holy consent. One might almost be led to suspect that they had themselves, underhand, suggested the horrible idea.

O ye hypocritical priests, ye false philosophers, ye tigers disguised as shepherds of the people!.... But we must check our indignation. For who knows, but they may have been swayed not so much by an instinct of cruelty as by a lofty political, or even philanthropic principle? Philanthropic? Yes, indeed; we will explain.

Among the Celts human life counted for little; it was lavished in battles, it was cast away in duels. At the time when the Gauls held large national assemblies, they tried to secure punctual attendance by simply putting to death the man who was the last to come; he paid for all the tardy ones. I do not mean to propose such a plan at the present day; but after all it was an infallible and economical measure. {050}The Teutons, on the other hand, bloodless in their national assemblies, after a battle in which they had been victorious, delighted in massacring all their prisoners.

These massacres ceased from the time when the Druids claimed for themselves the exclusive right of human sacrifices.

The good Esus, having become bloodthirsty, demanded all the captives to be slain in expiation at his altar, and woe to him who dared to anticipate him in his wrath. He was excluded from the sacred precincts; he was declared an impious, sacrilegious person, who could no longer take his place among the citizens; and he ran great risk of being forced to offer his own life in compensation for that which by his fault was wanting at the holocaust.

When this custom became once fully established, the prisoners of war were all delivered up to the high-priest, who chose from among them one or more to be slain as an offering. The victim was generally one of the captive chieftains, and he was slain together with his war horse, so as to add to the impressiveness of the ceremony and to reconcile the spectators by the abundance of blood that was shed to the small number of victims.

After having carefully examined the opened bodies of man and animal, the sacrificing priest, his {051}beard and clothes saturated with blood, raised his bloody right hand to heaven and, reeking with murder and breathing carnage, he proclaimed that his god was satisfied. The remainder of the prisoners were kept for another day, but that other day never came.

Thus a new office had been created: that of a sacrificing priest. On both banks of the Rhine, in Germany as well as in Gaul, the Druids reserved this office for themselves; in other Celtic countries, in Scandinavia and among the Scythians, women performed the terrible duty; we all remember as a proof of it, Iphigenia of Tauris.

Whatever we may think of this bloody innovation, it certainly benefited the prisoners, but the Druids obtained from it, after all, the greatest advantage. Their power, which had been seriously undermined, step by step, was once more firmly established. The opposition, which had paid no attention to their remonstrances or their prayers, shrunk from their knives.

From this moment begins the Second Period of the Druids.

The bloody knife of the Druids remained long all powerful, but we need not follow its later fate. Cæsar had conquered and pacified Gaul, and the successors of Augustus fulminated their Imperial {052}decrees against the Druids, as slayers of men, while the same knife continued to shed the blood of the Germans.

III.

{055}_A Visit to the Land of our Forefathers.--The two Banks of the Rhine.--Druid Stones.--Weddings and Burials.--Xight Service.--A Dentigod Glacier.--Social Duels. A Countrywoman of Aspasia.--Boudoir of a Celtic Lady.--The Bard’s Story.--Teutons and Titans.--Earthquake._

Any one who has ever travelled in my company, must know that I am apt to stray from my way, or at least to choose the longest route. I have a fancy to-day, to turn my eyes and my steps away from those sacred precincts of the Druids, which {056}had become slaughter-houses and in which the hand that blessed was also the hand that killed.

I desire to breathe an air less filled with the perfumes, or rather the fetid odor of sacrifices. Up there, on that hill-top, where the setting sun lights up the bright summit, I shall breathe more freely.

Here I am.

Beneath me the Rhine spreads out its two banks, not united yet by any bridge, and even without a ferry to bring the one nearer to the other.

But on both sides, half hid under dense willow thickets and gigantic reeds, there lie, in many a shallow little bay, large numbers of tiny barks. These cunning looking boats belong to harmless fishermen in the daytime; but at night they are filled with robbers and corsairs, who form in bands, cross over to the other side in search of booty, and even venture, if needs be, out into the Northern Sea. Just now nothing stirs; the fishermen have gone home, the corsairs have not come forth. I look farther out.

On the left bank there are some Gallic Celts encamped, with blue eyes, white skin, and abundant golden tresses. Almost naked, their principal garment seems to be that immense shield, almost as long as their body, which shelters them on the march as well as when they are at rest, and which protects {057}them against the sun and the enemy alike. All of a sudden I hear them, with lips held close to one of the edges of their shields, utter sharp cries, which are taken up and repeated, from distance to distance, all the way down the river. To these cries, which no doubt represent their telegraphic system, there comes an answer from far sounding trumpets.

Who are these other soldiers with the black hair and the bronzed complexions? Carefully arrayed in symmetrical lines they advance steadily, clad in brilliant armor, and carrying banners surmounted by golden eagles with half open wings. Has Cæsar really succeeded, after ten years’ warfare, in making himself master of Gaul as far as the banks of the Rhine? I cannot doubt it; for at their {058}approach, the Gauls lower their lance-heads, in token of their peaceful disposition, and allow them to pass.

When they reach the river, the small Roman army pauses; under the protection of this armed force a few men, dressed in simple tunics, with no arms but tablets, a style, and ropes for measuring the ground, go to work preparing a plan, perhaps for a bridge, perhaps for a town.

German sentinels, take care!

From the height of my hill I look down upon a {059}narrow strip of land on the right bank of the river, and here I see several groups of men, scattered here and there in the woods and on the plain, who work under the superintendence of a Druid. Some are digging up the roots of trees which overshadow and impoverish the ground; others draw long furrows with the iron of their ploughs. These laborers seem all to suffer from some restraint which impedes their movements, but of which at this distance I can discover no cause.

In order to meditate on this strange sight, I look around for a resting place. Half way up the hill I notice a small stone bench. As I draw nearer, the object grows in size and rises to such a height, that I should need a ladder if I wished to take possession of my seat.

This apparent bench is a monument, a Druidical monument, and consists of two upright stones, on which rests a third, horizontal stone. In France, in England, and in Germany there are still found {060}such Druidical altars, cromlechs or dolmens; these menhyrs astonished already Alexander of Macedonia when he marched through Scythia. In Bretagne, at Carnac, some of these stones, consisting of a single rock, rise by the wayside, as if to tell the traveller the story of the past, or they range themselves before his eyes in long lines, forming on the ground endless circles of emblematic meaning, as it is supposed. But the traveller can no longer understand their language. Was this an altar, or was it an idol, or perhaps only a simple monument raised over a grave. If they were altars, Carnac would be Olympus; if they were tombstones, it would be a cemetery.

I was going all around the mystic three stones to examine them more closely, when I noticed close by a flock of sheep, and then a shepherd.

This shepherd, covered with a ragged _sagum_, had on his feet leather sandals, a half open wound on his forehead, which had not yet had time to close, enhanced the fierceness of his appearance. His burning {061}glances fell now upon the Druidical stone and now upon another object which I had not noticed before. This was the guard of a sword which had been driven into the ground.

Could it be that this stone resting upon two supports, were new concessions made by the politic Druids?

As according to their spiritualistic views God could not render himself visible in a shape resembling our own, they had represented him as well as they could by a symbol. It appeared thus that human sacrifices were already no longer sufficient to maintain their creed.

While I was examining with growing curiosity this strange keeper of sheep, fair, with bare neck and bare feet, was busy watching on the same side of the hill another flock, and at the same time gathering herbs for medicinal purposes. When she was about to leave, she offered the shepherd to attend to his wound, sword handle, and this {062}but he refused haughtily; she ran away laughing, and threw a flower into his face.

He did not pick up that flower; he did not salute that pretty girl as she left him. He looked at her with disdain.

Ah! I can doubt it no longer; this unhappy man is like the wood-cutter in the forest, and the laborers in the field, one of those prisoners taken in war, whom the Druids have spared, and now render useful. His closely shorn hair, his open wound, and the heavy wooden yoke which he has to carry on his neck, all betray his sad fate. He has made no reply to the half pitiful, half coquettish advances of the pretty gatherer of simples, because she has only awakened in his heart painful memories of his distant love, or of his wife, whom he is never to see again! He has cast glances of fierce hatred and burning revenge at the Druidical altar and the handle of the sword, because both of these objects point out the place of bloody sacrifices. Does he think he is himself destined to be slain? or was perhaps the warrior whom they slew yesterday, a man of his own tribe, his best friend, his own brother?

But I have taken refuge here in order to escape from these painful thoughts of blood and murder. I propose to seek new objects of interest.

Farther down, nearly at the foot of the hill, I {063}see a few huts, or rather a few low, almost crushed roofs, which seem hardly to rise from the ground. Are they houses, or stables, or caves?

On the left bank Gauls and Romans have alike disappeared in the mists rising from the river. On the right bank the wood-cutters and the field-laborors are resting upon their axes or their ploughs, and seem to ask the sun if the day is not drawing to an end.

A breeze is springing up, the shepherd gathers his flock and, as mournful as ever, he slowly takes {064}the footpath that leads down the hill towards the village.

I follow him without knowing what mysterious power draws me in that direction.

Perhaps some Druid magician holds me under a potent spell, which enables me to forget who I am, whence I come, and even to what century I belong, and to witness these strange scenes, which, well nigh forgotten by all living beings, I alone am permitted to watch? Let me try, at all events, to profit by this rare piece of good fortune.