Ossian Collection > Druidism

THE CREED OF DRUIDISM 53
They did evil,
They beat their palms, they pounded their bodies,
Waihng to the demon who enslaved them.
They shed falling showers of tears.
Dead were the men
Of Banba's host, without happy strength,
Around Tigernmas, the destructive man in the North,
From the worship of Cromm Cruaich — 'twas no luck
for them.
For I have learnt.
Except one-fourth of the keen Gaels
Not a man alive — lasting the snare !
Escaped without death in his mouth.
Around Cromm Cruaich
There the hosts would prostrate themselves ;
Though he put them under deadly disgrace,
Their name cHngs to the noble plain.
In their ranks stood
Four times three stone idols ;
To bitterly beguile the hosts.
The figure of the Cromm was made of gold.
Since the rule
Of Herimon, the noble man of grace.
There was worshipping of stones
Until the coming of good Patrick of Macha.
A sledge-hammer to the Cromm
He appHed from crown to sole.
He destroyed without lack of valour
The feeble idol which was there."
The animals of a chief also were killed on his grave at the time of
his funeral in the same manner as in Gaul in the time of Csesar.
It is improbable that the reUgious instruction of the populace was
limited absolutely to the teaching of the doctrine of the immortality of
the soul. It is more likely that the Druids followed the practice of the
Gymnosophists of India, the Magi of Persia, the Chaldeans of Assyria,
and other priests of antiquity, by having two sets of doctrine, one being
communicated to the initiated only, admitted after certain ceremonies
and rites and sworn to secrecy, and the other taught freely and openly
to the uninitiated. No verses or poems whatsoever relating to the