Ossian Collection > Druidism

THE INITIATORY CEREMONIES AND PRIESTHOOD 69
Idris the giant, a pre-Christian astronomer, is said to have pursued his
study of the science of astronomy from the apex of one of the loftiest
mountains in North Wales, which, in consequence, received the name
which it now bears — Cader Idris, or the Chair of Idris. The Druids
encouraged the study of Anatomy to such an extent that one of their
doctors named Herophilus is said to have delivered lectures on the
bodies of more than seven hundred men in order to reveal the secrets and
wonders of the human frame. Diodorus Siculus is responsible for the
statement that the Druids were the GauHsh philosophers and divines,
and were held in great veneration, and that it was not lawful to perform
any sacrifices except in the presence of at least one of these philosophers.
Sir Norman Lockyer writes :
" The people who honoured us with their presence here in
Britain some four thousand years ago had evidently, some way or
other, had communicated to them a very complete Egyptian culture,
and they determined their time of night just in the same way that
the Egyptians did, only of course, there was a great difference
between the latitude of 25° in Egypt and 50° in Cornwall. They
could not observe the same stars for the same purpose. They
observed the stars which served their purpose for one thousand years
or so. These stars were Capella and Arcturus."
P. W. Joyce, in his Social History of Ancient Ireland, says that in
pagan times the Druids were the exclusive possessors of whatever learning
was then known, and combined in themselves all the learned professions,
being " not only Druids, or priests, but judges, prophets, historians, poets,
and even physicians." He might have added " and instructors of
youth," since education was entirely in their hands. No one was capable
of public employment who had not been educated under a Druid. Children
were brought up and educated away from their parents until they reached
the age of fourteen. Even St. Columba began his education under a
Druid, and so great was the veneration paid to the Druids for the know-
ledge they possessed that it became a kind of adage with respect to
anything that was deemed mysterious or beyond ordinary ken : " No
one knows but God and the holy Druids."
There is a legend concerning St. Columba and a Druid which runs :
" Now when the time for reading came to him, the clerk went to a certain
prophet (Jaidh, or Druid) who abode in the land to ask him when the
boy ought to begin. When the prophet had scanned the sky, he said :
' Write an alphabet for him now.' The alphabet was written on a cake,
and St. Columba consumed the cake on this wise, half to the east of a
water and half to the west of a water. Said the prophet : ' So shall this
child's territory be, half to the east of the sea and half to the west of the
sea.' " This is claimed to have reference to Columba's work in lona