Blair Collection > Celtic researches, on the origin, traditions & language, of the ancient Britons

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ÄgcSj, and tanglit so many things, may he uadcistood, a sncrcd
order of men, similar to the ìNlagi, the Druids, and otliers. —
This celebrated character is represented as having lost /lis uij'e»
Tiie wife of an order of Sages would, in the Language of
mythology, imply their Science, their docirino or their dis-
cipline. The very name Eur yd ice, which appears to be a
compound of Έ.υζνς Latus, and íixn, mos jure reccptus, will
perhaps justify a conjecture, that in the image of Oiplieu.s'
wife, is typified liis comprtlundve diacijiHiie.
The bereft husband goes not in search of his wife, into
Phoenicia, Egypt, Clialdea or India. He descends into the
J)ominions of Pluto, into the Country of the Cimmerii or
Celtee; though Virgil, to diversify his picture, sends him to
the Cimmerii who dwelt upon the North of the Euxinc—
Amongst them, Orpheus discovered his Eurydice, and might
have restored her to Thrace, if he had not failed in a material
part of his probation.
It is acknowledged that such talcs are not History; but they
are founded upon traditions of the mythological and heroic
ages — traditions which existed long before Greece could boast
of a single historian, and which uniformly intimate, tiiat a
mystical doòtrine, similar to that which Druids of the historical
ages are known to have taught, had prevailed amongst the
Celta?, or Cimmerii of Europe, from the remotest periods.
These are some of the reasons which induce me to be of
opinion, that our Druids, either under that name, or the more
ancient and general appellations of Bards and Gzcijddion, had
been the w^ise men of the West, ever since that continent Ava»
first peopled ; and that our Celtic parents brought the funda-
mentals of their religion, when they imported their owii
persons and families, into Gaul : though, at later periods',
they modified some particulars, and adopîed some inn<jvationüv
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