Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

256 DJUIIDS.
Such seems to be all that we can safely rely on re-
specting' the religious institutions, usages, and tenets of
the Druids ; and it falls far short of the system which has
been constructed out of it, in wliich its sectators appear
to have left the efforts, even of geologists and physicians,
in system-making, far behind. But that they also wor-
shipped Apollo, or the sun, under some of his names, is
inferred from the remains of superstitious usages of this
kind in Cornwall, Ireland, and Scotland ; and chiefly
from the fires of the first of May and those of Midsummer.
It is also said that the tomb of Chyndonax, the Arch
Druid of Gaul, was found at Dijon in 1598; the inscrip-
tion on a vase of glass, and in Greek, signifying that
he lay interred in the wood of Mithra. Hence it has
been concluded that this order had borrowed its tenets
from Persia; as has also been inferred from other consi-
derations.
Now though there is, in all this, no indication of tem-
ples or circles, and though it is universally believed that
the Celts and Druids thought it inconsistent with the
nature of the gods to enclose them in temples, Borlase
attempts to prove that there were such temples within
the groves. Not the slightest evidence, however, of this
appears ; as it is impossible to place any credit on a fable
related by Strabo and Pomponius Mela, which, if it
proved this, would prove somewhat more, and which is
of equal credit with the voyage of Ulysses to Scotland,
or the fable of Procopius respecting the Islands of the
blessed. The story is that there was an island near Bri-
tain where nine virgin Druidesses lived ;
who, although
they were virgins, were allowed husbands once a year.
Their temple was built within a grove, and dedicated to
Bacchus ;
and, once in a year, they pulled down the roof,
raised storms, and transformed themselves into animals ;
at the same time tearing one out of their number limb