Celtic Mythology and Religion

DRUIDISM. 83 #
Nor is tradition of the present time silent on this
matter. It is said that Tigh-a-chnuic, Kilcoy, in
the Black Isle, had its foundation consecrated by
the slaughter of a stranger who chanced to be passing
when the house was to be built, but unfortunately
his ghost used to haunt the house until he was able
to disburden his woes to somebody, and he then
disappeared.
The sum and result of our inquiry into Druidism
may be given in the words of Professor Rhys
:
" At the time of Caesar's invasions, they were a
powerful class of men, monopolizing the influence
of soothsayers, magicians, and priests. But in
Gaul, under the faint rays of the civilization of
Marseilles and other Mediterranean centres, they
seem to have ?dded to their other characters that of
philosophers, discoursing to the youths, whose education
was entrusted to them, on the stars and their
movements, on the world and its countries, on the
nature of things, and the power of the gods."
Whether the doctrine of the transmigration of souls
was really of native origin or borrowed from the
Greeks, must remain an open question. Some
think it unlikely that the central doctrine of Druidism
should have been derived so late in the history of
the nation, or derived at all,
from a foreign source,
and they appeal to the fact that Britain was the home
of Druidism, a country which could have had little
intercourse with Marseilles. But in connection
with this idea of its British origin, it must be re-