Celtic Mythology and Religion

CELTIC WORSHIP AND RITES.
I SI
of Caesar's time had towns with walls, streets and
market places, as opposed to the " dunum," the
stockaded hill-top or fortified forest-clearing, of their
insular brethren. The Gaulish temples must, therefore,
have been of stone, but the British temples
were most likely constructed, like the houses, of
wood. The earliest Christian churches were also
made of wood, and, for the most part, clearly consisted
of the old heathen temples consecrated to
Christian use. " The temples of the Idols in Britain,"
says Pope Gregory (a.d. 601), " ought not to be
destroyed ; but let the idols that are in them be
destroyed ; let holy water be made and sprinkled
in the said temples ;
let altars be erected and relics
placed." There are no remains of either Celtic
heathen temples or early Christian churches. The
theory that the so-called " Druid " circles were
Celtic temples is
refuted by the two facts that the
Celts were Aryans with Aryan culture, and that they
made use of metal—even iron—tools from the earliest
period we have record of them. The rude stone
circles are evidently not the work of a race well
acquainted with the use of metal. It is quite true
that in religious ceremonies old phases of culture,
whether of dress, instruments, or buildings, survive
in a higher stage of civilisation. Thus the flint
knife of the " stone " age was used on solemn
occasions at the Jewish circumcision, and at the
sacrifices of old Carthage and Rome ; and the gowns
of modern clergymen are the survivals of Middle-Age