Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

putting on religious wee Is ;
the Saint, by divine information,
knew the to be wolves wraped in sheeps cloathing
;
2S
Irish Druids.
—
the earth opening his mouth after a most strange manner,
devoured the magitian, who descended ahvedowne to hell."
Again :— " A certain magitian that was in high favor
with the King, and whome the King honoured as a god,
opposed himself against S.
Patricke, even in the same kind
that Simon Magus resisted the apostle S. Peter ; the miserable
wretch being elevated in the ayre by the ministery of
Devils, the King and the people looked after him as if he
were to scale the heavens, but the glorious Saint, with the
force of his fervent prayers, cast him downe unto the ground,
where dashing his head against a hard flint, he redred up
his wicked soule as a pray to the infernnall Fiendes."
The Tripartite Life of
''
St. Patrick relates Laeghaire
:
MacNeill possessed Druids and enchanters, who used to
foretell through their Druidism and through their paganism
what was in the future for them." Coming to a
certain town, the Saint, according to history, " found
Druids at that place who denied the Virginity of Mary.
Patrick blessed the ground, and it swallowed up the
Druids."
The book of 1625 is the authority for another story :—
" Two magitians with their magicall charmes overcast all
the region with a horrible darkness for the space of three
dayes, hoping by that meanes to debar his (Patrick's)
enterance into the country." Again :— " Nine magitians
cospired the Saint's death, and to have the more free
accesse to him, they counterfeited theselves to be monks,
making, therefore, the signe of the crosse against the
childre of Satan, behould fire descended from Heaven and
consumed them all nine." He is also reported to have
caused the death of 12,000 idolaters at Tara.
St. Patrick contended with the Druids before King