Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Opmioiis on Irish D7'uids. 31
darkness came. But the Saint put off, and " the vessel ran
against the wind with extraordinary speed, to the wonder
of the large crowd."
The Saint wanted the Druid to release an Irish female
captive, which he declined to do. But, says Adamnan,
''
an angel sent from heaven, striking him severely, has
broken in pieces the glass cup which he held in his hand,
and from which he was in the act of drinking, and he
himself is left half dead." Then he consented to free the
Irish girl, and Columba cured him of the wound.
OPINIONS ON IRISH
DRUIDS.
Leflocq wTote his Etudes de MytJiologie Celtiqiie in 1869,
observing, " Some represented the Druids as
the successors
of the Hebrew patriarchs, the masters of Greek philosophy,
They have credited
the forerunners of Christian teaching.
them with the honours of a religious system founded upon
primitive monotheism, and crowned by a spiritualism more
elevated than that of Plato and St. Augustine." One might
perceive little of this in Irish tales, like the preceding.
Leflocq is justified in adding, " One will be at first
confounded by the extreme disproportion which exists
between the rare documents left by the past,
developments presented by modern historians."
and the large
riiny speaks thus of the Druids, " A man would think the
Persians learned all their magic from them ;" and Pomponius
Mela affirmed, "They profess to have great knowledge
of the motions of the heavens and the stars." Others write
in the same strain. Who, then, were the Druids of Greeks
and Romans }
Why did Caesar recognize such as living in
Gaul 1 Why did Jamblichus make Pythagoras a disciple
of Gaulish priests t Why did St. Clement say the Druids