The Book of Halloween | Page 3

made sacrifices of criminals or prisoners of war, often burning them alive in wicker images. These bonfires lighted on the hills were meant to urge the god to protect and bless the crops and herds. From the appearance of the victims sacrificed in them, omens were taken that foretold the future. The gods and other supernatural powers in answer to prayer were thought to signify their will by omens, and also by the following methods: the ordeal, in which the innocence or guilt of a person was shown by the way the god permitted him to endure fire or other torture; exorcism, the driving out of demons by saying mysterious words or names over them. Becoming skilled in interpreting the will of the gods, the Druids came to be known as prophets.
"O Deirdré, terrible child, For thee, red star of our ruin, Great weeping shall be in Eri-- Woe, woe, and a breach in Ulla.
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"Thy feet shall trample the mighty Yet stumble on heads thou lovest."
TODHUNTER: Druid song of Cathvah.
They kept their lore for the most part a secret, forbidding it to be written, passing it down by word of mouth. They taught the immortality of the soul, that it passed from one body to another at death.
"If, as those Druids taught, which kept the British rites, And dwelt in darksome groves, there counselling with sprites, When these our souls by death our bodies do forsake They instantly again do other bodies take----"
DRAYTON: Polyolbion.
They believed that on the last night of the old year (October 31st) the lord of death gathered together the souls of all those who had died in the passing year and had been condemned to live in the bodies of animals, to decree what forms they should inhabit for the next twelve months. He could be coaxed to give lighter sentences by gifts and prayers.
The badge of the initiated Druid was a glass ball reported to be made in summer of the spittle of snakes, and caught by the priests as the snakes tossed it into the air.
"And the potent adder-stone Gender'd 'fore the autumnal moon When in undulating twine The foaming snakes prolific join."
MASON: Caractacus.
It was real glass, blown by the Druids themselves. It was supposed to aid the wearer in winning lawsuits and securing the favor of kings.
An animal sacred to the Druids was the cat.
"A slender black cat reclining on a chain of old silver" guarded treasure in the old days. For a long time cats were dreaded by the people because they thought human beings had been changed to that form by evil means.
The chief festivals of the Druids fell on four days, celebrating phases of the sun's career. Fires of sacrifice were lighted especially at spring and midsummer holidays, by exception on November 1st.
May Day and November Day were the more important, the beginning and end of summer, yet neither equinoxes nor solstices. The time was divided then not according to sowing and reaping, but by the older method of reckoning from when the herds were turned out to pasture in the spring and brought into the fold again at the approach of winter--by a pastoral rather than an agricultural people.
On the night before Beltaine ("Baal-fire"), the first of May, fires were burned to Baal to celebrate the return of the sun bringing summer. Before sunrise the houses were decked with garlands to gladden the sun when he appeared; a rite which has survived in "going maying." The May-Day fires were used for purification. Cattle were singed by being led near the flames, and sometimes bled that their blood might be offered as a sacrifice for a prosperous season.
"When lo! a flame, A wavy flame of ruddy light Leaped up, the farmyard fence above. And while his children's shout rang high, His cows the farmer slowly drove Across the blaze,--he knew not why."
KICKHAM: St. John's Eve.
A cake was baked in the fire with one piece blacked with charcoal. Whoever got the black piece was thereby marked for sacrifice to Baal, so that, as the ship proceeded in safety after Jonah was cast overboard, the affairs of the group about the May-Eve fire might prosper when it was purged of the one whom Baal designated by lot. Later only the symbol of offering was used, the victim being forced to leap thrice over the flames.
In history it was the day of the coming of good. Partholon, the discoverer and promoter of Ireland, came thither from the other world to stay three hundred years. The gods themselves, the deliverers of Ireland, first arrived there "through the air" on May Day.
June 21st, the day of the summer solstice, the height of the sun's power, was marked by midnight fires of joy and by dances. These were believed to strengthen the