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When ghe rebellion was suppressed, the sacred groves in which their human sacrifices had been performed were cut down, and we are led to infer Druidism suppressed. Tacitus then goes on to narrate with infinitely more detail the far more important revolt of Boadicea, but, strange to say, in that great national uprising there is absolutely no mention of ‘Druids, either in his narrative or in that of Dion Cassius.§ No groves were cut down, no rites abolished, when it was suppressed; and. if any legitimate inference can be drawn from such silence, no ) Druids existed in the more civilized parts of England. From whatever point of view the subject is looked at, it seems almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that there were two races in England,—an older and less civilized people, who,|| in the time of the Romans, had already been driven by the Celts into the fastnesses of the Welsh hills, and. who may have been Serpent Wor- shippers and sacrificers of human victims, and that the uncritical Romans confounded the two. They seem rather to have dwelt on the picturesqueness of the naked blue- painted savage as a contrast with those races they were familiar with, as a Catlin revels in the manners and virtues of the Red Indian in contrast to the vices and effeminacy of his more civilized oppressor. Be this as it may, it is principally from Welsh. Triads, so-called, and the Welsh bards, that we depend for our knowledge of the Druids and their doings, and Serpent Worship in this country. If we knew when the works: of the Welsh ‘bards were * De Bello Gall. VI. 13. , {+ Tacitus, Ann. XIV. 29. { If I wanted an illustration of this scene, I do not know where I could find a better than on the walls of the Caves at Ajanta. The original copy of the picture was unfortunately burnt in the fire at the Crystal Palace in 1866; but it is engraved in Mrs. Spier’s Life in India, p. 302. § Dion Cassius in Xifhilinus’ Abridgment, LXIL 1& 4. \ Norris's Cornish Drama, IT. 401. \ oO INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. reduced to the form in which we now find them, and if we could depend on the tvanslations we have, some light might no doubt be thrown on our subject.* It is, however, an unfortunate peculiarity of the Celtic mind that when they attempt to clucidate the history of their country from their annals, they adopt a species of logic totally distinct from that followed by the Saxon, so that it becomes impossible to use the information they: offer. Still it does not seem reasonable to doubt but that remnants of the Druidical religion, and perhaps also of Serpent Worship, may have lingered in the Welsh hills long after they had disappeared from the plains. Where ,we do find tradition attaching them to any of the monuments of the plain, it is through Welsh agency and almost within sight of the ‘hylls, as at Sientee Drew in Somersetshire,t that the serpent.is introduced. Beyond this, though we do occasionally find traditions of the serpent, “they are few and far between, and of uncertain origin; one,’ for instance, is related by Mathew Paris, of St. Albans.{ Writing in 1260 (?) he relates that the Saxon Abbot Aldred filled up a great hole which once was the abode of an immense dragon, in “a place which was still called the -Wurmenhert. This appears to have been surrounded . by a circular vallum, which we infer still éxisted in the 13th century, though no trace of it now remains. The circular enclosure and the crypt may be considered as certain, they so exactly resemble the Irish Raths; but the dragon is, I fear, too far off. to be depended upon, though it is one of the most authentic traditions Wwe possess. If this is so, it may be asked, glint is the evidence on which the Druidical origin of such monuments as Stonehenge and Avebury have been assumed? The answer fortunately is simple—absolutely none. It never was pretended that any direct testimony existed, and the negative evidence is perfectly complete. No ancient author, no one, in fact, anterior to the invention of printing, ever refers to any stones or stone temples, circular or in any other form, as connected with the worship of the Druids or the Celts. On the ‘other hand, every tradition that exists, whatever their value may be, points to the Arthurian age as that to which they owe their origin. Tf it is further asked, what evidence there is-to connect these temples with Serpent Worship, exactly the same answer must be given—not one tittle has yet been adduced. The. one direction in’ which it seems probable some such connexion may be established, is from their similarity to-the Indian examples, which it is the object of this volume to describe; but whether these will be sufficient for this purpose can only be decided when the argument is fully elaborated. Meanwhile are we correct in calling them temples at all? The one peculiarity of Celtic worship that seems best established, is the love of trees—their fondness of groves for their sacred rites. Is it probable that they would chose the downs of Wiltshire, especially such a spot ds that where Stonehenge stands, for the site of their greatest temple—a spot where no tree ever grew or could grow? That they might erect a tomb or cenotaph among the graves of their forefathers seems probable enough; and if Avebury was a battle * Skene’s translation of -the four most ancient Welsh poems, which has just been published, has gone far to set this question at rest. It cannot be said that the word Druid does not occur in them, but if we were not looking for it, it is hardly in such a manner as would attract attention, and the part they play is most insignificant, besides it is by no means clear to what age or authority such references ‘really belong. t Archxologia, KXV. p. 198, { Vite Abbatum, p. 40. GREAT BRITAIN. 31 field, that would account for the locality where it is found, but it seems difficult to suggest a reason for their being where they are on any other hypothesis. This, however, is not the place to examine the evidence on which the age or pur- poses of these monuments is to be determined. It is, however, impossible to pass over the subject entirely in silence, as reference will occasionally have to be made to them in the following pages; while unfortunately nine people out of ten in this country at the present day believe that Stonehenge and Avebury were built by the Druids; that they were Dracontia or Serpent Temples; and every one can point out the altar stones on which the human victims were sacrificed, and in fact knows all about their religion and rites, and it may be added believes in their primeval antiquity. Till these erroneous impressions are dispelled, the subject we have in naud can hardly be rendered intelligible. A far more promising field for the investigation of Serpent Worship in Britain occurs in Scotland, on the east coast, north of the Forth. In that country, now — known as Pictland, there exists even at the present day a great number of Megalithic monuments, many of which are covered with. sculptures of a class totally distinct from those found anywhere else, and which have hitherto baffled the ingenuity of antiquarics. Among them the serpent appears frequently and so prominently that it is impossible to doubt that he was considered as an object of veneration by those who erected those monuments, while on the other hand Serpent Worship could hardly have originated in the north of Scotland, where the snakes are so few and contemptible. Mr. Stuart* enumerates twenty-three representations of the serpent on these stones, thirteen times accompanied by emblems, ten times without them. In some instances, such as the Newton stone, the serpent. is. evidently the object for which the stone- was set up, and he is accompanied by the broken sceptre, which may either be a hicroglyphic for God or King, or may only mean holy or great, or some such adjective, but it ccrtainly implies distinction, if not consecration. The age of these sculptured stones is known with tolerable certainty, inasmuch as the greater number of them have cither the Cross itself or Christian emblems engraved upon them, and these must therefore be subsequent to the age of St. Columba, who arrived in Scotland apparently in 563, and died in 597. Many’ of those also which have only Pagan emblems are so nearly identical. with the Christian stones that they must be about the same age. Some, however, are ruder and simpler, and the series fades back into the plain unsculptured Menhir, of which many exist in the same district. There seems, indeed, to be no essential break either, so far as design or purposey is concerned, between the rude unchiselled blocks of Carnac and Avebury * Sculptured Sipnes of Scotland, vol. IT. p. ixxiv. { From his position as Archbishop of Upsala—in one of the last countries in Europe converted to Christianity —and writing in 1555, no one was in a better position to knéw the truth about these stone monuments than Olaus Magnus, and his testimony is clear and distinct. “Habent hee saxa in plerisque locis erecta, longitudine x., vel xv., Xx., Xxx., et amplius, et latitudine iv. vel vi. pedum mirabili situ. Sed mirabiliori ordine ac mira- bilissimo claniciers ob plurimas rationes collocata sunt. Literato rectoque et longo ordine videlicet pugilorum certamina—quadrato turmas bellantium et spherico familiarum designantia sepulturas. ch. xxix.—Or again, Quos humi recondere placuit honorabiles statuas Japidum excelsorum, prout hodie cernuntur mira com- pagine immensa saxa, in modum altissime latissima janue sursum transversumque viribus gigantum érecta, &e. ch, xxx.” There are other passages in the same author bearing directly on the subject, but too long to quote. They, however, all seem to describe so correctly, not only the form, but the uses of such monuments as 32. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. .