Irish Druids and old Irish religions / by James Bonwick.

  • James Bonwick
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Irish Druids and old Irish religions / by James Bonwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    no high opinion of the Druid of tradition ; and, doubtless, no respect for the memory of Taliesin or other members of the Craft. Nevertheless, we should bear in mind that these same authorities took for granted all the stories floating about concerning transformations of men and women into beasts and birds, and all relations about gods of old. O Beirne Crowe has some doubt about Druid stories and primitive missionaries. He finds in the Hymn of St. Patrick the word Druid but once mentioned ; and that it is absent alike in Brocan’s Life of St. Brigit, and in Colman’s Hymn. “Though Irish Druidism,” says he, “ never attained to anything like organization, still its forms and practices, so far as they attained to order, were in the main the same as those of Gaul.” Those Christian writers admitted that the Druids had a literature. The author of the Lecan declared that St. Patrick, at one time, burnt one hundred and eighty books of the Druids. “ Such an example,” he said, “ set the converted Christians to work in all parts, until, in the end, all the remains of the Druidic superstition were utterly destroyed.” Other writers mention the same fact as to this burning of heathen MSS. Certainly no such docu- ments had, even in copies, any existence in historic times, though no one can deny the possibilit)^ of such a literature. The Welsh, however, claim the possession of Druidic works. But the earliest of these date from Christian times, bear- ing in their composition biblical references, and, by experts, are supposed to be of any period between the sev^enth and twelfth centuries. Villemarque dates the earliest Breton Bards from the sixth century; other French writers have them later. At the same time, it must be allowed that early Irish MSS., which all date since Christianity came to the island.