Celtic religion in pre-Christian times / by Edward Anwyl.

  • Edward Anwyl
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Celtic religion in pre-Christian times / by Edward Anwyl. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHAPTER VII / THE CELTIC OTHER-WORLD In the preceding chapter we have seen that the belief was widely prevalent among Greek and Roman writers that the Druids taught the im¬ mortality of the soul. Some of these writers, too, point out the undoubted fact, attested by Archaeology, that objects which would be service¬ able to the living were buried with the dead, and this was regarded as a confirmation of the view that the immortality of souls was to the Celts an object of belief. The study of Archeology on the one hand, and of Comparative Religion on the other, certainly leads to the conclusion that in the Bronze and the Early Iron Age, and in all probability in the Stone Age, the idea prevailed that death was not the end of man. The holed cromlechs of the later Stone Age were probably designed for the egress and ingress of souls. The food and the weapons that were buried with the dead were thought to be objects of genuine