MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
Reading edition
EARLY INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN.
(To the Editor.)
Your interesting columns have afforded me much gratification by the sketches of the manners of various nations. I am a thorough Englishman in principle, with a sprinkling, however, of German in my veins, and as the early history of this country is a point of great interest, if The Mirror can allow, I will offer a few reflections.
Caesar, speaking of our ancestors, calls them, in blunt and plain Latin "Barbari." Now Caesar was a disappointed man; he knew but little of this land, he invaded it wantonly, and left it gladly. The Briton was by no means so luxurious as the Roman, but it is wrong to call him a barbarian.
As priests generally (in such periods as those to which we allude,) take good care of themselves, and as the Druids were the chiefs, let us take a few cursory observations upon their manners and customs.
The etymology of the word Druid has long been a subject of dispute, many deriving it from the Greek word [Greek: drus], an oak, because it has been affirmed that their mysteries were carried on in oak groves and forests; but as the latter fact is doubtful, consequently the etymology founded upon it is shaken. It has been already stated that the Druids were magistrates and philosophers, and very few etymologists will cavil with me if we fix it at once upon the Celtic word druidh, signifying "a wise man."
"Those dark solitudes and awful cells."
No sacred ceremonies could be performed but in the Druid's presence: they were the guardians of religion, the interpreters of mysteries; and the foolish "cunning man" of the north, who is often consulted in these days relative to strayed cattle, intended matches, &c. is a relic of the "druidh," the wise man of the ancient Celts.
As the sun was the object of adoration, no wonder that mysteries were also performed to the moon, riding in silver splendour through azure space; smiling from her height upon the departed and unseen luminaries which had sunk over the distant hill, the fearful mind would watch the lamp of night as a guardian world, or deity, and in the fervour of gratitude, or under the impulse of fear, would address her as the mediatrix between man and his deity.
The chief times of devotion were at the summer solstice and the winter solstice, (whence the YULE clog), mid-day, or midnight—a zenith being their period. The new and full moon was duly reverenced. On the sixth day, a high officiating Druid gathered mistletoe; a ceremony conducted with great solemnity. It was cut with a golden knife, caught in a white robe, and not allowed to touch the ground. The shadow of this Druidical rite exists in the peculiar privileges of kissing under the mistletoe at Christmas times.
Lustrations were used, sacrifices were made, and the altar reeked, some say with human gore. The victim being dead, prayers succeeded; the entrails were examined, and certain portions were consumed upon the fire altar:
"Crepitant preces, altaria fumant."
The Druids inculcated an utter disregard of death, themselves showing a good example, being ever foremost in the battle strife, urging on their countrymen to deeds of valour; not doling out their maxims in slothful indolence, and acting the reverse of their doctrine:
Certe populi qui despicit arctos Felices errore suo, quos ille timorum Maxumus, haud urget Lethi metus: inde ruendi In ferrum mens prona viris, animae capaces Mortis, et ignavum rediturae parcere vitae.
Lucan. Phars. L. i.
Thrice happy they beneath their northern skies Who that worst fear—the fear of death—despise— Hence they no cares for this frail being feel, But rush undaunted on the pointed steel; Provoke approaching fate, and bravely scorn To spare that life which must so soon return.
The Druids were wont to teach in small cells, but lived in large buildings and fared sumptuously. Some of the cells are remaining to this day, as at Ty Iltud, in Brecknockshire.
SELIM.
CURIOUS CUSTOM RELATING TO INHERITANCE.
Salmon, in his History of Hertfordshire, imagines that the East Saxon and Mercian kingdoms were, in the upper part of this county, separated from each other by the Ermin-street; and in the lower part, in the parish of Cheshunt, by a bank, which anciently reached from Middlesex through Theobald's Park, across Goffe's Lane, to Thunderfield Grove, over Beaumont Green, to Nineacres Wood. There is a custom in the manor of Cheshunt, he says, "by which the elder brother inherits above the bank, and the youngest below it, in the same fields;—which could not have been introduced but from the different laws of a different government."
P.T.W.