Note 1024 — Chapter XX

Footnote 1024:

(return)

In Wales there had been Druids as there were Bards, but all trace of the second class is lost. Long after the Druids had passed away, the fiction of the derwydd-vardd or Druid-bard was created, and the later bards were held to be depositories of a supposititious Druidic theosophy, while they practised the old rites in secret. The late word derwydd was probably invented from derw, "oak," by some one who knew Pliny's derivation. See D'Arbois, Les Druides, 81.