TRACING OUR ANCESTORS #9
Chapter VIII.
DRUIDIC BRITAIN
The world's oldest highway is the ocean, and it is very
natural that in the early days, when the continents were covered
with marshes and great forests, all travel should be along the
shore lines, and consequently the first settlements also. To such
enterprising sea-rovers as the Hebrew/Phoenicians it was but
second nature to follow the setting sun along the coastlands of
the Mediterranean, establishing settlements at strategic points,
particularly in Spain, the ancient Iberia or Tarshish, and
pushing northward along the Atlantic seaboard into Albion, the
"White Island," which later was renamed Britain.
It is there, then, that we take up their trail. D.A.
Mackenzie in his work, "Ancient Man in Britain," has found
evidence to prove that several thousand years before Christ,
mining and smelting operations were carried on by an Eastern
superior race who held the British aborigines, the Picts, in a
subordination amounting to slavery. That such a race came from
the East yes, from Central Asia is proved by the ancient stone
circles and alignments, which are identical to those of Syria,
Persia, and the highlands of Tibet. We have also seen that the
largest of British circles, that of Avebury, derived its name
from Abiri, which through Khabiri, Habiru means the Hebrews.
ANCIENT STONE CIRCLES
Further confirmation of this is supplied by the fact that
those ancient stone circles are spoken of as Pelasgic, which word
can be traced to Peleg, the son of Eber, the grandfather of the
Hebrews; Genesis 10:25 states that "in his days the earth was
divided," by which we may understand that Shem's sons separated
and emigration to distant countries began. As the probable date
for the erection of Avebury Circle is about 1900 B.C., which is
two hundred years after Peleg and Eber, the likelihood exists
that a group of the Pelasgians left their ome land and headed for
the Western Isles. A circle like that of Avebury was found by Sir
William Ously near Darab in Persia, the homeland of the
Pelasgians. Avebury Circle was approached, like that of Darab,
from the east and from the west by an avenue of upright stones, a
mile long. These avenues wind in serpentlike form. (See Plate
II.)
One mile south of Avebury Circle and in the center of the
semicircle formed by the serpentine avenue lies Silbury Hill or
"The Marvelous Hill." This is an artificial mound covering five
acres, and is the largest known artificial hill in existence. It
is one of the most ancient "high places" erected in Britain for
the worship of Jehovah, and at the same time its thirty-degree
slope served the astronomer-Priests, the Druids, as an
observatory by which to watch the movements of the heavenly
bodies, to determine the beginnings of the seasons, and to fix
the accompanying festivals, as well as the time for all
agricultural operations. All the popular English holidays and
country feasts, like May Day, Midsummer's Day, Harvest Home, and
Yuletide have been kept by the Britons for four thousand years.
E.O.Gordon says on Page 57 of his book, "Prehistoric London,"
"its Mounds and Circles: Silbury Hill is artificial, except where
a natural hillock was partly utilized, and surrounded, as all
these British sacred mounds were, with a deep trench. The great
earthworks of a modern railway are the result of labor assisted
by science and capital, and made with a view to profit; but
Silbury Hill, symbolizing the whole earth surrounded by the
ocean, and other mounds and high places of the same kind, were
raised in remote antiquity by men whose ardent piety prompted
them to make these herculean efforts to 'draw nigh to God.' Dean
Stanley tells us 'the ancient Phoenician and Canaanite religion
may be called a religion of the hilltops, and so surely was the
primitive religion of Britain. For nowhere else in the western
world are sacred mounds found in such abundance. The 'Mound of
the Congregation' referred to in Isaiah XIV.13 is said by a Welsh
writer to have been of the same type as our British 'Places of
Assembly,' but whether any of the 'high places,' or 'mounts,'
mentioned in Holy Scripture were artificial mounds we have been
unable to ascertain. Nevertheless the Sinai of the new Law, the
Sermon on the Mount, has for ever sanctified their use, in the
declaration, this time final, of the Divine Will."
As, we have seen, the early Aryans knew that the original
Paradise was located on the Mountain of God (on the Pamir
Plateau), we can understand why they built in Britain artificial
mounts to imitate the Paradise or Mount of God.
Scripture speaks in several places of Mount Gerizim, the mount of
as we God, as well as of Mount Ebal, the mount of the cruse.
(Refer to Deuteronomy 11:29; 27: 1-15 and Joshua 8:33.) So also
does Scripture mention stone circles for we read in the fourth
chapter of Joshua that the Lord commanded Joshua to erect a
circle of twelve stones at Gilgal, which means "circle" (Refer to
Joshua 4:19-21). "Stanley," says Gordon, "describes a circle of
stones on the summit of Gerizim, the 'mount of God,' which he
terms the oldest Sanctuary in Palestine. It was from this circle
that Melchisedek, the 'Priest of the Most High God,' came forth
to meet Abraham bearing bread and wine, and it was here that he
blessed him and uttered the wonderful promise that has been so
literally fulflled. On the shores of Tyre the Dean points us to a
circle as of Stonehenge."
The ancient Cymri called those high places of worship
"Gorsedds" meaning "High Seats" which term was also applied to
the seat of the "Place of Assembly," where the king or chieftain,
the clergy, and freemen assembled and enacted law and justice.
Those early British Gorsedds were the first parliaments of a free
people. Keltic tradition has it that it was within the circles of
Avebury that the Gorsedds were instituted, a national institution
not known outside of Britain. "In the national Gorsedds and
Eisteddfeds of Wales the traditions of the Druidic Assemblies on
the Wiltshire downs survive to this day," writes Gordon. The
latter in his book gives a detailed account of the mounds and
high places of London.
The Tower of London, with which is connected so much of the
romance of British history, was erected on the site of the
ancient Celtic White Mount, the "Bryn Gwyn" in the Welsh language
(Bryn--"hill," Gwyn--"white").
Some miles north of the Tower was the Llandin, from the
Welsh 'Llan,' "sacred," and din, "eminence," meaning "a high
place of worship. Llandin is now known as Parliament Hill, and is
to this day a place where public meetings are held. Llandin is
also the original derivation of London.
Two miles west of the Tower, near where Westminster Abbey
now stands, was another "high place," with a circle and a Druidic
college, named Tothill. Although the hill has been levelled since
the time of Queen Elizabeth, the name still survives in Tothill
Street and Tothill Fields. Gordon remarks that it is of interest
to note that Wycliffe in his translation of the Bible applies the
word "tot" or "Tote" to Mount Zion in 2 Samuel 5:7-9. "Mount
Zion" itself means "Mount of Stone," which is very significant.
These London mounds referred to were from one hundred to three
hundred feet in height and must have been, with their stone
circles, striking monuments in prehistoric London, towering like
great cathedrals, which indeed they were, above the flat
landscape of the Thames marshes. "Thames" in Celtic means "broad
water." Again we quote from Gordon:
"On the highest ground on the western hillock, where St.Paul's
now stands, might have been silhouetted against the sky the
mighty unhewn monliths of the Druidic circle, the seat of the
Arch-Druid of Caer Troia. It is an interesting link with
pre-Christian religion, that St.Paul's has always been the
Metropolitan Cathedral of the City of London, a National Church,
never at any time a religious corporation ruled by Abbot or
Prior. No trace of the circle remains, but at a little distance
to the southeast (originally on the site of the ancient hillock)
stands a single obeliscal pillar or index stone, preserved behind
iron bars in the wall of St.Swithin's Church, opposite Cannon
Street Station. It is said originally to have been a Roman
mile-stone, but Sir Lawrence Gomme supposed London Stone, like
other great stones, to have marked the place where the open-air
assemblies gathered to legislate for the Government of the city.
Some, however, hold this ancient pillar had a yet more ancient
destination. In former times this venerable relic was regarded
with a sort of superstitious zeal, and, like the Palladium of
Troy, the fate and safety of the city was imagined to depend on
its preservation (Brayley)."
Other mounds or Gorsedds are Winton (St.Catherine's Hill,
Winchester and the Windsor Round Table Mound, upon which King
Arthur reorganized the Druidic order on Christian principles, and
thus carried on Druidic custom in our era. Later on, Edward III
built his Round Tower on Round Table Mound, and for many
centuries the assemblies of the orders of St.George and the
Garter, Britain's highest orders, have been held there. "The
Windsor Gorsedd, the Win-de-Sieur, the White or holy mount of the
Sieur or Lord (according to the Welsh derivation of the name) is
the only Gorsedd which in unbroken historical continuity has
literally fulfilled its Keltic title as a great seat of the
throne of the monarch from the sixth century to the present day."
- Gordon.
Two other English High Places are Glastonbury Tor in
Somerset, which is five hundred feet in height and is associated
with Joseph of Arimathea; and Eton Montem or Sol's gill in the
famous school town which bears its name. The words "ton, tot," or
"tot" signify in Welsh "a sacred mound." "Circle" in the ancient
British tongue was "cot," and in those cots they gathered. The
word has come down to us in our "court." The roots of the English
language alone will prove British descent from an ancient and
most honorable ancestry.
Twenty miles soul of Avebury Circle is situated Stonehenge,
the best known of British stone circles, its original Celtic name
is Cor Gawr, or "the great circle of the Ambresbiri," the Holy
Anointed Ones. This latter name still survives in Ambresbury
Banks, another Druidic cot, located on the highest point in
Epping Forest. Only a few stones of this circle remain, but the
earthworks are still intact to mark the circle. It was here that
Boadicea made her last stand against the Romans in 62 A.D. "The
origin of the descriptive title Ambresbiri (the Holy Anointed
Ones) may be traced to Holy Scripture, where the earliest
instance of anointing stones is mentioned in Genesis XXVIII, when
young Jacob, on his journey to his unknown relations, sleeping
one night with a stone for a pillow, had a celestial vision and a
promise from God of the highest importance to him and to all
mankind. He took the stone and set it up for a pillar and poured
oil upon it and called the place Beth-el, the House of God. So
famous was that patriarchal temple of Jacob that we find the
Syrian Hercules, who built Tyre, represented with the Petrae
Ambrosiae on the coins struck by that city in honour of him as
their founder. (Gordon).
STONEHENGE BURIAL SITE
Not only was Stonehenge the great Solar clock, the Greenwich
Obsevatory of early Britain, the Measurer and Regulator of time
and events, but it was also the ancient Westminster of the
country in more than one respect. As Westminster Abbey has been
for centuries the final resting place of British kings and
leaders, so also was Stonehenge in prehistoric times. The
surrounding plain was and still is covered with hundreds of
burial mounds, of which 485 have been opened by Sir Robert Colt,
who in the second quarter of the last century spent fifteen years
and a private fortune in uncovering those ancient tombs, and most
of the objects taken from them can now be seen in the British
Antiquities Department of the British Museum.
"From far remote ages, cremated, doubled up, or lying full length
facing the sun at its noontime glory, the mortal remains of
succeeding generations of British princes, priests and leaders
were here interred, decked, in gala array of amber or jet
necklace, bronze and gold ornaments, with their finely polished
stone, bronze and iron weapons beside them, fully equipped for
their future life in the great hereafter. Jet and amber were
esteemed by the Ancients as more precious than gold, on account
of their electrical properties. An amber necklace of 1,000 beads
is mentioned in one of the Triads ... Caesar tells us that belief
in the immortality of the soul was the groundwork of British
faith; it took from them the fear of death and inspired them with
motives of courage. May we not see in this Westminster Abbey of
pre-Christian time a foreshadowing of the tombs of princes,
priests and statesmen, warriors, poets and musicians gathered
together in the Abbey of the present day." -- Gordon.
THE WELSH TRIADS
The Triads referred to here are the national Triads of
Wales, which are according to Matthew Arnold and Prof. Max
Mueller, "the oldest literature in the oldest living language in
Europe." This "oldest (Celtic) literature" is the "Historic
Triads of the Island of Britain," of which one hundred and sixty
are still in existence; they consist of the poems of the ancient
Bards, and convey to us the religion, philosophy, and law of the
early Britons. Like the ancient Vedas of India, they were handed
down by oral tradition; and not until the sixth century A.D. were
they written down, by the bards of King Arthur's court, Taliesin
and Llynwarch Hen, when the British king reorganized the "Old
Order" on Christian lines, and drew up his rules of the Round
Table on the Druidic principles of loyalty and self-sacrifice to
king and country.
DRUIDS
It is customary today to speak of the ancient Britons as the
Druids; however, this is incorrect, for the term "Druid" refers
only to the priesthood. "The title Druid," says Gordon, "in Welsh
'der wydd,' is said to be a compound of 'dar,' superior, and
'gwydd,' priest or inspector. The Irish 'Der,' a Druid, is the
absolver and remitter of sins. The same root is found in the
Persian 'duree,' a good and holy man, and in the Arabic 'dere,' a
wise man. The number of Druids was regulated by very stringent
laws in proportion to population.
YEARS OF STUDY AND PREPARATION
The Druids were organized into a religious order, and as all
knowledge, doctrine, and literature was transmitted only by oral
recitation, it required twenty years of study before a candidate
was able to pass the final examinations and was admissable to the
highest order of the land. Besides that, only those candidates
were acceptable who could prove their descent from nine
generations of British freemen. Those conditions naturally
restricted membership in the Druidic order to the aristocracy of
the country. The same demands and length of training were
required by the order of the Bards or scholars. Matthew Arnold,
famous English poet and critic, states that the Druidic Order is
the oldest religious and educational institution in Europe (and
probably in the world). In Britain the Order numbered forty seats
of learning; each seat was a Cyfiaith, the derivation of "city."
40 DRUID SEATS
The late R.W.Morgan, Welsh scholar and great authority on
ancient Britain, gives in his "St.Paul in Britain" thirty-one
names of the chief seats of the Druids. There were originally
forty, but nine of them can not be identified. Many of these
ancient seats are still county capitals today, with only slight
changes in their names. Of the thirty-one seats let us mention
some: Caer Caint, Canterbury; Caer Wyn, Winchester; Caer Werllan,
St.Alban's or Verulam; Caer Led, Carlisle; Caer Coel, Colchester;
Caerlon ar Dwy, Chester; Caer Don, Doncaster; Caer Guoric,
Warwick; Caer Brit, Bristol; Caer Llyr, Leicester; Caer Lleyn,
Lincoln; Caer Gloyw, Gloucester; Caer Cei, Chichester; Caer Dwr,
Dorchester; Caer Merddin, Caermarthen; Caer Badden, Bath.
The lapse of two thousand years has made slight alteration
in the names of these primitive cities of Britain. The Romans
invariably fixed upon the chief caer of a British tribe,
generally the strongest military position in its bounds, for
their castra: hence the castra and chester superseded the caer or
British citadel; but the British name itself survived the Roman.
Llyndain is still London, not Augusta; Werllan, Verulam, not
Municipium; Caer Col, Colchester, not Camalodunum, etc., etc. The
seats of the three Arch-Druids of Britain were: Caer Evroc, York;
Caer Lleon, Caerleon; Caer Troia (Llandin), London.
The names of "Caer Troia" was given by King Brutus of Troy
to Llandin after his occupation of the city about 1100 B.C. The
name "Troia" itself testifies to Brutus' Trojan ancestry. The
name of "Caer Troia" or "Tri-novantum" (New Troy) never became
popular with the ancient Britons, and the name of Llandin
prevailed among them. The name is referred to in several old MSS
(other than Geoffrey of Monmouth's) and by many of the older
historians as the name given to London by Brutus, the Grandson of
Aeneas. This tradition was never questioned until the last
century, when German scholars decided that the story related in
Homer's Iliad, of the siege and destruction of Troy by the early
Greeks and the subsequent dispersion of the Trojan princes, was a
"poet's dream" and a myth. This "dream" and "myth" invention of
the critics has, however, been proved false and the story of Troy
established as a reality by Prof. Schliemann's uncovering of the
ruins of the ancient Troy at Hissarlik in Asia Minor.
WHY 20 YEARS FOR DRUIDIC KNOWLEDGE
At each of the forty centers of Druidism in Britain (the
names of some of the known thirty-one have been given previously)
was located a Druidic college. "The students at these
universities numbered at times sixty thousand souls, among whom
were included the young nobility of Britain and Gaul. It required
twenty years to master the circle of Druidic knowledge; nor, when
we consider the great range of acquirements which the system
included, can we wonder at the length of such probation. Natural
philosophy, astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, jurisprudence,
medicine, poetry, and oratory were all proposed and taught, the
first two with severe exactitude. The system of astronomy
insulated had never varied, being the same as that taught by
Pythagoras, now known as the Copernican or Newthonian. The
British words for 'star,' 'astronomer,' 'astronomy,' are seren,
seronydd, serony diaeth: hence the usual Greek term for the
Druids was Saronidoe, astronomers. Of the attainments of the
Druids in all the sciences, especially in this of astronomy,
classic judges of eminence, Cicero and Caesar, Pliny and Tacitus,
Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, speak in high terms. In the Druidic
order indeed centered, and from it radiated the whole civil and
ecclesiastical knowledge of the realm: they were its statesmen,
legislators, priests, physicians, lawyers, teachers, poets; the
depositaries of all human and divine knowledge; its Church and
parliament; its courts of law; its colleges of physicians and
surgeons; its magistrates, clergy and bishops."
The above quotation is taken from "St.Paul in Britain" by R.
W.Morgan.
DRUID RELIGION AND JESUS
The same author states on Page 54 of his book the principal
tenets of the Druidic religion:
"The universe is infinite, being the body of the being who out of
himself evolved or created it, and now pervades and rules it, as
the mind of man does his body. The essence of this being is pure,
mental light, and therefore he is called Du-w, Duw (the one
without any darkness). His real name is an ineffable mystery, and
so also is his nature. To the human mind, though not in himself
he necessarily represents a triple aspect in relation to the
past, present and future; the creator as to the past, the saviour
or conserver as to the present, the renovator or re-creator as to
the future. In the re-creator the idea of the destroyer was also
involved. This was the Druidic trinity, the three aspects of
which were known as Bell, Taran, and Esu or Yesu. When
Christianity preached Jesus as God, it preached the most familiar
name of its own deity to Druidism; and in the ancient British
tongue 'Jesus' has never assumed its Greek, Latin, or Hebrew
form, but remains the pure Druidic 'Yesu.' It is singular thus
that the ancient Briton has never changed the name of the God he
and his forefathers worshipped, nor has ever worshipped but one
God."
The word Beli is Phoenician, meaning Lord (see Hosea 2:16),
and was the name of the Chief of the Trinity, evidently God the
Father.
Max Mueller, one-time professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, and
famous scholar, traces the word God through the early British or
Welsh to the Sanskrit, the oldest known language in the world and
remarks: "... Beyond and above the heavenly bodies, which were
always changing, was the bright unchanging Deva, the life and
light of the Universe. This word has come down along the ages in
our word Deity, Divine, Dieu, Deus, and in the Welsh Duw,
Jehovah, God. From the root Die, to shine, the adjective Deva has
been formed meaning originally 'bright.' Deva came to mean, in
process of time, 'God,' because it originally meant bright. The
dictionaries give its meaning as God or Divine. In the old hymns
of India the sun was looked upon as a supernatural power, not
only the bright Deva, who performs his daily task in the sky, but
he is supposed to perform much greater work, as the supreme
spirit, the Creator of the world. He who brings life and light
to-day is the same who brought life and light on the first of
days. As light was the beginning of the day, so light was the
beginning of creation, and, if Creator, then also a ruler of the
world. There is a continuity of thought as there is of sound,
between the Deva of the Veda, and the Divinity that shapes our
ends. We have in such words as Deva and Deus the actual vestiges
of the steps by which our ancestors proceeded from the world of
sense to the world beyond the grasp of the senses. The way was
traced by Nature herself; or if Nature, too, is but a Deva in
disguise, by something greater and higher than Nature. The old
road led the ancient Aryans as it leads us still, from the known
to the unknown, from Nature to Nature's God."
A TRIAD ON MAN
The Druidical doctrine concerning man's spiritual life is
framed in the Triads:
"In every person there is a soul, In every soul there is
intelligence: In every intelligence there is thought,
In every thought there is either good or evil: In every evil
there is death; In every good there is life, In every life there
is God."
A TRIAD ON GOD
"Let God be praised in the beginning and the end,
Who Supplicates Him, He will neither despise nor refuse. God
above us, God before us, God possessing (all things), May the
Father of Heaven grant us a portion of mercy!"
Matthew Arnold gives us the following quotation to show that
the Druids were acquainted with the idea of the Trinity:
"There are Three Primeval Unities, and more than one of each
cannot exist; One God: One Truth: and One Point of Liberty, where
all opposites preponderate. Three things proceed from the Three
Primeval Unities: All of life, All that is Good, and All Power."
It is characteristic of modern teaching that, although
Matthew Arnold's place in English literature is considered one of
the highest, his attempts to bring the ancient Celtic literature
before the public have been ignored with contemptuous silence,
for it is in accordance with modern thought that the pre-Roman
Britons must be savages, even though the evidence of ancient
monuments and the ancient literature prove the contrary.
DRUID PHYLOSOPHY AND LIFE
The high moral tone of the ancient Druidic philosophy and
life is indicated by the following Tiads: "The three primary
ornaments of wisdom: love, truth, and courage. In three things
will be seen the primary qualities of the soul of man: in what he
may fear: what he would conceal: and what he would show. Three
things that make a man equal to an angel: the love of every good;
the love of exercising charity; and the love of pleasing God."
"It has been observed by the historian Hume, 'that no religion
has ever swayed the minds of men like the Druidic.' The
determined efforts of the Roman empire to overthrow its
supremacy, and, if possible, suppress it altogether, prove that
its rulers had been made practically aware of this fact. A
Druidic triad familiar to the Greeks and Romans wa: 'Three duties
for every man: Worship God; be just to all men; die for your
country.'" - Morgan.
Caesar wrote in 54 B.C.: "The Druids make the immortality of
the soul the basis of all their teaching, holding it the
principal incentive and reason for a virtuous life."
Druidism also believed in the resurrection from the dead,
but taught the reincarnation of the soul, and believed in divers
stages of punishment until purification is accomplished. In this
form Druidism still survives in several Eastern religions with
hundreds of millions of adherents. In most respects, however, the
Druidic religion was akin to the Mosaic and to Christianity.
Every soul guilty of crime expiated its guilt by voluntarily
confessing it. "Except by the laying down of life for life there
could be no expiation or atonement for certain kinds of guilt.
Caesar's words on this point are remarkable:- 'The Druids teach
that by no other way than the ransoming of a man's life for the
life of man is reconciliation with the divine justice of the
immortal gods possible.'" - Morgan.
A DRUID PRAYER
A Druidic prayer as old as Druidism itself is given by
Gordon on page 177 of his "Prehistoric London," and reveals to us
the profundity of Druidic Montheism:
"Grant, O God, Thy Protection;
And in Protection, Strength;
And in Strength, Understanding;
And in Understanding, Knowledge;
And in Knowledge, the Knowledge of Justice;
And in the Knowledge of Justice, the Love of it;
And in that Love, the Love of all Existences;
And in the love of all Existences the Love of God.
God and all Goodness."
WISE FROM OF THE EAST
"When we hear the Druids spoken of as worshippers of the Sun,
Moon and Stars," writes Gordon, "we are apt to lose sight of the
fact that it was by the careful observation of the movements of
the heavenly bodies that the Eastern Magi were guided to the
cradle of the Saviour and were privileged to be the first to
worship the "Star" which should rise out of Jacob (Num. xxiv.
17), 'the Sun of Righteousness,' which the Prophet Malachi
foretold 500 years before, should 'rise with healing in His
wings.' It is probable that the Wise men of the East
communicated to their brethren the 'Wise Men of the West,' the
astrologers and philosophers of Britain, the joyful tidings of
their discovery, and the far-reaching results of their journey to
Bethlehem; and to this probably may be traced the ready
acceptance of Christianity in all parts of these Western Isles."
DRUID'S MESSIAH
The Druids, as well as the Israelites, expected the coming
of the Messiah. Israel typified Him by a scapegoat and other
emblems; the Druids looked for the coming of a "Curer of all
ills," who was typified under the emblem of the mistletoe,
identical to the "Branch" of which Israel's prophets spoke.
Taliesin, an arch-Druid of the early Christian days made the
following statement: "Christ, the Word from the beginning, was
from the beginning our teacher, and we never lost His teaching.
Christianity was a new thing in Asia, but there never was a time
when the Druids of Britain held not its doctrines."
BRITISH DRUIDS AND HUMAN SACRIFICE?
We have been told in our school books and even in our
dictionaries that the ancient Druids were pagan worshippers of
the Sun, who sacrificed human beings at their festivals.
Unquestionably sun worship was practiced by many of the early
Britons, as we have evidence to show; but as to sacrificing human
beings it is very doubtful. Sir Flinders Petrie, during his
investigation of Stonehenge, raised the ancient altar stone and
found burnt embers and bones of cattle beneath, proving that it
was used as an altar of burnt offering, like the one in Jehovah'
temple in Jerusalem, and not as a place of slaughter of human
beings.
From one of the Triads we learn that at each of the three
great circles in Britain 2400 priests (Druids), that is, one
hundred for every hour of the day in rotation, continued the
praise of God without intermission. The majority of the smaller
Druidic circles consisted of a circle of twelve stones with a
larger one in the center, the Maen Llog or Llogan Stone, which
was symbolic of the "Rock" which is Christ. The twelve stones
represent the twelve tribes of Israel. Of an identical circle of
twelve stones we read in Joshua 4:19-21, where Israel erected a
circle (Gilgal) of twelve stones as a memorial of their arrival
in the Promised Land. Is it possible then that those British
circles or twelve stones serve a similar purpose, a memorial of
Israel's transplanting to the Isles of the West, the "Appointed
Place" referred to in 2 Samuel 7:10?).
THE WORD STONE
Druidism itself was known in ancient Britain as "Y Maen,"
The Stone Religion, or "The Stone Kingdom." Let us also remember
that Zion also means "Stone"; Mount Zion, "the mount of stone,"
which refers both to Jerusalem and to the people of Israel (See
Isaiah 51:16). It is also very significant that the ancient
Kymric word Tot or Tole for "Sacred Mound" has been used by
Wycliffe in his translation of the Bible for Zion, in 2 Samuel 5:
7.
THE GODHEAD
To the Druids the name of the Godhead was an ineffable
mystery, His name being represented by the three golden rays of
the Druidic symbol, which the Arch-Druid wore on his mitre (See
the symbol at the head of the chapter.) "In the Iolo Mss. (a
selection from the ancient Welsh writings, published by the Welsh
Mss. Society) the origin is given of this ancient hierogram,
which analyzes into the three bardic letters of the 'ineffable
name,' 'I AM,' JH VH, JEHOVAH, answering to the Christian device
of I. H. S., the emblem that has come down to us along the ages
in the 'Holy Wings,' the 'Logos' or the 'Voice' of the Supreme
God. On three occasions only in God's Word do we find the
utterance of the Divine Name mentioned - at the burning bush, in
Our Lord's words, 'Before Abraham was, I AM,' and in the Garden
of Gethsemane, when Our Lord said to those who had come to take
Him, 'I AM He,' and the men and officers 'went backward and fell
to the ground.'"
DRUIDS DRESS AND BREASTPLATE
The Druids were dressed in white robes, the Bards in blue.
The Arch-Druid wore a golden breastplate set with twelve jewels,
similar to the breastplate of the high priest of Israel. Such
breastplate has been found on a skeleton in one of the Stonehenge
tombs
THE THREE RAYS
The sacred symbol of the British Gorsedd, the three rays or
rods, survive in two forms, in the three 'feathers' of the Prince
of Wales, and in the 'Broad Arrow' of the Government. When Edward
III refounded on the Windsor Table Mound the British King
Arthur's Order of the Round Table as a reward for those knights
who had won for him his victories in France, he adopted the
Gorsedd, symbol, the sign of spiritual and temporal power of the
ancient Keltic kings and priests, as the cognizance of his son,
the Black Prince. In the form of three ostrich feathers, the
three golden rays have been borne from that time by successive
Princes of Wales. As a mark of the Royal Household, they first
appear in 1386, and after 1693 were stamped on all Government
stones. In our own day, we find the Awen, or Holy Wings, stamped
by the Ordinance Survey as a landmark (in the form of the Broad
Arrow) alike upon solitary mountain peak and curbstone of crowded
alley - the sacred symbol that proclaims from generation the
national faith in the eternal overshadowing of the Divine Wings.
SACRED BIRD, BULL ETC.
The sacred bird of Druidism was the crested wren; the sacred
tree was the oak; the sacred grain the wheat; the sacred plant
the mistletoe; the sacred herbs were the trefoil and the hyssop;
the sacred animal was the white bull-Taurus. The bull has been a
national emblem of Britain ever since John Bull. Druidism was
founded in the East when the equinoxes, spring (diurnal) and fall
(nocturnal), occurred in the constellation Taurus.
FOUNDER OF THE DRUIDS IN BRITAIN
The ancient Welsh literature tells us that Hu Gadarn the
mighty as the apostle of Druidism in Britain. He was a
contemporary of Abraham and brought the knowledge connected with
the Solar Year Cult into Britain, as well as the worship of the
One God, Jehovah. Hu Gadarn was a man of culture and of peaceful
pursuits. He was the first man, it is said, to express thought in
poetry, and is the originator of the so-called Triads. The Welsh
Triads laud him as "one of the three benefactors of the race of
the Cymri," "one of the Three Primary Sages of his adopted land,"
"one of the Three Pillars of the race of the island of Britain."
He is also credited with the introduction of writing and
manufacture of glass.
It must be apparent to the thoughtful reader, who is able to
draw deductions from the Druidic literature quoted, that the
early inhabitants of Britain were lineal descendants of the
Patriarchs in the first instance and of the Israelites in later
years. It is difficult, of course, for us to determine how old
this literature really is. All of it antedates the Christian
era, however. In many respects it reveals a depth of
spirituality and devotion to God that surpasses the literature of
the Old Testament. If the Old Testament writers were inspired, as
we believe they were, then it is strange to find such deep
spiritual expressions of literature that could not have been
influenced by the old Scriptures. With the doctrine of the
Trinity the Old Testament writers do not seem to be acquainted;
yet Druidism taught the triune existence of God. (But from Druid
writings we do NOT find that it was a "trinity" as taught by the
Roman Catholic or Protestant religions - Keith Hunt).
The Druidic religion reveals itself to be as Divine as
sacred Scriptuie, it can only be the remnant of that antediluvian
Monotheism and Messianism believed in by the line of Seth, Enoch,
and Moses. (NO IT DOES NOT!! THIS IS WILD OUT IN LEFT FIELD
TALK!! THE DRUID RELIGION IS NOT INSPIRED AND WAS IN SOME WAYS
PERVERSION OF TRUTHS - IT HAD LOST TRUTHS AND WAS MIXED WITH
PAGANISM - Keith Hunt)
Prof.Breasted in his "History of Egypt" states that he found
the existence of Messianism in the ancient East fully one
thousand years before the Hebrews. In Chapter VI we have already
seen that the Sun Cross symbol of the coming Messiah, the Sun of
Righteousness, three Messianic Hebrews was the millenniums before
He came, both in the East and in Britain. Of this same Messianism
we also find traces, but in perverted paganized form, in the Cult
of Osiris of the "Book of the Dead" and in the Pyramid texts
of Egypt.
(Yes, the truth of a coming Messiah was indeed carried through
SOME people from the time of Noah and Seth. The wise men from the
East coming to worship the child Jesus obviously knew he was THE
King to come - a divine child King - Keith Hunt)
With the entry of Israel into Egypt during the XVIIIth
Dynasty, a form of monotheism entered Egypt - the Aten Worship,
which Mr.Davidson says was "an Egyptianized conception of the
Semitic belief in the One God, a form of Monotheism that was a
revival of the monotheism that had penetrated into Egypt in the
Pyramid Age. Aten was offered as the visible symbol of the
One-God, the symbol of the solar disc, a symbol that, as
Professor L.A.Waddell has shown, was the symbol of the Messiah
throughout the whole of the ancient East, in the third and fourth
millenaries B.C. The same form of imagery appears in the New
Testament, where Jesus Christ is the 'Sun of Righteousness.'
It appears then, that in Britain alone this form of
Monotheism and Messianism survived in its purity until the coming
of the Messiah, and until Christianity relit its torch and
carried the Good News to all mankind, as it has indeed been
carried by the Covenant race.
...........................
To be continued
Note:
While it is true that the British Druids remained in a more pure
form of Druidism than the Druids on the continent of Europe;
while it is true that British Druidism had some remarkable fine
truths, a very high morality, an abundance of knowledge of
various kinds and even the knowledge of the Jesu of the Godhead.
It is also very clear for those with the knowledge of Biblical
truths, that the British Druids had incorporated false and even
strange beliefs and customs. They were "off the wall" in certain
teachings and then also customs. Yet with that said what most do
not realize (because they are not taught true history of
Christianity coming to Britain) is that the Druids, and the
people of Britain, readily converted to Christianity when the
early apostles in the first and second century A.D. brought the
Gospel to the British Isles. All this truth is found in various
other studies on this Website.
Keith Hunt
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