Religion of the ancient Britons—the Druids—the misletoe—the Druids’
songs.
I am sorry to say that the old Britons had no churches; and they did
not know anything about the true God. Their oldest and cleverest
men only thought God must be somewhere, and because they saw that
oaks were the largest, and oldest, and best trees in the woods, they
told the people that God must be where the oaks grew; but they were
mistaken, you know, for God is in heaven, and He made the oaks, and
everything else that you can see, and everything that you can think
of. But as these poor people did not know any better, they chose
some of the oldest and wisest men to be their priests, and to say
prayers for them, under the shade of the oaks. These priests they
call DRUIDS. They had long white beards, and wore better clothes than
the other people, for they had white linen robes. They knew how to
cure sick people, by giving them different parts of the plants that
grew in the woods; and if they were burnt, or cut, they made salves
to heal them; and they would not teach the common people how to use
these things of themselves, so everybody was obliged to go to them
for help. And the people gave the Druids a part of what they had,
whether it was corn, or warm skins to make beds of, or paint, or tin,
or copper, or silver, that they found among the mountains, for curing
them.
One of the things they used to cure the sick people with, was a plant
called misletoe. It does not grow on the ground, but on the branches
of trees; sometimes, but rarely, on the oak. The Druids knew the time
of year when its berries were ripe, and made a great feast, and all
the people came to it; and the oldest Druid, dressed in white, and
with a white band round his head, used to take a golden sickle, and
go up into the trees where the misletoe grew, and cut it while the
others sang songs, and said some prayers to their false gods, because
they did not know the true God.
These Druids used to advise the kings what to do, and what rules
to give the people; and because nobody in England could write, the
Druids made songs and verses about everything that happened, and
taught them to the young people, that they might teach them again to
their children. Those who made these songs were called BARDS.
Now you know that, though it is a very good thing to be able to
repeat fine verses about things that happened long ago, it is much
better to have them written down; because people might forget some of
the verses, and then their children would not know what had happened
in their country before they lived themselves.
And so it was with the Druids. People began to forget the oldest
verses, when something happened that I will tell you about in the
next chapter, by means of which the Britons learned not only to write
and read, but to know the true God.
[Illustration: Decoration]