The Druids were suspected of magic, which, Pliny remarks, derived its
origin from medicine. They highly esteemed a kind of stone, or fossil,
called _Anginum Ovum_, or Serpents' Egg, which should make the possessor
superior in all disputes, and procure the favour of great persons. It
was in the form of a ring of glass, either plain or streaked, and was
asserted to be produced by the united salivas of a cluster of serpents,
raised up in the air by their hissing; when, to be perfectly
efficacious, it was to be caught in a clean white cloth before it fell
to the ground, the person who received it instantly mounting a swift
horse, and riding away at full speed from the rage of the serpents, who
pursued him with like rapidity, until they arrived at a river. It has
been supposed that these charms were no other than rings of painted
glass; and, as it is allowed that the British had home manufactures of
glass, it seems that there were imitations of them sold at an equally
high price with the real amulet. Their genuineness was to be tried by
their setting them in gold, and observing if they swam against the
stream when cast into the water; they were, in fact, beads of glass, and
the notion of their rare virtues exactly accords with the African
exposition in the present day of the Aggry beads. Sir Richard Colt Hoare
found one of the Druidic beads in a barrow in Wiltshire, in material
resembling little figures found with the mummies in Egypt, and to be
seen in the British Museum. "This curious bead," says Sir Richard Hoare,
"has two circular lines, of opaque sky-blue and white, and seems to
represent a serpent entwined round a centre, which is perforated. This
was certainly one of the Glain Neidyr of the Britons; derived from
_Glain_, which is pure and holy, and _Neidyr_, a snake."[5]
The accounts we have of the Druidical orations and discourses afford
some notion of their admitted eloquence, which was of a lofty,
impassioned, and mysterious character. Their counsel was equally
solicited and regarded; and those orators who succeeded the Druids in
the Western Islands seem to have possessed no less power, since, if one
of them asked anything even of the greatest inhabitant, as his dress,
horse, or arms, it was immediately given up to him--sometimes from
respect, and sometimes from fear of being satirized, which was
considered a great dishonour. The British chieftains, also, appear to
have been gifted with considerable oratorical powers when they addressed
their soldiers before a battle; as Tacitus translates the British names
of such by "incentives to war."
The Druids were the only physicians and surgeons to the Britons; in
which professions they blended some knowledge of natural medicines, with
the general superstitions by which they were characterised. The practice
of the healing art has ever commanded the esteem of the rudest nations;
hence it was the obvious policy of the priests or Druids to study the
properties of plants. Their famous Mistletoe, or _All-heal_, we have
seen, was a cure in many diseases, an antidote to poisons, and a sure
remedy against infection. We have in the present day a popular remedy
for cuts and other wounds, sold under the name of _Heal-all_. Another
plant, called Samulus, or Marsh-wort, which grew chiefly in damp places,
was believed to be of excellent effect in preserving the health of swine
or oxen, when it had been bruised and put into their water-troughs. But
it was required to be gathered fasting and with the left hand, without
looking back when it was being plucked. A kind of hedge hyssop, called
_Selago_, was esteemed to be a general charm and preservative from
sudden accidents and misfortunes; and it was to be gathered with nearly
the same ceremony as the mistletoe. To these may be added Vervain, the
herb _Britannica_, which was either the great Water-dock, or
scurvy-grass; besides several other plants, the virtues of which,
however, were greatly augmented by the rites in plucking them;
superstitions not entirely out of use, while the old herbals were
regarded as books of medicine. We gather from Pliny's _Natural History_
some hints on the preparation of these materials, showing that sometimes
the juices were extracted by bruising and steeping them in cold water,
and sometimes by boiling them; that they were occasionally infused in a
liquor which he calls wine; that they were administered in fumigations;
and that the dried leaves, stalks, and roots of plants, were also used
to impart a virtue to various liquids. The almost solitary shop of the
herbalist in our great market in Covent Garden, will thus carry the
mind's eye back through many centuries.
It appears that the Druids prepared ointments and salves from
vegetables. Of their surgery nothing is certainly known, though much has
been conjectured of their acquaintance with anatomy, from the barbarity
of their human sacrifices; but it is probable that their practice
extended only to the plainer branches of the art, as healing of wounds,
setting of fractured bones, reducing dislocations, &c.; all which were
perhaps conducted with great rudeness, though with considerable
ceremony. It has been asserted that one of the Druid doctors, called
Hierophilus, read lectures on the bodies of upwards of 700 living men,
to display the wonders and secrets of the human fabric.
The Greek letters were used by the Druids for keeping the public or
private records, the only matters which they reduced to writing. The
Druid schools and seminaries were held in the caves such as we have
already described, or in the recesses of the sacred groves and forests
of Britain. The most eminent academy is said to have been in the Isle of
Anglesey, near the residence of the Arch-Druid; and there are still two
spots there called "the Place of Studies," and "the Astronomer's
Circle." The British youth, separated from their parents, were under
Druidical instruction until they were fourteen, and no one was capable
of a public employment who had not been educated by a Druid. The Roman
invasion, however, greatly improved the Druidical plan of instruction;
since Julius Agricola was careful that the sons of the principal Britons
should be taught the liberal sciences. His endeavours were considerably
assisted by the expulsion of the Druids, which took place about this
period; and also by the ability of the British youth, whom he declared
to excel the Roman. The ranks of the priests were recruited from the
noblest families of the early Britons: their education, which often
extended over a period of twenty years, comprehended the whole sciences
of the age; and beside their sacred calling, they were invested with
power to decide civil disputes. Their dwellings and temples were
situated in the thickest oak groves, which were sacred to the Supreme
Deity.
No sculptured stones or storied bricks have ever been found of this
period; nothing but weapons of stone, of bronze, and lastly, of iron,
remain to attest the slow progress of a rude people towards a higher
stage of civilization, in the arts relating to the chase and to war. As
the Gauls used to ornament their shields and helmets with brass images
of animals and horns, it is not improbable that some rude endeavour
decorated the armour of the Britons. Whatever their skill might be, it
was, doubtless, greatly improved by the Romans, since their bas-reliefs
and effigies have been found in different parts of the kingdom; and as
early as A.D. 61, not twenty years after the invasion of Claudius Cæsar,
a statue of Liberty was erected at Camulodunum, or Colchester.
The early custom of painting the body has been incidentally mentioned.
The Southern Britons stained their bodies with woad, deep blue, or a
general tint; the Northern Britons added something of design by tracing
upon their limbs figures of herbs, flowers, and trees, and all kinds of
animals. It is doubtful whether in these arts they were improved by the
Romans; since the delineation of deities, which Gildas mentions, on the
walls of the British houses, are said by him only to resemble demons.
Although Cæsar describes the natives of Britain as a hardy race of
shepherds, whose simple wants were provided for in their own country,
even then the commerce of Britain was of considerable importance; since
the tin of Cornwall, and the hides of the vast flocks of cattle, had
already induced the merchants of Phoenicia to visit and settle on our
southern shores. They are believed to have supplied the Eastern world
with Cornish tin, of such important use in the manufacture of bronze
tools, weapons, and helmets of antiquity.[6]
The principal and most ancient exports from Britain were, besides its
famous tin, lead and copper; but lime and chalk, salt, corn, cattle,
skins, earthenware, horses, staves, and native dogs, which appear
always to have been held in great estimation, were also carried thence.
The largest and finest pearls, too, are said to have been found on the
British coasts; and the wicker baskets of Britain are celebrated by
Martial and Juvenal as luxuries in Rome. And from Rome, the Britons
received ivory, bridles, gold chains, amber cups, and drinking glasses.
There are few remains of the ornaments in use amongst the Britons at a
very early period: there are many relics, however, of that just
preceding the Roman Conquest. We find torques or chains for the neck and
wrists coarsely manufactured, like curb-chains. Beads were also in use.
Many of the most ancient ornaments were cruciform. With the Roman
Conquest came in the Roman ornamentation. This does not seem to have
been modified by its introduction into Britain. The Romans imported Rome
bodily into Britain, as was their custom in all the conquered countries,
and the Britons were too uncivilized to make improvements on what was
presented to them. For this reason it is that there is the greatest
difficulty to distinguish between pure Roman and Anglo-Roman ornaments.
That the Britons both understood and practised the art of working in
metals, is ascertained from the relics of their weapons, as axes, spear
and arrow heads, swords, &c. which are yet extant; and it is supposed
that tin was the first ore which they discovered and refined. Lead they
found in great abundance, very near the surface. The British iron was of
uncommon occurrence, and was much prized, since it was used in personal
ornaments, and was even formed into rings and tallies for money. This
then precious metal has contributed more than any other to the greatness
of England in those mighty works of our own times, her railways and vast
ships of passage and war.
All the Britons, except the Druids, were trained early to war. Their
most ancient weapons were bows, reed-arrows with flint or bone heads,
quivers of basket-work, oaken spears; and flint battle-axes, which are
now considered to have been called _celts_, though there is no connexion
between this word and the name of the nation, Celtæ. The British forces
included infantry, cavalry, and such as fought from war-chariots. The
southern foot soldiers wore a coarse woollen tunic, and over it a cloak
reaching below the middle, the legs and thighs being covered with close
garments. They had brass helmets, breastplates full of hooks, and long
swords suspended from an iron or brazen girdle. They also carried large
darts, with iron shafts eighteen inches long; and shields of wicker or
wood. The inland foot soldiers were more lightly armed, with spears and
small shields, and dressed in skins of oxen. The Caledonians and other
northerns usually fought naked, with only a light target; their weapons
pointless swords and short spears. The British cavalry were mounted upon
small but strong horses, without saddles, and their arms were mostly the
same as those of the infantry. The soldiers of the war-chariots were
mostly the chiefs of the nation, and the flower of the British youth.
Their chariots were of wicker, upon wooden wheels, with hooks and scythe
blades of bronze attached to the axles, with which the charioteer mowed
down the enemy. Other chariots contained several persons, who darted
lances; both machines broke the hostile ranks, and threw an army into
confusion. Their number must have been very great; since Cassibellaunus,
after he had disbanded his army, had still 4,000 remaining.
Primitive British vessels have occasionally been found embedded in
morasses. In 1866, there was discovered at Warningcamp, about a mile
from South Stoke, in Sussex, a canoe, in widening a ditch, or sewer,
which empties itself into the river Arun: although now narrow, it
appears to have been, until recently, of much greater extent, and at one
time must have formed an important estuary of the river, for in the soil
are now seen several thousands of shells of fresh-water fish. About four
feet beneath the surface the end of the canoe was found. It proved to be
13-1/2 feet long, and consisted of the hollowed trunk of an oak tree;
but bears evidence of design, for having insertions cut on the edge, in
which it is evident three seats had been secured for the boatmen. It is
perhaps not so interesting as the canoe discovered at Stoke about twenty
years ago, and now in the British Museum, because it is not so perfect.
Still, it would appear of the greatest antiquity, from its extremely
rude form. The canoe is the general vessel of New Zealand, the present
state and people of which country are thought to exhibit more nearly
than any other land the condition of Britain when the Romans entered it
nearly eighteen centuries since.