ne were entailed
upon the neophytes, whose principal business was to commit to memory
countless verses enshrining Druidic knowledge and tradition. That this
instruction was astrological and magical we have the fullest
proof.[50]

The Druids were magi as they were priests in the same sense that the
American Indian shaman is both magus and priest. That is, they were
medicine-men on a higher scale, and had reached a loftier stage of
transcendental knowledge than the priest-magicians of more barbarous
races. Thus they may be said to be a link between the barbarian
shaman and the magus of medieval times. Many of their practices were
purely shamanistic, while others more closely resembled medieval
magical rite. But they were not the only magicians of the Celts, for
frequently among that people we find magic power the possession of
women and of the poetic craft. The magic of Druidism had many points
of comparison with most magical systems, and perhaps approximated more
to that black magic which desires power for the sake of power alone
than to any transcendental type. Thus it included the power to render
the magician invisible, to change his bodily shape, to produce an
enchanted sleep, to induce lunacy, and to inflict death from afar.

The arts of rain-making, bringing down fire from heaven, and causing
mists, snow-storms, and floods were also claimed for the Druids.
Many of the spells probably in use among them survived until a
comparatively late period, and are still employed in some remote
Celtic localities, the names of saints being substituted for those
of Celtic deities. Certain primitive ritual, too, is still carried
out in the vicinity of some megalithic structures in Celtic areas,
as at Dungiven, in Ireland, where pilgrims wash before a great stone
in the river Roe and then walk round it, and in many parts of
Brittany.[51]

In pronouncing incantations the usual method employed was to stand
upon one leg and to point with the forefinger to the person or object
on which the spell was to be laid, at the same time closing one eye,
as if to concentrate the force of the entire personality upon that
which was to be placed under ban. A manuscript possessed by the
monastery of St Gall, and dating from the eighth or ninth century,
includes magical formulae for the preservation of butter and the
healing of certain diseases in the name of the Irish god Diancecht.
These and others bear a close resemblance to Babylonian and Etru