and more of the mysterious world beneath the earth, from
which all things came and to which all things returned. Nor could he
forget the trees of the forest, especially those which, like the oak, had
provided him with their fruit as food in time of need. The name Druid,
as well as that of the centre of worship of the Gauls of Asia Minor,
Drunemeton (the oak-grove), the statement of Maximus of Tyre that the
representation of Zeus to the Celts was a high oak, Pliny's account of
Druidism (_Nat. Hist_., xvi. 95), the numerous inscriptions to Silvanus
and Silvana, the mention of Dervones or Dervonnae on an inscription at
Cavalzesio near Brescia, and the abundant evidence of survivals in folk-
lore as collected by Dr. J. G. Frazer and others, all point to the fact
that tree-worship, and especially that of the oak, had contributed its
full share to the development of Celtic religion, at any rate in some
districts and in some epochs. The development of martial and commercial
civilisation in later times tended to restrict its typical and more
primitive developments to the more conservative parts of the Celtic
world. The fact that in Caesar's time its main centre in Gaul was in the
territory of the Carnutes, the tribe which has given its name to
Chartres, suggests that its chief votaries were mainly in that part of
the country. This, too, was the district of the god Esus (the eponymous
god of the Essuvii), and in some degree of Teutates, the cruelty of whose
rites is mentioned by Lucan. It had occurred to the present writer,
before finding the same view expressed by M. Salomon Reinach, that the
worship of Esus in Gaul was almost entirely local in character. With
regard to the rites of the Druids, Caesar tells us that it was customary
to make huge images of wickerwork, into which human beings, usually
criminals, were placed and burnt. The use of wickerwork, and the
suggestion that the rite was for purifying the land, indicates a
combination of the ideas of tree-worship with those of early agricultural
life. When the Emperor Claudius is said by Suetonius to have suppressed
Druidism, what is meant is, in all probability, that the more inhuman
rites were suppressed, leading, as the Scholiasts on Lucan seem to
suggest, to a substitution of animal victims for men. On the side of
civil administration and education, the functions of the Druids, as the
successors of the primitive medicine men and magicians, doubtless varied
great