diseases. They sacrificed
victims to it, believing that, by its virtue, the barren were made
fruitful. They looked upon it likewise as a preservative against all
poisons. Thus do several nations of the world place their religion in
the observation of trifles.

The Druids were also extremely superstitious in relation to the herb
_selago_, which they reckoned a preservative against sore eyes, and
almost all misfortunes. Another herb called samotis, which they imagined
had a virtue to prevent diseases among cattle, they were very
ceremonious about gathering. The person was obliged to be clad in white,
and was not suffered to handle it; and the ceremony was preceded by a
sacrifice of bread and wine.

The Druids had another superstition amongst them, in regard to their
serpents' eggs, which they supposed were formed of the saliva of many of
those creatures, at a certain time of the moon: these they looked upon
as a sure prognostic of getting the better of their enemies. These, with
many other ridiculous fooleries, were imposed upon the credulous people,
as they were very much attached to divination. The Druids regarded the
misletoe as an antidote against all poisons, and they preserved their
selago against all misfortunes. The Persians had the same confidence in
the efficacy of several herbs, and used them in a similar manner. The
Druids cut their misletoe with a golden hook, and the Persians cut the
twigs of _Ghez_, or _haulm_, called _bursam_, with a peculiar sort of
concentrated knife. The candidates for the British throne had recourse
to the fatal stone to determine their pretensions; and on similar
occasions the Persians had recourse to the _Artizoe_.

From every view of the Druid religion, Mr. Polwhele concludes that it
derived its origin from the Persian magi. Dr. Borlasse has drawn a long
and elaborate parallel between the Druids and Persians, where he has
plainly proved that they resembled each other, as strictly as possible,
in every particular of religion.[31]

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Supplement to the translated preface to Jarvis's Don Quixote.

[23] That the Druids worshipped rocks, stones, and fountains, and
imagined them inhabited, and actuated by _divine intelligences of a
lower rank_, may plainly be inferred from their stone monuments. These
inferior deities the Cornish call _spriggian, or spirits_, which answer
to genii or fairies; and the vulgar in Cornwall still discourse of them,
as of real beings.