if I am not mistaken, been sceptic with regard to this etymology, not so much on phonological grounds as from failing exactly to see how the oak could have given its name to such a famous organization as the druidic one must be admitted to have been. But the parallels just indicated as showing the importance of the sacred tree in the worship of Zeus and the gods representing him among nations other than the Greek one, help to throw some light on this point. According to the etymology here alluded to, the druids would be the priests of the god associated or identified with the oak; that is, as we are told, the god who seemed to those who were familiar with the pagan theology of the Greeks, to stand in the same position in Gaulish theology that Zeus did in the former.
This harmonizes thoroughly with all that is known about the druids. On the one hand, Zeus was the source of all divination:[1] the rustling of the wind in the leaves of the sacred oaks at Dodona, the voices of the doves, and the bubbling of the spring near the sacred oak, were all held to be oracular; and even in the case of the celebrated oracle of the Pythian Apollo at Delphi, the latter was no more than the προφήτης or mouthpiece, so to say, of Zeus. On the other hand, one may sum up the imressions of ancient authors as to the druids by describing them as magicians who were medicine-men, priests, and teachers of the young. This applies more especially to Gaul, but their characteristics appear to have been much the same in Ireland—in both they were above all things magicians; for we have Pliny's express state-
- ↑ Preller in Pauly's Real-Encykl. s.v. Jupiter, iv. 601.
