Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/640

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and the head was then adored by the Master and the other knights.

It seems to me probable that this head, if there were truth in the charge, was revered because was part of an ancient druidic rite to produce head upon a vessel, though for what purposes do not know. Friar Bacon constructed a head which gave oracles. Possibly some such property was attributed to the Templar, and previously to the druidic head. Livy tells us that a bloody head of an enemy was a national Keltic symbol (xxiii. 24), and that the Boii brought the head into their temples, where they cleansed it and adorned it with gold, and then used it on festivals for a sacred vessel, out of which to make drink-offerings.

To enter with any thing like completeness into the most interesting and intricate subject of druidic mythology and ceremonial would occupy too much space. This paper will necessarily be imperfect; the religion of our British ancestors has yet to be written. Those who have hitherto approached the subject have so done with preconceived theories which have caused them to read wrong the sacred myths and rites they were interpreting. Much is to be learned from the Arthurian Romances, much from bardic remains,