Читать книгу Myths of the Rhine - M. Xavier - Страница 40

This new movement, grafted upon the simple worship of the Druids, did not stop here. After having for some time been accustomed to converse with Teut by means of a tree, the Celts were naturally surprised at seeing that, while trees could speak, living creatures remained silent, and were apparently deprived of the power of foretelling the future. Certain chieftains, especially, felt aggrieved, upon setting out on a great campaign, that they were not allowed to carry the holy oak along with them, and in their intense devotion, fell upon the idea of consulting the nervous trembling of their horses and their sudden neighing in moments of surprise or terror—for in order to be of prophetic nature the movements of the animals had to be involuntary and spontaneous. As this creed began to spread gradually, every man who was setting out on a journey or a warlike expedition mounted his horse in the firm conviction that he would be able to consult his four-footed prophet at any time during his absence from home, provided he was able to submit the omens to the learned interpretations of a soothsayer.

The Druid priests were not long in becoming seriously alarmed at these travelling oracles, liable as they naturally were to contradict each other.

As they had before chosen a single tree to be the sacred tree, so they now accepted as genuine omens only the symptoms noticed in certain horses which were bred within the sacred precincts and under their own eyes.

These horses, of immaculate whiteness and raised at public expense, were not employed for any work, and never had to submit to saddle or bridle. Wild and untamed, they roamed with fluttering manes in perfect liberty through the lofty forests. The freedom of their movements gave naturally a safer character to their omens, and thus these prophetic horses, which formed almost a part of the druidical clergy, enjoyed for a long time the highest authority in all Celtic countries, when suddenly one fine day new rivals arose.

Other living creatures entered into competition with them, and these rivals of the horses were—shall I say it?—were women. These women discovered, all of a sudden, that they also were endowed, and in the very highest degree, with the gifts of second sight, of inspiration, intuition, and divination.

When public opinion appealed to the Druids to give their views on this claim, they admitted, according to the statement of Tacitus, that women had something more instinctive and more divine in them than men, nay, even than horses. Their sensitive organization predisposed them to receive the gift of prophecy, and hence “women indeed act more readily from natural impulse, without reflection, than from thought or reason.”

This last explanation, improper in the highest degree, does not come from Tacitus, nor from myself, God forbid! It is the exclusive property of the aforementioned Mr. Simon Pelloutier. Let every one be responsible for his own work!

The Druids treated the women just as they had treated the horses, the mistletoe, and the trees. They acknowledged as true prophetesses only those who were already under the direct influence of the holy place and the sacred oak; that is to say, their wives and their daughters.

The principle of centralization of power is evidently not of modern origin.