Dio Chrysostom alleges that kings were ministers of the Druids, and could do nothing without them.994 This agrees on the whole with the witness of Irish texts. Druids always accompany the king, and have great influence over him. According to a passage in the Táin, "the men of Ulster must not speak before the king, the king must not speak before his Druid," and even Conchobar was silent until the Druid Cathbad had spoken.995 This power, resembling that of many other priesthoods, must have helped to balance that of the warrior class, and it is the more credible when we recall the fact that the Druids claimed to have made the universe.996 The priest-kingship may have been an old Celtic institution, and this would explain why, once the offices were separated, priests had or claimed so much political power.
That political power must have been enhanced by their position as teachers, and it is safe to say that submission to their powers was inculcated by them. Both in Gaul and in Ireland they taught others than those who intended to become Druids.997 As has been seen, their teachings were not written down, but transmitted orally. They taught immortality, believing that thus men would be roused to valour, buttressing patriotism with dogma. They also imparted "many things regarding the stars and their motions, the extent of the universe and the earth, the nature of things, and the power and might of the immortal gods." Strabo also speaks of their teaching in moral science.998 As has been seen, it is easy to exaggerate all this. Their astronomy was probably of a humble kind and mingled with astrology; their natural philosophy a mass of cosmogonic myths and speculations; their theology was rather mythology; their moral philosophy a series of maxims such as are found in all barbaric communities. Their medical lore, to judge from what Pliny says, was largely magical. Some Druids, e.g. in the south of Gaul, may have had access to classical learning, and Cæsar speaks of the use of Greek characters among them. This could hardly have been general, and in any case must have superseded the use of a native script, to which the use of ogams in Ireland, and perhaps also in Gaul, was supplementary. The Irish Druids may have had written books, for King Loegaire desired that S. Patrick's books and those of the Druids should be submitted to the ordeal by water as a test of their owners' claims.999
In religious affairs the Druids were supreme, since they alone "knew the gods and divinities of heaven."1000 They superintended and arranged all rites and attended to "public and private sacrifices," and "no sacrifice was complete without the intervention of a Druid."1001 The dark and cruel rites of the Druids struck the Romans with horror, and they form a curious contrast to their alleged "philosophy." They used divination and had regular formulæ of incantation as well as ritual acts by which they looked into the future.1002 Before all matters of importance, especially before warlike expeditions, their advice was sought because they could scan the future.
Name-giving and a species of baptism were performed by the Druids or on their initiative. Many examples of this occur in Irish texts, thus of Conall Cernach it is said, "Druids came to baptize the child into heathenism, and they sang the heathen baptism (baithis geintlídhe) over the little child", and of Ailill that he was "baptized in Druidic streams".1003 In Welsh story we read that Gwri was "baptized with the baptism which was usual at that time".1004 Similar illustrations are common at name-giving among many races,1005 and it is probable that the custom in the Hebrides of the midwife dropping three drops of water on the child in Nomine and giving it a temporary name, is a survival of this practice. The regular baptism takes place later, but this preliminary rite keeps off fairies and ensures burial in consecrated ground, just as the pagan rite was protective and admitted to the tribal privileges.1006
In the burial rites, which in Ireland consisted of a lament, sacrifices, and raising a stone inscribed with ogams over the grave, Druids took part. The Druid Dergdamsa pronounced a discourse over the Ossianic hero Mag-neid, buried him with his arms, and chanted a rune. The ogam inscription would also be of Druidic composition, and as no sacrifice was complete without the intervention of Druids, they must also have assisted at the lavish sacrifices which occurred at Celtic funerals.
Pliny's words, "the Druids and that race of prophets and doctors", suggest that the medical art may have been in the hands of a special class of Druids though all may have had a smattering of it. It was mainly concerned with the use of herbs, and was mixed up with magical rites, which may have been regarded as of more importance than the actual medicines used.1007 In Ireland Druids also practised the healing art. Thus when Cúchulainn was ill, Emer said, "If it had been Fergus, Cúchulainn would have taken no rest till he had found a Druid able to discover the cause of that illness."1008 But other persons, not referred to as Druids, are mentioned as healers, one of them a woman, perhaps a reminiscence of the time when the art was practised by women.1009 These healers may, however, have been attached to the Druidic corporation in much the same way as were the bards.
Still more important were the magical powers of the Druids—giving or withholding sunshine or rain, causing storms, making women and cattle fruitful, using spells, rhyming to death, exercising shape-shifting and invisibility, and producing a magic sleep, possibly hypnotic. They were also in request as poisoners.1010 Since the Gauls went to Britain to perfect themselves in Druidic science, it is possible that the insular Druids were more devoted to magic than those of Gaul, but since the latter are said to have "tamed the people as wild beasts are tamed", it is obvious that this refers to their powers as magicians rather than to any recondite philosophy possessed by them. Yet they were clear-sighted enough to use every means by which they might gain political power, and some of them may have been open to the influence of classical learning even before the Roman invasion. In the next chapter the magic of the Druids will be described in detail.
The Druids, both in Gaul (at the mistletoe rite) and in Ireland, were dressed in white, but Strabo speaks of their scarlet and gold embroidered robes, their golden necklets and bracelets.1011 Again, the chief Druid of the king of Erin wore a coloured cloak and had earrings of gold, and in another instance a Druid wears a bull's hide and a white-speckled bird headpiece with fluttering wings.1012