Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/27

Rh Cæsar, "the Druids are not accustomed to take part in battle, nor do they pay taxes with other people. They are exempt from military service and everything they have is immune. Roused by the certainty of such privileges many congregate to their course of life of their own will, or are sent there by their kinsfolk and neighbours. They are said to learn a great number of verses, and some remain in their course as long as twenty years, nor do they think it right to commit these things to writing, although in other business both private and public they make use of Greek letters." Cæsar guessed that they did this because they wanted to keep their lore secret, and also because they wanted to assure good memories in their pupils. But this is merely his rationalistic theory. He goes on to say the Druids taught that souls do not perish, but after death pass from one set of persons to another; and this," says he, "they think a great incital to righteousness, seeing that the fear of death is put away. Besides this, they hold much reasoning over the stars and their motions, over the universe and the size of various countries, over the beginning of things, the power and the rule of the gods that die not, and all this they deliver, or hand on, to the youth they teach." Here we have a regular pagan university, in which by memorial verse during a course of many years a whole