Page:The child's pictorial history of England; (IA childspictorialh00corn).pdf/17

 and other weapons, were hung round the insides of their huts.

16. The Britons were not quite ignorant of the art of working in metals; for there was a class of men living among them who understood many useful arts, and were learned, too, for those times, although they did not communicate their learning to the rest of the people.

17. These men were the Druids, or priests, who had much more authority than the chiefs, because they were so much cleverer; therefore the people minded what they said.

18. They made all the laws, and held courts of justice in the open air, when they must have made a very venerable appearance, seated in a circle on stones, dressed in long white woollen robes, with wands in their hands, and long beards descending below their girdles.

19. The ignorant people believed they were magicians, for they knew something of astronomy, and of the medicinal qualities of plants and herbs, with which they made medicines to give the sick, who always thought they were cured by magic.

20. Some of the Druids were bards, that is poets, and musicians; others taught young men to become Druids; and some of them made a