"By the bright circle of the golden sun,
By the bright courses of the errant moon,
By the dread potency of every star,
In the mysterious Zodiac's burning girth,
By each and all of these supernal signs,
We do adjure thee, with this trusty blade
To guard yon central oak, whose holy stem,
Involves the spirit of high Taranis:
Be this thy charge."-MASON
DEDICATION.
TO EMILY***.
As those presents are always the most fashionable, and sometimes the
most valued, which cannot be used, I give you this book, which you will
not be able to read, but which, perhaps, you will kindly preserve in memory
of its writer.
An author can pay no higher compliment to a friend than to dedicate
to her a work upon which he has spent much labor and anxiety. This effort
of a young man to redeem a mistake, perhaps a fault, in his literary life,
deserves to be sealed with your name, for it is you who have repeatedly
urged him to the task, and presided over it like a guardian angel, with
kind and consoling words.
CONTENTS.
BOOK THE FIRST.
DARKNESS.
BOOK THE SECOND.
ABORIGINES.
I.-Albion
II.-Britain
III.-Analysis
IV.-Description
BOOK THE THIRD.
THE DRUIDS.
I.-Origin
II.-Power
III.-The Derwydd, or Philosophers
IV.-The Bardd, or Musicians
V.-The Ovades, or Noviciates
VI.-Rites and Ceremonies
VII. -Priestesses
BOOK THE FOURTH.
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE DRUIDS.
BOOK THE FIFTH.
VESTIGES OF DRUIDISM.
I.-In the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome
II.-In the Emblems of Freemasonry
III.-In Rustic Folk-Lore
