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–Druid: Hist. A lot has been discussed about the etymology of the word druida. The
etymologists have attended until to the Hebrew Dictionaries to see if on them they could
something to give any idea of it. The name Druid is an apellative as the main body of the radical
sustantives of all the languages. In Gaulish language draoi or druidas means soothsayer, augur,
magician, and druidheatch prophecy and magic. It has been said as well that this word comes
from the Greek voice δρυς which means holm oak, because they dwelled and taught their
doctrines in the forests, and because, as Pliny the Elder says, they didn’t do sacrifices but at the
feet of a holm oak; but this etymology, even having the reason of the antiquity on its favour,
due to is from the time of Pliny, not for that reason it stop being purely whimsical, because is
not so natural that the Druids were going to take their name from a foreign voice. Others
sustain that the word druida comes from the Britanic voice dru or drew, which means holm oak
too, and that this comes from the Greek voice δρυς. From the many oriental etymologies that
have been presented the most acceptable seems to be the Sanskrit form druwidh, which means
poor indigent, because the Druids, as the Priests of all the nations, had to do vows of poverty.
The arguments in favour of the oriental origin of the Druids are very worthy to be
attended, because it has been accepted by many writters of the antiquity, but not for other
reasons.Diogenes Laërtius and Aristotle put the Druids and the Chadeans next to the Persian
magicians and the Indians, opinion that they share with a great number of writers. The divinity
of the Brahamins has a great similitude with the Druidic divinity. The importance that the
Druids conceded to the oxen is another singular coincidence; the Druidic mysteries have also
great analogy with the mysteries of the India. In the magic wand of the Druids is appreciated
the sacred stick of the Brahamins. Both had the same consecrated objects: they used tiaras of
colth, and the symbolic circle of Brahma, as the half-moon, symbol of Shiva, were Druidic
ornaments. Great were also the analogies between the idea that the Druids had of a Supreme
Being and which is found in the sacred works of the India; so it not seems very adventurous to
suppose relations amongst the Druids and Indian and Persian priests.
According the Caesar, in his work De Bello Gallico, in whose VI book he treats about the
uses and mores of the Gauls and Germans, the Druidic science was invented in Great Britain
and thence to the Gaul. Althought is evident that the Gauls were dwelled before than Britain
and Ireland, is, in rigor, possible that the hierarchic organization of the body of Druids and the
system of its doctrine was invented in Britain. However, is it more credible that many Druidic
schools existed in the Continent and in the isles, and that one or some of the Britain’s enjoyed
of major celebrity for being more complete the instruction that was imparted therein. In fact,
Caesar does not say that all those who wanted to enter in the clase of the Druids were obeyed
to go and study in Britain, but there went those who were obeyed to receive a more complete
education. A new proof that the Britain was not the main centre of the Druidic organization, is
that their general assemblies were celebrated in a consecrated forest, in the country of the
Carnutes, which was considered as the centre of the Gaul. It has been believed that this forest
was in the environs of Dreux, and that this city took its name from the Druids; but his not
passes to be a supposition, because the name of Dreux (Duro-Cath or Caz) means a fort nearby
a river.
In the already quoted book De Bello Gallico, Caesar says that all their men belonged to
the elevated classes of the Gaul, figured, already within the nobles, already whitin the Druids.
They were in charge of the religious direction of the people, as for the main interpreters and

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