CHAPTER X.
[Gothic: The Religion of Ancient Erinn]--The Druids and their Teaching--The Irish were probably Fire-worshippers--[Gothic: The Customs of Ancient Erinn]--Similarity between Eastern and Irish Customs--Beal Fires--Hunting the Wren--"Jacks," a Grecian game--"Keen," an Eastern Custom--Superstitions--The Meaning of the Word--What Customs are Superstitious and what are not--Holy Wells--[Gothic: The Laws of Ancient Erinn]--Different kinds of Laws--The Lex non Scripta and the Lex Scripta--Christianity necessitated the Revision of Ancient Codes--The Compilation of the Brehon Laws--Proofs that St.Patrick assisted thereat--Law of Distress--Law of Succession--[Gothic: The Language of Ancient Erinn]--Writing in pre-Christian Erinn--Ogham Writing--[Gothic: Antiquities of pre-Christian Erinn]--Round Towers--Cromlechs--Raths--Crannoges.
Eastern customs and eastern superstitions, which undoubtedly are a strong confirmatory proof of our eastern origin, abounded in ancient Erinn.

Druidism was the religion of the Celts, and druidism was probably one of the least corrupt forms of paganism.

The purity of the divinely-taught patriarchal worship, became more and more corrupted as it passed through defiled channels.

Yet, in all pagan mythologies, we find traces of the eternal verity in an obvious prominence of cultus offered to one god above the rest; and obvious, though grossly misapplied, glimpses of divine attributes, in the many deified objects which seemed to symbolize his power and his omnipotence.
The Celtic druids probably taught the same doctrine as the Greek philosophers.

The metempsychosis, a prominent article of this creed, may have been derived from the Pythagoreans, but more probably it was one of the many relics of patriarchal belief which were engrafted on all pagan religions.