There appears nothing, however, that I am aware of, to connect the druids in Ireland with human sacrifice, although such sacrifice appears to have been offered. The druids, however, appear to have had private idols of their own. We find a very minute account in the tenth-century glossary of King Cormac as to how a poet performed incantations with his idols. The word "poet" is here apparently equivalent to druid, as the word "druid" like the Latin _vates_ is frequently a synonym for "poet." Here is how the glossary explains the incantation called _Imbas Forosnai_:-- "This," says the ancient lexicographer, "describes to the poet whatsoever thing he wishes to discover,[2] and this is the manner in which it is performed. The poet chews a bit of the raw red flesh of a pig, a dog, or a cat, and then retires with it to his own bed behind the door,[3] where he pronounces an oration over it and offers it to his _idol gods_. He then _invokes the idols_, and if he has not received the illumination before the next day, he pronounces incantations upon his two palms and takes his idol gods unto him [into his bed] in order that he may not be interrupted in his sleep. He then places his two hands upon his two cheeks and falls asleep. He is then watched so that he be not stirred nor interrupted by any one until everything that he seeks be revealed to him at the end of a _nomad_,[4] or two or three, or as long as he continues at his offering, and hence it is that this ceremony is called Imbas, that is, the two hands upon him crosswise, that is, a hand over and a hand hither upon his cheeks. And St. Patrick prohibited this ceremony, because it is a species of Teinm Laeghdha,[5] that is, he declared that any one who performed it should have no place in heaven or on earth."