The Mysteries of All Nations: Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together with Strange Customs, Fables, and TalesGrant, James (Archaeologist)
History
The Mysteries of All Nations: Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together with Strange Customs, Fables, and Tales
Grant, James (Archaeologist)
Occultism; Superstition; Trials (Witchcraft)
In Druidical times there were rocking stones, or stones of judgment.
They were large, some of them weighing fifty tons, and having sharp
edges, on which they stood nicely balanced. A rocking stone of
judgment, says Mr. Rust, "had been intended to test difficult
questions, which could not be proved, disproved, or solved in the
ordinary way, or for want of evidence, or which required the divine
interposition of some particular deity, likely a bloodthirsty one; for
as they had different deities, different temples, and different
altars, they had also different judgment stones attached to them, and
different ordeals through which the tried individuals, whether
devotees, criminals, or captives, had to pass. These judgment stones
had been anciently very common." According to the number of times a
stone oscillated or refused to oscillate, the Druids determined to
convict or acquit the suspected person.
Of the misletoe, and the esteem in which it was held by the Druids, we
have written in page 127. This parasitical plant was regarded as a
charm of no ordinary virtue. But the misletoe was only one of many
articles they had possessing occult virtue.
Glass rings, manufactured by Druidical priests, were worn by the
ancient Britons, as preventatives against witchcraft and the
machinations of evil spirits.
A ridiculous legend is told concerning Stonehenge, the supposed
Druidical temple near Salisbury. Aurelianus Ambrosius, a famous
general of the ancient Britons, of Roman extraction, was, at the
request of the Britons, sent over with ten thousand men to assist them
against the Saxons, whom Vortigern had invited into Britain. Ambrosius
had such successes against the Saxons that the Britons chose him for
their king, and compelled Vortigern to give up to him all the western
parts of the kingdom divided by the Roman highway, called Watling
Street. Ultimately Ambrosius became sole monarch of Britain. Geoffrey
says that this monarch built Stonehenge. Ambrosius, we are told,
coming to a monastery where lay buried three hundred British lords who
had been massacred by Hengist, resolved to perpetuate the memory of
this action by raising a monument over their remains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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