(_nemeton_), its
likeness to the annual Druidic gathering in Gaul, and the possibility
that _Dru_- has some connection with the name "Druid," point to a
religious as well as political aspect of this council. The "tetrarchs"
may have been a kind of priest-kings; they had the kingly prerogative of
acting as judges as had the Druids of Gaul. The wife of one of them was
a priestess,[524] the office being hereditary in her family, and it may
have been necessary that her husband should also be a priest. One
tetrarch, Deiotarus, "divine bull," was skilled in augury, and the
priest-kingship of Pessinus was conferred on certain Celts in the second
century B.C., as if the double office were already a Celtic
institution.[525] Mythic Celtic kings consulted the gods without any
priestly intervention, and Queen Boudicca had priestly functions.[526]
Without giving these hints undue emphasis, we may suppose that the
differentiation of the two offices would not be simultaneous over the
Celtic area. But when it did take effect priests would probably lay
claim to the prerogatives of the priest-king as incarnate god. Kings
were not likely to give these up, and where they retained them priests
would be content with seeing that the tabus and ritual and the slaying
of the mock king were duly observed. Irish kings were perhaps still
regarded as gods, though certain Druids may have been divine priests,
since they called themselves creators of the universe, and both
continental and Irish Druids claimed superiority to kings. Further, the
name [Greek: semnotheoi], applied along with the name "Druids" to Celtic
priests, though its meaning is obscure, points to divine pretensions on
their part.[527]

The incarnate god was probably representative of a god or spirit of
earth, growth, or vegetation, represented also by a tree. A symbolic
branch of such a tree was borne by kings, and perhaps by Druids, who
used oak branches in their rites.[528] King and tree would be connected,
the king's life being bound up with that of the tree, and perhaps at one
time both perished together. But as kings were represented by a
substitute, so the sacred tree, regarded as too sacred to be cut down,
may also have had its _succedaneum_. The Irish _bile_ or sacred tree,
connected with the kings, must not be touched by any impious hand, and
it was sacrilege to cut it down.[529] Probably before cutting down the
tree a branch or something growing upon it, e.g. mistletoe, had