form; the chief one was of gold, the others of stone. These
were miraculously overthrown by S. Patrick; but in the account of the
miracle the chief idol was of stone adorned with gold and silver, the
others, numbering twelve, were ornamented with bronze.[979] They stood
in Mag Slecht, and similar sacred places with groups of images evidently
existed elsewhere, e.g. at Rath Archaill, "where the Druid's altars and
images are."[980] The lady Cessair, before coming to Ireland, is said to
have taken advice of her _laimh-dhia_, or "hand gods," perhaps small
images used for divination.[981]

For the British Celts the evidence is slender, but idolatry in the sense
of "image-worship" is frequently mentioned in the lives of early
saints.[982] Gildas also speaks of images "mouldering away within and
without the deserted temples, with stiff and deformed features."[983]
This pathetic picture of the forsaken shrines of forgotten gods may
refer to Romano-Celtic images, but the "stiff and deformed features"
suggest rather native art, the art of a people unskilful at reproducing
the human form, however artistic they may have been in other directions.

If the native Celts of Ireland had images, there is no reason to
suppose, especially considering the evidence just adduced, that the
Gauls, or at least the Druids, were antagonistic to images. This last is
M. Reinach's theory, part of a wider hypothesis that the Druids were
pre-Celtic, but became the priests of the Celts, who till then had no
priests. The Druids prohibited image-worship, and this prohibition
existed in Gaul, _ex hypothesi_, from the end of palaeolithic times.
Pythagoras and his school were opposed to image-worship, and the
classical writers claimed a connection between the Pythagoreans and the
Druids. M. Reinach thinks there must have been some analogy between
them, and that was hostility to anthropomorphism. But the analogy is
distinctly stated to have lain in the doctrine of immortality or
metempsychosis. Had the Druids been opposed to image-worship, classical
observers could not have failed to notice the fact. M. Reinach then
argues that the Druids caused the erection of the megalithic monuments
in Gaul, symbols not images. They are thus Druidic, though not Celtic.
The monuments argue a powerful priesthood; the Druids were a powerful
priesthood; therefore the Druids caused the monuments to be built. This
is not a powerful argument![984]

As has been seen, some purely