ruids,[1065] which may have
denoted servitude to the gods, as it was customary for a warrior to vow
his hair to a divinity if victory was granted him. Similarly the Druid's
hair would be presented to the gods, and the tonsure would mark their
minister.

Some writers have tried to draw a distinction between the Druids of Gaul
and of Ireland, especially in the matter of their priestly
functions.[1066] But, while a few passages in Irish texts do suggest
that the Irish Druids were priests taking part in sacrifices, etc.,
nearly all passages relating to cult or ritual seem to have been
deliberately suppressed. Hence the Druids appear rather as magicians--a
natural result, since, once the people became Christian, the priestly
character of the Druids would tend to be lost sight of. Like the Druids
of Gaul, they were teachers and took part in political affairs, and this
shows that they were more than mere magicians. In Irish texts the word
"Druid" is somewhat loosely used and is applied to kings and poets,
perhaps because they had been pupils of the Druids. But it is impossible
to doubt that the Druids in Ireland fulfilled functions of a public
priesthood. They appear in connection with all the colonies which came
to Erin, the annalists regarding the priests or medicine-men of
different races as Druids, through lack of historic perspective. But one
fact shows that they were priests of the Celtic religion in Ireland. The
euhemerised Tuatha De Danann are masters of Druidic lore. Thus both the
gods and the priests who served them were confused by later writers. The
opposition of Christian missionaries to the Druids shows that they were
priests; if they were not, it remains to be discovered what body of men
did exercise priestly functions in pagan Ireland. In Ireland their
judicial functions may have been less important than in Gaul, and they
may not have been so strictly organised; but here we are in the region
of conjecture. They were exempt from military service in Gaul, and many
joined their ranks on this account, but in Ireland they were "bonny
fechters," just as in Gaul they occasionally fought like mediaeval
bishops.[1067] In both countries they were present on the field of
battle to perform the necessary religious or magical rites.

Since the Druids were an organised priesthood, with powers of teaching
and of magic implicitly believed in by the folk, possessing the key of
the other-world, and dominating the whole field of