garment or covered with a veil, and drawn out by chance, through
which means, it was supposed, the will of heaven was made known.

From various sources of information we know that the Druids had
recourse to sortilege by fire. It was customary for a nobleman to take
the entrails of a sacrificed animal in his hands, to walk barefooted
three times through the embers of an expiring fire, and then carry
them to a Druid performing at the altar. If the nobleman escaped
unhurt, it was reckoned a good omen, but if injured, it was deemed
unlucky to the country and himself. When a victim was put to death by
the sword, the Druids who investigated the deed, pretended to discover
future events by the manner in which he fell, the flavouring of the
reeking blood, and the quivering of the body in the agonies of death.

The wonder-working eggs possessed by the Druids were insignia of a
sacred character, set in gold, and worn suspended from the neck.

The Rev. John B. Pratt, in his work on the Druids, says: "These eggs
were wholly artificial. Some of them were blue, some white, a third
sort green, and a fourth regularly variegated with all these colours.
They are said to have been worn by different orders--the white by the
Druids; the blue by the presiding bards; the green by the Vains; and
those with the three colours blended were pendants of the disciples.
That the secret of manufacturing these amulets was totally unknown in
Britain, except to the Druids, is thought most probable; and the
secret of discovering things by looking into a globule of ink, which,
it is asserted by some, the Egyptian jugglers still possess, may be a
remnant of the ancient sortilege by means of the Druid's egg."
Probably the coloured eggs children play with at Easter were anciently
intended to represent the Druidical eggs.

Mr. Pratt concludes, that if it be true that the Druids came from the
East, and that the traces of their existence there run back, as some
suppose, into the remotest antiquity, "it is not altogether
preposterous," he continues, "to suppose that their origin is to be
dated from the dispersion at Babel.... Balaam, the Eastern magician,
was probably the Arch-Druid of the mountainous country in which he
lived. The offerings he made were at the high places of Baal, and for
the purpose of enchantments, although he was not ignorant of the Most
High.... The magi, or wise men of the East, probably were Druids, who,
from their knowledge of astrono