It would appear probable that the religion of the Druids passed from Ireland to England and France.  The metempsychosis or transmigration of souls was one of the articles of their belief long before the time of Pythagoras; it had probably been drawn from the storehouse of Atlantis, whence it passed to the Druids, the Greeks, and the Hindoos.  The Druids had a pontifex maximus to whom they yielded entire obedience.  Here again we see a practice which extended to the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Hindoos, Peruvians, and Mexicans.

The Druids of Gaul and Britain offered human sacrifices, while it is claimed that the Irish Druids did not.  This would appear to have been a corrupt after-growth imposed upon the earlier and purer sacrifice of fruits and flowers known in Atlantis, and due in part to greater cruelty and barbarism in their descendants.  Hence we find it practised in degenerate ages on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Irish Druidical rites manifested themselves principally in sun worship.  Their chief god was Bel or Baal—­the same worshipped by the Phoenicians—­the god of the sun.  The Irish name for the sun, Grian, is, according to Virgil, one of the names of Apollo—­another sun-god, Gryneus.  Sun-worship continued in Ireland down to the time of St. Patrick, and some of its customs exist among the peasantry of that country to this day.  We have seen that among the Peruvians, Romans, and other nations, on a certain day all fires were extinguished throughout the kingdom, and a new fire kindled at the chief temple by the sun’s rays, from which the people obtained their fire for the coming year.  In Ireland the same practice was found to exist.  A piece of land was set apart, where the four provinces met, in the present county of Meath; here, at a palace called Tlachta, the divine fire was kindled.  Upon the night of what is now All-Saints-day the Druids assembled at this place to offer sacrifice, and it was established, under heavy penalties, that no fire should be kindled except from this source.  On the first of May a convocation of Druids was held in the royal palace of the King of Connaught, and two fires were lit, between which cattle were driven, as a preventive of murrain and other pestilential disorders.  This was called Beltinne, or the day of Bel’s fire.  And unto this day the Irish call the first day of May “Lha-Beul-tinne,” which signifies “the day of Bel’s fire.”  The celebration in Ireland of St. John’s-eve by watch-fires is a relic of the ancient sun-worship of Atlantis.  The practice of driving cattle through the fire continued for a longtime, and Kelly mentions in his “Folk-lore” that in Northamptonshire, in England, a calf was sacrificed in one of these fires to “stop the murrain” during the present century.  Fires are still lighted in England and Scotland as well as Ireland for superstitious purposes; so that the people of Great Britain, it may be said, are still in some sense in the midst of the ancient sun-worship of Atlantis.