The first reference
Great Britain in European annals
which we know was the statement in the fifth century B. C. of the Greek historian Herodotus, that Phoenician sailors went to the British Isles
tin. He called them the "Tin Islands." The people
whom these sailors traded must have been Celts, for they were the first inhabitants
Britain who worked in metal instead
stone. The Druids were priests of the Celts centuries before Christ came. There is a tradition
Ireland that they first arrived there
270 B. C., seven hundred years before St. Patrick. The account of them written
Julius Cæsar half a century before Christ speaks mainly of the Celts of Gaul, dividing them
two ruling classes who kept the people almost in a state
slavery; the knights, who waged war, and the Druids who had charge of worship and sacrifices, and were
addition physicians, historians, teachers, scientists, and judges.
An excerpt from "The Book of Hallowe'en" by Ruth Edna Kelley
