ôᵭ by the presiding druid as he is called; afterwards he goes on to admit to degrees the candidates recommended by persons technically competent to do so. When all the business is over, the company goes in a procession to the building fixed for holding the Eisteᵭvod, which it is necessary to have announced at a gorseᵭ held a year at least previously. As regards the gorseᵭ itself, the rule is "that it be held in a conspicuous place within sight and hearing of the country and the lord in authority, and that it be face to face with the sun and the eye of light, as there is no power to hold a gorseᵭ under cover or at night, but only where and as long as the sun is visible in the heavens."[1] In the absence of documentary evidence bearing on the history of the gorseᵭ, we have to judge of it as we find it, and it is remarkable that everything connected with it seems to suggest that it is but a continuation of a court of which the Celtic Zeus was originally regarded as the spiritual president: witness the circle of stones, the importance attached to the sun and the eye of light, and also the nature of the prayer pronounced by the officiating druid. There are several versions[2] of it, and, though not one of them is
- ↑ The original is printed in the Iolo MSS. p. 50, from the manuscripts of Llewelyn Siôn, who died in the year 1616.
- ↑ Four of these versions are to be found in the Iolo MS. pp. 79, 80, 469-70, and the one breathing the purest pantheism is there ascribed to the ancient poet Talhaearn; it runs thus:
'Oh God! grant strength;
And from strength, discretion;
And from discretion, knowledge;
And from knowledge, the right;
And from the right, the love of it;
And from that love, love for all things;
And in love for all things, the love of God.'
