SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Celtic and Germanic Religion 123
aspirations of the priestly class, we must ask how an
older and more powerful priesthood was curtailed and
we should like to know what the starting-point of this
development was.
I am coming to the end of my considerations. I have
tried to give you some solid facts and to build upon them
a picture of the Celtic religion. I must avow that my
reconstruction may be after all a frail hypothesis, but I
flatter myself with the belief that it has still rather firm
foundations. But above all I would like to urge the
necessity of prolonged and minute investigation into the
essence of this pagan religion. We ought not to be
despondent about the results of studies of this kind. On
the contrary I nourish the hope that my small contribution,
which I have the honour to deliver before an
audience of British students, may have aroused in the
minds of some of you the wish to devote their time and
their intellect to a problem which has the merit of a high
scholarly value. We must never forget that in archaic
civilizations religion is the very core of all human
aspirations and activities.