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In The Adventures of Cormac in the Promised Land, ten famous hordes are listed, the main ones of which are described in an exhaustive way. So, the collar of Morann choked the one who put it on if he made an unfair decision in court and, on the contrary, became wide when the sentence was good. The "cauldron of truth" was: "a silver vessel made of silver and gold, which made it possible to distinguish between truth and falsehood; it was poured with boiling water and the defendant's hand was immersed in it. If he was guilty, his hand was scalded. If there was no fault on him, then it did not cause any harm. For the Gentiles trusted three things most of all: the cauldron of righteousness, the tree, and the touching of the altar."
The technique of using the "iron of Lukhta" is very similar: "Lukhta the druid went to study in Brittany (Armorican). There he saw a strange thing that made it possible to distinguish truth from lies: a piece of iron, consecrated by the Druids, was kept on fire until it turns red, and they put it on the palm of the defendant. If the defendant was guilty, then the iron burned him. If not, it didn't harm him. Luchta told the Brittans: "We, the people of Ireland, need this to distinguish the truth from the false." And he took with him this sacred piece of iron, which began to help distinguish the true from the false. That is why the Irish always rule with iron … ". [352 - Windisoh, Ir. Texte, III, 192-193.]
Ordals are the same as "God's judgment"; hordes - judgment by trial by fire and water. Ordals are considered one of the types of archaic law, for the first time such tests were mentioned in the laws of Hammurabi.
Ordalia with the help of a tree, or “throwing the tree of Sina, son of Aige,” is notable for its unusualness: “Three pieces of wood were thrown into the water: the master's tree, the ollam's tree and the accused's tree. If this latter was guilty, then his piece of wood sank in the water to the bottom. If innocent, - he remained on the surface.”[353 - See present. ed. p. 149, 200.]
The Gauls sometimes used ravens in their hordes: “But the next story of Artemidor about ravens is even more fantastic. “There is,” he says, “some kind of harbor on the ocean coast, called“Two Crows”; there appear two crows with a whitish right wing; people who have an argument about something come here, put a board on a high place and then throw pieces of barley cake there, and they do it each separately; birds arrive and peck part of the cake, scatter the other; the person whose barley cake is scattered wins the case.”[354 - Strabo, IV, 4 - Per. G. A. Stratanovsky.]
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Druid's fence. Dedication to God
It happened that with the help of magic, more often negative than positive, the druid created an impenetrable fence: "Fraekhan, the son of Tennis-san, made the druid's fence for Diarmite, and Tuatan, the son of Diman, erected the druid's fence." [355 - O'Conor, Rerum hibernicarum scriptores, II, 142.]
After the destruction of this magical fence, Diarmite's army was defeated. [356 - Rev. Celt, 17, 143-144, see above.]
It also happened that the druid agreed to turn into a cow, and when the enemy sacrificed this cow, the druid's side won. [357 - Anecdota from Irish Manuscripts, I, 23, 7.]
Celtic Druids. Book by Françoise Leroux
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