Druids performed wicker-man rites of human sacrifice, says Lewis Spence, the author of "The Druids: Their Origin and History", pp. 104-105, Barnes and Noble Books, NY, 1949, as here quoted:

"Certain writers on Celtic history have indignantly denied that the Druidic caste ever practised the horrible rite of human sacrifice. There is no question, however, that practice it they did. Tacitus alludes to the fact that the Druids of Anglesea 'covered their altars with the blood of captives.' If the words of Caesar are to be credited, human sacrifice was a frequent and common element in their religious preocedure. He tells us that no sacrifice might be carried out except in the presence of a Druid. Those persons who suffered from painful diseases, or who found themselves in danger of their lives in the day of battle, made a vow that were their sufferings mitigated or their lives spared, they would sacrifice a human victim to the gods, making the Druids performers of these sacrifices. To this Cicero refers in his oration for Fonteius as to a well-known fact, and the reader may be reminded that he had personally known AEduan Druid Divitiacus, who had indeed been the guest of his brother Quintus Cicero. Ceasar adds that it was thought essential that the life of one man must be offered up to save another, and many illustrations of this practice are to be found in British folklore. In 1590, for example, Hector Munro, Baron of Fowlis, who was sick, was informed by a witch that 'the principal man of his blood must die for him.'

It is in this same passage in his Commentaries that Caesar introduces the famous topic of the huge wicker-work images in which the Druids were said to burn scores of people alive. 'Others,' he says, 'have figures of vast size, the limbs of which, formed of osiers, they fill with living men, which being set on fire, the men perish enveloped in the flames.' Victims, he tells us, were mostly criminals, who were more pleasing to the gods, although when such were scarce the innocent were victimized in thier places. Strabo avers that the greater the number of criminals sacrificed, the greater the yeild from the land. In a later passage Strabo tells us that the Druids, 'having devised a collosus of straw and wood, throw into the colossus cattle and wild animals and human beings, and then make a burnt-offering of the whole."

Lewis Spence, the author of "Druids: Their Origin and History", then goes on to tell us that these sacrifices were held at spring during the festival of Beallteinn, i.e., Beltane, on May 1st., and that they were thought to have a definate effect on the fertility of the soil. In Beltane rituals, "human victims were passed through the fire in order that they might furnish the sun-god with renewed power to carry on his arduous labours in respect of growth and fertility, as in ancient Mexico, where human sacrifice was believed to refresh the solar, rain, and maize-gods." He tells us that similar May-day rites were practiced in nearly all parts of Europe. We are likewise informed by Keating that the Irish Druids on the eve of Samhain burned their victims in the holy fire. (History of Ireland, Vol. II, pp. 133, 247, 251)

Here, in another report of Druid ritual sacrifice, Hisslop, a vehemenently anti-Catholic Protestant writer, testifies of the historically well-documented fact that the Druid priests in Europe performed human sacrifice & partook in canibalism ("The Two Babylons", Hislop, page 231, 234):

There is reason to believe that the same practice obtained in our own land in the times of the Druids. We know that they offered human sacrifices to their bloody gods. We have evidence that they made "their children pass through the fire to Moloch," and that makes it highly probable that they also offered them in sacrifice; for, from Jeremiah xxxii. 35, compared with Jeremiah xix. 5, we find that these two things were parts of one and the same system. The god whom the Druids worshiped was Baal, as the blazing Baal-fires show, and the last-cited passage proves that children were offered in sacrifice to Baal. When "fruit of the body" was thus offered, it was "for the sin of the soul." And it was a principle of the Mosaic law, a principle no doubt derived from the patriarchal faith, that the priest must partake of whatever was offered in a sin offering (Numbers xviii. 9,10). Hence, the priests of Nimrod or Baal were necessarily required to eat of the human sacrifices; and thus it has come to pass that "Cahna-Bal," * the "Priest of Baal," is the established word in our own tongue for a devourer of human flesh.

The Druids considered HALLOWEEN to be one of the highest festivals of the year. Samhain, named after Saman, who was god of the dead, was the "holy day" celebrated as the Feast of the Dead. The worshiped the sun god with names like Bel (Ba'al?) or Chrom (Chronos?) on October 31. They believed that he died and went into the kingdom of the dead, Anwynn. They kept the day sacred to insure their god's return. Even witches admit this involved human sacrifice. Human blood opened up the gates of Anwynn and released the spirits for a night, thus October 31 came to be associated with ghosts. Samhain is still celebrated by Pagans and is the most solemn ceremeony on their calender."

Sun worship that entailed human sacrifice seems to have been practised by many cultures on many continents, including the Middle East, as recorded in the Bible; Europe, as recorded by Ceaser and Cicero, among others--both in the mainland and in England; South America, by the Mayans, according to Carl Raschke, in his book "Painted Black", and in Mexico, by the Aztecs, as recorded by the Spanish Conquistadors. The record of archaeology also attests to this fact, as does a plethora of other historical data, which leads to the question as to to how or why these diverse cultures on seperate continents, often without any known means of communicating, arrived at a form of worship that can only be described, if one wishes to be true to the horrific facts of the matter, as demonic?

Perhaps one clue is given by Christopher Knight, a Freemason, in his book "Solomon's Builders", where he quotes at length from a 1607, AD, Masonic document known as "The Inigo Jones Manuscript", and concludes:

"The document goes on to recount the passage of this great knowledge from the time of the Flood onwards and describes the building of King Solomon's Temple by Hiram Abif. It continues by telling the story of the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple by Zerubbabel and again by Herod. Jones also claims that Masons from Jerusalem travelled to Glastonbury in England in the year AD43." ("Solomon's Builders", page 191, by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler)