There is a great lack of evidence of the Druids practices, we have a lot of propaganda left from various historical sources, Ceasar, Strabo, etc. One must take the historical evidence with a grain of salt--remember the conqueror writes the tale. There is very little archeological evidence that the Celts/Druids used human sacrificial rites--there could be numerous reasons for this-but the most likely (imo) is that they were not practising human sacrifices in a relgious setting--remember these people revered life. Now, on the other-hand, we do know that the Romans did practice human sacrifices as well as animal sacrifices, but to the Romans human life was not nearly as precious, they had an abundant source--overpopulation breeds contempt for life-but to the Celts (the druids were a part of the Celtic hierarchy) life was precious and meaningful-and from what I can recall of the Irish Brehon laws--death was a severe punishment, not a religious sacrificial rite. Perhaps earlier in their cultural development they did human sacrifices to appease the gods/godesses of nature--all cultures went through some sort of elemental ritual sacrifice to bring forth good crops, etc. I believe the Celts were among the first to repudiate human sacrifice. We have the propaganda of Ceasar and the Wicker Man, where the Celts allegedly burned victims alive--but did Ceasar really know if these 'victims' were criminals or prisoners of war being punished--probably not--the differences between the Celtic language and Latin were too vast for Ceasar to comprehend--even with an interpreter--there are lots of Celtic colloquialisms that could not be translated into Latin and vice versa, besides--the Celts had silver mines, and the Romans were greedy, they needed more land, more money, etc. And the Celts provided an easy means to that end in their being conquered by Rome.

Damian--from my own memory banks