Druid

Druidry or Druidism was the religion of the ancient druids, the priestly class in ancient Celtic and Gaulish societies through much of Western Europe north of the Alps and in the British Isles. Druidic practices were part of the culture of all the tribal peoples called Keltoi and Galatai by Greeks and Celtae and Galli by Romans, cultures we identify by the modern words "Celtic" and "Gaelic".

Modern attempts at reconstructing practising druidism are called Neo-druidism.

From what little we know of late druidic practice it appears deeply traditional, and conservative in the sense that the druids were conserving repositories of culture and lore. It is impossible now to judge whether this continuity had deep historical roots and originated in the social transformations of late La Tene time, or whether there had been a discontinuity and a druidic religious innovation. The etymological origins of the word druid are varied and doubtful enough that the word may be pre Indo-European.

Their influence was as much social as religious. Druids used not only to take the part that modern priests would, but were often the philosophers, scientists, lore-masters, teachers, judges and councillors to the kings. The Druids linked the Celtic peoples with their numerous gods, the lunar calendar and the sacred natural order. With the arrival of Christianity in each area, all these roles were assumed by the bishop and the abbot, who were never the same individual, however, and might find themselves in direct competition.

Our historical knowledge of the druids is very limited. Druidic lore consisted of a large number of verses learned by heart, and we are told that sometimes twenty years were required to complete the course of study. There may have been a Druidic teaching center on Anglesey (Ynys Môn) centred on magical lakes, but what was taught, whether poetry, astronomy or whether possibly even the Greek language, is conjecture. Of their oral literature of sacred songs, formulas for prayers and incantations, rules of divination and magic, not one verse has survived, even in translation, nor is there even a legend that we can call purely druidic, without a Christian overlay or interpretation.

Much traditional rural religious practice can still be discerned beneath Christian interpretation, nevertheless, and survives in practices like Halloween observances, corn dollies and other harvest ritual, the mythology of Puck woodwoses, the melusine, "lucky" and "unlucky" plants and animals and the like. Orally-transmitted material may have exaggeratedly deep origins in antiquity, however, and is constantly subject to influence from surrounding culture.

Roman sources

We find in Caesar's Gallic Wars the first and fullest account of the Druids. Caesar notes that all men of any rank and dignity in Gaul were included either among the Druids or among the nobles, two separate classes. The Druids constituted the learned priestly class, and they were guardians of the unwritten ancient customary law and had the power of executing judgment, of which excommunication from society was the most dreaded. Druids were not a hereditary caste, though they enjoyed exemption from service in the field as well as from payment of taxes. The course of training to which a novice had to submit was protracted. All instruction was communicated orally, but for ordinary purposes, Caesar reports, the Gauls had a written language in which they used the Greek characters. No druidic documents have survived. "The principal point of their doctrine", says Caesar, "is that the soul does not die and that after death it passes from one body into another" (see metempsychosis). This led several ancient writers to the unlikely conclusion that the druids must have been influenced by the teachings of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras. Caesar also notes the druidic sense of the guardian spirit of the tribe, whom he translated as Dispater, with a general sense of "Father Hades.

Writers like Diodorus and Strabo with less firsthand experience than Caesar, were of the opinion that this class included Druids, bards and soothsayers.

Pomponius Mela is the first author who says that their instruction was secret and carried on in caves and forests. We know that certain groves within forests were sacred because Romans and Christians alike cut them down and burned the wood. Human sacrifice is sometimes attributed to druidism; it was an old inheritance in Europe, (although this might be Roman propaganda). The Gauls were accustomed to offer human sacrifices, usually criminals.

Britain was a headquarters of Druidism, but once every year a general assembly of the order was held within the territories of the Carnutes in Gaul.

Cicero remarks on the existence among the Gauls of augurs or soothsayers, known by the name of Druids; he had made the acquaintance of one Divitiacus, an Aeduan. Diodorus informs us that a sacrifice acceptable to the gods must be attended by a Druid, for they are the intermediaries. Before a battle they often throw themselves between two armies to bring about peace.

Druids were seen as essentially non-Roman: a prescript of Augustus forbade Roman citizens to practise druidical rites. In Strabo we find the Druids still acting as arbiters in public and private matters, but they no longer deal with cases of murder. Under Tiberius the Druids were suppressed by a decree of the Senate, but this had to be renewed by Claudius in 54 CE. In Pliny their activity is limited to the practice of medicine and sorcery. According to him, the Druids held the mistletoe in the highest veneration. Groves of oak were their chosen retreat. When thus found, the mistletoe was cut with a golden knife by a priest clad in a white robe, two white bulls being sacrificed on the spot.

Tacitus, in describing the attack made on the island of Mona (Anglesey or Ynys Mon in Welsh) by the Romans under Suetonius Paulinus, represents the legionaries as being awestruck on landing by the appearance of a band of Druids, who, with hands uplifted towards heaven, poured forth terrible imprecations on the heads of the invaders. The courage of the Romans, however, soon overcame such fears; the Britons were put to flight; and the sacred groves of Mona were cut down.

After the 1st century CE, the continental Druids disappeared entirely, and were only referred to on very rare occasions. Ausonius, for instance, apostrophizes the rhetorician Attius Patera as sprung from a race of Druids.

Early Druids in Britain

The story of Vortigern as reported by Nennius is one of the very few glimpses of Druidic survival in Britain after the Roman conquest. After being excommunicated by Germanus, the British leader invites twelve Druids to assist him. In Irish literature, however, the Druids are frequently mentioned, and their functions in the island seem to correspond fairly well to those of Gaul. The functions of Druids we here find distributed amongst Druids, bards and poets, but even in very early times the poet has usurped many of the duties of the Druid (at least to judge from poetry) and finally supplants him with the spread of Christianity.

The most important Irish documents are contained in manuscripts of the 12th century, but the texts themselves go back in large measure to about 700. In the heroic cycles the Druids do not appear to have formed any corporation, nor do they seem to have been exempt from military service. Cathbu (Cathbad), the Druid connected with Conchobar, king of Ulster, in the older cycle is accompanied by a number of youths (100 according to the oldest version) who are desirous of learning his art. The Druids are represented as being able to foretell the future: before setting out on the great expedition against Ulster, Medb, queen of Connaught, goes to consult her Druid, and just before the famous heroine Derdriu (Deirdre) is born, Cathbu prophesies what sort of a woman she will be. Druids also have magical skills: the hero Cuchulinn has returned from the land of the fairies after having been enticed thither by a fairywoman named Fand, whom he is now unable to forget. He is given a potion by some Druids, which banishes all memory of his recent adventures and which also rids his wife Emer of the pangs of jealousy. More remarkable still is the story of Etain. This lady, now the wife of Eochaid Arem, high-king of Ireland, was in a former existence the beloved of the god Mider, who again seeks her love and carries her off. The king has recourse to his Druid Dalgn, who requires a whole year to discover the haunt of the couple. This he accomplished by means of four wands of yew inscribed with ogam characters. The following description of the band of Cathbus Druids occurs in the epic tale, the Táin Bó Cuailnge: The attendant raises his eyes towards heaven and observes the clouds and answers the band around him. They all raise their eyes towards heaven, observe the clouds, and hurl spells against the elements, so that they arouse strife amongst them and clouds of fire are driven towards the camp of the men of Ireland. We are further told that at the court of Conchobar no one had the right to speak before the Druids had spoken. In other texts the Druids are able to produce insanity.

Druidic sites

Sites associated with druidry include:

In Christian literature

In the lives of saints, martyrs and missionaries, the Druids are represented as magicians and diviners opposing the Christian missionaries, though we find two of them acting as tutors to the daughters of Laegaire, the high-king, at the coming of Saint Patrick. They are represented as endeavouring to prevent the progress of Patrick and Saint Columba by raising clouds and mist. Before the battle of Culdremne (561) a Druid made an airbe drtiad (fence of protection?) round one of the armies, but what is precisely meant by the phrase is obscure. The Irish Druids seem to have had a peculiar tonsure. The word drtu is always used to render the Latin magus, and in one passage St Columba speaks of Christ as his Druid.

this account partly depends on information from the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911 and the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908

External link

Encyclopedia of the Celts: "Druids"
John Patrick Parle, "Story of the Celts" A simple introduction.

Late Druidic survivals in Flanders

The people of Flanders and the Low Countries remained pagan as late as the 7th century CE, when Saint Eligius travelled from Antwerp to Friesland, preaching and converting them to Christianity. One of the best glimpses of late Druidic practices comes from the Vita of Eligius written by Ouen, his contemporary and companion. Ouen drew together the familiar admonitions of Eligius to the pagans in Flanders. "It does not represent anything he said in a particular day in order" Ouen cautioned, "but is a digest of the precepts which he taught the people at all times."

Eligius in his sermons denounced "sacrilegious pagan customs." The following excerpted quotes from Ouen's Vita of Eligius are instructive, for the negative description they offer of some late druidic practices in Flanders:

"For no cause or infirmity should you consult magicians, diviners, sorcerers or incantators, or presume to question them."

"Do not observe auguries or violent sneezing or pay attention to any little birds singing along the road. If you are distracted on the road or at any other work, make the sign of the cross and say your Sunday prayers with faith and devotion and nothing inimical can hurt you."

"No Christian should be concerned about which day he leaves home or which day he returns, because God has made all days. No influence attaches to the first work of the day or the [phase of the] moon; nothing is ominous or ridiculous about the Calends of January [what we would call New Year's Day].

"[Do not] make vetulas, (little figures of the Old Woman), little deer or iotticos or set tables [for the house-elf, compare Puck] at night or exchange New Years' gifts or supply superfluous drinks [a Yule custom]."

"No Christian gives credence to impurity or sits in incantation, because the work is diabolic. No Christian on the feast of Saint John* or the solemnity of any other saint performs solestitia [summer solstice rites] or dancing or leaping or diabolical chants."

The Christian summer solstice feast of Saint John the Baptist is still celebrated with bonfires on June 24th, though the precession of the equinoxes has shifted the actual equinox forward in the calendar. See entry Midsummer.

"No Christian should presume to invoke the name of a demon, not Neptune or Orcus* or Diana or Minerva or Geniscus or believe in these inept beings in any way. No one should observe Jove's day in idleness without holy festivities not in May or any other time, not days of larvae** or mice or any day but Sunday. No Christian should make or render any devotion to the gods of the trivium, where three roads meet [cf. Hecate], to the fanes or the rocks, or springs or groves or corners."

Orcus, a chthonic Etruscan/Roman god of the underworld, who enforced the sacredness of oaths and avenged the broken word.
- Larvae ("malignant spirits") in this Latin text more specifically refer to the Roman Feast of the Lemures, propitiating the dead, rather than to the Celtic propitiation, which was at Samhain.

An essay on Hades/Orcus.

"None should presume to hang any phylacteries* from the neck of man nor beast, even if they are made by priests and it is said that they contain holy things and divine scripture, because there is no remedy of Christ in these things but only the devil's poison."

Gregory of Tours set great store by phylacteries.

"None should presume to make lustrations or incantations with herbs, or to pass cattle through a hollow tree or ditch because this is to consecrate them to the devil. No woman should presume to hang amber from her neck or call upon Minerva or other ill-starred beings in their weaving or dyeing but in all works give thanks only to Christ and confide in the power of his name with all your hearts. None should presume to shout when the moon is obscured, for by God's order eclipses happen at certain times. Nor should they fear the new moon or abandon work because of it. For God made the moon for this, to mark time and temper the darkness of night, not impede work nor make men mad as the foolish imagine, who believe lunatics are invaded by demons from the moon. None should call the sun or moon lord or swear by them because they are God's creatures and they serve the needs of men by God's order."

"No one should tell fate or fortune or horoscopes by them as those do who believe that a person must be what he was born to be."

"Above all, should any infirmity occur, do not seek incantators or diviners or sorcerers or magicians, do not use diabolic phylacteries through springs and groves or crossroads. But let the invalid confide solely in the mercy of God and take the body and blood of Christ with faith and devotion and ask the church faithfully for blessing and oil, with which he might anoint his body in the name of Christ and, according to the apostle, "the prayer of faith will save the infirm and the Lord will relieve him."

"Diabolical games and dancing or chants of the gentiles will be forbidden. No Christian will do them because he thus makes himself pagan. Nor is it right that diabolical canticles should proceed from a Christian mouth where the sacrament of Christ is placed, which it becomes always to praise God. Therefore, brothers, spurn all inventions of the enemy with all your heart and flee these sacrileges with all horror. Venerate no creature beyond God and his saints. Shun springs and arbors which they call sacred. You are forbidden to make the crook which they place on the crossroads and wherever you find one you should burn it with fire. For you must believe that you can be saved by no other art than the invocation and cross of Christ. For how will it be if groves where these miserable men make their devotions, are felled and the wood from them given to the furnace? See how foolish man is, to offer honor to insensible, dead trees and despise the precepts of God almighty. Do not believe that the sky or the stars or the earth or any creature should be adored beyond God for he created and disposes of them all."

Druidism Today

For more complete details, see Neo-druidism.

Modern Druidism is thought to have few connections to the Ancient Religion. Modern Druidism has two strands, the cultural, and the religious.

Cultural Druids hold a competition of poetry, literature & music, known as the Eisteddfod, amoungst the Celtic peoples (Welsh, Irish, Cornish, Breton, etc). Incidentally, in his youth, Winston Churchill was in a druidic order.

Modern religious Druids hold a form of Neopaganism, and are largely built around writings produced since the 18th Century.

Fragments of a Druidic Lunar Calendar engraved on a copper sheet were discovered in Coligny in France in 1897. The "Coligny calendar" has provoked interest ever since. (See link below.)