the druids

The task of sensibly assessing what was known by the druids is made extremely difficult by the wall of misinformation built by the legions of previous commentators on the topic. Not only do we confront the simply ignorant, we also have to deal with the deluded and the wishful thinkers. With regard to this last category, a common belief about the druids was that they were skilled poets; orators, linguists and musicians, which makes them fuel for the private fantasies of the story-weaving classes. Those whose profession is story-telling are likely to spin a beautiful story about the origins of their own kind. So what can we know for truth? We have to take a rational approach - for this reason I have first drawn here on the work of a rigorous and conservative scholar, T D Kendrick, who was the curator of antiquities at the British Museum in the 1930s.

Kendrick lists the physical evidence available, and reports the written references to druids. One of the first things that is said of the Druids is that they did not commit their secrets to writing, meaning that the written references we do have are those provided by the conquering Romans, who are likely to have a view of the Celtic priesthood coloured by the fact that they were writing about their enemies. Nonetheless, as we would expect of the Roman army, their intelligence report on their opponents was thorough. The Roman general in the field, Julius Caesar, (yes, he), later wrote:

CAESAR. De Bello Gallico, VI, I3 1

Throughout Gaul there are two classes of persons of definite account and dignity. As for the common folk, they are treated almost as slaves, venturing naught of themselves, never taken into counsel. The more part of them, oppressed as they are either by debt, or by the heavy weight of tribute, or by the wrongdoing of the more powerful men, commit themselves in slavery to the nobles, who have, in fact, the same rights over them as masters over slaves. Of the two classes above-mentioned, one consists of Druids, the other of knights. The former are concerned with divine worship, the due performance of sacrifices, public and private, and the interpretation of ritual questions: a great number of young men gather about them for the sake of instruction and hold them in great honour. In fact, it is they who decide in almost all disputes, public and private; and if any crime has been committed, or murder done, or there is any dispute about succession or boundaries, they also decide it, determining rewards and penalties: if any person or people does not abide by their decision, they ban such from sacrifice, which is their heaviest penalty. Those that are so banned are reckoned as impious and criminal; all men move out of their path and shun their approach and conversation, for fear they may get some harm from their contact, and no justice is done if they seek it, no distinction falls to their share. Of all these Druids one is chief, who has the highest authority among them. At his death, either any other that is pre-eminent in position succeeds, or, if there be several of equal standing, they strive for the primacy by the vote of the Druids, or sometimes even with armed force. These Druids, at a certain time of the year, meet within the borders of the Carnutes, whose territory is reckoned as the centre of all Gaul, and sit in conclave in a consecrated spot. Thither assemble from every side all that have disputes, and they obey the decisions and judgements of the Druids. It is believed that their rule of life was discovered in Britain and transferred thence to Gaul; and to-day those who would study the subject more accurately journey, as a rule, to Britain to learn it.

 

De Bello Gallico, VI, 14

The Druids usually hold aloof from war, and do not pay war- taxes with the rest; they are excused from military service and exempt from all liabilities. Tempted by these great rewards, many young men assemble of their own motion to receive their training; many are sent by parents and relatives. Report says that in the schools of the Druids they learn by heart a great number of verses, and therefore some persons remain twenty years under training. And they do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing, although in almost all other matters, and in their public and private accounts, they make use of Greek letters. I believe that they have adopted the practice for two reasons: that they do not wish the rule to become common property, nor those who learn the rule to rely on writing and so neglect the cultivation of the memory; and, in fact, it does usually happen that the assistance of writing tends to relax the diligence of the student and the action of the memory. The cardinal doctrine which they seek to teach is that souls do not die, but after death pass from one to another; and this belief, as the fear of death is thereby cast aside, they hold to be the greatest incentive to valour. Besides this, they have many discussions as touching the stars and their movement, the size of the universe and of the earth, the order of nature, the strength and the powers of the immortal gods, and hand down their lore to the young men.

 

De Bello Gallico, VI, 16

The whole nation of the Gauls is greatly devoted to ritual observances, and for that reason those who are smitten with the more grievous maladies and who are engaged in the perils of battle either sacrifice human victims or vow so to do, employing the Druids as ministers for such sacrifices. They believe, in effect, that, unless for a man's life a man's life be paid, the majesty of the immortal gods may not be appeased; and in public, as in private, life they observe an ordinance of sacrifices of the same kind. Others use figures of immense size, whose limbs, woven out of twigs, they fill with living men and set on fire, and the men perish in a sheet of flame. They believe that the execution of those who have been caught in the act of theft or robbery or some crime is more pleasing to the immortal gods; but when the supply of such fails they resort to the execution even of the innocent.

 

VI, I8, I

The Gauls affirm that they are all descended from a common father, Dis, and say that this is the tradition of the Druids.

VI, 2I, I

The Germans differ much from this manner of living. They have no Druids to regulate divine worship, no zeal for sacrifices.

The Romans at this time, and during the following two centuries used as their excuse for suppressing the druids the charge that they were involved in human sacrifice. The balance of probability is that the charge is true. In defence of the druids the best that can be said is that so was everybody else.

We may safely conclude that the druids were the administrative class of the Celtic peoples at the time of the Roman conquest. Before that time, things are less certain. Depending on what you choose as your defining characteristics of "celtic culture" for example dolmen erection, or oak-worship, differing pictures emerge. If we take the tree-worship as the marker, we are dealing with a culture which included western Europe; Britain Ireland France Spain , northern Europe as far east as Latvia and much of north Africa. This culture, which we might name for the groves which were their open-air temples, was a goddess-culture, although this does not appear to have been understood by any of the various celtic-revival and modern druid societies.

The beliefs of the grove-cultures were varied in ancient times, and are today a matter of interpretation. The modern interpretations vary with the interpreters, and with what they wish to find in the historical record.

The Romans destroyed the power of the druids when they conquered Gaul, but the druidic tradition (and the goddess-tradition) survived in part. That part of the story we deal with in other chapters, but what of the earlier part ....the time between say 1500 BC and the time of the Roman occupation? How much did they know? Other writers have made extensive claims for the druids. Among the claims are:
That the druids were the original font of civilization. That the druids built Stonehenge. That the mathematician and philosopher Pythagorus designed Stonehenge, and that he, or his servant Dividicus, is buried nearby.That the druids possessed detailed knowledge of the movements in the heavens. Some of these things may be true. Robert Graves has it in The White Goddess that the druids did in fact have a written language; that the language written by them was based on a form of Chalcidic Greek, and that the whole culture was a variant of that common throughout the Mediterranean in the time of the Minoans.

OGHAM

The form of writing called ogham was used by the druids, although most examples are from the first six centuries of this millennium. There were various forms, and most were for secret signalling between people who knew the code, that is, members of bardic society. Oghams were carved on wood, or sometimes incised on stone, but the signs could also be made by touching parts of the body, or by indicating fingers and so on. If this private signalling was the sole purpose of ogham, we would expect that the alphabet used was something made up by the individuals who used it and that there would be many such alphabets. In fact, the alphabet used by the druids was related to the Greek and Chaldean, and to any early form at that. The closest parallel is with Chalcidic Greek, a form which was in use in Etruscan Italy circa 500 BC. From this can be inferred that druidic culture was derived from the same sources as the Greek, the goddess-culture centred on Crete and spread by that sea-trading society. As we have already noted, the purpose of these alphabets was signalling, and we may be justified in inferring, that as the same code was possessed in Ireland and the Mediterranean of 500 BC, that signals, as well as ships, passed between them.

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