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Druidism is probably one of the most misunderstood
subjects in Celtic history, with the popular image of men in white cloaks
cutting mistletoe with a golden scythe in an oak grove. The Druids were in fact
members of the learned class among the ancient Celts. They served many
functions, among them priests, teachers, judges, seers, doctors and
philosophers, and were highly respected by many in the ancient world. The
origins and meaning of the word "Druid" has been much debated by scholars. In
Old Irish, the singular form of the word is "drui"; the plural form is "druid".
The celebrated language scholar Rudolf Thurneysen derived the word "druid" from
the Old Irish "dru" prefix, meaning "thorough" and "vid", meaning "know", so
that a Druid was understood to be a person of great knowledge or wisdom. Early
classical writers such as Pliny related it to the Greek word for oak, "drus".
Combining these, the word "Druid" has generally come to mean a "wise man or a
priest, of the oak". The female equivalent is "Druidess".
The early Irish writers generally wrote of their druids in much the
same way as did those on the Continent, using the word "drui". Latin writers
usually translated the word "Druid" as "magus", meaning a seer. Further, the
early Celtic and Greek languages are branches on the large tree of the
Indo-European family of languages, which may explain why there is such a
similarity between many Old Irish and Sanskrit words, a subject addressed later
in this article.
But any serious study of the Druids should start with examining the
earliest sources. The classical writers, such as Caesar (Gallic Wars), Strabo
(Geography) and Pliny (Natural History) provide us with information about the
customs of the Druids, much of their material attributed to a lost shared
source, the writings of the Stoic philosopher Posidonius. The classical writers
wrote about the Celts during the 1st century BC and the first few centuries AD.
Caesar was hardly unbiased, of course, as he was sent to Gaul to conquer their
people and their renowned priesthood - the Druids. His account of the Druids
from Book VI of his "Gallic Wars" is the most descriptive that we have:
...The Druids are concerned with the worship of the gods,
look after public and private sacrifice, and expound religious matters. A large
number of young men flock to them for training and hold them in high honour.
For they have the right to decide nearly all public and private disputes and
they also pass judgement and decide rewards and penalties in criminal and
murder cases and in disputes concerning legacies and boundaries... It is
thought that this [Druidic] system of training was invented in Britain and
taken over from there to Gaul, and at the present time, diligent students of
the matter mostly travel there to study it...
Caesar then continues:
... The Druids are wont to be absent from war, nor do they
pay taxes like the others... It is said that they commit to memory immense
amounts of poetry. And so some of them continue their studies for twenty years.
They consider it improper to entrust their studies to writing...They are
chiefly anxious to have men believe the following: that souls do not suffer
death, but after death pass from one body to another; and they regard this as
the strongest incentive to valour, since the fear of death is disregarded. They
have also much knowledge of the stars and their motion, of the size of the
world and of the earth, of natural philosophy, and of the powers and spheres of
action of the immortal gods...
Caesar and his contemporaries portray the Druids as enjoying high
status within Gallic society, of a rank akin to the knights, who were the
highest nobility below the tribal chief magistrate or king. In the Celtic
world, the priesthood was a separate, highly respected and important grade of
society; some early writers compared them to the famed Indian Brahmins, the
Persian magi, or the Egyptian priests. They were generally seen by the Romans
as priests, seers, healers, prophets, magicians, and, in one account, Strabo
comments that in former times, Druids could even intervene and stop armies from
fighting.
But, unfortunately, most of the information that we have about the
Druids is from their enemies - the Romans. Later descriptions depict the Druids
as hiding in forest groves conducting strange rites of sacrifice. But what is
indisputable is that the Druids were especially gifted at poetry, rhetoric,
philosophy, and all verbal skills. Most early sources agree that the Druidic
elite was divided into three parts: the Bards (lyric poets, musicians), Vates
(diviners and seers) and the Druids (priests, philosophers, theologians).
One obvious question is: but what happened to the Druids, and
Druidism, after the arrival of the Romans? We learn from the texts of
Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny that the early Roman emperors of the 1st century
AD saw their powerful priesthood as a threat and tried to suppress it. Augustus
banned Roman citizens from joining the Druids; his successor Tiberius had a
much harsher policy, issuing an edict to get rid of the Druids "and that class
of seers and doctors" altogether. Under Claudius, it appears that the Druids
didn't fare well at all, with Suetonius claiming that he abolished Druidism
completely. Many of the battles between the Druids and the Romans were very
bloody. In the documents known as the "Augustan Histories", there are
references to Druidic prophetesses who acted as fortune-tellers for emperors
such as Severus and Diocletian in the 3rd century, but, for the most part,
Druidism had largely died out by then.
The Irish manuscripts, written by Christian monks from the 5th century
onwards, have numerous references to Druids in them. They are portrayed mainly
as prophets or seers and, especially in the saints' lives of Patrick and
Brigid, they are shown to be hostile to the new faith. Cathbadh, the Druid
attached to the household of Conchobor, King of Ulster, is sometimes portrayed
as being more powerful than the king himself. There is still scholarly debate
about how, and to what extent, the early Druids may have been assimilated into
the new Christian monasteries. As might be expected from devout Christian
scribes, the beliefs and magic of the Druids are clearly seen as inferior to
the new faith - Christianity. However, Christian saints are sometimes portrayed
as using basically the same magical techniques as their Druid counterparts, but
in the name of Christ!
So what did the Druids believe? What was their overall cosmology? A
number of early writers acknowledge that they were masters of philosophy, of
problems secret and sublime, and of religious matters. They were also renowned
for their astronomical knowledge and for their healing abilities. The Christian
author Hippolytus says that the Druids were capable of foretelling certain
events by means of Pythagorean reckoning and calculation. It was known in the
ancient world that the Druids, the "magi of the North", believed in the
immortality of the soul, and in reincarnation. At funerals, the Druids were
known to sometimes throw some letters on the pyre written to the dead by their
kinsmen, as they were certain that the dead would be able to know of their
content. (Given the supposed illiteracy of the pre-Roman Celts, this is a
curious remark!) It was also known that the Druids were so certain of the
reality of reincarnation, that if one loaned money to another, it was
understood that the debt could be repaid in the next life.
The Druids also highly revered the number three, and it is believed
that they may have taught much of their philosophy in poetic, triadic form.
There has been a lot of speculation about the secret wisdom that the Druids
possessed, that so impressed the learned men and priests of the ancient world,
but their policy was to never write any of it down, preferring instead an
emphasis on the art of memory and oral teachings to specially prepared
candidates. It is believed that sun worship may have played an important part
of their beliefs, and that Druidism was monotheistic, as they ultimately
believed in one divine spirit, while deeply venerating the sun, moon, stars,
and nature spirits.
Interestingly, a good number of early Celtic beliefs seem to have
similarities with early Indian Vedic culture and beliefs. This is most likely
because of their common Indo-European heritage, as academics like Dumezil have
shown regarding languages. Briefly, Celtic deities included Gods who often had
multiple functions, who actualised nature forces, promulgated ethics, justice,
knowledge, arts, crafts, medicine, speech, harvests, gave courage for war and
battled forces of darkness, and there are Goddesses of land, rivers and
springs. The early Irish god Lugh may have been an early solar deity, as he is
portrayed as a bright, shining god who is later thought to have been a possible
prototype for St. Michael. The name Lugh means "shining one" and his festival
is on Lughnasadh, the eve of 1st August. Other gods in the early Celtic
pantheon were also believed to have bright, shining qualities. The early Vedic
pantheon included deities of fire, solar, atmospheric and nature forces, ritual
stimulants, speech, crafts, arts, harvest, medicine, ethical order, war, and
battlers of malevolent beings. There are goddesses of land, rivers, and so on
and, like the Celtic deities, gods are often shown as having overlapping
functions. The word deva means "shining one", or a god that is very bright, a
spiritual being.
In Irish mythology, the number seventeen comes up in many contexts -
17 days, 17 years, etc. Why, in an early Irish tale, does the Druid advise
Maelduin to take only seventeen men with him on his famous voyage? In the early
Book of Invasions, Mil arrived in Ireland in the seventeenth of the moon; the
age of consent in early Ireland was seventeen, when boys became men. But why
seventeen? The Vedas say that the heavens were divided into seventeen regions,
'Prajapati is the year, so Prajapati is seventeen.'
The Celtic god of thunder was Taranis who carried thunderbolts and was
also a god of war. Before the Romans came, Taranis may well have existed as an
elemental supernatural force, like the sun; later, he is known to have been a
powerful thunder god and also is believed to have been a more universal
sky-god, with control over the weather. A Vedic god of rain and thunder was
Indra, who carried thunderbolts. Some of the Celtic fire rituals were conducted
in pits with offerings of herbs, mead and cakes, by chanting Druids, the
priests. A central Vedic ritual was the fire sacrifice, performed in pits with
offerings of ghee, spices, and rice - offered by the mantric-chanting Brahmin
priests.
It appears that both the early Irish Celts and the Vedic Hindus
believed that the gods are particularly fond of music; poet-singers sing and
praise the gods with the intention that the gods may be pleased and may grant
gifts. Both cultures value music, sound and vibration highly - in early
Ireland, particularly vocal music, poetic incantations and harp music; Vedic
music is mainly vocal, consisting of singing samans, recitations, etc. While an
acknowledgement of the spiritual power of music is almost universal in ancient
traditions, musicologists have examined some of these issues, and suggest close
correspondences between these particular cultures. The Irish music critic,
Fanny Feehan, in a paper entitled "Suggested Links Between Eastern and Celtic
Music" (1981) states:
...In the area of vocal ornamentation East and West come
close. I once played a Claddagh recording of Maire Aine (Ni Dhonnacha) singing
`Barr an tSleibhe' for an Indian Professor of Music who refused to believe,
until I showed her the sleeve of the record, that it was an Irish song. She
claimed, and demonstrated by singing to me, that the song bore a strange
resemblence to an Indian (North) raga about a young girl being lured toward a
mountain. The Professor was interested in the mode, the pitching of the voice,
and certain notes which were characteristic of both the raga and `Barr na
tSleibhe'...
One of the most ancient forms of Celtic music, which still survives in
a few areas in western Ireland, is the marbhnai, or "death song", also called
keening. (caoine). These songs are sung by women, and have been compared with
the raga style of India, which it is similarly improvised around three or four
notes. Historian Bryan McMahon plays an interesting game with every Indian
guest who visits a certain hotel in County Kerry, Ireland. He hums certain
Irish folk music and then asks them to complete it however they like. He says
that, almost every time, they will sing it like they already know the song.
McMahon believes that, for him, it is an indication that Indians and Irishmen
have a common past of some kind. What can be said for sure, is that both
cultures greatly valued and enjoyed music on many different levels.
But the two cultures also share the broader concept of a special
magico-religious power of music, and an awareness of the breath and of poetic
verse. Druids memorised extremely long poetic sagas that often ended with a
three-part cadence at the end; the bards of the Vedic literature are portrayed
as memorising lengthy poetic sagas that convey spiritual knowledge and dharmic
duty, and the poetic metre often ends with a three-part cadence at the end.
Thus, one can see why many scholars believe that the Hindu Brahmin in the east
and the Celtic Druid in the west were lateral survivals of an ancient
Indo-European priesthood.
More research should be - and is being - done in this complex area of
study by humanities scholars today. Along with literary and linguistic sources,
new and often controversial archaeological finds in many parts of the world are
seriously challenging orthodox ideas about early peoples, their artefacts and
their migrations. A key and controversial leader in this field is Michael
Cremo, whose book "Forbidden Archaeology" has shocked the established views
about early man (see footnote *).
The Druids - and Druidism - remain largely a mystery to us today,
mainly due to the heavy reliance on Roman sources, but we do know that they
were inspiring to their people, renowned to their enemies, and still inspire
many today, as we go forward into the new Millennium.
Dr Karen Ralls
2000-2008
*See Michael Cremo's website for details
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