[MUSIC PLAYING] When most people
think of druids, they think of the New Age,
crystal-obsessed pagan types who use that name today
or maybe something from Dungeons & Dragons. From around 1200 to
600 BCE, the druids lived in what was
then known as Gaul, and today is a region
that encompasses the majority of Western
Europe and the British Isles. But if the original
druids weren't a coven of forest-dwelling
wizards, then who were they? Today we're going to take a
look at some "Bizarre Facts About the Druids,
The Prehistoric Hippies That History Forgot." But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History Channel, and let us
know in the comments below what other mysterious
tribes or cultures you would like to hear about. OK. For you Spinal Tap fans out
there, in ancient times, hundreds of years before
the dawn of history, lived a strange race
of people, the druids. The first thing we
need to be clear about is that when scholars
use the word "druid," they're literally not sure
what they're talking about. That is, the original
meaning of the word "druid" has long been lost to history. There are, however,
a few good guesses. One is that druid means
someone whose knowledge is great and thorough. You'll notice that
this translation doesn't include any sort
of religious connotation. Indeed, despite the fact
that modern people tend to associate the druids
with a certain religiosity, none of the ancient
Greek or Roman writers ever referred to
druids as priests or depicted druidic practice
as any kind of religion. Rather, the surviving
accounts indicate that the druids were more
like the intellectual caste of ancient Celtic
society, the nerds and other professional
dorky types, if you will. As for the weirdo
religious angles that are so popular
in fiction today, they seem to have
been mostly created by and for modern audiences. Because basically everything
we know about the druids can be traced back to one
of a very small number of ancient textbooks,
it's ultimately impossible to say how full or
accurate our picture of them really is. Compounding the problem
is that the vast majority of those small number
of ancient texts aren't even the
products of druids. In fact, it's mostly
Greek and Roman accounts that survive today. And it hasn't been
lost on historians that both societies
had plenty of incentive to think of the worst of the
druids and disparage them. Making things even
worse is the suspicion that even the Greek and
Roman testimony can't really be taken at face value. Why not? Well, most of those
accounts are actually second or even
third-hand, and were written by men who likely had
no firsthand knowledge of druids in Gaul whatsoever. Historians also note
that for whatever reason, the one man who definitely
did have firsthand experience with the druids was
Julius Caesar, who seems to have copied all
of someone else's writings rather than record
his own observations. When you finally
throw in the fact that the Romans killed
a whole lot of druids, it becomes clearer that
the little knowledge that exists about the
historical druids comes mostly from the people
who just really wanted to get rid of them. One of the most enduring
myths about the druids is that they were responsible
for building Stonehenge. But according to scholar
Peter Ellis, in reality, the ancient monument
was under construction well over a millennium before
the emergence of the Celts as a people. This being the case,
Stonehenge can't really be considered a druid sanctuary
or religious site in any way. Druids have used the site for
various things over the years, but those practices only date
back to the 17th century. None of this, however,
has stopped neo-druids from using Stonehenge
as a location for celebrating the
summer solstice. It's said to be a transcendent
and truly spiritual experience even if the price of
parking is a little steep. Long before the Nazis
perverted the ancient swastika, the symbol had a very
different connotation. In fact, cultures from
all over the world long considered it a
symbol of good fortune. Some contemporary
scholars even believe the modern shape of
the Christian cross may be derivative of it. The druids were among
those who associated the swastika with good fortune. The artifact known as
the Battersea Shield, recovered from the
Thames River in 1857, features several
swastikas, and is believed to be the work of druids. While the artifact
is called a shield, archaeologists don't believe
it was actually used in battle. Rather, they suspect it
was a gift or offering to the gods that likely dates
from the first century BCE. Some ancient texts even claim
that the so-called archdruids would shape tree branches
as part of their rituals. Historians, however,
think that's likely just Old World propaganda. Not all druids were men. Women were allowed
to be druids, too. In fact, many druid
warrior-queens are known to have been
skilled military leaders. Druids also had women serve
as judges, ambassadors, and lawyers, an arrangement that
deeply perplexed the much more male-centric Greeks and Romans. Other things that weirded
out the Greeks and Romans included the fact that
druid women could divorce their husbands and wouldn't
suffer in status or reputation if their husbands
became convicts. Crazy, right? But it's true. The ancients were
completely amazed that druids let a
woman's reputation be determined by her own actions. That being said, it
wasn't all wine and roses for the druid ladies. Celtic wives, like their
Greek and Roman counterparts, ultimately still led
lives that were greatly controlled by their husbands. Julius Caesar, along with
other Roman and Greek writers, claimed that the druids
practiced human sacrifice. Their reports claim
that in their rituals, the druids would
burn people to death in an utterly terrifying wooden
cage called a wicker man. While this Nicholas Cage or
Christopher Lee-fueled idea is imaginative and
frightening, you don't have to let it
keep you up at night. Scholars today dismiss the whole
thing as ancient propaganda, and point to the fact that
there isn't the slightest bit of evidence in any
old Celtic documents that suggest human sacrifice
was ever a thing they did. The fabulous violence associated
with druidic religious practices is probably just the
remnants of the old prejudices of Christian propagandists. In fact, not only does
it seem druids did not practice human sacrifice,
there's actual evidence that capital punishment
was considered to be contrary to
their ideas of justice. As their conqueror,
Julius Caesar didn't have a tremendous amount
of respect for the druids, so he may not be the best
source of information on them as a people. That being said, Caesar's
writings on the druids are one of the only
genuine sources that scholars have about
druid culture and belief. So they have to make do
with what they've got. Anyway, in one of
his writings, Caesar claimed that as an
intellectual class, the druids were exempt
from military service and didn't have to pay taxes
like other citizens did. He goes on to point out
that many people found these privileges, in his
words, naturally attractive, and led them of their own accord
to become students of druidism. The Romans did not
like the druids at all. In fact, they repeatedly
clashed with them, and even attempted to eradicate
the druids as a class. What's with all the animosity? Was it some ancient rivalry
or profound religious schism that kept the two at
each other's throats? No. It was basically a
dispute over property. You see, the Romans thought
of property ownership as an individual pursuit. The druids, on the other
hand, thought property was a collective endeavor. This belief, according
to one scholar, challenged the very foundation
of Roman culture, politics, and imperialism. In fact, archaeologists
believe that the Romans were so anti-druid, they were busy
trying to abolish the class as early as 54 CE. Unfortunately, scholars
don't know a whole lot about how the druids
really worshipped. They do, however, know that the
druids thought of their gods not as their creators, but
rather as their ancestors. One of these goddesses was Danu,
a mother goddess whose name can be found in the Danube
River as well as the Dan rivers in Yorkshire and Scotland. For the druids,
water seems to have symbolized the life and
wisdom flowing from the gods. In many ways, it's similar
to the Hindu reverence of the Ganges and the importance
placed on the River Jordan by the Jews. The druids had a habit of
keeping the heads of people they admired, and this
practice seriously freaked out the Romans. However, the druids weren't
headhunters or anything like that. The druids thought there was
no greater mark of respect for a person than to preserve
their head in cedar oil after they've passed away. The practice stems from the
fact that the druids believed the soul lived in the head. They also believed the
soul was indestructible, and that the head
that contained it was the source and
power of human spirit. From one perspective,
it's a beautiful practice. From another, it's
freaky-deaky weird. The popular association of
druids with oak and mistletoe can be traced to writings
by Pliny and Cicero. Pliny, for his part,
made the druids sound like magical wizards. He claimed they
climbed oak trees to collect rare mistletoe, which
had the power to give fecundity to any barren
animal, and that it is predominant
against all poisons. Mistletoe, first a
kiss, then fecundity-- and poison. That's cool, too. Pliny even went on to say that
this magic was made possible through the sacrifice
of white bulls. Modern scholars believe
Pliny's stories were entirely fictitious, a classic of
universal popular knowledge, but without substance. In all fairness to
Pliny, though, we get it. There's no story that
can't be improved by throwing in a few wizards. According to
scholars, when it came to transmitting their
knowledge, druids were committed to
an oral tradition. However, it wasn't
out of ignorance. They were actually
quite literate. Rather, the druids simply
didn't want their knowledge to fall into the
wrong hands, so they placed a strict prohibition
on writing any of it down. It is believed it took
somewhere from 12 to 20 years to become a druid. And the vast
majority of that time was spent learning the
traditions by heart since writing them down in
any way was a major no-no. While this practice
probably protected the druids and their
culture in their own time, today, it means that
unfortunately, almost all of druidic acknowledge as they
understood it for themselves is now lost to time. So what do you think? Would you want to be a druid? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from Our Weird History. [MUSIC PLAYING]
