The Druids - History, Philosophy, Religion (Full Documentary)

druids the name carries the weight of history and instantly summons an image to the mind for some that image is of a wise man a seer one who walks among the bright trees speaking with animals watching the phases of the moon and gazing at the stars for others it is something slightly darker yet all views have largely been shaped over many generations crafted by an image painted in part by the words of the roman poet lucan who wrote in the famous farsalia while you ye druids when the war was done to mysteries strange and hateful rights returned to you alone it is given the heavenly gods to know or not to know secluded groves or dwelling places and forests far remote if what ye sing be true the shades of men seek not the dismal homes of erebus or death's pale kingdom but the breath of life still rules these bodies in another age life on this hand and that and death between but is this poetic image of the druids accurate or just roman propaganda what do we really know about their beliefs their customs and their origin compiling ancient and medieval sources as well as utilizing archaeology and comparative analysis we will take a journey into the past to discover the truth about the druids [Music] welcome friends i'm kevin maclean if you'd like to support the channel and see more in-depth videos like this please consider supporting me through patreon or paypal great thanks to all of my supporters stonehenge to some the quintessential symbol of the druids and their teachings this view is not a new one though it was espoused powerfully by many antiquarians in the 18th and 19th century joffrey of monmouth a 12th century writer famous for his largely invented tale the history of britain ascribed the making of the structure to merlin and the giants it is possible that this tale partly reflected local folklore about the place yet archaeological research has conclusively proven that the stones of the great henge were raised long before the days of merlin and even before the days of the first druids to set foot beneath the lofty oaks of britain while some smaller stone circles date within the bronze age the most famous monuments like stonehenge and newgrange were built by the hands of neolithic peoples the group sometimes called the first farmers these people migrated from anatolia and spread out across europe replacing and mixing with the hunter-gatherer populations of the mesolithic the first farmers reached britain around 4000 bc and began clearing the land for agriculture and erecting monuments of earth and stone often related to collective burials of the dead they would have spoken a language unrelated to the celts and most european languages today sites like stonehenge are indeed connected to the lunar and solar cycles the observation of which is important for the agricultural cycle but they were not of celtic origin and it also isn't clear that later peoples were aware of their celestial alignments these places did however remain important to later celts as myths of newgrange and other sites in ireland attest they were most likely viewed by them in much the same way that we view them now as mysterious ancient places of magic and wonder even frightening places at times to begin to build a true understanding of who the druids were and what they believed we must instead turn away from the neolithic monuments of western europe and cast our gaze eastward the proto-indo-europeans were a people that most likely lived in the steplands of modern-day ukraine and russia perhaps in the 4th millennium bc though estimates vary they mastered techniques of horse training and riding and they shared a common language similar beliefs and when they began to spread out across europe and asia perhaps in a manner not so dissimilar to spreads of later step cultures like the huns or the mongols they brought their language and beliefs with them it was those beliefs that would act as the kernel for the druids between 3100 and 2600 bc the proto-indo-european yamnaya culture began to spread into the danube valley moving as far west as modern hungary and it is here that it is theorized the ancestors of both the celtic and italic languages developed the river itself received its name from them danu and is likely one of the original names for the mother of the celtic gods which was a proto-indo-european goddess of the river derived from dena meaning to flow similar in meaning to the greek goddess rey but likely a direct cognate with danae mother of perseus they gave the same name to other rivers such as the dawn the donets de neper dinester which come from the same root but the name appears in sanskrit as a goddess and in avestan as a word for any river and thus at one time likely as late as the middle bronze age the people that went on to become the celts or gauls and those who became romans originated largely from the same peoples culture and language yet the romans had no druids or did they the word druid is derived from protoceltic deru meaning oak and wood meaning to see it was one of the only times that the ancient roman writer pliny the elder actually correctly sourced in etymology he said it is very probable that the priests themselves may have received their name from the greek name for that tree though he was incorrect about the greek origin one can hardly fault him for not having theorized the proto-indo-european language many of the accounts of the druids present them as something exotic linking them to woodland groves oak trees philosophy reincarnation and the stars they were also shown as having great power and influence in society forming an established and organized elite sometimes this exotic portrayal creates the idea that these activities were extremely unique but on close examination of other societies that emerged from or were influenced by proto-indo-europeans we see very similar social structures practices and beliefs emerge in the vedic tradition of india the brahmanas constitute a social order nearly identical to that which roman and gaelic accounts ascribe to the druids ideas of reincarnation also emerge there as does a powerful system of astrology yet closer in time and space to the celts we find the montes of ancient greece they were expert diviners that would study for years and pass down the gift along family lines greek armies would not go into battle without amantes receiving good omens from the gods and in the roman tradition there were also many rituals that were carried out by priests who were drawn most often from very elite members of society led at least in theory by a head priest called the rex sacrorum the king of the sacred which in ancient times had been directly connected to the former kingship of rome senior priests in the roman religion were called pontifex meaning bridge builder they acted as a bridge between the community and the gods members of the roman elite filled these positions who were then subject to the rules and duties around the office passed down through tradition in the imperial period the emperor co-opted the title of pontifex maximus which had become the de facto most powerful priestly position this is all very similar to the practices of the druids that the romans describe as if it was some alien thing by the time of the first century bc when the romans and greeks are dealing with druids their behaviors may well have seemed alien to them but the traditions ultimately came from the same source and had julius caesar gone back in time and seen rome as it was in 700 bc he may have seen a place and a people more similar to the gauls of the first century than to the romans our first source is on the druids and indeed on the celts themselves come from ancient greek writers the greeks had encountered and been in direct contact with the celts for a very long time not only had the celts spread through much of the balkans by the later iron age invading greece itself in 279 bc but the greeks had also established colonies in southern gaul since approximately 600 bc most significant of these was the port city of masalia modern day marseille the city acted as a trading hub for goods traveling between the iberian peninsula and the east but also for goods going and coming from the north along the rhone river most notoriously it was a source of wine for the celts as pacidonious reports but archaeological discoveries show it was much more it was the celtic gateway to greek culture when caesar later remarks that the celts write using the greek alphabet it was likely that this developed through close connections to masalia the nearby celtic shrine of rocopertus shows that they were not only adopting greek writing but also architecture for unlike most iron age celtic sanctuaries this one employed realistic stone carvings very likely of deities they are depicted in a native celtic fashion but influenced by the stone-carving tradition of the greeks the first greek source that dealt with the subject of the celts was hecateus of miletus who lived between 550 and 476 bc he was instrumental in sparking the notion of writing detailed and more impartial histories in prose form the more well-known herodotus was strongly influenced by him his work does not survive directly but he was likely a source for herodotus and is cited by the much later diadores ceculus he says quote hecateus and certain others say that in the regions beyond the land of the celts there lies in the ocean an island no smaller than sicily this island the account continues is situated in the north and is inhabited by the hyperboreans who are called by that name because they live beyond the point whence the north wind blows and the island is both fertile and productive of every crop and since it has an unusually temperate climate it produces two harvests each year moreover the following legend is told concerning it letto gave birth on this island and for that reason apollo is honored among them above all other gods and the inhabitants are looked upon as priests of apollo after a manner since daily they praised the god continuously in song and honor him exceedingly and there is also on the island both a magnificent sacred precinct of apollo and a notable temple which is adorned with many votive offerings and a spherical in shape furthermore a city is there which is sacred to this god and the majority of its inhabitants are players on the kythera and these continually play on this instrument in the temple and sing hymns of praise to the god glorifying his deeds the hyperboreans also have a language we are in form which is particular to them and are most friendly towards greeks they say also that the moon as viewed from this island appears to be but a little distance from the earth and who have upon it prominences like those of the earth which are visible to the naked eye the account is also given that the god visits the island every 19 years the period in which the return of the stars to the same place in the heavens is accomplished and for this reason the 19-year period is called by the greeks the year of meton at the time of this appearance of the god he plays on this kythera and dances continuously in the night through the vernal equinox until the rising of the pleiades expressing in this manner his delight in his success and the kings of this city and the supervisors of this sacred precinct are called borades since they are descendants of boris and the succession to the position is always kept in the family for some this lengthy quote is the earliest information on the druids and their celestial religion and practices it is certainly possible that the general geography being referred to corresponds to and is indeed intended to be britain the reference to the god dancing during the night may also be reference to the northern lights yet there are significant problems the first thing to note is that this is not a direct quote of hecateus but a summary of ideas expressed about the hyperboreans by hecateus and other writers who are not named specifically theodorus also prefaces this account by stating his intent to quote discuss the legendary account of the hyperboreans unquote the hyperboreans appear in greek myth starting with homer's iliad where they are placed in the region of thrace but as time went on their location changed evidently in the time of hecateus it was fashionable to place them in britain or even in an island north of britain and later after the romans had conquered that area they placed it in what is perhaps shetland or iceland or the pharaoh islands but these hyperboreans at least in this account are not identical to the celts indeed deodorant says that they were to be found north of the celts and thus greatly undermines a link to the druids further the quote mentions the metonic cycle but this excludes the possibility that deodoris is faithfully quoting hecateus because the metonic cycle was discovered and named after his death rather than an accurate reporting of druids worshiping apollo at stonehenge as some people have concluded in the past what seems more likely is that we have a rough knowledge of britain overlaid with entirely greek myth at least from the time of pindar apollo was sought to travel to the land of the hyperboreans where he was worshiped and where the sons of boreas the north wind served as his priests but the difference is that pindar knew the truth about the hyperboreans quote but neither by taking ship neither by any travel on foot to the hyperborean folk shalt thou find the wondrous way there is nothing that isn't of greek origin in the account other than rough geography xenophon speaks of celtic mercenaries operating in greece employed by the sicilian tyrant dionysius to support sparta in a peloponnesian war and subsequent strife they were an important factor in several key battles and became known and feared throughout greece for their fierceness and utter fearlessness which had an impact on how philosophers such as aristotle came to see them around this same time we also have records from the treasury of athens that they had in their possession numerous celtic iron weapons which were apparently highly valued by the greeks of the 4th century yet the first direct mention of the celts linked at all to their beliefs is made by the philosopher aristotle in his work the nicomachean ethics he states but one who is fearless with excessive bravery who fears nothing at all not even earthquakes or waves as they say the celts has no name as we have noted before in the case with many qualities unless we call him mad or insensible this fearless nature of the celts comes up many times by various writers separated by time and space and as julius caesar believed was linked to their specific religious notions and druidic teachings in his eudaimonian ethics aristotle expands a bit on this saying no one is brave if he endures formidable events on account of ignorance such as the madman who taunts thunderbolts or if someone knows the dangers involved but is carried away by reckless passion as the celts who take up arms against the waves the warrior fury seems to have been very popular among the celts and it appears exemplified by the most famous gaelic warrior ku holland who whenever he is losing a battle asks his friends to incite him into a rage from which he gains super human power but there is another thing kuhlin does in myth he marches against the waves in a folk tale about the irish hero recorded by folklorist jeremiah curtin kuhlen is forced through warrior honor into killing his own son he laments the death greatly and so that he will not vent his rage upon the community the druids bind him to attack the sea he battles against the waves on the beach for three days before finally weakening and the waves sweeping over him in gaelic myth the sea is often representative of a boundary between worlds between the land of the living and the dead this battling the waves comes up again in roman history in relation to the emperor caligula he was said to have gathered together a large gallish army that set out from lugdunum to conquer britain but instead they ended up having a mock battle against the sea near another site called log dunham in gaelic myth the second battle of mugtared pits the gods against chaotic underworld forces called famourians meaning those from beneath the sea lug the champion of the battle specifically banishes them beneath the waves there may well have been some ancient ritual that acted this out so this small fragment may tell us something real about cultural practices but unfortunately doesn't tell us anything directly about the druids everest remarks that the celts were great admirers of the greeks and generally followed the same customs ptolemy was a companion of alexander the great he gave an account of alexander's meeting with a group of celts alexander was hopeful of maintaining good relations with the celts so that they wouldn't attempt to invade greece while he was marching east he also brought celts along as mercenaries in his army as had become standard practice by this time ptolemy says during the campaign some celts living near the adriatic sea arrived seeking goodwill and friendship alexander received them warmly and while they were sharing a drink asked them what they feared most thinking that they would say him they answer that they feared nothing except that the sky might fall down upon them the idea of the sky falling is likely linked to a belief in an end times akin to ragnarok and we see the same type of thing repeated in irish legends in the tanbo kaligna sultan the mortal father of kuhlen heard him fighting in battle then said sultan is it the sky that cracks or the sea that overflows its boundaries or the earth that splits or is it the loud cry of my son fighting against odds then when kanhavar the king of ulster asks his men to hold their positions in the fight they respond we shall hold this spot where we now stand unless the ground quakes beneath us or the heavens fall down on us we shall not flee from here so again what appears to be a random and strange remark recorded in our ancient sources turns out to be a accurate reflection of an ancient celtic world view that believed in a time in which the sky would fall or at least that it may do so and such a world view would also have been held and taught by the druids the priests and teachers of this society sophater was a greek poet in the late 4th century and his work survives only in fragments one of which is called the galati among them is the custom whenever they win a victory in battle to sacrifice their prisoners to the gods so i imitating the celts have vowed to burn as an offering three of those false dialecticians this is perhaps our earliest reference to celtic human sacrifice and it appears as part of a satirical greek poem rather than act appalled sopiter uses it as a joke but that a poet is including such details in his poetry likely means these practices of the celts were more widely known at the time the greeks were not alien to the notion of human sacrifice and though not practiced in the classical age there were various local traditions that suggest that such practices did take place in the past this account also seems to repeat later claims by deodora ceculus and strabo that at least some sacrificed people were burnt sometimes along with first fruits but we shall return to sacrifice in greater detail later after the romans conquered parts of spain they sought a mainland path for troop transport as the sea was under constant threat from the phoenicians as they had a good trading relationship with marcelia they made a deal with the greek colony in exchange for a strip of land along the coast the romans could use to build a road to access their holdings in spain they would protect the city from any threats including those to their north from the gallis tribes yet by 121 bc after fighting several battles with various tribes especially the arverni rome brought the region under its official control and it gained the name transalpine gaul it is from this region that our first detailed accounts of the druids emerge it is possible even likely that the druids had existed also in cis alpine gaul within italy itself but no specific account makes mention of them celts in iberia may have also had druids that go unmentioned sometimes this sparsity of sources is taken to be evidence to some that they had an efmoril existence that they were in some way inflated or invented even by our ancient sources it is rather more likely that they were not mentioned often because they were not far different from priestly groups within most societies of their day romans spent most of their ink writing about warfare and only mentioned the druids insofar as they were deemed problematic for roman military ambitions it was during this time after making trans-alpine gaul a province and before the march of caesar's troops that our first real details about the druids emerge possidonius of rhodes was born in 135 bc in apamaya syria of a greek family he was learned in astronomy astrology geography history and mathematics he spent several years traveling in spain africa italy gaul and eventually settled down as a teacher in rhodes attracting many scholars to him he was a stoic philosopher and became well known in elite circles in rome unfortunately none of his writings survived directly but some of his accounts were cited in works by later writers like deodoras strabo caesar and tacitus he most certainly traveled through trans-alpine gaul but based on his surviving accounts he may have traveled north as well possibly as far as britain his insights prove invaluable to understanding the druids because we know he was a serious scholar that was actually present there he also has no known political motivations for misrepresenting what he saw he writes extensively on the customs of the celts in general but gives a clear account of the druids among the gaelic peoples generally speaking there are three sets of men who are held in exceptional honor the bards the vates and the druids the barns are singers and poets the vates diviners and natural philosophers while the druids in addition to natural philosophy study also moral philosophy theodore ceculus repeats this claim with slightly more detail among them are also to be found lyric poets who they call bards these men sing to the accompaniment of instruments which are like the liars and their songs may be either of praise or of obliqui philosophers as we may call them and men learned in religious affairs are unusually honored among them and are called by them druids the gauls likewise make use of diviners accounting them worthy of high approbation and these men foretell the future by means of the flights or cries of birds and of the slaughter of sacred animals and they have all the multitudes subservient to them the account of the classical authors are in exact accord with our medieval irish sources the bards of the gales were praise poets initially but were also famous for eulogies though in the later medieval period they had become more popular storytellers or performers the philly knew poetry but were likewise concerned with memorization of rituals laws history and acted as advisors and originally likely as seers but the exact cognate to waters in old gaelic is fathe translated as seer or prophet with various ancient kings identified with the title the druids loom large in irish tales and from the earliest sources in ireland they perform the same roles as pasadonius describes they observe the natural order and predict the future interpret dreams observe the stars and sky and are sought in legal judgments and matters such as going to war if the gods are sought it is the druids who perform a ritual to communicate with them in an audience with the king no one is to speak before the king but the king may not speak before the druid they were greatly respected as wise men even in many cases by christian sources sometimes acting as the foster parents of saints or prophesying the birth of saints julius caesar said of them one is that of the druids the other of the warriors the former are engaged in things sacred conduct the public and private sacrifices and interpret all matters of religion to these large numbers of young men resort for the purpose of instruction and they are in great honor among them for they determine respecting almost all controversies public and private and if any crime has been perpetrated if murder has been committed if there be any dispute about an inheritance if any about boundaries these same people decided they decree rewards and punishments not only were the druids priests but judges and legal experts in ireland by the time of christianity this legal role seems to have developed into a separate group called the brethim meaning maker of judgments although entails druids often also serve as brethem they could make judgments without recourse to the local kings though kings could also make judgments and most surprising of all those judgments would be binding across all ireland despite the political disunity there was a unity on the sacred level the level of the druid and the high king who represented this sacred unity in the mythical tale the second battle of magtura the recently victorious luge checks three times with his brethren before making a decision regarding the life of the deposed king brass the social power of the druid then was near total greater than a priest during the height of christianity yet they did not wield direct political power and it seems that they never did nor did they seek it out at least not in gaelic sources kings were seen as ascending above all social classes and appear to have sometimes been viewed as gods khandhovar king of ulster was said to be like a god to the ulster men and it is said that he died on the same day as christ from lamenting his death that his own blood baptized him and he was one of the first brought to heaven by jesus one might see the need for the druid to speak first to the king as he is performing his function as priest in communicating to the divine kings like khanhovar were sometimes said to have druids as fathers or brothers but the king was not seen as a druid even if he had received druidic education the druids acted as teachers of the nobility as well as to their own pupils and we can imagine that such training was strict and long caesar says they are said to learn by heart a great number of verses accordingly some remain in the course of training 20 years nor do they regard it lawful to commit these to writing though in almost all other matters in the public and private transactions they use greek characters what were they memorizing for up to 20 years for an idea we should look again to the east to the very people which diogenes lehtius links together with the druids the brahman a vedic religion the vedas are some of the oldest religious texts in the world agreed to have been composed before 1000 bc yet they were not written down until much later much much later perhaps not until the medieval period how is this possible through the might of memorization through long periods spent reciting using poetic rhythm as an aid vast amounts can be memorized through hard work and time such as the 20 years cited by caesar moreover this memorization of the vedas actually preserved them in a more archaic state than likely would have been the case through textual copying which tends to accumulate errors and introduces updates and corrections memorized poetry preserves itself very well over time and it was exactly these same techniques that were being utilized by the bards and druids and likely had their root in proto-indo-european practice people today in india still trained to memorize the vedas starting at an early age in ancient greece poets also used to memorize and recite the entire iliad and in origin the iliad was likely not written by a blind poet named homer but was an oral composition that predated its writing possibly by hundreds of years this puts caesar's comments in better perspective when he says that the druids forbade the writing down of the sacred material because they valued the power of memory they likewise may have thought it profane to write down the sacred hymns and knowledge but regarding the organization of the druids caesar made one of his most controversial claims a comment that some scholars find hard to believe over all these druids one presides who possesses supreme authority among them upon his death if any individual among the rest is preeminent in dignity he succeeds but if there are many equal the election is made by the suffrages of the druids sometimes they even contend for the presidency with arms these assemble at a fixed period of the year in a consecrated place in the territories of the carnutes which is reckoned to be the central region of the whole of gaul hither all who have disputes assemble from every part and submit to these decrees and determinations this method is supposed to have been devised in britain and to have been brought over from it into goal and now those who desire to gain a more acute knowledge of that system generally proceed thither for the purpose of studying it many have understood this last section as referring to druidic beliefs having been brought from britain however it is possible that it refers instead to the specific organizational system that was just being elaborated rather than druidic beliefs generally some scholars have found it difficult to believe that the druids could have been centrally organized given the tribal divisions within goal however ireland was no less politically divided yet there are accounts of the druids having centrally organized and they were able to cross tribal borders and perform or make judgments in the court of any king of galdum an irish tale from the province of midi meaning middle or center tells of how the druids of ireland were gathered there the druid mida lit a mystical fire upon the hill of ushnak that burned for seven years then he cut the tongues out of all the druids of ireland and buried them under the hill considered to be the very center of ireland and he sat down upon the hill overtop all those tongues and served as the chief seer and master of knowledge ushnak was the site of a great gathering both at beltane and sowing and great fires were lit there and great amounts of ash and animal bones from sacrifices were found it was from this site the kings of the fear bollock were said to have divided the land into five provinces it was at this site that the sons of kermit murdered lou it was here also that lugeth machtal was said to have created a magic fire that created five streams and it was here in the tale of mangan's prophecy that a great hail shower made the twelve chief streams of ireland the notion that the druids of gaul would have gathered in a similar place considered the sacred center the omphalos is highly credible given direct examples from ireland of exactly the same thing in the story of mitha his sitting upon the tongues is a symbolic expression of him ruling over their judgments and words as chief druid like apollo must have his oracle in delphi like beijing and the temple of heaven must be located at tienmen the gate of heaven so too the great druid must be present in the center to divine the knowledge of heaven at the central pole unlike in ireland however gaul had apparently gotten rid of kings and this changed the social dynamic possibly making the role of the druid even more powerful it is not difficult to see why the romans may have been concerned about them and desired to suppress them not so much for religious sensibilities but as a direct political threat there are some who say the study of philosophy had its beginning with the barbarians they urged that the persians had their mag-eye the babylonians are assyrians they're chaldeans and the indians they're gymnosophis and among the celts and gauls there are the people called the druids or the holy ones of the teachings in the study conducted by the druids the stoic philosopher pacidonius identifies two different strains moral philosophy precisely ethica philosophia the study or love of wisdom of ethics and natural philosophy phusiologia the ordering of nature which gives us the word physics today tulia cicero also uses the same word saying for i knew one of them a druid myself deviticus the i do it your guest and eulogist he claimed to have that knowledge of nature which the greeks call physiologia theodorus ceculus says they have philosophers and theologians who are held in much honor and are called druids so our sources are very consistent in stating that the druids were engaged in practices of the same kind ascribed to men like aristotle or pacidonius himself unfortunately they do not tell us at any great length what their beliefs were in this regard but they do not belittle them which suggests that they didn't find them particularly foolish however we do get echoes of this belief and we can compare this to irish sources thiogenese laritus says as to the gymnosphas and the druids we are told that they uttered their philosophy and riddles biting men to reverence the gods to abstain from wrongdoing and to practice courage possidonia says the druids are considered the most just of men and on this account they are entrusted with the judgments not only of private disputes but of the public disputes as well so that in former times they even arbitrated cases of war and made opponents stop when they were about to line up for battle and the murder cases in particular had been turned over to them for decisions further when there is a big yield from these cases there is forthcoming a big yield from the land too as they think [Music] it is this last section regarding yields from legal decisions equaling yields from the land which proves key to understanding the druidic moral view for the exact same idea is found in medieval writings ascribed to druids in ireland the testament of moren preserves perhaps the clearest conception of this ancient principle at work moran is a legendary law giver originally a god of law said to be one of luke's servants he provides advice to the incoming king pharadach he says let him keep my advice which follows here tell him before every other word bring him with every word this lasting justice let him preserve truth it shall preserve him let him raise truth it will raise him let him exalt mercy it exalteth him tell him it is through the truth of the ruler that plagues and great lightnings are kept from the people tell him it is through the truth of the ruler that he judges great tribes and great riches it is through the truth of the ruler that he secures peace tranquility joy ease and comfort it is through the truth of the ruler that he dispatches great battalions to the borders of hostile neighbors it is through the truth of the ruler that abundances of great tree fruit of the great wood are tasted it is through the truth of the ruler that milk yields of great cattle are maintained it is through the truth of the ruler that there is abundance of every high tall corn it is through the truth of the ruler that abundance of fish swim in streams tell him since he is young his rule is young let him observe the driver of an old chariot for the driver of an old wheel rim does not sleep he looks ahead he looks behind in front and to the right and left he looks he defends he protects so that he may not break with neglect or violence the wheel rims which run under him tell him let him be merciful just impartial conscientious firm generous hospitable honorable stable beneficient capable honest well spoken steady true judging tell him he may die he will die he may depart he will depart how he has been how he will be that is what will be proclaimed he is not a true ruler unless he performs these deeds we get identical sentiments from the poem of the advice to a prince from the book of lannster by tag o'donoghue if i were an illustrious king i would not go one step beyond the right i would not abate my authority until my law were fulfilled the things that are best for a prince during his reign are truth mercy and silence those that are the worst for a king's honor are straying from the truth and adding to the false truth in a prince is brighter than foam cast up from the mighty wave of the sea as the sheen of a swans covering in the sun as the hue of snow on a mountain a prince's truthfulness it is known brings milk into the world it brings corn and mast these sentiments can be found nearly identically in vedic scriptures in zoroastrian texts and even in confucianism and classical chinese thought and to understand it is to understand the moral philosophy of the druid if there is a good judgment made the land will provide increase just as pacidonious reports because truth has been upheld truth in itself is a cosmic force in the conception of the druids the word used in the text is fear which comes from proto-indo-european ueros cognate with latin ueros it means what is true what is right but clearly this truth has a transcendent nature as employed here it is a core principle of the cosmos truth is the right ordering the proper arrangement it is the fulfillment of the will of the cosmos in gaelic text there are various instances of this happening if a ruler is bad if they pass an unjust judgment if they commit a wrongdoing the crops fail the cattle die there is constant war in mythology bress is shown to be such a ruler and events will always conspire to destroy those who turn against truth it is possible that truth was seen as the principle of the cosmic order just as one circles sun wise for a good blessing moving with the flow of the cosmos represented by the cycle of the sun turning the opposite way turning against the right ordering of the cosmos brings disaster and death just as lies bring disaster this isn't an isolated concept but direct parallels are found in vedic concepts of rita the avestan asha and was likely a key part of the original indo-european view of the cosmos it isn't restricted to indo-european traditions however the chinese emperors were also said to rule with the mandate of heaven when the harvests were good when there was social order and things were generally going well but when the harvest failed or when there were great floods or other disasters it meant the mandate of heaven was rescinded and the king or emperor was to be deposed the ruler must align with the cosmic order of the heavens the truth in order to maintain goodness it is a moral philosophy but it is also inseparable from the natural philosophy in that the material world is an expression of this truth or the cosmic order there is also a sense of this truth and order expressed through the ordering of society each sun should follow the craft of the father furthering it perfecting it and finding his place in the social order let the carpenter's son follow the ass to fashion aboard a right let the smith's son take to coal tis his due to follow in the calling of his family says tag there also seems to be a heavenly god associated with nearly every major social function of the old iron age celtic social order in modern scottish gaelic the name for a blacksmith is glowing but also gleevnu the smith god the name implies that the son follows the father and that this is the way of order and rightness but it also expresses the god is directly linked to this skill of the craftsman and that by embodying the craft they embody the god we can perhaps see a manifestation of this moral philosophy in the gaelic christianity to follow the hagiographies of many saints show them having been children of druids prophesied by druids or raised by druids even significant figures like brigitte the druids were feared by the early christians and st patrick's lorica clearly demonstrates this they were believed to possess great magical powers which might be directed against christians for which prayers were needed to protect oneself from yet conversely they were also greatly respected not only as ancestors but as wise men and prophets who were quite often depicted by christians as upholding high moral standards the mythologized conversion process depicted in irish sources does not try to prove the druids did not have great powers in learning but that the christian god and his saints were more powerful and knowledgeable often these tales end with the druid being converted once he has shown to be incorrect or to have been outdone in some magical feat and the reality might not have been so far different due to a core principle of upholding the truth in the colloquy of the two sages it is demonstrated that if the chief sage was shown to be an error he was obliged to step down from his position but this did not only apply to sages or druids but also even to kings if the high king was shown to make a false judgment he may be pressured to step down this character of the druids is not only the feature of tales but can be seen through actual history as thomas mclaughlin said in his work of the early scottish church there is one feature about this ancient superstition which is worthy of being recorded with approval it was free of intolerance there is no record of any british missionary ever having been a martyr the paganism of civilized rome had its thousands of victims among the early christians the paganism of uncivilized britain had not so much as one and it would be well if the same could be said of some of the forms of christianity that succeeded it high praise from a reverend writing in 1864 but it is generally true the later hegeographies of patrick have him doing battle with druids but the earliest accounts such as those from the monk tirahan in the 7th century display no such actions patrick is peacefully traveling about freely given audience with kings and druids who discuss with him even if they do not accept his beliefs he did travel with an escort but his safety was guaranteed by the personal word of the high king of tara loygatta who was a devoted pagan in the company of druids had the druids been intolerant he would have simply been expelled from the country or killed of the natural philosophy of the druids we get hints of it in some of the short quotes from our ancient sources pasadonius says both these and others assert that the soul is indestructible and likewise the world but that sometimes fire and sometimes water have prevailed in making great changes the importance of both fire and waters is attested in gaelic sources a sacred fire was lit on significant days in ireland such as belton or sowing the start of summer and winter respectively all fires in the region would be extinguished and re-lit from a pure source which would be lit either by a king or druid a sacred fire was maintained by saint priege and dar lugdach daughters of the gods dagda and luke respectively and sometimes the dogda is called eighth meaning fire or sometimes he has a son called eth cormac's 9th century glossary explains either to be fire which returns souls to god but also as being the same as roman westra luge is also connected with heat and fire the wielder of the lightning perhaps one of the manifestations of either cattle were sometimes driven between sacred fires lit by druids in order to protect them from disease men and women would also leap over coals or fires in order to receive purification water was likewise used for purification as it was elsewhere necten which may be another name for nuada or his son possessed the well from which flows the boeing river which is explained also as being the nile river the danube the tiber and others neften's well then is the source of all the rivers in the world and his wife boeing is then the same as danu a story tells that neptune's well was also the source from which flowed all knowledge of the world which was dispersed into the waters through the hazel tree of wisdom dropping the nuts into the water which were then eaten by fish specifically salmon all of one's sins could be cleansed through the well but it could only be approached by necton himself or his cup bearers if one violated the well it would bring destruction water was also seen as a boundary between this world and the other world in the hagiography of patrick the druids remarked that he worships a god who is one time fire another time water the early myths of the saint have him drawing fire from water causing ice to burst into flames and this likely expresses mastery of these elements that was very important to the local beliefs the notion of fire and water overcoming the earth at times suggests possibly a cyclical pattern of destruction and renewal within the druidic belief the monk tirahan records that the druids called the day of the lord's judgment erdatha meaning refreshing restoring or celebration and this is in relation to high king loigata being buried with his weapons ready to fight it is possible that there was a belief in a great battle to come such as recorded in norse tales of ragnarok where selected dead warriors would rise to fight and would be in need of their weapons such a prophecy is given by the goddess morrigan at the end of the second battle of magtaro in the myth of ragnarok it is fire that overcomes the world but it does not completely destroy it what exactly is the earth which cannot be destroyed by fire or water the greek word employed by strabo and likely by he is citing is cosmos meaning earth or universe but with a slightly different connotation to it than a word like gay that references more properly to the earth beneath one's feet or the soil rather than specifying an element directly it is more often used to express an idea of order which is the origin of the word so what we might understand is that the unbalancing of fire and water may at times disrupt the order of the cosmos which creates destruction so there is here an idea possibly of a balance that must be maintained perhaps referring back to the cosmic truth of all the ideas of the druids that have been preserved the belief in the immortality of the soul and reincarnation is perhaps the best well known the ancient writers thought this belief distinct from their own views despite believing in one's shade going into the realm of hades or heroes existing in elysium the word used by strabo is such which is likely close to what we think of as soul today someone's principal essence the force that grants life and consciousness and is used as early as homer to describe also one's essence or ghost after death and so the distinction isn't clear stravo might not have understood exactly how it was distinct either which is why he adds quote as others also believe the key difference then is not in this soul's indestructibility but in what happens after the destruction of the body julius caesar said they wish to inculcate this as one of their leading tenants that the soul does not become extinct but pass after death from one body into another lukan says if what he sing be true the shades of men seek not the dismal homes of erebus or death's pale kingdom but the breath of life still rules these bodies in another age life on this hand and that death between happy the peoples beneath the northern star and this their false belief the process detailed here is not as straightforward as is sometimes thought in part due to the difficult translation of lucan what is sometimes translated as age is orbe from orbis meaning circle rotation or world it could poetically mean age as in another rotation of the sun or sky but it is also an interpretive game there exists a 10th century gaulish commentary on lucan's far salier that includes some additional details it says generally that they deny the spirit perishes but moves to the underworld with whom horses and servants and many household items they burn by which means they acquire them thence the spirit joins the battle to come nor life itself to forbear just as the same ones we obtained in another nature from departing now this translation is lacking but it seems to suggest a coming battle and the dead living in another place not as dead spirits in a shady hades but living much like men do in this world and being in need of household items which are burned for them it is not clear when this commentary was written for the first time so we cannot be sure how accurate the information in these notations are but elements of it do seem to be echoed by irish sources the monk tirahan gives an account of the meeting of high king loygatta and saint patrick with the high king refusing christianity explaining my father neil did not allow me to accept the faith but bade me to be buried on the ridges of tara i son of neal and the sons of dunlan are face to face in the manner of men at war for the pagans in their tombs have their weapons ready until the day of erdatha as the druids call it that is the day of the lord's judgment loy gara appears to believe based on this statement that he will in fact be resurrected in his body on the day of erdatha tiragan explains that this is the day which the christians call the day of the lord's judgment namely the day when the dead will rise and be judged by god so perhaps there is a deeper similarity there than simply some end times prophecy however there exists also a translation or more of a gaelic version of the farsalia which includes its own diverging details regarding the druids come there the people of the druids that people whom science and prophecy used to serve to learn the future from the course of stars and constellations and this is what they would say through their diabolical sciences that the soul of those that died in this temperate zone were taken southward through the torrid zone and placed in other bodies in the southern temperate zone now to call this a translation of lucan is a stretch but it is clear that they understood the belief to be not another age but another location on this surface it suggests that people from the northern hemisphere are reincarnated in the southern hemisphere but from other sources this does not seem to be exactly what is intended but the direction of north and south are important in a rather obscure middle irish work the author amargan gives an account of ideas concerning knowledge and skill god does not give equal wisdom to all tipped inverted right side no knowledge half knowledge full knowledge where is the root of poetry in a person in the body or in the soul some say the soul for the body does nothing without the soul some say it is in the body where the arts are learned pass through the bodies of our ancestors it is said that this is the truth remaining over the root of poetry and the wisdom in every person's ancestry does not come from the northern sky into everyone but into every other person does this refer to a type of migration of the soul from the northern sky the celestial pole the north was where the gods learned their arts on the four sacred islands they came into ireland from the north yet the north also has an inauspicious association tulith means north in gaelic but clay is also used clay means left but also wrong sinister inauspicious this comes from a very ancient practice of orientation by facing the rising sun right is guess and just as in english it means right just agreeable all things as they should be the opposite of clay in the tale the battle of findhorn when referring to the prayers of the druids it says they went upon the hides of old hairless bulls and on the hurdles of the rowan tree and their faces north towards hell presumably there is not a sinister connotation north was also the direction of the abode of the gods and the ancestors it is possible also to read this significance of the north into lucan's poem when he says happy the peoples beneath the north star in this their false belief the northern sky is the center of the cosmos the unmoving position in the sky fixed near the northern star but irish sources provide various beliefs about the afterlife not always consistent with the theme of automatic reincarnation for all in the dinshena house it is said that the pagans believed the dead would travel to the house of dawn this house is identified as a rocky island off the southwest coast of ireland with a giant hole worn straight through it forming a large tunnel we see with hold standing stones that otherworld magic is able to pass between the realm of the living and the dead through such holes and that this is almost certainly the same reason why this island a gigantic hold stone is called the house of dawn dawn was said to be the first of the malaysians to die and he died at sea another place associated with the dead and underworld in gaelic myth elsewhere he is said to be the son of the dogda or mithir he is equivalent to vedic yama yet this fate of residing in the house of dawn is apparently not the ideal we are told that the pagans believed that the souls of the righteous men will not dwell in the house of dawn but observe it only from a distance this implies judgment after death based on moral character in norse myth we are told that the souls of sinners and oath breakers suffer in the afterlife it may be that people are able to transcend the earthly cycle of death and reincarnation represented perhaps by the house of dawn achieving a type of deified state in the tale of mongon manan the god of the sea and blessed isles acts as an agent of reincarnation serving as the father of mongon who is revealed to be the reincarnation of finn mccool sometimes amargan's poem is given as evidence of reincarnation but it is more correct to say that he was invoking the transcendental all when he says i am wind on sea i am a sea wave upon land i am the sound of the sea i am a stag of seven combats i am a hawk upon a cliff i am a teardrop of the sun the tale of finton mach bochra however does show reincarnation but finn is most certainly a god he is said to be a survivor of the first people who arrived to ireland and lived for thousands of years every time he was to die his form changed into a different creature and he continued to live on but finton acts as the collective memory and knowledge of all the gales he served the fear bollock and the tua dei was married to the sister of lou glavada and is specifically said to have been appointed by god to distribute knowledge to men he directly communicates with the god called treyfulngit the strong upholder named as a great warrior the king of the sky and the one who rises and sets the sun treyfungit gifts him with the seeds of the sacred trees of ireland as a symbolic act of transferring the knowledge of the past a story is told of finton meeting saint patrick imparting to him the tale since the beginning of ireland and then being blessed by patrick and dying a christian thus making patrick and the church the inheritors of the knowledge of finton the god of all the knowledge of the philly his process of reincarnation isn't likely reflective of the general process of every man we see representations on gaulish and british iron age coins suggestive of a celestial world view some details seem to survive an early medieval christian work such as satya naran where the colors of the winds are described along with descriptions of elemental forces it is impossible to deal with all examples here but worth mentioning is the gold hats of the urnfield culture studies suggest at least in the case of the berlin example that the hat reflects a solar lunar calendar these hats of similar design have been found in germany france ireland and spain and are of proto-celtic origin they would have been worn by religious elite and it's hard to think of any other group during that period more suited to these hats than the druids in coligny not far from the city of lux dunham modern-day lion was found a gallish calendar which can be reconstructed in full detail it is loony solar dating sometime within the second century a.d such a detailed calendar could only have been produced by part of an intellectual elite and was almost certainly the work of druids or those in gaul who had carried on the knowledge of druids the calendar began with the month of samneos old gaelic saurid summer six months later is yamnyos meaning winter in old gaelic gauret the order and the months that these refer to is debated and will not be discussed at length here but there is certainly correspondence to the periods known from gaelic and welsh and show a high degree of sophistication in the development of the calendar the result of lengthy study of the celestial movements pliny the elder records that the druids maintained a calendar that was sent to a 30-year cycle and calculated the start of the day with the onset of night julius caesar says for that reason they compute the division of every season not by the number of days but of nights they keep birthdays and the beginnings of months and years in such an order that the day follows the night plenty also says that the fifth day of the moon the day which is the beginning of their month and years as also of their ages which with them are but 30 years this day they select because the moon though not yet in the middle of her course has already considerable power and influence since plenty has been dragged in it would be good to mention a bit about druidic plant lore as he is most famous for telling this story about mistletoe we will look at rituals shortly but the druids appear to have been very closely tied to the knowledge of plants they are after all named after the oak tree but in gaelic lore they also possess knowledge of herbs although no specific tale of mistletoe in the ancient gaelic writing system algo each marking or letter is named for a type of tree and there are poems in welsh and gaelic devoted to types of trees and their associations dienkert the gaelic god of medicine was said to be able to heal any injuries unless the back was broken or the brain cut out he killed his son miach for regrowing a new arm for nuada and from miac's grave grew the 365 medical herbs but then the incat mixed them up and hid them amongst the other plants so that now only through the wisdom granted by the holy ghost at least according to the christian preserved tale is one able to know what the use of all these herbs are nuts especially hazelnuts are linked to the obtaining of wisdom but it may have originally been the case that it was the acorn from the medieval commentaries on lucan's farselia it was said that the druids used to eat acorns and then utter prophecies the oak tree was especially sacred to them and linked to the god of sky and thunder a burial in colchester britain may be of a druid the individual was buried with a board game with containers of medical herbs medical tools and what may be divination rods ultimately it's impossible to say if this person was a druid but druids did practice medical arts among other skills amianas marcarinos says in his work the roman history written in the 4th century the study of the liberal arts flourished having been first introduced by bards and yubagas and the druids between these two came the druids men of lofty or genius bound in brotherhoods according to the precepts and examples of pythagoras and their minds were elevated by investigations into the secrets and sublime matters and from the contempt which they entertained for human affairs they pronounced the soul immortal the gaelic provinces too were pervaded by magic arts and that even down to the period within memory for it was the emperor tiberius that put down their druids and all that tribe of wizards and physicians at the present day britannia still cultivates his art and that with ceremonials so august that she might almost seem to have been the first to communicate them to the people of persia [Music] ritual was and is an important aspect of religious worship rome had its own august ceremonials to the gods carried out with precision so when plenty remarks on the devoutness of druidic ritual it is good to keep in mind this comes from one from a culture also dedicated to such rituals it may not be an accident that the first group that came to pliny's mind to compare the druids to were the persian magi indeed we have looked at other examples where they have been likewise grouped together with magai and brahmins both of these groups emerged out of the proto-indo-iranian culture which in turn had its roots in proto-indo-european that these two separate religious orders emerged from that tradition which both seem to have had various similarities with the druids may be due to an indo-european origin to certain core concepts organizational practices and rituals the fire ritual was perhaps the most important and visible aspect of the practice of the mag-eye but likewise plays an important role in all vedic derived traditions including many forms of buddhism the earliest greek source that directly references celtic religious practices related to burning archaeological studies conducted at ushnak in ireland the site of the legendary beltane flyers proved that fires were lit upon the hill and great sacrifices made judging by the amount of animal remains and ash all the gaelic festivals were associated with fire to one extent or another the fires at samhain and beltane however may have been the most important there was a tradition of relighting the fires which was an act of purification of the fire itself by extinguishing what might have been a perpetually burning fire and relighting it as part of a ceremony either conducted by a chief druid or a king unlike some modern reinventions of these events the ceremony itself was likely a very serious religious affair requiring ritual silence and purification of participants after the sacrifices were complete feasing and merriment would then have begun but the ceremony itself would be reverential and as pliny puts it so august that they might have taught it to the persians perhaps the most famous ritual recorded about the druids was one from pliny the elder some have wished to discredit the account provided by plenty of the druids but in terms of our ancient sources he is likely a more reliable one than some others he spent several years in goal serving along the rhine and was us in a much better position to know something about the druids through direct observation or at least local gaulish hearsay than many others the druids for that is the name that they give their magicians held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it supposing always that tree to be an oak of itself the oak is selected by them to form whole groves and they perform none of their religious rites without employing branches of it so much so that it's very probable that the priests themselves may have received their name from the greek name for the tree in fact it is the notion with them that everything that grows on it has been sent immediately from heaven and that the mistletoe upon it is proof that the tree has been selected by god himself as the object of his special favor in a rare case pliny's etymology actually turns out to be very near the mark often ancient etymology isn't even close plenty goes on to detail the ritual when found the mistletoe is gathered with rights replete with religious awe this is done more particularly on the fifth day of the moon and they call her by her name which signifies in their language the all-healing having made all due preparations for the sacrifice and a banquet beneath the trees they bring thither two white bulls the horns of which are bound then for the first time clad in white robes a priest ascends a tree and cuts a mistletoe with a golden sickle which is recovered by others in a white cloak they then sacrificed the bulls offering up their prayers that god will render this gift of his propitious to those to whom he has granted it pliny's account of the ritual is credible not because we should always accept what an ancient writer says but because his account is in accordance with all other evidence we have the significance of the lunar phase is common to nearly every ritual tradition including the romans white bulls were sacrifices to deities in the indo-european tradition and roman jupiter was in several instances specifically sacrificed two white bulls the white color of the animal represents a heavenly as opposed to a catholic deity the white robes of the druids are also a reflection of purity and heaven and most priests in indo-european traditions wear white persian vedic slavic and roman even the element people find most outlandish the cutting of the mistletoe is believable if the tree is sacred to the god and the mistletoe sent from god then it must be handled in a way completely free of contamination iron is a metal that corrodes it isn't pure gold does not corrode though it is also possible that bronze or copper was used in a poem from the book of lentzer the bard tag o-donohoo says bronze is best of all the materials though it go astray it will not take rust the druid is perhaps reluctant to touch the heaven-sent mistletoe with his hand and risk contaminating it or else afraid of damaging it whilst trying to get it down from the tree and so it is caught in a white robe again the color of purity the bulls are then sacrificed and a typical sacrificial meal is had in honor of the god within his sacred oak grove but we have also the more dark and mysterious description of these groves from lucan which perhaps because of their mysterious nature have become the common view of what these groves were like there stood a grove which from the earliest time no hand of man had dared to violate hidden from the sun its chill recesses matted boughs entwined prison the air within no silver nymphs here found a home nor pan but savage rites and barbarous worship alters horrible on massive stones upreared sacred with blood of men was every tree if faith be given to ancient myth no fowl has ever dared to rest upon those branches and no beast has made his layer beneath no tempest falls nor lightnings flash upon it from the cloud stagnant the air unmoving yet the leaves filled with mysterious trembling dripped the streams from the cold black fountains effigies of gods rude scarcely fashioned from some fallen trunk held the mid-space and pallid with decay their rotting shapes struck terror those do men dread most the god unknown twas said that caves rumbled with earthquakes that the prostrate you rose up again that fiery tongues of flame gleamed in the forest depths yet were the trees unkindled and that snakes in frequent folds were coiled around the trunks men flee the spot nor dare to worship near and even the priests or when bright phoebus holds the height or when dark knight controls the heavens and anxious dread draws near the grove and fears to find its lord [Music] the goals were said to have grieved as the oaks fell and thus the first recorded felling of sacred grove in europe was not at the hands of christians but romans the romans too had sacred groves dedicated to various gods and sacrificed victims at bloodied altars made of stone and had massive gladiatorial games where people were brutally slain to the great cheers of thousands so this moral posturing is paper thin the oak grove was likely no darker or more mysterious than any other sacred grove ever grown in the world pliny likewise described just such a sacred grove and does not characterize it in this way at all according to his account a sacred feast was had in the grove which would have had members of the community participating this is especially damning evidence that lucan is lying in his details because both writers were contemporary however such places being held as holy likely were approached with care and respect tacitus records what was likely a similar grove in germania and in this regard and many others the germanic and celtic practices were likely not so different the sacrifice of cattle was likely quite common and in some cases continued into the early modern period accounts from scottish highlands suggest that in the event of severe illness in a herd farmers would sacrifice one or two burying them beneath trees in exchange for the health of the rest cattle continued to be sacrificed to saint mal rua in the scottish highlands as late as the 17th century to the shock of the church authorities this was done at festivals in august that also involved visiting wells and old shrines circling around them sunwise and also hosting fairs and competitive games in honor of the saint things that very likely carry on the traditions of lunasa bull sacrifice is also recorded in the legend of king konramore a sacrifice is made of a bull and a ritual consumption of its meat was specially administered to someone who would then sleep upon the bull's hide and enter into a dream that dream was thought to be given by the god and would be interpreted by druids in the case of this story as to who would be the next king there was also a tradition of making offerings into water or into the earth the gaelic tales of water see it as a boundary between worlds with the underworld often represented as being across or beneath the water and so it might have been a medium through which one could make an offering into the realm of the spirits there is also some indication both archaeological and textual that supports the use of a meditative posture and meditative practices seated with legs crossed such as is done in buddhism meditation is referenced in old irish sources not only by druids or saints but also by warriors kuhlen was said to meditate in the snow causing the snow to melt all around him these forms of meditation frequently are depicted generating heat with various saints meditating within ice water and able to make the whole pond or lake warm through their meditation it is also possible that various trips into the other world are in some sense poetic description of astral travel from folk tales regarding werewolves and even direct accounts from saints such as adamna we know that there was such a practice in the case of saint adamnan he specifically said his spirit traveled outside his body and journeyed into heaven and hell our ancient and medieval sources are all agreed that the druids practiced magic that is they attempted to create outcomes either through invoking powers of gods or through their own mental force theodorus says these men stepped forth between them and caused them to cease as though having cast a spell over certain kinds of wild beasts tacitus says all around the druids lifting their hands to heaven and pouring forth dreadful impercations scared our soldiers by the unfamiliar sight so that as if their limbs were paralyzed they stood motionless and exposed to wounds and quote the druids declared with their prophetic utterances of an idol superstition that this fatal conflagration was a sign of the anger of heaven and pretended the universal empire of this trans-alpine nation plenty refers to them as magicians and in latin writings on the pagan priests of the picks they are called magi as well in the gaelic myth of the second battle of magturg luge asks his druids what they will do in the battle they say we will bring showers of fire upon the faces of the famous so that they cannot look up and the warriors contending with them can use their force to kill them the mythical account and the historical account are eerily similar the roman account also has the implication that not only did the druids profess to have these kind of powers but that they actually worked the creation of fear and awe was thought to be magic just as music's ability to invoke emotion and mental states was a form of magic but the powers ascribed to them in irish sources go beyond even awe and fear they were thought to be able to summon the rains and storms to bring this sun and most especially to lay curses upon people that would ruin them the magic of the druids was never denied by early christians some of this may be reinterpretation of ritual the druids likely conducted ritual sacrifices to help ensure good weather or rain as the situation required as did many pagan priests and later christian saints there is also recorded a tradition where the high king must be up to greet the sun before it rises and likely the druids performed a morning sacrifice at dawn that was a form from ancient times believed to ensure the new day and reenact the cosmic beginning the curse of a druid was thought lethal and greatly feared in a prayer by saint patrick protection is sought against the magic of druids blacksmiths and witches yet saints were also said to level curses against people killing them or destroying entire armies through them these curses were also enhanced via fasting and the tradition of fasting seems to have predated christianity for we see it used in ways that christian fasting never was there is a magical power to fasting in the gaelic tradition which could invoke a curse upon the person fasted against even the god luge threatens this kind of curse after his father is murdered saying that he will not eat until he gets justice when saints or bishops were having a feud with a king they would gather outside his residence in a fasting forcing him to acquiesce to their demands or risk the force of their curse and almost certainly this is druidic in origin the most particular story of druid magic comes from pliny who gives an account of a serpent stone or egg according to him in the summer serpents would gather together in a great ball and create a kind of foam this foam would solidify and be ejected into the air by the serpent at which point it must be caught in a cloak to prevent it from touching the ground the person must then flee on horseback for the serpent will catch and kill the one who has taken it the only safety from this is to cross a river the proof that this stone is a real serpent egg is that it will float upon the water it must be obtained in a particular day of the moon though plenty doesn't tell us what day that is as outlandish as this tale may sound we hear of similar things in gaelic myth we should perhaps suppose that the event is metaphorical in the wasting sickness of kuhalin loig kuhlen's charioteer is brought into the other world and he describes his journey he says that he grasped a serpent in each hand something we find represented in gawlish and british iconography the serpent is representative of a power or creature in the underworld along hadrian's wall is a carving of a serpent that seems to be ejecting a stone or egg from its mouth and the entire thing takes a phallic shape pliny's story may tell of how the druid through his means of traveling into the other world stole a stone of great power from the catholic forces and brings it across into this world the river represents the boundary of that world and the horse is representative of the means of crossing that boundary this dynamic is represented in welsh myth by gordian who steals the pigs of predare the son of the lord of anuven the underworld we also have accounts of magical stones not unlike what pliny describes the druid mugruth was said to have possessed such a magical stone it was thrown into a river and it spawned a giant eel that battled with an entire army when he was done he turned it back into the form of a stone in some versions luke kills balor with a stone which then strikes down many more of the famous hosts and wounds indec the king as well an account of saint column killer also has him use a stone to heal a pictish king a stone that floats upon the water saint molassius traveled across the sea on top of a floating stone but what about women were there female druids in some later roman accounts druidesses are said to have shouted out doom predictions upon emperors but were these women druids or something else tacitus gives us our first historical clue on the beach stood in a versaray a serrated mass of arms and men with women flitting between the ranks in the style of furies and robes of deathly black and with disheveled hair they brandished their torches in gaelic myth the morrigan is likewise equated with the greek fury she incites warriors to violence and combat exactly as these women described by tacitus dressed in black makes them quite the opposite of the druids and they are representing catholic forces of destruction and death again like the morrigan most likely these women are what the norse called valkyries they are linked to prophecy battle and death and they are not druids and they likely had their own specific roles which survive but little there are other women however in gaelic myth that do not appear to fit into this category of fury be hula and dianan are called the bantueth of lug the bear meaning is which but specifically it means a woman of the north which also implies inauspiciousness this may directly correspond to the goddess identified by lucan in the first salia diana of the north and it's very tempting to see the correspondence between irish dianan who is the woman of the north and diana of the north these goddesses are said to cause the trees rocks and sought of the earth to spring to life and fight for luge in the battle in the dingenahas be hula fights alongside luge against a deadly drought brought by famourians who steal the sap from the trees there is also sporadic reference to female druids in some tales but generally women are depicted as playing a sacred or magical role that is something separate from the druids there are some tales where females do appear as druids and seem to have a similar role as druids but many of the women that are presented are not in fact druids but belong to other roles and it seems perhaps that most women undertook a different role that was sought specifically feminine in nature but no less powerful they who are troubled with unusually severe disease and they who are engaged in battles and dangers either sacrifice men as victims or vow that they will sacrifice them and employ the druids as the performers of those sacrifices because they think that unless the life of a man be offered for the life of a man the mind of the immortal gods cannot be rendered propitious and they have sacrifices of that kind ordained for national purposes others have figures of vast size the limbs of which are formed of aussies they fill with living men which being set on fire the men perish enveloped in flames they consider that the oblation of such as have been taken in theft or robbery or any other offence is more acceptable to the immortal gods but when a supply of that class is wanting they have recourse to the oblation of even the innocent this is one of the most famous images of the druids a giant wicker man filled with human sacrifices but it isn't only caesar who makes his claim sopeta the 4th century greek poet wrote among them is a custom whenever they win victory in battle to sacrifice their prisoners to the gods so i imitating the celts have vowed to burn as an offering three of these false dialecticians while caesar can be said to have had a political motive to invent such a druidic tradition no such motive exists with sophister yet both suggest sacrificing men to the gods by fire pocidonius as strabo tells us also gives account of such things and he likewise would have had little reason to invent the tales they used to strike a human being whom they had devoted to death in the back with a saber and then divine from his death struggle but they would not sacrifice without the druids we are told still of other kinds of human sacrifices they would shoot a victim to death with arrows or impale them in the temples or having devised a colossus of straw and wood throw into the colossus cattle and wild animals of all sorts and human beings and then make a burnt offering of the whole thing diogenes laerteus said of the celts near greece for their crimes they keep prisoners for five years and then impale in honor of the gods dedicating them together with many other offerings of first fruits and constructing pyres of great size captives are also used by them as victims for their sacrifices in honor of the gods certain of them likewise slay together with a human such animals as are taken in war or burn them or do away with them in some other vengeful fashion unlike caesar however who suggests that innocent people were victims of these sacrifices all other writers suggest that this was done to criminals or war captives which in rome or greece would very likely have faced execution or enslavement we must ask ourselves if there is a genuine moral distinction to be made between execution and sacrifice some dispute the claim of human sacrifice altogether and though there is some archaeological evidence that may point toward it such as bog bodies or other strange burial practices there is certainly not evidence of mass human sacrifices excavations at sites such as ushnak in ireland did not reveal piles of human bones but animal bones early christians in ireland do not speak of mass grisly human sacrifices and appear less morally shocked by the druids and caesar claimed to be in tales of saints we do not find them bursting in disrupting human sacrifices and saving the poor innocent people condemned to die by evil druids as one might expect if such things were taking place in fact the opposite seems to be the case early gaelic law was very restrictive about implementing a death penalty with the brethim much preferring the erc or the blood price that is even in cases of murder the brethim would promote the acceptance of a legally set value for the life of the victim depending on their class and profession which the murderer would have to pay to the family of the victim this is the basis for the dramatic telling of the fate of the sons of turin it is explained how saint patrick had favored the execution of one who had tried to kill him and that the man was put to death by patrick's word they said although patrick favored the death penalty it was because he could ensure that the man could be forgiven for his sins and sent to heaven but that was due to this special power of the saint now that outcome could not be certain and so the blood price was favored in all cases where the perpetrator was willing to pay the fine and not transgress the law again we can potentially see st patrick filling the role of a druid dedicating the soul of the slain to god and this act being little different functionally to the so-called human sacrifices of the druids if the sacrificial victims were criminals or war captives slated to die the druid's role was to send their spirits to the gods there is also an example where the druid was said to divine from dying men the realm of the dead was thought a place full of knowledge and the druid seeks the knowledge the dead possess which the dying in their transition might be able to relate in some way the same element can be seen in myths of the norse odinn who travels to hell to seek foreknowledge from a dead vulva there is likewise reference made to the sleeping upon grave mounds in order to obtain knowledge again relating to communicating with the dead the association with the north and the druids facing towards the north when seeking foreknowledge from the gods may also relate to this the north is the abode of the spirits of the ancestors it is the abode of the dead and the abode of the gods thus why the christian writer calls it hell but this is not a hell under the earth nor a cursed place but the axis of the sky in one of saint patrick's irish hagiographies it is said that he visited the fair of talty a lunasa festival and gave it his blessing in the lower cavalla eren lunasa is called the only high assembly patrick forbade the killing of anyone upon the field of talty but he gives permission for one person to be killed upon a nearby mound this killing of a person at the festival likely relates to what a roman observer would have called a human sacrifice a person killed during a national assembly dedicated to a god yet we can hardly suppose that saint patrick was sanctioning the murder of innocents he was likely giving sanction for some ritualized execution of a prisoner on that day can we see much evidence that supports a type of ritualized execution in irish history often with drownings but sometimes burnings and also hangings recorded in irish annals an element can perhaps also be seen in the welsh mabinogi tale king bran relates a strange tale of how he acquired his cauldron of regeneration a giant man with red hair came over from ireland with his wife after they escaped the burning hot iron house that had been constructed to burn them alive disguised as a great feast in the 10th century annotations of lukian's farselia we find a triad of male gods which scribe has associated with gods of the roman pantheon and gives some details about them although the accuracy of these notes is debatable there does seem to be some commonality the god tottatus is said to have accepted human sacrifice through drowning the god esses accepts human sacrifice through hanging or impaling and probably both the god taranis accepts human sacrifice through burning though it clarifies that he now accepts cattle in its place ritual hanging also took place in ireland specifically in relation to sowing in the tale of the adventures of nera two captives were hanged on the eve of samhain the young warriors dared to go outside during the feast and to loop a rope around the foot of one of the dead men hanging outside this hanging although the details are not provided must have been a part of the ritual of samhain and perhaps nera's dare was likewise part of it again these are not said to be innocent people but captives enemy warriors also interesting is the word used for hanging is the same word used for crucifying so that jesus was sometimes translated as a hanged man as opposed to a crucified man in gaelic it seems likely that all three of these customs did at some time take place in ireland around important festivals but that they were captive enemy warriors or criminals people who would have been killed anyhow in dio cassius's account of buddhica he ascribes violent acts including hanging and impaling to her victorious troops but he distinguishes between these acts and sacrifices that he also said took place tacitus makes no mention of human sacrifice by buddhica relating only that it was a bloody conflict where no prisoners were taken is there a difference between human sacrifice and execution the difference would lie in the idea that the killing is a thing propitious to the gods as caesar says the druids conceived of a cosmic truth upheld by the gods and observable by men that force was balanced in all things that included life and death this idea can also be found in various greek myths where apollo seeking to extend the life of admittos makes a bargain with the fates that they can have the life of his wife in exchange this is exactly the same concept at work at one time the greeks themselves may have acted under the same impulses indeed human sacrifice is featured numerous times in greek myth with important figures like agamemnon having sacrificed his own daughter and many other tales of human sacrifices averted only at the last moment ancient romans also committed human sacrifices as did the norse as did hebrews and aztecs and probably every ancient society in the world at some point in its history caesar does relate that it is in times of intense hardship that these sacrifices were made and he would have seen them at their very worst a total war was being waged across gaul in which hundreds of thousands of men went to their deaths fighting for their lands desperate times caused desperate responses and it isn't inconceivable that what may have been part of a custom of sacrificing prisoners and criminals on sacred days to ensure prosperity of the community morphed into something more drastic but it is difficult to say for certain yet the basic image that we get is that the druids likely did perform human sacrifices though almost exclusively these people were criminals or enemies who would have been executed anyhow in ireland it seems to have been quite rare and perhaps only associated with major feast days with one or two criminals or captives executed with the druids dedicating them to the gods and with early christians finding little to fault in it based on the absence of criticism of the practice and even potentially a sanctioning of it by early christians who tried to push for a more widespread application of the death penalty in opposition to the typical brehen fine ligurian tribes now shone in ancient days first of the long-haired nations on whose necks once flowed the auburn locks in pride supreme and those who pacify with blood accursed savage totates hesses horrid shrines into dranus's altars cruel as were those loved by diana goddess of the north all these now rest in peace there has been much debate about the significance of the gods lucan ascribes to the celts or how much he really knew about the beliefs of the druids or even if these gods relate to gods of the druids at all yet there may be good reason to believe that they do and that this is an authentic triad to start with based on at least the later commentaries these gods reflect three distinct social classes and likely three elements totatus is said to be a god of war linked to mars sometimes mercury and who have received sacrifices through drowning linking him to warrior function and water esses is said to have received hanged men and was worshipped by merchants linking him to perhaps an economic function related to wealth toranes was said to be the sovereign of the sky linked to jupiter but also leader in war for esses there exists a few stone reliefs like the one in paris that show him striking a tree with what may be an axe many theories exist as to what the tree holding the three cranes symbolizes but it does link the god to trees maybe to axes taranis is likewise featured with a wheel potentially a solar wheel depictions of jupiter and gaul often show him in a militant function riding down cathodic forces upon a horse in the image of a warrior brandishing sometimes a spear other times a lightning bolt or standing with a spear or in full armor totatis appears to have been linked to several different deities both mars and mercury even jupiter on one occasion if these are true names of gods regional names or simply descriptors is up for debate but the triad and what it expresses there does seem to be widespread in gaelic myth there is also a triad of gods nuada dagda and lug rather than exploring the myths of these gods our purpose here is to see what they may have represented theologically to the druids nuada learned his knowledge from uscis the name being derived from water and is said to be husband of boyne and his son or his other name is necten which maybe cognate with roman neptune but in any case is the origin of the world's rivers he likewise serves as a king closely associated with law and particular rules around combat and warfare he received the sacred sword of the gods it was said to be inescapable in britain his cognate is nodens who is equated with mars and he represents the king of the cosmic law the order of the heavens and stars and the foundation from which bubbles forth the waters the dogdah received his cauldron representing infinite wealth he studied at the island of murius probably referring to an earthen wall or rampart mur which he is known for constructing in myth or it comes from mur identically referring to abundance and likely it's a play on both he is called the great father to the gods called and meaning the red one of great knowledge and is also called the sun of every art the title rose is made up of ro meaning great exceedingly great and fes meaning knowledge and this is very similar to a popular name for mercury and gaul vesukius meaning the knower with fess and this being the same word simply one in gaelic and one in golish though he is associated with many things his primary connection is with the generation of wealth and the mastery of life and death he rules over the productive forces as well as the spirit energy which gives life lou trained on the island of gorius with gore referring to heat indo-european gur with several derived terms in old irish like goddeth meaning to heat or burn his teacher was estrus meaning way passage outlet and he received a spear which no battle can be sustained against although people have focused on his title of samaldana meaning skilled in many arts it is only one of several his other titles are lon bienach meaning the fierce or powerful striker and the powerfully combative one if a king is an exceptional warrior they are likened to luge he is equated with the lion the astrological symbol of his most sacred time of year as well as the lion's ferocity and he's often called lug lawn meaning the powerful strong or fierce luge he arrives to lead the gods in war against the catholic forces and crushes them down with his mighty weapons said to be the first to ride a horse into combat in that battle calling forth all the powers of heavens in his fight wind thunder lightning and the light of sun and moon he is the breaker of obstructions the fighter against the catholic powers and the militant enforcer of the laws we thus have a triad of the legal sovereign nuad his warrior co-ruler lug and the druid who controls spirit and ensures the prosperity of the land the dog and this tri-functional schema does seem to match up with the one provided by lucan although the figures are known by different names and this scheme does not follow the one laid out by george dumasil in every detail yet it does align with the three aspects of law war and production but here the fertile aspect is in the celtics scheme linked to magic and spirit controlled by the dogda because it is the control of spirit that produces life the law is linked to water and very likely the starry heaven conceived of as the cosmic ocean the origin of all good waters on earth that give life and refreshment to men the element of the overcomer the warrior is linked to the sky and particularly the storm and the lightning flash as the breaker of the cloud demons that trap the waters and obscure the heavens but also he is the one who brings forth the light and the sun the triad is mutually dependent like three heads of a single entity nuada lug and dagda are brothers sons of ethnic though are ascribed different fathers yet in this tri-functional scheme it is the ruler of the sky with his storm clouds that holds the supreme authority yet the druids association with oak and the oaks association with the thunder god suggests that it was this god in particular that was the focus of the worship of the druids in welsh myth say takes the form of an eagle and perches atop an oak which is also symbolically representing in that scene mount snowden the eagle's flesh is said to slake off him and be eaten by a pig at the base of the tree this flesh is the acorns falling in autumn which the pigs were put out to eat and they is here the physical expression of the tree itself gwyddion is shown controlling the life cycle in a manner similar to the irish dogda bringing him down from the tree and restoring him the other sons of ethnic appear as the divine manifestations of social functions within the iron age celtic social order goivnu is the blacksmith god with his name meaning simply smith credna is the worker of gold and other fine metals like bronze and silver and crafts nuada's arm luchta is the carpenter augma is the warrior the incact is the physician edayne is the poetess ethnic herself is the cow goddess also represented likely as boeing and danu she is the cosmic potentiality the colonel as her name suggests which manifests the various gods which govern the unfolding of the cosmos and the maintenance of the order or truth there were likely many local cults of gods as well as cults of ancestors and likely gods took different names depending on the local traditions of the tribes and were in part merged with the identities of their ancestral figures this is in part a result of how the gods were thought to manifest in the world if a king was an exceptionally powerful warrior he was sometimes called lug reborn and this was not simply a poetic exercise but part of the divine conception that the power and nature of the god was reflected within the people if a king was especially just and balanced he would be likened to nuada in myth this gets expressed as being somehow the physical children of gods but it is more accurate to think that someone who expressed the qualities of that particular god were thought to be a rebirth or the son of that god which they embodied when ancestors die they were venerated and perhaps directly equated to various gods based on their character or professions so that their veneration is hard to separate from the worship of the gods themselves and so this association between them and their job and their job and then the god of that job is very interconnected so when a person is performing that craft they are performing like the god and this is seen by the other name of the two of the donna which is the ace dhana right the people of skill the people of art and they were said to create all the arts and in some way they are the embodiment of them the material world is infused with spirit so that every tree has a spirit but likewise mountains rivers lakes and so on which is very similar to the conception that we find in shinto in japan now these nature spirits are of a lower order than the higher cosmic gods that are associated with social order and the natural order but they are often more directly associated with the human world and thus become a bigger focus in folklore especially in the christian era where the christian god has usurped the former roles of the higher gods druids would have officiated over the rights of all of these local tribal gods and ancestor cults while also maintaining a larger conception that centered around a core group of gods who maintained the overall cosmic order for all the talents and knowledge of the druids they were at their heart the priestly class of the celts yet they stood out as becoming more elevated in society than priests of nearby european peoples perhaps through their organization their intense devotion to learning and the development of moral and natural philosophy the rigorous study of the heavens and their intense conservative nature they carried out august ceremonies involving fire they greatly revered the oak and its god but nature in general which was imbued with spirits of all kinds the british christian gildas remarked that the old ways were now leaving britain and now finally the rivers mountains trees and other resources could be put to the use of man rather than worship the theology places god outside of creation detached from it this was not the druidic view which saw the gods as part of the ever-existing eternal world which changes in time through fire and water but like the human soul is never destroyed one might wonder then if the soul and the cosmos were in their view of one and the same type but such questions may never be fully answered they died along with the last druid what remains to us is a flicker of light in the dark and it's up to a new generation to rekindle that fire and to ever follow the great guide of truth i hope you enjoyed this presentation and if you did you'll consider supporting me through patreon or paypal videos like this take an extensive amount of research and time to put together and i couldn't do it without all of my wonderful supporters great thanks to every one of you and as always stand tall

Channel: Fortress of Lugh

Views: 1,045,484

Keywords: druids, the druids, druidism, paganism, mythology, brahmin, Indo-European, Religion, philosophy, Celts, Roman, Iron Age, celtic priests, magi, roman history, ancient history

Id: WbVsJoIpoi8

Length: 128min 44sec (7724 seconds)

Published: Thu May 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/JimThumb]

In ancient times,

Hundreds of years before the dawn of history

Lived a strange race of people, the Druids

No one knows who they were or what they were doing

But their legacy remains

Hewn into the living rock, of Stonehenge

[u/424ge]

tldr why they drop so many herbs?

[u/neroselene]

Finally we can understand: The Mystery of the Druids.

[u/68rouge]

Funny she doesn't look Druish

[u/joeyjoejoe_7]

An alternative view and interpretation of druids, which I find pretty compelling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAXzzHM8zLw

[u/JimJam28]

Nobody knows who they were… or what they were doing.

[u/semicolonmania]

Got all excited about this and then the guy started talking. My enthusiasm waned. Then the vocal effects started and my enthusiasm collapsed into a singularity and my house is currently being swallowed by it. Please advise.

[u/Spaceneedle420]

Excellent thank you.

[u/tryatriassic]

Almost nothing is recorded about these guys. Just a couple lines in de bello gallico iirc