The Druids

[Music] [Music] Wizards enchanters conjurer's sorcerers and cunning folk Wiccan fellows and magicians these are just a handful of names for those that possessed knowledge acquired from the mysterious realms of thought and superstition these cunning folk were masters of magic they specialized in spells herb-lore charms and healing they were also fortune tellers matchmakers and illusionists necromancer's shapeshifters and summoners their legacy has survived well into modern popular culture but how much do we really know about their origins from where did these enigmatic practitioners of the arcane arts emerge this video is the first in a new series of episodes on the origins of wizardry in the British Isles in this series we'll be investigating prehistoric Celtic and Anglo Saxon mythologies and histories unveiling the story of the ancient magician when we conjure an image of a druid what do we see perhaps it is a mysterious old man in a robe with a long white beard standing over an altar in the middle of a stone circle his hands held high as he hollows in vacations at the gods the restrained writhing body of some unfortunate soul beneath him a human sacrifice this is a popular image one cemented in the collective consciousness we often think of druids as an ancient shady group of fanatics with secretive practices and even less defined beliefs inclined to hold grand religious ceremonies to appease equally ambiguous and wrathful gods is this impression in any way related to reality what do we know about these mystical priests of Celtic culture in this episode of British folklore myths and legends we explore the myths truths and horrors of the real druids the Druids were Celtic and Gallic priests astronomers teachers scientists healers advisors judges and philosophers they are documented as living in Britain Ireland and Gaul which we now call France they first appear in records from 300 BC it is Julius Caesar who offered the greatest contemporary contribution during his conquest of Gaul in 58 250 BC he wrote a firsthand observation of the Druids it appeared in his narrative commentaries on the Gallic war the Druids are in charge of all religious matters superintending public and private sacrifices and explaining superstitions there is one Arch Druid of supreme power at a fixed time of year they assemble at a holy place in the territory of the carnutes anyone with a grievance attends and obeys the decisions and judgments which the druids give the general view is that this religion originated in Britain and was imported into Gaul which means that any keen student of Druidism now goes to britain for information the whole Galligan is virtually a prey to superstition other contemporary sources include those of cicero Diodorus Siculus Strabo and takata's whose testimonies we will explore later the druids name may derive from an irish gaelic word Doya meaning oak tree and wisdom druids considered the oak tree a sacred symbol of knowledge and the center of their world as well as a doorway to the Otherworld death and rebirth it was the centerpiece of the mysterious natural world they strived to understand Strabo tells us that there were three types of religious vocation within Celtic society the bards writers of ballets and poems the Ovitz experts on nature healing and seer ship and the druids who were the philosophers scholars and judges the high-ranking class of religious leaders relied on the unification of medicine learning and divination they were respected and influential allowed to speak ahead of the king and council they were exempt from taxes are not required to fight in battle their role was varied but like any priests their primary function was to join people with the gods sometimes literally human sacrifices were common the sick and those deemed to die in battle would volunteer themselves for the ritual their willingness to do so becomes apparent later die odorous tells us they also observe a custom which is especially astonishing and incredible for in such cases they devote to death the human being and plunge a dagger into him in the region above the diaphragm and when the stricken victim has fallen they read the future from the manner of his fall and from the twitching of his limbs as well as from the gushing of the blood Caesar tells us that in a grander offering immense wicker effigies would be filled with living men usually criminals and then set to flame others use figures of immense size whose limbs woven out of twigs they fill with living men and set on fire and the men perish in a sheet of flame if criminals couldn't be found innocence were used instead it is important to remember that the Romans were at war with Gaul and the Gallic wars must have played a role in how the native Celtic population was presented to Rome the reports from Caesar could have been exaggerated embellished or even fabricated for the sake of propaganda in order to maintain the perception that Gauls were ritualistic savages worthy of conquering and civilizing having said this there is some correlation between what we read in Caesars account and the early Irish sagas such as the election and appointment of arch druids it is thought that Caesar borrowed much of what he writes on the druids from hearsay and the writings of Poseidonis a greek philosopher who supposedly visited gaul in the second century BC Pliny the Elder a natural philosopher of the early Roman Empire shares another practice of the Gallic druids the ritual of oak and mistletoe the purpose of the ritual was primarily to create a cure for infertile animals Pliny tells us in his own words the Druids but that is their name they give to their magicians held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it and they perform none of their religious rites without them the mistletoe however is but rarely found and when found is gathered with rites replete with religious or this is done more particularly on the fifth day of the moon the day which is the beginning of their months and years this day they select because the moon the not yet in the middle of her course has already considerable power and influence and they call her by a name which signifies in their language the all healing having made all due preparation for the sacrifice and the banquet beneath the trees they bring thither two white Bulls the horns of which are bound then for the first time clad in a white robe the priest ascends the tree and cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle which is received by others in a white cloak they then immolates the victims offering up their prayers it is the belief with them that the mistletoe taken in drink will impart fecundity to all animals that are barren and that it is an antidote for all poisons this ritual affirms the sacred nature of the oak tree and its religious significance to the druids druids usually held their rites in secluded sacred oak Grove's and woodland clearings a common belief stations the Druids Stonehenge an ancient megalithic structure dating back to 2400 BC while the Druids may have used the sacred stone monument for worship it was unlikely that they built it it is thought that the Druids worship the gods of the Celtic pantheon Caesar named six of them in his narrative of the Gallic Wars but identifies them using the names of Roman gods rather than the native Gallic ones they have been paired with Celtic theá-- names mercury for example is thought to identify with the gallo-roman God visu sheis local cults may have been common sprouting hundreds of minor individual deities across the celtic territories evidence from the Roman period provides a wide range of deities worshipped by the Celtic peoples some isolated to particular settlements and regions local deities were more commonly linked to nature worship embodying the spirits of the landscape including rivers trees and mountains given the Druids fascination with the natural world these gods and goddesses would no doubt have been of particular importance and veneration what little we know of their religious beliefs his courtesy once more of Caesar the cardinal doctrine which they seek to teach is that souls do not die but after death pass from one to another and this belief as the fear of death is thereby cast aside they hold to be the greatest incentive to valor concerning the religious festivals of the Druids one can consult the calendars of ancient Celtic religion it is uncertain whether druids would have celebrated the four galaxies '''l festivals Beltane sell wine in bulk and lunasa has written evidence of them was documented only from the early medieval period onwards these texts therefore may not be representative of religious festivals observed hundreds of years earlier by the Celtic peoples examples of magical juror jury can be found in Celtic legend oral tradition preserved many stories featuring the magician's until they could be written down in the medieval period by Christian monks namely in the four cycles of Irish mythology and the Welsh mob Enochian the druid cath bad features in several stories from Irish mythology where he acts as Archdruid to the king of Ulster in the Ulster cycle in Deirdre of the sorrows the druid predicts the appearance of a bards unborn child a girl of flaxen hair and eyes of grey and green he said with cheeks the color of the foxglove and bright red lips she would become a woman of great beauty and invite the courtship of kings and the envy of Queens he foresaw a great slaughter of her behalf which would split Ulster man against man the druid names the girl dear dree assigning her the moniker Deirdre of the sorrows in the same breath because of the devastation her fame would callers Ulster's three greatest warriors would be forced into exile great misfortune would spread through the court in kingship families would divide and fall and vowels would be broken the druids ability to prophesize the chaos that would gradually unfold throughout the story with startling accuracy illustrates the role of the druid as Diodorus Siculus comments on the use of prophecy in his library of history the ghouls 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 multitude subservient to them in the cattle rate of Coulee a story from the Ulster cycle calf bud tells Cullen an Irish mythological demigod then just a seven year old boy that any who should be the first to take up arms on a particular day would live a glorious if short life in one version of the story Cuthbert determines this by looking to the sky and casting sticks cath Bad's prophecy ultimately came true and the young warrior having made many enemies in his short life was deceived by three witches themselves daughters of a druid and enticed into battle with a queen Cullen had previously humiliated in defeat three druids stepped forward from the battle lines and demanded spears in tribute the young warrior had three Spears with him and used them to kill all three druids legate a rival of Kirkland returned all three Spears the last one fatally wounding the young warrior he tied himself to a rock so that he might die on his feet even in his death throes his enemies were hesitant to approach him eventually after a raven landed on Cullen's head legate closed-in and beheaded him and the warrior perished young just as calf bud had prophesized other stories see druids raising magical storms and mists communing with the Otherworld inducing insanity erasing memories influencing battles turning them into stone flying throwing balls of fire shape-shifting hurling magic stones and halting the course of the Sun much of druidic magic in mythology derives from the power of poetry and incantation most of the aforementioned deeds belong to the hydrant mug herethe as seen in the book of this more the blind druid Margarethe was the student of simon mages an adversary of sant Peter and the mentor of the monks wizard Molina's or Merlin he appears throughout Irish mythology notably across vast spans of time leading many to believe that his life span that of 19 Kings Mogga Ruth's exploits are fantastical to say the least he is capable of growing to an enormous stature summoning giant fiery eels perhaps dragons creating dogs employing black clouds from his mouth that rained blood with another breath he is capable of turning people to stone in the siege of not long he commands every one of the classical elements as weapons fire water earth and air after he is called upon to do battle with Cormac the wolf born Cormac planned to win the seat of High King of All Ireland and intended to levy taxes on the men of Munster to the south his druids dried up all the water in the land and exasperated the king of southern Munster appealed to Margaret for help but his price was extortionate he asked for many things including territory cows pigs oxen racehorses cloaks and a slew of political rewards only after he was guaranteed these things would he help which is when he began raining blood and turning folk to stone needless to say it was a quick battle in other texts he is credited with the beheading of John the Baptist from the who remain a wage was given to Margarethe who chose it for beheading John this then was the wage of Margarethe his choice of the maidens then Margaret the splendid went to kill John though it was shameful so he took in the prison to Herod the head of John on a dish of white silver this act was thought to bring a curse upon the Irish people it is interesting to note that in both tales he appears mercenary in nature the mining reward to fulfill deeds and services for others perhaps his greed is a metaphor for exploitation another druid fintan his capable of shape-shifting for a great deal of time he took the form of many animals until he was able to relay the entire ancient history of Ireland st. Patrick it is worth noting that by embodying these different animals Fintan may have been actively practicing reincarnation and simultaneously assimilating all knowledge of the natural world as previously mentioned these are two concepts Giroud's believed in and coveted greatly the Isle of Anglesey of the Northwest Welsh Coast and West man's wood in Dartmoor are both believed to be important sites of juridic practice Angra see was the Druids cultural center and the place where druids were trained according to Caesar young men entering training enticed by the benefits druids enjoyed could expect to study the druidic discipline for 20 years and as the Druids did not commit their verses to paper all knowledge had to be remembered Caesar tells us they have many discussions as touching the Stars and their movement the size of the universe and of the earth the order of nature the strength and the powers of the immortal gods and hand down their law to the young men it is therefore reasonable to assume the aforementioned 20-year education in a GoSee included the disciplines of astronomy philosophy medicine the sciences and law though the Druids did not record their religious practices the Gallic druids did use Greek letters to write of more mundane daily affairs in Britain things were different it is thought that autumn a cryptic alphabet used by the Irish from around the 4th century may have been created by the Druids for secret religious purposes in Irish mythology autumn was used in divination by the druid Talon well sometimes code al who in the whirring of attained took three or sometimes four ones of you wrote letters upon them and made them tools of divination the tale doesn't elaborate on how the ones are used but the resulting efforts managed to locate the heroine of the story attained the use of one's appear in many instances throughout Celtic mythology and it is not always druids that use them often made from you or hazel these ones allowed their wielders to channel the power of these sacred woods in one story fee on an Irish mythical hunter warrior uses a hazel wand for divination in another his wife is turned into a deer by a villainous druid wielding a hazel wand whom she had refused to marry Rowan wood also appears to be of significance to the druids and is thought to have been used by them in ritualistic fires has seen in the aforementioned legend of mcgrath when he orders magical fires of rowan wood to be made which dart across the ground towards his enemies rowan wood was believed to protect against negative magic bring luck and imbued tools fashioned from it with magical properties in AD 61 the Druids of Anglesey were destroyed by the Romans the Roman historian Tacitus detailed the battle led by general Suetonius Paulinus he writes on the shore stood the opposing army with its dense array of armed warriors while between the ranks dashed women in black attire like the Furies with hair disheveled waving brands all around druids lifting up their hands to heaven and pouring forth dreadful imprecations scared our soldiers by the unfamiliar sight so that as if their limbs were paralyzed they stood motionless and exposed to wounds it is possible that these black clad Furies were female druids the band right their existence is evidenced in both Greek and Roman sources as well as the Irish mythological cycles with characters like bode mole of the Fenians cycle and the daughter of the Arch Druid margareth tactus goes on to say their groves devoted to inhuman superstitions were destroyed they deemed it a duty to cover their altars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails it is thought that Druidism may have survived in Ireland where the Romans never invaded one ecclesiastical text from around the 6th century stated that performing oh this before druids was forbidden suggesting that they had indeed survived the arrival of Christianity nevertheless they must have eventually been suppressed law during the Christian era gave druids the same legal rights as brigands commenting on the demise of the druids clinging the Elder States the Gallic provinces too were pervaded by the magic art and that even down to a period within memory for it was the emperor Tiberius that put down their druids and all that tribe of wizards and physicians as we have already seen it was not Tiberias who defeated the Druids but general Paulinus however many years before the Druids demise Tiberius did suppress Druidry by banning its practices in an attempt to stamp out human sacrifice a sentiment Pliny applauded while we have seen there was some correlation between fact and myth we ultimately have to decide whether the historical sources accurately depict the Druids if we consider them at their best they were wise scholarly healers and deeply spiritual people who harbored a great love and respect for nature at their worst they were barbaric and sadistic mass murderers and autocrats in mythology their role often sees them at the side of a king advising and guiding when we consider all these things it is worth remembering something we know for certain they were here thank you for watching this episode of British folklore myths and legends if you enjoyed this video please feel free to like share and subscribe we'll see you next time I'm proud to announce that British folklore myths and legends now has a website and it's live head on over to British law code UK for regular updates you can find all the videos from our channel on the site displayed in an embedded player visit our archive of law categorised by country and region the archives will be expanded over time with new entries appearing weekly check out our soundtrack player in the footer playing music from all our videos share your own stories at our community forum tell us about the folklore of your town or city seek information on other legends discuss your findings or just pull up a stool in the tavern or the 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Channel: British Folklore, Myths and Legends

Views: 18,194

Keywords: druids, ovates, bards, magic, documentary, wizard, folklore, myths, legends, magician, caesar, romans, celts, gauls, ritual

Id: FPgERXrDhPM

Length: 23min 59sec (1439 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 21 2020