Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries (47 page)

The Druids were
mysterious Pagan
priests in the Celtic
society of Western Europe from around the
second century B.C. to
the first century A.D.
(the end of the Iron
Age). Variously given
the title of Shamans,
priests, teachers, and
philosophers, so little
is known about the
Druids-who left no
written record of their
existence-that they
have been both romanticized and demonized
in equal measure.
Much of what we know
about the Druids
comes from ancient
Greek and Roman writers, and early
Irish and Welsh literature. The development of neo-Druidism from the 17th
century onwards has also added considerably to the image of the Druid as
known today. But how much of the
tales of strange secret rites in lonely
forest groves or mass human sacrifice
in huge wickerwork images is, in fact,
based on truth?

Arch-Druid in his full Judicial
Costume. An etching from Old
England: A Pictorial Museum
(1845).

The word Druid seems to derive
from Indo-European roots meaning

oak, strong, knowledge,
or wisdom. Our most
informative source for
these Pagan priests is
Julius Caesar (100 B.C.-
44 B.C.), who wrote
about them from firsthand experience in his
Commentaries on the
Gallic War, a history of
his wars in Gaul (modern France) from 59 to
51 B.C. Unfortunately,
as with most of the ancient Roman sources
for the Druids, it is often hard to separate
Roman propaganda
from truth. Caesar
mentions the Druids
in his discussion of
Gaulish religion and
says that they were in charge of private and public sacrifice and other religious matters. Casaer's need to
impress Rome with stories from his
military campaign in Gaul probably
accounts for the exaggerations in his
statements, and nowhere is this more
obvious than in his discussion of human sacrifice by these Celtic priests.
He describes "huge statues of immense
size, whose bodies of woven branches
are filled with living men." Obviously he is describing the now famous
wicker men. Caesar then goes on to say
that criminals were burned alive inside these huge structures to satisfy
the gods, but, he adds, if the supply of
criminals fails, then the Druids think
nothing of sacrificing innocent victims.

Caesar's writings indicate the existence of at least two classes among
the higher echelon of Gaulic society:
the nobles and the Druids. The Druids obviously held an influential and
respected position in Celtic society,
and Caesar mentions that large numbers of young men went to them for
training. The Druids also retained
power as lawgivers, acted in disputes
between both individuals and tribes,
and had the right to pass judgements
on criminals. They were also exempt
from military service and the payment
of taxes. Caesar places the origin of
Druidism in Britain, and mentions that
serious students of the Druidic arts
traveled there to study it. He also reports that a novice could continue his
studies for up to 20 years, some of
which included memorizing large
amounts of poetry. Caesar's information on the religious doctrines of the
Druids is interesting, as he states, "a
lesson, which they take particular
pains to inculcate, is that the soul does
not perish, but after death passes from
one body to another." Many ancient
writers took this to mean that the Druids had been influenced by the teachings of the Greek philosopher
Pythagoras on the immortality of the
soul, though this seems unlikely. Caesar also mentions the Druids having
knowledge of the motion of the stars
and the size of the Earth, and being
familiar with philosophy.

It is difficult to ascertain even
roughly when the Druid priesthood
originated. The earliest known reference to them is from the early first
century B.C. Greek philosopher, astronomer, and geographer, Posidonius.
Unfortunately his work only survives
in fragments from later writers such as
Greek historian and geographer Strabo
(c. 63 B.C.-A.D. 24) and Posidonius' pupil, the Roman orator and statesman,
Cicero (106 B.C.-3 B.C.). Cicero comments that he actually knew a Druid
named Divitiacus, of a Gaulish tribe
known as the Aedui, and he describes
this Divitiacus as a kind of astrologer
or soothsayer who was acquainted
with "natural philosophy." Strabo's
writings again feature the giant wicker
man sacrifices referred to by Caesar,
and also another type of human sacrifice supervised by the Druids. He
writes: "Some men they would shoot
dead with arrows and impale in the
temples." While there is practically no
evidence that the Celts used bows and
arrows at all, intriguingly, the body of
a man found in the outer ditch at
Stonehenge proved to have been killed
at close quarters by three arrows in his
back. As the date for this possible human sacrifice at Stonehenge is between
2398 and 2144 B.C., there is obviously
no direct connection between his ritual
murder and the Late Iron Age Druids,
unless of course the Druids practiced
rituals that had been part of the traditions of the British Isles for millennia,
and had been handed down to them.

In the writings of Roman author
and natural philosopher Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23- A.D. 79) the Druids are
called magicians, and he describes
them venerating mistletoe and the oak tree from which it grows. Pliny mentions that the Druids never performed
any of their rituals unless there was
an oak branch present, and that they
gathered mistletoe in a solemn ceremony on the sixth day of the moon.
This ceremony involved a priest clad
in white robes climbing the oak tree
and cutting the mistletoe with a golden
sickle; the falling mistletoe was then
caught in a white cloth. The Druids
afterwards sacrificed two white bulls
to their gods. According to Pliny, the
sixth day of the moon was the day from
which the Druids began their months,
their years, and their 30 year cycle.
Some support for the idea that the
Druids relied heavily on the phases of
the moon in their calendar was provided by the discovery of the Coligny
Calendar in Coligny, France, in 1897.
This calendar, probably dating to the
second century A.D., was engraved on
a bronze tablet, and functioned as a solar/lunar ritual calendar, each month
always begining with the same moon
phase.

Two druids. Roman period bas-relief,
found at Autun in Burgundy, France.

Roman geographer Pomponius
Mela, writing in A.D. 43, is the first to
mention that the teachings of the Druids were secret. He describes the Druids of Gaul as "masters of wisdom" who
carrried out their teaching "in a cave,
or in inaccessible woods." Perhaps the
best known account of the Druids is
that by Roman orator, lawyer, and
senator, Tacitus (A.D. 56-A.D. 117). In his
Annals, he describes an attack, in A.D.
61, by the Roman army commanded by
the Governor of Britain Suetonius
Paulinus, on the island of Mona (modern Angelsey), off the northwest coast
of Wales. Mona (Ynys Mon in Welsh)
was the last stronghold of the Druids

and was contributing significantly to
resistence in Wales against the Roman
invasion. As the Romans approached
the opposite shore and looked over to
the island, they saw the Britons lined
up on Menai Bay, ready to defend
their island. As they crossed by boat
onto Mona, the soldiers noticed women
(presumably Druidesses) "running
through the ranks in wild disorder;
their apparel funeral; their hair loose
to the wind, in their hands flaming
torches, and their whole appearance
resembling the frantic rage of the Furies." They also saw the male Druids,
standing together in a band, their hands
uplifted to the sky, and their voices invoking the gods and calling down terrible curses on the Romans. At first,
Suetonius Paulinus and his troops
were awestruck at this weird and disturbing sight, and were unsure of what to do. Eventually, according to Tacitus,
the natural courage of the Romans
overcame their fears, and they made a
furious charge into the manic group of
women and priests and mowed them
down mercilessly. The Druid's sacred
groves were burned to the ground and
their shrines, still stained with the
blood of sacrificial victims (according
to Tacitus) destroyed. While Suetonius
was laying waste to Mona, he received
news of a revolt in the southeast of
Britain, led by queen Boudica of the
Iceni tribe, and returned to gain an
eventual bloody victory over the rebelling Britons.

Archaeological evidence which may
have a connection with this final stand
of the Druids on Mona was discovered
in 1943, deposited in a lake on the island known as Llyn Cerrig Bach. The
remarkable cache of 150 objects included iron and bronze weapons,
chariots and cauldrons, and has been
dated to between the second century
B.c. and the first century A.D. The items
seem to have been deliberately
thrown into the lake as some kind of
offering. Scholars have hypothesized
that this deliberate offering of precious
metalwork may have been made by
the surviving Druids of Mona, to propitiate their gods in response to the
wholesale desecration of Druidic
shrines carried out by the Romans on
the island.

Following the massacre on Mona,
Druidism seems to have been outlawed by Rome, which probably meant
the end of an organized priesthood,
although Druids certainly did not disappear completely (especially in Scotland, Ireland, and perhaps parts of
Wales). In Ireland, Druids retained

their prominent position in society
until the coming of Christianity, where
their roles were soon taken over by the
clergy. Many early Welsh and Irish
epics speak of the Druids, though it
has to be borne in mind that almost
everything that has survived has been
edited by Christian scribes. In Irish
literature, Druids are usually seen in
the role as advisors to kings; perhaps
the most famous example is Cathbad,
chief Druid at the court of Conchobar,
king of Ulster. Another famous example is Mug Ruith, the powerful blind
druid of Munster, the southernmost
province of ancient Ireland. Mug Ruith
had the ability to grow to an enormous
size, conjure up storms, and turn men
to stone. His Shamanistic appearance
included a hornless bull's hide, bird
mask, and a feathered headdress. Mug
Ruith's daughter, Tlachtga, was a renowned Druidess, who gave her name
to a hill in County Meath and a ceremony celebrated there-the lighting
of the winter fires at Samhain (November 1st), an ancient Celtic festival
probably once presided over by the
Druids.

It was not until the 18th century,
with a revival of interest in natural
religion and native traditions, that
Druidism again came to the fore. Much
of this interest stemmed from antiquarians such as William Stukeley,
John Aubrey, and John Toland. John
Aubrey (1626-1697) was the first modern writer to claim that Stonehenge,
Avebury, and other prehistoric monuments in England were connected to
the Druids. A follower of Aubrey's
theories, Irish-born writer and radical thinker, John Toland, apparently
founded the Ancient Druid Order
in London around 1717; in 1726, he published his History of the Druids.
William Stukeley (1687-1765) was a
pioneering archaeologist and antiquarian, who became the Secretary of the
Society of Antiquaries in 1718. His investigations, notes, and drawings of
Neolithic sites, such as Stonehenge
and Avebury are still of extreme value
to archaeologists and historians today.
However, he too was under the spell
of Aubrey and attributed many prehistoric monuments to the only ancient
British people then known-the Druids. He published Stonehenge, a
Temple Restored to the British Druids,
in 1740, and Avebury, a Temple of the
British Druids, in 1743, both of which
were highly influential on the modern
Druid revival.

In 19th century Wales, it was believed that the Welsh poetic tradition
dated back to the Druids. Welsh antiquarian Edward Williams, under the
name Iolo Morganwg, founded the
Gorsedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain (the
Community of Bards of Great Britain)
at Primrose Hill, London in 1792. Although the rituals were supposed to
be based on ancient Druid ceremonies,
many were in fact written by Williams
himself. Druidism is also part of the
inspiration behind the Eisteddfod, a
Welsh festival of literature, music, and
performance, dating back to at least
the 12th century, though the modernday format has been much influenced
by the 18th century revival of Welsh
cultural festivals. Modern Druidic