The Druids were king makers and healers. Along with the Kings and the Gŵyrd (Lords), these priests formed the professional classes in Brythonic aristocracy. The druids performed the ceremonies and functions of modern-day priests, teachers, ambassadors, astronomers, genealogists, philosophers, musicians, theologians, scientists and judges. They underwent lengthy training of 19 years, since the druids almost certainly used the Metonic Cycle; a method of reckoning based on the nineteen-year eclipse of the moon. Druids led all public rituals, which were normally held within fenced groves of sacred trees, or in a circle drawn on the ground. They were thought to have used hidden magnets to perform magic on iron filings or on sacred blades, causing them to move on a table and to spin on command.
In their role as priests; ‘They acted not as mediators between God and man, but as directors of ritual, as the keepers of tradition and religious rites. The mediators to their Gods and their Prophets were the Uati’ (Ovates) - Julius Caesar (De Bello Gallico).
Arch-Druids had the right to speak ahead of a king in council, and these powerful men may in some situations have held more authority than the king. They were exempt from military service and from the payment of taxes, and they had the power to excommunicate people from religious festivals and ban them from sacrifice; their worst punishment, making them condemned social outcasts. The druids acted as ambassadors in time of war, upheld the law, governed the daily lives of the people, and were literally the bindings which held together their Brythonic culture. If crops failed for long periods, or other cataclysmic natural happenings befell a tribe and the priests failed in their prayers and dedications, a king could be sacrificed to ward off this great evil. This sacrificial king would be naked apart from a fox-fur armband and a leather kilt & cap at this sacred ritual. His last meal would be one of up to 300 mistletoe and juniper berries, probably taken after a 24 hour fast, and he would wear a noose of plaited rope around his neck to signify that he was marked for death. As evidenced by ‘Lindow Man’, the bog-body found in 1984 who is thought to have been a king sacrificed by British druids around the time of the arrival of the Romans in 43 AD. He was found to have been ritually killed three times, once by clubbing to the back of the head followed by being throttled, and then his throat had been cut before his body was placed in a bog.
Druids could walk between warring combatants with no fear of harm, as to kill a druid would mean eternal damnation. It is the druid who determines the sarhaed, the compensation calculated for offences against the person. The druids decided who was culpable and how much was owed in reparations.
‘It is they who decide in almost all disputes, public and private; and if any crime has been committed, or murder done, or there is any dispute about succession or boundaries, they also decide it, determining rewards and penalties: if any person does not abide by their decision, they ban such from sacrifice, which is their heaviest penalty’. – Julius Caesar (De Bello Gallico).
Druid’s Altar.
In my novels I have modelled HênDdu’s altar on a similar but much older, early bronze-age one found in Hunstanton and called ‘Seahenge’. I believe this is a likely format considering no druid’s altar has ever been found.
Norfolk Museums.
‘Seahenge, which is also known as Holme I, is a prehistoric monument located in the village of Holme-next-the-Sea, near Old Hunstanton in the county of Norfolk’ – (Wikipedia).
The Origins of Druidism.
Herodotus says that "the Cimmerians came from the region called Kimmeriou" (or the Crimea), the land of the Khimri Israelites. The Khimri/Kimbri/Khymru swore by a brazen bull which they carried with them. (B. iv. s. 11)
It is problematical whether the question, asked so frequently both in the past and the present, as to what period in the history of the world witnessed the foundation of Druidism will ever be answered with definiteness. Some writers have maintained that it was a development or an offshoot of the Egyptian religion, and, along with Freemasonry originated in the sublime teachings of Ptah, which, by some, are believed to have been brought out of Egypt by Moses.
Faber, in his ‘Pagan Idolatry’, expressed the opinion that the Druidical Bards were probably the founders of Freemasonry; certainly, members of the ‘Craft’ will be able to trace many analogies and similarities between Druidic and Masonic ceremonial and practices, but the extent, if any, to which the one has been drawn from, or is dependent upon the other must be a matter of speculation. Philology does not render much assistance in determining the origin of Druidism, the possible derivation of the various Druidical terms being very conflicting, although few modern scholars probably now maintain dogmatically the opinion, regarded seriously at one time, that the word Druid is derived from the Greek word Drus meaning Oak, on which was founded, in part at any rate, the theory that the Druids had their original habitat among the oaks of Mamre, to which reference is made in the book of Genesis.
The Brythonic meaning of the word Druid is ‘to enclose within a circle’, and the word was used in the sense of ‘prophet’ or ‘one admitted into the mysteries of the inner circle’. Other writers give the derivation as from the Hebrew Dcrussim, or Drussim, which means ‘Contemplators’.
In Scotland, the Druids were called Ducergli, and in Spain Turduli or Turdutan. The Oriental dervishes are thought by some to derive their name from the same source as the Druids. Mr. D. Delta Evans, who has devoted considerable time, attention, and skill to the study of this subject, says that, according to the best information from Celtic scholars, it would appear beyond doubt that the word ‘Derwydd’ is derived from ‘Dar’ meaning ‘above’, and ‘Gwydd’ meaning ‘understanding’, learning or knowledge’.
The antiquity of the Druidical system is not in doubt or question. It is indisputable that a highly efficient organization such as Druidism, when it came first into historical view, could not have been of recent origin or foundation. According to Caesar, who had no direct dealings or intercourse with the Druids apart from a well-known one, he had to depend upon other people for his information, and it took the singular form of Divitiacus, the Arch-Druid of his time, and with whom, in all probability he conversed through an interpreter. The Gauls boasted that they were descended from ‘Dis’ as their father, this being a Druidical tradition. ‘Dis’, or ‘Dives’, according to mythology, was one of three brothers, Jupiter and Neptune being the two others. They are said to have had Saturn for their father and Minerva for their mother. Dives is the same word as the Hebrew Japheth, and this is probably the foundation of the tradition that Japheth was the progenitor of the Celts/Brythons, who are claimed by some writers to have been the earliest inhabitants of Western Europe. The name Dīs is a contraction of the Latin adjective dives - 'wealthy or rich'. Japheth is a compound of dive -'island' and 'male', and the name of the capital, and was written 'Dyyb in Hebrew.
Dr. Stukeley, referring to the temple planted by Abraham when he settled for a time at Beersheba (Genesis xxi, 33), speaks of it as ‘That famous oak-grove of Beersheba, planted by the illustrious parent and first Druid; Abraham, and from whom our celebrated British Druids came, who were of the same patriarchal reformed religion, and brought the use of sacred groves to Britain’. This statement is supported and made by other writers, in that Druidic colleges were in existence in the days of Hermio, a German prince, who is supposed to have flourished about the same time as Abraham.
In Britain, the Druidical order is said to have numbered thirty-one seats of education, each being a Cyfiath, or City, and the capital of a tribe. According to some writers there were three Arch-Druids in Britain, this official being peculiar to that country. Their major seats are said to have been at CaerTroia or London, CaerEbroc or York, and CaerLeon or Caerleon in Monmouthshire.
Morgan, in British Cymry, gives the following list of Druidical seats in Britain: CaerCaint; Canterbury. CaerWyn; Winchester. CaerMunicip; St. Alban's. CaerSallwg; Old Sarum. CaerLeil; Carlisle. CaerOdor; Bristol. CaerLear; Leicester. CaerUrnach; Wroxeter. CaerLleyn; Lincoln. CaerGlou; Gloucester. CaerGrawnt; Cambridge. CaerMeini; Manchester. CaerCeol; Colchester. Caerleon ar Dwy; Chester. CaerPeris; Porchester. CaerDon; Doncaster. CaerGuorie; Warwick. CaerCei; Chichester. CaerCeri; Cirencester. CaerDur; Dorchester. CaerMyrddyn; Carmarthen. CaerCeiont; Carnarvon. CaerWyse; Exeter. CaerSegont; Silchester. CaerBaddon; Bath. CaerGuorangon; Worcester. The students at these colleges are said to have numbered at times 60,000.
Whatever the origin of the earliest inhabitants of Britain or of Druidism, few who have given any attention to the latter subject will venture to contest the statement of Theodore Watts-Dunton; ‘That, compared with Druidism; that mysterious, poetic religion, which, more than any other religion, expresses the very voice of nature; all other religions have a sort of commonplace and modern ring, even those which preceded it by centuries’.
Smiddy gives an interesting account, adapted from Himerius, and of a visit paid to Greece by a renowned Druid philosopher. He writes: ‘About six hundred years before the birth of Christ, a Druid from one of the western islands visited Greece, and the description given of his person and dress by some of the Greek writers is very interesting. The name of this Druid traveller was Abaris, a word which signifies ‘the father’ or ‘the master of knowledge’. This title was something like that of ‘Rabbi’ among the Jews, and even in sound, it resembles it somewhat. This ‘priest of the sun’, as he is called, went to Greece for the purpose of study and of observation; also, to renew, by his personal presence and his gifts, an old friendship, which, it appears had existed for ages between the Greeks and the Brythons.
Please see my Linkedin article; Abaris the Hyperborean for more information on this astonishing man and his exploits in the 7th century BC; https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/abaris-hyperborean-eifion-wyn-williams/?trackingId=c9vbIiJYRcGR0e%2FkbEGgwA%3D%3D
The affinity between Druidism and the religion of the Persians is also strongly marked. The Druids had their sacred fires, and the Persians had their holy flame, to which they paid divine honours, and they, like the Druids, lighted festal fires at the return of the consecrated seasons. The Druids considered their fires to be antidotes against the diseases of cattle, and the Persians extended their powerful influence to the human body, placing their sick within the range of the gentle heat of the fire, in order that they might recover the more quickly. The Druids compelled the Brythons at a certain season of the year to extinguish all their fires and to re-kindle them from their new and sacred flame, a toll being exacted, and, with some trifling variations, a similar custom prevails in Persia to the present day.
In the art of divination, both the Druids and the Persians are said to have been proficient, both also regarding the mistletoe as a sacred plant. The Druids regarded it as unlawful and a sacrilege to cut the mistletoe with anything but a golden scythe, and the Persians used a knife consecrated and set aside for that special purpose. Both knew the power of excommunication and cast out and expelled from their communion the abandoned and impenitent transgressors of their holy laws. A similarity also existed, both in belief and practice between Druidism and the religion of the Phoenicians.
Divination was apparently made through various ways by the Druids' Ovates or Uati; the falling of carved rune sticks or bones, the spread of a handful of thrown white quartz pebbles, the flight of an owl or the convoluted movements (murmuring) of a flock of migrating birds. The deformed birthings of domesticated animals were also considered portentous. A set of decorated bronze spoons have been found by archaeologists and believed to be used by the uati of Britain. One had a tiny hole in the bowl and would drip water into the other spoon held below it, and through the splashes and perhaps in a drug-induced trance, they would divinise from this. It is thought that the agonised screams of the tortured were deemed enlightening, but that those spirit messages were most clearly read in the entrails of a man, woman or animal gutted with a sacrificial knife and left to die writhing and kicking on the ground. The ovates/uati were thought to have read these agonised movements, jerks and spasms along with their attendant noises to connect with their Gods and attempt to divine the future from them. They are also thought to have used fly agaric mushrooms (the white spotted crimson cap mushrooms we see in cartoons and in the tale of Alice in wonderland) to induce a hallucinogenic state and or, ergot. Ergot is a parasitical fungus which grows on wheat and contains the psychoactive alkaloids; ‘lysergic acid amide’ (LSA); a precursor to LSD and ‘ergonovine’. It is possible that a psychoactive potion was created using both of these powerful drugs. The uati, would have preceded the event with a fast and were also prepared perhaps by other drawn out, prior ceremonies we can only guess at. They may have been compelled by the effects of this powerful cocktail into revelatory mind states. Black Henbane (Hyoscyamus Niger) is an infamous poison, but in small doses is also a powerful hallucinogenic. There are roughly 200 species of mushroom that can be classified as ‘magic’ or hallucinogenic. Their common ingredient; psilocybin, induces mind-altering effects by forming new neural pathways in the brain. This can result in euphoria, hallucinations and changed perception of the passage of time. A cereal-based fermented alcohol, laced with hemlock and henbane was also thought to be used, either separately or together with the potion. It must have been quite messy!
The Greeks also practised divination by the entrails of animals slain. If the entrails were whole and sound, had their natural place, colour, and proportion, then all was well, but if any part was decayed or wanting, or if anything was out of order or not according to Nature, evil was portended. The palpitation of the entrails was a very unfortunate omen. Pythagoras, the ‘soothsayer’, is said to have foretold the death of Alexander because his victim's liver had no lobes. Among the Greeks the oak of Dodona was the seat of the oldest Hellenic oracle, whose priests sent forth their declarations on its leaves.
Here in Britain, the existence of our stone monuments, whose antiquity is undoubted by archaeologists is proof that learning and culture existed here long prior to the Roman invasion, before even the foundation of Rome.
The end of Druidism in Britain; Britain’s conversion to Christianity.
Consistent with this great ‘conversion’ from Pagan Druidism to Christianity was the early introduction of the Gospel, ‘The way of God’ as it was called. It was known as this by some of the disciples who were scattered everywhere at the death of Stephen, being invited hither by Bran, the father of Caratacus and other eminent British Druids, who had been converted at Rome under Paul's preaching. It is recorded that he brought back with him as teachers three Israelite Christians; Illtyd, Cyndaf, and Arwystli (the Welsh for Aristobulus), to whose friends or household Paul sends salutation (Rom. xvi. 10).
Gildas, however, gives the introduction of Christianity to Britain before the defeat of Boadicea in A.D. 61.
Dr. Stukeley boldly asserted that Druidism and Christianity were identical in those formative years. It is clear that Christianity assimilated Druidism to a great extent, but it is difficult to say how much the newer faith was indebted to the older religion. There is no evidence that the Druidical Brythons gave anything other than a welcome, and, it may have been a hearty welcome to those exponents of the newer creed. In fact, Christian historians state that the Brythons embraced the new teachings with more alacrity than any other nation. There is indeed a legend to the effect, that Edwin was persuaded to embrace the Christian faith by Corfe, the chief of the Druids.
‘Patrick is said to have been the Abbot of the monastery of Bangor Illtyd in Glamorgan, which, under Illtyd himself, taught more than 2000 students and holy men, among whom were the sons of kings and nobles. The course of instruction there embraced not only a clerical education, but likewise included husbandry and other useful arts’. - Williams’ ‘Ecclesiastical Antiquities of the Cymru’.
Irenseus Bishop of Lyons, very early in the second century mentions the existence of Christian churches among the Brythons, and he tells us that the apostles planted them there. Tertullian, writing sometime later, speaks of “Those localities of the Britons, hitherto inaccessible to the Romans had become subject to Christ."
M'Crie's Annals of English Presbytery give us more interesting information concerning the early churches of Christ among the Kelts or the Cymru; ‘Now the Israelites of Samaria are often called the Khumri’.
Lucius, the grandson of Claudia, in A.D. 155, at a national council at Winchester established Christianity as the national religion of Britain instead of Druidism. It was there, the Christian ministry were inducted into all the rights of the Druidic hierarchy, tithes included. The usages of Britain required the consent of the whole nation to any innovation in religion, and so that national council was convened at Dun Fenta (Venta - Winchester). - Morgan's British Khymru.
Welsh historians assert that Christianity was accepted in that national council held by King Lucius in A.D. 155, when the Arch-Druids of Europe; Lud and Leon became archbishops, and the chief Druids of twenty-eight cities became bishops. The National Council of Druids and Nobles convened at Dun Fenta (Venta – Winchester) in 155 AD. So far as Wales is concerned, Druidism ceased to be practised, at least openly, by the end of the first century A.D. when it converted to Christianity. Our first archbishops and bishops were all Druids.
In Brecknockshire lies Tŷ Iltud, or St. Iltud's cell, which Camden says was made in the time of paganism and originally stood in a stone circle. Another sacred structure built at Llantwit, in Glamorganshire, originally stood within a Druidic grove. Rowland gives it as his opinion that, when the Druids were expelled from Anglesey, they sought refuge in Ireland, the north of Scotland, the Isle of Man and the Scottish Isles. Certainly, when Druidism was inhibited in Gaul, and the active persecution of the Druids began, they appear to have retired to Caledonia, there to practice and to teach their religion.
"Forth they fly immortal in their kind.
And other bodies in new worlds they find;
Thus, life for ever runs its endless race.
And like a line death but divides the space.
Thrice happy they beneath their northern skies.
Who that worst fear—the fear of death—despise.
Hence they no cares for this frail being feel.
But rush undaunted on the pointed steel;
Provoke approaching death and bravely scorn
To spare that life which must so soon return."
- Lucan.
Ammianus of Marseilles describes these early priests of Britain in the following words: ‘The Druids; men of polished parts, as the authority of Pythagoras has decreed, affecting formed societies and sodalities, gave themselves wholly to the contemplation of divine and hidden things, despising all worldly enjoyments, and confidently affirmed the souls of men to be immortal’.
Tread lightly, harm none, and find your own true path to Awen.....
Eifion Wyn Williams.
My Linkedin Page; https://www.linkedin.com/in/ironbloodandsacrifice/
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Source; John Wilson. ‘Our Israelitish Origin’ 1876.