Who Were The Druids? (and how to become one!)

“Into their sacred groves the initiates assembled at the hour of midnight to learn about what man once was and what he will be. They needed no artificial illumination to light up their temples, for the chaste goddess of night beamed her most silvery rays on their oak-crowned heads; and their white-robed sacred bards knew how to converse with the solitary queen of the starry vault. On the dead soil of the long by-gone past stand their sacred oaks, now dried up and stripped of their spiritual meaning by the venomous breath of materialism. But for the student of occult learning, their vegetation is still as verdant and luxuriant, and as full of deep and sacred truths, as at that hour when the arch-druid performed his magical cures, and waving the branch of mistletoe, severed with his golden sickle the green bough from its mother oak-tree.”

H. P. Blavatsky, 1877

The mysteries of the Druids hold a significant place in the history of Western magic.  The historical details of their beliefs and practices have mostly been destroyed by religious persecution and the passage of time, yet their legacy remains strong.  For centuries the Druids have inspired many great stories and Folktales.  We see the Druid archetype represented in characters such as Merlin, Radagast, and Dumbledoor.  The influence of the Druids is interwoven in our culture and the lessons they brought to the world continue to inspire people to this day.  In fact, the lessons of Druidry may be more important now than ever due to the growing need to live sustainably and in harmony with the natural world. So what can we learn from the actual Druids of history. What lessons do they have to teach us?  Were they powerful sorcerers like the movies portray?  Were they the great philosopher naturalists we like to imagine them to be?  

To understand the Druids we must start at the beginning which means we need to look at the ancient Celtic culture.  In these societies, the Druids were considered high-ranking members and were viewed as vital to the community.  While we of course know them for their role as religious leaders, they also took on the role of political advisor, where they were thought to have so much influence that they could even intervene between two armies to stop a battle before it started. The Druids also had additional roles such as legal advisor, medical professional, and lorekeeper for their community.  Fulfilling the role of political advisor and their multiple areas of speciality remind me a bit of the Maesters in the Game of Thrones series, in which each Maester spent years cultivating similar skills and were considered vitally important to their community. 

So how did the Druids cultivate their knowledge and how were they able to master so many different disciplines? Unfortunately, we have no written accounts from the druids themselves.  While it is thought that they were literate, the Druids believed that passing down knowledge through the oral tradition was a better way to preserve their wisdom than writing it down.  The knowledge of the Druids was considered sacred, and instruction took place in secret within forests.  The term Druid itself most likely derives from a proto-Celtic word meaning "oak-knower" or "oak-seer," which suggests that the forests in which they educated their pupils were viewed as integral to the Druid’s secret knowledge. But what was this sacred lore that was passed down from Druid to pupil?  We know that it consisted of large verses that were memorized and that this training could take up to 20 years.  The content of these verses is unfortunately lost to history, not one ancient verse has survived the passage of time. 

So where does the little we know about the Druids come from? The earliest detailed descriptions of the Druids come from some of our most well known Romans, such as Julius Caesar, Cicero, and Tacitus. Unlike the Druids, the Romans kept detailed written records of their conquests, including the Celts & Gauls, who were the enemies of Rome.  So when we read the Roman descriptions of the Druids, they are tinged with bias and half-truths. Unfortunately, this is the best historical source we have to work with. 

This bias is most obvious in the Roman writings about the human sacrifices the Druids supposedly performed.  Julius Cesar wrote that criminals were often sacrificed to the Gods and that even innocent people were sacrificed when no criminals were available.  You’re probably already familiar with the method of these human sacrifices - that is of course the infamous Wickerman, in which victims were burned alive in a giant wooden effigy.  But did this even happen, or were accounts of Wickerman sacrifices just a piece of Roman propaganda to discredit the Celtic culture?  We’ll most likely never know the answer to this.  

Luckily the Romans didn’t just write about these human sacrifices, they’ve also given us a glimpse into what the Druids believed and what knowledge they thought was important.   Interestingly, the Druids believed in a form of reincarnation and that the human soul was eternal and merely passed at death from one body to a new one. As for topics of interest, like many ancient cultures, the Druids studied the movements of the stars and what these movements meant in both a scientific and religious context. 

But for us modern folk, the Druids are most well known not for their scientific or religious studies, but for their magical abilities. The attested magical ability of the Druids goes way back to the Ulster Cycle of Irish Mythology where the famous Druid Cathbad uses his gift of prophecy to assist the royal court.  There are many Druids interwoven within Irish folklore and mythology and many of these Druids were female, which suggests that women may have had a very important role in ancient Celtic culture. Of course as history progressed the Druids and their culture began to decline.  First from the Roman emperor Tiberius who introduced a law that banned all druid practices and then later from the Christians who worked to further diminish the role and beliefs of the Druids in Celtic society. 

The fact that we know so little about the Druids has led to a romanticism of Druidry that persists in our culture today.  This has led to a lot of misinformation, such as the Druids being the builders of Stonehenge or that the role of the Bard was connected to earlier Druid practices.  This gives us modern Pagans a difficult challenge: if one’s desire is to take the lessons of the Druids and bring them into the modern world, how can one do that with so little historical information. And, what level of romanticization of Druidry should we incorporate? Is it enough to just try to follow what we believe are the core tenants of Druidry, like respecting and living in balance with nature.  Or, do we try to incorporate the historical role of the Druid and what that might look like in practice.  

As we know Druids also took on roles as political advisors, lawyers, and medical professionals, perhaps being a modern Druid is about growing your professional career and influence but doing so while being grounded by a philosophy and spirituality that honors the natural world. Or, perhaps it's the Druids role as educator and lorekeeper that we can bring into the modern world.  Maybe a physical academy should be opened that educates people who want to follow the Druid path--similar to an adult version of the Forest Kindergartens that are prevalent in Scandinavia, in which students are encouraged to play, explore, and learn completely outside, regardless of the weather.  When it comes to how Druidry should be practiced today I of course don’t have all the answers but I think these are interesting questions that should be asked.  Afterall, I think the world would benefit from a few more Druids, especially those in positions of leadership. 

So, I’d like to encourage you to follow this path if it resonates with you. It’s up to us to keep the ethos of the Druids alive.  But unlike our ancient counterparts, let’s make sure to keep a written record this time.

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Thanks for reading and watching!
Many Blessings,
Scarlet