Civilization Around the World: Druids

A Druidess,
painting by Alexandre Cabanel
Wikipedia Commons

It is unknown when the Celts arrived in Britain, but it was sometime around 600 BCE. However, evidence of a Celtic culture goes farther back prior to the building of Stonehenge (2000 BCE). “One can speak of Celtic culture and languages, but there is no single Celtic race; Celtic speakers vary in appearance from short and swarthy to tall and fair” (John Michell). Who were the druids?

First, you have to understand that the Celts had a calendar that combined the solar and lunar cycles. Their influence originated in megalithic times. Land was equally distributed. Their social structure was based on religious cosmology and democratic idealism. How do we know this? Druid traditions have been passed down orally through songs; they simply did not write things down.

The Druids “were the lawyers, doctors, teachers, storytellers, and other professional of that culture. They were more than just clergy” (Spelcastor). They were the highly educated Celts.

“A great many old farmsteads in Britain, today, are on Celtic sites. During his raid on Celtic Britain in 55 B.C., Julius Caesar commented on its high population and numerous farms and cattle. The unifying bond between all the Celtic tribes was their common priesthood, the Druids. Their efforts preserved common culture, religion, history, laws, scholarship, and science. They had paramount authority over every tribal chief and, since their office was sacred, they could move where they wanted. settling disputes and stopping battles by compelling the rival parties to arbitration.” – John Michell

We know about the Druids through texts from other cultures such as Caesar: “They know much about the stars and celestial motions, and about the size of the earth and universe, and about the essential nature of things, and about the powers and authority of' the immortal gods; and these things they teach to their pupils.”

There is one obvious difference between the “megalithic Druids” and the Celtic Druids: the Celtic Druids moved away from giant stone monuments and focused on using natural shrines, such as springs and groves, for their rituals.

There were three specialties within ancient Druidism. First, there were the Bards, the keepers of tradition and memory of the tribe. Second were the Ovates, the natural healers. Lastly, the Druids and Druidesses were the professionals: priests, teachers, ambassadors, astronomers, genealogists, philosophers, musicians, theologians, scientists, poets and judges. 

Coventina [Three Sisters]
Wikipedia Commons

Druid tribes were spread across Europe. With such large geographic coverage, it is only natural that 300 deities of 374 were local. It is possible that there were 33 main deities (a common number that reoccurs in Celtic literature). They believed the dead moved on to the Otherworld after death. A creation myth has yet to be discovered, but there is some evidence of a baptism initiation ceremony.

The Romans justified destroying the Celts with war, the Christians with establishing a rival religion [against Druidism]. However,

“the Christian Church adsorbed much of Celtic religion. Many Pagan Gods and Goddesses have become Christian saints; sacred springs and wells were preserved and associated with saints; many Pagan temple sites became the location of cathedrals. By the 7th Century CE, Druidism itself was destroyed or continued deeply underground throughout most of the formerly Celtic lands. There is some evidence that Pagan religions did survive in isolated areas of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the 20th Century.” – B.A. Robinson

 “Whether as a native development or prompted by outside influences, a spiritual revival seems to have occurred in Britain in about 2000 B.C. with the building of the cosmic temple of Stonehenge and the first evidences of Celtic culture. Stonehenge is a unique monument, a symbol of a new revelation. The tendency in modern scholarship is to see it once more as the temple of the Druids, If so, it proclaims the high ideals on which Druidism in Britain was founded.” – John Michell

About the Author

I'm Melanie, the founder of BermudaQuest and an archaeology undergraduate at the University of New Mexico. I love writing about ancient and modern cultures. My goal is to make information about our origins available to everyone [in simple English!]