Some of these specialisations clearly overlap and all of the attributes alloted to them have also been assigned to the Druids as a whole, so I think it fair to assume that they all were Druids – perhaps a Druid could be any of them according to whatever function or role needed carrying out. They are said there to learn by heart a great number of verses; accordingly some remain in the course of training twenty years. Reblogged this on Die Goldene Landschaft. Dollar Dreadful Vol 1: A Tangle of Shadows - buy for $1, Rose Blood: The Phantasmagoriad Book One - Buy from only $3.99.
Likewise, the Indo-European weid has many later derivatives – including; Old English wit or witt (knowledge, intelligence), Germanic witan (to know), Old High German wīzag (knowledgeable or wise). Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Diodorus, when speaking of the druidic Seers who make sacrifices to foresee the future, relates a few more details, “When seeking knowledge of great importance, they use a strange and unbelievable method: they choose a person for death and stab him or her in the chest above the diaphragm. It may be so, but many have since extrapolated Druidism as a native ‘British’ religion older than the Celts themselves, that spread among Celtic culture once it reached Britain’s misty shores. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. '” Not only is this another example of Elemental Magic it is also an excellent indication that the Druids were latterly believed to practice what is called Battle or Offensive Magic.
Two good examples of three-fold death from Welsh legend (pre-12th century CE) are mentioned in the story of Myrddin Wyllt (Myrddin the Wild – one of the sources for the Merlin of Arthurian legend). None more so than lead character Don Draper, whose favorite cocktail — the Old Fashioned — had disappeared into relative oblivion when the show first aired in 2007. © Angus McBride. Druids powers, like all primal powers, are called evocations. The later fortunes of the bardic systems of Ireland and Scotland were intricately linked to the Gaelic aristocracies that patronised them in each nation and, like those aristocracies, they lasted until the mid-17th century in Ireland and the early 18th century in Scotland. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. Taking all these passages, and the etymology of the words where known, into account I wonder if the Bards were a distinct class of more secular (if such a thing can be said of anything to do with the ancient Celts) poets and minstrels who recited and performed heroic tales and histories. Tacitus, the Roman senator and historian, in his Annals (c. 110 CE), writes that the Britons’ “religious groves [were] dedicated to superstition and barbarous rites” and that “the natives [stained] their altars with the blood of their prisoners, and in the entrails of men explored the will of the gods.” It would be so easy to dismiss such accounts as just Roman prejudice and propaganda but I think that would be doing the Roman historians, the testimonies of whom we are so willing to accept in most other regards, a disservice – and, are we to believe that the Greek historians were just as prejudiced? While you might, just, remain on your feet after a couple of rounds of Singapore Slings (which contain a truly intoxicating mix of gin, cherry brandy, and Benedictine), the mezcal chaser is certain to land a knockout blow to even the most veteran of drinkers. While it may not have enjoyed immediate box office success, the Coen Brothers’ comedy crime caper did big things for this creamy digestif. He continues, “The Druids do not go to war, nor pay tribute together with the rest; they have an exemption from military service and a dispensation in all matters. For a couple of years now, if mot more, I’ve been around collecting material that will help me with my first attempt at my second novel. It is also well documented that the Celtic Peoples believe in what is commonly termed the Pythagorean doctrine among the Classical descriptions – the Greek scholar Alexander Cornelius Polyhistor (c. 100 BCE) perhaps sums it up best, “The Pythagorean doctrine prevails among the Gauls’ teaching that the souls of men are immortal, and that after a fixed number of years they will enter into another body.”, The Celts particular admiration of mistletoe and the oak tree is discussed by Pliny the Elder, in his Naturalis Historia (Natural History, 1st century CE) “The Druids, for that is the name they give to their magos [magicians], held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it, supposing always that tree to be the robur [a hard timbered oak]. The word Druid is the Modern-English variant of a latinised Gaulish term Druida – derived from the proto-Celtic compound dru-wid- (‘strong seer’ – or ‘all seeing’ perhaps), which itself is derived from the proto-Indo-European roots deru-weid (deru – to be firm, solid or steadfast, and weid – to see). There can be no question that the Druids were very influential in all levels of Celtic society when the Romans first invaded Gaul c. 130 BCE and then Britain in 43 CE, and it was about then that Druidism was outlawed within the Empire’s provinces. You alone know the ways of the gods and powers of heaven, The novelty of the fight struck the Romans with awe and terror. He says the boy will fall from a rock. We can use the few mentions of Druids in the early written law and lore of Ireland as an illustration of their fall from grace as Christianity became increasingly dominant there: The prophetic poets of Ireland, the Fáith, remained members of the higher ranked nemed much longer than the Druids for they were able to adapt to Christianisation more easily and were essentially co-opted by the new Christian hierarchy.