13 May: Druid Day

Today is Druid Day. 10 things you might not know about druids:

1. A druid was a member of the priestly and learned class in the pre-Christian, ancient Celtic societies. They were found in Western Europe, Britain and Ireland. In those ancient societies they would take on the roles of priest, arbitrator, healer, scholar, and magistrate.

2. Ancient druids never wrote anything down. This wasn’t because they were illiterate, but rather because they believed their knowledge should be passed on orally.

3. A lot of what we know about the druids of ancient times comes from writing by Julius Caesar. He wrote about them in a document called Commentarii de Bello Gallico which dates to the 50s BC. Other Roman writers such as Cicero, Tacitus, and Pliny the Elder write about them as well.

4. According to Caesar the druids were exempt from taxes and military service. A druid could excommunicate people from religious festivals, which at the time, would turn them into social outcasts.

5. They didn’t build Stonehenge. Stonehenge predates druids by more than a thousand years. That said, they did, and still do, use it as a meeting place to celebrate events like solstices and equinoxes.

6. It’s Pliny’s accounts which promote the idea that druids used to climb Oak trees to harvest Mistletoe to use as a fertility potion, and that they used to sacrifice white bulls and even people. However, modern scholars say there’s not much evidence of that anywhere else.

7. Druids held a deep reverence for nature and believed in the interconnectedness of all living beings. They sought to live in harmony with the natural world and honour the land, trees, and animals.

8. The word druid is thought to have evolved from ancient words which meant "oak-knower".

9. The Romans, and in due course, the Christians, played a significant role in the decline of druidry. While druids may not be as central to modern society, they do still exist. It isn’t a religion as such, more of a spiritual path which people of any faith or none can follow.

10. Famous druids in folklore include Merlin from the King Arthur stories. There’s a druid in the Asterix comic books, called Getafix.

I can hardly do an entry on Druids without mentioning a book for anyone interested in finding out more about Druidry, written by my brother in law:

The Handbook of Urban Druidry by Brendan Howlin.