And neo-pagans aren't also appropriating "druid" from ancient history?
Exactly. We don't get to claim ownership of the word. It predates us by a long time.
Well this has sent me down a rabbit hole. I could've told you that Druids had a priestly or shamanic role in Celtic societies and were pretty much wiped out during the Christianization of the British Isles. But that is about it. Some neat things I learned:
- It seems that Druid and Bard both come from the same area and time, with some people in folklore having both titles.
- There is very little written records from Druids with speculation that they were forbidden from writing down what they knew.
- The term Druid died out sometime in the 2nd century, makes a return in medieval times in poems/mythology, followed by a larger revival in the 18th and 19th centuries.
- It seems divination was a big part of their job in societies along with being philosophers, advisors, and handling religious affairs.
- In more modern times there are a lot of groups using the term Druid for religious and cultural reasons. Wikipedia lists some of the more prominent groups as well as some statistical breakdowns of modern Druids and what brings them together and sets them apart.
Druid refers broadly to the priestly caste of pre-Christian Gaul and Ireland, Wales and Celtic Britain. "Bard" is generally a later concept, and can refer to a number of different things. In Ireland, for example,
filí were an elite class of poets and genealogists to kings, who recorded, composed, and recited epic tales and also were said to perform some magical feats of prophecy (where there's some overlap with Druids, or
draoithe). Musicians in general were lower status, though the term Bard became more elevated later, toward the Early Modern period.
Per surviving texts of Irish law such as
Bretha Crólige and
Uraicecht Becc Druids retained legal status and rights (though much diminished over time, as Christianity supplanted indigenous religion) through the ninth century or so. Or roughly five centuries after Patrick. As Ireland's conversion was peaceful and gradual, there was no "wiping out" of druids. No pogroms or slaughter. They were supplanted in religious roles by Christian/Catholic clergy, and gradually waned in influence and the training and traditions died out.
Modern groups using the term Druid include the fraternal orders dating to the 18th century revival (full of romanticism and terrible scholarship, including outright frauds like Edward Williams AKA Iolo Morwanyg), and Neo-Pagans and Reconstructionists from the late 20th century. But no one has any claim to ownership of the term, and it means a bunch of different things to different groups.