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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 9024021" data-attributes="member: 58172">Re the reallife terms Druid and Bard. There are forumers who are highly knowledgeable. [USER=18]@Ruin Explorer[/USER] and [USER=6803643]@Marandahir[/USER] come to mind. I defer to whatever they say about Celtic cultures generally.Druid remains obscure. Their historical identity remains educated guesses. Some aspects seem clear enough. Their social function is probably moreorless the same as Irish Catholic priests: mainly a religious community leader, with moral authority to resolve social conflicts within a community, separate from a secular leadership. The military was the secular authority, moreorless "knights" and nobles but without the horse culture. Aspects of the historical druid religion are only glimpses, with some of the important evidence coming from descriptions by hostile foreigners. They were a caste, a specific priestly family. They are probably polytheistic, and reputed to read clouds for omens. The term "druid" became the term for any kind of Non-Christian "witchcraft", thus obscuring what the original beliefs and practices actually were. Apparently, members of the caste who were ordained to serve as a druid were forbidden to fight in the military, but supported the military religiously.The three main cultural institutions are the knights (sotospeak), the druids, and the bards.More is known the about the historical bard. They are remarkably both academic scholars and shamanists. Several reallife colleges today come from historical bards. The mythologically accurate bard derives from narratives relating Taliesin understood to be the original bard and "Merlin" whose composite identity includes the historical records about a reallife Brittonic bard, Myrddin. Merlin is a bard, not a "wizard" per se.D&D relevant tropes include the skills to divinate and even control fate. The blessings by means praising poetry and the curses by means of satirical poetry, are methods for changing fates. Shapeshifting is a bardic ability, probably relating to shamanistic trances when the bard takes on such identities. In D&D, the Druid does "wildshape", but this is actually a historical bard concept. The slot 9 Shapechange spell derives from a story about Taliesin who gets involved in a shapeshifting duel. Also the bard is known for enchantments inflicting various mental effects.Many of the Norse shamanic traditions relating to the vǫlva and seiðr find analogues in the Celtic bard. Unlike the Norse, the Celtic bardic traditions about the convoluted ingredients and timings of magical potions, evidence a kind of protoscientific worldview relating to Hellenistic magic. In the Norse traditions, all magic comes from the minds of persons.</blockquote>

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