Information on Druids

[Ydars]

Justanobody; Stonehenge dates from the bronze age and the druids were an iron age people. There is about a 2000 year difference in timescale and a fundamentally different technology and culture.

The modern "Druids" claim that stonehenge is drudic in origin but then they also claim that their rituals are authentic whereas according to Wessex Archeological teams the modern druidic tradition was made up in Victorian times.

 

[justanobody]

Justanobody; Stonehenge dates from the bronze age and the druids were an iron age people. There is about a 2000 year difference in timescale and a fundamentally different technology and culture.

The modern "Druids" claim that stonehenge is drudic in origin but then they also claim that their rituals are authentic whereas according to Wessex Archeological teams the modern druidic tradition was made up in Victorian times.

Right because you had to Iron Age technology to build stonehenge after 1300 BC.

The Great Pyramid of Giza c. 2560 B.C., the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis

The same time they were building Stonehenge.
(Out of stone that is because the previous 600 years worth of wood was already becoming hard to deal with and build over and over.)

I guess it was the aliens giving them both the ideas at the same time.

 

[Estlor]

What I remember about the Roman account of druids from my Celtic mythology coursework in college is this:

Druids were an educated, priestly caste of people in Celtic society. They revered the oak and anything closely associated with it, which includes mistletoe as mistletoe is a parasitic plant commonly found growing on oak trees. I believe the Roman accounts mentioned human sacrifice, specifically the wicker man or killing and disposing of the bodies in peat bogs (where some of the best-preserved Celtic mummies can be found).

As far as Celtic religion goes, it tended to be highly localized and pastoral. There really weren't shared gods in the classical Greek sense, save perhaps Wodan and Thor, but that's more Germanic Anglo-Saxon than Celtic. Celtic gods and goddesses tended to be associated with natural features, like rivers and horses. In Welsh mythology (which is the source of the modern Mabinogian and a strong influence on early Arthurian tales) the "other world" was a glorious place far greater and better than our world. You could go to the other world and members of the other world could come here, but it was dependent on times and places that were borders between two things but belonging to neither (twilight where it's neither day nor night, Samhein and Beltane where it was neither one season nor the other, burial mounds, and so forth).

An interesting thing you see over and over again with the Celts that no one has an explanation for is the skull in the door posts. This sort of thing carried over to early Christian churches in Celtic lands.

All the modern Wiccan/neo-paganistic stuff is completely made up. We know precious little beyond the information in the above paragraphs.

 

[Cam Banks]

Actually, paganus is latin for "country dweller", in a fashion similar to what we would use "rube" or "hick". The association of country dweller with non-christians comes from the time when sophisticated and educated people were Christian, and the rural holdouts were not.

As it also translates as "civilian", so another school of thought has that it was used obliquely to refer to a non-Christian. Christians were "soldiers of Christ," and the pagan people weren't, and thus "civilians."

For an excellent summary of this word's origins (and the problems of etymology) I would refer you to here: http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/paganus.html

Cheers,
Cam

 

[mhacdebhandia]

The same time they were building Stonehenge.

The people who built Stonehenge were, it may be a surprise for you to learn, not as technologically advanced as the people who built the Great Pyramid.

The point is that Stonehenge definitely dates back to well before the period of time in which there were druids in Britain (or Gaul), and in fact the big stones we see there now appear to have been added to an even older ring of smaller stones, which were added to an even older "monument" of a ring of raised earth.

Druids may have used Stonehenge - it's such a striking place that I'd be surprised if they didn't - but they didn't build it.

 

[justanobody]

Yes and prior to the first set of stone, there were yearly building of the wooden version. The stones were added in order to prevent having to constantly gather and create the wooden structure.

Go figure a tree-loving people would not want to cut down trees.

So since the earth mound existed prior to the wooden or stone circles, does it mean that it was not druids?

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Yes and prior to the first set of stone, there were yearly building of the wooden version. The stones were added in order to prevent having to constantly gather and create the wooden structure.

Go figure a tree-loving people would not want to cut down trees.

More like they didn't want to have to keep replacing it. Most cultures prefer to build in stone once they have the ability to do so simply because it's less work.

So since the earth mound existed prior to the wooden or stone circles, does it mean that it was not druids?

The druids didn't show up until long after all of it. They didn't build the earth mound, they didn't build the small stone circle, they didn't build the big stone circle.

They may have used Stonehenge later, the original culture which built it having disappeared, but that's not exactly important. Saying the druids built Stonehenge is a lot like saying Queen Elizabeth II built Windsor Castle.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Joseph Campbell is largely discredited in the academic community.

This was also my experience. However, as a lens through which to view, describe and build a D&D world, I think he is ideally suited. D&D deals primarily in archetypes.

There is a lot of Jung in D&D.

 

[Fifth Element]

I guess it was the aliens giving them both the ideas at the same time.

This is a rather huge leap of...something. Even for you.

Read the posts you're responding to. No one is arguing they were incapable of building it, or whatever it is you're inferring, just that they simply didn't. As a matter of archaeological fact.

 

[Clavis]

When trying to figure out what the Druids were historically, the big problem is deciding whether to believe the Romans or believe the Irish.

If you believe the Roman historians, the Druids were a priestly caste of men who wore white robes, held oak trees as sacred, and performed human sacrifices. The Romans seemed to believe Druids were the organizing principle of Gaulish society, and the repository of all the learning of the Gauls.

If you believe the Irish mythic cycles, Druids were male and female wizards, NOT priests, who dressed in colorful, and frequently outlandish ways. They advised kings (who actually had more religious duties), and were respected and feared. They primary worked magic by using poetry, and could satirize someone to death, for instance. They did NOT perform human sacrifices. They were skilled herbalists, but had no particular fetish for oaks or mistletoe.

Of course, its very possible that the Romans are correct when talking about Gaulish Druids, and the Irish are correct when talking about Gaelic Druids. I personally trust Celtic sources more, however, when one is considering a Celtic institution.