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Druid
A druid was a member of the high-ranking priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures. The druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no written accounts. While they were reported to have been literate, they are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in written form. Their beliefs and practices are attested in some detail by their contemporaries from other cultures, such as the Romans and the Greeks.
The earliest known references to the druids date to the 4th century BCE. The oldest detailed description comes from Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (50s BCE). They were described by other Roman writers such as Cicero, Tacitus, and Pliny the Elder. Following the Roman invasion of Gaul, the druid orders were suppressed by the Roman government under the 1st-century CE emperors Tiberius and Claudius, and had disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century.
In about 750 CE, the word druid appears in a poem by Blathmac, who wrote about Jesus, saying that he was "better than a prophet, more knowledgeable than every druid, a king who was a bishop and a complete sage." The druids often appear in both the tales from Irish mythology first written down by monks and nuns of the Celtic Church like the "Táin Bó Cúailnge" (12th century), but also in later Christian legends where they are largely portrayed as sorcerers who opposed the introduction of Christianity by missionaries. In the wake of the Celtic revival during the 18th and 19th centuries, fraternal and neopagan groups were founded based on ideas about the ancient druids, a movement known as Neo-Druidism. Many popular notions about druids, based on misconceptions of 18th-century scholars, have been largely superseded by more recent study.
The English word druid derives from the Latin word druidēs (plural), which was considered by ancient Roman writers to come from the native Gaulish word for these figures. Other Roman texts employ the form druidae, while the same term was used by Greek ethnographers as δρυΐδης (druidēs). Although no extant Romano-Celtic inscription is known to contain the form, the word is cognate with the later insular Celtic words: Old Irish druí 'druid, sorcerer'; Old Cornish druw; and Middle Welsh dryw 'seer; wren'. Based on all available forms, the hypothetical proto-Celtic word may be reconstructed as *dru-wid-s (pl. *druwides), whose original meaning is traditionally taken to be "oak-knower", based upon the association of druids' beliefs with oak trees, which was made by Pliny the Elder, who also suggested that the word is borrowed from the Greek word δρῦς (drỹs) 'oak tree' but nowadays it is more often understood as originally meaning 'one with firm knowledge' (i.e. 'a great sage'), as Pliny is the only ancient author drawing the association between oaks and druids and the intensifying modifier sense of the first element fits better with other similar compounds attested in Old Irish (suí 'sage, wise man' < *su-wid-s 'good knower', duí 'idiot, fool' < *du-wid-s 'bad knower', ainb 'ignorant' < *an-wid-s 'not-knower'). The two elements go back to the Proto-Indo-European roots *deru- and *weid- "to see". Both Old Irish druí and Middle Welsh dryw could refer to the wren, possibly connected with an association of that bird with augury in Irish and Welsh tradition (see also Wren Day).
Sources by ancient and medieval writers provide an idea of the religious duties and social roles involved in being a druid.
The Greco-Roman and the vernacular Irish sources agree that the druids played an important part in pagan Celtic society. In his description, Julius Caesar wrote that they were one of the two most important social groups in the region (alongside the equites, or nobles) and were responsible for organizing worship and sacrifices, divination, and judicial procedure in Gallic, British, and Irish societies.[failed verification] He wrote that they were exempt from military service and from paying taxes, and had the power to excommunicate people from religious festivals, making them social outcasts. Two other classical writers, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, wrote about the role of druids in Gallic society, stating that the druids were held in such respect that if they intervened between two armies they could stop the battle.
Diodorus writes of the Druids that they were "philosophers" and "men learned in religious affairs" who are honored. Strabo mentions that their domain was both natural philosophy and moral philosophy, while Ammianus Marcellinus lists them as investigators of "obscure and profound subjects".
Pomponius Mela was the first author to say that the druids' instruction was secret and took place in caves and forests. Cicero said that he knew a Gaulish druid who "claimed to have that knowledge of nature which the Greeks call physiologia, and he used to make predictions, sometimes by means of augury and sometimes by means of conjecture".
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Druid
A druid was a member of the high-ranking priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures. The druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no written accounts. While they were reported to have been literate, they are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in written form. Their beliefs and practices are attested in some detail by their contemporaries from other cultures, such as the Romans and the Greeks.
The earliest known references to the druids date to the 4th century BCE. The oldest detailed description comes from Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (50s BCE). They were described by other Roman writers such as Cicero, Tacitus, and Pliny the Elder. Following the Roman invasion of Gaul, the druid orders were suppressed by the Roman government under the 1st-century CE emperors Tiberius and Claudius, and had disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century.
In about 750 CE, the word druid appears in a poem by Blathmac, who wrote about Jesus, saying that he was "better than a prophet, more knowledgeable than every druid, a king who was a bishop and a complete sage." The druids often appear in both the tales from Irish mythology first written down by monks and nuns of the Celtic Church like the "Táin Bó Cúailnge" (12th century), but also in later Christian legends where they are largely portrayed as sorcerers who opposed the introduction of Christianity by missionaries. In the wake of the Celtic revival during the 18th and 19th centuries, fraternal and neopagan groups were founded based on ideas about the ancient druids, a movement known as Neo-Druidism. Many popular notions about druids, based on misconceptions of 18th-century scholars, have been largely superseded by more recent study.
The English word druid derives from the Latin word druidēs (plural), which was considered by ancient Roman writers to come from the native Gaulish word for these figures. Other Roman texts employ the form druidae, while the same term was used by Greek ethnographers as δρυΐδης (druidēs). Although no extant Romano-Celtic inscription is known to contain the form, the word is cognate with the later insular Celtic words: Old Irish druí 'druid, sorcerer'; Old Cornish druw; and Middle Welsh dryw 'seer; wren'. Based on all available forms, the hypothetical proto-Celtic word may be reconstructed as *dru-wid-s (pl. *druwides), whose original meaning is traditionally taken to be "oak-knower", based upon the association of druids' beliefs with oak trees, which was made by Pliny the Elder, who also suggested that the word is borrowed from the Greek word δρῦς (drỹs) 'oak tree' but nowadays it is more often understood as originally meaning 'one with firm knowledge' (i.e. 'a great sage'), as Pliny is the only ancient author drawing the association between oaks and druids and the intensifying modifier sense of the first element fits better with other similar compounds attested in Old Irish (suí 'sage, wise man' < *su-wid-s 'good knower', duí 'idiot, fool' < *du-wid-s 'bad knower', ainb 'ignorant' < *an-wid-s 'not-knower'). The two elements go back to the Proto-Indo-European roots *deru- and *weid- "to see". Both Old Irish druí and Middle Welsh dryw could refer to the wren, possibly connected with an association of that bird with augury in Irish and Welsh tradition (see also Wren Day).
Sources by ancient and medieval writers provide an idea of the religious duties and social roles involved in being a druid.
The Greco-Roman and the vernacular Irish sources agree that the druids played an important part in pagan Celtic society. In his description, Julius Caesar wrote that they were one of the two most important social groups in the region (alongside the equites, or nobles) and were responsible for organizing worship and sacrifices, divination, and judicial procedure in Gallic, British, and Irish societies.[failed verification] He wrote that they were exempt from military service and from paying taxes, and had the power to excommunicate people from religious festivals, making them social outcasts. Two other classical writers, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, wrote about the role of druids in Gallic society, stating that the druids were held in such respect that if they intervened between two armies they could stop the battle.
Diodorus writes of the Druids that they were "philosophers" and "men learned in religious affairs" who are honored. Strabo mentions that their domain was both natural philosophy and moral philosophy, while Ammianus Marcellinus lists them as investigators of "obscure and profound subjects".
Pomponius Mela was the first author to say that the druids' instruction was secret and took place in caves and forests. Cicero said that he knew a Gaulish druid who "claimed to have that knowledge of nature which the Greeks call physiologia, and he used to make predictions, sometimes by means of augury and sometimes by means of conjecture".