Lugodoc's Guide to Druids

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Lugodoc's Guide to

DruidsIn Lugodoc's humble opinion, about a million times more stuff has been written about the original, realiron-age druids than we will ever actually know. The only fact that we know about them for certain isthat they were mysterious.

The ChroniclesIn an attempt to clear very muddied waters, below I have collected ever word written down about thedruids by the classical writers of chronicals up to A.D. 350. Everything written after this date is purespeculation. All bold emphasis is by this author.

330 BC AristotlesTreatise on Magic Lost, possibly apocryphal, but referred to by DiogenesLaertius over 550 years later.

200 BC - Sotion of AlexandriasSuccession of Philosophers - Lost, but referred to by DiogenesLaertius over 400 years later.

70 BC Poseidonius Chronicles Lost, but used by his pupil Cicero about 30 years later.

50 BC - J ulius CaesarsThe Conquest of Gaul, book VI13. The two privileged classes are theDruidsand the knights. The Druids officiate at theworship ofthe gods, regulate public and privatesacrifices, and giverulingson all religious questions. Largenumbers of young men flock to them for instruction, and they areheld in great honour by thepeople. They act asjudges in practically all disputes, whether between tribes or between individuals;when any crime is committed, or a murder takes place, or a dispute arises about an inheritance or aboundary, it is they whoadjudicatethe matter and appoint the compensation to be paid and received bythe parties concerned. Any individual or tribe failing to accept their award isbanned from taking partin sacrifice - the heaviest punishment that can be inflictedupon a Gaul. Those who are laid undersuch a ban are regarded as impious criminals. Everyone shuns them and avoids going near or speaking

to them, for fear of taking some harm by contact with what is unclean; if they appear as plaintiffs,justice is denied them, and they are excluded from a share in any honour.All the Druids are under onehead, whom they hold in the highest respect. On his death, if any one of the rest is of outstanding merit,he succeeds to the vacant place; if several have equal claims, the Druids usually decide the election byvoting, though sometimesthey actually fight it out. On a fixed date in each year they hold a session ina consecrated spot in the country of the Carnutes, which is supposed to be the centre of Gaul. Thosewho are involved in disputes assemble here from all parts, and accept the Druids' judgements andawards. The Druidic doctrine is believed to have been found existing inBritain and thence importedinto Gaul; even today those who want to make a profound study of it generally go to Britain for thepurpose.

14. The Druids are exempt from military service and do not pay taxes like other citizens. Theseimportant privileges are naturally attractive: many present themselves of their own accord to becomestudents of Druidism, and others are sent by their parents or relatives. It is said that these pupils have tomemorizea great number of verses - so many, that some of them spendtwenty yearsat their studies.

The Druids believe that their religion forbids them to commit their teachings to writing, although


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for most other purposes, such as public and private accounts, the Gauls use theGreek alphabet. But Iimagine that this rule was originally established for other reasons - because they did not want theirdoctrine to become public property, and in order to prevent their pupils from relying on the writtenword and neglecting to train their memories; for it is usually found that when people have the help oftexts, they are less diligent in learning by heart, and let their memories rust.

A lesson which they take particular pains to inculcate is thatthe soul does not perish, but after deathpasses from one body to another; they think that this is the best incentive to bravery, because it teaches

men todisregard the terrors of death. They also hold long discussions about the heavenly bodies andtheir movements, the size of the universe and of the earth, the physical constitution of the world, andthe power and properties of the gods; andthey instruct the young men in all these subjects.

16. As a nation the Gauls are extremely superstitious; and so persons suffering from serious diseases, aswell as those who are exposed to the perils of battle, offer, or vow to offer, human sacrifices, for theperformance of which they employ Druids. They believe that the only way of saving a man's life is topropitiate the god's wrath by rendering another life in its place, and they have regular state sacrifices ofthe same kind. Some tribes havecolossal images made of wickerwork, the limbs of which they fillwith living men; they are then set on fire, and the victims burnt to death. They think that the gods prefer

the execution of men taken in the act of theft or brigandage, or guilty of some offence; but when theyrun short of criminals, they do not hesitate to make up with innocent men.

17. The god they reverence most is Mercury. They have very many images of him, and regard him asthe inventor of all arts the god who directs men upon their journeys, and their most powerful helper intrading and getting money. Next to him they reverence Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, about whomthey have much the same ideas as other nations - that Apollo averts illness, and Minerva teaches theprinciples of industries and handicrafts- that Jupiter is king of the gods, and Mars the lord of war. Whenthey have decided to fight a battle they generally vow to Mars the booty that they hope to take, and aftera victory they sacrifice the captured animals and collect the rest of the spoil in one spot. Among manyot the tribes, high piles of it can be seen on consecrated ground-and it is an almost unknown thing foranyone to dare, in defiance of religious law, to conceal his booty at home or to remove anything placedon the piles. Such a crime is punishable by a terrible death under torture.

18. The Gauls claim all to be descended from Father Dis declaring that this is the tradition preserved bythe Druids. For this reason they measure periods of time not by days but by nights - and in celebratingbirthdays, the first of the month, and new year's day, they go on the principle thatthe day begins atnight.

21. The customs of the Germans are entirely different. They have no druids to control religiousobservations and are not much given to sacrifices.

36 BC - CicerosDe DivinationeI, XLI, 90: Nor is the practice of divination disregarded even among uncivilised tribes, if indeed thereare Druids in Gaul - and there are, for I knew one of them myself, Divitiacus, the Aeduan, your guestand eulogist. He claimed to have that knowledge of nature which the Greeks call physiologia, and heused to make predictions, sometimes by means ofaugury and sometimes by means ofconjecture.

8 BC - Diodorus SiculusHistoriesV, 28, 6 The Pythagorean doctrine prevails among them (the Gauls), teaching that the souls of men areimmortal and live again for a fixed number of years inhabited in another body.

V, 31, 2-5 And there areamong them (the Gauls) composers of verses whom they call Bards; thesesinging to instruments similar to a lyre, applaud some, while they vituperate others. They havephilosophers and theologians who are held in much honour and are calledDruids ; they havesooth-sayers too of great renown who tell the future by watching theflights of birdsand byobservation of theentrails of victims; and every one waits upon their word. When they attempt


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divination upon important matters they practice a strange and incredible custom, for they kill a man by aknife-stab in the region above the midriff, and after his fall they foretell the future by the convulsionsof his limbs and the pouring of his blood, a form of divination in which they have full confidence, asit is of old tradition. It is a custom of the Gauls thatno one performs a sacrifice without theassistance of a philosopher, for they say that offerings to the gods ought only to be made through themediation of these men, who are learned in the divine natureand, so to speak, familiar with it, and itis through their agency that the blessings of the gods should properly be sought. It is not only in timesof peace, but in war also, that these seers have authority, and the incantations of the bards have effect on

friends and foes alike. Often when the combatants are ranged face to face, and swords are drawn andspears bristling, these men come between the armies and stay the battle, just as wild beasts aresometimes held spellbound. Thus even among the most savage barbarians anger yields to wisdom, andMars is shamed before the Muses.

AD 10 StrabosGeographiesIV, 4, c. 197, 41 Among all the Gallic peoples, generally speaking, there are three sets of men who areheld in exceptional honour: the Bards, the Vates, and the Druids. TheBardsare singers and poets; theVates, diviners and natural philosophers; while theDruids, in addition to natural philosophy, study alsomoral philosophy.The Druids are considered the most just of men, and on this account they are

entrusted with the decision, not only of the private disputes, but of the public disputes as well; so that, informer times, they even arbitrated cases of war and made the opponents stop when they were about toline up for battle, and the murder cases in particular, had been turned over to them for decision. Further,when there is a big yield (of criminals for sacrifice) from these cases, there is forthcoming a big yieldfrom the land too, as they think. However, not only the Druids, but others as well, say thatmen's souls,and also the universe, are indestructible, although both fire and water will at some time or otherprevail over them.

IV, 4, c. 198, 5 But the Romans put a stop to these customs, as well as to all those connected with thesacrifices and divinations that are opposed to our usages. They used to strike a human being, whom they

had devoted to death, in the back with a sabre, and then divine from his death-struggle. But theywould not sacrifice without the Druids. We are told of still other kinds of human sacrifices;for example, they would shoot victims to death with arrows, or impale them in the temples, or havingdevised acolossus of straw and wood, throw into the colossus cattle and wild animals of all sorts andhuman beings, and then make a burnt offering of the whole thing.

AD 15 Timagenes - Lost, but quoted by Ammianus Marcellinus over 300 years later.

AD 25 - Valerius MaximusII, 6, 10 Having done with the description of the town (Marseilles), an old custom of the Gauls maynow be mentioned ; for it is said that they lend to each other sums that are repayable in the nextworld, so firmly are they convinced that the souls of men are immortal. And I would call them foolishindeed, if it were not for the fact that what thesetrouseredbarbarians believe is the very faith of GreekPythagoras himself.

So far... less than 2,000 contemporary words survive; written by people who might have actuallymet real druids or met people who had met them. The earliest half of these words was written by thesame politician, Julius Caesar, and like all politicians helied all the time and had an agenda.

When Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC as part of his invasion of Gaul, he had no interest

in pacifying Celtic barbarians or bringing peace to Western Europe. What he really wanted was to makehimself Emperor of Rome, and to do that he needed a very big army under his personal control, and to

justify getting one of those he needed to find somewhere to invade "for the glory of Rome". And tojustify that invasion he needed to present the European Celts as barbaric savages who needed to bebrought under the "Pax Romana" both for the security of Rome and "for their own good". And to do that


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he needed to show that the Celts were a violent, barbarous people.

There are several references tohuman sacrifice, but a careful reading suggests that these sacrificeswere actually carried out by the Gauls, that is to say the ordinary Gallic population, and not specificallyby their druid priests.Human sacrifice seems to have been a common secular practise carried out byordinary men. It is stated that the druids were asked toofficiateat these sacrifices, but this does notmean that they were responsible for them. Strabo says that "theywouldnot sacrificewithout the druids". Which suggests that the druids were not performing the sacrifice.

Today in America Christian priests officiate at executions; does that make them executioners?

Caesar's description ofThe Wicker Man is not substantiated by a single piece of archeologicalevidence of any kind, and although Strabo mentions it as well he may just be copying Caesar. It isprobably an outright lie, one of hundreds told by Caesar to help justify his invasion of Gaul.

Which is a shame, 'cos Lugodocreallydigs...

Then came...

AD 43 - The Claudian Conquest of Britain

Wherever Rome conquered it always installed Roman governers and client kings to keep the peace andlevy taxes, but it never usually made any effort to destroy local religions. Even after several rebellionsin Judea it never tried to outlaw the local Jewish religion. And yet, after the Claudian invasion of Britainin AD 43, The DivineEmperor Claudiusdecreed that henceforth through out all Britain, Gaul, and the

rest of The Roman Empire, all druids were outlawedand to be shot on sight.

The great druid stronghold onAngleseywas attacked and destroyed under the command of the localBritish governer Suetonius Paulinus inAD 61, and after this the druids ceased to have any officialexistence. Some survivors fled to Ireland or Scotland, which were never conquered by Rome but wereconquered by Roman Christianity a few centuries later. Others went underground and becamewandering poets and storytellers, without power or status. Their vast wealth of historical andmetaphysical knowledge faded intomyth.

So after this, everything is just heresay, rumour and repetition, and just over another 2,000 wordssurvive from the following 300 years...

AD 50 - Pomponius MelasDe Situ OrbisIII, 2, 18 and 19 There still remain traces of atrocious customs no longer practised, and although theynow refrain from outright slaughter yet they still draw blood from the victims led to the altar. Theyhave, however, their own kind of eloquence, and teachers of wisdom called Druids. These profess toknow the size and shape of the world, the movements of the heavens and of the stars, and the will of the


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gods. They teach many things to the nobles of Gaul in a course of instruction lasting as long astwentyyears, meeting in secret either in a cave or in secluded dales. One of their dogmas has come tocommon knowledge, namely, that souls are eternal and that there is another life in the infernal regions,and this has been permitted manifestly because it makes the multitude readier for war. And it is for thisreason too that they burn or bury with their dead, things appropriate to them in life, and that in timespast they even used to defer the completion of business and the payment of debts until their arrival inanother world. Indeed, there were some of them who flung themselves willingly on the funeral piles oftheir relatives in order to share the new life with them.

AD 60 - LucansPharsaliaI, 450-8 And you, O Druids, now that the clash of battle is stilled, once more have you returned to yourbarbarous ceremonies and to the savage usage of your holy rites. To you alone it is given to know thetruth about the gods and deities of the sky, or else you alone are ignorant of this truth. The innermostgroves of far-off forests are your abodes. And it is you who say that the shades of the dead seek notthe silent land of Erebus and the pale halls of Pluto; rather, you tell us that the same spirit has a bodyagain elsewhere, and that death, if what you sing is true, is but the mid-point of long life.

AD 77 Plinys Natural History

XVI, 249 Here we must mention the awe felt for this plant by the Gauls. The Druidsfor so theirmagicians are calledheld nothing more sacred than themistletoeand the tree that bears it, alwayssupposing that tree to be theoak. But they choosegrovesformed of oaks for the sake of the tree alone,and they never perform any of their rites except in the presence of a branch of it; so that it seemsprobable that the priests themselves may derive their name from the Greek word for that tree. In fact,they think that everything that grows on it has been sent from heaven and is a proof that the tree waschosen by the god himself. The mistletoe, however, is found but rarely upon the oak; and when found,is gathered with due religious ceremony, if possible onthe sixth day of the moon (for it is by the moonthat they measure their months and years, and also their ages of thirty years). They choose this daybecause the moon, though not yet in the middle of her course, has already considerable influence. Theycall the mistletoe by a name meaning, in their language, the all-healing. Having made preparation forsacrifice and a banquet beneath the trees, they bring thither two white bulls, whose horns are boundthen for the first time. Clad ina white robe, the priest ascends the tree and cuts the mistletoe with agolden sickle, and it is received by others in a white cloak. Then they kill the victims, praying that Godwill render this gift of his propitious to those to whom he has granted it. They believe that the mistletoe,taken in drink, imparts fecundity to barren animals, and that it is an antidote for all poisons. Such are thereligious feelings that are entertained towards trifling things by many peoples.

XXIV, 103 Similar tosavin is the plant calledselago. It is gatheredwithout using iron and by passingthe right hand through the left sleeve of the tunic, as though in the act of committing a theft. Theclothing must bewhite, the feet washed and bare, and an offering of wine and bread made before the

gathering. The Druids of Gaul say that the plant should be carried as a charm against every kind of evil,and that the smoke of it is good for diseases of the eyes.

XXIV, 104 The Druids, also, use a certain marsh-plant that they call samolus, this must be gatheredwith theleft hand, when fasting, and is a charm against the diseases of cattle. But the gatherer must notlook behind him, nor lay the plant anywhere except in the drinking-troughs.

XXIX, 52 There is also another kind ofegg, of much renown in the Gallic provinces, but ignored by theGreeks. In the summer, numberless snakes entwine themselves into a ball, held together by a secretionfrom their bodies and by their spittle. This is called anguinum. The Druids say that hissing serpents

throw this up into the air, and that it must be caught in a cloak, and not allowed to touch the ground; andthat one must instantly take to flight on horse-back, as the serpents will pursue until some stream cutsthem off. It may be tested, they say, by seeing if it floats against the current of a river, even though it beset in gold. But as it is the way of magicians to cast a cunning veil about their frauds, they pretend thatthese eggs can only be taken on a certain day of the moon, as though it rested with mankind to make the


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moon and the serpents accord as to the moment of the operation. I myself, however, have seen one ofthese eggs; it was round, and about as large as a smallish apple; the shell was cartalaginous, and peekedlike the arms of a polypus. The Druids esteem it highly. It is said toensure success in law-suitsand afavourable reception with princes ; but this is false, because a man of the Vocontii, who was also aRoman knight, kept one of these eggs in his bosom during a trial, and was put to death by the EmperorClaudius, as far as I can see, for that reason alone.

XXX, 13 It (magic) flourished in the Gallic provinces, too, even down to a period within our memory;

for it was in the time of the Emperor Tiberius that a decree was issued against their Druids and thewhole tribe of diviners and physicians. But why mention all this about a practice that has even crossedthe ocean and penetrated to the utmost parts of the earth ? At the present day, Britannia is stillfascinated by magic, and performs its rites with so much ceremony that it almost seems as though itwas she who had imparted the cult to the Persians. To such a degree do peoples throughout the wholeworld, although unlike and quite unknown to one another, agree upon this one point. Therefore wecannot too highly appreciate our debt to the Romans for having put an end to this monstrous cult,whereby to murder a man was an act of the greatest devoutness, and to eat his flesh most beneficial.

AD 78 Tacitus Annals (describing the invasion of Anglesey in AD 61)

XIV, 30 On the shore stood the opposing army with its dense array of armed warriors, while betweenthe ranks dashedwomen in black attire like the Furies, with hair dishevelled, waving brands. Allaround, theDruids, lifting up their hands to heaven and pouring forth dreadful imprecations, scared oursoldiers by the unfamiliar sight, so that, as if their limbs were paralysed, they stood motion-less andexposed to wounds. Then urged by their general's appeal and mutual encouragements not to quail beforea troupe of frenzied women, they bore the standards onwards, smote down all resistance and wrappedthe foe in the flames of his own brands. A force was next set over the conquered, andtheir groves,devoted to inhuman superstitions, were destroyed. They deemed it, indeed, a duty to cover theiraltars with the blood of captives and to consult their deities through human entrails.

AD 120 Suetonius Claudius25 He (the Emperor Claudius) very thoroughly suppressed the barbarous and inhuman religion of theDruids in Gaul, which in the time of Augustus had merely been forbidden to Roman citizens.

AD 230 Diogenes Laertius Lives of the Philosophersintro 1: Some say that the study of philosophy was of barbarian origin. For the Persians had their Magi,the Babylonians or the Assyrians the Chaldeans, the Indians their Gymnosophists, whilethe Kelts andthe Galatae had seers called DruidsandSemnotheoi or so Aristotle says in the " Magic," and Sotionin the twenty-third book of his " Succession of Philosophers."

Vitce, intro 5: Those who think that philosophy is an invention of the barbarians explain the systems

prevailing among each people. They say that the Gymnosophists andDruidsmake theirpronouncements by means ofriddles and dark sayings, teaching that the gods must be worshipped,and no evil done, and manly behaviour maintained.

AD 235 Lampridius Alexander SeverusLIX, 5. While he (Alexander Severus) was on his way, aDruidesscried out to him in the Gallic tongue," Go forward, but hope not for victory, nor put trust in thy soldiers."

AD 250 Hippolytus PhilosophumenaI, xxv 1 TheKeltic Druids applied themselves thoroughly to the Pythagorean philosophy, being

urged to this pursuit by Zamolxis, the slave of Pythagoras, a Thracian by birth, who came to those partsafter the death of Pythagoras, and gave them opportunity of studying the system. And the Kelts believein their Druids as seers and prophets because they can foretell certain events by the Pythagoreanreckoning and calculations. We will not pass over the origins of their learning in silence, since somehave presumed to make distinct schools of the philosophies of these peoples. Indeed, theDruids also


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practice the magic arts.

AD 260 - Clement of AlexandriasStromalaI, xv, 70, I Alexander, in his book "On the Pythagorean Symbols," relates that Pythagoras was a pupil ofNazaratus the Assyrian, and will have it that, in addition to these, Pythagoras was a hearer of theGalataeand the Brahmins.

I, xv, 71, 3 1 Thus philosophy, a science of the highest utility, flourished in antiquity among the

barbarians, shedding its light over the nations. And afterwards it came to Greece. First in its ranks werethe pro-phets of the Egyptians ; and the Chaldeans among the Assyrians ;and the Druids among theGauls ; and the Samanaeans among the Bactrians; and the philosophers of the Kelts; and the Magi ofthe Persians.

AD 275 Vopiscus NumerianusXIV When Diocletian, so my grandfather told me, was sojourning in a tavern in the land of the Tongriin Gaul, at the time when he was still of humble rank in the army, and had occasion to settle the dailyaccount for his keep with a certaindruidess, this woman said to him, " You are far too greedy and fartoo economical, O Diocletian." Whereto he replied, jestingly, " I will be more liberal when I am

emperor," to which the druidess answered, " Laugh not, Diocletian, for when you have killed The Boar,you will indeed be emperor."

After this Diocletian coveted the purple and never missed the chance of killing a boar when out hunting; but Aurelian, and Probus and Tacitus, and then Carus, were all emperors before him, so that he wasmoved to exclaim, " I kill the boars, but it is always another who reaps the reward ! " At last, however,he killed the prefect Arrius, surnamed The Boar, and thenthe prophecy of the druidess was fulfilled,and he ascended to the imperial throne.

AD 280 - Vopiscus AwelianusXLIII, 4 and 5 He (Asclepiodotus) used to say that on a certain occasion Aurelian consulted the Gaulish

druidesses to find out whether his descendants would remain in possession of the imperial crown. Thesewomen told him that no name would become more illustrious in the state annals than that of the line ofClaudius. It is true, of course, that the present Emperor Constantius is of the same stock, and I think thathis descendants will assuredly attain to the glory foretold by the druidesses.

AD 350 - Ammianus MarcellinusXV, 9, 4 According to the Druids, a part of the population (of Gaul) was indigenous, but some of thepeople came from outlying islands and lands beyond the Rhine, driven from their homes by repeatedwars and by the inroads of the sea.

XV, 9, 8 In these regions, as the people gradually became civilised, attention to the gentler arts becamecommoner, a study introduced by the Bards, and theEuhages, and the Druids. It was the custom of theBards to celebrate the brave deeds of their famous men in epic verse accompanied by the sweet strainsof the lyre, while the Euhages strove to explain the high mysteries of nature. Between them came theDruids, men of greater talent, members of the intimate fellowship of the Pythagorean faith; they wereup-lifted by searchings into secret and sublime things, and with grand contempt for mortal lot theyprofessed the immortality of the soul.

... And that is it. Everything written after this has been even wilder speculation.

Lugodoc finds it significant that everyone who described the druids seemed to see what they wanted tosee.

The Greek philosophers described philosophers, both natural and moral. The Roman politician JuliusCaesar described poweful, wealthy judges and law-makers. Later chroniclers described them as mere


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just possibly a druid

fortune-tellers.

Druid Kit

If the written accounts of druids are flimsy, the surviving physical evidence, thearchaeology, is even weaker.

In spite of accounts of golden sickles, druid's eggs and giant wicker men, nothinglike these items has ever been dug up. Although there are hundreds of survivingcarvings, statues, coins and other images depicting Celtic warriors, there is notone single definite image of an iron age Celtic druid. Furthermore, although thereare many examples where the three main sources (history, archaeology andmyth) agree on how warriors looked and behaved, there are almost no examplesof even two of these sources agreeing on anything about druids. The only objectfound thought to be possibly an image of a druid is theStatue from TheSanctuary at Neuvy-en-Sullias- part of a vast hoard of treasure including many

figurines. It is just possibly a druid holding a druids egg, although it has no torcto denote status or any other kind or druidic attribute. Or it might just be a veryrelaxed charioteer.

Archaeologists have also found several pairs ofSpoons these items aretypically Southern British dating from the first century BC and areusually about 2 inches long. One is always engraved with a simplecruciform pattern, the other punctured with a small hole. Many pairs havebeen found at ritual sites (for example this pair from CrosbyRavensworth) as opposed to normal domestic sites, and are thereforeassumed to be of ritual significance. There is no mention of anything likethem anywhere in the histories or the myths.

Another class of object, similarlyidentified with iron age ritual sites, istheGrinder also typically SouthernBritish. They are typically 2 to 3 wide,and apparently designed to grind smallquantities of something and to be worn

as a pendant. The British Museum hasabout twenty on display, and if thismany have survived for two thousandyears then many thousands must have been made and been in use. And yet, again, there is no mention ofthem anywhere in the writings.

Somewhere in the first century AD, after the druids started touse Latin to make inscriptions but before they were outlawed,one group of druids created the complex, mysterious and

extremely expensiveColigny Calendar. This huge bronzeplate (5 ft x 3 ft) was made in a single piece but then brokenup and buried. It covers 5 years and attempts to reconcile lunarand solar observations. Each month is 29 or 30 days long andcovers exactly one cycle of the moon, and is divided into a


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good half (waxing) and a bad half (waning). The full moon (Atenoux) appears to be in the middle ofeach month. Each year has 12 or 13 months.

At least this object agrees with Pliny's comments on the druidic measurements of time, but it is the onlyone of its kind ever found.

The Dark AgesAlthough the institutions which supported the complex and highly formal magic, ritual and law of thedruids were wiped out in the first century AD, and the druids themselves had written absolutely nothingdown, a tiny fraction of their vast body of orally recorded history and myth survived amongst storytellers, and the common Celtic practise of folk magic carried on.

Themythswere eventually written down in Latin by early Christian monks, a practise which began inthe eighth century AD and carried on until at least the fourteenth. The folk magic merged with that ofthe invading Romans, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Jutes Vikings and Normans right up until the thirteenth

century, when the Roman Christian Church got nasty and createdThe Spanish Inquisition to burnanyone who practised it, and this carried on for over three hundred years.

During the early medieval period history was not a science, it was an art, and was hopelessly confusedwith myth by those who tried to study it. After the Norman invasion of 1066 the new masters of Britainneeded to justify their right to rule, and in1135they comissioned a monk calledGeoffrey ofMonmouth to write a definitive history of Britain. Monmouth'sHistory Of The Kings Of Britainsupposedly covered everything from the fall of Troy in 1240 BC to the end of the Saxon conquest inAD 689, and although lots of fun it is not accurate. Arthur is covered in detail, andMerlin the druid isintroduced, but the two never meet. However, the first ever connection is made betweendruidsand

Stonehenge(or maybe Averbury), as Merlin is credited with having used magic to steal The Giant'sRing from Ireland and bringing it to Britain as a memorial to the British who died fighting alongsideArthur's dad Uthur against the Saxons. Monmouth was fascinated by Merlin, and wrote two more books

just about him. We have no idea where he got his information from, although he does mention "a certainvery ancient book written in the British language" (ie Celtic) that was loaned to him by ArchdeaconWalter. For all we know, most of it came to him in a dream.

In1469SirThomas Mallory MP wroteLa Morte Darthur (The Death Of Arthur) in which Merlinmeets Arthur and becomes his druid. He is described as having a master called "Bleise" inNorthumberland, suggesting some kind of druid order. When William Caxton printed it in 1485 he saidin his own preface that although some people thought Arthur was a real king, most others thought hewas just a myth.

The Seventeenth Century

During the seventeenth cenury, for the first time, some well educated aristocrats with time and money tospare began the first attempt at a rational study of history, trying to knit together the various sources intoa sensible coherent record. These sources included folk-myths, ancient Greek, Roman, Saxon andWelsh histories kept in latin by monks and available to the well-educated upper classes, and the ancientand mysterious features still explorable in the landscape, such as Stonehenge.

One of these first "antiquarians" wasJ ohn Aubrey, who "stumbled" across Avebury whilst foxhunting in1649. Fascinated by the place, he collected lore and gossip into his note books and was thefirst to suggest ten years later that Stonhenge and Avebury were druid temples. This idea has persisted,even though we now know that Stonehenge was abandoned in around1,600 BC in thebronzeage (andAvebury even earlier), whereas the druids were iron age Celtic priests, and the iron age did not begin in


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Europe until at least 800 years later in around 800 BC. Furthermore, the literature at the top of this pageutterly fails to mention stone circles of any kind, instead making it clear that the druids worshipped ingroves.

It is Lugodoc's personal belief that the druidsdid build both these sites, and many others, and that whenthe first iron age Celts came to Europe and Britain they found andadopted the bronze age priests thatwere already there, and that these were later identified by classical scholars as the Celts' iron age priests.

The druid religion evolved from practising ritual at megalithic sites in the bronze age to practising

within groves in the iron age. Religion does evolve. Christ himself never seems to have held meetings intemples (which he detested), but mostly at parties, on hilltops or in restaurants. Early Christians used tomeet in catacombs. Now they meet in churches or meeting houses. But they still call themselvesChristians.

Aubrey raised such popular interest in the stones at Avebury that in 1663 they were visited by KingCharles II, and Aubrey completed his manuscript Monumenta Brittanicain1690. This was notactually published until the 1980s, and he died in poverty in 1697.

Whatever the truth, Aubrey welded Stonehenge to druids in the British consciousness so perfectly that it

is now impossible to separate them ever again.

The Eighteenth Century

One unlikely young man who met Aubrey and adopted his view of Stonehenge as a druid temple wasthe Irish revolutionaryJ ohn Tolland. He wrote a book expanding on Aubrey's ideas, but far fromromanticising the Irish druids he saw them as narrow-minded political fascists, in a thinly disguisedsatyrical lampoon of the contemprary Irish Christian Church.

Aubrey's work encouraged many others with an education and time to spare,and in1723the ReverendHenry Rowland publishedMona AntiquaRestaura. This work is not well known, but it did include one of the firstknown attempts to imagine what a druid might have looked like. It is completerubbish, but it influenced everything that came afterwards and now we are welland truly stuck with it.

Just a little later but far more famous wasWilliam Stukeley. He was born in1687, studied medicine and in 1718 he became the first secretary of theSociety of Antiquaries of London. He first visited Stonehenge a year later andfell in love with it. He published the results of his travels around Britain in hisItinerarium Curiosumin1724, and the results of his excavations atStonehenge and Avebury inStonehenge, a Temple Restored to the BritishDruids in1740, andAbury, a Temple of the British Druids three years later

in1743. His illustrations were heavily influenced by, but even wackier than,Rowland's.

Stukeley wasn't just fascinated by druids, he wanted to be one. In 1730 hechanged career and was ordained as Vicar of All Saints Church in Stamford,


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but he never saw this as a problem. He had the vicarage garden redesigned as adruid grove complete with a megalithic folly, and included his ideas of druid

philosophy into his sermons. He even started to sign his letters "Chyndonax, Druid of MountHaemus."

Neo-druidismhad taken off, and after this everyone was writing about them and trying to grab a pieceof the action.

Meanwhile, political as well as historical consciousness was developing.

At the end of the seventeenth century a new trend in literature and philosophy began, and for the firsttime people began to seriously question the divine rights of kings and priests. This process continuedthrough out the eighteenth century, and so this century is sometimes referred to asThe Age Of Reason,

orThe Enlightenment.

At the begining of the eighteenth century practical minded people were begining to createFriendlySocieties, mutual interest societies intended to provide support for their members in time of need. The

19th century British Cooperative Society had its origin in these early mutual benefit societies. Moretheoretically minded people were also beginning to meet in secret or semi-secret societies to discussphilosophy, politics and religion, ideas about human freedom and the rights of Man, and many of theseideas were, technically, still illegal, heretical or treason. Although very few people were being burned atthe stake for heresy or hung for treason it still wasn't really safe, and some precautions were necessaryby these early free thinkers. Meetings were held in private houses or rooms in taverns, and memberswere often required to take oaths of secrecy. This was partly just common sense, and partly copied offthe freemasons. Some of these societies were workers' organisations to lobby for better workingconditions, some were middleclass societies discussing radical politics, and a few upperclass ones were

just sex-clubs like The Hellfire Club. Freemasonry was a strong inspiration, and somehow druidry got

dragged into the mix.

These radical societies and the changes in political consciousness they brought about crossed theAtlantic and were ultimately responsible for the creation of the world's first secular democracy in thenewly settledUnited States Of Americaon J uly 4th, 1776.

Just one such society wasThe Ancient Order Of Druids, a secret benefit societyfounded in London in1781, possibly by a man called Henry Hurle. It first met in

The Kings Arms Tavern in Poland Steet in Soho, and there is an engraved

wooden plaque on the wall there comemorating this event. It spread rapidly,forming new lodges all over Britain and was even introduced to the USA in 1833.

TheAOD is men-only and still meets on both sides of the Atlantic, making it theoldest existing neo-druidic society. However, it no longer meets in The Kings

Arms because that is now a gay bar.

In1792a letter appeared inThe Gentleman's Magazinedescribing an event on Primrose Hill in London,in which a group of men calling itselfthe Bards of the Island of Britain performed what theyobviously thought were druidic rituals at the Autumnal equinox. The author was a Welshman calling


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himselfIolo Morgannwg(born Edward Williams). In Wales there had been an annual Eisteddfod heldsince 1568, a Christian music and poetic festival, but Iolo had successfully lobbied to turn it druidic,and was now doing the same in Britain. Unfortunately one of his favorite techniques was to fake vastquantities of ancient druidic knowlege, supposedly written down by the last druids and somehow passedon in secret for seventeen hundred years to none other than Eddie (sorry, Iolo) so that it could now berevealed once more. Iolo actually was a good poet, and much of his excellent material is still in print invarious forms and in use by many modern druids. Unfortunately it isn't real. Everything that might bereal is at the top of this page, remember?

Also in1792the famous proto-socialistSheridan was lobbying for parliamentary reform and hecreated theSociety of Friends of The Peopleto gather support for wider and fairer elections. Naturallythe authorities didn't like these developments and in 1795 Lord Braxfield ruled that "to agitate for equalrepresentation of the people in the House of the People [the House of Commons] was in thecircumstances of itself sedition". The "friend" Thomas Muir got 14 years transportation and the societydissolved itself.

By the end of the century the number of new semi-secret or friendly societies questioning thephilosophical and political status quo in Britain were growing, so in1799an act of parliament was

passed outlawing all societies which used oaths (although the freemasons were, naturally, exempt).Some Essex lodges of AOD were prosecuted under this new law, which could inflict punishments up toand including forcible transportation to the colonies.

The Nineteenth Century

Inspite (or maybe even because) of the English government oppression,The Ancient Order of Druids continued to grow, spread, split andspawn further neo-druidic groups, and the nineteenth century is littered

with them. Neo-druidic societies were sprouting like mushrooms withnames that would make Monty Python proud, such as The DruidChurch Of The Universal Bond, The Circle Of The Universal Bond,

The United Ancient Order Of Druids, The Ancient Druid Order or evenjust The Order Of Druids. They mostly came and went, but the AODcarried on through out the century. By1815the commonly heldopinion of what an iron age druid looked like had evolved into thesorry drag act on the right.

The new laws punishing any societies that took oaths were used, and in

1834six labourers in Dorset who had formed an early trade union werebanished to Australia for "administering illegal oaths". They became famous asThe TolpuddleMartyrs(even though they weren't actually martyred).

The 19th century was the Victorian century in England, and a lot was happening. Rapidly acceleratingdevelopments in science, engineering, physics, chemistry, astronomy and geology were changing theEuropean perception of the universe in a way not even the 20th century could come close to. At the startof the century most people thought that the universe was enclosed by a sphere a few million milesacross with stars stuck on it containing the Earth and planets and that the whole thing had been createdby God about seven thousand years ago, just for us. People were being buried in graveyards that they

truly believed would still be in existence at the end of the world when Christ returned to judge the livingand the dead just a few centuries into the future. But by the end of the 19th century it was starting tosink in that the uncountable stars being revealed by the new telescopes were suns like our own, that theuniverse was billions of light-years in size and that mankind had evolved from animals over millions ofyears and that the Earth itself had taken billions of years to form. Mankind had been displaced from the


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centre of God's tiny cosy world to an obscure corner of something so mind-bogglingly huge and old thatthe first attempts by Christian scientists to get their heads round the new universe must have been liketaking acid. Old-style Christianity now looked foolish, and the new science looked frightening.

The response to this almost hallucinogenic expansion in consciousness was to look for new ways toexplain Mankind's spiritual significance. Released from silly old Christianity and repelled by scary newscience, people (like Madame Blavatsky's Theosophists or The Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn)imagined weird histories involving ancient races and hollow Earths, or found spiritualism and talked to

the dead, or founded obscure societies protecting "the Wisdom of the Ancients". The new druidicalsocieties were just typical examples of these many attempts to find comfort in a new eternal spiritualwisdom.

Christian clergymen seemed particularly vulnerable, and for example in 1836 the Reverend D James,curate of Almondbury in Yorkshire, published a book calledThe Patriarchal Religion of Britain or aComplete Manual of Ancient British Druidism, and he dedicated it to the Ancient Order of Druids lodgein the West Riding of Yorkshire. His main source was the rubbish of Iolo Mogannwg, and if he hadtried it 200 years earlier he would have been burnt at the stake.

If there was a common idea behind this explosion in 19th century neo-druidry, it was that modernChristianity and politics had lost their way, and that perhaps greater metaphysical truths could be foundin the lore and ritual of the ancients. Christianity had suppressed truth in many forms for centuries, andwhen the straight-jacket came off during The Enlightenment of the 18th century interest turned to theobscure semi-magical teachings of ancient secret societies, whether real or imagined. The ancientchronicles recording their reverence for truthmade thedruidsseem particularly attractive.

The Twentieth Century

After more than a century AOD was still going strong. In1905there was a huge gathering of AOD atStonehenge, which included Stonehenge's owner Sir Edmund Antrobus. By now the whole druid dragact had evolved into white robes, nemets (silly faux-Egyptian head gear), false white beards, goldensickles, staffs and cod-masonic symbols.


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Neo-druids had become quite cosy and the authorities no longer felt threatened by them. Even Britain'swartime prime minister-to-beWinston Churchill was photographed at Stonehenge in full druid kit(including false white beard) at the beginning of the century.

The inexorable march of science and social change and the nostalgic reaction against it accelerated, notalways pleasantly. The Nazis of the thirties drew some of their support and inspiration from the manyneo-pagan and semi-druidical groups that formed in Germany after their defeat in The Great War.

After WWII the repeal of the British witchcraft laws in the 1950s brought all sorts of neo-pagan groupsout of the woodwork, and some are still famous such as the Wicca groups created by Gerald Gardnerand Ross Nichols.

The SixtiesThen came theThe Sixtiesand everybody just wanted toPart-ayyy!!!Stonehenge was a great place toparty and the druids couldn't help getting dragged in.

Philip Ross Nichols left AOD in1964to form his own druid group,The Order of Bards, Ovates and

Druids, or OBOD. This group is still going strong and is one of the most well-known after AOD itself.It has many prominent members including Philip Carr-Gomm, Professor Ronald Hutton, PhilipShallcrass and John & Caitlin Matthews.

The Seventies

It was now well known that Stonehenge was allignedwith the midsummer solstice, and neo-druids, pagansand hippies swarmed there on June 21st every year toget high in ever increasing numbers. This processaccelerated during the1970suntilThe StonehengeFree Festival became an unofficial free party aroundthe stones every year, lasting up to a fortnight andthronged with tens of thousands of people.

Neo-druids seemed to get on very well with hippies.

By now Stonehenge was no longer in privateownership, but in the custody of a Quasi-AutonomousNon-Governmental Organisation (QUANGO) calledEnglish Heritage.

The EightiesIn Britain, this was Thatcher's decade. It was as bad as you've heard, and the reaction happened on thestreets. Opposition to greedy, selfish, un-fettered capitalism was expressed in the "Stop The City"protests in the financial heart of the city of London, or in the Peace Women's protests at Greenham


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Common against American nuclear weapons on British soil. But the rise in political consciousnessdidn't stop people partying - quite the opposite. And the Stonehenge Free Festival grew year by year.

Naturally, the thought of thousands of people getting high in the sun and having a good time withoutany interference from the authorities was simply unbearable to those in power, and British PrimeMinister Margaret Thatcher responded according to her nature. The unwashed swarms of hippies andother travellers had to be stopped from congregating at Stonehenge, and so on June 1st1985thegovernment launched a vicious attack on a convoy of vans and buses in a field in nearby Cholderton in

Wiltshire. The result wasThe Battle Of The Beanfield. This is well-documented elsewhere andrecommended by Lugodoc for study by anyone interested in the real history of the twentieth century.

After this, Stonehenge was sealed off with fences and security guards 24/7 to prevent any access at all,except to paying tourists. At every summer solstice a huge and expensive police operation would belaunched by the Wiltshire Constabulary to prevent anyone getting anywhere near the stones to party orworship. Or both. The popular response to this absurd over-reaction by the authorities was the creationof several brand new neo-druidical organisations.

In June1986a previously obscure ex-squaddie, biker and veteran of the 1970's free festivals legally

changed his name by deed poll toArthur Uthur Pendragon, declared himself to be the livingincarnation ofKing Arthur and dedicated the rest of his life to Stonehenge access, the road proteststhat came later in the 90s and the rights of the people against the government everywhere. He formedhis own neo-druid order,The Loyal Arthurian Warband, or LAW. This order was represented at themeetings of the CBDO, and through sheer charisma King Arthur became accepted as the nominal archdruid or senior office-holder of many of the newly formed neo-druidical orders that appeared in the 80sand 90s.

Wherever he went the cameras followed, guaranteeing publicity for causes that the government wouldhave preferred to have been ignored.

TheGlastonbury Order of Druids or GOD came into being in May1988, headed by RolloMaughfling. One of its main functions was to lobby for open access to Stonehenge.

TheSecular Order of Druidsor SOD was headed byTim Sebastian, an old rock and roller who hadbeen in a 70s concept band called Gryphon and had attended many of the free festivals.

There were even rumours of a (possibly ironic) neo-druidical group called thePolice Lodge Of Druids,or PLOD.

In order to keep some kind of a lid on this new chaotic blossoming of neo-druids was formed theGrand Council of British Druid Ordersor CBDO, which organised quarterly councils withrepresentatives from every order and lobbied for free access to Stonehenge at the Summer solstice.

After more than five years of simmering resentment on all sides Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcherthrew more petrol onto the fire in1989with a speech to theUnited Nations in which she insisted thatnothing can stop the great car economy. Elsewhere her transport minister was busy declaring (his

actual words) the biggest road-building programme since theRomans.

Then came...

The Nineties

New roads had in fact been built all over Britain ever since the coming of The Romans two thousandyears ago, but suddenly something snapped. The accelerating disappearance of Britain's fields under


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tarmac started to produce a reaction. It might be said to have begun withTwyford Down.

Nobody had heard of this obscure hill near Winchester until, in1992, the government tried to dig it upto make way for a new motorway extension to the M3. A small group of travellers, banished fromStonehenge, set up a permanent camp there to get in the way of the builders, and this grew into the firstAnti-Road Protest of the many others that took place during the nineties. The protest failed, and anancient hill, including iron age remains and medieval plague pits, was demolished so that theWinchester by-pass could be built for a few million quid less. The travellers named themselves after one

of the mysterious earthworks on the hill where they had been camped -The Dongas Tribe.

Strange resonances were at work. TheRomanshad built roads. They had outlawed the old iron agedruids. The government was now buildingroads through ancient sites. They had stopped the partyingatStonehengeby travellers and neo-druids. At the same timeRaveculture found the youth of Britain,taking over where the hippies had left off and the punks had given up, and the party evicted fromStonehenge spilled out into every field in Britain.

The Dongas, the travellers, the druids, the road-protesters, the anti-capitalists, the open-air ravers...everybody got dragged into a huge, fuzzy, protracted and seemingly endless protest that went on for the

whole of the nineties, against road-building and environmental destruction (such as at Cradlewell, theM11, Solsbury Hill, and the Newbury bypass) and for access to Stonehenge and free open-air parties ingeneral.

Every Summer solsticeKing Arthurwould be at Stonehenge, quietly andpeacefully asking to be allowed in, sothat he could worship there. The nearesthe usually got was the chainlink fence

at the Hele stone by the A344 road thatpasses the monument. It was sittingthere awaiting the dawn in1993that hemet a young shaman from PortsmouthcalledDylan Blight.The exact momentis recorded in the photograph to the left,taken by a press photographer. Dylan isseated at the left in dreadlocks andArthur is next to him in robes. (the manstanding on the right is Barnade, a

French neo-druid who arrived with thepress buss.) The two became lifelongfriends, and at King Arthur's suggestionDylan returned home to createThe

Insular Order of Druids, or IOD. He didn't call it the Portsmouth Order of Druids because PODsounds silly. This is the neo-druidical order thatLugodocbelongs to.

These peaceful protests at the stones were harmless and legal, but elsewhere at open-air free parties andat road-building sites all over Britain the authorities were frustrated by their inability to arrestnon-violent demonstrators for standing in the way of Thatcher's Britain. The government response was

The 1994 Criminal J ustice and Public Order Act, designed to prevent people gathering at roadprotests or at Stonehenge by making it an offence for the first time in England to be out in public in agroup of twenty or more people, and just standing around. The act was designed to criminalise peacefulprotest.


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The sheer obvious injustice of this act brought further popular support to the Stonehenge access androad protest movements. The druid orders and many other peaceful lobbyists for open access to thestones never gave up. Druid and activist George Firsoffcreated (almost single-handedly) thePaganAnd Druid Rights And Servicesorganisation ( or PADRAS), and theTruth and ReconciliationCommission for StonehengeandThe Stonhenge Peace Process. He maintained steady pressure onthe authorities for years and proved that, yes, an old hippy can beat a government.

The authorities' will finally broke and, after fifteen years,open access to Stonehenge was granted in

AD 2000.

The Twentyfirst Century

Druids are supposed to be able to tell the future, but Lugodoc has no idea what happens next.

During the iron age we were priests with the power of kings. Then we were outlawed for centuries andbecame just minstrels in the wilderness. After the dark ages of Rome and Christianity had passed were-manifested into eccentric semi-masons, and then at the end of the twentieth century we found a useas publicity magnets and as the articulate voice of the people who cared about the land.

Since we "got Stonehenge back" we haven't really known what to do with ourselves. The road protestsare over, though King Arthur is still going strong and Britain is still disappearing under tarmac, onlymore slowly and with less fuss.

I think that for inspiration we need to look back to the earliest Greek accounts of natural and moralphilosophers, and to the 18th century friendly societies where much of The Enlightenment actually took

place. In pubs.

"It is our job to start thinking where science stops"-Lugodoc

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