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Bizarre Facts About The Druids
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Apr 17, 2025
The Druids were either an intellectual class or priestly class of Celts living in Gaul (a region that encompassed the majority of Western Europe and the British isles) around 1200-600 BCE and beyond. While modern neo-Druids have a tree-hugging, pagan, hippie vibe, the reality is that the original, historical Druids are sort of a mystery.
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When most people think of Druids, they think of the New Age, crystal-obsessed pagan types
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who use that name today. Or maybe something from Dungeons and Dragons
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From around 1200 to 600 BCE, the Druids lived in what was then known as Gaul, and today
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is a region that encompasses the majority of Western Europe and the British Isles
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But if the original Druids weren't a coven of forest-dwelling wizards, then who were they
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Today we're going to take a look at some bizarre facts about the Druids
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the prehistoric hippies that history forgot. The first thing we need to be clear about is that when scholars use the word Druid
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they're literally not sure what they're talking about. That is, the original meaning of the word Druid has long been lost to history
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There are, however, a few good guesses. One is that druid means someone whose knowledge is great and thorough
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You'll notice that this translation doesn't include any sort of religious connotation
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Indeed, despite the fact that modern people tend to associate the druids with a certain
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religiosity, none of the ancient Greek or Roman writers ever referred to druids as priests
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or depicted druidic practice as any kind of religion. Rather, the surviving accounts indicate that the druids were more like the intellectual
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caste of ancient Celtic society, the nerds and other professional dorky types, if you will
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As for the weirdo religious angles that are so popular in fiction today
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they seem to have been mostly created by and for modern audiences
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Because basically everything we know about the druids can be traced back to one of a
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very small number of ancient textbooks, it's ultimately impossible to say how full or accurate
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our picture of them really is. Compounding the problem is that the vast majority
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of those small number of ancient texts aren't even the products of Druids. In fact, it's mostly Greek and Roman accounts
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that survive today. And it hasn't been lost on historians that both societies had plenty of incentive
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to think of the worst of the Druids and disparage them. Making things even worse is the suspicion
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that even the Greek and Roman testimony can't really be taken at face value
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Why not? Well, most of those accounts are actually second or even third
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hand and were written by men who likely had no first hand knowledge of Druids in Gaul whatsoever
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Historians also note that for whatever reason, the one man who definitely did have first hand experience
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with the Druids was Julius Caesar who seems to have copied all of someone else writings rather than record his own observations When you finally throw in the fact that the Romans killed a whole lot of druids
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it becomes clearer that the little knowledge that exists about the historical druids
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comes mostly from the people who just really wanted to get rid of them. One of the most enduring myths about the druids is that they were responsible for building Stonehenge
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But according to scholar Peter Ellis, in reality, the ancient monument was under construction
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well over a millennium before the emergence of the Celts as a people
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This being the case, Stonehenge can't really be considered a druid sanctuary or religious site in any way
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Druids have used the site for various things over the years, but those practices only date back to the 17th century
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None of this, however, has stopped neo-druids from using Stonehenge as a location
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for celebrating the summer solstice. It's said to be a transcendent and truly spiritual experience
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even if the price of parking is a little steep. Long before the Nazis perverted the ancient swastika
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the symbol had a very different connotation. In fact, cultures from all over the world
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long considered it a symbol of good fortune. Some contemporary scholars even believe
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the modern shape of the Christian cross may be derivative of it. The druids were among those who associated the swastika with good fortune
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The artifact, known as the Battersea Shield, recovered from the Thames River in 1857
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features several swastikas and is believed to be the work of druids
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While the artifact is called a shield, archaeologists don't believe it was actually used in battle
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Rather, they suspect it was a gift or offering to the gods that likely dates from the 1st century BCE
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Some ancient texts even claimed that the so-called Ark Druids would shape tree branches as part of their rituals
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Historians, however, think that's likely just old world propaganda. Not all Druids were men. Women were allowed to be Druids, too
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In fact, many Druid warrior queens are known to have been skilled military leaders
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Druids also had women serve as judges, ambassadors, and lawyers, an arrangement that deeply perplexed the much more male-centric Greeks and Romans
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Other things that weirded out the Greeks and Romans included the fact that Druid women could
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divorce their husbands and wouldn't suffer in status or reputation if their husbands became
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convicts. Crazy, right? But it's true. The ancients were completely amazed that Druids
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let a woman reputation be determined by her own actions That being said it wasn all wine and roses for the Druid ladies Celtic wives like their Greek and Roman counterparts ultimately still led lives that were greatly controlled
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by their husbands. Julius Caesar, along with other Roman and Greek writers
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claimed that the Druids practiced human sacrifice. Their reports claimed that in their rituals
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the Druids would burn people to death in an utterly terrifying wooden cage called a wicker man
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While this Nicolas Cage or Christopher Lee-fueled idea is imaginative and frightening, you
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don't have to let it keep you up at night. Scholars today dismiss the whole thing
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as ancient propaganda and point to the fact that there isn't the slightest bit of evidence
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in any old Celtic documents that suggest human sacrifice was ever a thing
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They did. The fabulous violence associated with Druidic religious practices is probably just the remnants of the old prejudices
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of Christian propagandists. In fact, not only does it seem Druids did not
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practice human sacrifice, there's actual evidence that capital punishment was considered to be
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contrary to their ideas of justice. As their conqueror, Julius Caesar didn't have a tremendous
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amount of respect for the Druids, so he may not be the best source of information on them as a
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people. That being said, Caesar's writings on the Druids are one of the only genuine sources that
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scholars have about Druid culture and belief, so they have to make do with what they've got
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Anyway, in one of his writings, Caesar claimed that as an intellectual class
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the Druids were exempt from military service and didn't have to pay taxes like other citizens did
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He goes on to point out that many people found these privileges, in his words
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naturally attractive and led them of their own accord to become students of Druidism
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The Romans did not like the Druids at all. In fact, they repeatedly clashed with them
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and even attempted to eradicate the Druids as a class. What's with all the animosity
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Was it some ancient rivalry or profound religious schism that kept the two at each other's throats
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No, it was basically a dispute over property. You see, the Romans thought of property ownership
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as an individual pursuit. The Druids, on the other hand, thought property was a collective endeavor
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This belief, according to one scholar, challenged the very foundation of Roman culture
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politics, and imperialism. In fact, archaeologists believe that the Romans were so anti-Druid
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they were busy trying to abolish the class as early as 54 CE
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Unfortunately scholars don know a whole lot about how the Druids really worshipped They do however know that the Druids thought of their gods not as their creators but rather as their ancestors
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One of these goddesses was Danu, a mother goddess, whose name can be found in the Danube River
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as well as the Don Rivers in Yorkshire and Scotland. For the Druids, water seems to have
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symbolized the life and wisdom flowing from the gods. In many ways, it's similar to the Hindu
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reverence of the Ganges and the importance placed on the River Jordan by the Jews
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The Druids had a habit of keeping the heads of people they admired, and this practice seriously
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freaked out the Romans. However, the Druids weren't headhunters or anything like that
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The Druids thought there was no greater mark of respect for a person than to preserve their head
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in cedar oil after they've passed away. The practice stems from the fact that the Druids
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believed the soul lived in the head. They also believed the soul was indestructible and that
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the head that contained it was the source and power of human spirit. From one perspective
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it's a beautiful practice. From another, it's freaky deaky weird. The popular association of druids with oak and mistletoe can be traced to writings by Pliny
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and Cicero. Pliny, for his part, made the druids sound like magical wizards. He claimed they climbed
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oak trees to collect rare mistletoe, which had the power to give fecundity to any barren animal
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in that it is predominant against all poisons. Mistletoe, first to kiss, then fecundity
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And poison, that's cool too. Pliny even went on to say that this magic was made possible
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through the sacrifice of white bulls. Modern scholars believe Pliny's stories were entirely fictitious
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a classic of universal popular knowledge but without substance. In all fairness to Pliny though, we get it
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There's no story that can't be improved by throwing in a few wizards. According to scholars, when it came to transmitting their knowledge
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Druids were committed to an oral tradition. However, it wasn't out of ignorance
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They were actually quite literate. Rather, the Druids simply didn't want their knowledge to fall into the wrong hands
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so they placed a strict prohibition on writing any of it down. It is believed it took somewhere from 12 to 20 years to become a Druid
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and the vast majority of that time was spent learning the traditions by heart
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since writing them down in any way was a major no-no. While this practice probably protected the Druids and their culture in their own time
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today it means that unfortunately, almost all of Druidic knowledge, as they understood it for themselves, is now lost to time
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