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witchunterobin Vice Captain
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 Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 10:29 am
So my boyfriend and I were driving around doing errands, when he decided to ask me a question.
The question was: "What is a Druid?"
Now imagine tires screeching to a halt and the sound of glass shattering a few seconds later... That was my mind halting to a stop after he asked that question...
I internally asked myself: "That's a good question... what is a Druid?"
I tried to give him the best shaky answer that I could, but I knew it was: 1. Not good enough and 2. A test of my knowledge. I'm constantly learning things about Paganism in the Wiccan sense, but I need to get back to the reality that there are other branches of Paganism that are like Wicca, but at the same time different.
Main point being: How would you define a Druid?
[I'd like sources so that I can go buy books, but if you don't have a source, I'm cool with that too. :3]
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Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 6:05 pm
Druids, as I've come to understand this whole thing through various old Celtic legends, were the highest religious people of the ancient Celts. They were extremely well taught, everything about their religion was passed orally. None of it was written down by the Celts themselves. It took a very long time to get to the point of being recognized as a druid. They were a well of knowledge in almost anything actually.
I'm doing most of this from memory as the book I would be referencing is the one thing I didn't bring down to college with me this year (amazing how now I would really like it).
Now this could quite likely be a false etymology, but nonetheless I'll put it out there. It could be possible that it was believed (as some false etymologies in ancient Greece were). The idea was that Druids possessed oak (dru) knowledge (vid). This comes from one of the tales I mentioned, bringing it up with the Great Oak Bile who's name was not to be spoken and as such was known as Draoi by those who learned from it.. One of the other parts of legends with Druids is often their abilities with, lack of possibly better term, magic. Primarily I remember shape shifting the most use 'druid wands'.
Most of this stems from a book - The Everything Celtic Wisdom book :: Which I find is really good as far as I'm concerned.
The bits from stories are from - Celtic Myths and Legends by Peter Berresford Ellis.
I do have on me a small pocket dictionary of Irish Myth and Legend printed in 1985 which has a definition for Druid if you'd like it.
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Posted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 12:27 pm
A druid is someone who follows the druidic path of paganism which is of celtic origin and is from the british isle's. Generally Druidry is one of if not the more nature and animal orientated of pagan traditions. Druidry is vastly different to wicca.
I have been delving into druidry for a little while now and just got back from a weekend in one of the private woodlands owned by one of the bigger druid orders here. Although I have no specific path I would say that druidry has quite a call if your like minded to them.
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Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 9:58 am
I don't know too too much about Druids, except for they're very much a nature oriented group, but I do know one thing: they don't cast circles like other neopagans do.
Why? Because they believe that the land itself is sacred, so creating that 'sacred space' like witches do is unnecessary. They call upon the 'powers that be', kinda like the 'all' and the spirits around them to help them in their ritual, but they don't cast a circle.
This year I met a priest and a regular member from ADF (Ár nDraíocht Féin), one of the main druid orders in my area, and I think they're located in a lot of other places too. I've got a few of their learning files on my computer that the priest shared with me. They don't keep anything secret as far as how they practice and what they do, not like Traditional Wicca, which is another big difference.
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