Mighty white of 'em, since the druids were around long before most (if not all) of the other religions currently practiced in Britain. No more human sacrifices though, m'kay?
The apprenticeship of a druid took 20 years, and nothing was written down. So thank God/Gary Gigax for D&D!
Fuck... Especially because he was a compatriot of mine. Seriously: I read a scientific book about druids some years ago. Even though the book had many pages, the overall message was: "We don't know very much about them, because nothing was written down" So I'm rather sceptical of these neodruids. But as long as it's fun for them... I prefer my old D&D-PC Games. (It's a shame they have become extinct! Never played p&p)
I read some books on ancient druidism as well, and the message was much as you say. There just isn't a lot that was known about them before the Roman period, because they didn't write. Then, during the Roman period, the religion was already influenced by Roman practices. The works I read, however, pointed out a lot in neodruidism that is almost certainly very different from ancient druidism. But then, most modern "Christianity" has very little to do with what Jesus taught, most modern "Buddhism" has very little to do with what Siddhartha Guatama taught, and so on. People always tend to re-make religions according to their own desires and outlooks. Druidism has not escaped that fate.
It isn't that Druids and Celts didn't write - they had a written language. They just believed that spiritual rituals should not be written down. They spent years - decades learning, remembering and practicing their "art" because that's how important it was to them.
You should tell this to archeologists and historians, because this is a major revelation. No one else has come across anything written from before the Romans brought written language to them. It's so good to have you around, though, because otherwise I wouldn't have known they had a written language, despite my rather extensive studies in their culture. Do you have any other goodies hidden away like that, that no one else knows about?
You think I made this up? Perhaps you should read a bit from archeologists and anthropologists. Start with Alexi Kondrateiv.
It's something closer to hieroglyphics than letters - I'd have to unpack my books to find the name, but it exists and it's been found all over England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and ... Brittany.
And yet, none of the sources I have studied have heard of it, before the Roman period. Are you sure you aren't mixed up on things?
He did a great service for the druid culture. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6947/is_1_3/ai_n28132814/ That's a bit interesting too.
In honor of this event, tonight my compatriot ran a one-shot D&D game. There were two party members. One was a druid. The other was me. Screw divine casters.
I assume you mean Ogham, but that probably wasn't even invented until after the Romans interacted with the Celts/Gaels/Britons.
"Probably" as in "almost certainly." As for any form of writing before the Celts were influenced by the Romans (and thus their religion was influenced by the Romans as well, so that we could know what the "pure" druidic religion was about), Jenee is, as far as I know, the only scholar of ancient Celtic studies who knows about it.
Async is right. There are lots of books about druidism and other ancient religions in esoteric bookstores, and I think all these neopagans get their infos from them. I remember that "real" druids were also politicians, being the advisors of the ancient celtic chieftains. The gray eminences... Running around in woods collecting poisonous crops and casting spells may not have been high up in their priority list... At least if the book I read has any scientific credibility. We tend to romanticize the good old times. Especially the neopagans who blame the Romans and later the Christians to "have destroyed everything". Hey, I am a fan of the Vikings and old germanic or gaulish tribes and so on. It's a very fascinating. However, historians know that for example the Vikings were very poor fucks, had nothing to eat and had a very short lifespan. And not because they all died gloriosly in battle... But don't tell this to a neopagan. He will beat you up, because he thinks the old northern European cultures were absolutely great and living as a Viking or a Helvetian or a Teuton was glorious... Feasting, fighting, dying in battle with honor...
Entirely possible. Never said I was scholar, but thanks for the vote of confidence. Pretty sure, tho, that I read that the Celtic writings were not only pre-Roman, but that there were writings dating back to when Celtic influence was over much of Europe - along with their art and languages
I don't know who the author of this link is, but the sentiment is not the alone. Without having to dig out all my books (sorry, haven't gotten around to buying a bookshelf yet - and many of my books are still being stored by my exhusband) or spend the entire morning scouring the net, let's just say, this isn't the first time I've read this:
^ Doesn't read like someone who knows much of what he is talking about, don't know who those "historians" are who have concluded that, and I don't know of any Celtic writings that go back as far as the third century B.C. You'll have to come up with something much more scholarly than that for me to consider pre-Roman Celtic writing to be credible. That link reads like something even less credible than Wikipedia.
Yes, well, not everyone has your flair for monologuing, but that's pretty typical of what I've read. Take it or leave it I tend not to discount people's research based on something as arbitrary as how well they can string a sentence together.
Interesting discussion. Without claiming any knowledge, I always assumed the Celts had some form of written language before the Romans. It would seem to me their civilization was certainly advanced enough and widespread enough to have developed it, for accounting purposes if nothing else.
If you look up "Esther Mitchell" you'll see that she has less credibility as an historian than Steven Ambrose - at least what he wrote was correct, if not his own work.
