Mystery of Ancient Celts: The Guardians of Sacred Lore

Mystery of Ancient Celts: The Guardians of Sacred Lore

By Mr Ghaz, December 7, 2010

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Mystery of Ancient Celts: The Guardians of Sacred Lore

The Greek author Strabo and the Roman general Julius Caesar, among other classical observers; give long accounts of the role of the druids, who commanded the utmost respect among the Celts because they were the supreme guardians of the sacred lore. They were experts in divination and prophecy, as well as in the supervision of religious activities, such as ritual sacrifice at sacred lakes and groves. Celtic metalwork recovered from Llyn Bach in Anglesey, Wales, suggests that the site was a druid sanctuary, perhaps even the one referred to by Tacitus as the scene of the druids’ last stand against the Roman invaders of Britain. Druids were also required to memorize long and complex law codes and to give judgments on legal cases.

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Although all Celtic societies must have had some sort of priestly class, the druids themselves were apparently found only in the British Isles and Gaul. Artifacts believed to be associated with druidic activities include a group of bronze headdresses discovered at a Romano-Celtic temple built in Norfolk, England, during the second century CE; similar objects are known from Ireland. For example, four bronze trumpets, decorated with typical La Tene patterning and perhaps used in druidic ceremonies, were found in a lake near Navan Fort, County Armagh, and an important Irish Iron Age stronghold.

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After the decline of Roman power in Britain and Gaul, the learned classes were dependent on the patronage of a native aristocracy for their survival. There is evidence for a complex system of poets and patrons in Scotland, Wales, and Brittany, which continued in some areas until the seventeenth century. According to Irish tradition, the bards and filidh (poets) took over the role of the druids. As well as these learned orators, Ireland had a special class of lawyers, whose job it was to interpret the intricacies of the ancient Irish legal system.

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In ancient times, Celtic keepers of wisdom undoubtedly had to have exceptional powers of recall in order to store all the religious law, mythology, poetry, and songs that they were required to accumulate. According to some classical sources, including Strabo and Caesar, it took a druid up to twenty years to learn everything he or she had to know-all without the aid of writing. Even in later centuries, storytelling from memory was a prized skill. In one medieval Welsh tale, a character called Gwydion vab Don in said to be the best storyteller in the world, but, like a bard or a druid, he is also a great magician and a shapeshifter.

Portents and Prophecies

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The druids were intermediaries between the natural and the divine world. They were believed to posses’ supernatural powers that enabled them to peer into the future and to predict the best times for battles, harvests, royal inaugurations, and other events in Celtic life. It was undoubtedly druids who determined which periods of the year were considered “good” (mat) or “bad” (anmat), as recorded in the first-century CE Gaulish calendar found at Coligny, France.

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Divination came in various forms. A simple method might be to watch the way that a bird flew through the sky, while on a more complex level divination might take place as part of an elaborate ritual, such as the ancient tarbhfeiss, or “bull feast,” that inaugurated the reign of the High Kings of Ireland. When a new king was to be chosen, a druid would consume the flesh and blood of a sacrificed bull and then wrap himself in the beast’s flayed skin. He then fell into a profound sleep during which he would learn the identity of the next High King,

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The Celts associated many Bronze Age burial mounds with the power of prophecy. Anyone brave enough to sleep on such a mound would wake up next morning as either a poet or mad. The twelfth-century historian Gerald of Wales promotes a similar method of inherited prophecy in Welsh lore when he describes seers who gained their insights after lapsing into a trance-like sleep. Coinneach Odhar (died 1577), a celebrated prophet, also called Brahan Seer, is said to have gained his divinatory powers during such a sleep. Similar practices are reported on the remote Western Isles of Scotland as late as the eighteenth century.

Mystery of Ancient Celts: The Guardians of Sacred Lore