Gaelic Folklore (35): The Celtic Goddesses Healer

The Celtic Goddesses Healer

Introduction

The evidence for a healer-goddess in Celtic Europe during the early first millennium AD is based almost entirely upon iconographical and epigraphic evidence. Certain concepts need to be introduced here in order that the role of the Goddess as healer may be better understood.

First, there is a strong link between religion and medicine: this is something that is evidenced both in the classical and in the Celtic world. Sick people in antiquity relied upon the healing skills of the supernatural powers at least as much as upon empirical medicine. Indeed, at many therapeutic sanctuaries in Gaul and Britain, doctors were present as well as priests, for example at Fontes Sequanae and Bath; it is even possible that the two roles were sometimes combined in the one individual.

Second, the perception of the numinous in water is important. There is abundant evidence in non-Mediterranean Europe from at least the later Bronze Age—say around 1300 BC—that water was a central focus of ritual activity. During the later Iron Age this activity began to manifest itself in the development of healing sanctuaries on the sites of thermal springs, a phenomenon which burgeoned in the Romano-Celtic phase in the Rhineland, Gaul and Britain.

Third, the evidence for healing cults in Celtic Europe demonstrates a very close link between healing, regeneration and fertility, which may account for the fact that many Celtic divine healers were perceived as female, and for the strong association between curative cult establishments and the mothergoddesses. There is evidence that many devotees of healing-deities were women; the fact that most stone altars were dedicated by men probably does not reflect anything other than economic or social factors. Women may not normally have had the means to erect expensive stone monuments as readily as their male counterparts. However, the cult of Apollo Vindonnus at Essarois in Burgundy seems—from the exvotoes— to have been patronized by women. The lady wearing a torc whose wooden image was dedicated at the thermal shrine of Chamalières in the first century AD was probably a devotee, but it is just possible that she may have been the goddess herself. There is a small amount of evidence for the association of women with the healing professions: at Grand in the Vosges, a stone of Romano-Celtic date depicts the inside of a chemist’s shop with a female chemist at work with mortar and herbs. An inscription and image on a tombstone at Metz betray the presence of a female doctor in the first century AD.

Fourth, we must be wary of positing theories- about the status of women in Celtic society from the importance of the Goddess. Having sounded this note of caution, it is, however, interesting that classical literary references to Celtic women contain many allusions to the contrast between their status and that of their more lowly Mediterranean sisters.

Sequana Of Burgundy

Sequana was a water-spirit, the personification of the River Seine at its source, Fontes Sequanae. Here, in the valley of the Châtillon Plateau, a spring of fresh, pure water wells up from the ground and was the focus of religious devotion from the later first century BC. The spring is pure but it contains no genuine mineral properties. Sequana is special in that she is not paired with any Roman goddess; her name is known from about ten inscriptions, and there is a bronze cult-statue of Sequana herself. In 1963, during the excavation of buildings dating to the Roman period, more than 200 wooden votives were discovered in water-logged ground, apparently pre-dating Roman levels and originally set up perhaps around the sacred pool. The pre-Roman activity centered upon the pool itself; there is no evidence of permanent structures at this time. Shortly after the Roman occupation of the region the sanctuary was monumentalized and the spring canalized. It was now an extensive religious complex, containing two temples, porticoes, a dormitory and reservoirs, still centered on the sacred spring and pool. The votive images were now of stone. In common with the activities at classical healing shrines, sick pilgrims visited the sanctuary bearing offerings—possibly bought at the shrine shop—bathed, slept, and asked for a cure with gifts of models of themselves or their afflictions. Eyes, chest, genitals, limbs—these were just a few of the complaints represented by the votives. The eye problems so prevalent at many shrines could have been due to poor hygiene or malnutrition: a lack of animal fat can cause night-blindness. The votive model breasts in bronze and silver may denote milk deficiency, a serious problem for child-rearing in antiquity. Sequana was not a specialist: she healed all afflictions.

Sequana

Sirona And Her Peers

There is a group of continental healer-goddesses who have a common characteristic: namely, the possession of a male partner. It is the case with the healers, as with other divine couples like Mercury and Rosmerta, that the native goddess seems often to possess a wider variety of functions and concerns than her consort and, in addition, is the less influenced by Graeco-Roman traditions. These goddesses usually have completely native names, and symbolism which is less influenced by Graeco-Roman art forms than their male companions. In addition, they show evidence of independent identity: they are not mere female ciphers attached to the cults of male divinities.

Sirona

Sirona

Sirona is the divine partner of the Celtic healing Apollo, normally called Apollo Grannus (a native epithet associated with Grand in the Vosges). But she occurs alone, for example at Corseul in Brittany, where she is called Tsirona; her high rank is shown by inscriptions where she is linked with the spirit of the emperor. Sirona was venerated alone also at Baumburg in Noricum (Austria). Her cult was widely distributed and may well have pre-dated the Roman occupation of Gaul and elsewhere. Sirona was at her most popular among the Terveri: the main cult-centre was at Hochscheid, a spring sanctuary in the Moselle Basin, to which we shall return. But, elsewhere among the Treveri, Sirona was invoked at Nietaldorf, Bitburg and Sainte-Fontaine, and among the neighbouring Mediomatrici at Sablon, Metz. Sirona’s spring-cult is evidenced at Wiesbaden, Mainz and Luxeuil and even at Brigetio in Hungary, where, in the third century AD, a temple was set up to Apollo Grannus and Sarana. In the second century AD a temple was erected at Hochscheid, on the site of a spring whose waters supplied a cistern. The evidence of coins suggests that this building replaced an earlier shrine, perhaps of wood. Pilgrims offered presents of coins, figurines, etc. It seems to have been a wealthy shrine for so remote a region, perhaps a personal endowment by a prosperous trader or villa-owner who had occasion to be grateful to the guardians of the spring. 

The imagery here is interesting and Sirona’s is the more informative. There were large stone statues of Apollo and Sirona; he is entirely Classical, but Sirona is represented as a woman in a long robe and a diadem, a snake round her right forearm, and a bowl of three eggs held in her left hand. The serpent/egg symbolism is essentially regenerative as well as curative. The snake’s skin-sloughing habit gives it symbolism of rebirth and perhaps also the idea of sloughing off disease. Clay figurines brought to the shrine as gifts show Sirona seated, like a mother-goddess, with a small lapdog, which is perhaps indicative of healing. There is an Irish historical link between women and lapdogs which is suggested by Cormick as being possibly associated with the use of these animals as ‘hot-water bottles’ to comfort period pains. The imagery of the couple in bronze at Malain in Burgundy is essentially similar to that at Hochscheid: this group has a dedicatory inscription beneath the images. On other sites, the fertility aspect of Sirona’s cult is evidenced by the imagery; for example, at Sainte-Fontaine, where the goddess bears corn and fruit, and at Mainz and Baumburg where she is accompanied by ears of corn. This symbolism of the earth’s abundance bears out the association between healing springs and the mother-goddess cult. Sirona’s name is interesting: it is philologically related to ‘star’, so perhaps associated with night and darkness. There could be a link with the moon, the female menstrual cycle and the darkness of the womb.

Sirona and Apollo

Ancamna and Damona

These two continental goddesses are distinctive in their apparent polyandry, changing partners from site to site. Ancamna is known only from epigraphy. She was a Treveran deity, partner of Lenus Mars at Trier. But at Moehn, a rural sanctuary where Lenus was also venerated, Ancamna was coupled with Mars Smertrius, another native version of the Roman god. Is this the same deity with two names, or are they separate entities? Mars’s association with healing is common in the Celtic world, where his war role was transmuted into that of a guardian-protector against disease, as at Mavilly, where he appears (with a goddess) dressed as a warrior, but accompanied by a ram-horned snake, symbol of regeneration. Mavilly was particularly renowned for the cure of eye disease. Damona’s name means ‘divine cow’ or ‘great cow’, and this may reflect her role as a goddess of wealth and fertility. But first and foremost she was a healer, worshipped especially in Burgundy; she had a number of partners, but her main sanctuary was at Alesia, where she was coupled with Apollo Moritasgus. The two were venerated at a shrine with a pool in which sick pilgrims bathed in the hope of a cure. No image of Moritasgus survives but there is a fragment of Damona’s statue, showing a strong link between her iconography and that of Sirona: a carved stone head is crowned with corn-ears and a hand entwined with a serpent’s coils. At Bourbonne-Lancy, Damona’s consort was Borvo, another spring-god, and an inscription from the curative shrine relates to Damona’s association with the therapeutic sleep enjoyed by pilgrims seeking a healing dream or vision from the divine healers. The names of both Borvo and Moritasgus mean ‘bubbling’ or ‘seething’ water. 

At another Burgundian shrine, Arnay-le-Duc, Damona’s partner is yet another god, Abilus. Again a fragmentary image of the goddess represents her with a stone snake curled round a human arm. It is worth remembering that the Graeco-Roman healer-god, Asklepios, is often depicted with a coiled serpent. The polyandrous nature of Damona’s cult supports her status as an independent native divinity whose identity was not based on her association with any one god. Her rank is further enhanced by epigraphic evidence from the curative sanctuary of Bourbonne-les-Bains, where Damona was worshipped alone.

Ancamna and Mars Smertius

Other Gaulish Spring Goddesses

Many other spring-goddesses are recorded only on inscriptions, often again associated with male partners: Bormana and Bormanus were venerated in southern Gaul; Luxovius and Bricta at Luxeuil. Others were lone goddesses: Telo was the eponymous spring-spirit of Toulon in the Dordogne; Januaria at Beire-le-Châtel in Burgundy is mentioned on a statue of a figure playing pan-pipes. We have little clue as to Januaria’s precise function, though she was worshipped at a curative shrine. The musical instrument may indeed be a symbol of healing sleep, just as in vernacular myth healing deities such as Cliodna were associated with music—this time with singing birds. The name of the Treveran goddess Icovellauna may be linked with water-imagery: she was venerated at Trier and at the thermal springs of Sablon, Metz. Aveta was a spring goddess of the Treveri, to whom pilgrims at Trier offered small clay figurines of mother-goddesses with baskets of fruit, with dogs or with babies.

Sulis: Healer And Avenger

The site of Bath, Aquae Sulis, was sacred before the Roman period: this is implied by the presence of eighteen Celtic Iron Age coins from the lowest levels. Early in the Roman period—just fifteen years or so after the occupation—a great temple, baths and a huge religious precinct were constructed around the great spring, which pumps out hot water beside the River Avon at a rate of a quarter of a million gallons a day; a huge altar was set up in front of the temple, and a reservoir containing the main spring enclosed by a low stone wall. This was a great Neronian or Flavian building programme using Roman engineers.

There were major alterations c. AD 200, which argue for a new slant to the cult: the temple was enlarged but the reservoir, which had been visible all over the precinct, including the baths, was enclosed in a huge vaulted hall, restricting both physical and visual access to it, and making the water more remote and mysterious. Pilgrims could now only approach the spring through a dim passageway—does this imply Otherworld symbolism?

The goddess at Bath was Sulis, a native deity, but she was equated with Minerva, which seems a curious conflation. If Sulis really is a healer-goddess, as her presence at the hot spring implies, then she may be linked with Minerva because the latter was perceived as goddess of the craft of medicine. But in addition there is a philological link between the name Sulis and the sun—the sun and healing were closely linked in the Celtic world.  Indeed the solar association may have come about at least partly because Sulis’s springs were hot.

The cult of Sulis flourished until the mid-fourth century AD. The springs have genuine medicinal properties which are good for such ailments as arthritis and gout; this must have gained Sulis a reputation for being able to cure everything. There were many devotees who donated ivory and bronze model breasts, spindle-whorls and jewellery. But unlike—say—Sequana’s shrine, very few anatomical votives have been found. Pilgrims visited the shrine perhaps for a physical cure, or perhaps more often for spiritual refreshment. Immersion, purification, imbibing the water and thus the spirit of the goddess, the healing sleep, sacrifice, festivals and prayers all must have taken place here, as well as the offering of gifts. The spring appears to have been the focus of personal contact with the goddess, to whom prayers, vows, requests and thanks were made. Stone altars record gratitude for Sulis’s help. Money, rings, brooches and combs as well as other personal offerings were cast in, some by women, perhaps sometimes on impulse.

Ritual activity is represented at Bath: a priest of Sulis, Calpurnius Receptus, died here aged 75. A haruspex (literally ‘gut-gazer’) may have been present in a personal rather than an official capacity. Part of a head-dress was found, suggesting liturgical regalia. About 12,000 coins come from the reservoir.

This seems a large quantity but it works out as only an average of c. 24–48 coins a year. The presence of silver, pewter and bronze vessels could represent a ritual purpose (the drinking or pouring of the sacred water), but they could also have been offerings.

The question needs to be asked as to whether the assumption that Sulis is primarily a healer-goddess is valid. The only real evidence is her presence at the site of a major thermal spring. The third-century Roman writer Solinus refers to Bath having springs ‘furnished luxuriously for human use …over them Minerva presides’. There is no mention of healing. The inscriptions dedicating altars to the goddess do not specifically mention the curing of disease, whilst this does occur at Fontes Sequanae. Most importantly, there is a significant lack of anatomical votives, which are such clear indications of healing cults elsewhere. Certainly, I think, we have to reconsider Sulis’s role, even though the hot springs must have played a genuine part in the establishment of the cult.

Sulis / Minerva

The diversity of Sulis’s cult is nowhere shown more clearly than in the extraordinary group of 130 lead and pewter curses or defixiones from Bath found in the reservoir where they had been cast by vengeful devotees. This aspect of the goddess’s nature and powers is seemingly at variance with the role of benevolent healer. Sulis was clearly perceived as an avenger of wrongs. Water and curses have a well-established link; as late as the nineteenth century in Wales, a man was imprisoned for inscribing a curse on a lead sheet and throwing it into a well. In a sense the named or unnamed malefactor was being symbolically sacrificed to the goddess. The ‘fixing’ was an important element of the defixio, so that the curse would not rebound on the curser. The choice of lead or pewter is significant both practically and symbolically. The curses are very harsh, associated with fertility, sleep, blood and internal disorders.

So there is a strong link with disease in this negative aspect of Sulis’s cult: Docimedes has lost two gloves. He asks that the person who has stolen them should lose his mind and his eyes in the temple where she appoints. Docilianus, son of Brucerus to the most holy goddess Sulis. I curse him who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether man or woman, slave or free, that the goddess inflict death upon him, and not allow him sleep or children, now and in the future, until he has brought my hooded cloak to the temple of her divinity.

The cult of Sulis, whatever its precise nature, was popular and successful, attracting people over a wide area and over long periods of time—nearly four centuries. If we are right to interpret her cult as primarily that of a healer, then the reversal of benevolence and vengeance is interesting. What the goddess could give she could also take away, especially if the evil deed was perpetrated within her sacred space.

Healing And The Mother-Goddesses

The symbolism of the divine female healers has already demonstrated a close link between curing, fertility and regeneration. The mother-goddesses themselves, often in their distinctive triadic form, appear at thermal spring-sanctuaries, presumably as healers themselves. There is a natural link between the mother, childbirth and women’s health before, during and after pregnancy.

The Mothers were perceived as protectors and nourishers of children. Good examples of mother-goddesses at springshrines include those at Vertault and Bath. At Aix-les-Bains, pilgrims at the curative shrine worshipped the Matres Comedovae, the med element perhaps referring specifically to health. The Matres Griselicae were the eponymous healers at Greoulx, the Glanicae at Glanum, and the

Nemausicae at Nîmes, all in Provence. At Arrington in Cambridgeshire, a recent discovery consists of the burial of an infant who died of hydrocephalus: he was placed in a coffin on top of which was a group of clay figurines, including a mother-goddess of distinctively Rhenish type. Was she placed in his grave as a symbolic mother but also as a healer, so that he would be whole in his life in the Otherworld?

The association between mothers and healers is enhanced by certain aspects of their symbolism, notably the presence with them of such animals as dogs and snakes. Dogs were associated with self-healing, and there were sacred dogs at the great healing sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus in Greece. In Britain, images of dogs were notable occurrences at the healing shrine of Nodens at Lydney. We have seen the association between dogs, Sirona and Aveta. Snakes were potent symbols of rebirth and fertility, again associated with healing.

-Conclusion

From our own experience in modern times we know that health figures prominently in, for example, governmental responsibility and spending. Health is a fundamental concern to humankind and must always have been so. In antiquity, many diseases that to us are commonplace and curable were neither understood nor capable of effective treatment. So the gods played a crucial role in the physical and spiritual well-being of the community.

In the Celtic world, we know of many great healing-cults which were more or less influenced by the imagery and belief-systems of the Classical world. But I think it fair to say that some of the most interesting cults were those centred upon the goddesses; Sulis, Sequana, Sirona and their sisters in healing all presided over important popular sanctuaries to which pilgrims were attracted from far afield, drawn by the successful reputations of the goddesses.

The links between healing and fertility are interesting, and these appear to be specific to the female healers. Perhaps more fascinating still is the reversal of beneficence and malignancy in Sulis’s cult, where curing and cursing were both under the goddess’s jurisdiction.

The healing deities may have played a large part in people’s lives not only because they attended to their physical well-being but also perhaps because they offered spiritual renewal. This is not usually evidenced archaeologically but it is more than likely that pilgrims prayed to these divinities for many and complex reasons other than those of pure health.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the healing-goddess cult is the manner in which it has survived into modern Christianity all over Europe. There are numerous instances of shrines to the Virgin Mary as a healer to whom pilgrims have come in recent years as suppliants, bearing gifts identical to those found in such sanctuaries as Fontes Sequanae. I will give just one example, from Malta, where Melleiha Bay, a subterranean shrine to Mary, cut into the rock, is associated with a natural spring. The gifts which decorate the walls include wax or silver models of limbs, hearts or eyes, baby clothes, shoes, crutches, plaster-casts, X-rays, pictures of children, even crash-helmets: all offered to Mary in hope or thanksgiving. There is a legend that the statue of Mary was often moved to a more respectable place within the main church later built above the original shrine but that, during the night, she always moved back down the forty steps to her old position by the spring. The dedications have been taking place for more than two hundred years and probably much longer; the shrine itself is said to be eight hundred years old. The link between divine female presence, spring-water and healing, shown here, is indistinguishable from perceptions of pagan Celtic pilgrims in the early first millennium AD.

Miranda Green, The Concept Of The Goddess, Chapter Two.

Gaelic Folklore (33): The Druids

 

The Druids. 

Pliny thought that the name "Druid" was a Greek appellation derived from the Druidic cult of the oak.  (Pliny, HN xvi. 249.)The word, however, is purely Celtic, and its meaning probably implies that, like the sorcerer and medicine-man everywhere, the Druid was regarded as "the knowing one." It is composed of two parts--dru-, regarded by M. D'Arbois as an intensive, and vids, from vid, "to know," or "see."  Hence the Druid was "the very knowing or wise one." It is possible, however, that dru- is connected with the root which gives the word "oak" in Celtic. speech--Gaulish deruo, Irish dair, Welsh derw--and that the oak, occupying a place in the cult, was thus brought into relation with the name of the priesthood. The Gaulish form of the name was probably druis, the Old Irish was drai. The modern forms in Irish and Scots Gaelic, drui and draoi, mean "sorcerer."

M. D'Arbois and others, accepting Cæsar's dictum that "the system (of Druidism) is thought to have been devised in Britain, and brought thence into Gaul," maintain that the Druids were priests of the Goidels in Britain, who imposed themselves upon the Gaulish conquerors of the Goidels, and that Druidism then passed over into Gaul about 200 B.C.  But it is hardly likely that, even if the Druids were accepted as priests by conquering Gauls in Britain, they should have affected the Gauls of Gaul who were outside the reflex influence of the conquered Goidels, and should have there obtained that power which they possessed.

Goidels and Gauls were allied by race and language and religion, and it would be strange if they did not both possess a similar priesthood. Moreover, the Goidels had been a continental people, and Druidism was presumably flourishing among them then. Why did it not influence kindred Celtic tribes without Druids, according to the hypothesis proposed, at that time? Further, if we accept Professor Meyer's theory that no Goidel set foot in Britain until the second century A.D., the Gauls could not have received the Druidic priesthood from the Goidels.

Cæsar merely says, "it is thought (existimatur) that Druidism came to Gaul from Britain." (Cæsar, vi. 13.) It was a pious opinion, perhaps his own, or one based on the fact that those who wished to perfect themselves in Druidic art went to Britain. This may have been because Britain had been less open to foreign influences than Gaul, and its Druids, un-affected by these, were thought to be more powerful than those of Gaul. Pliny, on the other hand, seems to think that Druidism passed over into Britain from Gaul. (Pliny, HN xxx.1)

Other writers--Sir John Rhŷs, Sir G. L. Gomme, and M. Reinach-support on different grounds the theory that the Druids were a pre-Celtic priesthood, accepted by the Celtic conquerors. Sir John Rhŷs thinks that the Druidism of the aborigines of Gaul and Britain made terms with the Celtic conquerors. It was accepted by the Goidels, but not by the Brythons. Hence in Britain there were Brythons without Druids, aborigines under the sway of Druidism, and Goidels who combined Aryan polytheism with Druidism. Druidism was also the religion of the aborigines from the Baltic to Gibraltar, and was accepted by the Gauls.

But if so, it is difficult to see why the Brythons, akin to them, did not accept it. Our knowledge of Brythonic religion is too scanty for us to prove that the Druids had or had not sway over them, but the presumption is that they had. Nor is there any historical evidence to show that the Druids were originally a non-Celtic priesthood. Everywhere they appear as the supreme and dominant priesthood of the Celts, and the priests of a conquered people could hardly have obtained such power over the conquerors. The relation of the Celts to the Druids is quite different from that of conquerors, who occasionally resort to the medicine-men of the conquered folk because they have stronger magic or greater influence with the autochthonous gods. The Celts did not resort to the Druids occasionally; according to the hypothesis proposed they accepted them completely, were dominated by them in every department of life, while their own priests, if they had any, accepted this order of things without a murmur. All this is incredible.

The picture drawn by Cæsar, Strabo, and others of the Druids and their position among the Celts as judges, choosers of tribal chiefs and kings, teachers, as well as ministers of religion, suggests rather that they were a native Celtic priesthood, long established among the people. Sir G. L. Gomme supports the theory that the Druids were a pre-Celtic priesthood, because, in his opinion, much of their belief in magic as well as their use of human sacrifice and the redemption of one life by another, is opposed to "Aryan sentiment." Equally opposed to this are their functions of settling controversies, judging, settling the succession to property, and arranging boundaries.

These views are supported by a comparison of the position of the Druids relatively to the Celts with that of non-Aryan persons in India who render occasional priestly services to Hindu village communities.  Whether this comparison of occasional Hindu custom with Celtic usage two thousand years ago is just, may be questioned. As already seen, it was no mere occasional service which the Druids rendered to the Celts, and it is this which makes it difficult to credit this theory. Had the Celtic house-father been priest and judge in his own clan, would he so readily have surren-dered his rights to a foreign and conquered priesthood?

On the other hand, kings and chiefs among the Celts probably retained some priestly functions, derived from the time when the offices of the priest-king had not been differentiated. Cæsar's evidence certainly does not support the idea that "it is only among the rudest of the so-called Celtic tribes that we find this superimposing of an apparently official priesthood." According to him, the power of the Druids was universal in Gaul, and had their position really corresponded to that of the pariah priests of India, occasional priests of Hindu villages, the determined hostility of the Roman power to them because they wielded such an enormous influence over Celtic thought and life, is unexplainable. If, further, Aryan sentiment was so opposed to Druidic customs, why did Aryan Celts so readily accept the Druids? In this case the receiver is as bad as the thief.

Sir G. L. Gomme clings to the belief that the Aryans were people of a comparatively high civilisation, who had discarded, if they ever possessed, a savage "past." But old beliefs and customs still survive through growing civilization, and if the views of Professor Sergi and others are correct, the Aryans were even less civilised than the peoples whom they conquered.  Shape-shifting, magic, human sacrifice, priestly domination, were as much Aryan as non-Aryan, and if the Celts had a comparatively pure religion, why did they so soon allow it to be defiled by the puerile superstitions of the Druids?

M. Reinach then argues that the Celts accepted Druidism en bloc, as the Romans accepted Oriental cults and the Greeks the native Pelasgic cults. But neither Romans nor Greeks abandoned their own faith. Were the Celts a people without priests and without religion? We know that they must have accepted many local cults, but that they adopted the whole aboriginal faith and its priests en bloc is not credible. M. Reinach also holds that when the Celts appear in history Druidism was in its decline; the Celt, or at least the military caste among the Celts, was reasserting itself. But the Druids do not appear as a declining body in the pages of Cæsar, and their power was still supreme, to judge by the hostility of the Roman Government to them. If the military caste rebelled against them, this does not prove that they were a foreign body. Such a strife is seen wherever priest and soldier form separate castes, each desiring to rule, as in Egypt.

Other writers argue that we do not find Druids existing in the Danube region, in Cisalpine territory, nor in Transalpine Gaul, "outside the limits of the region occupied by the Celtæ." This could only have weight if any of the classical writers had composed a formal treatise on the Druids, showing exactly the regions where they existed. They merely describe Druidism as a general Celtic institution, or as they knew it in Gaul or Britain, and few of them have any personal knowledge of it. There is no reason to believe that Druids did not exist wherever there were Celts. The Druids and Semnotheoi of the Celts and Galatæ, referred to c. 200 B.C. were apparently priests of other Celts than those of Gaul, and Celtic groups of Cisalpine Gaul had priests, though these are not formally styled Druids. (Diog. Laert. i. I; Livy xxiii. 24.) The argument based on lack of contrary evidence is here of little value, since the references to the Druids are so brief, and it tells equally against their non-Celtic origin, since we do not hear of Druids in Aquitania, a non-Celtic region.

The theory of the non-Celtic origin of the Druids assumes that the Celts had no priests, or that these were effaced by the Druids. The Celts had priests called gutuatri attached to certain temples, their name perhaps meaning "the speakers," those who spoke to the gods. Gutuatros is perhaps from gutu-, "voice" The existence of the gutuatri is known from a few inscriptions, and from Hirtius, de Bell. Gall.viii. 38, who mentions a gutuatros put to death by Cæsar. The functions of the Druids were much more general, according to this theory, hence M. D'Arbois supposes that, before their intrusion, the Celts had no other priests than the gutuatri.  But the probability is that they were a Druidic class, ministers of local sanctuaries, and related to the Druids as the Levites were to the priests of Israel, since the Druids were a composite priesthood with a variety of functions. If the priests and servants of Belenos, described by Ausonius and called by him ædituus Beleni, were gutuatri, then the latter must have been connected with the Druids, since he says they were of Druidic stock. (Ausonius, Professor. v. 7, xi. 24.)

Lucan's "priest of the grove" may have been a gutuatros, and the priests (sacerdotes) and other ministers (antistites) of the Boii may have been Druids properly so called and gutuatri. (Lucan, iii. 424; Livy, xxiii. 24.) Another class of temple servants may have existed. Names beginning with the name of a god and ending in gnatos, "accustomed to," "beloved of," occur in inscriptions, and may denote persons consecrated from their youth to the service of a grove or temple. On the other hand, the names may mean no more than that those bearing them were devoted to the cult of one particular god.

Our supposition that the gutuatri were a class of Druids is supported by classical evidence, which tends to show that the Druids were a great inclusive priesthood with different classes possessing different functions--priestly, prophetic, magical, medical, legal, and poetical. Cæsar attributes these to the Druids as a whole, but in other writers they are in part at least in the hands of different classes. Diodorus refers to the Celtic philosophers and theologians (Druids), diviners, and bards, as do also Strabo and Timagenes, Strabo giving the Greek form of the native name for the diviners, οὐάτεις, the Celtic form being probably vâtis (Irish, fáith). (Diod. Sic. v. 31; Strabo, iv. 4. 4; Timagenes apud Amm. Marc. xv. 9.) These may have been also poets, since vâtis means both singer and poet; but in all three writers the bards are a fairly distinct class, who sing the deeds of famous men (so Timagenes).

Druid and diviner were also closely connected, since the Druids studied nature and moral philosophy, and the diviners were also students of nature, according to Strabo and Timagenes. No sacrifice was complete without a Druid, say Diodorus and Strabo, but both speak of the diviners as concerned with sacrifice. Druids also prophesied as well as diviners, according to Cicero and Tacitus. (Cicero, de Div. i. 41. 90; Tac. Hist. iv. 54.) Finally, Lucan mentions only Druids and bards. (Phars. i. 449 f.) Diviners were thus probably a Druidic sub-class, standing midway between the Druids proper and the bards, and partaking of some of the functions of both.

Pliny speaks of "Druids and this race of prophets and doctors," (Pliny, HN xxx. i.) and this suggests that some were priests, some diviners, while some practised an empiric medical science. On the whole this agrees with what is met with in Ireland, where the Druids, though appearing in the texts mainly as magicians, were also priests and teachers. Side by side with them were the Filid, "learned poets," composing according to strict rules of art, and higher than the third class, the Bards. Filid, sing. File, is from velo, "I see".

The Filid, who may also have been known as Fáthi, "prophets," were also diviners according to strict rules of augury, while some of these auguries implied a sacrifice. Fáthi is cognate with Vates. The Druids were also diviners and prophets. When the Druids were overthrown at the coming of Christianity, the Filid remained as a learned class, probably because they had abandoned all pagan practices, while the Bards were reduced to a comparatively low status. M. D'Arbois supposes that there was rivalry between the Druids and the Filid, who made common cause with the Christian missionaries, but this is not supported by evidence.

The three classes in Gaul--Druids, Vates, and Bards--thus correspond to the three classes in Ireland-- Druids, Fáthi or Filid, and Bards. In Wales there had been Druids as there were Bards, but all trace of the second class is lost. Long after the Druids had passed away, the fiction of the derwydd-vardd or Druid-bard was created, and the later bards were held to be depositories of a supposititious Druidic theosophy, while they practised the old rites in secret. The late word derwydd was probably invented from derw, "oak," by someone who knew Pliny's derivation.

We may thus conclude that the Druids were a purely Celtic priesthood, belonging both to the Goidelic and Gaulish branches of the Celts. The idea that they were not Celtic is sometimes connected with the supposition that Druidism was something superadded to Celtic religion from without, or that Celtic polytheism was not part of the creed of the Druids, but sanctioned by them, while they had a definite theological system with only a few gods.

These are the ideas of writers who see in the Druids an occult and esoteric priesthood. The Druids had grown up side by side with the growth of the native religion and magic. Where they had become more civilised, as in the south of Gaul, they may have given up many magical practices, but as a class they were addicted to magic, and must have taken part in local cults as well as in those of the greater gods. That they were a philosophic priesthood advocating a pure religion among polytheists is a baseless theory. Druidism was not a formal system outside Celtic religion. It covered the whole ground of Celtic religion; in other words, it was that religion itself.

The Druids are first referred to by pseudo-Aristotle and Sotion in the second century B.C., the reference being preserved by Diogenes Laertius: "There are among the Celtæ and Galatæ those called Druids and Semnotheoi." (Diog. Laert. i. proem, Cæsar, vi. 13, 14; Strabo, iv. 4. 4; Amm. Marc. xv. 9; Diod, Sic, v. 28; Lucan, i. 460; Mela, iii. 2.) The two words may be synonymous, or they may describe two classes of priests, or, again, the Druids may have been Celtic, and the Semnotheoi Galatic (? Galatian) priests.

Cæsar's account comes next in time. Later writers gives the Druids a lofty place and speak vaguely of the Druidic philosophy and science. Cæsar also refers to their science, but both he and Strabo speak of their human sacrifices. Suetonius describes their religion as cruel and savage, and Mela, who speaks of their learning, regards their human sacrifices as savagery. (Suet. Claud. 25; Mela, iii.) Pliny says nothing of the Druids as philosophers, but hints at their priestly functions, and connects them with magico-medical rites. (Pliny, xxx. 1.)

These divergent opinions are difficult to account for. But as the Romans gained closer acquaintance with the Druids, they found less philosophy and more superstition among them. For their cruel rites and hostility to Rome, they sought to suppress them, but this they never would have done had the Druids been esoteric philosophers. It has been thought that Pliny's phrase, "Druids and that race of prophets and doctors," signifies that, through Roman persecution, the Druids were reduced to a kind of medicine-men.  But the phrase rather describes the varied functions of the Druids, as has been seen, nor does it refer to the state to which the repressive edict reduced them, but to that in which it found them. Pliny's information was also limited.

The vague idea that the Druids were philosophers was repeated parrot-like by writer after writer, who regarded barbaric races as Rousseau and his school looked upon the "noble savage." Roman writers, skeptical of a future life, were fascinated by the idea of a barbaric priesthood teaching the doctrine of immortality in the wilds of Gaul. For this teaching the poet Lucan sang their praises. The Druids probably first impressed Greek and Latin observers by their magic, their organization, and the fact that, like many barbaric priesthoods, but unlike those of Greece and Rome, they taught certain doctrines. Their knowledge was divinely conveyed to them; "they speak the language of the gods;" (Diod. Sic. v. 31. 4.) hence it was easy to read anything into this teaching. Thus the Druidic legend rapidly grew.

On the other hand, modern writers have perhaps exaggerated the force of the classical evidence. When we read of Druidic associations we need not regard these as higher than the organized priesthoods of barbarians. Their doctrine of metem-psychosis, if it was really taught, involved no ethical content as in Pythagoreanism. Their astronomy was probably astrological (See Cicero, de Div. i. 41.); their knowledge of nature a series of cosmogonic myths and speculations. If a true Druidic philosophy and science had existed, it is strange that it is always mentioned vaguely and that it exerted no influence upon the thought of the time.

Classical sentiment also found a connection between the Druidic and Pythagorean systems, the Druids being regarded as conforming to the doctrines and rules of the Greek philosopher. (Diod. Sic. v. 28; Amm. Marc. xv. 9; Hippolytus, Refut. Hær. i. 22.) It is not improbable that some Pythagorean doctrines may have reached Gaul, but when we examine the point at which the two systems were supposed to meet, namely, the doctrine of metempsychosis and immortality, upon which the whole idea of this relationship was founded, there is no real resemblance. There are Celtic myths regarding the rebirth of gods and heroes, but the eschatological teaching was apparently this, that the soul was clothed with a body in the other-world. There was no doctrine of a series of rebirths on this earth as a punishment for sin. The Druidic teaching of a bodily immortality was mistakenly assumed to be the same as the Pythagorean doctrine of the soul reincarnated in body after body.

Other points of resemblance were then discovered. The organisation of the Druids was assumed by Ammianus to be a kind of corporate life--sodaliciis adstricti consortiis--while the Druidic mind was always searching into lofty things, (Amm. Marc. xv. 9.) but those who wrote most fully of the Druids knew nothing of this.

The Druids, like the priests of all religions, doubtless sought after such knowledge as was open to them, but this does not imply that they possessed a recondite philosophy or a secret theology. They were governed by the ideas current among all barbaric communities, and they were at once priests, magicians, doctors, and teachers. They would not allow their sacred hymns to be written down, but taught them in secret, (Cæsar, vi. 14.) as is usual wherever the success of hymn or prayer depends upon the right use of the words and the secrecy observed in imparting them to others. Their ritual, as far as is known to us, differs but little from that of other barbarian folk, and it included human sacrifice and divination with the victim's body. They excluded the guilty from a share in the cult--the usual punishment meted out to the tabu-breaker in all primitive societies.

The idea that -the Druids taught a secret doctrine--monotheism, pantheism, or the like--is unsupported by evidence. Doubtless they communicated secrets to the initiated, as is done in barbaric mysteries everywhere, but these secrets consist of magic and mythic formulæ, the exhibition of Sacra, and some teaching about the gods or about moral duties. These are kept secret, not because they are abstract doctrines, but because they would lose their value and because the gods would be angry if they were made too common. If the Druids taught religious and moral matters secretly, these were probably no more than an extension of the threefold maxim inculcated by them according to Diogenes Laertius: "To worship the gods, to do no evil, and to exercise courage." (Diog. Laert. 6. Celtic enthusiasts see in this triple maxim something akin to the Welsh triads, which they claim to be Druidic!) To this would be added cosmogonic myths and speculations, and magic and religious formulæ. This will become more evident as we examine the position and power of the Druids.

In Gaul, and to some extent in Ireland, the Druids formed a priestly corporation--a fact which helped classical observers to suppose that they lived together like the Pythagorean communities. While the words of Ammianus--sodaliciis adstricti consortiis--may imply no more than some kind of priestly organization, M. Bertrand founds on them a theory that the Druids were a kind of monks living a community life, and that Irish monasticism was a transformation of this system.  This is purely imaginative. Irish Druids had wives and children, and the Druid Diviciacus was a family man, while Cæsar says not a word of community life among the Druids. The hostility of Christianity to the Druids would have prevented any copying of their system, and Irish monasticism was modelled on that of the Continent. Druidic organisation probably denoted no more than that the Druids were bound by certain ties, that they were graded in different ranks or according to their functions, and that they practised a series of common cults. In Gaul one chief Druid had authority over the others, the position being an elective one. (Cæsar, vi. 13.)

The insular Druids may have been similarly organised, since we hear of a chief Druid, primus magus, while the Filid had an Ard-file, or chief, elected to his office. (Trip. Life, ii. 325, i. 52, ii. 402; IT i. 373; RC xxvi. 33. The title rig-file, "king poet," sometimes occurs.) The priesthood was not a caste, but was open to those who showed aptitude for it. There was a long novitiate, extending even to twenty years, just as, in Ireland, the novitiate of the File lasted from seven to twelve years. (Cæsar, vi. 14.)

The Druids of Gaul assembled annually in a central spot, and there settled disputes, because they were regarded as the most just of men. (Cæsar, vi. 13; Strabo, iv. 4. 4.) Individual Druids also decided disputes or sat as judges in cases of murder. How far it was obligatory to bring causes before them is unknown, but those who did not submit to a decision were interdicted from the sacrifices, and all shunned them. In other words, they were tabued. A magico-religious sanction thus enforced the judgments of the Druids.

In Galatia the twelve tetrarchs had a council of three hundred men, and met in a place called Drunemeton to try cases of murder. (Strabo, xii. 5. 2.) Whether it is philologically permissible to connect Dru- with the corresponding syllable in "Druid" or not, the likeness to the Gaulish assembly at a "consecrated place," perhaps a grove (nemeton), is obvious. We do not know that Irish Druids were judges, but the Filid exercised judgments, and this may be a relic of their con-nection with the Druids. (Their judicial powers were taken from them because their speech had become obscure. Perhaps they gave their judgments in archaic language.)

Diodorus describes the Druids exhorting combatants to peace, and taming them like wild beasts by enchantment. (Diod. Sic. v. 31.) This suggests interference to prevent the devastating power of the blood-feud or of tribal wars. They also appear to have exercised authority in the election of rulers. Convictolitanis was elected to the magistracy by the priests in Gaul, "according to the custom of the State." (1 Cæsar, vii. 83.) In Ireland, after partaking of the flesh of a white bull, probably a sacrificial animal, a man lay down to sleep, while four Druids chanted over him "to render his witness truthful." He then saw in a vision the person who should be elected king, and what he was doing at the moment.  Possibly the Druids used hypnotic suggestion; the medium was apparently clairvoyant. Dio Chrysostom alleges that kings were ministers of the Druids, and could do nothing without them. (Dio, Orat. xlix.)

This agrees on the whole with the witness of Irish texts. Druids always accompany the king, and have great influence over him. According to a passage in the Táin, "the men of Ulster must not speak before the king, the king must not speak before his Druid," and even Conchobar was silent until the Druid Cathbad had spoken. This power, resembling that of many other priesthoods, must have helped to balance that of the warrior class, and it is the more credible when we recall the fact that the Druids claimed to have made the universe. 

The priest-kingship may have been an old Celtic institution, and this would explain why, once the offices were separated, priests had or claimed so much political power. That political power must have been enhanced by their position as teachers, and it is safe to say that submission to their powers was inculcated by them. Both in Gaul and in Ireland they taught others than those who intended to become Druids. (Cæsar, vi. 13, 14)

As has been seen, their teachings were not written down, but transmitted orally. They taught immortality, believing that thus men would be roused to valour, buttressing patriotism with dogma. They also imparted "many things regarding the stars and their motions, the extent of the universe and the earth, the nature of things, and the power and might of the immortal gods." Strabo also speaks of their teaching in moral science. (Cæsar, vi. 14; Strabo, iv. 4. 4.)

As has been seen, it is easy to exaggerate all this. Their astronomy was probably of a humble kind and mingled with astrology; their natural philosophy a mass of cosmogonic myths and speculations; their theology was rather mythology; their moral philosophy a series of maxims such as are found in all barbaric communities. Their medical lore, to judge from what Pliny says, was largely magical. Some Druids, e.g. in the south of Gaul, may have had access to classical learning, and Cæsar speaks of the use of Greek characters among them. This could hardly have been general, and in any case must have superseded the use of a native script, to which the use of ogams in Ireland, and perhaps also in Gaul,was supple-mentary. The Irish Druids may have had written books, for King Loegaire desired that S.Patrick's books and those of the Druids should be submitted to the ordeal by water as a test of their owners' claims. (Trip. Life, 284.)

In religious affairs the Druids were supreme, since they alone "knew the gods and divinities of heaven." (Lucan, i. 451.) They superintended and arranged all rites and attended to "public and private sacrifices," and " no sacrifice was complete without the intervention of a Druid." (Diod. v. 31. 4; cf. Cæsar, vi. 13, 16; Strabo, iv. 4. 5.) The dark and cruel rites of the Druids struck the Romans with horror, and they form a curious contrast to their alleged "philosophy."

They used divination and had regular formulæ of incantation as well as ritual acts by which they looked into the future.  Before all matters of importance, especially before warlike expeditions, their advice was sought because they could scan the future.

Name-giving and a species of baptism were performed by the Druids or on their initiative. Many examples of this occur in Irish texts, thus of Conall Cernach it is said, "Druids came to baptize the child into heathenism, and they sang the heathen baptism (baithis geintlídhe) over the little child," and of Ailill that he was "baptized in Druidic streams."  In a Welsh story we read that Gwri was "baptized with the baptism which was usual at that time." Similar illustrations are common at name-giving among many races, and it is probable that the custom in the Hebrides of the midwife dropping three drops of water on the child in Nomine and giving it a temporary name, is a survival of this practice. The regular baptism takes place later, but this preliminary rite keeps off fairies and ensures burial in consecrated ground, just as the pagan rite was protective and admitted to the tribal privileges.

In the burial rites, which in Ireland consisted of a lament, sacrifices, and raising a stone inscribed with ogams over the grave, Druids took part. The Druid Dergdamsa pronounced a discourse over the Ossianic hero Mag-neid, buried him with his arms, and chanted a rune. The ogam inscription would also be of Druidic composition, and as no sacrifice was complete without the intervention of Druids, they must also have assisted at the lavish sacrifices which occurred at Celtic funerals.

Pliny's words, "the Druids and that race of prophets and doctors," suggest that the medical art may have been in the hands of a special class of Druids, though all may have had a smattering of it. It was mainly concerned with the use of herbs, and was mixed up with magical rites, which may have been regarded as of more importance than the actual medicines used.  In Ireland Druids also practiced the healing art. Thus when Cúchulainn was ill, Emer said, "If it had been Fergus, Cúchulainn would have taken no rest till he had found a Druid able to discover the cause of that illness."  But other persons, not referred to as Druids, are mentioned as healers, one of them a woman, perhaps a reminiscence of the time when the art was practiced by women.  These healers may, however, have been attached to the Druidic corporation in much the same way as were the bards.

The Religion of the Ancient Celts, John Arnott MacCulloch, Chapter XX. [1911]

Thanks to Ellen Evert Hopman, for the pictures of the female druids, more on female druids: HERE