Equally close-mouthed and mysterious, the Druids were some of the most
powerful people the world has ever known. They held an iron grip on
religion
and justice in many Celtic tribes, their initiation rites were
legendary and
secret, and their pride was nothing short of monumental.
The Druids believed that the hours of noon and midnight were sacred.
So,
too, were the oak tree and the mistletoe. Druid forecasts were
legendary as
well. They saw omens in the flight of birds and in sacrificial animals.
The power of the Druids came in three forms: legal, scientific, and
religious.
Druids were jurists, deciding nearly all disputes-public or
private-and
administering their particular legal code. This code included the idea
that
an entire family could be held liable for the wrongdoing of only one of
its
members. It also included the concept of suretyship, the idea that a
man who
had broken a law was fined according to his ability to pay. The surety
was a
man who agreed to assume the debt if the accused failed to pay. So, the
accused was bound to his surety-even moreso because if the accused
failed to
pay, then the surety could seize the accused’s property. One Celtic
practice
that was not part of the legal code yet still recognized as proper as a
means of settling a dispute was the practice of mutual fasting: The man
who
was owed a debt could stand outside the offender’s door all day long
and
refuse to eat until his debt was paid; honor bound the offender to fast
as
well; this usually brought the dispute to a rapid conclusion. As a last
recourse, a man who was owed money could seek to have the offender
ostracized by the Druids. This, in effect, was a damning blow in the
worst
way, for the Druids were the law in the community and anyone put
outside
their responsibility was one to be shunned by the community at large.
Druids were scientists. Their main field of study was astronomy. They
studied the movements of the planets, moon, and stars, to tell the
future.
They also invented a quite sophisticated calendar to track these
events. The
Celtic month was made up of nights, not days. Fifteen nights made up
the
bright half of the month, and 15 made up the dark half. The months made
up a
year, which had four seasons.
Interwined with the religious practices were the yearly festivals,
which
divided the seasons of the year. The first festival of the year
(February 1)
was Imbolc, the patron deity of which was the goddess of flocks and
fertility. The second festival (May 1) honored the Druids themselves
and
also was associated with fertility. Its name: Beltaine. The patron was
Belenos, whose name can be found on coins, frescoes, and elsewhere in
the
scant Celtic records that survive. The third festival, Lugnasa, lasted
a
full week and culminated in a feast on August 1 to honor the god Lug.
This
was the god Belenos under another name, and this festival, too, was
concerned with fertility. The last festival of the year was the most
solemn:
Samain. It happened on October 31 and commemorated the creation of the
world.
Most of all, the Druids were the heads of the religion. They alone
could
approach the gods. (This served also to keep the religious practices in
the
hands of the Druids, not the people.) The gods were many, as in
Mesopotamian
and Egyptian religions. The Celts worshipped a blacksmith god, a god of
oratory, and an antlered god. This was last was a symbol of fertility
and
was represented by a stag, a boar, or a bull. The Celts worshipped
goddesses
as well, many of them represented by birds. (The raven was the
companion of
the goddess of war.) In addition, each tribe had its own select god
that it
believed was in charge of that tribe’s welfare.
Druidic religious rites were so secretive because the Druids shared
those
secrets with only a select few. Even Druids who had been practicing for
years did not know the innermost secrets of the order. That the head
Druids
kept it this way and mistrusted written records are the primary reasons
we
today know so little for sure about the Druidic rites.
It can be seen clearly that the Celts had many gods but not one head
god.
Like the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians, the Celts preferred their
religion
in small doses and spread through many realms. Whether they ever
thought to
worship just one god is not the point. Rather, the point is that they
revered the gods they did worship and kept their customs holy, even in
the
fact of fierce oppression.
It can also be seen clearly how the Druids kept their grip on Celtic
society. Each tribe had a leader, yes, and sometimes this leader was
not a
Druid. But each tribe also a had a patron god. In order to worship this
god
properly, the people had to go to the Druids. Ignoring the god to spite
the
Druids was risky business indeed. The Druids also created the calendar
and
told the people when the festivals were. Since all festivals were
religious,
the Druids were naturally in charge of those festivities as well.
It can be argued that such wide-ranging power in the hands of so
secretive
few has not been equaled since.