There is a wide variety of horoscopes these days. Using the Internet, you can easily determine which flower you correspond to, which planet, which season, and so on. It turns out that there is another horoscope that is much older than you might imagine. This is the horoscope of the Druids - it is more than two thousand years old. For the first time, the horoscope of the Druids, or in other words, the Gallic horoscope, is mentioned in the records of Christian monks, who for some reason needed to record the chronicles of the pagans. So, contrary to popular belief, Druids are not mythical creatures at all, but quite real people, priests of the Celtic tribes.

Druids, like their "colleagues" shamans and sorcerers from different countries, performed magic rituals, sacrifices and were engaged in predicting the future. Earthly people believed the sages unconditionally. In order to receive the honorary title of druid, a person had to spend twenty years all alone in the forest - so it is not surprising that there were no young druids among the Celts.

The sorcerers considered the forest a holy place, where a conditional portal opens for communication with unearthly creatures. The priests treated trees like living beings, endowing them with soul and even character. They argued that each tree, like a person, has its own specific traits, advantages and disadvantages. Each requires certain living conditions. The druids also had their favorite plant - mistletoe. It was used in healing, and in predictions, and in administrative affairs, and in the rituals of sacrifice, so they prepared for the collection of mistletoe in advance. The priests believed that mistletoe potions would neutralize any known poison. By the way, love for this magical plant has survived to this day; Europeans decorate their homes with wreaths of mistletoe leaves for Christmas.

The Celts at one time occupied a colossal territory, by and large - all modern and well-known to tourists in Western Europe. It was they who laid the foundation for Western European civilization. Like any self-respecting pagans, each of their individual settlements needed their own priest, able to talk with the gods without much difficulty. But in addition to communicating with higher powers, the druids were also obliged to record the heroic deeds of the Celts, preferably in poetic form, so they took only poets as druids - otherwise nothing would have happened. In those distant times, the "position" of a druid was considered extremely honorable. Both minor rulers and kings turned to the priests for advice. They were also exempt from military service and paying taxes.

True, for example, among the Irish, the Druids quickly lost their poetic abilities and turned into an analogue of modern village healers, but the Gauls - the ancestors of the modern French - treated their priests much more reverently, raising their wise elders almost to the category of demigods (well, or at least heavenly messengers ). Remember at least the famous stories about Asterix and Obelix - the ancestors of the French treated their "wizards" extremely respectfully. The Gauls even had holidays dedicated to the Druids - Samhaina and Beltane. Under the leadership of the priests, residents of all nearby settlements took part in the celebrations. It was believed that on the days of these holidays, the line between the worlds became thinner, and messengers from other worlds could come to visit.

As for the horoscope itself, the druids drew inspiration for its creation again from trees. According to their science, the date of birth of each person is associated with a specific plant. At the same time, the Druids attached great importance to the winter and summer opposition of the Sun, the spring and summer equinox. Actually, the position of the Sun relative to the Earth is the basis of their horoscope. In accordance with him, the fate of a person, his future, character and abilities depend on the removal of the Sun from the Earth on his birthday. Therefore, each sign of the horoscope of the Druids has two periods of action.

Druids believed: in order to change your fate for the better, you need to establish a connection with your tree: communicate with it through touch. It was believed that in a difficult time a person should go to a forest or garden, find a tree corresponding to the date of birth, and talk to him, lean against its trunk and physically imagine how the energy of the tree flows into his body. After that, it was supposed to bow to the tree, thank him and finally decorate with a ribbon.

This is how the horoscope of the druids looks like (the periods in which this tree reigns are indicated in brackets). It was believed that the tree provides the greatest magical power and, as a result, the greatest help to its man during periods of its supremacy.

Apple tree(June 25 - July 4, December 22 - January 1)
Fir (July 5 - July 14, January 2 - January 11)
Elm (July 6 - July 25, January 12 - February 24)
Cypress (July 26 - August 4, January 25 - February 3)
Poplar (August 5 - August 13, February 4 - February 8)
Cedar (August 14 - August 23, February 9 - February 18)
Pine (August 24 - September 2, February 19 - February 28/29)
Willow (September 3 - September 12, March 1 - March 10)
Linden (September 13 - September 22, March 11 - March 20)

In ancient times, there was a special kind of people who were credited with various paranormal abilities. They were called druids - people of the oak. It was this plant that was considered a symbol of wisdom, divinity, knowledge and strength. Druids were distinguished by special mental abilities, knew the principles of cooperation with the spirits of the forest, and had certain magical talents. Without them, the kings did not make decisions, the sick and lepers turned to them for help, they often influenced the outcome of wars.

Druids arose in European forests. Their teaching was a unique combination of philosophy, magic and religion. The magic systems created by these sages were so unique and harmonious that to this day they continue to puzzle over them.

How the first druids appeared

In 400 BC, the "Great Battle of the Trees" took place. This is exactly what the Celtic legends say, in which the druids were described especially often and colorfully. The above date is considered to be the year of birth of the first druid magicians. Why exactly "people of the oak"? The Celtic oak had a special meaning, as mentioned earlier. In addition to the Celts, pagans attributed magical abilities to this wood. Even in modern times, various psychics and magicians consider the oak to be their patron, produce amulets and talismans from it.

Druids have nothing more sacred than the oak tree and the mistletoe that grows on it. Without the leaves of these plants, not a single Druidic potion is made. Druids believe that everything originated from the oak tree. It was on its branches that life was born, since this tree was chosen by the Gods.

The main magic that druids practiced was "green magic"

Most often, druids practiced the magic of the forest, since it was from there that they came. Green magic is remarkable for the fact that it allows a person to cooperate with nature in the most harmonious and productive way. Nature is the most valuable thing we have. If you learn to use it correctly and take care of it, then it will thank us.

Druids believed that the upper part of the wood, which is its branches and leaves, attracts solar energy, lowering it down the trunk to the roots. At the roots, it is transformed, it becomes available to the earth and man. If you use this energy correctly, you can constantly receive a charge of vital and magical forces.

Druids often decided the fate of kingdoms

The ancient magicians possessed the deepest knowledge in all spheres of human activity. That is why the rulers of various kingdoms turned to them for advice, especially when it came to politics. Druids were perceived as intermediaries between Gods and people. Philosophers and poets have written about them.

Diodorus Siculus wrote the following about the druids:

Druids are incredibly wise. Some of them represent the supreme power of Celtic. Not a single case of national importance passes them by. They listen to the advice of the druids and do not dare to contradict them. The authority of these priests is preserved thanks to their magical talent.

Why did the Celts idolize the Druids so much?

Initially, the Druids were described as old people - hermits, sorcerers and thinkers who lived in dense forests. Their main purpose was to take care of the spiritual values \u200b\u200bof the common Celts. The Celts, in turn, were called groups of distinctive tribes. For several centuries they ruled over half of the world known at that time. The character of the Celts was distinguished by romance, superstition, fearlessness and justice.

One of the famous historians of Ancient Rome, Polybius wrote the following about this people:

The Celts are extremely strong and resilient people. At the same time, they have an excellent appearance: tall, blue-eyed, slender. They strive to improve and develop the culture of their settlements, for which they build educational centers in their cities. Celtic warriors are skilled riders, brave, brave, conscientious.

The Celtic tribes have created a unique culture based on the knowledge of the ancient druids. Belief in spiritual immortality is considered to be the main aspect of this culture. Druids often said that after the death of the body, the soul is transferred to another body. They assumed that such a faith would strengthen the character of the soldiers, make them not be afraid of death.

Druids carried out various types of rituals, among which were very fierce sacrifices. They also practiced healing, predicted the future, orally transmitted legends.

Each druid belonged to a separate order of initiates. Such communities have always been headed by the wisest priest who is respected and protected. Physical labor, which could negatively affect their health, was contraindicated for the high priests. Perhaps this is why there were so many centenarians among the Druids who have existed for centuries. The high priests, according to legends, lived in caves and ate only what grows in the forest. They had no other property, and they themselves did not want more. The hermitic lifestyle allowed them to retain the most important information and not be distracted by ordinary human luxuries.

Some communities of the Druids formed the "hetheria" alliances. Thus, they exchanged knowledge with their "colleagues". Not a single sacrifice was carried out by the Celts without the presence of a druid, who monitored the correctness of all actions.

Often, a person was used as a victim for sacrifice, who could be a criminal or a traitor, as well as an enemy. Cruel sacrifices, according to the Druids, helped to appease evil spirits and Gods, which, in turn, ceased to harm people.

In addition to all of the above, it should be noted that even childbirth did not take place without a druid. The name of the newborn was determined only after it was shown to the druid. He, in turn, predicted the fate of the child. If trouble awaited the baby, then the druid prevented them with the help of conspiracies and other magical rituals.

They resorted to the help of druids when it was necessary to resolve a dispute

The ancient magicians used three main methods to resolve any dispute: the cauldron of truth, wood, and touching the altar. The first instrument was a vessel of a certain shape, made of gold or silver. He, as was commonly believed, distinguishes truth from lies. Boiling water was poured into the cauldron of truth, after which the defendant's hand was lowered into it. If burns appeared on it, then the defendant was considered guilty. The hand of an innocent person, according to the priests, should have remained unharmed. Also, the defendant was asked to swear on a tree or altar. The oath for all Celts was a special ritual, which in no case should be broken. By the sounds emanating from the trunk of the trees and the stalk, the druids determined whether a person was telling the truth or not.

Some legends describe the incredible ability of the druids to recognize ailment by the smoke coming from the patient's home. The Druids used about 350 plants in their work, among which were shrubs, grasses, flowers and trees.

 3.01.2012 17:17

Druids and their beliefs

"There are three candles that will disperse any darkness," says the Celtic Triad, "and these candles are: Knowledge, Nature, Truth." The Triads contained the ancient wisdom of the Celts, both spiritual and secular, but it is this one that expresses the highest values \u200b\u200bof Druidism more precisely than others.

Druidism today is one of the most mysterious ancient religious and magical systems, written information about which has survived very little - this is not surprising, given that the Celts' knowledge was transmitted orally. Three steps in the spiritual hierarchy of the Celts were bards, eubages and druids. Druids had supreme power, they were the keepers of secret teachings, supreme leaders and spiritual teachers. The Druids were also engaged in the education of boys, among whom, after twenty years of training, they chose worthy ones to replenish their ranks.

The ministers of the external cult were called Evbagi. It was the Evbags who performed rituals, made sacrifices, were engaged in fortune-telling, and sometimes performed the duties of judges. The third link of the great brotherhood were bards - poets-singers who preserve age-old wisdom in poetic form and bring truth and truth to the world. The bards inspired heroes to fight and sang the feats of the legendary figures of the Celtic epic, enjoying the great love and respect of the people. It is known that many of the kings proudly bore the title of bard.

Ancient legends tell how the enemy camps, already ready for battle, having heard the sounds of the nine-stringed lyre of the great bard, lowered their weapons and, spellbound by the wise words of the song, went to make peace with their enemies. The bards were living bridges between the druids - mysterious, remote from worldly life, keeping great secrets - and the people.

The ancient poetic tradition in Druidism is built on the oral transmission of knowledge, although the Celts had a system of runic writing - Ogam. The use of Ogam was exclusively for everyday life: funeral monuments, land tenure markers, signs. The Celts believed that the written word weakens the power of memory and shames what it signifies - that is, the object itself. In the course of his twenty years of training, the druid had to learn by heart all the poetry of the bards. Poetic inspiration was an important spiritual practice, and the Celtic mythology even knows a special deity of poetry and a specific style of poetry whose purpose is to compose magic spells.

Druidism is called the religion of poetry, but what is the essence of this poetic religion?

The Druids said that there is a spiritual Other World, which is omnipresent and at times is available to people. They believed that on special days of the year, such as Samhain, the World of Spirits is in close contact with the World of People, and on such days the process of transition from one world to another is facilitated and communication with spirits becomes possible. As for the entities living in the Other World, the Celts did not divide them into good and evil, like people. Their spirituality lies in the very fact of their existence, and the concepts of human morality do not apply to them.

Life and death are inextricably linked with each other and are in constant interaction - the ancient Celts were not afraid of death, considering it as a stage of transition from one state to another, in the process of a long, perhaps even eternal life. The Celts believed in reincarnation, like the ancient Hindus, but there is no evidence that they had the concept of Karma - that is, the law of retribution. There was a druidic doctrine of the immortality of the soul, with which the Celtic warriors went into battle and fought without fear of death. It is known that legends were made about the valor and fearlessness of Celtic warriors, and these qualities amazed not only Roman historians, but also the Roman military.

Druidic beliefs related to deities are not an easy problem. The Druids believed that all of their many deities descended from a common divine ancestor. If we are talking about the Irish pantheon, then this ancestor deity is the Goddess Danu, hence the name of the Irish Gods - Tuatha de Dannan, which means "Danu Tribe". The Celtic gods were so inseparable from their environment that it is difficult to separate them into separate and distinct categories. Nature was divine and sacred to the Druids, densely populated with various spirits, goddesses and gods.

An important part of Celtic religion is fire worship. Fire played an important role in the four holidays of the Wheel of the Year (suffice it to recall the bonfires of Beltane or Samhain). Fire was considered the personification of inner spiritual strength, and this was not associated with the Greek cosmology of four equivalent elements, but coincided with Indian religious views on this element. Fire, according to the Druids, contained magical properties of both destructive and healing properties, providing people with warmth and energy, giving them the opportunity to grow and develop civilization. Always directed upward to the sky, fire symbolized spirituality. Perhaps that is why the Celts made their holiday fires on the hilltops. They called the poetic inspiration a flame in the head, which is why Brigid (Brigid) was both a deity and poetry and fire.

Druidic mythology is the key to understanding the human essence. The Well of Wisdom (located in the center of the world), Annun's Spiral and Kerridwen's Cauldron are symbolic representations of mythical places that are accessible and inaccessible at the same time. It only takes a little effort of faith to find them. For example, the Well of Wisdom is located at the bottom of the ocean, but for the sea gods who are capable of a magical jump, the ocean is like the sky. This rush of faith is often present in the aspect of poetic inspiration.
The druids' eternal pursuit of knowledge and inspiration is more than an occult or esoteric exercise in the art of magic. The skills and abilities of the druids were to serve the good of the tribe, and each druid made a lot of efforts to improve. Clairvoyance, fortune-telling and fortune-telling were used by the druids for many practical purposes - for example, resolving political conflicts or announcing the beginning of agricultural work.

Druids were actively involved in life cycle rituals - birth, entry into adulthood, marriage, and death. During the war, the skills of the druids were necessary to predict the movements of the enemy and his future plans and call the forces of the elements to help the tribe; also druids could put an end to an unjust war. In other words, the druid's strength and skills belonged to his entire tribe, not just himself.
Nor is it easy to describe the moral and ethical positions of Druidism. Given that the ancient druids were considered sacred, it is possible to understand how serious the moral obligations resting on their shoulders were. Myths brought to us references to ancient Celtic ethics, like the instructions of great heroes and kings to their disciples. Cuchullin, Fionn Mac Cumhull, Cormac Mac Art and others left some advice to their followers and successors. They talk about justice, fairness and honor, and emphasize that each person is responsible for his own behavior, regardless of the will of fate or the role of the gods. The legendary bard Oisin, the son of the great warrior and sage Finn McCumal (the hero of Celtic myths), in a conversation with Saint Patrick said: “This is what unites us all the days of our life - the truth is in our hearts, and strength is in our hands, and the fulfillment of our will hidden in our languages. " What is this, if not the best expression of Celtic ethics, set out in one phrase?

The most secret and unknown area in knowledge about druids is their magic and witchcraft. There are many legends about their ability to conjure weapons, call rain or drought, and talk with animals. In sacks, the druids kept favorable winds, which significantly increased their speed of movement, and took out the most terrible ruthless black blades from nowhere. The only chronicle evidence by which contemporaries can learn the details of the magic of the Druids are the works of Pliny and Caesar. Pliny despised magic, but considered it his duty to reliably state the incomprehensible possibilities of the representatives of the Celtic caste of priests. He stated that the druids worked their magic, using the help of water, fire, braziers, tagans, wandering fires, air, earth and stars. Pliny theorized that Druidic witchcraft was rooted in the history of the eastern Persian kingdom. There also witchcraft was tied to knowledge of astronomy, medicine, mathematics and religion. In addition, Pliny drew an analogy between the Celtic magicians and Moses, Plato, Pythagoras and other historical figures and scholars of antiquity. He believes that their "magic" was just a reflection of the scientific research they gleaned in the books of the ancient Persians. In fact, as is already known, the discoverers in many areas were the Sumerians, and the rest only kept their tablets or copies of their works, so there may be some grain of truth in Pliny's research. At one time, the Sumerians dispersed in different directions.
The dates of the appearance of the Celts are only slightly behind the period when the Sumerians were exterminated. And together with the Celts, their spiritual mentors, the Druids, appeared at the same time, who were distinguished not only by the most extensive knowledge, but also by a strong influence on the minds of all representatives of the Celtic empire, were their spiritual mentors, and they were sometimes revered more than the leaders.
Druids lived by their own internal laws. They studied in detail the laws of nature, the movement of celestial bodies, knew the basic principles of psychology and skillfully used them, were interested in the development of society. It is believed that their magic is just the ability to manipulate secret knowledge and formulas that our scientists have not yet been able to discover. They derived or borrowed laws derived from centuries of observation of natural phenomena and the characteristics of human behavior and body.

Thus, all the laws of the Druids were elementary. And the simpler, the more difficult it is to achieve and understand. What the druids owned is on the surface, but it is very difficult to use it. For example, the law of knowledge - the more you know, the better you control the situation. It is quite logical, and applicable to any area of \u200b\u200blife, but not every person can afford the luxury of knowing everything. It is not in vain that only the first stage of training with the Celtic priests stretched over two decades and served the purpose of expanding the possibilities of human memory by memorizing hundreds of poems and songs. After all, then the druids had to memorize thousands of more important knowledge that could not be trusted on the tablets. The completeness of knowledge gave undeniable power over the "dark" Celts. The Sumerians also used the same method, concentrating all knowledge in the hands of representatives of religion, where the priests even used knowledge about calendar events, showing their power over nature, but in fact, simply skillfully manipulating known knowledge. But the Sumerians trusted the tablets, and it can be assumed that they were once burned, as a result of which they could not keep the empire from collapse, and their descendants, the Celtic Druids, did not want to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors and relied only on their memory. Therefore, they believed in the laws of investigation. They knew that any effect has a cause, and they treated any magical action in exactly the same way as a psychiatrist treats his patient. If done well, the result will be exactly as expected. Therefore, the lion's share of their time, the Druids devoted to the study of important components in magic. It was necessary to control them and predict any changes, because the success of witchcraft depended only on this. Their magic was based both on the ability to make associations, and on the knowledge of the power of the name and word. They even used the power of sound to produce music of different tones during their rituals. What did the druids use their magic for? Primarily to maintain control over the Celts. Everything went into the course: from securing victory by the Celts in wars and ending with a demonstration of the power of Druidic drinks on a love bed. Therefore, they sang "evil and victorious" songs, cast love spells and protective spells.

There is no exact evidence of the magic used by the druids. The only sources that researchers and curious people can rely on were themselves written already in our millennium, when the druids, as such, no longer existed. However, people continue to believe in the unknown, and strive not only to decipher, but also to assimilate the knowledge of the ancients. The literature only gives a general idea of \u200b\u200bthe witchcraft used by the Druids. One of the most powerful spells was the curse. Moreover, it was, as a rule, unpredictable, improvised. True, it can be called improvised only nominally. In fact, it required a lot of preparation, and was thought out to the smallest detail. It was required to fulfill a lot of conditions for the curse to lay down successfully. For example: climb to the top of a certain hill, which stands on the border of seven edges. There must have been a sacred Celtic tree nearby: hawthorn, hazel or some other flowering tree. Sometimes it was required that the wind was blowing in a certain direction, so that certain attributes were in the hand. Moreover, both the cursing and the cursed had to stand side by side. And if the cursing one was wrong, the earth buried him under him. And if cursed, then he fell through with all his loved ones. How exactly this action took place is difficult to describe now. Perhaps this is just literary hyperbole, which the author of the work used to enhance the effect, or maybe the druids owned earthly magic that could move the firmament.

The second common method of magic can be called witchcraft on the guts or blood of animals (and some believe that people). Various methods can also be indicated. Some believed that this spell certainly needed a sacrificial altar and dance. Others pointed out that the druid chewed meat in order to find out the future, or to see it in a dream (in the latter case, the druid put the chewed piece of meat on the ground outside the door after the procedure, sang a song and went to bed), and he did not have to be at all in a sacred place. Pigs, cats, dogs were used for sacrifice.

It is believed that the druids also had the gift of finding the missing or disappeared. Thanks to this gift, they sought out the killers. To do this, they put a finger in their mouth and sang "songs of inspiration", after which they pointed to the innocent. There are two interpretations here: either they were really detectives, even without magic, or they passed off any enemy as the guilty one. It was also possible to use special rods for the search, which were placed on an object about which clarification was needed.

There is also an opinion that the druids also possessed a hypnotic gift. What helped them to a greater extent to convince their "flock" that they are seeing great miracles every day. They could also send madness by throwing a charmed straw in the victim's face. Perhaps they just used a strong poison for this, because they knew the forest perfectly, and were probably well versed in poisonous plants.

In addition, the druids possessed several magical artifacts that allowed them to keep the Celts at bay. Morann's collar helped to find out the truth. If the speaker was lying, then the collar that was previously worn on him choked him. But if the verdict was unfair, the collar became wide. The cauldron of truth was filled with boiling water, into which the hand of the convict or suspect was immersed. If a person did not lie, his hand and his life were saved. Otherwise, death. True, in the literature, it is mainly the case when with the help of the boiler it was possible to see through the culprit, which is not surprising. A similar method was performed with the help of hot iron. If red iron was applied to the defendant, and he did not burn, he was declared innocent. The most humane identification of guilt was done with wood. Three branches of a tree were thrown into the water: the druid, the lord who accused, and the accused. If the defendant's branch sank, he was considered guilty. And to resolve the litigation, they used a completely absurd way, entrusting the dispute to the crows. Two boards are placed on a high place, and a barley cake is crumbled on each one. Then they wait for the appearance of ravens with a whitish wing. As a rule, the bird pecks the whole of one cake, scatters the other. The one whose cake was scattered wins.

There is literary evidence of how the druid turns into animals and how he creates an impenetrable fence, including vines popular in modern science fiction. At the same time, absolutely any spell was accompanied by chanting or a certain set of sounds that were chanted.

What druid magic was based on

The most secret and unknown area in knowledge about druids is their magic and witchcraft. There are many legends about their ability to conjure weapons, call rain or drought, and talk with animals. In sacks, the druids kept favorable winds, which significantly increased their speed of movement, and took out the most terrible ruthless black blades from nowhere. The only chronicle evidence by which contemporaries can learn the details of the magic of the Druids are the works of Pliny and Caesar. Pliny despised magic, but considered it his duty to reliably state the incomprehensible possibilities of the representatives of the Celtic caste of priests. He explained that the Druids worked their magic using the help of water, fire, braziers, tagans, wandering fires, air, earth and stars. Pliny theorized that Druidic witchcraft was rooted in the history of the eastern Persian kingdom. There also witchcraft was tied to knowledge of astronomy, medicine, mathematics and religion. In addition, Pliny drew an analogy between the Celtic magicians and Moses, Plato, Pythagoras and other historical figures and scholars of antiquity. He believes that their "magic" was just a reflection of the scholarly research they gleaned in the books of the ancient Persians. In fact, as is already known, the discoverers in many areas were the Sumerians, and the rest only kept their tablets or copies of their works, so there may be some grain of truth in Pliny's research. At one time, the Sumerians dispersed in different directions. The dates of the appearance of the Celts are only slightly behind the period when the Sumerians were exterminated. And together with the Celts, their spiritual mentors, the Druids, appeared at the same time, who were distinguished not only by the most extensive knowledge, but also by a strong influence on the minds of all representatives of the Celtic Empire, were their spiritual mentors, and they were sometimes revered more than leaders ...

Music is the voice of the soul, the embodiment of the culture of the people and the expression of emotions. Music can help you survive despair or bring you unreasonable sadness. It `s Magic. The magic of music, which the ancient druids skillfully knew how to use in their mysterious rites and rituals. The largest part of the lower druids carried a particle of this knowledge, wandering around the world as bards. True, the bards were more likely to have a theory, but did not know how to use the magic of music to its fullest.

The simplest comparison: many people know the recipe for the dish, but only the chef can prepare a culinary masterpiece according to this recipe, for the rest it will remain just a recipe. A modern person can own a huge library with the most ancient manuscripts, but you need to know the key or at least the language in order to master the knowledge and be able to use it in practice. Bards knew hundreds of songs and legends, possessed a voice, knew how to play and influence emotions, but only the highest druids possessed the mystery of musical magic.

With the help of a special dance to special music, it was possible to achieve the so-called state of enlightenment, during which visions of the future can come. This is something akin to shamanism, when sorcerers could communicate with spirits by driving themselves into mystical ecstasy (peak state of emotional energy). And if some of the melodies of the bards were recorded using musical signs based on the Ogam alphabet, then there were no records of the music of the Druids or did not exist at all.

One sound like music

Perhaps it consisted of some sounds or a set of different sounds. Most likely, forest sorcerers did not use tools to immerse themselves in a state of meditation, they needed a voice given by the gods. All the Celts were like that.
To intimidate the enemy, they scream, similar to the ultrasound, which was called a battle song. Cutting off the heads of the enemies, they also "sang" songs of praise of their bravery and the bravery of their companions. The songs in this case were sounds rather than words. The Celts knew how to find the origins of the musical in the whole surrounding world, any action could be called musical in the perception of this people. Music sounded joy, music responded to tears, the Irish still have a melody that is crying. Mournful music is performed by two or three people, reading the text in a recitative, composing it impromptu in the manner: "What I see, so I sing."

It is not surprising that the music that accompanies every Celtic throughout life has become one of the dominant sides in the magic of the Druids. The sounds uttered by the druids were probably of a strictly measured tonality and a certain vibration. Specially selected combinations were formed into spells that could have a hypnotic effect, or came into direct contact with the outside world, causing the necessary natural phenomena.

We roamed the forest all night again

To bring about summer's arrival.

And now we have brought you news:

The harvest will be beautiful today

The sun shone from the southern land

And Oak, and Thorns, and Ash.

R. Kipling, "A Hymn to Trees"

So little is known about the ancient druids that (in the opinion of a prominent scholar whom I consulted) they can be considered "legal prey."

M. Stewart, afterword to the novel "The Crystal Grotto"

The heroes of our today's story are the real stars of the game screen. Games in which druids are present are numbered (on different platforms) in the thousands, and we can safely assume that most of our readers have at least once in their lives been druids, or solved their terrible secret, or, at least, led them into battle ... It's time to get to know them better ...

From ruins and oblivion

From ruins and oblivion, from ashes and blood,

Any laws contrary to,

A face appears, eyebrows appear,

Pupils appear from the darkness.

M. Shcherbakov, "The Eternal Word"

Let's start with a simple question: who are the druids?

These are the priests of the ancient Celts who lived in Britain and Gaul (modern France). It is possible that other Celtic tribes also had druids, but we have no information about this.

Note that this was the name not all Celtic priests; the Gauls had, for example, still gutuaterswho professed another, probably pre-druidic faith; there were priests of Jupiter and other Roman gods (and Germanic ones, probably, too).

What kind of religion did the Druids profess? Oh, here we are gradually entering the territory, shrouded in the fog of the moist Gallic forests ...

If you try to collect information about the druids - who they are, what they did, what they believed in and what they taught - you can find material for many volumes. It turns out that the druidic faith is still alive (and there are several places where the neodruids send their cult), that they are involved in many great events and made many discoveries.

But if you ask what such deep knowledge is based on, the answer can be very discouraging.

Everything we know about druids comes from sources that can be divided into two groups:

roman and, less commonly, Greek texts;

scottish, Welsh, Irish, Cornish medieval traditions.

As you might guess, each group has its own disadvantages. British texts were written centuries after the disappearance of the Druids, retold and confused many times; and sometimes Christians deliberately revised them. The Romans looked at the Druids "from the side"; in addition, mentions of druids in Roman chronicles must be collected drop by drop. To print everything that has come down to us from antiquity on a topic of interest, you will need literally three or four pages of this magazine!

Blank spots and "new chronologies"

In this article, we often have to state: “there is no data,” “we can only assume that ...”, “the available information is very scanty” ... Somewhere, conclusions have to be made on a deliberately insufficient basis, sometimes previously convincing hypotheses are shattered a new find - as happens, for example, when the dating of the building of something is "transferred" a couple of thousand years earlier ... There are many blank spots in ancient history, and when it comes not about the Greeks, Romans or Chinese, but about the same Celts - white spots generally turn out to be the main background on which known facts occasionally appear.

When an ignorant person is faced with such a situation, it is easy for him to assume that history cannot say anything at all with the slightest degree of certainty; this is how all kinds of crazy theories and "new chronologies" appear.

And then it turns out that history knows more than it might seem. A new theory - these are the basic principles of science - must explain the existing facts at least as well as the old one, and for this its author must understand well what historians really know and what framework he will have to fit into.

While there was no shortage of people willing to turn traditional history around, the modern interpretation of history is stable at key points. A variety of assumptions can be made, for example, about who actually stood behind the regicide, how many fighters were in the army of Darius, or about whether Kublai's ships could reach Japan in the absence of the "divine wind"; but whoever claims that the army of Darius did not exist in nature, and that Khubilai did not conquer Japan, but Australia, will almost certainly be doomed to defeat. Because each such event has left quite a lot of traces for the most diverse peoples - and these traces "converge" surprisingly well.

However, the most popular of the "new chronologies" - the theory of Fomenko and Nosovsky - can be refuted, even if you do not know history at all. It is enough just ... to study the list of references that they cite and see if the data they cite correspond to the sources from which they are allegedly taken. And the secrets of mystical correlations will immediately be revealed (it is not difficult to achieve a correlation of the terms of rule, if you come up with several new rulers, remove a couple of those that existed and send arbitrarily the terms of rule of the rest!), And it will also turn out that astronomical data correspond well with traditional chronology, come into decisive conflict.

This is the secret of the support that Fomenko initially received from mathematicians and physicists: the mathematical part of the work was done flawlessly, and one suspects gross fraud original it did not occur to them. Indeed, when a professor of mathematics writes that he took such and such numbers from such and such a book, it is difficult to imagine that it is in this part that one should look for a catch. Therefore, they immediately understood what was happening, only historians - they knew the real numbers, but not everyone believed them ... In addition, the authors of the “new chronology” also chose sources wisely: they tried to choose textbooks that are not in every library now you will find, for example - the thirties of publication.

However, one cannot say that works on the "new chronology" are completely useless. They can be used, for example, as self-tests: "Find twenty errors in this chapter." Fascinating, I must say, occupation!

If we have a lot of information about the Romans or Greeks who lived before our era (of course, they are also not without gaps, but at least many key facts and events are restored without difficulty), then we have to judge the Celts by the words or their neighbors (which usually means "enemies"), or distant descendants. The Druids themselves did not write us a single line - either because they did not know how, or their texts were simply lost (there is every reason to believe that the Druids owned writing, but wrote in Greek).

And yet, the main questions - what did the druids do, what they taught, what they believed - can be answered in general terms. Let's get started.

Who are the druids

So, we have minus the fourth century in our yard, that is, the fourth century BC. The Romans are gradually taking over the rest of the peoples of Italy, the Macedonian king Philip does the same trick in Greece and leaves the power to his son Alexander. And around this whole territory, conventionally called "civilized", there are many Celts (as the Greeks call them), or Gauls (if you prefer the Roman word, which means exactly the same thing at that time). On the territory of France and northern Italy (the so-called Gaul), there are a dozen Celtic peoples (Bellovaks, Allobrogues, Aedui), in Spain - dark-skinned Celtibers, in future Switzerland - Helvetians, not far from the northern borders of Macedonia - Scordiski, and even in the very heart of Malaya A tribe of Galatians settled in Asia; by the way, the current capital of Turkey, Ankara, was founded by the Galatians.

It was at this time, judging by indirect data, that the cult of the Druids became dominant in Gaul and Britain. There is evidence that the Helvetians also adopted Druidism, but there is no evidence for or against the Celtiberians and other tribes; how it happened - we will discuss a little later.

The earliest source mentioning the Druids that has come down to us is the textbook "Notes on the Gallic War" by Gaius Julius Caesar. This is the first century BC, that is, druidism is already in its prime and the representatives of this cult play an important role in the life of their peoples.

We will quote Gaius Yulia directly, since he expresses himself very clearly:

In all of Gaul there are generally only two classes of people who enjoy a certain value and honor, for the common people there are kept in the position of slaves: by themselves they do not decide on anything and are not allowed to any meeting. ... The above two classes are druids and horsemen.

Druids take an active part in matters of worship, observe the correctness of public sacrifices, interpret all questions related to religion; they also receive many young people to study sciences, and in general they are in great honor among the Gauls.

Namely, they issue sentences in almost all controversial cases, public and private; whether a crime or murder has been committed, whether there is a litigation about inheritance or about borders - the same druids decide; they also appoint rewards and punishments; and if anyone - whether it be a private person or a whole people - does not obey their determination, they excommunicate the guilty from the sacrifices. This is their heaviest punishment. Whoever is excommunicated in this way is considered an atheist and a criminal, everyone shuns him, avoids meeting and talking with him, so as not to make trouble, as if from an infectious; no matter how much he solicits it, no judgment is made for him; he also has no right to any position.

At the head of all druids is one who enjoys the greatest authority among them. At his death, the most worthy will inherit him, and if there are several of them, the Druids decide the matter by voting; sometimes a dispute about primacy is even resolved with weapons.

At certain times of the year, the Druids gather for meetings at a consecrated place in the country of the Carnuts, which is considered the center of all Gaul. All litigants come here from everywhere and obey their decisions and sentences. Their science is thought to have originated in Britain and from there carried over to Gaul; and to this day, in order to get to know her more thoroughly, they go there to study it.

Much can be learned from this passage. So, the Gauls druids are a special class, and in addition to the priestly ones, they perform the duties of judges and teachers. This caste, as Caesar writes further, does not pay taxes and, as a rule, does not fight. The Druidic court is the highest in Gaul; Note that the measure of punishment in it is strikingly reminiscent of the excommunication that Christians later adopted from the church.

Although the druids are isolated, they do not "leave the world"; Moreover, even a Celtic leader could easily be a druid in combination. And this did not stop him from leading his people into battle: a druid is not obliged to fight, but he has the right. Nothing human is alien to a druid.

So, for example, among the Gallic people of the Aedui there was a certain Divitiac: a noble Celt, brother of the leader, politician, experienced warrior, a rather learned man, a soothsayer and, which is typical, a supporter of Rome (the Aedui were allies of the Republic for many years). He was a friend of Caesar and in the "Notes" looks like almost the most influential person of his people - a sort of Gallic cardinal Richelieu.

However, if the druid himself does not take up arms, he is inviolable. Many writers mention that druids stopped fighting armies, pacified anger, and so on. No one will raise a weapon against a druid who goes out to people empty-handed. And if he decided to fight like a mere mortal, then no one would spare him either.

Vera

More than once I was born into the world

I knew victories, troubles and grievances ...

And as he could, he understood: life has no end.

A. Ivaschenko, G. Vasiliev, "I lived"

So, a druid is not just any Celtic priest, but a cleric of a certain religion, which, as we know, seemed strange and alien to the Romans. What was their faith?

Arch Druid from Heroes of Might & Magic V.

Almost everyone who describes druidism points to one main - and very unusual for Europe - feature: reincarnation.

On this basis, of course, many theories have been created: they say, the druids borrowed this idea from India, or maybe they themselves were Indian sages, and the word "druid" comes from the Indo-European root (tree, tree, dendro - the root is still the same) ... But at the same time, the druidic transmigration of souls is very different from the Indian reincarnation.

First of all, here the soul of the deceased does not find a newborn body for itself, but rather is embodied in a certain recognizable form. Legends dating back to Druidism tell of how the new incarnation of the hero was immediately recognized by characteristic signs or omens; and sometimes it was not even alive and turned out, for example, a stone. There is also evidence that the Celtic custom allowed such a strange idea as repaying a debt after death in the next incarnation. It is not entirely clear how they imagined it, but this idea is definitely not Hindu. And finally, sooner or later, the soul still had to end up "in another world", and this very different world is consonant with the Greek ideas about Elysium and Tartarus, although it is possible that Greco-Roman influence and interpretation played a role here.

If we look for the primary source for the Druidic belief in reincarnation, the hypothesis about the Pythagoreans rather than the Indians looks much more plausible. Pythagoras in his teachings also assumed the transmigration of souls, and so he, in all probability, really visited India and creatively reworked the Eastern religion. Greece is not far from the Celts, and Pythagoras himself or his students could well have visited Gaul.

However, this is also doubtful. The fact is that in the Druidic faith, it seems, there is no indispensable connection between the deeds of a person during his lifetime and his reincarnation. If this is indeed the case, it is more logical to look for the origins of druidism in primitive animism, savage views about the immortality of the soul.

The transmigration of souls is preserved in the post-Druidic legends of the Celts; so, the legendary Tuan McKairill was reborn after death into a deer, then into a boar, a kite, a salmon - and finally in this capacity he was ... eaten by his own wife, after which he was reborn as a human being.

It may seem as if the Druids did not include the concept of morality in their faith at all. But this is certainly not the case; they just didn't count the world a priori fair... And here they are somewhat close to the Stoics, with their famous "do what you must - and what is destined to come true."

Diodorus Siculus expresses their principles of life very simply: "Honor the gods, do no evil, be brave." Courage is, in fact, the main virtue of the Celtic, which Druidism fully supported (and the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was very useful here).

But the key virtue for the druid himself is justice. If there is no initially just beginning in the world, this does not mean that it is not needed; on the contrary, instead of a god or gods, this function should be assumed by man. And first of all - a druid. That is why they judge, and they often excommunicate the wrong from the faith. Although, as we will see, they have a more tangible punishment ...

Are there any specific gods that druids serve? Caesar calls Dita, the "analogue" of Jupiter, and Mercury; but this is typical of the Romans: to think that the gods of other peoples are just other names for those whom Rome worships.

Celtic names are, of course, also known. For instance:

Cernunnos.The image of this god is very easy to identify by the deer horns - something like the ones worn by druids in Heroes of Might & Magic V. He also often has a snake with a ram's head with him. Patronized fertility and male strength, the name means "horned", that is, the male winner. Sometimes he is also called the lord of animals or the forest.

Epona- "mother of horses", the goddess, most often appearing in horse guise, patronizes horses and, again, fertility, but in a female sense.

There is another embodiment of motherhood - “ Great mother", She is Modron; this is often depicted as a triune - a virgin, a mother and an old woman. According to many experts, after the baptism, the Gauls neatly transferred her cult to the Virgin Mary with practically no changes.

Meadow- it is believed that it was him that Caesar took for Mercury.

But to be honest, they are not the point. Druidry - Faith pantheistic: pantheism is a teaching that the whole world is god... And Epona, Cernunnos and others are just separate manifestations of it; so, for example, worshiping a sacred source as part of the world, one can turn prayers to the goddess of this source, always remembering that they are only part of the sacred world.

Since the god for the druids is the whole world, it is not surprising that they usually simply did not have temples. Divine services were held in sacred places, not in magnificent cathedrals; and most often such places were groves.

Stonehenge.

Woodhenge.

The grove, the circle of trees, remained a symbol for them later, when they nevertheless began to build special places of worship: many of these places are extremely reminiscent of ... artificial groves. Such is, for example, Woodhenge- a sanctuary in which the key element was a "colonnade" of tree trunks.

But the most famous Druidic temple is of course Stonehenge!

Interestingly, until the 17th century, no one even thought to associate Stonehenge with the Druids. It was considered either the grave of Vortigern or Boadicea, or a monument to the "Night of Long Knives" arranged by the Saxon King Hengist to the Britons, or a temple of the Romans. However, all these hypotheses did not stand up to criticism for various reasons, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, no one particularly doubted the druidic origin of Stonehenge. True, it was assumed that this is only a small part of the temple complex; in particular, there were also several smaller stone circles inside.

As soon as the hypothesis of the Druid sanctuary appeared and became fashionable, the druids in the heat of the moment attributed a whole series of megalithic (that is, consisting of giant stones) structures: for example, lonely standing stones menhirs or dolmens - buildings like a house of cards, one of which you see in the photo. However, the menhirs are much older than the Druids - they are more likely contemporaries of the Egyptian pyramids; and dolmens, at least such as in the photograph, were tombs - now this is practically proven.

And Stonehenge? Alas, and its belonging to the Druids, which was practically not doubted a hundred years ago, now causes very serious objections. Nowadays, the most reliable dating of its construction is about 1400 BC, when there was still no talk of the Druids (according to other sources - about 3000 BC). Radiocarbon analysis and other methods that were not available a hundred years ago sometimes destroy even the most persistent ideas ...

Thus, apart from Woodhenge and a couple of more dubious ruins, no druidic sanctuaries have survived to us - but this is mainly because during the heyday of the corresponding faith, they were practically not built. Yes, and Woodhenge, in truth, may well turn out to be not a temple of the Druids at all - there is a lot of unclear with its dating. But the groves where the druids prayed, in some places and in fact survived.

Bards and Diviners

- Dear Misrop, - I say, - a black bull with two stomachs in one thousand nine hundred and thirty-six, what does it have to do with my grief? A black bull with two stomachs in one thousand nine hundred and thirty-six means something else - it will be the thirty-seventh year, and Stalin will devour everyone.

- I understood it right away, - says Misrop, - and the fortune-telling by the bull's shoulder blade showed the same thing. But then I could not say anything - the time was like that.

F. Iskander, "Sandro from Chegem"

We learn from Diodorus of Siculus and some others that the priestly caste falls into three parts:

actually druids - in addition to divine services, they are in charge of court and teaching;

diviners, or cotton wool- they specialize in predictions;

bards- they, as you might guess, put together and perform songs, and at the same time serve as historians and chroniclers.

They are all sometimes collectively referred to as druids, and there seems to be no mistake about that.

World of Warcraft: Druid and all his forms.

It is often thought that every Gaul poet and musician belonged to the bard class. This is completely wrong. The Celts generally loved music and poetry, they had a lot of singers, but only a few bards. Bard is a kind of official person, a chronicler and interpreter of events. In a poetic form, of course, but what about: prose is harder to remember, and then ... it's just beautiful.

It is interesting:aesthetics among the Celts generally played a much more important role than among the same Romans. For example, such a story is already known from Christian times: the Gallic priests for a long time refused to accept the official set of chants adopted in Rome, opposing them with their own canon. They were summoned to the council, where they were admonished for a long time: they say, one must sing this way, because such and such an authority said so a long time ago ... They listened and brought up their "decisive" argument: "But this is how we sing , - much more beautiful! "

Cotton wool is busy studying herbs and trees, animals, and also fortune telling - judging by Diodorus, very similar to the Roman one: the flight of birds, the insides of sacrificial animals (the Romans called fortunetellers by flight augurs, and by the insides - haruspics). But there is also its own, special way: through the agony and the outflow of blood from the sacrificed person ...

Religious customs

God was angry with Numa and ordered him to purify with "heads". "Bulbous?" Numa asked quickly. "No, human ..." - began Jupiter. Wanting to avoid the execution of such a cruel order, the king asked him again: "With hair?" “No, alive,” Jupiter replied. "Fish?" Numa asked. God relented and ascended to heaven.

Plutarch, Comparative Biographies

I think I will not be mistaken if I assume that the most famous Druidic religious practice is just human sacrifice. Many Roman authors write about them, it is because of them that Druidism tried to destroy the emperor Claudius.

Several forms of these sacrifices are known; the most, apparently, famous - a stuffed giant made of willow is filled with people and burned. Caesar writes on this matter, however, that the Celtic gods are most pleased with the burning of criminals - thieves, murderers; but if you really need to make a sacrifice, and no one kindly fell for the crime, you can burn a prisoner or even an innocent fellow.

True, more often white bulls are sacrificed - like among the Romans, we note. They, of course, are not stuffed into a willow cage, but cut at the altar (and then they guess by how smoothly everything went - quite a Roman custom). This sacrifice is described in detail by Pliny:

Having prepared for the sacrifice and the feast under the trees, they bring there two white bulls, whose horns are then tied together for the first time. Dressed in white robes, the priest climbs a tree and cuts off the mistletoe with a golden sickle, while the others take her into a white cloak. They then kill the victims, praying that God would give this gift of his goodness to those to whom he bestowed it. They believe that mistletoe, mixed with drink, instills fertility in barren animals and is an antidote to all poisons ...

The Romans stopped this disgrace - they did not tolerate human sacrifice, although, in truth, their own custom of killing an enemy leader during a triumph is strangely similar to sacrifice. The Druids did the same as, apparently, the Latins did in their time: partly they made the sacrifices symbolic, partly they replaced people with cattle.

The ceremonies were not carried out on the days of solstices and equinoxes, as is often believed now - if these days were celebrated, it was not too pompous, since for the druids the moon was more important than the sun. Four major holidays were celebrated: Samhain (the beginning of the Celtic year, around October 31 - now it is additionally known as Halloween), Imbolc (analogous to the Slavic Maslenitsa - around February 2), Beltane (May day - around May 1), Lammas (harvest festival - around August 1). In addition, services were held on the sixth day of each moon. This priority of the Moon over the Sun is very peculiar and remarkable.

Something else can be tried to reconstruct according to the Celtic rites of a later period; this is what the neodruids and Wiccans are trying to do (Wicca is a modern cult of the Great Mother, sometimes for some reason called the "cult of witches").

Druidic lore

“There is a 1961 Remington typewriter in comparatively good condition. The font is pre-revolutionary, also in good condition. - I caught the pleading look of the old man, sighed and flipped the toggle switch. - In short, this printing structure, unfortunately, does not contain anything new. Contains only very old ...

- Inside! - the old man whispered. “Look inside where her analyzer and thinker are.

A. and B. Strugatsky, "The Tale of the Troika"

In the Middle Ages, it was believed that the older the author, the more respectable and, accordingly, more authoritative. The experiment carried out yesterday was considered by many to be deliberately less reliable than a judgment expressed without any justification by Aristotle. The ancients, as it was believed then, knew more obviously than any contemporary.

In science, this idea was broken around in the 17th century by Galileo, Huygens and Newton - the creators of a new school of thought. But in some places she is still alive, in particular - in the views of all kinds of mystics, esotericists and seekers of the secrets of the past. They are still convinced that every sufficiently ancient caste possessed knowledge that is at least not lower than our present ones; and if this knowledge is properly comprehended, there are secrets of immortality (body, not soul), space flights or applied magic behind it.

So the druids fell victim to love for the secrets of antiquity. In general, a standard program is attributed to them - about the same thing appears in the files of Egyptian priests, Templars and many others. Healing abilities, control over someone else's will ... and, of course, incredible, impossible for their time (the meaninglessness of this phrase is obvious, but this does not prevent anyone from repeating it again and again) knowledge in astronomy.

Let's start with the latter. The Druids really knew astronomy: so, in particular, they had a completely plausible calendar, giving a deviation of the order of one or two days per year. This is much better than what the Romans had at the same time: before Caesar, they generally had an indescribable mess with dates, and January could sometimes begin in summer or end at the time of flowering. But there is absolutely no indication that the Druids knew more about astronomy than the Greeks, rather the opposite. Of course, they "told the disciples about the luminaries and their movement" (the testimony of Caesar), but the sages and worshipers of many nations did the same.

It is often read that the Druids were remarkable in calculating the movement of the sun; this is confirmed by the "decoding" of Stonehenge - supposedly this building is the most accurate astronomical instrument. Let's leave aside the question of how correct the decoding is, but it cannot confirm the Druidic knowledge in any way (the reason is stated in the chapter "Temples").

In terms of healing, the success is more confident: the healing of livestock from a variety of problems and many antidotes (and poisons?) Are mentioned, but even in the most "optimistic" stories of the ancients there is nothing that is why, say, an ill noble Roman should go to be treated somewhere in Shaggy Gaul (that was the name of Gaul, which had not yet come under the rule of Rome).

The only area in which one can look for accomplishments, at least unusual for their time, is in the domestication of animals. Here the information is exclusively indirect, but there is one rather curious mention: Quintus Sertorius, the Roman commander, made his friend a doe - a beast that at that time they did not really know how to tame - and the Celts considered this a sign that he should be listened to, because on only outstanding druids are capable of this. True, the veracity of this text is in serious doubt.

If the druids really knew how to find a common language with the animals, this is unusual for those years, but at the level of our current knowledge there is nothing exceptional in this. Naturalists of the twentieth century taught the rhino to carry a rider on its back, easily trained African elephants, zebras and all other "untamed" animals ...

Even the existence of Druidic writing - in addition to borrowed from the Greeks or Romans - is in great doubt, although there are so many stories about it, as if it was not just discovered, but also deciphered.

Reincarnation of druidism

The secular power of the Druids began to decline rapidly after the conquest of Gaul by Caesar. It is often argued that the Romans destroyed it directly; but in reality they did nothing of the kind.

Druid as seen by Stukeley.

There is an interesting hypothesis that the reason for the decline of the Druids was the revolt of Vercingetorix: the fact is that part of the Gallic tribes and part of the Druids were on the side of the rebels and actively campaigned for a war with Rome, while the other one no less actively supported the "party of peace". If in intra-Celtic disputes this looked more or less normal, then in the fateful issue for Gaul, the split between the Druids, they say, showed that they were no longer united, and dropped confidence in them.

A simple explanation is also possible: the Gauls, who fell under the influence of Rome, usually rather quickly "romanized" - they adopted Roman customs, language and even names. And the druidic faith received a strong rival in the face of the faith of the Romans. And for the secular power it was necessary that the authority of the druid be recognized by everyone, otherwise what would support his decision?

One way or another, in Gaul, the Druids are losing influence already in the first century AD; gradually the word "druid" begins to mean something like "magician" and even "magician" (or, alternatively, "scientist"). There is information about strange, surprising Celts themselves rituals, about women-druids (there were no such things before - a number of authors call them ... dryads) and other serious deviations from the previous canon.

In Britain, the post-Druidic cult will survive for quite a long time - before the mass baptism of the Britons and Saxons.

In the Middle Ages, the Druids were practically forgotten, and until the 17th century they were hardly remembered. An educated Englishman of Elizabethan times might not even know a word like that - unless he accidentally remembers a few lines from Caesar, Diodorus and Strabo.

Fashion came suddenly. In 1598, archaeologist Genbo discovered the "tomb of the arch druid", causing a scientific sensation - and the topic suddenly became in demand. First in scientific circles, and then - closer to the 18th century - in the literary and in the world. There were plays about druids (and a lot!), Poems, paintings.

William Stukeley declared the Druids the builders of Stonehenge - and at once convinced almost everyone; encouraged by this, Stukeley created a whole canon of the Druidic legend, with all the appropriate attributes: the druids turned out to be from Phenicia, while for some reason professing the Jewish faith and honoring the Old Testament, told about their secret knowledge, about temples in the form of giant snakes and other miracles; in such matters, once started, it is not easy to stop.

Collection of neodruids.

Following Stonehenge, literally all the "ownerless" ruins in England, France, and in neighboring countries were attributed to the Druids, as well as in neighboring countries too - so on a recidivist criminal they sometimes hang everything that happened in the area, from street robbery to theft of a pig. The legend was expanded and supplemented; collecting everything that is possible from Welsh and Irish legends, mixing with Stukeley's theories and speculating on their own, created (the authors themselves preferred to say "revived") a cult neodruidism... The famous poet William Blake declared the Druids, believe it or not, early Christians; many, which is typical, believed.

Neodruidism still exists today. Although, it is probably more correct to say - "they exist", because there are many neodruid societies (there are more than a dozen in England alone, and there are also Irish, French, American, Canadian ...) and they conjecture the details of the cult in their own way. They agree only on one thing: the Druids worship the Earth and nature as sacred and worship them. In principle, this is a formulation quite close to pantheism, and one can accept it as a fairly reliable hypothesis. Signs became the sacred symbols of various circles of the druids triskelionand avena... The neodruids have composed many sacred chants, "canonized" whiskey as "living water" for rituals and gather once a week for their religious events.

Druids in games

For the most part (although there are exceptions), the image of the game druids is inspired by neodruidism and tradition Dungeons & dragons, which proceeded precisely from neodruidny ideas.

Druids of the Draconic Dungeons

Druids in Dungeons & Dragons are priests of Mother Nature, most often they do not have any "named" deities at all (although, for example, in the Forgotten Realms they can serve Sylvanas or Chontia, and in Krynn - Chislev or Habbakuku). They are usually found to have a neutral (in relation to good, evil, order and chaos) worldview, and in an extremely strange interpretation: they turn out to be the patrons of balance.

Druid from Dungeons & Dragons.

On the one hand, druids are almost the only ones to whom the principle of balance is at least somehow applicable: after all, their main task is to maintain balance in nature and prevent its destruction (for example, through necromancy or the scientific and technological revolution). At times, this means, funny as it may seem, the violent inculcation of pacifism ...

On the other hand, the doctrine of "equilibrium" can claim to be the most ridiculous concept in D&D. According to this logic, if somewhere, say, good morals and a calm life have been established - the "neutrals" must take care to nurture a ferocious and bloodthirsty barbarian horde from some half-savage tribe, otherwise the balance will shift. They should equally not be satisfied with legality and anarchy, love for their neighbor and anger ... In general, their path is so difficult and ridiculous that no mother nature should reward for such a magical power.

However, most authors of books and adventures still try to somehow return to common sense and limit the claims of the druids to the non-destruction of nature reserves and not too shameless exploitation of the environment. A similar approach can be seen among the druids in the novels of Andrzej Sapkowski (and in the game “ Witcher»).

Druids of D&D are by no means pacifists, they are not forbidden to shed blood (including animals: a person has the same right to hunt as a wolf, if only for the sake of food, and not for fun). Moreover, up to the 2nd edition of AD&D, the highest posts in the druidic hierarchy were obtained by duels with higher officials; as it is easy to see, this idea is borrowed from Caesar, just from the quoted text. Such a duel can also be found in a computer game - in Baldur "s Gate 2.

Temples of the Druids are sacred groves, occasionally - some kind of buildings in them. However, D&D druids are diverse, and not all of them live in forests; the desert druid has a “grove” - an oasis, the plain druid has a stone circle in the middle of the steppe, the polar one has an ice cave, the underground (there are some!) - a grotto with rare mushrooms ...

Druid as a role-playing class

In the role-playing game, druids are essentially a kind of priests, and therefore are able to use prayer spells (healing, protective, and also controlling the weather, flora and fauna). In the third edition, they decided to recall the dark sacrifices and added a little necromancy to the druid. The druid's conventional weapons are limited, and very harsh - he, in principle, cannot study anything beyond the meager set (a curved blade, dagger, spear, sickle, club, staff, sling, and occasionally also a bow).

A druid can transform into animals, birds, reptiles - which is useful for reconnaissance, high-speed movement, escaping ... and for combat, of course. He tames animals, trains them and, if necessary, can make them fight for himself.

This basic set has migrated to many games without any changes. The accents can be different at times, but the essence is almost always the same. It is so characteristic and recognizable that, for example, cultists from Majesty - they can do about the same, but nowhere are they called druids and generally serve the god of evil - everywhere and regularly they are referred to exactly as druids.

In classic D&D, magic was the main weapon of the druids, but transformations were still auxiliary; and this situation persisted in most D&D games (series Baldur "s Gate, Neverwinter nights). However, in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of Underdark druids were given the class of prestige - shifter. Those belonging to it can learn to transform into a variety of monsters, including even demons, golems and dragons; their main weapon is combat uniforms.

The druid from World of warcraft (games that formally have nothing to do with D&D): it can be done by a magician-healer, but the development of a bear form ("tank") and a feline one (a hidden damage dealer) is more popular; running, swimming and flying forms are added to them, as well as exotic - an owl bear, which brings good luck to everyone, and the tree of life, which actively heals. Druid of Diablo 2 focuses on the domestication of animals.

Baldur's Gate 2: Druidic Grove.

The game series stands apart Realms of Arkania: there druids are not at all attached to the D&D image, and they are rather gloomy creatures, by no means alien to necromancy. More than once those willow cells will come out sideways!

AT Might & Magic a druid is simply a hybrid of a magician and a priest; in D&D, starting from the third edition, his spells are also more like such a hybrid, but in M&M there is nothing special, except for them, the druid does not. In Might & Magic VI, the druid does not gain access to the spells of Light and Dark (available to both the wizard and the priest at higher levels), but can immediately study all the basic schools of both classes.

Unfortunately, relatively few RPGs use the theme of the druid's interaction with his organization. An exception can be considered the same Baldur's Gate 2 (there you can even get your own grove!) And, in part, Neverwinter Nights 2.

In the fantasy class “our story, but with magic”, you often want to simulate a real political situation, but with a magical background; and so, when it comes to the enmity of Spain with England in the 16th-17th centuries, it turns out that the heresy of the British is not Anglicanism, but just Druidism. This approach is reflected in games as well; you can see the druid shrine (and even fight for it) in the game Lionheart.

Druid as a combat unit

Outside of the role-playing genre (and at its borders), the druid is viewed not as a lone hero, but as part of an army. In strategies ( Heroes of Might & Magic, Age of wonders, Master of magic) and role-playing with strategic combat ( King "s Bounty) he is traditionally shown primarily as a marksman, sometimes with special effects (for example, the druid's volleys in “ The legend of the knight"They also entangle the victim) or magic (lightning and stone skin in the fifth" Heroes»).

King's Bounty: The Legend of the Knight The Druid has summoned the bears and shoots magic substance at the enemy.

But at the same time, he sometimes retains a connection with wildlife, expressed in game terms. For example, in the first King's Bounty, druids avoided shooting at rare endangered creatures - dragons at all costs, and in The Legend of the Knight the mechanics are more mundane - the druid tames and summons beasts.

In other games, the key feature of the druid is transformation and combat in animal form, although they also do not shy away from magic. The most famous examples are - Warcraft iii and the already mentioned Majesty, where our heroes hide under the name of cultists.

A curious tradition of making a druid a source of magical powers or other resources for other troops comes from Magic: the Gathering... True, all computer examples (except for the computerizations of the same MtG) are rather unsuccessful.

Of course, there are games where they tried to take the druid not from D&D, but directly from history: for example, Rome: Total War... However, it cannot be said that it turned out very realistic. A druid could participate in the war, but they did not come to the battlefield as a regiment. Instilling courage and self-confidence - yes, I agree, but using druids as heavy infantry is, really, too much.

Based on the story, a series was created Celtic kings, but here they no longer hesitate to arm the druid with the most blatant magic - he makes the squad invisible, summons eagles, tames animals, heals with a wave of his hand ...

The game according to Celtic legends is also curious - Celtic tales, - where there are heroes-druids and bards. She can be safely recommended to your attention, although she has already turned many years old - there is no longer such a love embodiment of Celtic myths in games, and it is not a fact that it will appear in the future.

Druid as a carrier of secret knowledge

But in quests, druids act in a completely different incarnation - as an extremely mysterious and mystical organization with unearthly power.

They lay their rebirth in ordinary human children in order to make them their successors ( Mystery of the Druids). They build mysterious castles packed with puzzles, observatories and alchemy laboratories. They predict the end of the world, and sometimes actively bring it closer. They dream of wiping all cities off the face of the earth or washing them into the sea ...

At the same time, the druids were more fortunate in this genre than the Templars: almost all projects with their participation are of the third or fourth grade, and usually they simply do not reach the more or less picky player who distinguishes druids from dryads. But I am very much afraid that when the Templars are completely sick of the player, mid-range developers, if not talented, will take up the druids. And help them then mother nature!

We have discussed with you briefly the history of the Druids and the delusions associated with them; however, there are many related topics outside this article. It would be possible, for example, to talk in more detail about the bards and other concepts that have enriched the play and literary world of the Celts. It is possible that this article will start another cycle - about role-playing classes and their origins ...

How did the Romans achieve such a remarkable result? They had 355 days a year, and from time to time an additional month of marcedonia was introduced. It was decided when to introduce it for complex considerations ... among which not the last place was occupied by this: how are those who are in charge of the calendar doing with money? Do they lend or lend money? If they give, it is necessary that the year ends as soon as possible, and if they take the money themselves, it is worth inserting another month ... It is clear that with such orders the dates will jump like mountain goats.

Who are they - druids? Where did they come to our "civilization" and why ten centuries before us left it?

“I am a messenger of divine wisdom that hides behind hundreds of veils and lives among vain peoples. From century to century we are reborn and clothe ancient truth in new words. We are rarely deified, even less often we are glorified, but we continue to fulfill our duty. All the knowledge of the world is collected in wisdom, the light of which we carry. I know I was born many times ... I am a magician. This is the one who owns wisdom, will and strength. By combining these three forces, he commands the elements. But he can do even more: he rules over souls. "

All Indo-European peoples at the beginning of their development had a similar structure - a caste system, which included three main groups: priests, warriors and artisans (farmers). At the same time, from the very beginning, the people were headed by the priests - the wisest and just. History has brought to us testimonies of Indian Brahmans, Slavic Magi, but perhaps the most famous today are the Druids - the priests of the Celtic people. It is believed that the power that the Celts possessed (judging by historical facts and legendary evidence), they were obliged to the Druids. Druids were priests, teachers, healers, poets, musicians, and keepers of ancient knowledge. Not a single event in the life of the Celts took place without their participation. We know a lot about them, but even what we know does not answer the main question: what is their secret?

A bit of etymology

Pliny says drus, the Greek word for oak, is the etymological root of the word druid. In the literature, you can often find the same connection, coming from the names of oak in other languages: dervo- (Gaulish), daur (Irish), derw (Welsh), derv (Breton). There are many other opinions about the origin of the word "druid". Perhaps the closest to this mystery was Françoise Leroux, who in her book about druids calls them dru-wid-es, "very learned." The Latin verb videre ("to see"), the Gothic witan and the Germanic witan ("know") show the essence of the concept of "druid". So a druid is one who knows.

As the ancient wisdom repeated by Francis Bacon says, to know is to be able.

What could the druids do?

They could, with one presence or a few words, pacify angry armed men ready to rush into battle.

This is what Diodorus Siculus, the Greek historian of the 1st century BCE, says about it. BC: "Often they come out between the troops, lined up in battle formation, threatening swords, bristling spears, and pacify them, as if taming some wild animals."

Another example from Irish legends: “Before us, in the east, I saw another army outside. A calm, respectable age man, gray-haired to white, walked at the head of him. He is dressed in dazzling white robes with a border of pure silver; on his body is a beautiful whitest chiton; under the cloak is visible the light silver hilt of his sword, and he carries a bronze wand on his shoulder. His voice is gentle, like music; his speech is strong and clear ... The anger of all men in the world, from sunrise to sunset, he would have humbled with three kind words ... "

It is believed that the druids were able to predict the future by signs and omens. Cicero, for example, wrote that the Galatian druid king Deiotar understood the signs given by birds. Legends often talk about the miraculous gift of the druids to determine the outcome of battles by signs and to see the future through the veil of time.

There is evidence (which, of course, may be fiction, but it may not be) about the amazing power of the Druids over the elements: earth, water, air, fire. Legends say that druids could communicate with the souls of trees and cooperate with elves and dwarves. They could stop an earthquake and cause a storm.

... Immediately Taliesin came out and said: "You will not kill my master ..." Suddenly a terrible tornado burst into the hall. It seemed that the castle was crumbling, and no one in the hall dared to leave their place ... No one dared to move, and the storm grew and roared like a waterfall.

From the book by E. Schure "The Great Legends of France"

They were doctors and healers. They knew the subtle properties of medicinal plants, knew how to heal with music, word, touch and even presence. Pliny writes: "They called mistletoe by a name meaning 'the one that heals everything' ... They believe that mistletoe, when made into a drink, heals barrenness and serves as a remedy for all poisons." Olliach, “all that heals,” is the Welsh tradition of mistletoe.

They believed in the healing properties of sleep, knew many healing spells, and at the same time, as the myth of the god Nuada testifies, they used surgery. One of the Irish legends says: "This man possesses the strength and wisdom of a healer, the art of healing wounds, the ability to conquer death and overcome any malaise ... He recognized a person's ailment by one of the smoke coming out of his house, or by just his exhalation." ...

How to become an apprentice of the Druids?

Druids chose their disciples according to the qualities of the heart and according to the signs that accompanied their fate. Wisdom could only be accepted by a person with a noble soul, who is not able to use knowledge for his power and will not distort it, therefore it was forbidden to write down the teaching. As a result, when the Druids disappeared from the field of view of European civilization in about the X-XI centuries, they took with them both their wisdom and their magic.

The druids may have had their own stages of training and initiation. Ancient Greek geographer and historian of the 1st century AD Strabo writes: “In all Gallic tribes, generally speaking, there are three groups of people who are especially revered: fortunetellers and druids. Bards are singers and poets, soothsayers are in charge of sacred rituals and study nature, while druids, in addition to studying nature, are also engaged in ethics ... "There are sources that say that bards, soothsayers (sometimes called ovats) and druids are three stages dedication.

Bards, according to legend, had the power to be silent and the power to speak. They studied rhythms, sounds and proportions. They cognized energy flows in nature, felt its music and had the ability to transmit this music. They knew the magic of sound, the magic of words and images. They learned from nature and absorbed its sound with all their being.

“Do you see the harp that makes people and angels cry? This is a sign of divine inspiration. With her you will enchant people, guide the king and predict the fate of the people. When you touch her, you will feel my sigh. With this harp I will speak to you. No one will know my name. No man will be allowed to see me. "

From the book by E. Schure "The Great Legends of France"

Diviners, or ovates, could represent the second stage of initiation into druids. In addition to the mysteries of nature, they studied the great power of thought, which breaks through the boundaries of space and time, destroys obstacles and opens up new horizons. They predicted the future by signs and symbols, could catch the smallest signs in the life and condition of man, in nature and the universe. We can laugh at ridiculous stories about the possibility of predicting the future, as the Romans did, but in the 1st century AD Celtic soothsayers, according to Cornelius Tacitus, predicted the end of Rome: “Possessed by absurd superstitions, the Druids told them that ... the destructive flame destroyed Capitol, and this clearly shows that the gods are angry with Rome and domination over the world should go to the peoples living on the other side of the Alps. "

The druids themselves are the highest level that a person deserved after many years of training (according to various sources - at least 20).

I changed many forms until I found freedom.
I was the edge of the sword - indeed it was;
I was a raindrop, and I was a star ray;
I was the book and the title in this book;
I shone a lantern, driving away the darkness of the night;
I stretched out like a bridge over the course of mighty rivers;
I flew as an eagle in the sky ...
And the Lord himself was agitated when he saw my birth, -
After all, I was created by a magician from magicians before the creation of the world;
I lived and remember when the world came out of chaos.
Oh bards! I will sing to you, which the language will not tell ...

From the Celtic poem "Battle of the Trees"

They were the advisers and mentors of kings. Various myths speak about this, the most famous and revered of which is the myth of the Great Merlin.

Great Merlin

According to the legends of Britain and Gaul, according to the testimony of Galfrid, the archdeacon from Monmouth, Merlin was a great druid - a magician, clairvoyant and diviner. He was the mentor of the legendary King Arthur, who became a symbol of the ruler who fulfills the will of Heaven on earth.

Here is what Galfried of Monmouth writes in the “History of the Britons” (early XII century) about the origin of Merlin: “The amazed king ordered Maugantius to be summoned to him, so that he would explain whether what the woman had told was possible. Delivered to Vortegirn, Maugantius, having listened to everything in order, said to him: “From the books of our philosophers and many historical writings, I learned that many people were born this way. For, speaking of the deity of Socrates, Apuleius reports that ethereal spirits dwell between the moon and the earth, whom we call incubi. Partly they have the nature of man, partly - of angels and, when they wish, take on a human form and are combined with our women. One of them, perhaps, appeared before this woman and gave birth to this young man in her. "

But Merlin's gift, legend has it, was not based on personal ability or exercise. In one of the dialogues in The History of the Britons, Merlin speaks of the spirit that guides him through life for the sake of a great mission and great deeds: “Secrets of this kind are not subject to disclosure unless absolutely necessary. For if I expounded them for fun or to amuse my vanity, the spirit enlightening me would be silent in me, and if there was a need for it, it would leave me. "

“Yesterday, in the stormy darkness of the night, the will of the gods was going on there in the name of some distant goal, which only sometimes opened up to my eyes. And I, Merlin, the son of Ambrosius, inspiring people with awe as a soothsayer and seer, was that night only an instrument in the hands of the gods. For this, the gift of providence was sent down to me, the power that people understand as witchcraft was given. "
From the book M. Stewart "Hollow Hills"

Are the druids gone?

There are more legends about the druids than truth, more fiction than facts, more fairy tales than scientific data. But when the Celtic New Year arrives and the youth inspired by the fashion movement rushes to light new fires, today, a thousand years after the last magicians of the Celtic people left, it seems that invisible doors are opening from our world to the sacred world of the Druids. At such moments, I want to ask Merlin and the great druids of Armorica and Ulster, so that they give the strength to help those we love and protect what we believe in.

But the druids are long gone ...

Probably, these were great people, magicians and teachers. According to legends and tales, each of them reached Tula, the island of perfection, and could stay there, in the land of Bliss. But the legends say they are back. For the sake of those remaining, ordinary people who walk, moving heavily, through the circle of Abred - a world where a person has to go through all degrees of trials and reach Gwinwood, the circle of light.

Who are they, druids? Where did they come to our "civilization" and why ten centuries before us left it? Or maybe they didn't? Maybe now a man in white robes is reciting a sacred spell somewhere on a distant island, where no train, ship or plane can reach? Maybe he is waiting for a new student, a new bard and fortuneteller? Maybe the Great Merlin is already waking up, and his harp sounds, and calls somewhere ...

Saint Patrick - heir to the Druids

Patrick is the most revered saint, baptist and patron saint of Ireland. Irish sources, although much later, mark the beginning of Patrick's activity in 432, his death - on two dates: 461 and 493 years. According to an old legend, it was he who, using the example of a shamrock, explained to the Druids the meaning of the Trinity - God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. However, according to another interpretation, the shamrock explained the ancient Druidic doctrine of the existence of three circles of the world - Sugant, Abred and Gwinwood.

He came from a wealthy family in Gaul. At the age of seventeen, he fell into the hands of robbers and was sold as a slave to Ireland. After fleeing Ireland, Patrick ended up in France, where, after living in a monastery for 12 years, he studied religion under the French bishop St. Germain. According to the legends, returning to Ireland, he defeats the druids of King Loegire in a competition: "he first kindles the sacred fire and defeats them in magical competitions, demonstrating his supreme power over the world of light and darkness, fire and water." And, as the old manuscript said, when the blamelessness of the faith was recognized by the people of Ireland, and when Loegire and his druids were struck by the great miracles and divas performed by Patrick, then they believed and began to fulfill Patrick's will.

One important mystery is connected with Patrick and the Celts: why on the island, where the strongest centers of druidism and strong royal power existed, was the new faith accepted absolutely bloodlessly and without resistance?

Irish Christianity in general has become a special page in the history of both the Celtic and Christian worlds. “Christianity on the island has taken on its own, in many respects different from the widespread appearance. Irish monks had a special tonsure and calculated the Easter cycle differently from the way it was intended from Rome and was generally accepted. But the main difference was rooted in the very organization of the Irish Church and the faithful, which, shortly after the adoption of Christianity, established itself on a single principle - monasteries and their communities, or, as the Irish said, “families”.

St. Patrick was the star of the first magnitude in a resplendent constellation of “strange Celtic saints,” so strange that, for example, St. Jerome calls the Irish schismatics, popes often admonished the English kings with bulls to exterminate "these wicked", and the bishops did not receive investiture from Rome until the time of the British invasion "(T. Moore).

Irish monks were surprisingly tolerant of the old faith; moreover, they painstakingly wrote down the legends and sagas of their people in their scriptoria. If not for their work, then, probably, these legends would not have reached us. It is striking that they maintained relations with the Philids (Irish priests and storytellers), whose schools existed in parallel with these monasteries, and their songs were recorded by the monks for posterity.

The conclusion suggests itself: in Ireland there was a deliberate fusion of two traditions - ancient and late, and the organization of the island druids took the form of a new religion in order to preserve truth and knowledge in the coming era. Many facts can be cited to support this: for example, all Irish monasteries arose on the sites of former druidic centers, and often the fire that burned in the name of the ancient deity was not even extinguished, but continued to be supported by monks or nuns, and the deity acquired the status of a "saint."

“In Ireland, there was not a rupture, but a fusion, albeit a very peculiar one, of two traditions, the heritage of the oldest of which blended into the new system, was curtailed and transformed, but not rejected and cursed. We are all accustomed to the fact that the deities of defeated paganism took the place of devils, demonic creatures and other evil spirits in the system of the new Christian worldview. In Ireland, they were destined for a different, much more honorable fate - they became saints along with Patrick himself.<...> Monasteries of Imbleh-Ibar, Bek-Eriu and others were located on the site of pagan sanctuaries. It is important that not only elements of the previous system were inherited in Ireland, but also its integral model ”(S. Shkunaev).

Thanks to this step, the druids were able to prolong the life of the ancient tradition, transfer part of it to the new world. Thanks to them, the myths that became fundamental for European civilization appeared in Europe, and in particular the myth of the Holy Grail, which Jung called the last of the great myths that rose to the surface from the depths of the collective unconscious, a myth that became fundamental to Western civilization.

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