In Our Time: The Druids

I haven't yet had time to listen to the podcast, but can I rest assured that the programme discussed at length the theory of the druids express by Nigel Tufnell in Spinal Tap?



"In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people... the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing..."



It seems accurate to me.

As always very enjoyable.

It was questioned "why mistletoe" ?

Driving ( or walking ) thro` the countryside in mid winter seeing a big bunch of mistletoe growing high up in a leafless tree is a strange sight.



The lack of a rational explanation as to why that tree and not another standing nearby merely adds to the mystery.

It is not at all hard to understand why it should impress Druids. I still find it impressive and I know the process.

I always understood that mistletoe was revered by the ancients as a clear sign of life and growth on otherwise leaf-less trees, during the winter months.



As an aside, the 'Boudica Dreaming' series of novels by Manda Scott provide an absorbing and imaginative account of the role of Druids in Roman Britain. This ancient culture clash was alluded to in the program.

druids were not a race but members of a religious order about which virtually nothing exact is known; most of what is claimed about them is speculation compounded by hearsay,in short, invented.as an oral tradition it died out completely.

We loved the Stonehenge bouncy castle at the Olympic opening ceremony, loved it for it's irreverent joyfulness and the rarest of chances to leap on to a national monument when the real thing is quite out of bounds.

there is no way of knowing anything about the mental processes and practices of druiids that is not hearsay and speculation/wishful thinking.it is no longer a real, living tradition(viz. the etymology of that word)the reason: the last druid died or was killed hundreds of years ago. most of the nonsense talked about druids is just that, and /or fantasy and invention.

Blake inveighed against systemetizers and priesthoods. He was for deities that ‘resided in the human breast’.He was for a Stonehenge of the imagination.The Romans had a lot to do with the destruction of Stonehenge,regarded by the occupying power as a dangerous focus for resurgent nationalism,when the flourishing cult of Druidism was stamped out with unusual ferocity,also due to the practice of human sacrifice,inimical to both Greeks and Romans.Druidism was thought to be more of a political force in Gaul than in Britain.



There is no evidence for connecting Stonehenge with the Druids,whose ceremonies and observances took place in natural groves of trees, caves, rivers,rather than in artificial temples.Only if the Romans did destroy Stonehenge would this be evidence for a Druidic association with the monument.Druids may have made ceremonial use of the stone circle but recent evidence suggests that the megalithic stones at Stonehenge belong to a BA culture(2100-1600BC).



Also deliberate overthrowing of the stones probably took place in the Middle Ages due to the use of prehistoric monuments as the centres of pagan rituals,a threat to the spiritual power of the Church.The Celtic priesthood ,the Druids,flourished in Gaul and in Britain from 200 BC.The Druids association with Stonehenge starts from John Aubrey’s and Stukeley’s suggestion of it being a Druidic temple.The popularity of this notion is due to its Romantic appeal and due to the public fascination with human sacrifice.The double whammy of the occupying Romans and the rise of Christianityboth were responsible for the decline of Druidism.

most of what is supposedly known about druids is guesswork, imagination and wishful thinking.-that is not remotely knowledge.