What is a druid?
Answered from the commentary of For the Young and Walter Scott
A druid was a priest of the ancient religion called Druidism, which was taught in secret and handed down by the priests rather than written down. Druids also served as judges and held great influence among the people. Their religion included teachings about the soul’s immortality and life after death, and its worship involved groves, stone circles and altars, as well as animal and human sacrifices.
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Of the principles of this religion (if such it can be called) very little is known; the Druids were instructed in secret, and nothing was allowed to be put into writing. Britain appears to have had a pre-eminence in the observance of Druidism, for Julius Caesar says that "such of the Gauls as desired to be thoroughly instructed in the principles of their religion, usually took a journey into Britain for the purpose."
The Druids were judges as well as priests, and had great influence over the people; they elected from among themselves one to be Arch-Druid. They taught especially three things: bravery in war; the immortality of the soul; and life after death. These latter principles were carried out so practically that they sometimes left accounts and money lent to be settled for in the new life, and some would even cast themselves into the funereal pile to be the sooner along with the deceased ones they loved. It has been asserted that the Druids were not addicted to idolatry until after the invasion of the Romans: eventually they worshipped the sun and moon; with Jupiter, Mars, etc., as demi-gods.
The Druids had a curious way of enforcing the annual payments due to them. A tradition says that on the last day of October every family was obliged, under heavy ecclesiastical penalties, to let all the fires in their dwellings go out, and then on the first day of November they had to resort to the temple, pay their fees, and get a light from the sacred fire to re-kindle their fires at home. The time was well chosen, as the winter approached when fires were the more needful.
When Caesar landed in Britain he found that the only religion of our forefathers � if religion it could be called � was that taught by the Druid Priests, who had much influence over the people. The places where they practised their superstitious rites were usually enclosures of vast unhewn stones arranged in a circle, situated in the centre of dark forests where human victims bled under the sacrificial knife of the priest. Some fragments of these enclosures may still be seen on Salisbury Plain, and at Stennis in Orkney. So cruel and bloody were their rites, that even the merciless Roman conquerors speak of them with horror.
The invasion of the Romans gave a great check to Druidism. Tiberius banished such systems from the provinces around Rome, and Claudius put an end to them in Gaul at the same time the Druids were attacked in Britain and were compelled to take refuge in Anglesea. "Suetonius Paulinus, governor of Britain under Nero, cut down the sacred groves of the Druids, destroyed their temples, overthrew their altars, and burned many of the priests." No doubt this was because of their offering human sacrifices, as the Romans themselves were idolaters.
The places of worship were amid a grove of oak-trees, with huge stones in the form of a circle, and horizontal stones placed on the top of two or more of the upright stones. Sometimes a double row of stones was formed. The altar was at times a pile of stones or of turf, and at other times one massive stone.*
Along with the animals sacrificed, human beings were also offered; several were confined in huge enclosures of wicker-work and all burned together. At other times, a man was killed with a stroke of the sword, and then the way he fell, the contortions of his body, the way his blood flowed, were all watched and certain things were predicted from what was observed or the victim was laid on the stone altar and offered up.
It is an interesting circumstance that Bran, a British king, was at Rome as a hostage for the good behaviour of his country, during the imprisonment of Paul in the imperial city. He was probably converted by the Apostle, as on his return to Britain he was accompanied by certain Christian teachers, among whom was Aristobulus (Rom. 16:10). Bran preached Christ in Wales. Succat, a Scotch boy born on the banks of the Clyde, in the picturesque village of Kilpatrick, about A.D. 372, was carried off to the then savage island of Ireland by pirates, and converted there when about 16 years old. On his return to his family he longed to revisit the land of his captivity, and so Succat, better known as St. Patrick, carried the pure gospel to the Emerald Isle. The ancient religion of the country was that of the Druids, whose practices and mysteries were never committed to writing, but were handed down through successive generations by the priests of the system after, it is said, a twenty years' training. Slowly, but surely, however, Druidism and other Pagan superstitions disappeared before the rising sun of Christianity.
p287 [To the same.] Dearest W Kelly, - There is no doubt, I believe, of the emigration of a large part at least of the north and west emigrating from the east. The Cushites, Goths, Scyths, are all the same name and people. The Druidical religion is undoubtedly Persian, and the Druids have been traced across the north of Germany to England. The north of India was one great settlement of this race. They were called there Indo-Scyths, and settled in High Thibet and the Himalayas. You are aware of Epiphanius's division of the progressive corruption of barbaric (quaere Patriarchal) religion into Scythism and Ionism, as some say original Buddhism and Brahminism in India, and Parseeism (Sabaeism) and Hellenistic, Egyptian, Babylonian idolatry in the west. How old are the divisions of man, how little his history! Still Druidism partook too much of the elements of original Grecian or Babylonian idolatry to make this quite clear. …
It is curious in the olden times that they used to eat serpents to get wise. And it is wonderful how widespread was the idea of wisdom in the serpent. AEsculapius had a serpent in his temple. A serpent with his tail in his mouth was the image of eternity, the whole circle was in that. The Agatho-demon, or good demon, in Egypt was a winged serpent, They found represented in Mexico (though I do not know how far you can trust pictures) a woman under a tree, and the serpent offering the woman an apple. It was found as a picture. There was a great collection of such things: but it is all dispersed now. There were traces of similar things among the Druids, but evidently the Druids came from Persia.
On the other hand, Hercules, and other such mystic personages answering to Thor in many respects, a kind of god-man, destroys serpents in all manner of fables. And Krishna in India, and Teotl in Mexico, reproduce traditional accounts of scripture redemption, connected with what is said of the serpent in Genesis. Caesar produces as the doctrine of the Druids, that man's sins could only be expiated by man's death.
The danger was great, but, as ever in our island history, with the hour came the man. Looking back over the years, Cassivellaunus is to us now but a name. Emerging out of the darkness on the one side, we see him striking his many bold blows at the haughty Roman, and then he disappears into the darkness again. We know little of the social life of the period, and less of the religious, save that Druidism, with its Egyptian lore, its stern doctrines, its gloomy rites, and its blood-stained altars, held sway over the minds of men. So far, the glorious Gospel of Peace was unknown.
Another hundred years, and again we see through the mists of time another hero letting loose the British lion against the Roman eagles. But Caractacus's nine years' struggle ends in disaster, and we sadly watch the fettered chief, "with his weeping wife and children," transported as captives to Rome. Step by step the natives are forced back. The last refuge of the Druids in Anglesey is invaded, and the heathen worship is extinguished in fire and blood. The "sacrifice to devils" (1 Cor. 10:20) is coming to an end. The knowledge of the True God will soon find entrance, and to men who have lived in darkness and the shadow of death, the light of life is about to arise. But that, though soon to be, was not just yet. Another startling figure now emerges. Stung to hatred and madness by insult and suffering, the "British Warrior Queen" once again arouses the spirits of this fighting race. Fear and terror marched before: carnage and death accompanied her, and 70,000 Romans lay dead in and around London as the result of that stern campaign. But with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause, Suetonius again gathers his scattered legions, and after the next clash of arms, Boadicea, at the close of a lost battle, perishes by her own hand. And so passes another leader worthy to be remembered — noble men and women all.