Translation: Jon Alkorta Martiartu, PhD (EHU/UPV)
Who were the druids?
Perhaps the first image of the druids that comes to mind is that of the comic book Asterix and Obelix, in a Gallic village and preparing their potions in a cauldron. Basically, the idea of what a druid was is not so far removed from reality, or at least from what we know about them.
We can say that druid is the name given to the wizard of a tribe or village in Celtic culture. But what we know about them is not much and this has given rise, especially during the Romanticism, to the mythification of this figure.
In this entry I will give you a clue about those who know a lot about this subject, through different publications and articles that I consider to be of high quality.
A representation of the druids in Victorian painting.
First texts about the druids
The term “druid” comes from the Celtic language and could mean something like “the one who knows the oak”. That is, the one who has contact with the sacred, as the oak could be the element of union with the magical world of the Celts.
What we know of them is little, and most of it comes from the Roman legacy that lived with them on the other side of the empire’s borders. Healers or soothsayers, they were an upper caste, next to the aristocracy.
The first source we should mention is Julius Caesar, who in his Commentary on the Gallic Wars gives us a portrait of these characters from a military point of view. So important was this text that it was read and annotated by Napoleon himself as part of his tactical instruction. This text, annotated by Bonaparte, can be accessed openly at this link.
Julius Caesar.
After Julius Caesar we have other classical chroniclers who mention the druids, although not in as much detail as he did. We can cite Marcus Tullius Cicero, a contemporary of Caesar, who mentioned that he met a Gaulish druid, Divitiacus, who was a member of the tribe of the Aedui. Besides, Diodorus Siculus spoke of them in his Bibliotheca historicae in 36 BC and considered them philosophers and theologians. The historian Tacitus also speaks of the druids, being the first to mention that they also inhabited Britain. Unlike the earlier chroniclers, Tacitus saw these men as barbarians, far removed from knowledge.
But we must not forget the Celtic sources that have come down to us. They are a series of texts of a mythical and legendary nature that can give us a clue to the sacred world of the Celts and from which we can infer the role of the druids. Within Irish mythology we can mention those known as the Mythological, the Ulster, the Fenian and the Historical cycles, to which we must add those from Welsh mythology. If we want to know them in depth, we should cite Professor Ramón Sainero, whose Los grandes mitos celtas or Leyendas celtas en la literature irlandesa we can recommend.
Another text we can mention is T.W. Rolleston’s Celtic Myths and Legends. Here is a review of this book.
Monographs on the druids
The classical and Celtic sources have been deeply examined by experts in the world of the druids. There are two references in Spanish that I would like to cite and recommend.
The first one is Los druidas, by Christian-J. Guyonvarc’h and Françoise Le Roux. It was published in Spanish in 2009 by Abada Editores. Its analysis comes from the philological field where the study of this priestly caste is based on the translation and interpretation of different texts.
More grounded in archaeology and the arts is the volume entitled El mundo de los druidas, by the renowned researcher Miranda J. Green. It was published by another major publisher, Akal, which translated this text in 2010. This book complements literary sources such as the classical Celtic cycles with images from archaeological finds and, personally, it appeals to me more than the first one, although I think the two volumes are perfectly complementary.
Druids in horror films
Thanks to Jesús Palacios, one of the great experts on horror films in our country, we have a book entitled Folk Horror, coordinated by him, which brings together a series of films that exploit the mythical figures of ancient European traditions from the point of view of horror. One of the films we can mention, linked to the druidic, is The Wicker Man, the first version of which can be seen on Filmin. Besides, here is a link to the programme Mistérica Radio Secreta where Belén Doblas interviews Jesús Palacios and discusses this subject in detail.
Last recommendations
Here are a number of quality resources that are openly available:
- The Metropolitan Museum’s catalogue Treasures of Early Irish Art.
- The article “Druidas and Dryades en la sociedad celta” by Arturo Sánchez Sanz.
- The article “Druidas: del mito al hombre” by Israel Quevedo Puchal.
OpenEdition le sugiere que cite este post de la siguiente manera:
Dr. Pedro Ortega (3 de noviembre de 2023). ¿Quiénes fueron los druidas? El blog de Tartalo. Recuperado 19 de marzo de 2025 de https://doi.org/10.58079/unw0