50 Fun Facts About Druids

What does the Proto-Celtic root behind the word "druid" most likely mean?

The second element comes from a root meaning 'see, know'; Pliny had already guessed at the Greek word for oak in the 1st century.

Which Roman writer left the fullest surviving account of the druids?

Caesar's portrait appears only in his survey of Gaulish society; the druids are absent from his campaign narrative.

Whose single passage gave us the image of white robes, mistletoe and a golden sickle?

One scholar notes the sickle was more probably gilded bronze, the point being to avoid iron.

Caesar said the druids met once a year in the territory of which Gaulish people?

The Carnutes' land, around modern Chartres and Orléans, was reckoned the centre of all Gaul.

According to Caesar, druidic teaching was said to have originated where?

Caesar added that eager pupils still travelled there to study the doctrine.

Caesar wrote that druid pupils might stay in training for up to how many years?

They memorised a great body of verse because writing the doctrine down was held unlawful.

For non-sacred purposes, Caesar said the druids used which alphabet?

The Coligny calendar, a later Gallo-Roman bronze, is written in Latin letters instead.

Which Gaulish druid did Cicero say he had personally known?

Diviciacus of the Aedui is the only druid known as an individual from other contexts; Caesar never calls him one.

Diodorus likened the druids' belief in souls reborn in new bodies to which philosopher?

The comparison is shaky: Pythagoreans were vegetarian for fear of animal rebirth, while the Celts sacrificed animals in quantity.

Suetonius says which emperor abolished the "cruel and inhuman" religion of the druids?

Augustus had earlier forbidden the religion to Roman citizens, and a Senate decree under Tiberius targeted druids alongside diviners.

Tacitus's sole mention of British druids describes a Roman assault on which island?

Tacitus also reports a druidic prophecy after the Capitol burned in 69 CE.

Which Roman general's 60 AD attack on the druids' island used a Batavian vanguard?

He destroyed the shrine and sacred groves, then had to withdraw before consolidating his conquest.

News of whose revolt reached the Romans just after their victory over the druids' island?

Agricola only finished bringing the island into the Empire in 78 AD.

Lucan named three Gaulish gods propitiated by blood: Teutates, Esus and which other?

A medieval commentary on Lucan links each god to a distinct method of killing.

Caesar reported that victims were burned inside a huge image made of what?

The practice later became known as the wicker man; Caesar says criminals were preferred as victims.

In Pliny's account, mistletoe was cut on which day of the moon?

The plant was caught in a white cloth so it never touched the ground.

Which animals were sacrificed after the mistletoe was cut in Pliny's rite?

Mistletoe growing on an oak was, Pliny wrote, the most sacred thing the druids knew.

What did the Gauls call mistletoe, according to Pliny?

It was believed to confer fertility and to work as a remedy against poisons.

The Coligny calendar, linked to druidic astronomy, was discovered in which year?

The bronze was probably made no earlier than the late 2nd century CE but reflects older Gaulish models.

Caesar said the Gauls reckoned time by what, rather than by days?

He also says they claimed descent from Dis Pater, a god of the underworld.

Caesar named two honoured classes in Gaul: the druids and which other?

Equites means 'horsemen'; everyone else, Caesar claimed, counted for little.

Who is chief druid at the court of Conchobar mac Nessa in the Ulster Cycle?

He foretold the fate of Deirdre before she was born.

Which blind Munster druid was rewritten as a pupil of Simon Magus?

Together they build a flying 'rowing wheel'; his daughter Tlachtga learned her secret knowledge from him.

Which druidess raised Fionn mac Cumhaill in the Fenian Cycle?

She was also his aunt; Birog, by contrast, helped Cian reach Balor's tower.

In the 7th-century Latin Lives of St Patrick, Irish druí is rendered by which word?

The druids were cast as the sorcerers opposing the saint, modelled on Pharaoh's magicians.

In early Irish law, the druid's social role was largely taken over by which figure?

One law tract allowed a druid sick-maintenance only at the rate of a commoner, whatever his rank.

The Welsh word dryw can mean 'seer' and also which bird?

Irish druí could carry the same double meaning; the wren was regarded as prophetic.

Which 17th-century antiquary first credited the druids with building Stonehenge and Avebury?

The monuments are actually Neolithic and Bronze Age, millennia older than the Iron Age Celts.

Which deist portrayed the druids as a domineering priesthood ruling through credulity?

Stukeley's near-Christian druids were partly an answer to Toland's hostile reading.

What was Iolo Morganwg's real name?

His bardic name means 'Iolo of Glamorgan'; his forgeries were exposed long after his death.

Iolo Morganwg held his first Gorsedd ceremony in 1792 at which London location?

He organised it on 21 June according to what he claimed were ancient druidic rites.

Iolo Morganwg's Gorsedd ritual survives today within which festival?

It keeps his ascending ranks of ovates, bards and druids under an archdruid.

Which 1833 Bellini opera gave the druids a place in the operatic repertoire?

Its heroine is a druid priestess torn between duty and a Roman lover.

Chateaubriand's emblematic Romantic druidess in Les Martyrs (1809) is called what?

In France the Gauls were being claimed as national ancestors, and the druids came with them.

The oldest surviving neo-druid organisation, founded in London in 1781, is which?

It began as a social club, especially for men with a shared interest in music.

In what kind of place was the AOD founded on 28 November 1781?

The King's Arms stood near Oxford Street; its first Archdruid was probably a carpenter and builder named Henry Hurle.

Which British prime minister is listed among the AOD's members?

The list also includes the novelist Thackeray and Sir Edmund Antrobus, who owned Stonehenge.

Who was asked to lead the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids in 1988?

A psychologist, he added Jungian and spiritual-psychology perspectives to the order's teachings.

The Reformed Druids of North America began in 1963 at which college?

It started as a humorous protest by students in Northfield, Minnesota.

The Reformed Druids of North America began as a protest against what college rule?

The rule was scrapped in 1964, but the group kept holding services anyway.

Which founder of Wicca had earlier been a member of a fraternal Druid order?

Gardner and Ross Nichols also jointly developed the eight-festival Wheel of the Year.

Which body did the Charity Commission register as a charity in 2010, recognising Druidry?

The registration effectively gave Druidry official recognition as a religion in England and Wales.

Modern Druid groups are usually known by what name?

The word nods to the belief that Iron Age druids held rites among trees; larger bodies are called orders.

The Druidic concept of Awen comes from Welsh and Cornish words for what?

It is often invoked by chanting the word, or 'A-I-O', three times during ritual.

Stonehenge dates to which periods, ruling out Iron Age druids as its builders?

Historian Ronald Hutton notes modern Druids adopted it as their temple just as archaeologists were evicting the ancient ones.

The bog body Lindow Man, sometimes linked to druids, was found in 1984 in which county?

Commercial peat cutters found him at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow; a year earlier they had found Lindow Woman.

What jokey nickname did Lindow Man acquire?

His official name is Lindow II; he wore nothing but a fox-fur armband.

Who built an early 20th-century nature faith around Stonehenge's solstice ceremonies?

Modern pagan Druidry descends chiefly from his current rather than from the friendly-society orders.

Welsh druid and physician William Price was arrested for openly practising what?

He was acquitted, and the case helped make cremation legal in Britain.

T. D. Kendrick's 1927 book set out to replace "a prodigious amount of" what?

He denied any link between druids and megaliths and any survival of druidic tradition.