What is a Druid?

Answer 1

In Celtic polytheism the word druid denotes the priestly class in ancient Celtic societies, which existed through much of Western Europe north of the Alps and in the British Isles until they were supplanted by Roman government and, later, Christianity. Druidic practices were part of the culture of all the tribal peoples called "Keltoi" and "Galatai" by Greeks and "Celtae" and "Galli" by Romans, which evolved into modern English "Celtic" and "Gaulish". They combined the duties of priest, arbitrator, healer, scholar, and magistrate.

The Druids were polytheists, but also deified elements of nature, such as the sun, the moon, and the stars, looking to them for "signs and seasons". They also venerated other natural elements, such as the oak, certain groves, tops of hills, streams, lakes and even plants, most of all, mistletoe. Fire was regarded as a symbol of several divinities and was associated with the sun and cleansing.

Answer 2

dukalink6 is pretty much correct but forgot to mention that there were three basic levels or classes of druid. They were Ovidd, students/apprentices, Bard, the basic teachers/journymen, and Druid.

Within the third class, (Druid) there were three sub-levels. Druid, High Druid, and Arch-Druid. The Druids were also known for being "Kingmakers" Finding the most just and liked battle chiefs (clan leaders) to be the main ruler over the other battle chiefs. (Kings in guall and Briton were post roman ocupation.)

Answer 3

Although since Christian times Druids have been identified as wizards and soothsayers, in pre-Christian Celtic society they formed an intellectual class comprising philosophers, judges, educators, historians, doctors, seers, astronomers, and astrologers. The earliest surviving Classical references to Druids date to the 2nd century B.C.E.
The word Druidae is of Celtic origin. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus, 23/24-79 C.E.) believed it to be a cognate with the Greek work drus, meaning "an oak." Dru-wid combines the word roots "oak" and "knowledge" (wid means "to know" or "to see" - as in the Sanskrit vid). The oak (together with the rowan and hazel) was an important sacred tree to the Druids. In the Celtic social system, Druid was a title given to learned men and women possessing "oak knowledge" (or "oak wisdom").

Some scholars have argued that Druids originally belonged to a pre-Celtic ('non-Aryan') population in Britain and Ireland (from where they spread to Gaul), noting that there is no trace of Druidism among Celts elsewhere - in Cisalpine Italy, Spain, or Galatia (modern Turkey). Others, however, believe that Druids were an indigenous Celtic intelligentsia to be found among all Celtic peoples, but were known by other names.

Besides observing that the name 'Druid' is derived from "oak", it was Pliny the Elder, in his Naturalis Historia (XVI, 95), who associates the Druids with mistletoe and oak groves: "The Druids...hold nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree on which it grows provided it is an oak. They choose the oak to form groves, and they do not perform any religious rites without its foliage..." Pliny also describes how the Druids used a "gold pruning hook" or "sickle" to gather the mistletoe.


"Anything growing on those trees [oaks] they regard as sent from heaven and a sign that this tree has been chosen by the gods themselves. Mistletoe is, however, very rarely found, and when found, it is gathered with great ceremony and especially on the sixth day of the moon... They prepare a ritual sacrifice and feast under the tree, and lead up two white bulls whose horns are bound for the first time on this occasion. A priest attired in a white vestment ascends the tree and with a golden pruning hook cuts the mistletoe which is caught in a white cloth. Then next they sacrifice the victims praying that the gods will make their gifts propitious to those to whom they have given it. They believe that if given in drink the mistletoe will give fecundity to any barren animal, and that it is predominant against all poisons."

It was John Aubrey, writing in the 17th century, who first thought it a "probability" that stone circles, such as Stonehenge, "were Temples of the Druids" and called his text on stone circles the Templa Druidum. This idea was picked up by William Stukeley, in the early 18th century, who subtitled his first book, Stonehenge, published in 1740, "a Temple Restored to the British Druids, and his second, on Avebury, published in 1743, "a Temple of the British Druids." Although later, in the 19th century, Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913) dated Stonehenge to a period much earlier than the time of the Druids (that is, to about 2000 B.C.E., whereas the Druids don't appear in the historical record until 1800 years later), nonetheless the view was maintained by a minority that Druids were pre-Celtic inhabitants of Britain and that the religious beliefs and practices for which Stonehenge was first built are ancestral to those of the later Celtic Druids.

Answer 4

Well it comes from Indo-European languages, compound of the words "ture" and "seer", and in particular from Celtic into the Latin "druides".
It is referred as a kind of priest, though this is probably not the exact word. Anyway, it is a man who practices a special kind of meditation (in the broadest sense of the word, i.e. a "religious experience" in the term of William James) and as such claiming to have reached some revelation of any character (for past, future, or divine events). Druids are not at all far from shamans and all the rest "sorcerers" (as Andrew lang call them). Surprisingly a very close kind of practices have muslim Sufis.
Druid is the name for shamans exclusively in Celtic tradition (that is in Ireland, Britain, the Gauls in France (esp. in Nomandy and Bretagne) and also in Spain).

Answer 5

In Dungeons and Dragons, it's a character class that uses spells to summon woodland creatures and powers from the earth.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Pagan priest in the histroy books. Meant to have possessed magical powers and were very well educated, especially in the area of stories and poems and the like. Can't say i've ever met one

Answer 8

Druids were tribesmen who lived in england years ago they were mainly P*A*G*A*N* (People Against Good And Normality)

Answer 9

It's the name of old Celtic priests who celebrated nature: cycles, Sun, trees...

Answer 10

it's a Celtic priest