Historians now believe that it is unlikely that these people ever met together in 'covens' to work magic in the way that witch finders and modern writers have described. instead, it seems far more likely that they worked as the local wise person, using their knowledge of spellcraft, herbalism and natural magic to help the local community in the ways described. it is also likely that they trained One or two other people in their craft, often from within their own family. Clearly, the Cunning Folk were in positions of great influence within their community. They seemed to possess the power of life and death, and of secret knowledge, and if they failed to save a life or if a villager grew worse under their care, one can imagine the hatred this might have provoked. Powerful people evoke respect and admiration, but they can soon be turned upon with a fury that matches in intensity the awe in which they are held. To become a Cunning person required devotion and courage, as well as both practical and psychic skills. As with all professions that require the use of power, there are always unscrupulous practitioners who will prey on the gullibility and superstitions of others, and who will do anything for money or favours, hence the fear of 'wicked Witches', 'evil magicians' people who will, for a price, use their abilities not to heal but to harm.
The World of the Druid
While the Cunning Folk worked alone or in small groups, and were the local wise people and healers in rural communities, the Druids were an organized elite, exempt from warfare and paying taxes, and they acted as judges, teachers, philosophers and advisers to chieftains, kings and queens. They appear very different to the image that we hold of Witches, until we examine them in more detail.
The origins of Druidism are lost in the mists of time. All we can say is that gradually, as successive migrations of peoples from as far away as Anatolia and Caucasia arrived in Ireland and the British Isles, their spiritual beliefs and magical practices mingled with those of the indigenous population, and at a certain time these became focused within the great stone circles. Later, as more migrations occurred, tribes which have come to be labelled as Celtic settled in these lands, and Druidism evolved as both a spiritual and cultural force that existed from Ireland in the West to Brittany in the East, and possibly as far as Anatolia, now Turkey. Druidism flourished for over a thousand years until the arrival of Christianity. By the sixth century it had ceased to exist in its complete form, and it was only revived after another thousand years, in the seventeenth century.
During the time that Druidry flourished, the classical writers tell us that they were organized into three groupings - Bards, Ovates and Druids. The Druids were teachers and philosophers; the Bards were poets, storytellers and musicians, who used their knowledge of the power of the word and of sound to inspire and enthral, to entertain and to charm - and even to bewitch.
The Ovates were seers and diviners, and it seems likely that they were also healers, herbalists and midwives. They have been variously termed by classical writers as Vates, Uatis, Euhages, and the word 'ovate' may derive from the Indo-European root uat, 'to be inspired or possessed'. The classical author Strabo described the Ovate as 'an interpreter of nature'. It was the Ovates who were skilled in reading omens and divining auguries - whether from the flight of birds, the shape of clouds, or the behaviour of animals or the weather - and it was the Ovates whose task it was to heal, using their knowledge of herbs and spells to cure disease in humans and livestock. The Ovate seems, in numerous ways, identical to the type of person many people would describe as a Witch. But what became of the Ovates?
With the triumph of Christianity over all indigenous faiths in Britain by about the sixth century, the Bardic tradition continued, with schools of Bards existing in Ireland, Wales and Scotland until the seventeenth century. The Druids, being the professional elite, were absorbed into the new dispensation. Nothing more is heard of the Ovates, who seem to simply disappear. Or did they? If you knew how to cure someone, would you stop doing this under a new religious order? Would you refrain from passing on your knowledge to your children, or to your students, so that they too might cure others? The same goes for midwifery skills, for the knowledge of tree, herb and animal lore, and for the ability to do magic, to make spells and potions. It is likely that, with the coming of Christianity, the Ovate stream of Druidry went underground but did not die out: you cannot prevent this kind of knowledge from being passed on - even though it may change in the passing.
It is possible that through word-of-mouth tradition, the Ovate stream of Druidry became one of the sources that fed later generations of healers and followers of the Old Ways, until they came to be known as the Cunning Folk. And it is primarily these Cunning people who are now held as Witches in modern popular perception.
Those who study Druidry today find that as they enter the Ovate period of their studies, they seem to develop and get in touch with precisely those parts of themselves that are now associated with the Witch, and that others associate with the shaman, including the ability to navigate the inner world, and develop seership.
When the two worlds of Witchcraft and Druidry are brought together, we find at the place of their meeting the figure of the Ovate-Witch who presides over a knowledge of the mysteries of Life and Death, whose cauldron offers the wisdom that is known in Druidry as Bright Knowledge.
Ovate and Witch
The words of the Bard lead us into the inner world, the Otherworld, that territory which lies beyond death, and that we visit sometimes in our dreams and our meditations. And even though the images, sounds and ideas that we experience there may seem less substantial than the 'reality' of our physical world, they often bring us inspiration and provide us with the guiding ideas and feelings that help us live out our lives. Once we learn how to tread the ways that lead into this Otherworld, we find ourselves in the realm of the Ovate-Witch – a realm presided over by the Goddess with her consort ever-present as the fertile God, Cernunnos as he is sometimes called. It is here that we learn of the mysteries of death and rebirth, and of the force that guides us through this process, the force of life itself - sexual energy. Imagine this force as a crystalline sparkling liquid in a cauldron of the Goddess, stirred by the God. As droplets fall from this cauldron, they bring energy and creative power to whoever and whatever they touch.
Change the image of the cauldron to that of a sacred well - a spring. The water in the well is this same energy, conveys the same power, and you see the water flowing from the sacred pool into a stream, which joins a river, which joins the sea. Water flows through the world, and through our bodies, and brings us life. And in death we are ferried across the waters to the Blessed Isles in the West, until after a time in the Summerlands, we are born again through the waters of the womb into new life on Earth.
This realm of water, of the cauldron, of life force, not only brings sensual pleasure and rebirth, but also healing and deep refreshment. If you gaze upon the surface of this sacred pool on the night of a full moon, you may be able to see beyond time, through time, to gain a deeper knowledge of your own being and of the fate of the world.
This is the realm of the Ovate, and I believe it is the realm of the Witch too. The outer forms of Ovate and Witch, or Druid and Wiccan practice may differ, but it is the same pool, the same wellspring that each hopes to contact. And the way that we can do this is through listening to the old stories, for that is the way, in an oral tradition, that spiritual teachings have always been conveyed.
The Forest School of Druidcraft
With the coming of Christianity to Ireland, many of the pagan ways were not lost - they simply took on a Christian gloss. Luckily, the old art of storytelling did not die. The new dispensation allowed the Bardic schools that were already established to continue taking pupils, and these flourished until the seventeenth century in Ireland, Wales and Scotland, retaining their memory of the old stories and their teachings of the creative power of music and voice.
So there you have the most amazing thing happening - the spiritual tradition of the Druids and Ovates as em
bodied in the Bards and their tales, is taught for over a thousand years, in modified and Christianized form in the Bardic schools. By the time the last of these schools closed its doors, the old tales were well and truly embedded in the collective mind - in folklore and in the popular imagination. The very landscape of Ireland and the British Isles is steeped in these tales, and all we need to do, to connect once again with their power and the teachings that they convey, is to journey into the land and listen to these old stories once again.
The tales then become our teacher, the wilderness and the forest our school.
An Invitation
Over the next five chapters you are invited to join just such a school, where we can listen to the songs of the Earth and the old tales, and explore that magical territory shared alike by Ovate and Witch, by Druidry and Wicca.
The Bard's Tale
Each chapter is like a lesson in this Forest School, and begins with a Bard telling a story, just as the teachers of the old Bardic schools told the old stories to generations of students, connecting those gathered around them to the current of ancestral wisdom that was conveyed in the vivid images and extraordinary events described.
In the stories that follow, I have retold some of these old Celtic tales - keeping to the structures and key themes of the old stories, but retelling them in my own way. These tales are meant to be told and retold in many different ways, and are not meant to be read as set in stone. Also, I deliberately refrain from explaining the stories too much. Their power lies in their ability to sneak past the rational mind and too much explanation destroys this power.
The Colloquy
Each tale is followed by a dialogue between a teacher and a pupil. The dialogue is a highly effective method of teaching - it was used in ancient Greece, and is well-known as the teaching method favoured by Socrates, in what has come to be known as the Socratic Dialogue. It was also used by the Druids and in Irish texts such a dialogue is known as a 'Colloquy', the most famous of which recounts the conversation between two poet-shamans in The Colloquy of the Two Sages.
Practical
After the Colloquy, the practical section of the lesson suggests ways in which you can work with the ideas presented. Just as the stories are not set in stone, neither are these. I see Druidcraft as a path of freedom and creativity. Both Wicca and Druidry offer tools, perspectives and sources of inspiration for us to craft our own practice. We can continue to honour tradition, while also honouring our own gifts and needs, making use of the materials and inspiration available, not only here, but also in the wonderfully varied worlds of Wicca, Druidry and allied subjects.
History
At the conclusion of each chapter, the history section answers the question: “Where is all this coming from?” As you will see, the material presented is based on solid facts and historical sources. At the end of the book there is a Resource section which provides notes and further avenues for study.
Avronelle
I have named our school 'Avronelle', an old name for the land around a great chalk figure in Sussex - the Long Man of Wilmington. But Avronelle is really somewhere in the Otherworld, somewhere far away, but also very close. It is a place beside the sea, a place that can lead you to cross the threshold between the Known and the Unknown, so that new energy, new ideas can flow into your life as easily as the tide washes back and forth across the shoreline …
CHAPTER TWO
The Secret of the Returning Tide,
The Ways of Blessing
Let me dip thee in the water,
Thou yellow beautiful gem of power!
ln water of purest wave,
Which pure was kept by Brighid.
A blessing on the gem,
A blessing on the water,
And a healing of all bodily ailments
To each suffering creature!
From The Silver Bough. (ed. Marian McNeill)
Druidcraft can be seen as both a spiritual path and a path of magic. The art of living well involves knowing how to be both active and passive - how to engage with the world and contribute to it, and how to relax and let life flow around you. It is the same with the art of magic. It involves learning how to be passive or receptive - how to let life's blessings flow effortlessly towards you - and how to be active – how to influence your life positively to become a force for good, for creativity and healing in the world.
The blessing above is an ancient one, and was used in Ireland and Scotland to charge magically both crystals and water for healing. Learning how to bless and be blessed is the first step in learning how to become a magician.
Imagine that you have just arrived for the first time at Avronelle. You are shown into a thatched roundhouse, and you seat yourself beside the fire. Gradually, you allow yourself to relax completely. As you do so, a Bard picks up his harp and plays for a while until you feel yourself in that wonderful state halfway between the world of this life and the world of dreams. Then he begins his tale:
The Story of the Selkie
On the islands of the Shetlands and the Outer Hebrides it was considered that a great misfortune would befall you if you ever killed a seal - whether by accident or with ill intent. Seals were thought to be magical creatures that brought blessings to the sea and to the land, and it was even believed that some clans were descended from seals - way back in the distant past when animals and humankind could speak together, and shared the world as one. But there are many tales of humans, both men and women, who in later times enslaved seals and took them as their spouse, to keep their homes and bear them children.
These were no ordinary seals. They were magical creatures part human, part seal and they were known as silkies or selkies. Every year at Midsummer's Eve, or at Bealteinne Eve, a dozen of them would swim ashore at midnight, peeling off their silver skins, leaving them on the rocks, to become men and women for a while, and they would dance together in a circle in the moonlight. This dance would be led by a mysterious old man, a wizard, who would chant and lead the rhythms, until at last the seals would pair off (for there were six males and six females) to make love beside the sea, and beneath the moonlight. Then they would climb back into their silver skins and return to the sea, the women carrying the next brood of selkies within their wombs.
One year an old fisherman, Taggart, had been gathering cockles amongst the rocks, and had fallen asleep on his jacket as the sun was setting. He awoke at midnight to see the mysterious dance taking place in the moonlight, and he was captivated by the selkies' beauty. Each was fair and tall, with fine golden hair. And the eyes of each one shone with a radiance and a knowledge of both land and sea that was as beautiful as it was uncanny.
The dance over, the thirteenth member of the party, the Cunning Man a-centre strode swiftly away from the beach, soon to disappear in the distance. Taggart could hardly believe his eyes when he saw six couples walk hand in hand to different parts of the beach, until at last they lay down together, entwining themselves in warm and passionate embraces. Speechless, with eyes wide and mouth half-open, Taggart watched the scene, until eventually each selkie walked to their little pile of crumpled silver skin that lay on the rocks, climbed into it, at once transforming themselves into a seal which then slid gracefully into the sea, diving and disappearing without trace.
But there was one selkie who could not become a seal again. She looked in vain for her skin, but could not find it. Taggart stepped forward from his hiding place in the rocks, startling her with his sudden appearance. He had hidden her skin, and now held it in his hands. Her clear dark eyes fixed him with a steady gaze and she simply held out her arms to him, and said, 'Please give my skin to me. Without it I cannot return to the sea.'
'Fair woman,' Taggart said, 'Don't go back to the sea. You are so beautiful that I have fallen in love with you, and I want you to be my wife. Stay with me here and marry me.'
'I cannot stay too long on land,' she replied, 'for my skin goes dry and cracks, and I yearn for the sea.' But Taggart insisted, and fina
lly she agreed to stay with him for seven years, so long as she could then return to the sea where she belonged.
Nine months later she bore a child, and Taggart never knew whether he or her selkie partner was the father. But the lad was fine and strong, and the mother and child loved each other with a fierce love that both pleased and troubled the fisherman, who had hidden her skin amongst the cottage thatch.
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