Wisdomkeepers of Stonehenge
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Fig. 10.2. Late megalithic monuments in Ireland.
In England and Wales the use of megalithic sites was ended by the might of the Roman army, but in Ireland it was the persuasive words of the Roman Catholic Church that led to their demise. However, whereas the Romans reveal little regarding the stone circles, the early Christian missionaries to Ireland tell us far more about these ancient monuments and the people who used them—the enigmatic Druids.
11
The Druids’ Lasting Influence
IN 325 CE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE I oversaw the founding of what would become the Catholic Church, and in 380 CE Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire.1 By this time the empire was collapsing and being invaded by vast tribes from east of the Rivers Danube and Rhine, such as the Goths, Vandals, and Franks, whom the Romans had long referred to as barbarians. In 410 CE, to help counter this threat, the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain, and the country rapidly collapsed once again into a state of anarchy. Civilization fell apart, towns were abandoned for more defendable hillforts, and Britain was divided into various feuding kingdoms based around ancient tribal lines. Many people reverted to paganism, but in the western regions, such as Wales, Roman Christianity continued. One British-born Christian was Saint Patrick, who was ordained a bishop in 432 CE and traveled to Ireland to spread the Gospel.2 Patrick was remarkably successful in converting the Irish Celts, and other missionaries soon followed. Much of Ireland was converted to Christianity over the next few decades, the period from which archaeology has revealed stone circles finally falling into disuse. These missionaries—monks and priests—were educated men who, as well as speaking various Celtic dialects, could read and write Latin, and they and their biographers recorded much concerning the pagan beliefs of those they endeavored to convert. From such works, coupled with the biographies of the early Christian missionaries, usually referred to as Saint’s Lives, we learn that the Druids still existed in Celtic Ireland just as they had in Britain many centuries before.
Fig. 11.1. The Western Roman Empire and the surrounding lands.
The various Saints’ Lives, or hagiographies, as they are called, were composed by monks writing from the fifth to the seventh centuries CE, and in them the Druids are frequently referred to as a pagan sect that continually challenged the work of the church. For example, in Vita Sancti Columbae (Life of Columba), the short biography of the Irish priest Columba, who preached during the mid-500s, written by Adamnán of Iona, the Druids are mentioned eleven times,3 while Vita Sancti Patricii (Life of Saint Patrick) by the seventh-century Irish bishop Muirchu describes how Saint Patrick managed to convert many Celtic chieftains, who then drove the Druids from their lands.4 Early Christian missionaries in Ireland were later canonized as saints by the Catholic Church (hence the Saint’s Lives), and in the fifth century CE alone, dozens of them are recorded as encountering the Druids: Saints Assicus, Banban, Benignus, Dabheog, and Olcán, to name just a few. And what we learn from their hagiographies is that the Druids regarded the stone circles and other megalithic monuments as sacred, having been built by their esteemed forebears.5
In Ireland, not only did the Druids meet and perform ceremonies at stone circles, but many of these sites also were, and still are, named after them. For example, the stone circle at Kenmare is known as the Druid Circle, the one at Drombeg is called the Druid’s Altar, the Canfea Stone Circle is the Druid’s Ring, the Templebryan Stone Circle is called the Druid’s Temple (see chapter 10), and a megalithic complex at Killiney near Dublin was called the Druids Sanctuary. The use of stone circles was seemingly of such importance that they were used by culture after culture—the Neolithic people, the Beaker people, the Wessex culture, the Urnfield culture, and the Iron Age Celts—all over the British Isles. It’s reasonable to assume, therefore, that the Druids, at the very least, had some notion concerning why these baffling structures were originally built. So can the writings of these early Christian missionaries in Ireland regarding this enigmatic sect help us to finally solve the mystery of stone circles such as Stonehenge?
The early Christian monks in Ireland often documented the beliefs of the pagan people they encountered, much like Victorian missionaries wrote about the tribal religions of Africa. The church at the time was not the kind of authoritarian institution it was to become during the later Middle Ages, and works concerning paganism—at least as a curiosity—were written by clerics throughout the contemporary Christian world. Monasteries contained just about the only libraries to survive during the post-Roman era in Western Europe—a period commonly referred to as the Dark Ages—and the monks who maintained them were the nearest thing many nations of the period had to historians. In Ireland, in addition to the hagiographies, texts were compiled concerning pre-Christian perceptions, which, until this time, had only been transmitted orally. Although containing various mythological themes, these works, both in poetic and narrative form, also reflected the history of Ireland as it had been envisaged by the earlier Irish Celts. Such documents were originally committed to writing from the fifth to the seventh centuries CE, and they survive today in the form of medieval copies assembled into manuscripts collectively referred to as “early Irish literature.” Chief among them are:
The Book of Leinster, kept in Trinity College Dublin, thought to have been originally compiled by a scribe known as Columba of Terryglass on behalf of the chieftain of Leinster, a tribal kingdom in eastern Ireland, during the early 500s CE.
Lebor na hUidre (The Book of the Dun Cow), kept in the Royal Irish Academy, reputedly compiled by Ciarán, the abbot of Clonmacnoise in central Ireland, during the mid-500s CE. (The manuscript was so named as it was written on parchment made from brownish-gray cowhide.)
The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, or Irish Annals for short, preserved in several manuscripts held at the Royal Irish Academy, Trinity College Dublin, and the National Library of Ireland, a collection of historical chronicles originally compiled during the early Christian era by monks from various monasteries.
Such manuscripts reveal that the pre-Christian Celts believed that when they first came to Ireland, which historically occurred around 500 BCE, the country was occupied by a race called the Tuatha De Danann (pronounced “thoo-a day du-non”): the People of Danu. Who or what Danu was is unclear, and scholars have long debated its meaning: is it the name of a goddess, a ruler, or the place from where these people were thought to have originated? Recent thinking is that the word actually derived from the Celtic term dán, meaning “skilled” or “knowledgeable.” If so, then the term Tuatha De Danann would mean something like the Wise Ones.
Although these works include clearly mythological themes, such as mythical beings and deities wielding magical powers, the portrayal of the Tuatha De Danann in early Irish literature would appear to have been genuine recollections of the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland handed down through oral accounts embellished over time. The Irish annals tell us that the Tuatha De Danann (Tuatha for short) arrived in Ireland some 2,500 years before the period of the first Christian missionaries—around 2000 BCE by today’s dating—which would fit with what archaeology has revealed about the reintroduction of the Megalithic culture by British migrants at this time (see chapter 10).6 Although in more recent Irish literature the Tuatha are often depicted as tall with light complexions and fair hair, likening them to Vikings (which, incidentally, inspired Tolkien’s elves), the earlier accounts differ. They are indeed described as looking different from the Celts, but with red hair, which again tallies with archaeology. Although today red hair is popularly associated with Celtic nations such as Scotland and Ireland, the original Celts, as we shall be examining shortly, generally had brown hair. (The physical features of the various inhabitants of the British Isles have been determined from DNA analysis of ancient human remains and some extraordinarily well-preserved bodies found in peat bogs.) Although various accounts portray the Tuatha as supernatural beings, they are generally depicted as mortal; wh
en they died, we are told, they were interred in the many tumuli that exist all over Ireland (see chapter 10). The Irish annals, for instance, refer to these ancient mounds as sídhe (pronounced “shee”), telling us how the Tuatha built them as magic portals and relating that once they were buried beneath them their spirits entered a mystical realm.7 Once more, this connects the Tuatha with the Megalithic culture. In reality, these tumuli were the burial mounds of the Beaker and Wessex people who existed in Ireland before the arrival of the Celts (see chapter 9).
The most exalted among the Tuatha are said to have been the Clann Lir, the Children of Lir, the offspring of a god called Lir, who were transformed for many years into swans by a jealous stepmother. They were ultimately returned to human form, and from them were descended the Druids, who remained on Earth once the other Tuatha had been buried beneath the mounds. The story of this transformation, as told in a Dark Age Irish tale called The Fate of the Children of Lir, preserved in three separate manuscripts at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, seems to have been inspired by Druidic attire. The early Christian writers tell us how the Druids, upon initiation, wore a ceremonial cloak called a tugen, made entirely from swan feathers. According to the early Irish literature (for example, in Dark Age accounts preserved in the so-called Speckled Book in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin), when the Celts arrived in Ireland they accepted these Druids—those who preserved the spiritual knowledge of the People of Danu —as their priesthood.8
Before continuing, it is important to say something about modern-day Druids. During the eighteenth century, the antiquarian John Aubrey made the first modern surveys of megalithic monuments such as Stonehenge and Avebury, and after consulting the works of early Irish missionaries and various Greek and Roman accounts, he associated them with the Druids, initiating a wide interest in this mysterious sect. At that time no proper historical research had been conducted into the beliefs of the ancient Celts, and scholars were left to imagine what Druidism might have entailed. By the early twentieth century various Druid orders had been founded, modeled on Freemasonry and the popular occult societies established during the Gothic revival of the 1800s. Some still exist today, such as those who perform an annual ceremony at Stonehenge at the midsummer solstice. However, these organizations have no direct connection to the Druids of old; their beliefs, rituals, and mode of attire are, for the most part, based on the romantic notions of the Victorian era coupled with modern Wiccan and New Age philosophies. If we really want to know about the Druids who used stone circles in ancient times, we need to examine what the original historical sources reveal.
According to early Irish literature the Druids were endowed with exceptional gifts. In “The Cattle Raid of Cooley” and “The Fate of the Sons of Usnech,” two tales found in The Book of Leinster, the Druids are portrayed as teachers, healers, herbalists, poets, prophets, diviners, and astrologers.9 They also wielded political power. We are told that Druids not only acted as advisors to chieftains, such as one Cathbad in “The Fate of the Sons of Usnech,” but they also exercised great authority as judges. A work titled “Bricriu’s Feast,” from The Book of the Dun Cow, actually relates that they were more than simply advisors to tribal chieftains but acted as the real power behind the throne: the Druid Sencha, for instance, orders an end to fighting between noblemen when even the king is ignored.10 “The Cattle Raid of Cooley” also recounts how the Druids’ authority exceeded that of royalty: no one could speak before the king, we are told, but even the king could not speak before the Druids.11 There are several occasions referred to in other stories from The Book of Leinster where Druids mediate in feuds between rival tribes, while Cu Chulainn’s Death, a Dark Age Irish tale preserved in the British Library, refers to a Druid reminding the adversaries that their families will forever be dishonored if they refuse his demands to lay down their arms.12 Also, throughout early Irish literature there are repeated references to female Druids sharing the same prominent religious and cultural roles as their male counterparts, reflecting Celtic society as a whole, in which women enjoyed equal status to men (see chapter 10). In fact, we learn that Druids lived in mixed-gender communities, set apart from the general population, where they married and had children, and women were often their leaders.13
All of this tallies with what we learn from ancient Greek and Roman writers concerning the Druids in earlier Celtic society elsewhere. Writing around 50 BCE, in The Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar tells us that “the Druids usually hold aloof from war, and do not pay taxes with the rest; they are excused from military service and exempt from all liabilities.”14 He describes them as “persons of definite account and dignity. . . . It is they who decide in almost all disputes, public and private; and if any crime has been committed, or murder done, or there is any disposes about succession or boundaries, they also decide it, determining rewards and penalties.”15 The Greek philosopher Strabo, in his Geographica (Geography), written around 10 BCE, also refers to the Druids as judges: “The Druids are considered the most just of men, and on this account they are entrusted with decisions concerning both private and public disputes.”16 According to Caesar, anyone who disobeys them suffers the “heaviest penalty.”17 Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian from the island of Sicily, in his Bibliotheca Historica, written between 60 and 30 BCE, confirms what the early Irish literature tells us about the Druids acting above and beyond the authority of chieftains, not only as arbitrators but also having the influence to order the cessation of hostilities: “Many times, when two armies approach each other in battle with swords drawn and spears thrust forward, [the Druids] step forth between them and cause them to cease.”18 Strabo relates something similar, saying that the Druids “made the opponents stop when they were about to line up for battle.”19
The Greek and Roman authors tell us that, as well as being priests, prophets, healers, judges, arbitrators, and advisors, the Druids were believed to commune with the gods. Diodorus Siculus, for example, writes that the Druids were “experienced in the nature of the divine, and speak, as it were, the language of the gods.”20 Pomponius Mela, a Roman geographer writing around 43 CE, in his Description of the World, elaborates on this theme by explaining what this “language” entailed: the Druids, he says, claimed to know “the will of the gods from the movement of the heavens and stars.”21 And Hippolytus of Rome, a Christian theologian writing in the early third century, in his Refutation of All Heresies, tells us that the Druids made prophesies and pronouncements based on mathematical calculations and equates their ability with that of the ancient astronomer and mathematician Pythagoras.22 In other words, the will of the gods was revealed through astrology. Julius Caesar explains how such astrological pronouncements were made at specific times of the year and at particular sacred places where individual tribes assembled to hear what the Druids had to disclose.23 From the evidence we have gathered so far, it would seem that in Britain such places were stone circles and that the specific times of the year were the solstices and equinoxes (see chapter 6).
Fig. 11.2. Sites in England and Wales discussed in this chapter.
These classical sources confirm that the Druids included both men and women. Strabo, Pomponius Mela, and the Greek geographer Artemidorus of Ephesus (who wrote around 100 BCE) all refer to female Druids holding the same authority as their male counterparts. And as the early Irish literature suggests, they refer to Druids of both sexes living together in isolated communities. Strabo describes such people living separately from other Celts,24 as does Pomponius Mela, who specifically refers to such locations as being in isolated woodland.25 The first-century Roman poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (better known as Lucan), in his work Concerning the Civil War, tells us that they lived in nemora alta remotis—“remote woods.”26 Pliny the Elder, a distinguished Roman author writing about the same time in his Natural History, tells us that the Druids specifically chose oak woods, as the tree was sacred to them.27 And Tacitus, in his Annals, relates how the Romans deliberately targeted such Druid woodlands when they a
ttacked Anglesey.28 In fact, the Druids appear to have been a distinct group of people who only procreated among themselves. Caesar29 and Pliny the Elder30 both refer to them as an exclusive class, similar to an aristocracy. Hippolytus of Rome tells us that the Druids were the highest caste of Celtic society and likens them to Brahmins of India, who were known since the time of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE.31 In ancient Hinduism, society was divided into strict factions where the Brahmins—the priestly class who protected sacred learning through generations—were the elite and were forbidden to procreate outside their caste.
In Ireland the custom of the Druid priestly class living in communities outside normal society would explain an unusual feature of the first Christian monasteries in the country, which seem to have been based on the earlier Druidic tradition. The kind of Christianity that flourished in Ireland during the fifth and sixth centuries CE was very different from that practiced by the contemporary Roman Catholic Church. Generally referred to as the Celtic Church, its monasteries were not the cloistered, single-sex institutions favored elsewhere, but mixed-gender settlements consisting of families living in a kind of Christian commune: less like traditional monastic institutions, more like modern Amish communities. This was a matter of contention when missionaries from the Celtic Church crossed the Irish Sea and began to found their style of monasteries in Britain during the sixth century CE. One of the leading figures of the new British branch of the Celtic Church was a priest called Gildas, who founded such institutions at Bangor in North Wales and at Glastonbury in the county of Somerset. Not only was he married, but he also sired at least five children, one of whom was to found further such communities at Llantwit and Llancarfan in South Wales.32 Both Gildas and this son, Neothon, were proclaimed saints by the Celtic Church. According to the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon historian Bede, in 597 CE, in order to reestablish Catholic control over this branch of Christianity, the pope, Gregory the Great, sent a bishop, Augustine, to Britain, where he was ultimately appointed archbishop of Canterbury. However, the Celtic Church refused to submit to his authority, and over the next few decades, further envoys were sent by successive popes until this dissident branch of Christianity was fully integrated within the Roman Catholic Church.33