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History textbooks most often reproduce a picture depicting a Gallic druid pruning a mistletoe: "A priest dressed in white," says Pliny, "climbing a tree, cuts off a mistletoe with a golden sickle, which is collected in a white cloak." Few of the fragments of the Greek-Latin literature devoted to the Celts can be called as famous. Paradoxically, the question of whether the Druids really performed human sacrifices or not was of much lesser concern to erudites than this rite of collecting a medicinal plant.
Nevertheless, celtologists and historians have at their disposal a number of Greek and Latin texts in which there is a mention of the Druids. [122 - There are seventeen such authors in total. However, it is obvious that the information that may interest us is scattered in the works of a much larger number of writers.] It is the comparison or collation of the evidence given by these texts, and their refinement by comparison with documentary evidence about the island Celts, will form the basis of our work. But before proceeding with it, we should define some terms and, above all, the very concept of "druid".
HISTORICAL DRUID AND LEGENDARY DRUID
Most classical authors cite, rather, theoretical rather than practical definitions, rumors that cannot be verified, and information, an infinite number of times repeated by generations of historians and presented as an exotic curiosity, which has become boring to the teeth from such prolonged use … Only a small number of authors represent a limited circle of real documents suitable for research, and all facts and deeds concerning the Druids in the history of antiquity were quickly, detailed and accurately described.
The only Continental Druid whose personality we know of is Divitiac, [123 - "Divine" = devos, "god" with the adjective suffixes "-like".] Who played a major role in the development of relations between Caesar and the Celtic Aedui government in the early years of the Gallic War (58-50 BC). Divitiak (lat. Divitiacus) ruled the state, negotiated with the proconsul, in particular actively acting as an intermediary in favor of his brother Dumnorix (lat. Dumnŏrix), whom Caesar had every reason to be suspicious of. [124 - Caes., V. G. I, 18-19, for details see A. Holder, Altceltischer Sprachschatz, I, 1260-1262.]
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Dumnorix = Dubnorix = Divnorik
However, it is not Caesar at all, but Cicero, in one elegant speech on philosophy and the art of divination, informs us that Divitiac was a druid. [125 - Cic, De Divinatione, I, 40, 90.] Most surprising of all, Caesar is everywhere praises Divitiac for his loyalty to the Roman people. Did Divitiac represent the interests of the Roman side, while his brother Dumnorix led the nationalist, popular party? Which of them was deceived and who acted sincerely? Perhaps no one, but it is not our task to delve into an issue that goes far beyond all the political problems of this period.
Dumnorix's Celtic Coin
The second historical meeting of the Druids with the Romans was less cordial. In the second half of the 1st century AD, Britain rebelled and, as Tacitus tells us, the commander Gaius Suetonius Paulinus (Latin Gaius Suetonius Paulinus) was sent to suppress it. Why did this officer decide to attack the local sanctuary? Did he think that Mona was the center of the rebellion? One way or another, Paulin Suetonius “decides to attack the densely populated island of Monu, which served as a haven for defectors, and for this purpose he builds flat-bottomed ships that are not afraid of shallow waters and pitfalls. He carried the infantry on them; the horsemen crossed, following the shallows, and in deeper places - sailing alongside the horses."
“On the shore stood in full armor an enemy army, among which ran women like furies, in mourning robes, with loose hair, they held burning torches in their hands; the druids who were there and then, with their hands raised to the sky, raised prayers to the gods and vomited curses. The novelty of this spectacle shocked our soldiers, and they, as if petrified, substituted the motionless bodies under the blows falling on them. Finally, heeding the admonitions of the commander, and encouraging each other not to be afraid of this frenzied, half-female army, they rush at the enemy, throw him back and push those who resist into the flames of their own torches. After that, a garrison is placed with the defeated and their sacred groves are cut down, intended for the administration of fierce northern rites:after all, it was considered pious among them to water the altars of the gods with the blood of captives and ask their instructions, turning to the human entrails.”[126 - Annales., XIV, 29, 30 / Per. A. S. Bobovich. Cornelius Tacitus. Works in two volumes. T. I. Annals. Small works // Ed. Ya. M. Borovsky, M. E. Sergienko. L., 1969.]
What Paulin Suetonius mistook for an army was a handful of druids with their apprentices, accompanied by the wives of both. Tacitus could not provide a description of even a single skirmish - not a single battle was mentioned in his transmission. The Romans easily captured the island of Monu, which, of course, was not defended, since the British could not even imagine that they would dare to attack it. The legions took it with ease, beating the priests and destroying the sanctuaries.
The druids' only defense in this confrontation was their magic and their curses. This was not enough to withstand the armed forces of the Romans, who could not accept the prescriptions of a religion completely alien to them. Tacitus sees in this magic only "representation"; but it, of course, does not deserve the name "camouflage" or the usual military cunning (Quasi haerentilus membris, immobile corpus - "with as if numb members of the motionless body"). Was this the real result of the impact, or is it just a spectacular stylistic device? Trying, in a sense, to convey to his reader the feeling of the greatest horror, Tacitus sometimes resorts to describing such phenomena. So, for example, he depicts the Germanic harians (Latin HARII from the Germanic HARJA - "army, warriors") and their Wild Hunt. [127 - "Victorious" (Welsh "budd",oldbreton "bud"). Fac. Ann., XIV, 32.]
While Pauline Suetonius was busy slaughtering the Druids, the inhabitants of Londinia (London) saw terrible omens everywhere, and immediately after this event, indicated in the Annals of Tacitus, the Bretons revolted, led by Queen Boudicca (Celtic Boudic © a). [128 - Annales, XIV, 33 - trans. A. S. Bobovich. - Approx. ed.]
This was no longer a pitiful "representation": "It is known that in the places I mentioned, up to seventy thousand Roman citizens and their allies died. After all, the rebels did not know either capture, or sale into slavery, or any agreements existing in the war, but they were in a hurry to cut, hang, burn, crucify, as if in anticipation that retribution would not escape them, and avenging themselves in advance. " [129 - Tas, Germania, 43.]
And “this is what they did the most terrible and cruel: they hung women from the best families, they cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths, so that it looked as if they were eating them. Then they pierced their bodies from bottom to top with sharp stakes. And they committed all these atrocities during their sacrifices and feasts, which they indulged in in their sanctuaries, and especially in the sacred forest of Andrasta (as they call victory), which we esteem especially among them.”[130 - Dion Cassius, LXII, 9.] Andrasta - a female warrior, the Celtic goddess of Victory, who was often depicted rushing on a war chariot.
Pauline Suetonius calls on his soldiers: “… it is better for us to die the death of the brave on the battlefield than to be captured to be impaled, than to see our entrails ripped out, than to be pierced through with burning stakes, than to be boiled alive as if we were among wild beasts, knowing neither law nor God. " [131 - Dion Cassius, LXII, 11.]
The destruction of a spiritual shrine never leads to anything good, but on the contrary, it always leads to war: a war without prisoners, full of terrible torment, to a war without redemption. The texts are silent about what the Romans answered on their part, but all this clearly took the character of a religious war caused by the destruction of the Druidic sanctuary in Anglesi. [132 - The army of Var was defeated by the Germans near the sanctuary at Externstein, see N. de Pierrefeu, Irminsul et le livre de pierre des Exsternsteine er Westphalie, Ogam, VII, 363-386.]
Returning to the description of Tacitus, we can note that there is nothing improbable in the fact that the Druids were armed, although for a long time there was a hypothesis according to which it was believed that they were exempted from military service both in Gaul and in Ireland. Why, in fact, the druid could not consider himself entitled to supplement the power of his wisdom with the power of arms?.. But still the most interesting moment of the story is the mention of the Druids' attempt to resort to the help of magic arts and fire: an attempt by the helpless, over which the Romans laughed, recovering from the first shock and not understanding anything. However, at the first moment, the Romans were still numb with fright, as the druids wanted. The fact that the druids soon found themselves disappointed in their expectations, in principle, does not change anything: the Celtic army,for which the criterion for assessing what was happening was the same religious meanings as for the inhabitants of the Druidic sanctuary, in the place of the Romans, she would have fled.
Because - and this is what we would like to emphasize - as soon as it comes to the Druids, the most obvious historical approach goes astray on the path of mythological or religious interpretation. Undoubtedly, the Druids from the sanctuary in Anglesi relied in their hopes on the god-binder, [133 - About Ogmiya, the “god-binder”, see Ogam, XII, 1960, 209-234.] - the same god - Ogam, who at Delphi struck the Celts who tried to desecrate the temple of Apollo, stunning them, paralyzing them with horror. [134 - See Ogam, X, 30 sqq.] Fire is subordinate to the same deity, and even if it would be premature to call him by name, then, at least, the instructions at our disposal allow us, in essence, to understand the task that the behavior of the druids poses before us.
Both in real and in mythological terms, the Druids possessed two aspects of supreme power: military and magical power, religious and legal dominance, the Varuna aspect and the Mithra aspect, according to Indian ideas, to use the functionalist terminology we borrowed from Mr. Dumezil. [135 - Mitra-Varuna. P. 83-85.] "They preferred torches" (Faces praeferebant), - says Tacitus: why could torches be needed for an ordinary army, which faced an enemy who had landed on a deserted coast and did not have heavy equipment with them?
However, this interpretation of the passage from Tacitus has, in our opinion, rather limited significance. It is intended only on the basis of a specific element, to give the reader the opportunity to feel the very "atmosphere" of druidism. Even if we turn out to be unable to really and accurately establish the place of the Druids in the framework of the historical process, this does not seem to us the most urgent; it is important to understand them, to find out by the power of what teaching, what beliefs they became the owners of that great power, which the ancient authors unanimously recognized for them.
Mythological research is not included in our tasks, but, undoubtedly, the consideration of problems should begin from here, where we find approaches to them. We intend to show that the earthly druid likened himself to a divine druid, sought to acquire the same power, the same means of spiritual realization and the same ability to subordinate to his will - in short, he represented himself as a likeness of God to the same extent as human society is the image of the cosmos. We also hope to demonstrate, by establishing feedback of concepts, that the mythological druid is the best possible cast of a historical druid; what priest, in essence, would not ideally strive to assimilate himself to a different god whom he worships?
If the believer accepts what is offered to him, if the magic-religious ritual fully proves its effectiveness, and the druid really acquires in his eyes the status of a god on earth, becomes both the guardian and personification of tradition, then the difference between myth and history loses its significance in many respects. Likewise, we should not regret the extreme paucity of historical evidence proper, among which the description of the destruction of Anglesi - too realistic, dated and well-presented - is an exception. The myth has its own reality. Without dwelling beyond measure on what it can hide under itself the historical, whether it is presented in a disguised form or explicitly, one should study it for its own sake, bearing in mind its structure, its symbolism, its content, which, if viewed in a different plan undoubtedlyconsistent with the realities of history.
In this respect, we have one very important source of information: the legend of the island origin, which is quoted in the Irish and Welsh texts. These texts are dated from the 8th to the 15th centuries. But their language is more archaic than the language of lists, and linguists often find traces of the Old Irish language in the manuscripts of the XIV century, as well as the awkward attempts of scribes to modernize the language of the stories they copied, not even always understanding their content. [136 - Irish legends are often known in two or three versions, the longest of which are rarely the most ancient.] With all this in mind, we can use them with no less justification than Tacitus' Germany, whose manuscript was discovered in the 15th century.
The links between Ireland and Gaul are comparable to those that existed between medieval Scandinavia and ancient mainland Germany. [137 - See Dumézil's refutation of Eugene Mogk's theories, Loki, p. 8.] Here you can also find, on the one hand, mythological texts and events, on the other - sculptural monuments and inscriptions, as well as historical events. The fact that insular literature has absorbed, revealed and restored in itself the lost secrets of Gallic literature would never have constituted in our eyes a subject of paramount importance. But, rather, such a meaning will have for us her ability to quite plausibly put into action the same springs and the same mechanisms - the fact that she is built on the same principles
“Goidels, Britons and Gauls are basically three branches of the same people. They have very close languages, very similar, almost identical customs; quite possibly - a single religion with insignificant differences in pantheons, common myths, only taking into account the peculiarities of their national histories.”[138 -“Ogam”, XII, 61.] For us it is undoubted that they had the same druids, and Irish epic texts transmitted by the heirs of this priestly estate, [139 - We say "estate", not "caste"; the use of the latter term would introduce an idea of impenetrable social barriers that never existed among the Celts, see G. Dumezil, Jupiter-Mars-Qu-irinus, p. 110 et seq.] Deserve the most careful study,able to reveal in them all indications of the structure of mythology and the religious organization of our continental ancestors. They, among other things, allow you to correct and supplement those too brief expositions of the teachings given by the ancient authors.
Celtic Druids. Book by Françoise Leroux
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