Do I have to be
a Celt to be a Druid?
Anyone can follow the
Druid path, regardless of ethnic origins, gender, or sexual orientation. Over
200 million people in Europe, America and Australasia can trace their ancestry
to the Celtic lands. But in fact the tribes called Celtic by the Greeks and
Romans were so varied and intermingled so much, the Celtic scholar Dr Anne Ross
can rightly say that the Celts are the ancestors of most modern Europeans, and
therefore of most people of European origin. In addition, many people of Afro-Caribbean
origin have Celtic ancestry too, since Oliver Cromwell sent many 'slaves' (indentured
servants) to the Caribbean, and they inter-married with descendants of slaves
of African origin. Also, since Druids believe in reincarnation, our genetic
ancestry is only one strand of our inheritance. Whatever our ethnic origins
in this lifetime, we will have had other ethnic origins in other lives. And
in the final analysis, we are all members of just one race: humanity. And Druidry
celebrates our humanity and is not restricted just to one ethnic group.
–Philip
Carr-Gomm
Here
is the opinion of one member of OBOD. Other members may well have different
opinions.
Coifi, of strong Anglo-Saxon
ancestry, a native of England living in Scotland, gives his well-considered
opinion concerning this question:
I will give my own deÞnitive
answers to this one. It is important to me and may (hopefully) help others to
clarify their own views on the subject.
The way I see it, the answer falls into two distinct parts. 1) my historical
appreciation of the place and position of early Druidry and 2) my own personal
position with Druidry (OBOD and General).
Before we start, I think it would be useful to clarify a few terms which are
often bandied about rather loosely and often serve to cloud the issue rather
than illuminate it. You may well disagree (as I’m sure some of you will
<G>) but that’s what it’s all about!
BRITAIN - This term applies exclusively to the larger of the two islands stuck
off the North West of Europe; the one that currently comprises England, Scotland
and Wales (and the Duchy of Cornwall!). It is the land mass that stretches from
John o’Groats to Land’s End and Pen Maen Mawr to Hengistbury Head.
It has been variously known as Britannia, Albion and the Island of the Mighty.
It is quite separate from, and does not include Ireland (Erin, Ierne, Hibernia).
This has always been true. Even now, the name of our nation is the United Kingdom
of Great Britain AND Northern Ireland. References to the Spirit of Britain,
the British Tradition etc only relate to the Island of Britain, not the British
Isles as a whole.
CELT - we’ve had many excursions on this. SufÞce it to say that this is
not a racial/cultural grouping, but purely linguistic, in much the same way
as the Finns and Hungarians are linked. Historically, there are two main Celtic
groups in the British Isles. 1) The British, or Brythoniaid, who occupied Britain
from the East (modern France/Belgium) and 2) the Gaels, or Iberiaid, who occupied
Ireland from the south (modern Spain/Portugal). Apart from a demonstrable very
early common language dating back to a time when they both lived in a common
homeland somewhere in Eastern Europe, these two groups have little in common.
Like the islands they came to, the names of these peoples are not interchangeable.
Britons (aka the British) are the Celts who made their home in Britain during
the Þnal stages of their migrations across Europe. They still exist as the people
of Cymru, Kernow and Breizh (Wales Cornwall and Britanny). On the other hand
the Scots are not British, they are are Irish and belong to a quite separate
cultural tradition and a quite separate island!. The English are, of course,
English, and nothing to do with any of this!
MANIFESTO:
To me, Druidry is the response by human beings to that aspect of the Divine Spirit
that resides in the Earth, or that portion of it that we personally live on.
For reasons that I do not understand, and do not need to understand, one of the
places (I am sure there are many others) on the Earth where this awareness of
Spirit is unusually strong is in the Island of Britain. This is the Spirit that
Wiliam Blake, for example, refers to as the Giant Albion.
This detectable outpouring of Spirit in Britain has been here for at least as
long as Britain has been an Island, and has afected all the peoples who have come
to make there home here over the ages.
It is quite natural that the nature of response to this Spirit should take on
different forms as it is expressed by different ethnic and cultural groups. It
does not alter the fact that it is the Spirit that remains unchanged, no matter
how varied the response. The Spirit of Britain was Þrst honoured in the Stonehenge
area by people who erected three huge wooden pillrs in a line (a wooden AWEN,
if you like). These people were responding to a perceived spirituality of place.
They were, in time, followed by other people who erected a broad circle and a
couple of mounds, with one large stone outside. A different people with a diferent
expression of the same awarenes and reverence of the Spirit of Place. These were
followed by yet another people who transported dozens of large stones from Carn
Meini in Wales to build a magniÞcent Sanctuary within the ancient earth ring,
and in time, they were followed by later people who took down the stones and rebuilt
bigger and better with other stones from nearby.
Here you have at least FOUR different people and cultures, all responding to the
One Eternal Spirit in four diffrent ways. Incidentally, all this was before the
Þrst Celts ever set foot in Britain.
It is a by-product of the proposition of Celtic Druidry to make the following
posit - if Druidry is exclusivist, elitist and racist inasmuch as no-one has the
right to follow Druidry or call themselves Druid unless they are of Celtic extraction
(like Jews and Jewry), then the Stone Circles, henges, megaliths and other ancient
monuments of Britain have no signiÞcance as far as druids are concerned because
they were built and used by non-Celts and therefore cannot be druidic.
On the other hand, if non-Celtic expressions of recognition of the Spirit of Britain
ARE to be considered as valid Druidic actions, then Druidry can be seen as a response
to the Spirit of Britain by whosoever feels moved by that Spirit, NO MATTER WHO
THEY ARE, WHERE THEY COME FROM AND WHEN.
No prizes for guessing which side MY bread is buttered!
To me, the strangest aspect of the ongoing frantic attempts by the Celtic Reconstructionists
to insist on an exclusivist racial Celtic origin for Druidry and all things Druidic
is the clear evidence we have that the Classical Celts themselves did not consider
Druidry to be a Celtic thing and said so! The reference for this comes from no
less a commentator than Julius Caesar in his De Bello Gallico, VI,13. Remember
that he never met any British Druids, and is here referring to the Gaulish Druids.
“It is believed that [the Druid] rule of life was discovered in Britannia
and transferred thence to Gaul; and today, those who would study [Duidry] more
accurately journey, as a rule, to Britannia to learn it.”
The actual quote is - “Disciplina in Britannia reperta atque inde in Galliam
translata existimatur, et nunc qui diligentius eam rem cognoscere volunt plerumque
illo discendi causa proÞciscuntur.”
It appears that the Gallic Celts were quite aware that in their migrations westwards
across Europe, they had neither Druidry nor Druids. Druidry only came into the
Celtic consciousness AFTER the Þrst wave of invaders had passed into Britain and
discovered it there. The inference is quite clear - by their own admission and
belief, the Spirit of Druidry already existed in Britain BEFORE the Celts arrived;
it was waiting for them! The Spirit of Druidry is obviously something that predated
the arrival of the Celts in Britain and is quite clearly independent of them.
The claim that Druidry is somehow exclusively Celtic is patently wrong. Following
the Celts’ own evidence, it would seem that if the Celts had stopped at the
English Channel, or turned left instead of right somewhere along the way, then
they would never have come to Britain and never have discovered Druidry. This
does not alter the fact that the Spirit of Albion would still have been there,
in the rocks and “stone-bone” of Britain, and passed on the essence
of Druidry to other incomers, whoever they might have been.
The second important point that the Gauls make to Caesar is that the discipline
of Druidry can be exported. Even though the Gauls knew that the Spirit of Albion
could only be found in Britain, they were also aware that the lessons and methods
that the British Spirit has to teach can, once learned, be taken anywhere and
passed on to anyone with the willingness and desire to learn the Druid Way. This
is the authority and validity of the claim of the Druid Orders (including OBOD)
to be able to teach others the Druid Way, even though they may live on the other
side of the world and have no external connections at all with Britain or any
of its inhabitants, past or present. The Druids of Ceasar’s day knew (and
Caesar recorded them), that Druidry a) springs from the spiritual powers immanent
within the natural fabric of the Isle of Britain and b)that it is not racially
or geographically exclusive; on the contrary, it is universal in both time and
space and accident of birth.
It would appear that this simple message is proving more difÞcult to get across
now than it was two thousand years ago.
“I should like to know from the above writer is what you Þnd in Druidry
which calls you, rather than
a system which draws upon Saxon/Visigoth roots.”
Well, my answer to that is that Saxon (although not Visigoth) Paganism DOES
have its roots in British Druidry and I include Saxon elements in my Druidic
practice (not least by saying the Druid Prayer in English!)- the Saxons discovered
the Spirit of Britain in just the same way as the early Celts did - by coming
here! There is plenty of evidence that Saxon paganism was Druidic in nature,
and different from the old Germanic Paganism they left behind. By what I have
said earlier, it will come as no surprise that I take issue with your unspoken
inference that Druidry somehow springs from Celtic roots. I clearly believe
that Druidry is, and always has been, MUCH bigger, deeper and older than merely
“Celtic”.
As for coping with the “Celtic” content of the Gwers - the underlying
truths and exercises are quite independent of the Celtic gloss laid on some
of them. When I Þnd these additions incomprehensible, irritating or (more usually)
irrelevant, I just ignore them. It costs me no grief or heartache and detracts
not a whit from the value of the lessons of the Gwers or my own ability to follow
the Druid Path.
Bright Blessings,
CoiÞ