The Druid Animal Oracle
The card shows a bear
standing by a cave entrance with a mace at its feet. Such a mace was found by
archeologists near Stonehenge. It is midwinter - the time of Alban Arthan,
the "Light of Arthur," at the winter solstice. A crown lies in the
foreground, and we see the Pole Star shining brightly amongst the constellation
of the Plow, also known as the Great Bear or Arthur's Plow.
Art connects you with the very deepest of your ancestral roots. Here, at this
level, you are in touch with the Primal Mother - the Bear goddess Artio who
will defend you fiercely from all danger. You are connected also with the Bear
god Artaois, the mighty warrior Arthur, the guiding Pole Star of the Great Bear.
Your intuition will never fail you, if you will listen to it in the still darkness
of the night. Working with the Bear gives you the opportunity to become a Spiritual
Warrior - like Arthur. You can find the way to come into your power by marrying
your strength with your intuition. Integrating your primal power with your intuition
means uniting your star-power with your animal-power - and both are symbolized
by Art, the Bear.
Chosen reversed, the bear card gives a clear warning that you must take care
not to be overwhelmed by the ferocious mother, by the berserk warrior - by forces
of anger and primal ferocity that, untempered with the human qualities of compassion
and reason, can damage not only your own life, but those of others around you.
Art brings a strong presence and great reserves of power, and with perseverance
you will be able to integrate your spiritual, intuitive qualities with your
primal, instinctual qualities.
The Arthurian legend,
like a golden thread, connects the most sophisticated post-Christian forms of
Druidic understanding with the very roots of Druidry in the Celtic and pre-Celtic
past. Learning of the importance of the Bear in Druid tradition helps us to
follow this golden thread back from Arthur to the very beginnings of humanity.
To understand the full significance of King Arthur in relation to the "Matter
of Britain" and the Druid Mysteries, we need to understand the origin of
his name. The name Arthur derives from the Celtic word Art, meaning bear, stone
or God. Arthur is the "bear-man" - as strong and powerful as a bear.
The greatest compliment that could be paid to a hero in the Celtic tradition
was to describe him as an Art an neart - a bear in vigor. But these attributions
do not derive simply from the bear's legendary strength and ferocity. Of all
the animals sacred to the Druids and Celts, and indeed many other European and
North American races, the bear seems to have been among the very first of animals
to be honored and revered.
The finding of stone
altars and significant caches of bear bones at Drachenloch in Switzerland shows
us that Neanderthal man revered the cave bear as Master of all Animals as far
back as 70,000 years ago. In the Lascaux caves in France we find, dating from
17,000 BC, the headless model of a bear which for ceremonies was almost certainly
draped in fur with a bear's head attached. The bear is therefore truly one of
the primal totems, if not the primal one. Joseph Campbell goes so far as to
suggest that the Bear Cult was older than shamanism by many centuries.
Bear-cult sites, votive statues and ritual jewelry have been found widely distributed
over Celtic territory, and we find the Celts, and hence the Druids, honoring
the bear goddess Artio or Andarta ("powerful bear") and the bear god
Artaois, Ardehe or Arthe. An image of Artio has been found in Berne (Bear City)
as has a "den of bears" - used for cult practices. A sixth-century
BC altar dedicated to the bear god Ardehe has been found in the French town
of St. Pe-d'Ardet (from St. Pere Ardehe) which lies in the "Valley of the
Bear" - the Vallee de l'Ourse - not far from Lourdes. Bear pelts were favored
for clothing, and the late Iron Age chieftain whose burial was uncovered at
Welwyn in Hertfordshire was found lying on bearskin.
Neolithic man hunted
the brown bear, and it was found in Scotland until about the end of the eleventh
century. Bears' teeth were considered potent charms and several jet bear amulets
have been found in North Britain. Due to its extraordinary ferocity, the Caledonian
bear, as it was called, was a valuable export to Rome. Certainly, the ferocious
bear was invoked before going into battle - with bearskins often being worn.
Identifying with bear-power, the warriors went "ber-serk."
The place of honor given to the bear in the Druid tradition degenerated with
the coming of Christianity, and was perverted into the pastime of bear-baiting.
In Tudor times, every important town had its own bear, bear-baiting arenas were
commonplace, and there was even the official post of "Master of the Queen's/King's
bears." Bears toured the country decorated with ribbons or flowers, often
blinded to maintain obedience, and this tradition is continued to this day by
gipsies in the Balkans.
The need, rooted in its pagan past, for each community to have its own bear
can be seen as late as the seventeenth century, when we learn that at Congleton
in Cheshire the citizens decided to use the money set aside for a new bible
to purchase a replacement for the town bear who had just died. Hence the rhyme:
Congleton rare, Congleton rare,
Sold the Bible to pay for a bear.
We still talk about a child needing to be "licked into shape." This
curious phrase derives from a belief that a bear cub was born a formless mass
of flesh which the mother then licked into shape. An equally fantastic notion
was held with regard to a bear's paws. It was believed that they secreted a
substance which, when licked, could nourish the bear through the long winter
months. Even today in China, live bears have their paws severed for their supposed
medicinal value.
The importance of the Bear in Druid tradition is shown by the fact that Arthur
is symbolically attributed in Druid ceremony and teaching to the Pole Star,
in the constellation of the Great Bear, sometimes known in Celtic stories as
Arthur's Plow. When all is dark to us, when the time of the longest night is
upon us at the Winter Solstice, we turn to Arthur, the Pole Star, as our only
guide. Arthur then becomes our intuition - our only guide when our reason and
senses cannot help us. For this reason the Winter Solstice is known as "Alban
Arthan" - the Light of Arthur.
In this way, primal shamanism from the time of earliest man connects with the
later Christian-influenced Druidry of the Arthurian Mysteries through the image
of the Bear - who has become both star and animal.
The cards of the Druid Animal Oracle are painted by Lancashire artist and Pendragon
of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, Bill Worthington. More can be seen
and downloaded from
The Eisteddfod