resources available to each tribe, obviously meant vast differences between them in terms of beliefs, customs, culture and living (as well as ritual) practices. Even in the British Isles today, there remain huge differences between the way of life of the Scottish, Irish and Welsh-speaking peoples.
As Emma Restall Orr has written, in her commentary on the ‘classical’ Druid (the Celtic ‘priest’), as a man “in white robes, bearded, with ornate staff and golden sickle tucked into the belt”…
“In fact, this image of the Druid in white is little more than two hundred years old, created during a period of revived interest in the tradition when one picture from the classical literature of two millennia ago was chosen from many: Pliny’s image of the Druid cutting mistletoe from the sacred oak. If Strabo had been used, the stereotype might be rather different, but his Druids – in red, adorned with gold – had not perhaps the dignity and nobility that was needed”.
Despite its fanciful nature, however “it is this figure that is responsible for drawing many into the tradition. But what is that tradition?”
SHAMANS OF BRITAIN
Druidry is the native spirituality of Britain, which has its origin in the animistic principle of honouring the earth, the ancestors, the elements, and the connection between all things. “Druidry emerged out of the rocks and forests and rain of Britain, and its very nature is wrapped in the beauty, power and shifting stories of all that Britain has been over many thousands of years”.
For Orr, the focus of Druidic practice is ‘awen’, an old British/Welsh word which means ‘flowing spirit’. The word contains notions