- Ritual and the Druids -
It is fitting to consider the rituals of the poets in the context of this chapter. As
].E. Caerwyn Williams so appositely comments in his Hallstatt Lecture (1991,
Machynlleth):
I have emphasized the authority and power of the Druids because the poets
were a branch of the druidic order, and because the shadow of the Druids lay
heavily on the poets of both Ireland and Wales even at a much later date when
both countries had rejected paganism.
(Y Bardd Celtaidd, 'The Celtic Bard': 7)
Prophets as indeed they were, and at all periods of recorded time, there can be
little doubt that the druids were primarily priests of the Celtic religious cults.
I believe that the great Celtic scholar J.G. MacCulloch, himself a churchman, was
correct in stating: 'there is no reason to believe that Druids did not exist wherever
there were Celts' (MacCulloch 191 I: 298).
The Celts also had priests called gutuatri, whose functions would appear to have
stemmed from the druids. The word seems to be derived from ':·ghutu-pater, 'Father
(master) of the Invocation (to god)'. As Professor Caerwyn Williams suggests (1984:
23), 'Bardos means "the singer of praise (?to men)", and it seems from the above that
he had a priestly counterpart, "the singer of praise (to god)".' It is interesting to note
that the medieval Welsh pencerdd, 'chief poet', must sing one song to God and
another to the king. The Celtic poet exercised magical powers, as did the fili and
the druid. He regarded himself as a shaman or a magician. He used words not only
to praise those qualities he believed to be essential to a ruler, but he called them into
existence in him. To quote the much-quoted words of the thirteenth-century Welsh
poet, Phylip Brydydd, to his princely patron, gwneuthum it glad, 'I made fame
for thee'. This indicates well the complex nature of Celtic society, where contract
and offering and giving in return for privilege were all closely ordered and under-
stood. We can imagine that the druids, by their chanting and by their rites of sacrifice
and deposition, not only brought forth the desired results and benefits from the
gods, they actually called them into existence, and 'made fame' for the deities by
immortalizing them in words.
The most important of the tripartite learned orders - which could themselves
clearly be divided within the group - were, of course, the druids. They were in charge
of religion and its attendant ritual, and no matter what assistance they may have had
from the other orders, the vates, bards and parasites - themselves an offshoot from
the bardic order - the ability to communicate directly with the gods, and the power
to know and interpret their will for the people, rested with the druids alone. They
clearly correspond to the Brahmins of ancient India and the Flamines of early Rome;
and all three must be seen as the representatives of and descendants from the ancient
Indo-European priestly caste. As MacCulloch so pertinently comments: 'Druidism
was not a formal system outside Celtic religion. It covered the whole ground of
Celtic religion; in other words, it was that religion itself' (19 II: 301).
Druidic teaching was oral. The Irish druids 'sang over' (jar-cain, a word which can
also mean 'prophesy, predict') their pupils; the pupils repeated the lesson in chorus.
In the Irish texts there is an occasional reference to druidic books (McGrath 1979:
29f.). A script known as Ogam came into use about the fourth century AD, based on
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