- Chapter Twenty-Three -
in the sacrifices, and like the other learned orders they were masters of poetry and
the complex metres in which this was expressed. The Gaulish word vatis is cognate
with the Latin vatis into which language it may have been borrowed.
The bards, the most enduring of the threefold order, had their own considerable
powers and status. Their period of training was seven years. One of their most
important functions was the composition of praise-poetry, which could bring great
benefits to their patrons and so to the people in general. They also had the much-
feared power of satire, which could cause physical blemish, bad luck, or even death
to the person against whom it was sung. Satire continued to be feared in Celtic
society down to the twentieth century.
Thus the three orders of Celtic men of erudition shared, in varying degrees,
the powers of prophecy, magic and religion. It is noteworthy that these three learned
orders appear in early Irish contexts having the same, or cognate, names and
functions. The druid, Irish drui, had much the same powers as his counterpart in
Gaul. The vatis of Gaul has as his equivalent the Irish fili, which originally connoted
'seer', 'diviner', later, esoteric poet. Another word which is an exact cognate of vatis
is faith, 'seer, prophet'. The Welsh words for these three learned orders are dryw
or derwydd, 'druid'; gweledydd, 'prophet', 'seer', 'poet', bard. The nearest Welsh
equivalent to the word vatis is gwawdawr, 'poet'.
The Irish bard (Welsh bardd) had similar functions to those of his Gaulish counter-
parts. Unlike the bards of Wales, however, whose status as learned poets seemed to
increase, the Irish bards were replaced as praise-poets by the filidh, and came to be
regarded as mere story-tellers, entertainers and rhymers.
The classics tell of a chief druid, while Caesar states that all the druids met
together in assembly at a certain time of the year in the tribal territory of the
Carnutes, which was regarded as the centre of all Gaul. The Irish druids likewise had
a chief druid and, later, a chief fili. They used to assemble at Uisnech, in modern
County Westmeath. The Assembly of Uisnech, which was regarded as the 'navel' of
Ireland, was held on Beltain, I May, and the period before and after this date (see
p. 437). The whole druidic system would seem to have been common to all the Celts.
There is some evidence for female druids and prophets which is not considered
here.
In Wales the situation is somewhat different. There would seem to have been a
druidic centre on Anglesey (Mon), where the druids were attacked and virtually
destroyed by the troops under Suetonius Paulinus in AD 61. Tacitus gives a graphic
description of the conflict between the cursing druids (and wild, black-clad women
who may have been druidesses or female prophets) and the disciplined soldiers to
whom the sight must have been unnerving to a degree. The Romans were victorious;
and although druidism clearly continued in some form outside the 'pale', it was
effectively disrupted as a formal system in Britain.
This historical event does not necessarily mean that the druids entirely lost their
identity and influence among the people of Britain, especially those removed from
the centre of imperial activity. The advent of the Romans to Britain was a military
and not a spiritual victory, such as the coming of Christianity to pagan lands. The
Roman occupation of Britain was eventually followed by the immigration of Anglo-
Saxons and Jutes - Ireland missed both these events - and the word 'druid' was not