Ancient Irish Community - Druidism/Celtic Beliefs

Women as Druids - Yes!! The mythologies record that many Druids were women; in fact the Celtic branch of this faith were the workers in which women enjoyed more freedom and rights than women in any other culture of that time, including the rights to enter battle, own and inherit property, trace her kinship matrilinially, and choose and divorce her husband. The Irish hero Cu/Chullain was trained by a land-owning warrior queen named Scathach, for whom the Scottish island of Skye is named. In the Welsh myth, there is the powerful sorceress/Goddess Cerridwen, and also Arianrhod who ruled Caer Arianrhod. In Briton, Boudicca was a female chieftain of the Iceni tribe, powerful enough to lead a revolt of united Celtic tribes against the Romans in 61 BCE. Her patron was the Andrasta, a goddess of ravens and of battles, similar in many ways to the Irish war goddess Morrigan. Similarly, Irish women have a heroine in Queen Maeve of Cruachan, who led an army against the province of Ulster, all to establish her equality in her marriage. Mogh Roith, who was one of the greatest Irish Druids, was taught by a female Druid named Banbhuana, the daughter of Deargdhualach.

Women were also permitted to become Fianna. Fionn MacCumhall, from the Irish Fenian myths, was trained in poetry and magic by a Druidess. A woman named Asa (Irish for "Gentle") became Fianna and took the name Ni-Asa ("Not Gentle"), which eventually became "Nessa", at the time she became mother to King Conchobar. Her influence was such that her son kept her name instead of his father's name, thus: "Conchobar Mac Nessa", or "Conor, son of Nessa".

Many of the most powerful gods in Celtic mythology were female. But the gender of deities is not a reliable guide for determining what each deity's area of responsibility is. There are male earth gods, female sun gods, female animal gods, female war gods, and male & female fertility gods, which is very much in contrast with contemporary Western occultism, especially Wicca. There are also female river gods, male smithcraft gods, male & female sovereignty gods, and so on which is similar to conventional occultism. Your humble author thinks that this is because the old Celts did not view gender as the most defining attribute of a deity. With their shape-changing powers, perhaps species is not a definitive attribute either!

Thus there is no good reason to believe that Druidism was strictly and unilaterally patriarchal in ancient times, and modern Druidism certainly is not remotely patriarchal.

Symbols of Druidism

Druidism probably did not have one universal symbol to represent itself, since it was differentiated between seven different Celtic nations, and divided further into many tribes within these nations. Some of the most commonly used symbols are:

The Triskele: a rounded spiral with three arms radiating from a central point, turning counter-clockwise (unlike the Nazi swastika). It stands for any one of hundreds of Triads in Celtic literature, but typically is understood as standing for the land, sea, and sky, which composed the foundation of the Celtic cosmology.

The Spiral: Neo-lithic monuments typically have spiral patterns carved into the stones. Being pre-Celtic, we have no clear idea what the Spiral meant to the people who carved them, although it is reasonable to believe they stood for the cycles of seasons, of day and night, and of life and death. If one stands facing south, the sun appears to trace a clockwise spiral (deosil) as it rises in the east and sets in the west; also, the stars turn in a counter-clockwise (tuathail) as they rotate around Polaris, the pole star. It is possible that spirals carved on to pre-Celtic monuments such as Newgrange represent these astronomical movements.

The Awen: Three upright bars, with the tops of the outer two bars leaning toward the top of the center bar. Its first appearance in Druidism appears to be in the Bardass, but its use by modern Druids is widespread. Sometimes the Awen is draw with three stars above it, and the whole enclosed in three circles.

The Circle: As with many Indo-European sun symbols, the Circle is the simple geometric shape we all know and love. It makes up the pagan part of the Celtic Cross. Circles are also the shape that many megalithic monuments are constructed in, which is why we call them "stone circles" and "round barrows". The circle is a natural shape for religious symbols across the world, for it is the shape of the sun, the moon, the horizon, the bird's nest, and the human eye.

The Druid Sigil: A circle intersected by two vertical lines. In Stuart Piggot's book "The Druids", there is a photo of a Romano-British building, possibly a temple, located at Black Holmes, Thistleton, Leicestershire (England) in which this symbol forms the foundation; other than that, this author knows of no ancient origin for this symbol. The Henge of Keltria, a large Druid organization in the United States, uses this symbol for itself.

The God with the Horns: An image of a male God with horns on his head, usually stag antlers but sometimes small bull horns. Though this symbol probably represents the God in the image and not Druidism as a whole, it is used quite commonly by modern pagans. The stag antlers represent tree branches, and thus stand for fertility; the bull horns stand for power-- in a culture where the measure of one's economic affluence was the size of one's cattle herds, bull horns clearly symbolizes power. Goat horns were not used, nor introduced into Horned God images until the Christian period, and at this time the probably stood for subservience, domesticity, and also sin & evil (hence "Scapegoat").

The Crescent Moon: A symbol probably introduced into Druidism by the Romantics, it stands for the divine Feminine principle of fertility, corresponding by opposition to the God with the Horns.

The Tree: The primary symbol of Druidism, however, each species of tree known to the Druids had a meaning of its own. There probably was no one symbolic meaning applied to all trees. Trees are important because they are bridges between the realms of Land and Sky, they communicate Water between these realms; the Irish God Bile is said to make this possible. The Realms of Land, Sea and Sky unite within a tree, as also at a seashore for example; great power could manifest there, and such places were best for poetic composition or spellcasting.

The Head: Heads definitely had mystical significance. To the Celts, it was the seat of the soul. Mythologies report many heroes beheading their enemies to ensure they stay dead (not an unreasonable precaution in this time period) and numerous excavations of Celtic buildings have niche holes carved to hold human heads.

Long White Beards: Romantic period depiction's of Druids in art and in caricature typically showed them with long white beards, long white hair, and long white robes. Your author thinks they look ridiculous.

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