The Druids Pt 3
The Druids Part 3
"Druid Magic"
By Greywolf the Wanderer
Email: greywolf@ufl.edu
Magic was performed by using three key elements; spells, including incantation, gestation, and material usage; Amulets, and Power Items. Posture was important as well, the proper stance being recorded as standing on one leg with one arm outstretched and one eye closed. This appears to be a universal Druidic stance, for I have found references of this from Julius Caesar to Tailisin. They had a range of spells, for Weather Control, Healing, Fertility for both humans and animals, Shape-shifting, Invisibility, Magic Sleep (hypnosis?), Animation of trees and rocks, Morphing trees and rocks into fully armed warriors, illusions, Mass Hallucinations, Throwing mountains on an enemy (from the Druid Mathgen), fill the air with the clash of war, fill the air with the cries of eldritch things, Raise the sea, Summon fog or mist, Purify Cattle, Plant Growth (they could encircle an army with hedge, that could only be broken by a leaper going over it) (usually killing the leaper), Entanglement (using plants to impede an army's movements), Shadow Killing
( stabbing a victims shadow, causing death), and The Sending, where items were flung in the victims face, causeing madness, and sometimes a broken nose.
Common Amulets were the wheel or disk, a white marble ball, Quartz pebbles and crystals, boar teeth, amber, Animal figures, (Animal amber figures were considered extremely powerful), and of course, Phallus symbols.
They made potions as well, being world renoun for poisons, Aphrodisiacs, and the Drink of Oblivion, which would cause the imbiber to suffer complete memory loss. The famous Druid Figol, son of Mamos, used potions to help his spell of sending showers of fire to stop bravery and sap strength. He also used potions to put sickness in men, probably a poison of some type.
Power items used by the Druids included wands made from Yew and Willow, Staves made of Oak, Mistletoe, and an item called a "Glain", or magical snake egg. These "eggs" are believed to be petrified sea urchins that had been scavenged from early bronze age burial mounds. Geodes were considered to be powerful, as well as any natural crystal.
Druids were Seers, Healers, Bards, Historians, Magicians, Priests, and what is less well known, powerful warriors as well. Though they did not wear armor, they carried shields made from White Poplar, and even had a shield-maker college. They were expert fighters with the staff, bow and arrow, hook-bill (sickle, usually of copper or bronze), ax, spear, and later, sword. Their weapons were constructed out of stone, copper, or bronze. Iron was rarely used, as it became available to them relatively late in their history. Iron was also shunned, because it repelled the Faerie folk, of whom they also worshipped.
Differences were usually settled by arbitration, but clan warfare did erupt from time to time. During Druid battles, selected poets from both sides would withdraw together to judiciously discuss the fighting and thus come to a mutual agreement to it's outcome, making the tale of it's occurrence universal from clan to clan.
Druidism spanned over twenty-two hundred years of known history as a major religion and cult. At the height of it's power, it was forced into hiding in the British Isles by the Roman invasion in 62 A.D., which practiced an ancient form of birth control against them (called "annihilation"). And although they re-emerged with the rise of Vortigern after the Roman departure, they never fully recovered to the numbers that they achieved during their zenith. Of course, with the Christian invasion of the Sixth century their days were number. By 600 A.D., they had all but vanished.
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