Druids

>>2997830
Buncha Celtic treehuggers.

>>2997830
Painting done in the Glasgow School, currently housed in the Kelvingrove I believe.

>>2997830

A class or possibly caste of priests of the Celtic faith, based in Britain but apparently active across the Celtic world. Reportedly, they were so greatly respected that they could walk between two opposing Celtic armies and forbid them from fighting, and both sides would respect the command. Of course, like everyone about the Celts, this is an apocryphal tale,and anyone who has read Celtic mythology will know they had a great love of bombast and exaggeration.

Apparently the Druids shunned writing altogether, despite its fairly widespread use by the Celts themselves. They instead relied on their memories, which were hugely developed via various mnemonic techniques a Druid would learn during their 13 year apprenticeship.

>>2997916
Interesting. Did the Druids themselves owe allegiance to a tribe, or were they totally above politics.

>>2997830
Religion was a valuable technology in that period of human history. Like any other culture, a priest caste emerged to act as a buffer/balance between celtic nobles and the military.

They also served as capsules,which through oral tradition preserved the culture and heritage of the celtic people. Imagine a world devoid of books, museums and historical information. They would have been the closest thing to all three while simultaneously acting as a spiritual guide for their tribe.

We don't know what they spoke about but it wouldn't be hard to imagine that they passed on stories of famous battles, tribal origins and tales of culture heroes in the form of legend and lore (in addition to being the spiritual figurehead of their villages).

We don't have much on Druidism. Barry Cunliffe has an archeological/historical account based book on it, although it isn't long. There's something like only three sources on Druidism from it's time. Their taboo on writing infiltrated their society so we don't have much writing on Celts at all.