Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Bolga Baum Here. Pay pretty much any
Speaker 1: topic on the planet, and you can go straight to
Speaker 1: Google with as many questions as you like, emerging from
Speaker 1: your search with answers from at least a few solid
Speaker 1: original sources. A glaring exception to this fact finding rule
Speaker 1: of thumb, though, is the Druids. We spoke by email
Speaker 1: with Owen Jaris, journalist who specializes in history and archaeology,
Speaker 1: and whose name I hope I am pronouncing correctly. He said,
Speaker 1: what's fascinating is how little we know about the Druids.
Speaker 1: The written references we have are written by non Druids,
Speaker 1: and their writings may be affected by anti Druid Roman sentiment.
Speaker 1: When and where the Druids originated, and much about their
Speaker 1: practices remains unknown. In fact, famed Roman general and statesman
Speaker 1: Julius Caesar is considered the world's pre eminent expert on
Speaker 1: all things Druid, and the fact that he died in
Speaker 1: forty four b c. May indicate just how little we
Speaker 1: actually know about this class of Celtic speaking experts in
Speaker 1: magical and religious practice who inhabited northwestern Europe about two
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. But we also spoke via email with
Speaker 1: Mariah Williams, a lecturer in Celtic studies at UC Berkeley.
Speaker 1: She said, because we don't have any accounts of druids
Speaker 1: from early Celtic speaking people's themselves, there remains an air
Speaker 1: of mystery around them. Perhaps this air of mystery is attractive.
Speaker 1: Without concrete evidence of who druids were and what their
Speaker 1: role in society was, they can be shaped to fit
Speaker 1: different molds for different purposes. The basic definitions of Druidism
Speaker 1: as we know it can be tied to two main sources,
Speaker 1: ancient Greek and Roman writings and portions of medieval Irish literature.
Speaker 1: The former sources have an advantage in that these writings
Speaker 1: originated from people who were actually alive at the time
Speaker 1: that the druids existed. The main issue, however, is that
Speaker 1: almost all of these writings relied on second hand information,
Speaker 1: and none of it was very fleshed out. Williams said,
Speaker 1: according to the accounts of classical authors, who will have
Speaker 1: had their own biases, and only some of whom may
Speaker 1: have been direct witnesses, Druids seemed to have been a
Speaker 1: learned class of Celtic speaking peoples who may have wielded
Speaker 1: some political authority and who acted as religious intermediaries. Some
Speaker 1: Greek sources described them as philosophers. According to Caesar, they
Speaker 1: had to spend twenty years in training. Caesar also said
Speaker 1: that there were two groups of men in Gaul, which
Speaker 1: is a historical region of western Europe inhabited by Celtic
Speaker 1: tribes who were considered honorable, the druids and the nobleman,
Speaker 1: and that because druids were in charge of public and
Speaker 1: private sacrifices, many people went to them for instruction. It's
Speaker 1: also thought that the druids assembled annually to review all
Speaker 1: legal disputes. The other main source of Druid knowledge, ancient
Speaker 1: Irish literature, has the advantage of being produced by a
Speaker 1: society that once included druids and involved more frequent references
Speaker 1: to the group. But this source also has two big problems.
Speaker 1: Like the Greek in Roman texts, the ancient Irish texts
Speaker 1: also include widely varying depictions of druids, and so it's
Speaker 1: hard to glean whether they were considered wise powerful figures
Speaker 1: or quote savage pagan priests. The other main problem is
Speaker 1: that these accounts were written long after Druids had ceased
Speaker 1: to exist, hundreds of years after the Irish were largely
Speaker 1: converted to Christianity. What is known about the Druids can
Speaker 1: be boiled down to their basic roles in society. Jara's
Speaker 1: credits scholar Sir Barry Cunliffe with much of what's known
Speaker 1: about the Druids today. Jaras said, as Cunliffe wrote in
Speaker 1: his book Druids a very short introduction, the Druids performed
Speaker 1: a variety of roles, including quote philosophers, teachers, judges, the
Speaker 1: repository of communal wisdoms about the natural world and the
Speaker 1: traditions of the people, and the mediators between humans and
Speaker 1: the gods. The ancient form of druids and seems to
Speaker 1: have died out during the Middle Ages before being revived
Speaker 1: centuries later, although there may be little to no continuity
Speaker 1: between ancient drudism and more modern forms. One major misconception
Speaker 1: about the Druids is that they were the group responsible
Speaker 1: for building Stonehenge, the iconic English monument constructed of massive rocks.
Speaker 1: While you may have heard that the Druids built the
Speaker 1: mysterious landmark to serve as a Temple. The approximately five
Speaker 1: thousand year old site is actually thought to predate the
Speaker 1: group by at least a few thousand years. Jaras said,
Speaker 1: One important thing to note is that while modern Druids
Speaker 1: have a special reverence for Stonehenge, there's little evidence that
Speaker 1: the ancient Druids did. Stonehenge was constructed between about five
Speaker 1: thousand to four thousand years ago, while the earliest written
Speaker 1: references to Druids date back two thousand, four hundred years.
Speaker 1: While the Druids may go back further than the surviving
Speaker 1: written records, it's a big jump to say that they
Speaker 1: were involved with Stonehenge. While little is known about the
Speaker 1: original ancient Druid, Jaris says he can see why modern
Speaker 1: people continue to be fascinated by this enigmatic group quote.
Speaker 1: The fact that ancient Druidism is poorly understood makes it
Speaker 1: easier for people to put their own beliefs and hopes
Speaker 1: into modern Druidism. Today's episode was written by Michelle Konstantinovski
Speaker 1: and produced by Tyler. Playing. For more and listen lots
Speaker 1: of other curious topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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