The reason we tend to visualise the Druid as an old man in our imagination
is partly due, perhaps, to a realisation that by the time one has undertaken
the training of Bard and Ovate one is bound to be ancient! If it took a
dozen years to be a Bard, how much longer must it have taken to learn the
skills of Ovate and Druid? We cannot be sure of the exact time it took,
but Caesar mentions that it took twenty years to train as a Druid, although
Stuart Piggott rightly points out that this could have been a figure of
speech to denote a long duration of time, or that it might have actually
been 19 years, since the Druids almost certainly used the Meton Cycle, a
method of reckoning based on the nineteen year lunar cycle. It seems that
whatever the period was, it included the earlier stages of Bardic and Ovate
training.
If the Bard was the poet and musician, the preserver of lore, the inspirer
and entertainer, and the Ovate was the doctor, detective, diviner and seer,
what was the Druid? His functions, simply stated, were to act as advisor
to kings and rulers, as judge, as teacher, and as an authority in matters
of worship and ceremony. The picture this paints is of mature wisdom, of
official position and privilege, and of roles which involved decision-making,
direction and the imparting of knowledge.
We tend to think of the Druid as a sort of priest - but this is not borne
out by the evidence. The classical texts never refer to them as priests,
but as philosophers. At first this appears confusing since we know they
presided at ceremonies, but if we understand that Druidry was a natural,
earth or solar religion as opposed to a revealed religion, such as Christianity
or Islam, we can see that they acted not as mediators between God and man,
but as directors of ritual, as shamans guiding and containing the rites.
In examining the roles of the Druid as teacher and judge, king and advisor
to kings, scientist and inventor, we must remember that behind each of these
functions the Druid was at heart a philosopher. His or her concern was with
the meaning and purpose of life on earth, and it was for this reason that
Strabo wrote "...the Druids, in addition to natural philosophy, study
also moral philosophy".
To divide their roles in the way we have done here, is for the sake of convenience
only, for in reality the roles merged and combined, as we can see when Caesar
tells us " They have many discussions as touching the stars and their
movement, the size of the universe and of the earth, the order of nature,
the strength and the powers of the immortal gods, and hand down their lore
to the young men." Here we see them as scientists - as astronomers
and mathematicians, as philosophers discussing the powers of the gods, and
as teachers passing on their wisdom.
Bards, Ovates and Druids
The Order
The Druid Path
The Druid Grove