The Druid Animal Oracle
The card shows a bear standing by a cave entrance with a mace at its
feet. Such a mace was found by archeologists near Stonehenge. It is midwinter
- the time of Alban Arthan, the "Light of Arthur," at the winter
solstice. A crown lies in the foreground, and we see the Pole Star shining
brightly amongst the constellation of the Plow, also known as the Great
Bear or Arthur's Plow.
Art connects you with the very deepest of your ancestral roots. Here, at
this level, you are in touch with the Primal Mother - the Bear goddess Artio
who will defend you fiercely from all danger. You are connected also with
the Bear god Artaois, the mighty warrior Arthur, the guiding Pole Star of
the Great Bear. Your intuition will never fail you, if you will listen to
it in the still darkness of the night. Working with the Bear gives you the
opportunity to become a Spiritual Warrior - like Arthur. You can find the
way to come into your power by marrying your strength with your intuition.
Integrating your primal power with your intuition means uniting your star-power
with your animal-power - and both are symbolized by Art, the Bear.
Chosen reversed, the bear card gives a clear warning that you must take
care not to be overwhelmed by the ferocious mother, by the berserk warrior
- by forces of anger and primal ferocity that, untempered with the human
qualities of compassion and reason, can damage not only your own life, but
those of others around you. Art brings a strong presence and great reserves
of power, and with perseverance you will be able to integrate your spiritual,
intuitive qualities with your primal, instinctual qualities.
The Arthurian legend, like a golden thread, connects the most sophisticated
post-Christian forms of Druidic understanding with the very roots of Druidry
in the Celtic and pre-Celtic past. Learning of the importance of the Bear
in Druid tradition helps us to follow this golden thread back from Arthur
to the very beginnings of humanity.
To understand the full significance of King Arthur in relation to the "Matter
of Britain" and the Druid Mysteries, we need to understand the origin
of his name. The name Arthur derives from the Celtic word Art, meaning bear,
stone or God. Arthur is the "bear-man" - as strong and powerful
as a bear. The greatest compliment that could be paid to a hero in the Celtic
tradition was to describe him as an Art an neart - a bear in vigor. But
these attributions do not derive simply from the bear's legendary strength
and ferocity. Of all the animals sacred to the Druids and Celts, and indeed
many other European and North American races, the bear seems to have been
among the very first of animals to be honored and revered.
The finding of stone altars and significant caches of bear bones at Drachenloch
in Switzerland shows us that Neanderthal man revered the cave bear as Master
of all Animals as far back as 70,000 years ago. In the Lascaux caves in
France we find, dating from 17,000 BC, the headless model of a bear which
for ceremonies was almost certainly draped in fur with a bear's head attached.
The bear is therefore truly one of the primal totems, if not the primal
one. Joseph Campbell goes so far as to suggest that the Bear Cult was older
than shamanism by many centuries.
Bear-cult sites, votive statues and ritual jewelry have been found widely
distributed over Celtic territory, and we find the Celts, and hence the
Druids, honoring the bear goddess Artio or Andarta ("powerful bear")
and the bear god Artaois, Ardehe or Arthe. An image of Artio has been found
in Berne (Bear City) as has a "den of bears" - used for cult practices.
A sixth-century BC altar dedicated to the bear god Ardehe has been found
in the French town of St. Pe-d'Ardet (from St. Pere Ardehe) which lies in
the "Valley of the Bear" - the Vallee de l'Ourse - not far from
Lourdes. Bear pelts were favored for clothing, and the late Iron Age chieftain
whose burial was uncovered at Welwyn in Hertfordshire was found lying on
bearskin.
Neolithic man hunted the brown bear, and it was found in Scotland until
about the end of the eleventh century. Bears' teeth were considered potent
charms and several jet bear amulets have been found in North Britain. Due
to its extraordinary ferocity, the Caledonian bear, as it was called, was
a valuable export to Rome. Certainly, the ferocious bear was invoked before
going into battle - with bearskins often being worn. Identifying with bear-power,
the warriors went "ber-serk."
The place of honor given to the bear in the Druid tradition degenerated
with the coming of Christianity, and was perverted into the pastime of bear-baiting.
In Tudor times, every important town had its own bear, bear-baiting arenas
were commonplace, and there was even the official post of "Master of
the Queen's/King's bears." Bears toured the country decorated with
ribbons or flowers, often blinded to maintain obedience, and this tradition
is continued to this day by gipsies in the Balkans.
The need, rooted in its pagan past, for each community to have its own bear
can be seen as late as the seventeenth century, when we learn that at Congleton
in Cheshire the citizens decided to use the money set aside for a new bible
to purchase a replacement for the town bear who had just died. Hence the
rhyme:
Congleton rare, Congleton rare,
Sold the Bible to pay for a bear.
We still talk about a child needing to be "licked into shape."
This curious phrase derives from a belief that a bear cub was born a formless
mass of flesh which the mother then licked into shape. An equally fantastic
notion was held with regard to a bear's paws. It was believed that they
secreted a substance which, when licked, could nourish the bear through
the long winter months. Even today in China, live bears have their paws
severed for their supposed medicinal value.
The importance of the Bear in Druid tradition is shown by the fact that
Arthur is symbolically attributed in Druid ceremony and teaching to the
Pole Star, in the constellation of the Great Bear, sometimes known in Celtic
stories as Arthur's Plow. When all is dark to us, when the time of the longest
night is upon us at the Winter Solstice, we turn to Arthur, the Pole Star,
as our only guide. Arthur then becomes our intuition - our only guide when
our reason and senses cannot help us. For this reason the Winter Solstice
is known as "Alban Arthan" - the Light of Arthur.
In this way, primal shamanism from the time of earliest man connects with
the later Christian-influenced Druidry of the Arthurian Mysteries through
the image of the Bear - who has become both star and animal.
The cards of the Druid Animal Oracle are painted by Lancashire artist and
Pendragon of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, Bill Worthington. More
can be seen and downloaded from
The Art Gallery