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How Druids Worked · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:13
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's
0:16
Speaker 1: guest producer Josh over there again and this is stuff
0:20
Speaker 1: you should know. The led Zeppelin Edition, the Wet Edition,
0:24
Speaker 1: the led Zeppelin Edition. Is that what you thought of? Yeah?
0:30
Speaker 1: Anytime I see like that, Um, I guess it was.
0:33
Speaker 1: It's not the Zoso album cover, but I think it
0:35
Speaker 1: was like a poster that you'd see in Spencer's that
0:38
Speaker 1: was like, I think from led Zeppelin four. It was
0:41
Speaker 1: like a guy with a long beard. He looked like,
0:44
Speaker 1: um oh, sure, he looked like what was his name,
0:47
Speaker 1: the guy from Lord of the Rings. Yeah, yeah, he
0:51
Speaker 1: looks like Gandalf. Basically. Yeah, Zeppelin was very You know,
0:57
Speaker 1: if anyone who's ever seen song remains the same, they
1:00
Speaker 1: it all sort of like mystical druid esque, right they were.
1:06
Speaker 1: They were well known for their druid escu leaning. But
1:10
Speaker 1: so that's what I think of with druids, and it
1:12
Speaker 1: turns out that that is in one sense very much accurate.
1:17
Speaker 1: That is what a druid looks like. But if you're
1:20
Speaker 1: talking strictly about druids that came from the seventeenth century onward,
1:27
Speaker 1: so like just a few hundred years ago, you would
1:29
Speaker 1: be correct if you're talking about the ancient druids. The druids.
1:33
Speaker 1: Druids the once that everybody thinks of is like like
1:36
Speaker 1: the O G Druids, they we have no idea what
1:42
Speaker 1: they were like. Really we or we have very very
1:44
Speaker 1: little idea what they were like. And it's based on
1:48
Speaker 1: such um potentially slanted evidence that some archaeologists refused to
1:56
Speaker 1: agree with certainty that druids ever even exists the way
2:01
Speaker 1: that we think they did. Yeah, and it's funny this. Uh,
2:04
Speaker 1: the Grabster helped us out with this one, with the
2:06
Speaker 1: research and he I don't know if Ed's been listening
2:09
Speaker 1: to us for too long or what, because he fell
2:12
Speaker 1: into the Josh and Chuck trap of not even saying
2:17
Speaker 1: what the druid was until page four. So we should
2:21
Speaker 1: just go ahead and say, when we're talking about the
2:24
Speaker 1: ancient druids, Uh, it wasn't like a race of people
2:29
Speaker 1: or anything like that. They were celts and as defined
2:34
Speaker 1: by some history website. I went to UM, there were
2:38
Speaker 1: members of the learned class of ancient Celts and ancient
2:42
Speaker 1: Britain and France, and they acted as um, it was
2:45
Speaker 1: really more like job based. They were teachers and judges
2:48
Speaker 1: and priests and philosophers. So that's I mean, I never
2:52
Speaker 1: knew that it was really just sort of um uh
2:56
Speaker 1: che's I don't even know how to define it. Not
2:58
Speaker 1: a class of people, well, sort of a class, yeah,
3:01
Speaker 1: but it was kind of uh, job based. I didn't
3:05
Speaker 1: know that an occupation yeah, occupational. Yeah, they had had
3:10
Speaker 1: a union, They had pretty decent health insurance was ironic
3:14
Speaker 1: because they didn't know what they were doing with medicine
3:16
Speaker 1: at the time. Or if you you know, if you
3:19
Speaker 1: had really good insurance, you could wind up in the
3:21
Speaker 1: wicker Man getting burned alive, right, your family would would
3:26
Speaker 1: benefit from that, you wouldn't potentially write. But that's I mean,
3:30
Speaker 1: what you just said is basically the the most you
3:34
Speaker 1: can say about druids with any level of of accuracy.
3:40
Speaker 1: Are we done? Yep? That was It's true. It's everybody
3:43
Speaker 1: short stuff. Um. Everything beyond that is is different varying
3:50
Speaker 1: degrees of conjecture, And I don't want to like beat
3:53
Speaker 1: this horse over and over again. So I think it's
3:55
Speaker 1: really just good to kind of like just put it
3:58
Speaker 1: out at the beginning, like everything we're talking about from
4:00
Speaker 1: this point on is relatively UNPROVENUM archaeology is being very
4:07
Speaker 1: stubborn and to their credit about what they will agree
4:11
Speaker 1: about druids and what they won't agree about druids. UM.
4:16
Speaker 1: And I think that's great, But everybody else is like, hey,
4:18
Speaker 1: that's good. You guys sit there and doggedly and methodically
4:21
Speaker 1: figure it out. We're going to just let our imaginations
4:23
Speaker 1: run wild and and come up with this conception of druids. Yeah.
4:28
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the big reasons why we
4:30
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of firsthand accounting is because the
4:33
Speaker 1: druids did not uh and they had a very good reason,
4:37
Speaker 1: but they didn't write things down. They didn't keep a
4:39
Speaker 1: historical record about themselves. And the reason makes a lot
4:43
Speaker 1: of sense. It was there was a lot of power
4:45
Speaker 1: in the fact that they remained sort of mystical and
4:48
Speaker 1: that a conquering enemy or foe can't just get a
4:52
Speaker 1: bunch of druid I is that a word, Yes, druid
4:56
Speaker 1: I writings to figure out what they're all about. So
4:59
Speaker 1: there was a lot of mystery and mystique and because
5:02
Speaker 1: of that a lot of power in just passing along
5:06
Speaker 1: traditions orally within their own group. Uh, it really ended
5:11
Speaker 1: up kind of being given them a stranglehold on their mystique, right, Yeah,
5:15
Speaker 1: for sure. Um. The thing is, though, that's a super
5:19
Speaker 1: important point. They didn't write things down, But almost as
5:22
Speaker 1: important is to to say that they weren't illiterate. Now,
5:27
Speaker 1: like the Celts wrote stuff down. And surprisingly when they
5:30
Speaker 1: wrote stuff down, they wrote it in Greek. So the
5:33
Speaker 1: later Romans who came along, as we'll see and had
5:36
Speaker 1: a huge influence on Celtic culture when they encountered the Celts,
5:40
Speaker 1: these heathens, these savage tribes, they are what the Romans
5:45
Speaker 1: considered them to be. They they found that they already
5:49
Speaker 1: wrote in Greek. But the Celts themselves, Chuck and I
5:52
Speaker 1: didn't know this. Um they were. They were basically a
5:57
Speaker 1: multi ethnic group. They were not just like you know, um, Germanic,
6:03
Speaker 1: or they weren't just like Aryan or um, you know,
6:08
Speaker 1: North African like. They weren't like an ethnic group. They
6:11
Speaker 1: were apparently connected by language, but they were very tribal
6:15
Speaker 1: and they warred with each other pretty much constantly. So
6:19
Speaker 1: each little each little tribe would have its own kingdom,
6:22
Speaker 1: but they all were united under this culture, this Celtic
6:26
Speaker 1: culture and Celtic language. Yeah, and um. Even though the
6:29
Speaker 1: Druids didn't write about themselves, UM, early Greeks did UM
6:34
Speaker 1: specifically Posidonius. And here's where, like you said earlier, it's
6:40
Speaker 1: like someone writes about the Druids, maybe based on uh
6:46
Speaker 1: lore or legend um, sometimes maybe first hand accounts, but
6:50
Speaker 1: then other people write about those accounts, and then people
6:54
Speaker 1: write about the accounts of the accounts, and pretty soon
6:57
Speaker 1: all of the sort of quote unquote knowledge we have
7:00
Speaker 1: about the Druids is based on It's like a game
7:03
Speaker 1: of telephone essentially. UM. And one of the biggest contributors
7:07
Speaker 1: to UM I guess druid I writing was Julius Caesar.
7:12
Speaker 1: He wrote a lot about the Druids, but from the
7:15
Speaker 1: perspective of a conquering army, you know, so that's a
7:20
Speaker 1: it's definitely gonna have a slant. And he also based
7:22
Speaker 1: a lot of his writings on Posidonius to begin with, right, Yeah,
7:26
Speaker 1: Posidonius's writings were lost, like all of them were lost,
7:30
Speaker 1: so we know he wrote a lot about the Druids because,
7:32
Speaker 1: like you said, all those people came later and referenced
7:35
Speaker 1: his writings before his writings have been lost, but we've
7:39
Speaker 1: never seen his writings, which is a shame because we
7:41
Speaker 1: probably could have learned a lot about the Celts and
7:44
Speaker 1: the Druids firsthand. Um. But by the time so Posidonius
7:49
Speaker 1: was was working in the first century b c. E. Um,
7:53
Speaker 1: by the time Julius Caesar comes along, I think about
7:57
Speaker 1: fifty sixty years later, um, he he has a different
8:02
Speaker 1: slant than Posidonius probably would have like, because, like you said,
8:06
Speaker 1: he was showing up and saying, here are all these
8:08
Speaker 1: people who we are subjugating, and then here's the reason
8:12
Speaker 1: why we're subjugating them. He wasn't writing about the Celts,
8:15
Speaker 1: and he wasn't writing about the Druids to document their culture.
8:19
Speaker 1: He was writing propaganda to support the campaign of Roman
8:24
Speaker 1: imperialism back home, so that everybody saw, oh, it is
8:28
Speaker 1: good that we're going and conquering these people and bringing
8:31
Speaker 1: civilization to these heathen tribes, because they're just running around
8:34
Speaker 1: cutting each other's heads off and um, sacrificing one another
8:38
Speaker 1: to their oak trees and possibly even eating one another. Um.
8:43
Speaker 1: And and now it's up to historians and archaeologists to say, Okay,
8:47
Speaker 1: how much of that is accurate, how much of that
8:49
Speaker 1: comes from a kernel of truth, and how much of
8:51
Speaker 1: it is outright just you know, fraudulent propaganda, which is
8:55
Speaker 1: a huge job to undertake. Yeah, and we'll we'll touch
8:58
Speaker 1: more on the human sacrifice stuff because that's certainly juicy. Yeah,
9:03
Speaker 1: but um so, I guess Caesar writes a lot about this.
9:07
Speaker 1: And it's like you said, from that perspective, when things
9:10
Speaker 1: really get wacky is when our old buddy Plenty the
9:14
Speaker 1: elder starts writing. And this is about what about a
9:18
Speaker 1: hundred years later, and this is when things when this
9:22
Speaker 1: is when the writing really amped them up as like
9:26
Speaker 1: very odd wizard like people. Yeah. And Pliny, Pliny, so
9:31
Speaker 1: he was a Roman citizen. He was a great traveler
9:35
Speaker 1: though in a great um a great uhman. He was
9:40
Speaker 1: a great wing man. He would just support you eat
9:43
Speaker 1: whether you struck out or not. Um struck out? He
9:47
Speaker 1: uh three's company. What's going on? Yeah, if you went
9:50
Speaker 1: to the Regal Beagle with Pliny, you're gonna come away
9:53
Speaker 1: happy one way or another. Um so. He but he
9:56
Speaker 1: was like he was a documentary of all the other
9:59
Speaker 1: cultures that's why he was going to do. But the
10:01
Speaker 1: problem is that he was still a Roman citizen, so
10:03
Speaker 1: he saw things through Roman I So that means that
10:06
Speaker 1: he saw Heathens as heathens, like, yeah, their culture was
10:09
Speaker 1: interesting and it was worth writing down, But it doesn't
10:12
Speaker 1: mean that he had a respect for it or got
10:16
Speaker 1: everything right or understood everything correctly. But you you, the
10:19
Speaker 1: point is you could take Plenties writings potentially with a
10:22
Speaker 1: little more of a grain of sand than Caesar's. But
10:26
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's right, whatever you want to chew on.
10:30
Speaker 1: But the but Caesar's writings have an advantage over Plenties
10:33
Speaker 1: and that his were more contemporaneous to Celtic culture. By
10:37
Speaker 1: the time Plenty came along, the Romans had already spread
10:41
Speaker 1: their culture throughout the Celtic lands. They stamped out every
10:46
Speaker 1: other culture basically. And what I found interesting from research, Chuck,
10:51
Speaker 1: is that there were varying degrees of grudging nous at
10:55
Speaker 1: accepting that culture among the Celtic tribes. In some respects
10:59
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, yes, I love civilization. It's way
11:03
Speaker 1: better than the life we were living before. There's so
11:06
Speaker 1: many great trappings to it, and it's so much less
11:09
Speaker 1: like you know, um hard and difficult and muddy. But
11:14
Speaker 1: at the same time, I also don't like how the
11:16
Speaker 1: Romans like just kind of like rape everybody they feel
11:20
Speaker 1: like raping and tax us even though we're considered basically
11:23
Speaker 1: slaves to them. So there was a real like um
11:27
Speaker 1: weird period where the Romans started to permeate with their culture,
11:32
Speaker 1: the Celtic culture of um I guess ambivalence towards that
11:38
Speaker 1: that permeation, yeah, um so, I mean these are the
11:42
Speaker 1: historical writings that we have as far as actual, real
11:46
Speaker 1: archaeological evidence. It's not much better as far as conjecture
11:50
Speaker 1: goes a couple of examples, because there's always you know,
11:55
Speaker 1: this longing to connect the Druids and their paganism, their
11:59
Speaker 1: brand of pagan him to this ritual sacrifice again because
12:02
Speaker 1: it's juicy. So the lynd the very famous Lindau Man
12:07
Speaker 1: who was Lindao to Lindau one was a woman. But
12:11
Speaker 1: this was a body that they found in nineteen four
12:15
Speaker 1: preserved in Pete and a Pete bog h. He was
12:18
Speaker 1: a dude in his mid twenties and had a very
12:23
Speaker 1: violent death. As it appears um they found food in
12:26
Speaker 1: his belly, so they there's so much conjecture. The conjecture
12:30
Speaker 1: there is essentially that he was ritually sacrificed, that was
12:34
Speaker 1: his last meal, and then he had what's known as
12:37
Speaker 1: three deaths. He was strangled. Uh, their ligature marks on
12:41
Speaker 1: his neck very well preserved. You should look him up
12:43
Speaker 1: the garrett. The leather strap is still around his neck um.
12:48
Speaker 1: He was hit on the head after that, like blunt
12:51
Speaker 1: forced trauma style, and then his throat was cut. So
12:55
Speaker 1: the speculation is they gave him a last meal and
12:58
Speaker 1: then gave him possibly three deaths, to satisfy three different
13:02
Speaker 1: pagan gods. But it also he was found naked, so
13:07
Speaker 1: there's speculation that he could have just been robbed of
13:11
Speaker 1: his clothes and robbed of his money and uh maybe
13:14
Speaker 1: by someone who it was a sick oh maybe or
13:18
Speaker 1: somebody who is like, get that thing out of my
13:20
Speaker 1: face and put some clothes on. I'm telling you for
13:22
Speaker 1: the last time. And then it went it went south
13:25
Speaker 1: from there. Yeah, and you can go see he travels
13:28
Speaker 1: a little bit, but he's on permanent display in the
13:30
Speaker 1: British Museum. If you want to go, uh, say hi. Yeah,
13:33
Speaker 1: if you ever want to be reminded that you're really
13:36
Speaker 1: not a lot more than a bag of skin. Go
13:38
Speaker 1: check out pictures of a lindau Man because that's basically
13:41
Speaker 1: what he is. Yeah. They've also found mass graves um
13:45
Speaker 1: from the Iron Age in in these areas where where
13:49
Speaker 1: the druids were around, and again conjecture that this was
13:53
Speaker 1: an example of like mass ritual sacrifice, but that's largely
13:57
Speaker 1: been pretty much poopooed over the years as well. Yeah,
14:00
Speaker 1: it's definitely up for debate whether they were just executed
14:04
Speaker 1: or whether they were um killed in battle or whether
14:08
Speaker 1: the yeah, they were sacrificed. Um. There's some other there's
14:12
Speaker 1: some other archaeology that has has really tantalized archaeologist. There's
14:17
Speaker 1: one called the Deal Warrior. Yeah, that's name. Yeah, it
14:21
Speaker 1: really is, especially if you check out like how he
14:23
Speaker 1: was found. He was found with a shield, a spear,
14:25
Speaker 1: and a sword and wearing a crown. And as far
14:29
Speaker 1: as they can tell, there's no other Celtic um burial
14:33
Speaker 1: that that has been found thus far that had all
14:37
Speaker 1: of these accoutrema. So this is an extraordinarily important person.
14:41
Speaker 1: But they have no idea who it was, but they
14:43
Speaker 1: want to say druids so bad they can taste it
14:46
Speaker 1: and then one of the other burials that was found,
14:49
Speaker 1: they found him in a graveyard somewhere in I believe Britain, um,
14:54
Speaker 1: and he was found with a lot of weird stuff like, uh,
15:00
Speaker 1: what appears to be a board game but that they
15:02
Speaker 1: think possibly was was used for divining you know, the future,
15:07
Speaker 1: like rolling dice or something like that. Um. He was
15:10
Speaker 1: found with divining rods, you know, like they used to
15:13
Speaker 1: find water and that kind of thing, so that indicates
15:16
Speaker 1: some sort of ritual magic. He was also found with
15:19
Speaker 1: a set of surgical tools. So they're calling this guy
15:22
Speaker 1: the doctor. Because the archaeologists are being level headed. Everybody
15:25
Speaker 1: else is saying, this is the grave of a druid.
15:28
Speaker 1: It's the grave of a druid. Just say it, you
15:30
Speaker 1: stupid archaeologist. And he's like, no, I won't say it.
15:33
Speaker 1: He won't say it, but it's a it's it could
15:35
Speaker 1: prove to be a really um important Fine. It probably
15:38
Speaker 1: it probably already has proven itself that we just aren't
15:41
Speaker 1: openly interpreting it yet. Yeah, and um, I should mention
15:45
Speaker 1: if Deal Warrior is not the name of a death
15:48
Speaker 1: metal band, then someone's doing it wrong. Yeah. All you
15:51
Speaker 1: need is a picture of this guy on your album cover.
15:54
Speaker 1: It is your first one. Should we take a break, Yeah,
15:57
Speaker 1: let's all right, let's take a little break and we'll
15:58
Speaker 1: come back and talk. Uh, we'll post some more conjecture
16:02
Speaker 1: right after this. All right, Chuck, we're back. It's time
16:30
Speaker 1: for more conjecture again. Some archaeologists refused to to say
16:35
Speaker 1: that druids definitely existed, that a priestly class of Druids
16:39
Speaker 1: and Celtic culture existed. Just chew on that one for
16:43
Speaker 1: a while, alright, totally undermined your led Zeppelin poster. Yeah. Well,
16:49
Speaker 1: here's the thing too about the Celts is we don't
16:52
Speaker 1: know a lot about where their culture began or when
16:55
Speaker 1: it began exactly. Because Druids are Celts, we obviously don't
17:01
Speaker 1: know much about where they began either. Um. We do
17:04
Speaker 1: know that how how it kind of all ended. Um,
17:08
Speaker 1: And when we say ended, I mean there, I mean
17:11
Speaker 1: you can go to modern druid in Druidism websites today
17:14
Speaker 1: and and go wear a flowery dress and frolic barefoot
17:19
Speaker 1: in a field with people in any given country. Probably,
17:23
Speaker 1: But that's not exactly the same thing the actual druids. Uh,
17:28
Speaker 1: we know because of writing from the first and second centuries. Basically, Uh,
17:33
Speaker 1: there are laws all over the place that banned druidism.
17:36
Speaker 1: Part of this Roman uh conquering way, which is like, Hi,
17:41
Speaker 1: we're here, so forget everything, forget your way of life.
17:45
Speaker 1: You are now Roman enjoy using toilets, right exactly, And
17:50
Speaker 1: I like, I do like the toilets a lot, right.
17:52
Speaker 1: So so with Claudia, I'd like a couple of um
17:55
Speaker 1: Caesar's Augustus and Tiberius said Okay, Romans citizen and aren't
18:00
Speaker 1: allowed to participate in druidism. And then by the time
18:03
Speaker 1: Claudius came around, uh, and by the time his rule
18:06
Speaker 1: ended in fifty four CE UM, the Druids have had
18:12
Speaker 1: been at least officially stamped out. Like not only could
18:15
Speaker 1: you as a Roman citizen not participate in druidism, Druidism
18:19
Speaker 1: in in totality was banned in the Roman empire um
18:24
Speaker 1: under punishment of death. And uh, it had uh the
18:29
Speaker 1: effect of driving Druidism underground, for sure. Yeah, but it's
18:34
Speaker 1: not like it just went away. They still, like, you know,
18:37
Speaker 1: they would go off and and and do their own
18:40
Speaker 1: thing quietly as much as possible, right, and and so
18:43
Speaker 1: I And I mean, when Claudius is banning this, it's
18:46
Speaker 1: not just like no, we we don't like this. It's
18:48
Speaker 1: a threat to to the Roman control over the Gallic
18:52
Speaker 1: lands and these celts Um. That's not the reason that
18:56
Speaker 1: he gave, although that was almost certainly the reason why
18:59
Speaker 1: they outlaw druids. But the reason they gave were things like,
19:03
Speaker 1: these people practice an inhuman religion where they sacrifice people
19:08
Speaker 1: to their gods. Apparently they would go through criminals and prisoners,
19:13
Speaker 1: and then once they ran out of criminals and prisoners,
19:15
Speaker 1: they would start sacrificing their own innocent people. They just
19:18
Speaker 1: had this blood lust, so that religion had to be
19:21
Speaker 1: stamped out and repressed. And of course the Roman citizen
19:25
Speaker 1: around the world said, oh, yeah, that's great, get rid
19:27
Speaker 1: of druidism. But like you said, it just kind of
19:30
Speaker 1: went underground, it seems like. And then as rebellion started
19:34
Speaker 1: to kind of crop up around them the British Isles
19:38
Speaker 1: and in France um against Roman rule. It's pretty much
19:43
Speaker 1: a sure bet that if there were such a thing
19:45
Speaker 1: as druids, they were helping to foment that that rebellion
19:48
Speaker 1: and that uprising. Yeah, and I think I get the
19:51
Speaker 1: idea that the Romans were a little spooked by the Druids. Um,
19:56
Speaker 1: while they were like vastly superior with their military in
20:00
Speaker 1: their might, um, they paid a lot of attention to them,
20:03
Speaker 1: and like, they're not gonna make a bunch of hay
20:05
Speaker 1: about something that they don't think is a threat. And
20:08
Speaker 1: I think they were spooked out a little bit, like, uh,
20:10
Speaker 1: when they were resisting, you know, after these laws were passed,
20:13
Speaker 1: the Druids invoked a prophecy saying the end of the
20:17
Speaker 1: world is coming near and the Roman Empire is going
20:19
Speaker 1: to be destroyed by fire. And I don't think it
20:22
Speaker 1: was just like the Romans just brushed that off. I
20:26
Speaker 1: think they're like, oh jeez, those those guys are crazy. Um.
20:29
Speaker 1: And also, how are we going to deal with a
20:32
Speaker 1: big fire? Right exactly? So that's so that I mean,
20:36
Speaker 1: I could see being spooked by that, couldn't you. Yeah, So, um,
20:41
Speaker 1: they they definitely if they weren't spook chucking, at least,
20:44
Speaker 1: they took them quite seriously and like again like outright
20:47
Speaker 1: banned them. But not only did they did they prophecy
20:51
Speaker 1: that they were going to um be burned by fire
20:54
Speaker 1: like the some of these early writings of drewids, especially Pliny,
20:59
Speaker 1: may did it seem kind of like creepy and magical
21:03
Speaker 1: and wizardy, you know, like like Pliny described druids as
21:07
Speaker 1: holding um blood offerings, like like slaughters of animals and
21:11
Speaker 1: humans and their sacred oak groves. And we should say,
21:14
Speaker 1: I don't think we said this, but the word druid
21:17
Speaker 1: one of the suggestions for the etymology of it is
21:21
Speaker 1: drew and wind, and drew means to know, and wind
21:25
Speaker 1: means oak, So drew wid may mean nowhere of the
21:29
Speaker 1: oaks or the people who who have the knowledge of
21:32
Speaker 1: these sacred oak trees. Um and Plenty described these guys
21:37
Speaker 1: and like white beards and long white robes, climbing up
21:40
Speaker 1: oak trees to cut down mistletoe with golden sickles, you know,
21:44
Speaker 1: around saw wayne or um you know, the spring solstice
21:48
Speaker 1: or summer solstice or spring equinox um, and and worshiping
21:53
Speaker 1: this whole pantheon of gods that unfortunately the Romans didn't
21:57
Speaker 1: bother to write down the names of. Yeah and once, uh,
22:00
Speaker 1: isn't there speculation that Merlin from the Arthurian legend was
22:04
Speaker 1: a druid, like he survived, you know, the not just
22:09
Speaker 1: the Roman Romanization of Celtic culture and also the Christianization
22:13
Speaker 1: of Celtic culture, but into the Middle Ages, um, when
22:17
Speaker 1: he was supposedly running around. Yeah, and again because they
22:21
Speaker 1: weren't writing anything down. You know, when you're when you're
22:23
Speaker 1: a conquering person, you can go in and like raid
22:26
Speaker 1: the archives and get a lot of knowledge. I imagine
22:29
Speaker 1: it was kind of creepy in and of itself to
22:31
Speaker 1: just find that they had no writings at all, Right,
22:34
Speaker 1: and then you're all of a sudden, I mean, I'm
22:37
Speaker 1: sure there was like questioning and stuff, but then you're
22:39
Speaker 1: just going on whatever they wanted to tell you, and
22:42
Speaker 1: any Druid worth assault was probably like, you know, probably
22:45
Speaker 1: tease them a bit about how creepy they might be. Sure,
22:50
Speaker 1: you know. So that whole not writing things down thing,
22:53
Speaker 1: that's that's an important point. So one thing, it means
22:56
Speaker 1: that we don't have any direct understanding of the druids
23:00
Speaker 1: from the druids. But um, the reason why they didn't
23:03
Speaker 1: write things down was two fold. One, if they were
23:06
Speaker 1: this priestly elite class that stood between the average celt
23:11
Speaker 1: and the gods, Um, they were the ones who knew
23:14
Speaker 1: the secrets of the oak and the wisdom of the
23:16
Speaker 1: oak and all that um. One way they maintained that monopoly,
23:21
Speaker 1: or that that have the market cornered on that knowledge
23:24
Speaker 1: was to make it so that the only way you
23:26
Speaker 1: could learn to be a druid was from another druid,
23:29
Speaker 1: and to pass along this ancient tradition of knowledge, which
23:32
Speaker 1: makes the whole thing way more mystical. Then even if
23:36
Speaker 1: there was some main religious book or something like that,
23:39
Speaker 1: it's oral ancient knowledge passed on from druid to druid.
23:43
Speaker 1: That's how they passed it on. And that's why they
23:45
Speaker 1: didn't write anything down. And then elsewhere I saw I
23:48
Speaker 1: think it was maybe stray Bow or someone else said
23:51
Speaker 1: that the reason they didn't write things down was because
23:54
Speaker 1: they felt like by reading you didn't learn as much
23:57
Speaker 1: as from being immersed in it and in having had
24:00
Speaker 1: explained to you over the period of something like twenty
24:03
Speaker 1: years by another druid, Because that's about how long it
24:06
Speaker 1: took to be initiated into being a full druid, a
24:11
Speaker 1: full rank druid, a full rank a black belt druid. Uh,
24:14
Speaker 1: shall we take another break? Why not? Man? All right,
24:17
Speaker 1: let's do it, and then we'll talk a little bit
24:19
Speaker 1: more about whether or not they practice human sacrifice and
24:22
Speaker 1: stonehenge in all sorts of other good things right after this.
24:49
Speaker 1: All right, So we talked a lot so far about
24:53
Speaker 1: or a little bit rather about whether or not they
24:56
Speaker 1: did practice human sacrifice, the sort of the sixty thousand
25:00
Speaker 1: dollar question. And like we said, because the Romans really
25:03
Speaker 1: wanted to propagandas and paint a picture of listen, we
25:06
Speaker 1: gotta do this. These people are barbarians. Uh, they're sacrificing
25:12
Speaker 1: and like you said, maybe even eating each other. That
25:15
Speaker 1: that cooks up a good case basically, especially when it's
25:17
Speaker 1: coming from Caesar's pin um or whatever he wrote with
25:22
Speaker 1: what it's right with hero with the blood of his enemies, Okay, which,
25:28
Speaker 1: by the way, by the way, Chuck, we are one
25:30
Speaker 1: day out from the IDEs of March, that's right, which
25:33
Speaker 1: marked the death of Caesar, one day before your birthday,
25:37
Speaker 1: So happy early birthday from everybody and stuff. You should know, Like, um,
25:42
Speaker 1: so did they or did they not? That is a
25:45
Speaker 1: big question and the answer is maybe. Right. So you know,
25:51
Speaker 1: there's a lot of writings about it, but again you
25:52
Speaker 1: gotta take all that with a grain of salt. Is propaganda.
25:55
Speaker 1: But you know, some of it was super detailed. Um
25:59
Speaker 1: could just be good writing and good imagination, but there
26:01
Speaker 1: was enough of it um to where there is a
26:04
Speaker 1: lot of speculation that you know, they may have done
26:07
Speaker 1: so maybe not on some huge mascale, but that doesn't
26:11
Speaker 1: mean that if you people weren't thrown in a wicker
26:13
Speaker 1: man every now and then in set ablaze. Yeah, and
26:15
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's worth really just saying overly one
26:19
Speaker 1: of the things that whole wicker Man. If you haven't
26:21
Speaker 1: seen Wickerman, go watch it. Not the knick Cage version both, Okay, Gussie,
26:25
Speaker 1: both their moments in the Nick Cage when they are
26:27
Speaker 1: so bad, it's pretty wonderful to watch. Okay, alright, alright,
26:30
Speaker 1: granted the original one is pretty awesome. I think, like
26:33
Speaker 1: Peter Peter Cushing in it, well, Christopher Lee was the
26:37
Speaker 1: the main creep, wasn't he. Well obviously that was the
26:40
Speaker 1: main creep in his own life. Um, he was great.
26:44
Speaker 1: But so in Wickerman, I think it was from this investigator.
26:49
Speaker 1: I think goes into like this kind of isolated, insular,
26:53
Speaker 1: kind of Celtic tradition community and ends up finding himself
26:56
Speaker 1: inside a giant wicker man being burned alive. They that's
27:01
Speaker 1: based on legend about the the Druids that they used
27:05
Speaker 1: to sacrifice people by making giant wicker figures, putting somebody
27:09
Speaker 1: in there and setting it on fire. And that was
27:12
Speaker 1: just one of the ways they supposedly sacrificed people. Another
27:15
Speaker 1: one I read about was that they would slash people
27:18
Speaker 1: in the back with a mortal wound, and then one
27:21
Speaker 1: of the druids or one of their assistants would watch
27:25
Speaker 1: the person's death throws and death agony to divine the future,
27:29
Speaker 1: like you could tell by the way somebody arrived or wriggled,
27:32
Speaker 1: or maybe how they bled what the future would be.
27:35
Speaker 1: And then with Lindale man, you were saying, remember he
27:37
Speaker 1: was he was had his neck broken, he was choked,
27:41
Speaker 1: hit over the head, and he was slashed in the throat.
27:45
Speaker 1: They think that possibly the choking thing, the strangulation, and
27:48
Speaker 1: the slash in the throat were related to where he
27:51
Speaker 1: would produce like a fountain of blood when when he
27:54
Speaker 1: was when his throat was slashed while he was being strangled,
27:58
Speaker 1: that would tell them something. Possibly, That's that's the legend,
28:02
Speaker 1: the whole cannibalism thing. I saw zero evidence for at all. Yeah,
28:07
Speaker 1: there is no evidence for cannibalism human sacrifice. There are
28:10
Speaker 1: a lot of good cases out there that that really
28:13
Speaker 1: possibly did happen among the Celts. Yeah. And part of
28:16
Speaker 1: the reason this is so uh so tantalizing all these
28:20
Speaker 1: years later is when they link them to things like
28:23
Speaker 1: Stonehenge and you go to Stonehenge and you're told some
28:26
Speaker 1: story by some snot nose kid you know that's visiting
28:30
Speaker 1: from Indiana that like, you know, the Druids used to
28:34
Speaker 1: you know, sacrifice people here and that's why they built it,
28:37
Speaker 1: which is not true at all. It's gotten all mixed up. Um.
28:41
Speaker 1: Stonehenge was around long before the Celts and the Druids
28:45
Speaker 1: were doing their thing there. But they may have gone there,
28:49
Speaker 1: I mean ed makes a good point like a lot
28:51
Speaker 1: of times when they were religious temples and things that
28:54
Speaker 1: had been evacuated another pagan religion might move in just
28:57
Speaker 1: because it's there and it's ready to go. So they
29:01
Speaker 1: may have gone to Stonehenge and to perform some ceremonies,
29:04
Speaker 1: but that was not the purpose for Stonehenge. Yeah, we
29:09
Speaker 1: have no idea why they built Stonehenge or even who
29:11
Speaker 1: built Stonehenge. But the first the first unambiguous appearance of
29:17
Speaker 1: the Celts comes hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of years
29:21
Speaker 1: after Stonehenge was first built. But yeah, they may have
29:24
Speaker 1: used it. If you were a Druid, wouldn't you like say, yeah,
29:27
Speaker 1: Stonehenge is probably pretty important. It lines up I think
29:31
Speaker 1: with the summer solstice, the the rising sun and the
29:34
Speaker 1: summer solstice. That was a very important um time to
29:38
Speaker 1: the Druids as far as we understand, so of course
29:41
Speaker 1: they would pay attention to it and use it. And
29:43
Speaker 1: maybe another way to look at it is that the
29:45
Speaker 1: Druid tradition and maybe even the Celts themselves directly grew
29:50
Speaker 1: out of the people in the culture that built Stonehenge originally,
29:55
Speaker 1: because I think see I think it was Caesar who
29:58
Speaker 1: wrote that the Celts culture and Druids grew out of
30:02
Speaker 1: the British isles first and then spread westward or eastward
30:06
Speaker 1: into Europe, primarily France, right yeah, yeah, although there's I've
30:11
Speaker 1: seen references that it made it as far as Turkey.
30:14
Speaker 1: The Celtic culture did um and had extensive trading routes,
30:18
Speaker 1: So they weren't like this this you know, isolated group
30:20
Speaker 1: of bumpkins. They were spread out all over the place.
30:23
Speaker 1: They knew how to trade. Then they had their own civilization.
30:26
Speaker 1: It just wasn't nearly as advanced as as Roman civilization,
30:30
Speaker 1: but they had like an established culture by the time
30:32
Speaker 1: Rome showed up. We just don't know quite that much
30:36
Speaker 1: about it as it was right before Rome came. Yeah,
30:40
Speaker 1: and as you said, I thinking like the very beginning,
30:42
Speaker 1: like you know, years and years later, like in the
30:44
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds and sixteen hundreds, there were people in groups
30:48
Speaker 1: of people that referred to themselves as druids and claimed
30:53
Speaker 1: that they were practicing these true traditions. Um, but there's
30:57
Speaker 1: really no like there's really no proof that any of
31:01
Speaker 1: that is true at all. And and it's likely that
31:03
Speaker 1: it was just these people many many years later that
31:07
Speaker 1: just sort of, um, kind of dug up this ancient
31:10
Speaker 1: thing and made it their own. No, it's it's a
31:12
Speaker 1: hundred percent that way. And even like the the neo
31:15
Speaker 1: Druidic groups that you see today, don't try to to
31:19
Speaker 1: make it any make it out any other way. Um.
31:23
Speaker 1: A lot of the a lot of them will say,
31:26
Speaker 1: you know, we we are. This druidism we practice has
31:29
Speaker 1: been around a few hundred years and it's based on
31:33
Speaker 1: ancient you know, folklore and tradition that you will find
31:37
Speaker 1: in Ireland. And that's that's a really good point too.
31:39
Speaker 1: Like like Neo Druids, m traces its roots back to
31:43
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century when some historians and antiquarians got interested
31:48
Speaker 1: in some of the ancient Irish stuff. Um. And they
31:52
Speaker 1: think possibly that some of the ancient Irish myths and
31:55
Speaker 1: legends are a form, a kind of a preserved form
32:00
Speaker 1: of ancient Celtic and Druidic culture. Because the Romans never
32:05
Speaker 1: set foot in Ireland, they never managed to conquer Scotland.
32:09
Speaker 1: The picks up there, who you will remember from the
32:11
Speaker 1: Locknest episode, drove them back. And so these two, these
32:15
Speaker 1: two areas where Celtic culture lived, was able to kind
32:19
Speaker 1: of live and preserve and and continue on until about
32:22
Speaker 1: the five hundreds when the Christians showed up and finally
32:25
Speaker 1: managed to convert everybody um, and then Celtic culture thank you,
32:31
Speaker 1: and then um. But but Celtic culture had an extra
32:35
Speaker 1: five hundred years to continue on and then make it
32:38
Speaker 1: into you know, the written word and written language. And
32:40
Speaker 1: so you can go back and look at Irish mythology
32:44
Speaker 1: and a lot of people say this is this here,
32:47
Speaker 1: here's your example of Druidism right here. Um, which it
32:52
Speaker 1: could be a variation of it because these were isolated cultures,
32:57
Speaker 1: but still it probably is some form of Druidism. And
33:00
Speaker 1: then that is what the seventeenth century onward in Dano
33:04
Speaker 1: Druids based their stuff on. But they don't claim to
33:07
Speaker 1: say we have unmolested ancient knowledge from the original or
33:12
Speaker 1: tradition of druids. They just are kind of basically doing
33:16
Speaker 1: their own thing, you know. Yeah, and it's so rich
33:19
Speaker 1: for um literature and movies. It's just it's been definitely
33:25
Speaker 1: just sort of malleable and bastardized just to fit like
33:29
Speaker 1: a screenplay of um Celtic folklore and like these kind
33:35
Speaker 1: of creepy, blissed out flower children who uh throw people
33:40
Speaker 1: in a wicker man. Or there was a movie with
33:43
Speaker 1: Christopher Lambert of you know, the Highlander called Druids, which
33:47
Speaker 1: I'm sure is I haven't seen it, but I imagine
33:50
Speaker 1: is just cooked up for movies. You know. There's a
33:55
Speaker 1: really good movie from around the time Wickerman came out
33:58
Speaker 1: called Blood the I think Blood on Satan's Claw. Dude,
34:02
Speaker 1: this terrible title. It is amazing that it's part of
34:06
Speaker 1: like wicker Band and Blood on Satan's Claws, they're part
34:08
Speaker 1: of something called folk horror. Yeah. Yeah, and we would
34:11
Speaker 1: not have folk horror if it wasn't for those antiquarians
34:14
Speaker 1: in the seventeen hundreds of being the sixteen hundreds being
34:17
Speaker 1: becoming interested in Druidism. We we might not even have
34:21
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin, my friend, if it wasn't for some of
34:23
Speaker 1: those guys. Well, the guy who did uh Hereditary, his
34:28
Speaker 1: the trailer for his new movie just came out and
34:30
Speaker 1: it is straight up like druid centric. I can't wait.
34:37
Speaker 1: Like these these you know, teenage campers in like Sweden
34:42
Speaker 1: or something. I think it's Sweden, I'm not sure. You know,
34:45
Speaker 1: they find this, you know, group of people in a
34:48
Speaker 1: field who are doing creepy things, and it just it
34:51
Speaker 1: looks really creepy and awesome. I'm assuming is producing it.
34:55
Speaker 1: Probably like four could show a movie of somebody's spit
35:00
Speaker 1: into a pale for two hours and I'd be like,
35:02
Speaker 1: I want to watch that. Yeah, they're a good outfit.
35:05
Speaker 1: They were a great outfit. Uh Oh. One other thing
35:09
Speaker 1: I also saw that um Druids, the ancient Druids, if
35:16
Speaker 1: they did exist as like an elite priestly class would
35:18
Speaker 1: not have gotten their hands dirty with sacrifice. They would
35:22
Speaker 1: have just overseen it. And then possibly a sub order
35:26
Speaker 1: of druids called vates would have divined, you know, what
35:30
Speaker 1: was going on from the way the blood was spilled
35:32
Speaker 1: or whatever. So not, uh what are they vates? Vates?
35:36
Speaker 1: And then there was also bards. They were not druids,
35:39
Speaker 1: not full fledged druids. I I don't I don't know,
35:42
Speaker 1: I don't understand it. I've just seen it. I've seen
35:45
Speaker 1: it delineated like vate, vates, Bards and druids. And then
35:49
Speaker 1: I've also seen I think in this article Ed places
35:52
Speaker 1: druids is kind of like the whole elite class. It
35:55
Speaker 1: was definitely a higher class, right. And then I also
35:58
Speaker 1: saw in UM some archaeology UM article that that there's
36:05
Speaker 1: really no evidence that druids, if they did exist as
36:08
Speaker 1: a separate class, existed as separate class until very late,
36:12
Speaker 1: right before the Romans came, and they would have just
36:15
Speaker 1: been integrated into everyday life and it would have been,
36:17
Speaker 1: like you said, an occupation, like you know, Todd over there,
36:21
Speaker 1: Todd Merwin, Um, he's really good with the divining rod.
36:25
Speaker 1: So that's what that's what we rely on Todd for.
36:28
Speaker 1: But he wasn't like an elite class, and then maybe
36:31
Speaker 1: it developed out of that kind of specialization over time.
36:34
Speaker 1: I love that Todd is your kind of go to
36:36
Speaker 1: over the years. I do too, love Todd. Uh. That's
36:41
Speaker 1: it for druids. Although there is a lot more out there,
36:44
Speaker 1: and a lot of it's confusing, but a hundred percent
36:46
Speaker 1: of it is awesome, especially if you're um flow. If
36:50
Speaker 1: your boat is floated by dungeons and dragons type stuff. Uh.
36:54
Speaker 1: And since I said dungeons and dragons, it's time for
36:57
Speaker 1: listener mail. I thought you were about to say, since
37:03
Speaker 1: I said dungeons and dragons, that's Friday night and I'm
37:08
Speaker 1: in a basement. I love it. Hi, guys, I worked
37:12
Speaker 1: this is on bed bugs. By the way, we got
37:14
Speaker 1: a lot of replies about short stuff on bed bugs, um,
37:18
Speaker 1: including quite a few from the people in the hospitality industry. Yes,
37:24
Speaker 1: which is very gross. Um. Hey, guys, worked as a
37:28
Speaker 1: guest service agent for a three star hotel in Charlotte,
37:33
Speaker 1: North Carolina for over three years. It was called bed
37:35
Speaker 1: Bugs City. Bed Bugs was basically a curse word, and
37:41
Speaker 1: it couldn't be used in front of guests, and we
37:43
Speaker 1: heard from a couple of other people in the service
37:45
Speaker 1: industry that you never say that word out loud. They
37:49
Speaker 1: called them BB's at this place, but another guy called
37:51
Speaker 1: them the visitors. Oh my god. So I'm not really
37:55
Speaker 1: sure if it was true or not, but um, a
37:57
Speaker 1: general manager told me that this picular hotel chain did
38:01
Speaker 1: not believe in putting mattress covers on their mattresses. The
38:04
Speaker 1: logic being housekeepers are required to inspect mattresses every time
38:08
Speaker 1: a guest checks out of a room and every time
38:11
Speaker 1: they change the bed. If they were to put mattress
38:13
Speaker 1: covers on the beds and guests would notice them, it
38:16
Speaker 1: would give the guests the idea that bed bugs were
38:19
Speaker 1: in that mattress already interesting. In addition this, the manager
38:23
Speaker 1: explained to me that guests are the ones who bring
38:26
Speaker 1: bed bugs into hotels. I don't know about that. Sounds
38:29
Speaker 1: like blaming the victim, agreed, So if a guest calls
38:33
Speaker 1: after they've checked out of a room to report bed bugs,
38:36
Speaker 1: this complaint basically fell on deaf ears. If the guest
38:39
Speaker 1: called to report bed bugs during this stay, the company
38:42
Speaker 1: is not obligated to refund the nightly rate. Um, but
38:45
Speaker 1: sometimes they might adjust your rate. It's a sign of goodwill.
38:49
Speaker 1: They don't reimburse people for finding bed bugs in the
38:52
Speaker 1: rooms because to them, that is an admission of guilt.
38:55
Speaker 1: So instead they will offer I can't believe this part.
38:58
Speaker 1: Instead the hotel will offered to wash your clothes, movie
39:02
Speaker 1: to a different room, place the room with bed bugs
39:05
Speaker 1: out of service, and then tell you to throw your
39:07
Speaker 1: stuff in the trunk of your car in plastic bags
39:11
Speaker 1: and leave the car in the sun. Very rare occasions,
39:17
Speaker 1: they might even issue a future night's day that can
39:19
Speaker 1: be used at any Bedbug City right across the country.
39:23
Speaker 1: You get what you pay for with the three star hotel. Yeah,
39:27
Speaker 1: I don't know. Man. Three star used to be different.
39:30
Speaker 1: It used to be sure, and then the corporate takeover
39:32
Speaker 1: of America undid that difference. So that is from J.
39:40
Speaker 1: The letter J. The letter J. This this listener mail
39:44
Speaker 1: is brought to you by the letter Jan Colling down
39:47
Speaker 1: to bed Bug City. Thanks Jay from bed Bug City.
39:50
Speaker 1: We appreciate that peak behind the curtain. UM, if you
39:54
Speaker 1: work in some industry we've talked about and want to
39:56
Speaker 1: tell us all the gross and horrific things that the
39:59
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40:01
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40:04
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40:06
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40:10
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