Pagan Britain

[norseman]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-syllabus.html

[DaiBach]

Good morning Norseman.

The story is in the Daily Mail, which thinks England is Britain. This can be very confusing for it's readers when they meet Britons who've never visited England and who don't speak English.

It's also confusing for Britons, who aren't English, when they hear about Druids who can't speak anything but English. How's a Druid to sing Yma o Hyd properly if he can only speak English?

It's a funny old world.

[Shaunc]

Just for my own interests. Would the paganism practiced in Ireland many years ago be considered to be the same or similar to the paganism practiced in England and Wales and Scotland.

[DaiBach]

Good morning Shaun.

If you mean the paganism of the ancient Druids, yes it was the same in Britain and Ireland. The peoples of the British Isles shared a common language, which probably split into Brithonic and Goidelic before the Romans arrived, but the British and Irish still shared many cultural similarities. The Irish Sea was a road, rather than a barrier then, so Welsh could be heard spoken on Ireland and Irish spoken in Wales.

Christianity was easily taken up by the Celts and the early Celtic saints where considered by the people to be the successors of the Druids. David is described as having 'the Druids tonsure' for instance, and Patrick, like David, came from a long line of local law-makers and administrators. The Irish saints differed in one characteristic from their British counterparts, in that they were willing to try and convert the English; the British saints turned their backs on the English, who they thought were sent to punish the British for being so disunited. Bede records that even when they (the English) were converted to Christianity, the Welsh still thought of them as heathen

[Shaunc]

Thank you. The reason that I asked is that I'm 7 generations australian. My first australian ancestor was born in this country in 1840 but his parents were both Irish catholic convicts. I'm a great believer in breeding and genetics and have often wondered whether my Irish ancestry has had much of an influence on me.

[DaiBach]

It must have been a massive shock to them to leave their lush, green home and to arrive on the shore of Australia. I'm sure some of their characteristics live on in you. Life was harsher then, and people had to be tough; I'm glad that I live in a time of peace, in a lovely, and relatively prosperous part of the world.

[norseman]

Dai, there are tales in folklore about the Druids going back to Roman times. It is said that when the Roman army coralled the Druids into Anglesey and supposedly slaughtered them, many actually escaped by sea to Southern Ireland via the Isle of Man. In Ireland, the Druids became subsumed into the Celtic Christian church. They had many traditions in common, principly Animism and informality. Jump forward a few centuries and the Celtic Church founded an establishment on Iona in the Western Isles. Jump across country to Bernicia. The pagan leader of this Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the North married the daughter of the Sussex Saxons and she was christian. The Bernician ruler was "persuaded" to convert and asked the Iona establishment to found a similar establishment on the North-East coast. The location chosen was a pagan holy place which came to be known as Lindisfarne as a Christian holy place. So, a centre of Christianity in the north founded on a pagan place by a Christian sect with pagan tendencies. The conversion of Bernicia was only skin-deep, involving mainly the ruler and his Thanes. The common folk, mostly Celt, remained pagan. The "difficulty" between the Celtic and Roman churches was resolved at the Synod of Whitby and the Celtic Church slid back into relative obscurity.
Now jump forward again to the 20th century. Two characters, Ross Nichol and Gerald Gardner established [as collaborators] the Neo-Druids and Wicca - both men were ordained priests of the Celtic Church and move are afoot to return the Celtic Church to Lindisfarne. And the Wheel turns again !

There is another legend regarding the Druids in Wales. In the records of the Welsh Cunning Folk, it is said that the druids "came from elsewhere" and were taught the Celtic Mysteries by the Cunning Folk.

So, there you are. Two things to ponder. Fact or Fiction ? Maybe a bit of both. [p.s. I am of the Cunning Folk]