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The Druids
Samhain marks one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year, for the Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark, at Beltane on May 1st and Samhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. For it was understood that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed below the ground. Whereas Beltane welcomes in the summer with joyous celebrations at dawn, the most magically potent time of this festival is November Eve, the night of October 31st, known today of course, as Halloween.
I picked this video because I thought it was interesting that this ritual is just like Halloween. I did not know there was a link between the too. This website also has lots of interesting things.
http://www.druidcircle.org/avalon/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=1&Itemid=114
I also picked the contemporary part which is a celtopedia which is a free online encyclopedia entailing a large variety of Celtic and Druidic articles, including history, myths, culture, religion, geography, and more! Since January 2006, we are currently working on 6,073 articles. I figure anyone wanting to find out more information can find just about anything here.
http://celtopedia.druidcircle.net/index.php?title=Main_Page
Who were the DRUIDS?
In Celtic polytheism, a druid was a member of the priestly and learned class in the pre-Christian, ancient Celtic societies. These societies existed through much of Western Europe, Britain and Ireland, until they were supplanted by the Roman government and, later, the arrival of Christianity. Druids were part of the cultures of the tribal peoples who were called "Keltoi" (Κέλτοι) or "Keltai" (Κέλται) and "Galatai" (Γαλάται) by the Greeks and "Celtae" and "Galli" by the Romans. These words evolved into the modern English terms "Celtic", "Gaulish", and "Galatian". In the communities they served, druids combined the duties of priest, arbitrator, healer, scholar, and magistrate. Both men and women served as druids.
What did the druids’ believe in?
The druids like the Celtic communities they served, were polytheists, and worshiped a number of goddesses and gods. They also show signs of animism, in their reverence for various aspects of the natural world, such as the land, sea and sky,[2], and their veneration of other aspects of nature, such as sacred trees and groves (the oak and hazel were particularly revered), tops of hills, streams, lakes and plants such as the mistletoe.[3] Fire was regarded as a symbol of several divinities and was associated with cleansing. The druids looked to the skies for omens in the shapes of clouds, and the movements of the sun, moon, and stars, looking to them for "signs and seasons".
Their calendar year was governed by the lunar, solar, vegetative and herding cycles. The four main Gaelic holidays observed by Gaelic druids and their people include Imbolg (February 1), which marked the earliest signs of the coming spring, Beltain (May 1), a time of community gatherings and moving of the herds to summer pastures, Lughnasadh to celebrate the ripening of first fruits and the many-skilled deity Lugh, and Samhain to recognize the end of harvest, the time of sacrifice, and the lowering of the barrier between the world of the living and that of the dead. The timing for these four festivals was determined by seasonal changes in the natural world, or possibly by combined lunar and solar calendar. In modern times, remnants of these festivals are still observed by the descendants of the ancient Celts, though often in a Christianised or secular manner. Modern attempts at reconstructing, reinventing or reimagining the practices of the druids are called Neo-druidism.
Is it still around?
The druids' influence was as much social as religious. They not only performed roles similar to modern priests, but were also the philosophers, scientists, lore-masters, teachers, judges and counsellors to the kings. The druids linked the Celtic peoples with their numerous gods, the secular and ritual calendar, and the natural order. They were suppressed in Gaul and Britain after the Roman conquests, but retained their influence in Ireland until the coming of Christianity. The druids' roles were then assumed by the bishop and the abbot among the Christians, while some of their other functions were carried on by the poets.
Much traditional rural religious practice can still be discerned from Christian interpretations and survives in practices like Halloween observances, corn dollies and other harvest rituals, possibly the myths of Puck, "lucky" and "unlucky" plants and animals and the like. Orally-transmitted material may have exaggerated deep origins in antiquity, however, and is constantly subject to influence from surrounding culture. Some strands of modern "Druidism" (also known among some groups as "Modern Druidry"), such as the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD), are a continuation of the 18th-century revival and thus are built largely around writings produced in the 18th century and after. Some are monotheistic. Members of other Neo-druid groups may be Neopagan, occultist, Reconstructionist or non-specifically spiritual.
I also found a book that you may be interested in.
This book, which appears for the first time on the Internet at sacred-texts.com, is one of the best scholarly treatments of the ancient Celtic religion. Written early in the 20th Century, Religion of the Ancient Celts by J.A. MacCulloch includes extensive treatment of that perennially fascinating subject, the Druids.
There is very little documentary evidence to go on. In particular, we have no actual sacred texts of the ancient Celts, as their texts were transmitted orally only to initiates, and disappeared forever when the last Druid died. Christianity became the dominant religion in the Celtic area before the oral traditions could become written down, unlike the Vedas in India. Ancient Celtic religious beliefs must therefore be inferred from second-hand classical accounts, hints from Celtic mythology, legend and folklore, as well as archaeological and comparative anthropological evidence. MacCulloch marshals this body of evidence, extensively footnoted, so that an authoritative and clear view of ancient Celtic religion emerges.
MacCullough details the Celtic belief in reincarnation and a spectral otherworld; documents the enormous pantheon of now-obscure gods and goddesses, including many local deities; and describes totemistic and animistic beliefs. In addition, MacCulloch does not flinch (nor sensationalize) when describing the darker side of Celtic practices, including the famous 'Burning Man' human sacrifices, cannibalism and exogamous incest.
With so much spurious, flawed and poorly cited information floating around on the Internet about Celtic beliefs, it is important to review what is actually known about this subject. Hopefully putting this book online will provide some balance.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/rac/index.htm
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