An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present - Doreen Valiente 2018

Druids, their Links with Witchcraft

The question of what links, if any, Druidism had with witchcraft is a difficult one, because our knowledge of Druidism is very incomplete.

However, we do know that there were Druidesses as well as Druids; and when Druidism was suppressed these women may well have joined the cult of witchcraft. Lewis Spence, in his book The Mysteries of Britain (Riders, London), regards witchcraft as “a broken-down survival of Iberian-Keltic religion.”

He points out that there is a likeness between the traditional cauldron of the witches and the Sacred Cauldron of Inspiration presided over by the Goddess Cerridwen, who was revered by the Bards and the Druids.

In fact, says Spence, the Mysteries of Cerridwen were still being celebrated in Wales in the twelfth century A.D. Hywel, Prince of North Wales, was initiated into the Lesser Mysteries of Cerridwen in 1171. The goddess was addressed as “the moon, lofty and fair”, just as the goddess of the witches was. And, again like the witch-goddess, she had a dark as well as a bright aspect, as indeed any goddess of Nature is bound to possess, if she is to be a true deity and not a mere sentimental picture.

I have been told by a present-day Chosen Chief of a Druid Order that Druidism is not in fact a religion, but rather a philosophy and a way of life. If this viewpoint is accepted, then there is no reason why the Druids should not have respected the pagan relion of their day, much as the Greek philosophers did that of their country, while reasoning among themselves as to the true nature of the gods and goddesses whom the common people worshipped.

From the surviving relics which we have of Druid philosophy, handed down by the Bards of Wales and from other sources of Celtic tradition, we find that they had an important belief in common with witches, namely that of reincarnation.

The Druids taught that the human soul had to pass through a number of existences in Abred, the Circle of Necessity, before it could attain to Gwynvyd, the Circle of Blessedness. Abred was the condition of earthly life; but once it had been transcended, and its lessons learned, the soul would return to it no more. Three things hindered the soul’s progression, and caused it to fall back into the changes of Abred: namely, pride, falsehood and cruelty.

When Charles Godfrey Leland was carrying on his researches into the witch lore of Italy in the late nineteenth century, he found the idea of reincarnation cherished among the witches of the Romagna as a secret and esoteric doctrine, which was believed in but not much talked about. He testifies to this in his Etruscan-Roman Remains in Popular Tradition (Fisher Unwin, London, 1892).

The belief in reincarnation was widespread in the ancient world; so it is not really surprising that witches and Druids should have it in common, nor by any means impossible that it should have been transmitted by them to the present day. (See REINCARNATION.)

What is perhaps a closer link is the fact that the Great Sabbats of the witches are identical with the four great yearly festivals of the Druids in Celtic countries; namely Beltane (30th April), Lughnassadh (1st August), Samhain (31st October) and Imbolc or Oimelc (2nd February).

April 30th is of course May Eve, the witches’ Walpurgis Night; Lughnassadh is Lammas; Samhain is Halloween; and Imbolc is Candlemas.

The four lesser Sabbats of the equinoxes and solstices were also observed by the Druids. Their Druidic names are Alban Arthan for the winter solstice; Alban Eilir for the spring equinox; Alban Hefin for the summer solstice; and Alban Elfed for the autumn equinox.

These eight ritual occasions divide the year like the spokes of a great wheel; and they are in fact the natural progress of the seasons. The Celts very sensibly regarded the British Isles as having only two real seasons, namely summer and winter. Summer began on May Day, and was welcomed with the fires of Beltane, Maypole dancing, and the singing of May carols. Six months later, on 31st October, came Samhain, meaning ’summer’s end’; and all the witchery of Halloween, when the forces of winter, dark and mysterious, gained the ascendancy.

Both May Eve and Halloween are still sometimes called Mischief Night in various parts of Britain, on account of the pranks and revelry enjoyed on these occasions. They were the in-between times, when the year was swinging on its hinges, the doors of the Other World were open, and anything could happen.

Parallels between the old Druidism and the religion of the witches are certainly there. However, in the opinion of the writer they are really indicative of a common origin in ancient nature worship, rather than meaning that either cult is derived from the other.

As well as the moon goddess Cerridwen, the Druids also reverenced a version of the Horned God. This was Hu Gadarn, who was associated with the cult of the bull. The name Hu meant that which is all-pervading. The bards used it as a title meaning the divine omiscience and omnipresence. In other words, Hu was the personification of certain attributes of deity, rather than a personal god.

Hu Gadarn was a god of fertility. According to the Bardic Triads, he was the first who taught men to plough and cultivate the land. His worship survived to a startingly late date.

The historical evidence of this is in a letter from Ellis Price to Cromwell, well, secretary to Henry VIII, dated 6th April, 1538, referring to pagan survivals to the Diocese of St. Asaph, in Wales:

There ys an Image of Darvellgadarn within the said diocese, in whome the people have so greate confidence, hope, and truste, that they comme dayly a pilgramage unto hym, somme with kyne, other with oxen or horsis, and the reste withe money; in so much that there was fyve or syxe hundrethe pilgrimes to a mans estimacion, that offered to the said image the fifte daie of this presente monethe of Aprill. The innocente people hath ben sore aluryd and entised to worship the saide image, in so much that there is a commyn sayinge as yet amongst them that who so ever will offer anie thinge to the saide Image of Darvellgadarn, he hathe power to fatche hym or them that so offers oute of Hell when they be dampned.

The authorities took action upon this information. In the same year the image was taken to Smithfield and burned. With it was burned also a man, described as a “friar”, who bore the same name as the image. He was evidently a priest of the cult of Darvellgadarn; and the latter name was a combination of part of the name of Hu Gadarn and—what? Could “Darvell” have been the Welsh-speaking countryside version of Devil, or even the Romany Duvel? He seems to have been a lord of the Other World, as well as a bestower of good fortune, to whom people made offerings for that reason.

For many years, Druidism was neglected and frowned upon because of its pre-Christian origin. Today, however, with a general widening of religious tolerance, and the renaissance of occult studies generally, people are beginning to look again at native Celtic traditions. There are a number of circles today which hold regular Druidic meetings, beside the well-known annual gathering at Stonehenge for the summer solstice.

Although we know that the Druids whom Caesar, Pliny and other classical writers described (and sometimes slandered), were not the actual builders of Stonehenge, nevertheless the ideas of the Druids, and their system of philosophy from Nature are in harmony with the beliefs that inspired the erection of the great stone circles and menhirs that enrich our landscape. The spirit of the old mystic sense of beauty, and faith in the unseen, overshadows both Druidic philosophy and the Craft of the Wise alike.

Wordsworth, a poet of Nature, wrote:

Though in the depths of sunless groves, no more

The Druid priests the hallowed oak adore;

Yet, for the Initiate, rocks and whispering trees

Do still perform mysterious offices.

The old paganism arose from a sense of the numinous, immanent in all Nature. If we follow all religion back far enough, we shall find its common source in this. (See also STONES AND STONE CIRCLES.)