How was everyone’s Calan Mai? My big news for May Day this year is the completion of the three-year-long revision of the British Druid Order’s bardic course. It took that long because there are big changes from the first version, which went online in 2011. One major improvement is that we now include brilliant new translations of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, both versions of the Story of Taliesin and many of the poems from the Book of Taliesin, including ‘The Battle of the Trees’ and ‘The Spoils of Annwn,’ plus my own new translations of some key Irish texts, along with extensive new introductions, commentaries and notes that clarify the background to all of them,
the meanings embedded in them, weaving them into the fabric of modern Druidry. We've also retired the 12th century font we were using for the medieval material. It may have been period-appropriate, but too many people found it hard to read. We've therefore replaced it with good old Times New Roman, the same font as the rest of the course material.
Having continued researching for the 12 years since the course first went online, a lot of new information has come to light that has been incorporated into the courses. Many new books on relevant areas have been published too, all of which I’ve tried to get hold of. I’ve 
been expanding my craft skills too, so there’s lots more on bardic music and medieval instrument-making. The section on bardic poetry has been significantly expanded too, with assistance from Derwydd Newydd, who also created our new Taliesin translations.
There’s a lot of new material about Welsh and Irish bardic schools too, a subject that’s been curiously neglected in mainstream scholarship although the ruins of a few survive as do many copies of bardic teaching materials, most of which seem to be unpublished and untranslated. I’ve done my best to bring together as many scraps as I could find.
As well as a great deal of new material, a lot of the existing sections have been updated and expanded. The booklet on seasonal folk customs, festivals and celebrations, for example, contains vastly more material. Courtesy of Derwydd, we also now offer an entire ceremony bilingually in Welsh and English. The booklets on ancestry are also hugely expanded.
Despite 12 years having passed and the revised course have doubled the amount of content, we are still charging the same for our courses that we were changing in 2011.
We had a good bardic course before the update, some saying it was the best
available. The new version should convince any remaining doubters. I’m quite proud of it, and I don’t really do pride. I think it’s streets ahead of any other course available on the modern bardic tradition in its range, depth of scholarship, respect for its source material, and its practicality. And I’m not just saying that as the editor and main contributor, I genuinely believe it’s true.
As ever, my heartfelt thanks go out to my fellow contributors, Derwydd Newydd, Sioned Davies, Emma Restall Orr, Andy Letcher, Adam Sargant, Elaine Gregory et al, first magnitude stars one and all!
You can see a free 20-page sample of the course if you CLICK HERE
Blessings of Calan Mai,
Greywolf /|\
Category: British Druid Order
All that’s new and shiny in the wide, whacky, wonderful world of the BDO.
Druidry: A Practical & Inspirational Guide
I published a book with the above title back in 2000. That's it on the left. The circumstances under which it was written were, to say the least, unusual. Ellie, my wife of 15 years, was suffering from Acute Myeloid Leukemia. At the time of publication, she was in a London teaching hospital, recovering from the second time her medical team told me she had less than 48 hours to live. She died some months later. Between caring for Ellie and looking after our two children, then aged 5 and 7, I had neither the time nor the inclination to do publicity for the book. It therefore failed to sell in the numbers the publishers required and they pulped most of the print run. This gave it rarity value so that used copies have subsequently changed hands online for between £20 and £1000.
Friends have often urged me to bring out a new edition. For the last 16 years, however, my writing has been almost entirely for the British Druid Order's distance learning courses. With all three courses now complete and online, work on them now consists of revising and updating, leaving more time for other things, hence the new edition taking shape on my hard drive.
The first edition was well received despite the word limit set by the original publisher meaning it wasn't possible to go into the sort of depth I wanted. Even so, I've heard from folk who discovered Druidry through my little book and have pursued it as a spiritual path ever since. I've also heard from Pagans with decades of experience who tell me it gave them new perspectives on the Druid tradition.
My experience with the first edition persuaded me to self-publish this time, so no word limit and the choice of what to include is entirely my own. Yay! I also have complete control over how the book will look, from choosing the typeface to designing the cover (right click and select 'open in new tab' to enlarge it). Running the new cover past BDO course students, it met with overwhelming approval. I chose the photo, by Elaine Gregory, for several reasons. First, it's good. Second, it captures something of what the BDO is about, emphasizing what's often called our 'shamanic' approach to Druidry. Third, it is diametrically opposite to the common public perception of Druids wearing white robes and bathed in early morning sunlight at Stonehenge. The chosen image is much more in keeping with the lived experience of modern Druidry, which is of a solitary practitioner communing directly with the spirits of place, the natural world, the ancestors and the old gods of our lands. Fourth, the picture was taken in our Iron Age roundhouse, an incredibly powerful place in which to make such communion.
I hope to have the new edition available this summer. It is almost twice the length of the first and, while retaining the same title, basic structure, chapter headings and practical exercises, the text has been largely re-written as well as greatly expanded. As with the first edition, the intention is to bring the BDO vision of Druidry to the wider world because we believe it has a part to play in making our world a better place in which to live. In this time of threatening war and global warming, Druidry's long traditions of pacifism and deep green spirituality have seldom been more relevant or more vital.
Many blessings,
Greywolf /|\
Spring Equinox – Alban Eilir – ‘Birth of the Fresh Quarter’
(The following is extracted from the British Druid Order bardic course, booklet 17)
“Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows’ wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,
hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees.”
‘Early Spring,’ Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926).
The east, elemental Air, marks the spring equinox, Welsh Alban Eilir, ‘the Birth of the Fresh (or Green) Quarter,’ which falls on or about March 21st (September 21st in the southern hemisphere). In Western astrology, the Sun is now said to be entering the zodiacal sign of Aries, the Ram. In Vedic and Sidereal astrology, however, which are based on the actual position of the Sun relative to the stars, the Sun is entering the sign of Pisces, the Fishes. On the morning of the equinox, at least in the British Isles and equivalent latitudes, the Sun rises directly in the east. Day and night are of equal length. The divine child born at Midwinter now begins to develop as an individual, independent of its parents, still wide-eyed with wonderment but no longer content just to observe. Now the child is eager to experience all that the world has to offer. This is a time of balance between the long nights of winter and the long days of summer. Balance is a temporary state and, at this time, it is about to tip in favour of summer.
There is not a great deal of evidence for the marking of the equinoxes in British and Irish prehistory. A possible exception is the West Kennett Long Barrow (below) where, from floor plans, personal observation sitting atop the mound and compass readings taken both inside and above the chambers, the central passage seems to be aligned on the equinoctial sunrise. I say ‘seems to be’ because two things render accurate assessment difficult. One is that an enormous sarsen slab, some nine feet high and of similar width, stands across the entrance, blocking the light of the Sun from entering the passage. The other is that the passageway and chambers as we now have them are as reconstructed by the Ministry of Works following excavation of the site by Richard Atkinson and Stuart Piggott in 1955-6. When the excavation began, the passage and chambers were in a sorry state, the roof stones fallen in and the walls collapsed. Piggott numbered each sarsen stone as it was removed during the dig but there is some doubt as to whether his numbering was followed when the tomb-shrine was rebuilt. The roof was built from scratch, using sarsens found in situ but also a number of new sarsen slabs brought in for the purpose. The idea had been to reconstruct the passage and chambers as they were when the site was first created in the Neolithic era but there is considerable doubt as to whether anything like this aim was achieved and it seems that neither Atkinson nor Piggott were happy with the result.
Although the basic alignment of the central passageway is unlikely to have been significantly altered during reconstruction, the entrance seems to have been drastically remodelled. The default for chambered tomb-shrines is for their entrances to be small and narrow enough to make access difficult. The Ministry of Works, however, wanted the entrance at West Kennett wide open to make visitor access easier. Unless records of the 1955-6 excavations show what the entrance was originally like, gauging its original size and position is impossible. Taking a middle line down the centre of the passage, the alignment is about 6 degrees south of east. A narrower entrance only slightly offset from the centre of the present one would, then, have allowed the equinoctial sunrise to fully illuminate the large rear inner chamber, even allowing for the fact that the Earth’s axis has tilted by about half a degree in the last 5,000 years. A narrow entrance in the exact centre of the current one would allow the same to occur about nine days from the equinox.
Clive Ruggles has set out the difficulties involved in calculating the equinoxes in prehistory. Deriving their exact timing by observing the position of sunrise would depend on having an absolutely flat horizon to work from, so any such alignment would necessarily be an approximation. Ruggles also reminds us of the difficulty of discerning what the equinoxes might have meant to our prehistoric ancestors. As so often in our exploration of the deeper roots of Druidry, we are left to speculate based on much later sources. We do have clear evidence that our ancestors throughout the British Isles recognised and marked the two solstices, so it may be that the equinoxes, being halfway between the solstices, were also of interest to them. Possible equinoctial alignments in the Orkneys include the stone circle known as Callanish 1 and the Cuween tomb-shrine.
At least one certain prehistoric equinoctial sunrise alignment does exist, dated to the 4th millennium BCE. This is at Cairn T, the largest of a group of megalithic tomb-shrines at Loughcrew, near Oldcastle in County Meath, Ireland (above). The stone first illuminated by the rays of the rising Sun is etched with more than a dozen 
symbols that may represent the Sun (left). Those with ‘rays’ have either four, eight or nine. Another prominent decoration is of ‘fish-bone,’ or ‘rib-cage’ patterns enclosed, or partially enclosed, in ovoid cartouches. These have either seven or eight horizontal lines crossing an upright central stem. One of the largest stones lining the passage has a surface pock-marked with numerous deep, circular holes. When the cairn was excavated, a number of chalk balls found at the foot of the stone were found to fit exactly into these holes. It has been suggested that these may have represented stars against the darker surface of the stone ‘sky.’
The range of hills on which Cairn T stands is Slieve na Calliagh, ‘the Cailleach’s Mountain.’ The Cailleach is the Hag of Winter who rules the year’s winter half, from Nos Galan Gaeaf (Hallowe’en) to Calan Mai (May Day). Cairn T itself is called the Hag’s Cairn or the Tomb of the Ollamh Fodhla. Fodhla is one of three goddesses who gave their names to the island of Ireland. Ollamh Fodhla, ‘Professor of the Goddess of Ireland,’ whose given name was Eochaid, was a prehistoric pagan High King of Ireland said to be the originator of a dynasty that ruled for seven generations. He is said to have originated the Feis Temrach, ‘the Feast of Tara,’ a week-long gathering held every three years at which laws were promulgated, disputes settled, oaths made and bonds renewed.
Rather than celebrating the day itself, the spring equinox has long been used to calculate the beginning of a celebratory period marking the return of life to the land after the long darkness of winter. The date of the Christian festival of Easter is still calculated from the first full Moon after the spring equinox. This method of calculation, combining the cycles of Sun and Moon, is first recorded in Sumeria more than 4,000 years ago, where the New Year festival of Akitu, devoted to the Moon-god, Nanna, was celebrated over twelve days beginning with the first appearance of the new Moon after the spring equinox and ending with the full Moon.
Born in the Underworld, Nanna is the child of the sky-father, Enlil, and the corn-mother, Ninlil, conceived as Ninlil is bathing in a sacred river. This is reminiscent of the coupling of the Morrigan (‘Great Queen’) and the Dagda (‘Good God’), which takes place when the Dagda comes across the Morrigan bathing in the River Unius in Ireland. The Dagda is father to the Irish god of love, Aengus Og, and of Brigid, the patroness of bards. Nanna fathers the Sun-god, Shamash, and the love goddess,
Inanna (right), associated with the planet Venus, love and fertility. These three formed the holy trinity of the ancient Near East, a position they retained for more than a thousand years. A British equivalent of Nanna may be Nudd (or Lludd) Llaw Ereint (‘of the Silver Hand’), Irish Nuada Airgetlam, or possibly Gwyn ap (‘son of’) Nudd, “whom God has placed over the brood of devils in Annwn, lest they should destroy the present race.” Gwyn is ruler of both the Underworld of the Dead and the Otherworld of the Faery Folk. His name means ‘white,’ with connotations of ‘sacred.’
Some believe the celebration of Easter to be a Christian adaptation of a festival devoted to a goddess of springtime and fertility called Ēostre in Anglo-Saxon, Ôstara in Old High German. Her name survives in the old Northumbrian dialect name for the month of April, Ēosturmōnaþ, ‘Ēostre’s month.’ Her name seems to derive from a Proto-Germanic word meaning ‘dawn, or morning.’ It has been suggested that the egg and the Moon-gazing March Hare were symbolic of her. In British folk tradition, the expression, “mad as a March Hare,” is based on the courtship displays of male Hares who, at this time of year, may be seen leaping in the air, racing around in circles and engaging in what look like boxing matches with each other. The Hare is recognised as a sacred animal of the Moon in cultures from Britain to China. One of the most famous appearances of a Hare in a native British spiritual context occurs in Cassius Dio’s description of the revolt of Boudica and her Iceni tribe against Roman occupation in 60 CE. Cassius gives the following speech to Boudica as she rallies her troops for battle:
“... we have ... been despised and trampled underfoot by men who know nothing else than how to secure gain. ... let us ... do our duty while we still remember what freedom is, that we may leave to our children not only its appellation but also its reality. ... Have no fear whatever of the Romans; for they are superior to us neither in numbers nor in bravery. ... Furthermore, this region is familiar to us and is our ally, but to them it is unknown and hostile. As for the rivers, we swim them naked, whereas they do not across them easily even with boats. Let us, therefore, go against them trusting boldly to good fortune. Let us show them that they are hares and foxes trying to rule over dogs and wolves.”
When she had finished speaking, she employed a species of divination, letting a hare escape from the fold of her dress; and since it ran on what they considered the auspicious side, the whole multitude shouted with pleasure, and Buduica, raising her hand toward heaven, said: “I thank thee, Andraste, and call upon thee as woman speaking to woman; for I rule over no burden-bearing Egyptians as did Nitocris, nor over trafficking Assyrians as did Semiramis ..., much less over the Romans themselves as did Messalina once and afterwards Agrippina and now Nero (who, though in name a man, is in fact a woman, as is proved by his singing, lyre-playing and beautification of his person); nay, those over whom I rule are Britons, men that know not how to till the soil or ply a trade, but are thoroughly versed in the art of war and hold all things in common, even children and wives, so that the latter possess the same valour as the men. As the queen, then, of such men and of such women, I supplicate and pray thee for victory, preservation of life, and liberty against men insolent, unjust, insatiable, impious, - if, indeed, we ought to term those people men who bathe in warm water, eat artificial dainties, drink unmixed wine, anoint themselves with myrrh, sleep on soft couches with boys for bedfellows, - boys past their prime at that, - and are slaves to a lyre-player and a poor one too. Wherefore may this Mistress Domitia-Nero reign no longer over me or over you men; let the wench sing and lord it over Romans, for they surely deserve to be the slaves of such a woman after having submitted to her so long. But for us, Mistress, be thou alone ever our leader.”
I’ve included the whole of Boudica’s address to Andraste as it is one of the few records we have of a native British prayer from this era, albeit recorded many years later by a writer who did not himself witness the events described. Boudica referring to the land of her birth as an ally certainly has a good, Druidical ring to it. Likening the Romans to Hares and Foxes and her own people to Dogs and Wolves also has an authentically animistic feel. Divining by observing the movements of a Hare is also in keeping with both ancient European paganism and more recent folklore. The release of the Hare being immediately followed by Boudica’s honouring of Andraste has led many to suppose that the Hare was sacred to Andraste and that, since the Hare is widely acknowledged as a sacred animal of the Moon, Andraste must have been a goddess of the Moon. The name Andraste may derive from Proto-Celtic *anderā, ‘young woman’ and *ster, ‘star,’ giving the meaning ‘Young Woman of the Stars,’ a reasonable name for a Moon goddess and one that would place her in a family of star goddesses among whom we would place the Welsh Arianrhod, whose name means ‘Silver Wheel’ and who is linked with the circlet of stars known as the Northern Crown (Latin Corona Borealis), called Caer Arianrhod in Welsh.
For a time, it did indeed seem as though the Hare was right, that Andraste and the gods favoured the Iceni and that Boudicca might actually succeed in driving the Roman occupiers out of Britain.
Traditional celebrations at this festival include decorating the house and your altar with Spring flowers, decorating and giving eggs as representations of fertility and rebirth, and baking and sharing hot cross buns, the cross representing the four major stations of the Moon; new, first quarter, full and last quarter. Hot cross buns were made in ancient Egypt in honour of the Moon. A tasty and thoroughly pagan example of quartering the circle.
Many blessings,
Greywolf /|\
Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.
Robes & the Modern Druid
The question of whether or not to robe for ceremonies is one that often arises amongst newcomers to Druidry, usually accompanied by questions as to what type of robes are appropriate. As with so much else, the answers to these questions vary widely between different Druid groups. The Welsh Gorsedd (founded in 1792) led the way among Druid revivalists with regard to robes and remain one of the few groups to insist on the wearing of robes during public ceremonies (see the video). Their founder, the itinerant stonemason, folklorist and poet, Edward Williams, better known by his bardic name, Iolo Morganwg, assigned different colours to the three grades of his bardic order as follows:
“The Bard wore a sky blue robe, to signify peace; the Druid wore white, denoting holiness; and the Ovate green, which was an emblem of progress.”
(Barddas, vol. 1, page lvii; vol. 2, pages 24-29)
The Ancient Druid Order (founded circa 1907) followed the Welsh Gorsedd in assigning the same colours to its three grades, and its offshoot, the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids (founded 1964), continued the tradition, both from its original foundation and its later reformation under the leadership of Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm. Early OBOD course material recommended a basic robe of white with tabards of blue for a bard, green for an ovate, worn over it.
So far, so good, except that Iolo, for all his many excellent qualities, was a highly imaginative laudanum addict and a prolific forger of the supposedly ancient documents in which he claimed to have found his entire system of Druidry set out. The colours he assigned to the various grades had little basis beyond his fertile imagination.
When dreaming the British Druid Order into being in the 1970s, I looked to what classical Greek and Roman writers had written about Druids 2,000 years ago. The most famous ancient description of a Druid ceremony is undoubtedly that of Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (1st century CE). He writes that, “A priest arrayed in white vestments climbs the [Oak] tree and, with a golden sickle, cuts down the mistletoe.” It struck me that if a priest is going to clamber into the branches of an Oak tree to cut mistletoe from it, the chances are he would be young and agile rather than a wizened sage, a youthful bard rather than an aged Druid. White having traditionally been connected with purity and innocence also suggested youth. So I settled on a white robe as the BDO’s bardic costume.
I then found a translation of a poem by the 1st century CE writer, Strabo, in which he refers to Druids wearing red robes trimmed with gold. I’ve since been unable to track down the quote, but it was enough to suggest adopting a long red, sleeveless tunic as our ovate vestment. Red, being the colour of blood, is associated with the cycles of life, including the menstrual cycle with its lunar associations, and the ovate path is the path of natural philosophy, learning from life.
My third classical source was the Roman historian, Tacitus, whose account of Roman legions attacking the Druid isle of Anglesey in 61 CE (Annals XIV, 29-30) tells us that “Along the shore stood the enemy in a close-packed array of armed men interspersed with women dressed like Furies in funeral black, with streaming hair and brandishing torches.” It has long been conjectured that these women were Druid devotees of a native Raven or Crow goddess. If so, it is possible that their black dress took the form of cloaks that would flap like dark wings. Add traditional European associations of black with old age and death and a black cloak seemed suitable garb for a BDO Druid. The fact that this white, red and black colour scheme has associations with the modern Pagan concept of a triple goddess as Maiden (white), Mother (red) and Crone (black) was an added bonus.
Prior to the arrival of my first Wolf-skin cloak in 1994 then, my accustomed gear for public ceremonies was an unbleached woollen robe, a long, red velvet tunic with gold satin lining and a hooded black woollen cloak.
Subsequent research added further possibilities. The archaeology of Iron Age Europe reveals the popularity of tartan-like woven cloth and images of bards show them wearing long, tight-sleeved tunics and trousers made from cloth with a diagonal, tartan-like weave (right). Enough of these exist to suggest that this combination of tunic and trousers was the standard clothing of bards from around 900 BCE through to at least the 1st century CE. Classical sources refer to the bardocucullus, a short woollen travelling cloak with a hood whose name suggests it was favoured by bards as they travelled around the country.
A bronze figurine from Western France (right) is our most likely representation of a late Iron Age Druid in ceremonial dress. He sports a neatly trimmed beard and wears a loose-fitting, knee-length robe with wide sleeves that appears to be plain apart from a decorated edging around the lower hem.
A number of crowns have been found in the British Isles, formed from a circlet of sheet bronze over which rises a crossed arch made from two strips of the same metal (below). It has been speculated that these were part of the ceremonial regalia of Druids. This make sense to me as 
there is evidence for a native belief that a place on the crown of the head allows the ‘breath of life’ to pass in and out of the body, making it peculiarly vulnerable to attack.
Medieval Irish sources suggest that social status was indicated by, among other things, the number of colours one wore. Given the high social status of bards and Druids, one might, therefore, expect some spectacularly multi-hued garments.
There are, then, a range of possibilities for Druid robes and regalia that have at least some basis in history, whether from the early Bronze Age or the Druid revivals that began in the 18th century.
Some Druid group simplify things by settling for just a white robe, usually hooded, sometimes embroidered with symbols or otherwise decorated.
Many Druids, however, probably the majority, don't wear robes at all, preferring everyday clothing, albeit often augmented by decoration or jewellery suggestive of their spirituality.
Few Druid groups insist on robes, even for formal public ceremonies. The only two I can think of are the Welsh Gorsedd and the Ancient Druid Order. OBOD recommend robes for public ceremonies but don’t, as far as I’m aware, insist on them. In the BDO, we pretty much wear whatever seems best and are happy for others to do the same.
Over the years, we have increasingly adopted clothing that speaks of our personal spiritual paths. So I often wear a dark green linen tunic bearing tokens of my alignment with Wolf spirit. I have a second Wolf-skin cloak that came to me at a time of particular need a decade after the first and wear this when it feels right. I have a dance cloak (left) bearing images of Wolves drawn from a medieval manuscript.
For the first open, multi-faith Gorsedd ceremony in Volunteer Park in Seattle, my friend, Leon Reed, sent out a message asking potential participants to, as he put it, “wear your power,” that is to don whatever ritual gear best expressed their spiritual path and made them feel most strongly connected with it. This struck me as a brilliantly inspiring phrase. I’ve since adopted it as my own policy, wearing whatever seems right for the ceremony or other event I’m taking part in. I’m very happy for others to do the same, and they usually do. This means that BDO ceremonies tend to be quite colourful affairs.
Having long believed that ancient Druids were the North-west European equivalent to shamans in other cultures, some BDO ceremonies call for a “wearing of power” that can take on a decidedly ‘shamanistic’ look, with the wearing of animal tokens, costumes or actual hides, face and body painting and other adornments (below).
What you choose to wear as a bard, ovate or Druid, then, depends on many things. One is which group or order you belong to and what their policy is. Another is which, if any, historical inspirations you draw on, from prehistoric archaeology to 21st century Druid courses. Another is what works for you personally, spiritually, psychologically and aesthetically. As said, some Druids eschew robes altogether, preferring plain street clothes. Others, myself included, kinda like dressing up, although it is, for us, always dressing up with a purpose. Donning special items of clothing for particular types of ceremony enhances the specialness of the occasion, focuses us on what needs to be done, and physically reminds us of our spiritual connections, thereby strengthening and enhancing them.
Leon’s expression still sums it up best though: “wear your power!”
Many blessings,
Greywolf /|\
Druids to present at the 2021 Parliament of the World’s Religions
Druids have (finally) been invited to speak to an audience of leaders from assorted faith communities from around the globe, to share a bit of accurate information about what modern Druids actually do and believe (as opposed to all the nonsense that the popular media typically says about us).
Larisa A. White (author of World Druidry: A Globalizing Path of Nature Spirituality) and Neil Pitchford (TDN Trustee and Vice-Moderator of the Faith Communities Forum of the InterFaith Network of UK) will share key findings from the World Druidry Survey of 2018-2020, the first rigorous, global study of modern Druidry, in order to help debunk the popular myths and widely-circulated misinformation about modern Druids' actual religious beliefs and spiritual practices. In doing so, they will be demonstrating to the Parliament the unique ways in which modern Druidry addresses the stated missions of the Parliament of the World's Religions, "to create a culture of non-violence and respect for life, tolerance and truthfulness, and sustainability and care for the Earth."
The presentation title and description are as follows:
"Cultivating Honorable Relationships with the World: Lessons from the ‘Scriptures’ of Druidry"
"Modern Druidry, a contemporary, nature-based, new religious movement born in Britain, has been rapidly spreading around the world since the early 1990s. Druids now reside in 34 countries, across six continents, and inhabit 17 unique biomes, in addition to the mistletoe and oak filled temperate forests depicted in history and fantasy. As a nature-reverent tradition with high holidays based upon a cycle of seasonal celebrations, this begs the question: How can Druidry maintain a spiritual common core across so many, diverse ecological contexts? In this presentation, we will provide a brief overview of Druidry as a modern religious tradition, and then, using the example of how Druids celebrate seasonal festivals in a globalizing tradition, demonstrate how the Druid devotional practices of nature connection, sacred listening, and reciprocity allow Druids to cultivate honorable relationships with all other beings, be they human or of other-than-human kind."
The 2021 Parliament of the World's Religions will be a VIRTUAL event this year, taking place on October 17-18. Registration is still open for any who might wish to attend ('early bird' registration available until August 31st).
Many thanks to Larisa for this press release and all good blessings to Larisa, Neil and all the speakers and attendees at this year's event,
Greywolf /|\
A Winter Healing Ceremony
A Ceremony of Healing with prayers and chants from the Druid tradition of Ynys Prydain (the British Isles) and ancient Gaul.
Hallowe’en, Nos Galan Gaeaf, Samhain, 2020
For thousands of years, indigenous peoples across much of the globe, including our European ancestors, conducted ceremonies during the winter designed to stave off the increasing waves of illness that spread across the land during the coldest months of the year. Wolf spirits were and are prominent in these ceremonies, from the Central Asian Steppes 4,000 years ago to the modern-day Pacific Northwest. Winter Wolf ceremonies were held in ancient Greece and Rome, where they were called Lupercalia. In Ireland, the young men known as Fianna were Wolf warriors. The Wolf clans who were central to these healing ceremonies usually consisted of similar youthful warbands who lived apart from the rest of society, charged with protecting their kinfolk from external threats. Whilst training as warriors, they also learned the legends of their tribes, traditional songs and poetry. They were warrior bards.
Each winter, they would create a ceremony during which they and the rest of the community would renew their bonds with their power animals through ceremonies that incorporated chanting, dancing and feasting. Each person present would have the opportunity to dance and sing their spirit animal, thus renewing the bond between them that would keep both healthy and strong through the winter months.
In the British Druid Order, we are reviving this practice with what we have dubbed a Winter Wolf Healing Ceremony. This year, we were to have held one in and around our roundhouse in Shropshire. Sadly, at the very time when we have so much need of such a ceremony, the increasing number of Covid-19 infections in the UK have prevented us from holding it.
We will not, however, let the impossibility of a physical gathering prevent us from going ahead. Here, then, are the bare bones of part of the ceremony, with accompanying sound files and videos where available.
We begin with a prayer to the old gods of the British Isles, from the creation of the world by Math and Don, how their children, Gwydion and Arianrhod, were given sovereignty over the forests and the stars, how Blodeuwedd became patroness of healing, and much more besides, all with a join-in chorus of, “we give thanks to the great gods.” Includes lyre accompaniment and birdsong. Apologies for the popping on the vocals, recorded in a rush...
This second prayer, ‘For Long Life and a Good Old Age,’ is possibly 8th century, from the 14th century Irish ‘Book of Ballymote’ and found in the British Druid Order's ovate course. Given that risk from Covid-19 increases markedly amongst the elderly, this seemed particularly appropriate.
… and here’s the video version that includes the lyrics:
Next is a general ‘Chant for Healing and Protection,’ again derived from an early medieval Irish source. Our ancestors characterised disease as a dark Serpent bent on destruction, hence the singalong chorus of “beat the Serpent from its lair.” Please grab a drum or clap your hands and join in.
… and here’s the video version that includes the lyrics:
Now for the first of the animal chants, the Wolf Chant. This was given to me among the old stones of Avebury in Wiltshire and is an authentic native British Wolf Chant since I am authentically British, having been born here and lived here all my life, as have the families of both my parents for at least a thousand years. The gift of this chant came to me not long after I experienced a powerful vision of a Wolf during a ceremony in 1994. Again, please sing along and dance should the mood take you, even if your personal spirit animal is other than Wolf. Wolf is a sociable animal…
Now we’ll alternate between other animals and Wolf, starting with the oldest of these chants, originating in an inscription to the Horse goddess, Epona, from 1st century Gaul. It consists of various names for the Horse goddess. Again, feel free to join in vocally, instrumentally and physically.
‘Blessed Be, Earth’s Son’ is a second Wolf chant, this time using other names by which Wolf people are known. This reflects the ancient habit of not using the actual name of the primary totem animal during ceremonies but substituting descriptive titles instead. Again, sing, dance, live!
The next chant is for the Deer people, specifically the Fallow Deer. As before, feel free to sing, drum, dance, clap and generally join in.
I’m afraid for any other animals, you’re going to have to add you own chants and dances. There are more in the BDO Druid course, but I don’t have time to record them now. So, since it’s always best to end on a howl, here’s the native British Wolf chant again. Enjoy!
And so we conclude our ceremony by feasting and quaffing mead or ale, sharing some with our ancestors, thanking again both them and our gods.
Hale and blessed be!
Hale and blessed be!
Hale and thrice blessed be!
Greywolf /|\ Blaidd Llwyd
October 31st 2020
Gaulish Chant for the Horse Goddess, Epona
Chant for the Horse Goddess, Epona, based on a 1st century BCE inscription.
Despite having been a Druid since 1974, I learned much that was new to me while researching and writing the British Druid Order's courses. This post deals with just one of the many discoveries made during that research. It is a chant in the ancient language of Gaul.
The chant is derived from an inscription on lead sheet, dating from the 1st century BCE, found at Rom (Roman Rauranum), Deux-Sévres, in Western France. The inscription details a sacrificial ceremony carried out in honour of the Horse Goddess. The chant was created by taking the names and titles of the Horse Goddess in the order in which they appear in the inscription and adding one of the names by which she is most commonly known, but which does not appear in the inscription, i.e. Rigantona, meaning 'Great Queen.'
The resulting chant naturally lent itself to a drum-beat that seems to replicate the gait of a Horse person. It moves from a walk to a full gallop.
A Horse chant developed a particular importance for me some years ago when I realised that the part of south-west England where I live is home to a White Horse Woman who appeared to our ancestors in the Bronze Age (perhaps earlier) to show them the sacred ceremonies. Her name and parts of her legend were passed down by generations of bards, finding their way into that great collection of ancient British lore, The Mabinogion, where she is known as Rhiannon, a name derived from the Gaulish Rigantona and having the same meaning, 'Great Queen.' For the last few decades, she has been appearing in various guises to members of the Druid community to show us again the sacred ways of our ancestors.
Along with the Wolf chant I put online some time ago, and a number of others, the Epona chant forms part of a Winter Wolf Healing Ceremony that's included in our Druid Course.
Winter Wolf Healing Ceremonies are found in many cultures across the whole of the Northern Hemisphere and some of the Southern. In some cases, they can be traced back thousands of years. They have three primary purposes: to re-connect us with our power animals in order to stave off the physical and psychological illnesses that often come with the winter months; to enhance the well-being of Mother Earth and all her children; to perform initiations into the Wolf Society.
To learn more about the Winter Wolf Healing Ceremony, go here: https://www.druidry.co.uk/getting-involved/events-calendar/winter-wolf-healing-ceremony-2019/
To book a place on a Winter Wolf Healing Ceremony, go here: https://www.druidry.co.uk/products-page/events/winter-wolf-helaing-ceremony/
Meanwhile, here's the chant for Epona. Get your drum and join in, or just sing along!
Naturfest 2019, a.k.a. the Annual Shamanic Gathering in Norway
Four days of sacred ceremony, workshops, drum-making, shamanism and Druidry, new friends, chaga, and a psychedelic duck!
Just from a week in Norway during which Elaine Gregory and I spent four days representing the British Druid Order (BDO) at the Annual Shamanic gathering, organised, as ever, by Sjamanistisk Forbund (the Shamanic Foundation). This year’s event was called Naturfest and was amazing. So many wonderful, lovely people. Little kids and dogs of varying sizes wandering and playing in the sunshine, fantastic music, magical ceremonies, and a beautiful new venue, almost an island, connected only by a narrow isthmus with a road across it, surrounded by a clear blue lake and blessed with the characteristic Norwegian trees, tall pines and graceful birches. For us Druids, there was the added bonus of a young oak tree.
When we go to Norway, one of the greatest pleasures is staying with our friends, Morten and Louise, two of the nicest, warmest, most generous human beings I’ve ever known. We also share a silly sense of humour, which always helps. Their house is surrounded by a wild flower meadow in the middle of a forest and is so soothing to the soul. There’s a lake within easy walking distance, Elk (aka Moose) wander past the back window, Deer graze at the front.
The venue for the gathering is about a two hour drive from their house. To stock up on supplies for it we crossed over into Sweden to a huge shopping complex. Kyrre had asked us to bring a British Druid Order flag to the event. We didn’t have one, so I designed one and ordered it online. Unfortunately, it hadn’t arrived by the time we left England. Wandering around the Swedish shopping centre, however, we passed a store where I saw a large psychedelic duck suspended from the ceiling. I pointed it out to the others and we went in to get a closer look. It was so weird, we just had to buy it, deciding it would make a good substitute for the missing BDO flag. We called it PD, short for psychedelic duck.
We arrived, unpacked and settled into our tiny attic room in time for the opening ceremony which began up by the barn that was being used as office space, market and healing centre for the weekend. From there, we made our way to the central ceremonial fire. Two ceremonies then celebrated the feminine and the masculine before a sharing circle brought the first evening to a close.
Next day there were traditional games, a workshop on Sami healing led by Robert Vars Gaup, a nature walk and the first part of a drum-making workshop, among other things. It was a very crowded schedule, with events running right through Friday and Saturday nights as well as all day.
After 45 years as a Druid, it is my life and I know no other. Living in the British Isles, I forget that there are places where Druidry is little known. Norway is one of those places. When organiser, Kyrre Franck, asked if there was anything Elaine and I wanted to do other than the chaga ceremony we were helping out with, we couldn’t think of anything in particular, so he suggested a sharing circle about ceremony. I was a little concerned that the sharing circle was booked for 11 o’clock at night, the chaga ceremony for 2 o’clock in the morning! I had forgotten that, at Midsummer in Norway, it doesn’t actually get dark. However, once word got around that there were two Druids on the camp, people started asking if there was going to be a workshop on Druidry, so I asked Kyrre if we could fit one into the already very packed schedule. He said he’d see what he could do and, 10 minutes later, a handwritten poster in big blue letters was pinned up above the printed timetable announcing a Druidry workshop in the Lavo (a sort of wooden tipi) at 12 noon on Sunday. We’d suddenly got star billing and had to figure out how to live up to it!
Our sharing circle was fun, though I’m never all that comfortable with the format. The chaga ceremony was very good, as they always are. On this occasion, we had to contend with a plague of midges and the fact that an amplified open mike night was being held as part of the gathering not far away from where we were doing our preparation for the ceremony. In making a chaga ceremony, it’s necessary to spend about four hours preparing the chaga, boiling the water, adding the chaga a small handful at a time, stirring the pot, chanting, singing, drumming, making prayers and offerings to the spirits, in particular to Nivvsat Olmai, the chaga and birch tree spirit. Chaga (a woody fungus that grows on Birch trees) is already blessed with many healing properties. By adding this ceremonial element to the brewing, we seek to enhance those existing properties and maybe add a few more.
When the brew was ready, we carried it down to the open air ceremonial circle on the site, with its central fire pit surrounded by stones. Elaine welcomed folk into the circle via the eastern entrance and then remained to guard it. Yes, although it was 2am, people still came! Morten and Louise conducted the ceremony. I prowled around the outside of the circle sunwise with my drum. One particularly memorable part of it was when Morten set up a heartbeat rhythm with his drum as he circled the ring of people sitting on the ground while I drummed the same heartbeat rhythm from the outside. For the people between the two drums, the vibrations must have been quite strong. During the ceremony, the Moon rose from the forest treetops across the lake. Not long after we finished the ceremony, the Sun rose to join it.
We finished at 3 am. At 4 am there was to be a men’s sweat lodge, which I was booked into. In the event, I helped a little with the building of the fire but then had to make my apologies and leave, realising that, having been up all night, I was simply too tired.
Among the many events across the weekend, I was intrigued by a series of workshops being given by a Tuvan shaman called Dimitrij Markov. Dimitrij, turned out to be a really nice guy with a dry sense of humour. In his first session, he showed us how to build a spirit house. This consisted of sticks of firewood arranged in tipi shape, modelled around slabs of butter and cheese and set on a strong cardboard base. The whole thing was then placed on the central fire as an offering to the ancestors. Dimitrij conducted the workshop in Norwegian. I know hardly any Norwegian, but was able to follow what was going on by the few words I could pick up and Dimitrij’s actions. I noted that he always went sunwise around the fire, just as we do in Druidry.
An outstanding feature of Dimitrij’s ceremonial creation is his costume, hung with colourful plaited cords, bells, signs and symbols, topped off with an extraordinary headdress comprised mainly of Eagle feathers. These he dons immediately before ceremony begins and takes off as soon as it is finished. His ceremonies often end with him standing quietly for a few seconds, then saying, “That’s it,” walking out of the circle and disrobing.
One of the things I love about these gatherings is that you get to see both the surface differences in the ways we work and the underlying similarities that make it so easy to understand and communicate with each other across cultures.
Saturday night was the Sami Midsummer ceremony, which I’d been part of on our last visit two years ago. This year’s was conducted by Kyrre, Robert and Elin Kåven, a noted Sami musician. Offerings of seasonal flowers from everyone were placed around the central fire with prayers made for those in need. There was much drumming and dancing. Central to the rite was the raising aloft and honouring of a wreath of greenery tied with coloured ribbons, raised in honour of the gods of earth and sky.
Later that evening, Rotha (it means Roots) treated us to a fabulous musical set. They are a three-piece consisting of guitar/bazouki, Elin on vocals, and percussion, the latter including the biggest frame drum I’ve ever seen. The sound blended traditional and modern really well, while several lyrics were drawn from the Icelandic Eddas. Morten tells me that although the musicians are Sami, they draw much of their inspiration from Norse mythology. They are very, very good.
The band having done their encores, having been up until at least 3am the night before, we were all prepared to go to bed when Kyrre announced an addition to the program: a Wolf healing ceremony with Dimitrij, due to take place around the ceremonial fire at 1am. Had it been anything other than a Wolf ceremony, I would have gone to bed. As it was, Morten, Louise, Elaine and I all went down to the ceremony site. Dimitrij donned his costume, pulled on his headpiece and picked up his drum. Having promised my own drum a rest after the exertions of the Sami Midsummer ceremony earlier, I had left her hanging on the wall of our room, so was unable to join in the drumming. Dimitrij made up for it. His drumming began fairly quietly but quickly gained pace and volume. He began waving his drum back and forth. He started behaving as Wolf, lowering his body. At one point, he fell over and rolled on his back, kicking his legs in the air. Rising again, he stood still for a while, lifting his drum towards the sky, which was as dark as it gets, though still not dark enough for stars to be visible. He began to howl. I began to howl. Some of the others began to howl. After drumming vigorously for about half an hour, during which Dimitrij continued to move and I continued to rock from one foot to the other, we stopped. Dimitrij stood still for a few moments, facing the central fire, then said “That’s it.”
During the ceremony, I felt a kind of expansion from my primary place of power, located near my solar plexus. The following day, I woke up feeling better than I had for ages, emotionally, physically and psychologically. Further proof that, as I said during our sharing circle about ceremony, “This shit works.” Thank you again, Dimitrij.
After a few hours’ sleep, at midday on Sunday it was time for our Druidry workshop. Elaine and I had discussed a brief outline which we followed, allowing space for whatever the awen dictated to happen. We opened our circle as usual with calls for peace at the four quarters, wove the circle, invoked the powers of the four directions, honoured the spirits of place, the ancestors and the old gods of our lands, in all of which Elaine took the lead. I then spoke of the survival of Druidry for many centuries after the Roman invasion of Britain in 55 CE, through to the time when the great Welsh and Irish legendary tales were written down. I told the story of Ceridwen and Taliesin and the brewing of the cauldron of inspiration. We then chanted the awen, filling the tall wooden structure with our voices so that they rolled and echoed in tumbling cascades of sound. It was beautiful. Then, having started late due to the previous workshop overrunning, we hurriedly closed our circle and left to allow the next workshop to begin. Afterwards, we were told of overflowing emotions and of visions occurring during our session. These things are always reassuring that we have done our job well. Many thanks to all who came and made ceremony with us, both seen and unseen.
Also at the camp, and another great guy, was István Zsolt Barát, founder and head of the Four Elements School, ceremonial leader, healer, singer, artist, drummer and a traditional bearer of Hungarian Shamanism, which he studied in Carpathian region. He has worked as co-organizer of Kurultai, the largest gathering of Central Asian tribes, a biannual festival that gathers up to 300,000 people.
A remarkable woman we had made ceremony with two years ago in Sweden, Inger Lise Nervik, was also there. She’s one of the organisers of Sjamanistisk Forbund and co-founder of the Beaivi Shamanic School. So many other great people it would take a book to name them all. What characterises them all, apart from our shared spiritual vision, seems to be a wonderful, off-the-wall sense of humour. This, I think, is one of the most important tools we have in our line of work.
Speaking of which, back to the duck. Sunday morning, I got up early and decided if we were going to introduce the camp to the duck, it would have to be today. Fetching the foot-pump, I set to work and PD grew and grew and was a magnificent sight to behold. He proved a considerable hit with the campers, especially the smaller children, who were soon climbing all over him. Then, at the end of the day, the moment came to launch PD on the lake. It had to be done. Two of the younger campers came with us, including new friend, Jorgen, whose first shamanic camp it was. PD was duly launched onto the water, carefully roped to shore as we had no idea of the currents or of PD’s manoeuvrability. Stripping to my underpants, I climbed onto PD’s back and set sail. It was the most wonderful fun I’ve had for ages. PD was very comfortable and I could happily have floated off on his back to who knows where, but time being pressing, after much splashing, giggling and ill-advised photographs, I clambered back onto the jetty. Our two young friends then took their turns, Jorgen attempting running dives, the second of which sent PD onto his side and Jorgen into the very cold water. Fortunately, he’s a good swimmer and after a little reassurance, PD was happy too. Thus, amidst much laughter, our time at Naturfest came to an end.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that very early on the morning after our chaga ceremony, I was fetching a few things from the car when a tiny just fledged bird landed on my arm. I think he was a Goldcrest. Having latched his little talons into my coat, he started preening his feathers, shaking himself and looking around, then doing a bit more preening. After a while, it became obvious that he wasn’t going to leave without some encouragement. I moved towards what looked like a good perch for a small bird, shook my sleeve gently and he fluttered off. It was a small, magical encounter, adding one more joyous element to a wonderful weekend.
After a couple of days back at Morten and Louise’s house, it was time to head home. Before we did, however, Morten had one more surprise for us. Bringing out a familiar flight case, he opened it to reveal The World Drum. This extraordinary shamanic instrument was created by a Sami drum-maker following a vision that Kyrre Franck had. The Drum has spent many years travelling all over the world, crossing cultural, linguistic and political boundaries, uniting people with its message of care for our Mother Earth and peace between her children. The British Druid Order first hosted the Drum in the UK in 2008, visiting Dragon Hill and Avebury. In 2013, we journeyed with her to Glastonbury Tor, Anglesey and many other places. It was so good to see her again. A wonderful close to a beautiful trip...
I’m already looking forward to next year!
Oh, yes, and that BDO flag I ordered arrived while we were away. And here it is:
A Druid Course … at Last!
The final four booklets of the BDO Druid course just went online! Yay!!!
Yesterday morning I finished proof-reading the last four booklets of the British Druid Order’s Druid course. It’s been 13 years since the idea of creating these distance learning courses for the BDO was first mooted. Since then I’ve written, researched, edited, illustrated, designed and formatted around 3,400 pages of course booklets containing around 1.3 million words. That’s equivalent to seventeen 200-page books, more than one a year. Not a bad work rate...
Who ever knew there was so much to say about Druidry, an ancient, ancestral tradition many believe lost in the mists of time? Well, not me for one. When we started in 2006, I was convinced we’d have three courses up and running in three years. After all, I’d already written one book and many articles on Druidry. Surely just combining those would get us halfway there? Steve said he’d write the rest. No problem then.
Our bardic course finally went online in June, 2011. The reason it took so long was that I kept finding gaps that could only be filled by further research that generated new material. Lots of new material...
The first half of our ovate course went online only 14 months later, in the autumn of 2012, because I’d set aside material for it while working on the bardic. Also, we’d put so much into the bardic course that there couldn’t possibly be much left to say in an ovate one, could there? Wrong again. The ovate turned out to be 200,000 words longer than the bardic. In the end, each package went online just ahead of our students only because I worked on them for an average of 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the last three months.
I decided to take it easier with the Druid course, hence the 3-year gap between the completion of the ovate and the first half of the Druid going online. I then had 6 months to finish the second half. Again, I thought there couldn’t be that much that hadn’t already been covered in the bardic and ovate. Again, I was wrong. The Druid course turned out to be the longest of all, running to well over half a million words, 100,000 more than the ovate, and there still didn’t seem to be enough room to say everything that wanted to be said.
When I started work on the courses, two of my kids were still in primary school. They’ve since passed through secondary school, dropped out of uni, and are now in their mid twenties. During all this time, they’ve had to put up with me disappearing into my office, setting my music player on random play and working for hours on end, day in, day out, and often nights too.
Along the way, I’ve learnt a lot and made many original discoveries. These include practical ways of working with two archaic Irish texts dealing with the Three Cauldrons and the Twelve Doorways of the Soul. Both turned out to have amazing spiritual and medicinal possibilities. I’ve pieced together a convincing reconstruction of the prehistory, history, spiritual and medical use of sweat houses in the British Isles. I’ve also produced the first complete English translation of arguably the most pagan Druidical text in the whole of medieval Irish literature. Incidental discoveries include a new interpretation of one of the most famous medieval Welsh poems, Cad Goddeu, ‘The Battle of the Trees,’ that actually makes sense of it for the first time in centuries. These and many other things have been gifted by the spirits who guide my path, and I give thanks and blessings to them for the sips of awen granted me from the sacred cauldrons.
Other revelations along the way include a Welsh warrior princess who may have been behind the creation of the Mabinogion and a medieval Welsh bard who wrote a poem in praise of her vagina, in response to another who wrote one in praise of his penis! Yes, I’ve learned a lot about our bard and Druid forebears, not least the inspired poet, forger and laudanum addict, Iolo Morganwg, who invented the Welsh Gorsedd of Bards, of which the Queen is an honorary member, and the gloriously eccentric Dr. William Price, who wore a Fox-fur hat, called his son Iesu Grist, and revived the practice of cremation in the UK.
Among the benefits derived from working on the courses are that I now have a bardic Branch of Peace I made (bardic course); I designed and published an Ogham oracle deck (ovate course); made myself a dance cloak, and am working on a dance mask (Druid course). Along the way, and still relating to the courses, I designed and oversaw the building of an Iron Age roundhouse, learned to thatch and started making frame and clay drums.
It has not, of course, been a solitary journey. Far from it. Many have contributed to the courses and I owe them all a great debt of gratitude. Here are just a few, with apologies to the unnamed many...
For our bardic course, the children of renowned Pagan poet, Robin Skelton, generously allowed us to quote many of their late father’s poems, written in traditional metres, in their entirety. Legendary Scottish bard, Robin Williamson, kindly allowed us to quote from his songs and writings, some illustrated with his beautiful artwork. Musician and author, Andy Letcher, wrote on being a bard and engaged in an interesting discussion on the use of mind-altering plants.
For our ovate course, my old friend, Leon Reed, gave us the complete herbal he’s compiled and used in his practice as a herbalist for 30 plus years, a work on star lore and, for our Druid course, an encyclopaedia of Celtic Otherworlds and their inhabitants. Blue Fox provided exercises, musings and meditations for the bardic and ovate courses, plus insights into Oghams as a divinatory system. Elaine Gregory created a complete cycle of seasonal ceremonies and rites of passage. Elen Hawke contributed a series of workings based around the cycle of the Moon.
For our Druid course, the Quileute Drum Circle and Norwegian friends, Kyrre Franck White Cougar, Morten Wolf Storeide, LeNa Paalviig Johnsen, Bobby Kure, Anita Dreyer and Will Rubach opened my eyes to different ways of creating and conducting ceremonies. Kate Fletcher and Corwen Broch gave us their wonderful recreation of a midwinter Bear Feast. Pagan philosopher, Brendan Myers, gave us a beautiful piece on Pagan ethics. Amanda Foale-Hart helped bring alive the Twelve Doorways healing technique and shared her spiritual experience. Paul Badger has written on gender, politics and working with gods and spirits. Geoff Boswell has contributed on community engagement, politics, ecology and teaching. Accomplished Welsh bard, Derwydd Newydd, has provided English translations of medieval Welsh material.
Pagan historian, Ronald Hutton, has read every booklet of each course and he and his partner, Ana Adnan, have offered constructive criticism that has improved them greatly. Another old friend, Philip Carr-Gomm, has done likewise. Kris Hughes of the Anglesey Druid Order has also assisted. Graham Harvey has kindly tracked down obscure documents via various academic networks.
These and many others have contributed their knowledge and expertise freely, hugely enriching our courses through their generosity. I am humbled by their kindness and cannot thank them enough.
Last, but far from least, I am immensely grateful to the core circle of BDO Elders, whose unswerving support has been a vital component not only in creating our courses, but in creating and maintaining the BDO as it now exists in the world.
To name just a few, Adam has maintained our online presence for more years than I can remember, performing acts of IT magic beyond my ability to comprehend. Amanda has demonstrated an uncanny ability to herd cats whilst maintaining grace and good humour. Elaine has given us the wondrous space of Wild Ways for AGMs, facilitated the building of our roundhouse, run our online shop and so much more. Flick has been a wonder in her role as head tutor and her unfailing devotion to our vision of Druidry. Geoff, a BDO stalwart since the mid-90s, has given us the benefit of his invaluable expertise in many areas. Joe has kept me company on innumerable train journeys, manned our stall at events, operated projectors, etc., etc.. Paul has overhauled our social media presence, creating and putting out a regular flow of brilliant material via facebook, twitter and youtube. It’s been an honour and an inspiration to share ceremonial space with each and every one of you.
The task of letting the world know our courses exist now begins in earnest. We’ve been quite low-key up to this point, waiting until all three courses were complete. From now on, we’re yelling it from the rooftops. Why? Because we believe, indeed we know from student feedback, that our courses genuinely enhance lives and make our world a better place. They are three cauldrons brimful of awen, magic and transformation.
Which brings me to the greatest joy of putting these courses together; hearing from students who are actively benefiting from them. From being inspired to take up poetry or learn to play the harp, to coming within a hairsbreadth of winning the poetry crown at the National Eisteddfod, initiating and coordinating green initiatives in the workplace, finding the strength to make long-delayed changes in career and direction, recovering from trauma, or simply finding inner peace amidst the turmoil of life, lives are being enriched and enhanced by our courses in many ways in countries around the world, from Aberdeen to Australia. This is why I’ve kept working on them all these years, because BDO Druidry, blessed and inspired as it is by our ancestors, spirit allies and the old gods of our lands, is not role-playing or dressing-up, nor New Age navel-gazing, but an active engagement with a deeply transformative ancient magic that has real power, proven time and again by the simple fact that it genuinely works!
Many blessings,
Greywolf /|\
Druid Hedge Schools at Avebury
A few years ago, I came up with the idea of Druid Hedge Schools, loosely based on the hedge schools held in Ireland following the passage of legislation by the English authorities in 1695 outlawing the teaching of Irish history, language and culture in Ireland. Essentially this was an attempt to stamp out Irish culture. Similar measures were adopted in Scotland and Wales. In Ireland, a network of teachers rapidly sprang up who taught everything from the basic skills of reading and writing through to Latin and Greek. Teaching took place in secret, in barns, private houses, or, literally, behind hedges in fields. Anywhere people could gather together out of sight of the authorities.
The idea of Druid hedge schools is similarly to gather together wherever we can and offer information about Druidry at as low a cost as possible. Thanks to the kindness of the owners of the Henge Shop in Avebury, we are now able to offer monthly sessions there, right in the midst of one of the most remarkable and beautiful sacred landscapes in Britain. Session normally run for two hours at a cost per person of just £5, essentially to cover our costs in putting them on.
The next session is on the Druid relationship with stone circles, around which there is much controversy. Historians long maintained that classical Druids had nothing to do with stone circles, Druidry having arrived in Britain long after the circles were erected. There are, however, contrary views, and not just from Druids. Then there's the whole controversy around access to Stonehenge, around which much anger has been generated over many years, along with a good deal of misinformation. So, what are the links between Druids and stone circles and why do they evoke so much passion? Avebury seems an ideal place to explore these issues.
This session will take place on the afternoon of Saturday, September 22nd, at the Henge Shop. This date is particularly appropriate as that weekend sees the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the Gorsedd of Bards of Caer Abiri, an open group that meets among the ancient stones of Avebury to celebrate the annual cycle of Pagan festivals. As the Gorsedd was my creation, I can offer unique insight into its early years. This session will begin after the 'Free and Open' Gorsedd of Bards ceremony in the South Circle. The next day, Sunday, will be the 25th anniversary of the original Gorsedd. Why are there two groups with almost identical names? This question, and many more, will be answered at the Henge Shop!
For more details and booking, visit the Henge Shop's Events page at https://www.hengeshop.com/pages/upcoming-events or phone the Henge Shop on 01672 539229.
Many blessings,
Greywolf /|\