From: ggrieve@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (greig.grieve)
Subject: Re: Eagles Reaches Church of Asatru
Organization: AT&T
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 09:13:37 GMT
Summary: druids

In article <4017@keele.keele.ac.uk>, cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
> From article <1992Sep4.170305.28830@octel.com>, by dfair@octel.com (Donald Fair):
> >>  Celts were *not* a racial group -- ethnicity is defined by language
>                                                                ^^^^^^^^
> not so sure about this as a general rule - the Jews of ancient
> Alexandria all spoke Greek, but regarded themselves as Jewish and were
> 
> >>and cultural values, not some vague genetic poppycock.
>                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
> I also wonder about the latter a little. I don't want to subscribe to
> neo-nazi theories of race, but I wonder whether total dismissal of this
> factor is merely to submit equally thoughtlessly to today's ruling
> liberal dogmas. The ancients seemed to worry a little about race, as the
> 
> > 	by historians all over Ireland that the Iberian Celts where
> > 	the first settlers. Coming north to Ireland to find copper
> > 	and leaving their markers the Ogham stones. Know what an
> > 	Ogham stone is ??
> 
> Any suggestions of dates? All the Iberian scripts I've seen,
> including Celtiberian and 'Tartessic', look, wait for it, rather runic
> in appearance, but that no doubt is through ignorance on my part.
> 
> 
> Andy


> >>and cultural values, not some vague genetic poppycock.
>                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> I also wonder about the latter a little. I don't want to subscribe to
> neo-nazi theories of race, but I wonder whether total dismissal of this
> factor is merely to submit equally thoughtlessly to today's ruling
> liberal dogmas. The ancients seemed to worry a little about race, as the
>
> >     by historians all over Ireland that the Iberian Celts where
> >     the first settlers. Coming north to Ireland to find copper
> >     and leaving their markers the Ogham stones. Know what an
> >     Ogham stone is ??
>
>
> Certainly do, just wondered where they crop up in Spain. If you know
> could I have a reference please. Any suggestions of dates? All the Iberian scr
ipts I've seen,
> including Celtiberian and 'Tartessic', look, wait for it, rather runic
> in appearance, but that no doubt is through ignorance on my part.
>

In "The Life and Death of a Druid Prince" (Rider Books, Random Century Group 
Imprint), the authors Anne Ross and Don Robins investigate the "Lindow Man" 
found during peat cutting in Cheshire.

Radiocarbon dating, and ESR (electron spin resonance) tests on the contents
of the stomach show the the last meal was a bannock prepared and eaten          
according to a sacrificial rite. The presence of mistletoe pollen supports
the involvement of Druids, and the time of the death may coincide with Beltane.
 
The book compares Lindow man with the bodies from Denmark, such as Tollund man.
There is evidence that some of the Danish bodies were victims of sacrifices
according to Celtic, druidic ritual - although this area is more Germanic.

The difference between Celtic and Germanic cultures include the names of Gods,
and the less settled lifestyle of the Germans.

The book claims that Lindow man was a druid prince who was offered in pro-
pitiation in 60AD after the Romans had defeated Boudicca and devastated Mona
(Anglesey). Also, that the signifcance of Mona to the Druids lay in the fact
that it was close to Dublin in the sacred island of Ireland. Gold from the
Wicklow mountains was imported to the west along Watling street, and the druids
controlled this traffic.

Although the druids did not write down their lore, they used latin and greek 
for secular things. Diodorus Siculus describes how Celts wrote messages to 
their deceased which were transmitted by burning in a fire - so the Celts
were literate. 
 
Here's a thought: The druids, bards and seers were free to travel in the 
Celtic world from tribe to tribe. Their role and privileges seem to be 
analogous to that of the Levites in the two kingdoms of ancient Israel, which 
was also organized on tribal lines. One difference is the organisation of 
religion which was centered in Jerusalem (southern Israel) or Samaria (northern)
where the idol of a calf was set up (by Omri ?). Druidism seems more diffuse -
centred, if anywhere, in Ireland (Tara perhaps?).