The Druids

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

The Druids serves as a casual introduction to the history of the ancient Druids and their influence which stretched throughout the centuries. This book can be read as a casual introduction and as nothing more than that, due to continual structural flaws (for example, the total omission of footnotes and clear citations). I struggled through the irritated (and to use a word a friend recently reminded me of) curmudgeonly historiographical introduction, but after pressing on I found that the rest of the book was tolerably engaging and readable. The Druids contains enough information to get your feet wet and provides many hints at subjects for further study. There are more than a few leaps of logic and reason that make show more me uncomfortable with taking most anything mentioned in this book without a grain of salt, I certainly won't be citing it is an authority on any of the subjects that it addresses. If you're interested in the history of the Druids, I would recommend looking at Ronald Hutton's Blood and Mistletoe rather than this book. Hutton provides a much more solid viewpoint. While the scope of The Druids and Blood and Mistletoe are not entirely analogous, Hutton is considerably more credible, logical and thorough.

'There are no final truths. The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions'.

The Druids opens with this auspicious quote from French Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, seeming to indicate an inquisitiveness into the subject, an open mind, and a deep familiarity with the matter at hand. Sadly, Ellis largely ignores his introductory quote, rarely pausing to question and demonstrate solid analysis.

Ellis is not a historian. Plain and simple. There are plenty of excellent popular historians who make up for their 'lack' of a degree with attention to detail, logic, and close adherence to source material. Ellis lacks the rigor, good writing style, or credibility to make any of his more controversial points stick. The cherry on top for me is the complete lack of footnotes in this book. He writes:

"Because my purpose is to present a book for the general reader, I have, as in some of my previous works, dispensed with copious footnotes. Where sources obviously need crediting, I have made this clear within the body of the text".

Of all the things that make academic history a slog, the historiographic argument, the absurdly clunky prose, attention to minutiae, perhaps the least obnoxious is footnotes and proper citations. There are a ton of things that were stated in this book that I would love to follow up on, but cannot because proper footnotes and citations weren't used.

For example, Ellis proclaims:

"From the Old Irish texts one gathers that the Druids were concerned, above all things, with Truth and preached 'An Fhirinne in aghaidh an tSaoil (The Truth against the world)".

Pray tell, what 'Old Irish' texts? Where can I find this information? There is literally no way that I can verify this. An internet search for the saying in its Irish form returns nothing of value, and a search for its English translation all leads to Iolo Morganwg (who wrote the saying in Welsh, not Irish). So I am left to wonder what the source of the Irish saying is, and if it is legitimate.

I came across several interesting subjects that I am excited to investigate further, and I am grateful that Ellis mentioned them. However, I won't directly quote The Druids to make anything but the most mundane points. show less

This was the least sensational book I could find on the Druids. I was a little nervous about the cover quotes on this book - by such notably weird authors as Nicolai Tolstoy - but the dry, serious, non witchy poo quality of the writing won me over. I feel like this was a pretty good introduction to a complicated topic, with a greater emphasis on the social role of the Druids and hardly any page space devoted to modern-day Druid re-creationists. Ellis gets a little tangled up in his own sentences sometimes, but who doesn't? Looking forward to finding something more in-depth to read next.

In A Brief History of the Druids author Ellis gives us a glimpse into the history and archaeology of the Druids as the intellectual caste of the Celtic peoples. Investigated are the different aspects of said social caste, such as philosophers, healers/doctors, judges, historians, bards/poets and spiritual/religious leaders. The author warns the reader that very little written material remains on the druids and that much of what we do know due to various external sources should be taken with a grain of salt. For all sources, both ancient and more recent, he tends to give both sides of the argument rather than completely ignoring one side, which I found to be very useful.

This book looks at actual history and, while it can be tedious at show more times, is far more valuable than the numerous books on 'Druidry' that one finds a dime a dozen, focused more on the supposed mystical aspects. This book was more about what and who the Druids might actually have been as opposed to more fanciful views. An overview of Celtic society is given in the beginning, to set the framework for exploring this unique social caste and the Indo-European ties that bind them to the castes and culture of India.

Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, plodding as it could be at times. I enjoy learning about history and culture, being an anthropologist by training. There were only two things that really bothered me in regards to this book and I would offer the first as a caution to any choosing to read it. If you have no experience in puzzling out written Celtic, you will have a time in deciphering a great deal of the words. The Welsh I found easier to work with than the Gaelic. I usually enjoy such challenges, but here it got old rather fast. I also found the very last chapter on 'Reviving the Druids' to be very disjointed and not nearly as well constructed as the rest of the book. show less

A sometimes dry but interesting read concerning the history, persecution and rediscovery of Celtic druidism.The author points out and tries to refute many of the myths beginning in the Roman area as well as outline the continues attempt to remove the early Celts from history.

A good read.

Interesting book, though I am tempted to say what the little girl said of the book on penguins - this book tells me more about druids than I wanted to know.

Readable, well-researched book about an oft referenced but little understood group. A pre-Christian religion which probably gave substance to Christianity. My criticism is of the over reliance on what others have to say. What does the author say?

A great reference for any Celtic scholar.