The ancient Druids were a priestly class in Celtic cultures who were religious leaders, teachers, and healers. They were also known for their knowledge of nature and the community's history. Druidism can be described as a shamanic religion, as it relied on a combination of contact with the spirit world and holistic medicines to treat (and sometimes cause) illnesses. They were said to have induced insanity in people and been accurate fortune tellers. Some of their knowledge of the earth and space may have come from megalithic times.
Who were the Druids?
They were mediators between humans and the gods
They performed religious rituals, including sacrifices
They interpreted natural events and divined the future
They made medicinal potions, especially using mistletoe
They were legal authorities and adjudicators
They were political advisors
The earliest written reference to the Druids dates back to the 1st century BC
Most of what we know about Druids comes from Roman writers
Druids are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in writing
Druids and Celtic religion declined after persecution by the Romans in the 1st century CE
Popular imagery
The Druids are often depicted as white-robed wise men carrying a golden sickle and mistletoe.
There is a lot of mystery shrouding the actual history of the Druids, as our knowledge is based on limited records. Druidism is thought to have been a part of Celtic and Gaulish culture in Europe, with the first classical reference to them in the 2nd century BC.
Their practices were similar to those of priests today, connecting the people with the gods, but their role was also varied and wide-ranging, acting as teachers, scientists, judges and philosophers. They were incredibly powerful and respected, able to banish people from society for breaking the sacred laws, and even able to come between two opposing armies and prevent warfare! They did not have to pay taxes or serve in battle. Druid women were also considered equal to men in many respects, unusual for an ancient community. They could take part in wars and even divorce their husbands!
One of the earliest accounts of Druids was written by Julius Caesar in 59-51 BC. He wrote it in Gaul, where prestigious men were divided into Druids or nobles. It was from the Roman writers that historians have gained most of their knowledge of the Druids. Druids were polytheistic and had female gods and sacred figures, rather like the Greeks and Romans, but their nomadic, less civilized Druidic society gave the others a sense of superiority. This renders some of their accounts historically uncertain, as they may be tainted with exaggerated examples of Druidic practices. Druidic human sacrifice was recorded but there is no definitive evidence to support this.
#history #documentary #science
Who were the Druids?
They were mediators between humans and the gods
They performed religious rituals, including sacrifices
They interpreted natural events and divined the future
They made medicinal potions, especially using mistletoe
They were legal authorities and adjudicators
They were political advisors
The earliest written reference to the Druids dates back to the 1st century BC
Most of what we know about Druids comes from Roman writers
Druids are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in writing
Druids and Celtic religion declined after persecution by the Romans in the 1st century CE
Popular imagery
The Druids are often depicted as white-robed wise men carrying a golden sickle and mistletoe.
There is a lot of mystery shrouding the actual history of the Druids, as our knowledge is based on limited records. Druidism is thought to have been a part of Celtic and Gaulish culture in Europe, with the first classical reference to them in the 2nd century BC.
Their practices were similar to those of priests today, connecting the people with the gods, but their role was also varied and wide-ranging, acting as teachers, scientists, judges and philosophers. They were incredibly powerful and respected, able to banish people from society for breaking the sacred laws, and even able to come between two opposing armies and prevent warfare! They did not have to pay taxes or serve in battle. Druid women were also considered equal to men in many respects, unusual for an ancient community. They could take part in wars and even divorce their husbands!
One of the earliest accounts of Druids was written by Julius Caesar in 59-51 BC. He wrote it in Gaul, where prestigious men were divided into Druids or nobles. It was from the Roman writers that historians have gained most of their knowledge of the Druids. Druids were polytheistic and had female gods and sacred figures, rather like the Greeks and Romans, but their nomadic, less civilized Druidic society gave the others a sense of superiority. This renders some of their accounts historically uncertain, as they may be tainted with exaggerated examples of Druidic practices. Druidic human sacrifice was recorded but there is no definitive evidence to support this.
#history #documentary #science
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00:00Central Europe in the last centuries before Christ, an ancient priest caste with secret
00:09teachings governed the Celtic land. They also sacrificed humans to their deities in brutal
00:17rituals. They were builders, astronomers, healers, and they could look into the future.
00:25Druids were the spiritual elite of the Celts. They could read and write Greek and Latin,
00:32but they didn't leave anything written behind for us. They are an inspirational
00:39source for mystics and spirituality to this day. But what is true, and what is just legend?
00:55Very little was known about the role of Druids in Celtic society until now. However,
01:06the newest findings paint a surprising picture.
01:25They were the advisors of the kings, but sometimes they were also the cause of their
01:31deadly downfall. They sacrificed in dark bogs. What you have is cold-blooded and calculated.
01:37This is a killing that's been performed in accordance with a known and predetermined ritual.
01:45Druids were the masters of ceremony of many rituals. An elite with centuries-long secret
01:53knowledge that were at the top of Celtic society.
01:56They have political power, they have education, they are active as lawyers,
02:01they are active as academic teachers, so to speak, and this combination of all this
02:06makes them an important part of the Celtic society.
02:10One can find relics from the Celtic period in all of Central Europe, from the Danube to the
02:18British Isles, and then later Ireland. It was a huge settlement area.
02:23Celtic culture developed in around 600 BC. In Ireland, the offshoots lasted until the
02:33early Middle Ages. And there is no other country with as many Druids still practicing today as Ireland.
02:49Eimear Berkey, the head of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, the largest Neo-Druid community
03:03with more than 25,000 members worldwide, lives near the city of Kilkenny.
03:19We welcome the ancestors of our light line, our blood line, and of our traditions.
03:25We've come from the north and west, the east and the south, to celebrate this ceremony,
03:31the Autumn Equinox, Conacht an Or. So let us take three deep breaths.
03:36What we do is we follow the seasons and the landscape as a metaphor for our lives.
03:40So we have our own inner world, and then there's the outer landscape.
03:43So when our inner landscape and the outer landscape are in harmony and balance,
03:47then we have that within ourselves.
03:51Druids have been an island for over 2,000 years, yet Eimear's religion is a reinvention.
03:57Irish Neo-Druidism only emerged in the 19th century, when the Irish distanced themselves
04:04from the British and remembered their Celtic roots.
04:08Druidry is non-dogmatic. There's no dogma. There are no teachings.
04:12So you can be polytheist, animistic, atheist. It doesn't matter.
04:17So we don't argue about whether there's one god, many gods or no gods.
04:23It's not important. What unites us all is a love of nature.
04:28Psychologist Eimear believes that the stars have a big influence on the soul.
04:33Solstices and lunisists divide the year into eight sections.
04:38This was also how the Celts divided the year.
04:42Druids celebrated sun and moon festivals thousands of years ago.
04:48This isn't scientific, but my sense is you can be in a place and you go,
04:51this is a really old place. You can almost sense the ancestors there.
04:56And I know the Druidry that's come to me, I get it from my ancestors.
05:00I can get it from some sacred sites, but personally,
05:04it happens here in places like this or in my own grove or my garden.
05:10But what is historical about Neo-Druidism? And what is pure fantasy?
05:16For scientists, the only things that count are archaeological findings.
05:24The Irish National Museum of Druidry is one of the oldest museums in the world.
05:30The Irish National Museum in Dublin.
05:33Retired archaeologist Eamon Kelly researches here.
05:37His area of expertise, bog bodies.
05:43This corpse was found by the Croghan Hill bog.
05:47That's why it's called Old Croghan Man.
05:50A victim of a ritual killing by the Druids.
05:54You can see a young man, somewhere between 25 and 40.
06:00It was a particularly gruesome way to end up.
06:04So, the dismembering of his body, the injuries inflicted on him,
06:09this was not done to cause him pain or to torture him.
06:14These actions were done for religious reasons, not for other reasons.
06:21The man was killed by a sword and then his head and abdomen were separated.
06:26This ritual was meant to prevent him from becoming a revenant.
06:31The man never did manual labour and his fingernails were manicured.
06:36The privilege of kings.
06:46In the case of a different king, his head remained intact.
06:51A possible killing motive? A crisis during his reign. Possibly famine.
06:57In pre-Christian society in Ireland, if such things happened,
07:02the king was held personally responsible.
07:08And if it was felt that the king could not undo these calamities
07:15that faced society through his influence with the other world,
07:21then the king would be ritually killed and he would be replaced.
07:26By a new king.
07:29The peak of Croghan Hill.
07:31The king was crowned up here by the Druids
07:34and sacrifices were made at its foot with their help.
07:39They chose a bog for their killing ritual
07:42because they were especially close to the gods of the underworld here.
07:48Bogs were considered to be an entrance to the other world.
07:51If you're conducting a ritual where you're looking to gain the favour of the other world,
07:57this is the most important place you can come to do that.
08:03The man met his fate in around 350 BC.
08:07From analysing the stomach content, Kelly could even find out what his last meal was.
08:13A porridge made from wheat and buttermilk.
08:16Think how proud he must have been on the day he was made king.
08:21And then it all went wrong and he ends up down here.
08:27And the last thing he sees is the sight of his former glory.
08:31And he knows what's going to happen to him here when he's taken out on this bog
08:35probably by a party of Druids.
08:40He knows he's going to die.
08:43Around 1,000 kilometres further east, the Glauberg in Hesse.
08:48The Druids left their traces here as well.
08:52Archaeologists found a burial mound at the foot of a 2,500-year-old round Celtic settlement
08:58with two deep ditches in front of it.
09:05With the help of geologists, Kelly was able to find the remains of a large,
09:11With the help of geomagnetic measuring methods,
09:14archaeologist Axel Poslöschny can even see their extension.
09:18Originally, the ditches were much longer.
09:41The initiators of this structure must have been astronomy experts.
09:46Poslöschny and his colleagues found out that the lines point right in the direction of the Big Southern Lunastice,
09:53an event that only happens every 18.6 years.
10:11A priest caste, the first Druids.
10:21The university library in TĂŒbingen.
10:24Theologist Bernard Meyer does his research here.
10:28He has written several books about the Celts and their priests.
10:32One question that he especially focuses on is where do our ideas about Druids stem from today?
11:03This illustration was pure fantasy.
11:06There is nothing about what the real Druids looked like in ancient books.
11:10And the Druids themselves didn't leave anything written behind.
11:32What we know or believe to be true goes back to a few ancient authors.
11:38These are a few writers, a few texts, often very short texts.
11:45And one difficulty is that we often don't know where this information comes from.
11:55But there are archaeological traces.
11:58The Mont BrĂšvray in Burgundy.
12:01Around 100 to 20 BC, Bibractor was the capital of the Celtic tribe of Aedui.
12:12Archaeologist Sabina Rieckhoff excavated a part of Bibractor and discovered clues about Druid activities.
12:21The most meaningful finding, a stone basin.
12:25A well aimed towards the sun during the equinox in the spring and autumn.
12:31The Druids must have had an incredible knowledge.
12:34Otherwise they wouldn't have been able to construct this basin.
12:37This requires geometric knowledge, which is ultimately based on the Pythagorean theorem.
12:42So a squared plus b squared is c squared.
12:45And the Druids were educated in such a way that they not only developed their own teachings over the centuries,
12:52because they probably have been around since the 3rd century BC,
12:55but they also appropriated knowledge from others.
12:58It is pretty well proven that they appropriated geographic knowledge from the Greeks.
13:07The Museum of Bibractor.
13:10Vincent Guichard is the director here.
13:13He wants to know what the Druid world looked like in the 1st century BC,
13:17when Caesar conquered the Gauls.
13:20The many display items show a vivid image of the highly advanced Celtic civilization.
13:27Also the cultic personnel at the center of this society.
13:58The Druids could read and write, but they only passed on their full knowledge verbally.
14:10During the heyday of Celtic culture, shortly before the Gauls' conquest by the Romans,
14:15the Druids controlled almost all the aspects of social life.
14:27First of all, the Druids are priests, so they conduct all public ceremonies.
14:34But secondly, they also make decisions about disputes.
14:37So they make the final decision about crimes.
14:40And thirdly, they educate young people.
14:43So you could say that the Druids are a church, a court and a university all in one.
14:50Here's an item.
14:56600 BC.
14:58Today it's a sparse forest in the Swabian Alps.
15:02It began in places like this.
15:10A cliff opens up here to become an early Celtic sacrificial site.
15:16Dirk Krause primarily found women's jewellery here.
15:20A sign that most of the sacrificed were women.
15:45People here trusted the earth,
15:48perhaps this special place, this gate to another world,
15:53to get in touch, to give something to the deities of the other worlds,
16:00the supernatural powers, perhaps even the underworld powers.
16:04They played a major role in Celtic times.
16:07People went on a long journey in order to get here.
16:11The next bigger Celtic settlement was 50 kilometres away.
16:16The Heuneburg.
16:42The collective sacrifice was the birth of the organised cult.
16:52The Heuneburg, on the upper reaches of the Danube.
16:56A Celtic city stood here 2,600 years ago,
17:00the largest one north of the Alps.
17:035,000 people lived on the mountain and in the suburb below.
17:07A rich society with long-distance trade relations
17:11from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean.
17:18When the archaeologists excavated the burial ground,
17:22they got a surprise.
17:24The remains of the Heuneburg were found in a cave
17:28When the archaeologists excavated the burial ground,
17:32they got a surprise.
17:34There were women in many of the very ornately decorated graves.
17:59The very high-ranking dead were buried in burial mounds.
18:05A grave will be examined here again.
18:08Head restorer Nicole Ebbinger will lead the recovery.
18:12And once again, she stands before the mortal remains of a woman.
18:28She excavated an elaborately decorated woman's grave like this once before.
18:34She excavated an elaborately decorated woman's grave like this once before.
18:48Three women were buried,
18:50probably a priestess, her daughter and a servant.
18:55Nicole Ebbinger discovered that they were buried in around 580 BC.
19:00She has conserved the mortal remains of the dead for ten years.
19:05A layperson would only see some teeth here.
19:09The restorer sees the entire human behind it.
19:24Now I know a lot more.
19:26I know it's a woman between 30 and 40 years old.
19:29She was buried in the Danube plain.
19:31She had wonderful burial gifts.
19:33And now the image of this personality is slowly opening up.
19:40The woman must have been very rich.
19:42The valuable gold jewellery was meant to accompany her in the afterlife.
19:48But there were also strange shapes made of glass,
19:51shaped stone, snail and urchin fossils
19:55that must have had a special meaning for her.
20:22A woman with magical powers.
20:25An early druid, perhaps?
20:34For Ima Burki, the head of modern druids in Ireland,
20:38strong Celtic women are role models.
20:41She doesn't connect much with the male domination of the world.
20:47So when I read stories and I read mythology,
20:50it's not that it's a truth, but it has a resonance with me.
20:54So it makes sense to me.
20:56We're dealing with spirituality and spiritual beliefs,
20:59which are not necessarily based in fact.
21:01But the stories can provide a resonance to me,
21:04and they can provide a resonance to other people,
21:07and they can provide a resonance to me.
21:09I'm a woman.
21:11I'm a woman.
21:13I'm a woman.
21:15And they can provide a resonance or a relevance or a meaning
21:19for me in my own life.
21:21So is it made up? Maybe.
21:23But I don't think that's important.
21:27A thirst for knowledge and learning.
21:30Ima appreciates that about the druids of Yor,
21:33and also the love of nature, which she also shares.
21:38HOCHDORF NEAR STUTTGART
21:43Hochdorf near Stuttgart.
21:45A man was buried in this burial mound in around 550 BC.
21:50Clearly an important individual.
21:57The reconstruction of his burial chamber.
22:00The dead lies on a valuable lounger made of bronze,
22:03already a status symbol when he was alive.
22:07He was meant to have everything in the afterlife.
22:11His weapons, his jewellery and his gold.
22:20But the most conspicuous thing, his wagon with the weapons.
22:25What could he possibly need this axe for?
22:36He killed these venerable animals, deer and cattle,
22:40by striking them on the forehead.
22:42And then he used this spade to kill the animals.
22:46So that's an athletic feat,
22:50to use the axe with the right hand,
22:53and the spade with the left,
22:55and then to strike the heart with the spade.
23:00The man must have been more than just a normal tribe leader.
23:03He also led the sacrifice.
23:05A key position.
23:36A sacred kingdom that will later change.
23:40A new profession developed out of the ritual sacrifice specialists.
23:45The Druids.
23:47They are mentioned for the first time in 2nd century BC by Greek authors.
23:52The term Druid means something akin to knowledgeable about oak.
23:58The power of the Druids was socially justified
24:02because of their role they played for religion.
24:06Those who controlled the sacrifice,
24:09who supervised the whole sacrifice,
24:12can also exercise power.
24:15This has often been the case in ancient cultures,
24:19that political power and religious authority
24:23were in one hand.
24:25We know this from many ancient cultures,
24:28and it won't have been much different with the Druids.
24:35In Heuneburg, Dirk Krause and his team
24:38want to find out more about how the religion was organized
24:42and who led the sacrifice rituals here in around 600 BC.
24:47We have a lot of settlement sites, craft sites.
24:51There is everything here.
24:53All the remains of daily life, of normal life.
24:57But what is missing here in Heuneburg is a sanctuary,
25:01a temple, a spiritual, a religious centre.
25:05It is a place of worship.
25:07It is a place of worship.
25:09It is a place of worship.
25:11It is a place of worship.
25:13It is a place of worship.
25:15It is a place of worship.
25:17It is a place of worship.
25:19It is a place of worship.
25:25An accidental discovery puts them on the right track.
25:29Around nine kilometres away,
25:31in the southern slope of the Swabian alps,
25:34is a mountain top the size of two football fields
25:37that is completely levelled.
25:40Massive excavation work took place here at 600 BC.
25:45The result, a monumental wall the size of a huge freighter.
25:56On one end, the remains of a massive wall, 13 meters thick and 10 meters high.
26:04The archaeologists uncovered the cross-section of an oval area layer by layer.
26:09Around 300 meters long and 40 meters wide.
26:14There must have been trained builders with a plan.
26:20Because to transform such a mountain, to calculate the curvatures and so on,
26:25to calculate the volume, that is already a feat.
26:28And a lot of energy was used to get the plan and to give the mountain this shape.
26:43The terrace must have had a different function.
27:13You don't have to be too sad about it.
27:16It was an event, we would say.
27:44These are human bones that we found here.
27:48They come from a shaft that lies right below us here.
27:51The shaft was five meters deep and at least seven human skeletons lay in this shaft.
27:58For this region, this is unique.
28:01These are not normal graves, certainly not.
28:04And in connection with this special place here, with this total work of art,
28:08with this ritual place, we believe that these are the remains of human sacrifices.
28:38The Roman Celts were a popular subject for the Romans.
28:41But whether the cultic personnel really sacrificed people on a large scale is debatable.
28:51Theologian Bernhard Meyer has analyzed the written evidence.
28:58Druids are described in the ancient sources as those who take care of these human sacrifices.
29:05These are sometimes thanksgiving sacrifices, sometimes bidding sacrifices.
29:08In particular, for example, in war acts, prisoners of war are sacrificed.
29:13For example, there is talk that a dagger is thrust into the victim
29:18and then the will of the gods is said to be the cause of death.
29:25A passage of text from Caesar is often used and copied by illustrators.
29:30A really gruesome image.
29:33What we see here is a human figure, far too large to survive,
29:38made of braided twigs.
29:41Down here you can see straw bundles and there is already a fire going on.
29:46It is shown here how many people, as human sacrifices,
29:52are burned alive in such a structure.
29:56Caesar's account of this image is not based on a factual representation
30:01of his battles against the Gauls.
30:03There is a lot of propaganda in there, driven by his interests.
30:07Why not paint the enemy in a bad light?
30:11I think it is a horror story that the Romans told themselves.
30:16Such horrible stories as they told themselves around 1900,
30:19at the time of colonialism,
30:22that the missionaries in Africa were cooked in large cauldrons and then eaten.
30:26And the Romans told themselves such stories.
30:31Was this all just invented by the Romans?
30:36The Somme region in northern France,
30:39the site of the most brutal battle of World War I.
30:42One million people died here in the summer of 1916.
30:48The archaeologist Gilles Prilot specializes in recovering soldier graves.
30:54But here, in the middle of the front lines of World War I,
30:58lies a mass grave that is far older.
31:01It stems from the Celtic era.
31:29When archaeologists discovered the first bones in the 1960s,
31:35they were compared to the World War I graves.
31:41They were easy to recognize.
31:43Uniform remains and the helmets of the dead soldiers.
31:49But there was something fundamentally different here.
31:52It wasn't just the uniforms and helmets that were missing.
31:58The bone mass that we see here,
32:00composed in large part by human bones and horses,
32:05there is something that immediately strikes.
32:08It's the absence of skulls.
32:10The skulls, no skulls were found here.
32:13The skulls were taken.
32:16The bone analysis showed there were around 600 young men
32:20who died in around 300 BC.
32:23And it all points to a gruesome ritual.
32:29The museum and research centre in Ribemont-sur-Ancre.
32:34The archaeologists reconstructed the bone findings.
32:38It quickly became clear the dead were warriors.
32:42Weapons were found with their bones.
32:59The warriors and their weapons were tied to a wooden frame
33:03and left there for a long period of time.
33:06A sacrifice to the gods and a warning to their enemies.
33:29His colleague, Frederic Mass,
33:31is a restorer and old weapons specialist.
33:34Together, they systematically analysed the bones.
33:38Their most important question,
33:40were the men already dead or were they still alive
33:44when they were sacrificed to the gods?
33:50The bones were found in a cave.
33:53They were found in a cave
33:55and they were sacrificed to the gods.
34:18Their findings are always the same.
34:21There are traces of weapons, spears and swords on many bones.
34:30So they were normal war deaths and not victims of a ritual killing.
34:52We have the evidence that the bones that were used for the treatment
34:58were made on men who had died in combat.
35:01It's difficult to talk about sacrifices at that time.
35:05The Druids did carry out religious rituals
35:08with the mortal remains of the warriors,
35:10but that wasn't the cause of their death.
35:16Copenhagen.
35:18The most important finding that gives clues about the Celtic religion
35:22can be found here in the National Museum.
35:25The Cauldron of Gundestrup.
35:28There is no other archaeological object
35:31that shows the Celtic world of gods in more detail than this silver cauldron,
35:36found in a Danish bog.
35:38The archaeologists are most puzzled about this detail.
35:42A man dipping a warrior in a cauldron.
35:45A human sacrifice?
35:49Archaeologist Fleming Cowell
35:51has researched the motives of this cauldron for many years.
35:55He has arrived at a very different explanation.
36:01What we see is a row of warriors
36:04who had been killed on the battlefield
36:07and now they are standing in the underworld waiting.
36:10Waiting for what?
36:12Waiting for a dip in a cauldron
36:14which can restore their life in another world.
36:17So the Gundestrup Cauldron may be a cauldron
36:20for giving eternal life for the dead warriors killed in battle.
36:27The Celts believed in reincarnation.
36:30That is why they felt invulnerable.
36:32Just like Obelix, the comic book hero,
36:35he also fell into a cauldron with magic potion as a child.
36:41The warrior plate seems to have been inspired...
36:45by one of the creators of Asterix.
36:48Some years ago, I spoke with him about the Gundestrup Cauldron
36:52and he told me that it was actually the Gundestrup Cauldron
36:56and the warrior plate who had inspired him
37:00to the sacred cauldron of Asterix and Obelix.
37:06One can only speculate about what the cauldron was actually used for.
37:10Maybe it just contained wine for a ritual feast.
37:15The golden sickle was also something
37:19that Asterix creator Udazo consulted historical sources about.
37:24The story of druid Miraculix
37:28climbing an oak tree to cut mistletoe has been proved to be true.
37:36Theologian Bernard Meyer studied the original text of this story.
37:41It was written by the Roman author Plinius in 1 AD.
38:12This is the most detailed description of a Celtic religious ritual.
38:17It has been known for a long time
38:20and that is why it is very well known and often quoted and discussed.
38:30If this description is correct,
38:33the discovery at the Hessian Glauberg is quite the sensation.
38:38Archaeologists made an unusual finding in 1996
38:42at the edge of a burial mound.
39:08The statue is the showpiece of the Celtic Museum in Glauberg.
39:13It shows the image of a man
39:16who was buried next to the site in the burial mound.
39:20A man from the 5th century BC.
39:24His burial objects revealed his social standing.
39:28He has the shield of a man from the 5th century BC.
39:33His gold jewellery shows that he must have been very rich.
39:43What makes the found figure so unique is his headdress.
39:47It's not a helmet.
40:03The headdress is made of wood and leather.
40:07It was reconstructed to look like a leather cap.
40:12This headdress is a mistle.
40:16If we look at the original on the statue,
40:20you can see that one side is bigger than the other.
40:23This is typical for the two sides of a mistle leaf.
40:26If you think about what is written about the druids many centuries later,
40:30the druids are often associated with mistles.
40:33In the case of Caesar, for example.
40:35You can imagine that we have a headdress of a druid in front of us.
40:41Does his hat really represent mistletoe?
40:45If so, this man from Glauberg is the first druid that we have an image of.
40:55But how plausible is the story?
40:58Did priests really harvest mistletoe?
41:01And also with gold sickles?
41:10Blaubeuren.
41:12A visit at a blacksmith who specializes in the production of historical tools.
41:22Master craftsman Frank Trommer and his assistant Pierre Stoll
41:26forge a Celtic sickle with charcoal fire, bellows, a hammer and an anvil.
41:33The tools that a blacksmith had at his disposal over 2,000 years ago.
41:40The material they use isn't gold, but bronze.
41:57I could imagine that it was made of this material.
42:21There are no Celtic bronze sickles.
42:24Of course, this may be due to the fact
42:27that these pieces have been processed and melted again and again.
42:31This is a small Celtic iron sickle,
42:36because I would rather use such a small tool for harvesting herbs or mistletoe.
42:45The sickle is almost ready.
42:47Smoothed with a hammer so it's nice and sharp.
42:50Attached with a wooden handle.
42:52This is exactly what a Celtic blacksmith would do.
42:56Is this the right tool to cut mistletoe?
42:59The symbol of eternal life?
43:04A meadow orchard in the Swabian Alps.
43:12Rolf Hug and Fabian Jakobi harvest mistletoe for a pharmaceutical company.
43:18The plant contains an active substance that is used for cancer therapy.
43:34They perfected their technique with time,
43:37but today they will try something new in the style of the Druids.
43:42Fabian Jakobi will test the sickle.
43:49Indeed, it works.
43:55But why did the Druids use such a filigree tool,
43:59if it goes so much faster with a saw?
44:18It would take much longer to recover and grow back.
44:22It wouldn't be suitable for us,
44:25but I'm surprised by the cutting technique.
44:30I would have thought it wouldn't work at all.
44:34The story of the golden sickle seems to be true.
44:37And the man from Glauburg with the mistletoe hat seems to have really been a Druid.
44:49THE DRUID
44:55Only one Druid emerges with a name from history.
44:58Divitiarchos.
45:03The man was a chieftain of the Aedui,
45:05a personal friend of Caesar and a tragic figure.
45:10He lived in a time when the Celtic land of Gaul was being conquered by the Romans.
45:15Divitiarchos is a very interesting figure,
45:19because he is the only ancient Druid
45:23about whom we know a little more biographical knowledge.
45:27Cicero writes in one of his philosophical writings
45:31that Divitiarchos had been a guest of his
45:37and that he had once been in Rome in this function,
45:41so to speak in a diplomatic mission,
45:44and that on this occasion, for example,
45:47he had also spoken about the prophecy of the flight of the birds.
45:56If the Druid Divitiarchos made a public appearance in his hometown Bibractor,
46:01it was probably on this site.
46:04THE ARCHEOLOGIST
46:12The archaeologists have exposed the base of a meeting place,
46:16the area 40 by 40 metres,
46:19enough space for several hundreds of people.
46:34That is why I am quite sure that when these meetings took place here,
46:38always under the protection of the gods,
46:41Druids were present.
46:45Divitiarchos was meant to convince his tribesmen
46:48that it was better to ally with the Romans instead of fight them.
46:52A difficult task.
46:56The research centre of Bibractor.
47:00Sabina Rykov and Vincent Guichard
47:04want to understand what this Druid looked like.
47:15He probably wore trousers, the clothes of a warrior,
47:20and his appearance and function was very different
47:24than what you normally connect with a Druid.
47:29Divitiarchos is a great political figure who is listened to,
47:34who has knowledge and who can cut off conflicts,
47:37so he is someone who has legal power,
47:40and above all he is a diplomat.
47:42He is someone that Caesar can send as an ambassador,
47:45who can try to convince Celtic peoples to ally with Rome.
47:52His mission was successful in the long term.
47:55The Aedui submitted to the Romans.
47:58Later on, they accepted their gods and built a new temple for them.
48:03For the Druids of Gaul, this meant the end in just a few decades.
48:29The new stronghold of the religious upper class was going to be Ireland.
48:35Their holiest site, the hills of Tara.
48:38Archaeologist Amon Kelly researched it.
48:44Irish kings were crowned here,
48:47and the legendary court gathered here.
48:50The most knowledgeable elite group, the Druids.
48:55Their task? Advising the king about all sorts of worldly and religious things.
49:04Tara was regarded as being the most sacred place in the whole of Ireland.
49:10This was the place that had most connectedness with the spirit world.
49:16And so the king of Tara was the most important king in the whole of Ireland.
49:21And of course, the Druids that would have operated here
49:25would have been the preeminent Druids in the whole of Ireland.
49:32The Druids could even tell the future.
49:35That's what's written in Irish sacred stories.
49:38That's why they were alarmed when the first Christian missionary, St. Patrick,
49:43appeared on Slane Hill, directly across from the royal residence.
49:49He started a fire on the first day of spring,
49:52which was actually the privilege of the king.
49:56His Druid tells the king that he must immediately extinguish that fire
50:01and all associated with it, because if he doesn't,
50:05that fire will never be extinguished in the whole of Ireland.
50:09So, of course, it's a subtle reference to Christianity supplanting paganism,
50:15and the Druid being aware of how things are going to work out.
50:21St. Patrick and the beginning of the Easter fire.
50:24One of many saints' legends.
50:27It was written here, in the scriptorium of Clonmacnois,
50:31the most important Irish monastery, founded in 548 AD.
50:38Eamon Kelly takes the report about the Druids by early Christian monks seriously,
50:43but there are some caveats.
50:47It's clear that the purpose behind writing these tales down was a Christian one.
50:53It was, to a certain extent, to portray the Druids as the bad guys,
50:58and the Christian church as being the good guys,
51:03and also to tell moral tales that reflected the Christian view of the world.
51:12For a long time, the Celtic religion and Christianity existed in parallel.
51:17Then, in approximately the 8th century AD,
51:21the traces of the Celtic priests were lost.
51:25I think the Druids became the learned classes within the Irish Christian settle.
51:32They were the learned classes within the monasteries,
51:34and they continued now as Christians to form a hugely important learned class,
51:40and continued to do so right down through the Middle Ages.
51:45Traces of the Druid religion have survived to this day.
51:48Halloween, the night before the old Celtic New Year's festival, is one example.
51:54The Druids formed the spiritual and worldly elite of the Celts for around a thousand years,
52:00but they were on the losing side of history.
52:04In their conflict with the Romans, and later on during the Christianisation of Ireland,
52:09they appeared like a shadow from the dark recesses of history.
52:13They disappeared without leaving us a word about themselves.