Druidism in history

Here is a place were the history of your and my people come for. Please post true facts. Thanks and bless it be.

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The problem with Druid history is that all the Druids were driven out of mainland Britain on to the island Anglesey, There they were again attacked by the Roman army and wiped out!
They left no writings.No evidence of their beliefs or rituals; well at the most very little.
However, in recent years there has been a revival of Druidism in Britain, and they hold rituals and ceremonies at Stone Henge.

One of the better books on the history of the Druids that acknowledges both that we know little directly about them is " The Druids " by Ronald Hutton. Professor Hutton addresses the ancient Druids, the so-called Druid lodges of the 17th and 18th century, and the renaissance of modern Druidy which is largely based on a fantasy of what the Druids might have been like.

Thanks Lark. Yes, in England modern Druidism has a quite famous leader, Arthur Pendragon. I don't suppose that is his real name, but that is how he is known.

Hutton's book is wonderful. I would also highly recommend A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DRUIDS by Peter Beresford Ellis.

I would just like to point out that there were things left for us to gather information , however it is minute. There are scriptures of ogham in Ireland on stone tablets that are stuck in the ground. Oral tradion did carry on for bards sung songs of lore and mythology relating to the beliefs of the Irish and welsh druids. There are altered versions of myths by the Christian monks in 10-13 century monks , such as the Arthurian saga. And lastly actual folklore and oral lore in small villages.
Now I'm not well versed I'm Scottish, English or Gaulish mythology nor their priestly class.
I guess for us as archeologists and historians there is very little on them as we know of today - anything could be found and un earthed to solve the mstery.I again I guess it counts about what you think is classed as evidence and historical.
I can't stress enough that acknowledge that there is very little knowledge of them in comparison to other priestly orders.

As far as ogham goes, the only surviving ogham inscriptions in Ireland are either boundary markers or stones raised to commemorate some famous person. Ogham didn't come into being until after the Roman alphabet reached the British Isles, the druids never used it for writing. By the time ogham came into being the druids were gone.

I'd imagine that the commemorative stones would hold some religious value?

Do you think all stones have some religious,or magical, value?
There are thousands of statues of famous people, many of them carved in stone; they have no such meaning. In my nearest town there is a statue of the comedian Ernie Wise. It is stone, and has no religious meaning whatsoever!

No I don't but for the Celts who wrote very little , next to nothing down for them to inscribe something on stone must, mean what ever is inscribed must be of some great value to them. Comparing them to other cultures , which is the best we can do , religion was very important and often it was the thing that headed progress and development.
And I'm not an exactly an animist but I hold some values along that line, so I would find stone carvings sacred for the sense it is of the earth and that a spirit of the earth may reside there. Like all natural things.