Book dossier

The Druids

by Peter Berresford Ellis

Who were the Druids? The Romans viewed them as occult priests indulging in human sacrifice and forecasting the future from human entrails. Some say they were amiable sorcerers. Others portray them as the intelligentsia of ancient Celtic society. In this book, Peter Berresford Ellis sifts through the evidence, and, with reference to the latest archaeological findings and the use of etymology, he provides the reader with the first authentic account of who and what they were. The Druids emerge as the intellectual caste of ancient Celtic society. They were the doctors, the lawyers, the ambassadors, the advisers to kings. They also had a religious function. Ellis describes the special Druidic training, their philosophy, their belief in auguries, and their intriguing origins. The Roman description of the Druids, he shows, was the bellicose propaganda of an empire anxious to rob them of their power in the Celtic territories. He shows that the current 'New Age' image of them as benevolent wizards comes from a woefully inadequate interpretation of the facts.