Druidic religion does not
consist in a doctrine about gods. It comprises however a series of
themes, which turn up several times in different Celtic sources and can
be followed up to the fairy tales, legends, customs, lore and
superstitions of the Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Bretons, French
and English.
These themes are listed here
consequently instead of gods and their functions, because these themes
are the last remnants of what once was the druidical doctrine and what
never had been fixed in written form, be it total or in parts.
Archaelogical evidence of the Romano-Celtic period will be neglected
here (for that, see Ross,
Green a. o.), because here
an attempt is made to reveal the pre-roman druidical religion, but also
because the archaelogical approach inclines to classify everything into
already accepted categories. This is done by virtue of a lack of
interpretational frames, but the consequence is the lack of
comprehension of unique, specific traits.
Several of these themes are not
at all restricted to Celtic culture, but may be found in different
contexts of European and extra-European cultures, including also Turkish
cultures, which in its pre-Islamic times derived from central Asian
(shamanistic) regions. This however demonstrates that Celtic culture
was based on multiple origins and knew a cultural exchange along its
geographic as well as temporal borders.
The presentation will end by
sketching a short reconstruction of a pre-historic Celtic individual's
ideas on the world.
The themes shall not be treated
here in any detail (you will find these in the German edition), and only
a simple list will be given:
A ubiquitous dominant theme is
Otherworld.
The polarity of Thisworld and
Otherworld is expressed also by those complexes into which most of
Celtic concepts will fit: Death (=forthcoming and Mother (=origin).