Author: Miranda Aldhouse-Green
Publisher: Yale University Press 2010
Price: £25.00
Isbn: 9780300124422

I received this book when I was right in the midst of another book on Druids, one I neglected until this more fascinating study had been wolfed down.

The niggling dearth of prim­ary written sources means the springboards for enquiry into the Druids’ mysterious priesthood are the texts of Classical contemporaries, chiefly the Romans. This goes for all books on the Druids, so I was prepared for a bit of slogging through some fairly familiar material as the book got going, chiefly from the even-handed Caesar whose tolerable relations with at least one Gaulish tribe makes him probably the most unsensational and reliable recorder of the Druid order. But from the second chapter, as the field evidence of ritual sacrifices kicks in, vitalised with inferences about the mindset behind the perpetrators of unbelievably grisly last earthly moments of the bog bodies, this book really starts to leap off the pages.

In first-century Celtic society, no-one was more exalted than Druids. Not only did they dispense their wisdom in the roles of priests, doctors, lawmakers and judges, it is said they were able to stop battles, an authority that transcended even that of their monarchs. Has such an influence existed since?

Perhaps Druids came at the end of times when such a power had existed for hundreds, or thousands of years, for as Prof. Aldhouse-Green shows, the Druidic phen­omenon must also be looked at in the context of the traditions of shamanism that go way back into prehistoric Europe, and the oracular practices of Ancient Greece. The parallels drawn between the host­ility shown by Soviet Russia and parts of Europ­ean Scandin­avia towards Siberian shamanic cult­ure, and that of the Roman imperial government towards the Gallo-British Druids, with both sacred forms perceived as targets for repression due to their power bases, underlines the perpetual friction between cultures of differ­ing ideologies in a way I find most original.

I was interested to see if any discussion would be had about the idea, touted mainly in non-academic works, that Druids and Celts owe something of their roots and supposed doctrine of the soul’s permanence after death to the Hindu culture of ancient India. While pulling up short of a full endorsement of this (which Peter Beresford-Ellis went much further into), an acknowledgement of a “viable conduit” for cultural interaction between Greece and southern Gaul from the times of Pythagoras himself is given, tentatively aligning with the Roman commentators who said as much. As an archæologist trained on deriving an encompassing view from a range of artefacts, Aldhouse-Green cannot be expected to go further in a work of this kind, but I think there is still much potential in the symbolic evidence to strengthen these links. It is heartening to find a scholar of her eminence so willing to cast her net over so much knowledge in the quest for the fuller picture. Indeed, her archæological approach of expanded horizons makes Time Team seem even more stuffy and narrowband, despite its veneer of boyish enthusiasm.

Neither is all the fun to be had by the males of Aldhouse-Green’s Druids. A lead curse-tablet from southern France and an amazing bronze cult-wagon from a seventh-century grave in Austria are two of the most surprising items indicating “women endowed with magic”. Here again are glimpses of brutal ritual murder, now with extra bloodletting. The theme runs like a clotted seam throughout much of the book.

The final chapter is an intense distillation of Gallo-Roman syncretism and the currents of resistance under Roman rule. How might the Druids have been instrumental as agents of rebell­ion and subversion? The author’s contention that iconography revealed by archæology bears out the survival of local beliefs and religious practices is a complex read of closely-packed inform­ation. The epilogue brings us rapidly up to date, showing an almost maternal concern and tolerance to John Aubrey, William Stukeley, Modern Welsh Druids, Wiccans and other children of the modern revival.

Figurines, statuettes, and various grave goods from burial sites are displayed in good-sized monochrome illustrations, allowing us to share closely in the author’s interpretations of their iconographic intentions, and the occasional sketch or description of a scene or ritual extrapolated from these goods is a boon for the general reader. With the cream of archæological evidence constantly foregrounded, the author’s expert­ise summons up Druids as vividly as it is possible to imagine – notwithstanding waving a yew frond and chanting the works of obscure bards at Stonehenge on Mid­summer’s dawn.