The Doubtful Druid

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The Doubtful Druid

Bringing doubt to a world that seeks certainty.

21/06/2025

It's the longest day again, which depending on just how hot it gets might not be ideal.

17/01/2025

Beware of the person who says " I have the answers" especially when it's followed by "give me some money and you too can have the answers." No-one can give you the real answers, they are whispered on the wind, sung by the streams and chanted by the trees. The questions are all you need.

22/12/2024

A storm at the solstice seems a little inauspicious, but what to make of it when the storm sets fire to a church?

27/10/2024

Nearly Halloween again, time to pull out the plastic crap and stock up on sweets? Not so much if you want an authentic Samhain. In the past it seems that with the doorways to the Otherworld opened people were more for fire and human sacrifice. Appeasing dark gods with a firstborn child or two may not be the way to go, but a plastic pumpkin full of mini chocolate bars will do nothing quiet visitors from the Otherworld.

01/10/2024

Ever wanted to peer beyond the veil? Don't look, you might not like what you see.

20/06/2024

Happy early solstice. Apparently the last June 20th solstice was 1796, the same year Rizla came on the scene (not that Rizla have anything to do with people who care about the solstice).

04/05/2024

Was paganism in pre-christian Europe a religion?

There was more than one set of beliefs but let's consider Celtic and Germanic paganism. Both had a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses as personifications of the elements of the living world, and seemingly rites and ceremonies related to them and the things they represented. But is that religion?

The definition of religion is difficult, is it about belief, ritual, doctrine or is it when all those things are combined?

If religion is simply the belief in spiritual beings, then I think we can safely say pre-christian European pagan beliefs were religions. If religion is defined by ritual then things are less clear, how much unity of observance was there? If it is a question of doctrine then I don't think the word religion can be easily applied, there is little to indicate that there was a prescriptive set of rules that everyone had to follow.

Perhaps the concept of religion is an entirely modern invention, placing christian ideas on beliefs that do not conform to the christian world view.

In many modern contexts a religion is a group of people who believe that they are right and anyone who thinks differently must be wrong. Pagans adapted their beliefs when met with new ideas, and seem to have looked for similarities with other pantheons rather than dismissing them.

Maybe it is best not to apply the word religion to the beliefs of people who would themselves have never used that word or tangled with what it means.

02/05/2024

The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n its wavy bowers,
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers;
And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
Tennyson

31/03/2024

Happy Easter. Oh wait no, isn't this another pagan festival taken over by christianity? Well it is very close to the spring equinox, and the name does sound like it comes from the pagan goddess Ēostre. Ah well, whatever.

20/12/2023

As we come to the Winter Solstice we can look forward to the first sunrise of the new year. It's important to remember though that we aren't really moving forward, it all just goes round and round, like the wheels on the bus.

27/10/2023

Halloween as we know it today came from the Celtic festival of Samhain which marked the beginning of winter. It was seen as a time when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld was at its weakest. The scary costumes and spooky trappings of modern halloween have evolved from older pagan traditions. If you're looking to do something a little different this year why not try carving the more traditional turnip, you can make something far more worthy of a horror film.

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