druidic descent .
British Isles - There is one mention of druids in Great Britain as contemporaries of the Gallic clergy , and that is the reference to them by Tacitus ( Annals , xiv , 30 ) from which it is learned that there were elders of that name in Anglesey in A . D . 61 ; but there is no mention of the druids in the whole of the history of Roman England , and it may be questions whether there ever were any druids in the eastern provinces that had been subjected , before the Roman invasion , to German influence . On the other hand , there were certainly druids in Ireland and Scotland , and there is no reason to doubt that the order reaches back in antiquity at least to the ist or 2nd century B . C .; the word drai ( druid ) can only be traced to the 8th-century Irish glosses , but there is a strong tradition current in Irish literature that the druids and their lore ( druidecht ) were either of an aboriginal or Pictsih origin . As to Wales , apart from the existence of druids in Anglesey there is little to be said except that the earliest of the bards ( the Cynfeirdd ) very occasionally called themselves derwyddon . The Irish druid was a notable person , figuring in the earliest sagas as prophet teacher and magician ; he did not possess , nevertheless , the judicial powers ascribed by Caesar to the Gallic druids , nor does he seem to have been a member of a national college an archdruid at its head . Further , there is no mention in any of the texts of the Irish druids presiding at sacrifices , though they are said to have conducted idolatrous worship and to have celebrated funeral and baptismal rites . They are best described as seers who were , for the most part , sycophants of princes .
Origin - Some confusion is avoided if a distinction is made between the origin of the druids and the origin of druidism . Of the officials themselves , it seems most likely that their order was purely Celtic , and that it originated in Gaul , perhaps as a result of contact with the developed society of Greece ; but driudism , on the other hand , is probably in its simplest terms the pre-Celtic and aboriginal faith of gaul and the brithish Isles that was aposted with little midificacion by the migrating Celts . It is easy to understand that this faith might acquire the special distinction of antiquity in remote districts , such as Britain , and this view would explain the belief expressed to Caesar that the disciplina of druidism was of insular origin .
The etymology of the word druid is still doubtful , but the old orthodox view taking dru as a
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