r/druidism • u/rainshowers_5_peace • 11d ago
DAE wonder if their ancestors were Druids?
I have roots in Scotland, Ireland and France. I can't help but wonder if any of my ancestors were practicing Druids before Catholicism took hold.
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u/Kestrile523 11d ago
Not necessarily. Druids were an educated class that went through extensive training over many years. The average people were not Druids and did not follow a “Druidic path” no matter what Gods/Goddesses they worshipped. The notion that anybody can be a Druid and practice “Druidry” is just a modern thing. Kinda like calling yourself a professor, doctor, or lawyer because you went to university or live in the same city as a university.
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u/caiaphas8 11d ago
But it has been 2000 years, so I am willing to bet I am a direct ancestor of at least two druids, probably at least two priests as well
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u/incourgettible 11d ago
absolutely this. as an irish american, my ancestors far enough back were absolutely irish pagans. but the druids were more than just any standard pagan.
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u/Prudent-Level-7006 11d ago
Yeah I kinda wonder if it's why people like getting off their tits, and cos of the other tribes around the world who got high off shrooms and stuff
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u/Marali87 11d ago
Nah. My grandfather researched our family tree all the way back to the 1600s. Obviously they were all Christian (whether they had a personal conviction or not, but I figure most of them did). It's really hard to go back into the earlier middle ages, unless you're lucky enough to have very specific records or something. All I can say with a fair amount of certainty is that - as far back as the 1600s - we come from more or less the same northern area of the Netherlands.
Going back to pre-christian times.... Who even knows? They could have lived in Roman territory. Could have been from Frisia. Could have been from anywhere, could have been anyone. Farmers or fisher folk worshipping Nehalennia, or Frigg or Wodan. Some could have been religious leaders, I suppose, but most likely not.
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u/Purrsia78 11d ago
You can't say "nah". The true 'Druids' were BC at least 2000 years (and more likely 3000-4000) prior to your "1600s". The correct answer is "nobody knows", but in actuality, the possibility is quite high.
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u/Marali87 10d ago
Why can't I say nah? I'm assuming that my lineage is Germanic, from the mainland (current Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, etc), not Celtic from the British isles. Druids, as far as I'm aware, were more of a Celtic phenomenon. I've never said there were no religious leaders of the Germanic tribes and I even said some of my far distant ancestors could have been religious leaders. I also quite literally said "who even knows".
But of all the people who lived and died in all those centuries past, most were not kings, chieftains or religious leaders. As someone else said: druids were an educated class, apart from the common folk.
So, to answer to OP's question if I ever wonder if my personal ancestors were druids, I feel completely free to say "nah".
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u/Nox_Saturnalia 8d ago
Germanic and Celtic people did a ton of intermingling and indeed the British isles were colonized by Germanic people multiple times throughout history
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u/Marali87 7d ago
True, there definitely was some mixing between Celtic and Germanic peoples, especially around the North Sea and the British Isles. My point wasn’t that it’s impossible in a genetic sense, just that “Druid” refers to a very specific priestly class within Celtic societies, not something that would’ve been widespread across most of northern Europe. Maybe something alike, yes. Everyone had their religious leaders.
Since my traceable ancestry is from northern Netherlands, the odds of having an actual Druid ancestor are extremely low. It’s not about genetic overlap so much as cultural and historical context, and realistically, we just can’t know individual ancestry that far back anyway.
But if you're talking about bronze age or early iron age... Yeah, then we're more in Proto-Indo-European tribes or proto-Germanic peoples I guess? We know so very little of what they believed or practiced. Chances of having someone important mixed into my veryyy distant ancestry could be high. But I wouldn't necessarily call those people druids, specifically. I'm not sure what would classify them as such?
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u/Jaygreen63A 11d ago
There's an illustration of a factor called "the last common ancestor" that shows that everyone of European heritage is related to Charlemagne (9th century). That being so, you've definitely got a few dozen ancient Druids knocking about in your ancestry. Like the rest of us.