druid

THE DRUIDS

In the 1st century A.D., Gaius Plinius Secundus, known as Pliny the Elder, wrote in his Natural History XVI, 249, of the Druid’s veneration of mistletoe and the oak tree. As a result:

“It has been concluded that the word druid comes from the Greek drus, ‘oak’ and this explanation, which has had a hardy life, is still encountered in certain serious works of our own century.”

However…

“[T]he relationship between the word druid and the Greek drus is nonexistent. Moreover, why would the name for Gallic druids have a Greek provenance? Logically it must be of Celtic origin. It so happens that the Gallic word for oak was dervo (this is one of the few Gallic words we know for certain), daur in Gaelic, derw in Welsh, and derv (collective noun, dervenn in the singular, deru) in Vannetais Breton. It is certainly difficult to hang the various forms of the word druid on to these words.”

“In addition Pliny’s text is quite confused. The naturalist did not expressly state that the origin of druids was the Greek word drus. He said only that the druids got their name from the Greek.”

So from where does the word druid come from?

According to well-known Druid writer/researcher Jean Markale in his work Druids: Celtic Priests of Nature:

“The generic term for the sacerdotal class is drui, a strict equivalent of the Gallic word transcribed by Caesar as druis, and transcribed by those who came after as druida. But it is quite evident that, as in Gaul, the Gaelic drui designates a person belonging to the upper ranks of this sacerdotal class.”