Practice Management

Solstice: A midsummer's Druid check

By Dan Hull

Pay no mind to all those New Age yahoos and beer hippies from all over the UK and Europe at Stonehenge today, and on every other solstice for the past 20 years. The Welsh are really it. The real thing. They are the most authentic and toughest of British Druids--and always have been. Tacitus wrote of how Romans soldiers were frightened by, and reluctant to attack, the natives of northwest Wales 2000 years ago. Welsh Druids were not just warriors. They were way-wild, crazy and mystical. They chanted. They were naked. They did not fear death. And they were said to cast spells just before battle. Their priests, especially, were also stone nuts, and had "old" knowledge they could use. No conquering Roman grunt wanted to wake up in camp one morning with his mates on the way back to Rome--for a triumph, strong wine and the missed company of sultry sporting women--to learn that during the night he, and only he in his division, had indeed been turned into a Tawny owl, a sand lizard, or perhaps a crested newt. However, we understand that during the last several centuries, southern England's aristocracy has been giving the modern Welsh, still living large over on the western side of the big island, a run for their money, and making a stab of reclaiming and getting its Pagan on, too. We came upon this old news item.

Full post as published by What About Clients? on June 21, 2010 (boomark / email).