In Celtic polytheism, divination was performed by the priestly caste, either the druids or the vates.

The nearly complete and mysterious disappearance of the Celtic language from most of the territorial lands of ancient Gaul, with the exception of Brittany, France, can be attributed to the fact that Celtic druids refused to allow the Celtic oral literature or traditional wisdom to be committed to the written letter.

On the other hand, vates was used in Latin to denote a poet with clairvoyance powers and according to the Ancient Greek writers Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Poseidonius, the vates ( ουατεις ) were also one of three classes of Celtic priesthood, the other two being the druids and the bards.

Only in Celtic mythology do we find a deity similar to Veles in his attributes and his complexity: Cernunnos, god of druids, nature, horned animals, and shamanism, whose symbol was a ram-headed serpent.

This literature contributes much to the modern understanding of druids, Celtic religion and the Celtic world in general.

Upon returning to Wales he tried to revive what he saw as the religion of the ancient druids, the priests of the " Celtic " Iron Age peoples of western Europe.

Dumézil pointed out that Kon alone represents the supernatural function, represented by the brahman caste in India, the flamen function in Rome, the druids in some Celtic cultures, and the clergy in the three estates of medieval Europe.

The druid is based on the pre-Christian Celtic priests called druids.

Many of these groves, like the sacred grove at Didyma, Turkey are thought to be nemetons, sacred groves protected by druids based on Celtic Mythology.

Diodorus Siculus, and Poseidonius, the () were one of three classes of Celtic priesthood, the other two being the druids and the bards.

The Celtic Druids was " an attempt to show that the druids were the priests of oriental colonies who emigrated from India, were the introducers of the First or Cadmean System of Letters, and the builders of Stonehenge, Carnac, and other Cyclopean works in Asia and Europe.

According to Greek and Roman accounts, in Gaul, Britain and Ireland, there was a priestly caste of " magico-religious specialists " known as the druids, although very little is definitely known about them.

Similarly, Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War portrays druids as a learned priestly class and the keepers of customary law, with the power of executing judgments.

A connection of the medieval feis of Samhain with pre-Christian traditions was drawn by the " notoriously unreliable " Geoffrey Keating ( died 1644 ), who claimed that the druids of Ireland would assemble on the night of Samhain to kindle a sacred fire.

His own druids, who had never advised him badly, foresaw disaster, but he ignored them, preferring to listen to five druids from the sidhe supplied by his fairy lover, Báirinn.

He restored the water and conjured up magical hounds who destroyed the fairy druids.

* Patricius, modernized as St. Patrick, is Camelot's most powerful Christian priest who drove the " snakes " ( druids ) from Ireland.

The balance of light and darkness began to shift in Dahak's favor through every tragic event: The Sumerian gods have died as a result of having nothing to sustain themselves, and Dahak himself had killed the noble druids of Ireland, who acted as mentors to Hercules after Iolaus ' apparent death.

In a similar vein, the 1861 book " The Veil Of Isis or Mysteries of the Druids " by William Winwood Reade implies that it refers to Ovades who were tasked by druids to perform sacrifices.

Plane of Growth also reintroduced the notion of Planar armor, providing a full set for most classes except druids, paladins, and rangers who went into a new second floor of the Plane of Hate.

In England during the Early Medieval period, various forms of folk magic could be found amongst the Anglo-Saxons, who referred to such practitioners as wicca ( male ) or wicce ( female ), or at times also as dry, practitioners of drycraeft, the latter of which have been speculated as being anglicised terms for the Irish drai, a term referring to druids, who appeared as anti-Christian sorcerers in much Irish literature of the period.

Their knowledge also may have come from the Druids, who are ordered by colors ; the " yellow " druids being those in the study of electricity and technology.

The player takes on the role of a chosen knight who is sent by the druids to return the mystical ' moonstone ' to Stonehenge.

Llamedos is run by druids, who dot the land with stone circles used for computation.

The concept of the three roles of bards, ovates and druids originates from the writings of the ancient Greek historian and geographer Strabo, who in his Geographica, written in the 20s CE, stated that amongst the Gauls, there were three types of honoured figures: the poets and singers known as bardoi, the diviners and specialists in the natural world known as o ' vateis, and those who studied " moral philosophy ", the druidai.

The concept of earth mysteries can be traced back to two antiquarians during the 17th century John Aubrey and William Stukeley who both believed that stonehenge was associated with the druids.

Asterix, Obelix and Getafix meet another druid, Valuaddetax, who uses his magical powers to convince the Romans that they are actually druids ( he makes a legionary bray like a donkey by eating some herbs ).

* The Doctor claims to have met John Aubrey, who first suggested stone circles were connected to druids, saying Aubrey invented druidism as a joke.

As a young Roman patrician, Marius was abducted by druids who were trying to find a replacement for their " god of the grove "-a vampire, kept locked inside a chamber underneath a tree, who took on the role of a god in a druidic religion.

Though she has a diverse collection of followers, Chauntea is fanatically worshipped by peasants, servants, druids, gardeners, and any others who earn pay from working on farmland.

When he was approximately 40 years old, he was abducted by druids who followed the religion of the Gods of the Groves.

* Field druids, Fihanish, who help the field magi clear the land for farming.

The druids presided over human or animal sacrifices that were made in wooded groves or crude temples.

The religious practices of druids were syncretic and borrowed from earlier pagan traditions, with probably indo-European roots.

Whereas Stukeley claimed that Avebury and related prehistoric monuments were the creations of the druids, Twining thought that they had been constructed by the later Romans.

In liturgical iconography and statuary Saint Brigid is often depicted holding a reed cross, a crozier of the sort used by abbots, and a lamp ( called a " lamp of learning and wisdom ", as lamps and fire were regarded sacred to the Celts and druids ).

Originally, druids were very limited in their choice of weapons and armor ( almost as much as magic-users ), and were of True Neutral alignment, but were able to cast spells more times per day than the magic-user and at a faster speed than clerics ; they also had access to both healing and attack spells ( albeit at different levels ).

The second edition Player's Handbook changed druids somewhat, making them more similar to the cleric in terms of spellcasting ( druids now learned spells at the same rate and level as clerics, as long as the spells were available to them ; casting times were also the same ).

Caesar adds that the druids were charged with this: " They believe that religion does not allow them to put they material of their education in writing, while for the rest in general, for public and private administrative acts, they used the Greek alphabet.

Among them were Anglesey ( Môn ), located on the Northern Welsh Coast, which was the sacred island of the druids of Britain ; the Scilly islands, where archaeological remains of proto-historical temples have been found ; and some of the Hebrides Islands, which were, in the Gaelic tradition, home of ghosts and demons: on one of them, Skye, the Irish hero Cúchulainn was educated by the war goddess Scathach.

These druids were a non-hereditary class that became druids by submitting to an extensive program of training.