Ellen Evert Hopman – The Secret History and Practice of the Celtic Druids

Ellen Everett Huffman, author of Celtic Druids and about 17 other amazing books on the subject, is truly a great down-to-earth human being and a very beautiful spirit. She has painstakingly put so much of her time and years into the development of the Druidic tradition. Alongside various other scholars, she has helped in the development of some of the systems, practices, and recoveries of ancient rites and research that is currently available on the subject matter.

In fact, and especially trying tasks for a tradition that was mostly verbally held with very little written down until later by Christian priests, deciphering the bias and exploring the mysteries has been an art, but one that she’s taken to a beautiful space. In our conversation today, we will learn everything from how the Druids impacted the laws of the time and still today, redefine the concepts and see how marriage worked in these cultures and the rites of women. We will explore how they understood nature and how one of our favorite classic Shakespearean plays, “Eye of Newt,” and the rest of it actually reveals a secret language or alchemical set of terminologies that were kept hidden and used as traditions to initiate secret language structures between the Druids.

How sophisticated this system of oghams is that allows them to communicate and use labels, sometimes obscure from prying eyes. Their systems, and the Druids themselves, are far removed from the typical classic Druidic sign that we see of the Merlin-looking figure wandering the forests all solo and slightly mad. In fact, these were the true scholars of the time, and the research and the interesting idea for today will help open up a very fascinating look at this culture, this practice, as well as connecting factors that include the entire encompassing practices of the Celts and the influence of the various other traditions.

It’s a really interesting deep dive from a very wonderful, humble, and beautiful human being. And I’m confident, if you, like me, enjoy all things mystical, you will love this breaking of the bread with the wisdom of the fairies. So, without any further ado, I’m your host, Adam Knox. And remember to live deliciously.

Ellen, thank you so much for taking the time to bring your wisdom to the Cult of You.

Thank you for inviting me. And thanks to cyber druids, we can talk between South Africa and Massachusetts, which is amazing.

I’m very grateful. You and I already had a little bit of a fire chat, you know, as we got started. And I’m excited about today’s conversation. I think people are going to learn a lot. I know I’ve learned a lot. I’m going through your book and your material and also just your story. So before I kind of get into the nitty-gritties of the book and the details, you’ve had a long experience journey through this, starting off and helping make shifts and changes in Druidry as a whole. Give us a little bit of that journey for the new reader that’s just discovering you. Share a little bit about your journey that got you to this point today.

Well, that’s a very long story, but basically, I was born in Austria. My mother was an artist, and she was very interested in the Celtic digs that were going on in archaeology. She would always, when I was very small, talk about the Celts with great reverence. That was the thing I remember most vividly. It was not what she was telling me; it was more the sense of profound respect that she had for that culture. And so I grew up that way. I thought everybody did. It never occurred to me that most people don’t grow up that way. But she was unusual. She took me to visit caves and all kinds of things.

Anyway, so I promptly forgot about all of that. Then, in my 30s, after a long series of spiritual explorations, I was a Sufi for eight years. I did transcendental meditation, Kundalini yoga, Zen meditation, which I started at age 13. I did a lot of stuff. I even lived in a Catholic community in Assisi, Italy, for a while. I went to Findhorn. I spent a summer at Findhorn in Scotland. Yeah, I did a lot of stuff.

In the early 1980s, I went to Findhorn. Part of what I did there was I spent one whole week on the island of Iona, which is in the Hebrides on the west coast of Scotland. I later wrote a novel about all this called The Druid Isle. But anyway, I heard the word “druid” for the first time out loud. Also, around that time, I heard Celtic music for the first time. Although Celtic music today probably has no resemblance to ancient Celtic music, I heard the word “Celtic,” and I immediately resonated with it. The word “druid” also immediately resonated with me. I loved the Celtic music so much that I became a ceilidh dancer in Philadelphia. I did that for years, and I’m still a great fan of modern Celtic music.

Since I had heard the word “druid” on Iona, I came back to America and was working full-time as an herbalist. One of my clients came in, and I was taking the case, and she just happened to mention that she had met a druid. There was that word again. Part of me just knew I had to find druids. This was before the internet, in the 1980s. It took me a while, but I somehow found druids.

Yeah, there was a time when you couldn’t just Google or join a Facebook group.

There was no Facebook, no Google, nothing. I became a member of ADF. I was one of the first members, maybe number 30 or something. It’s now the largest American Druid order, I believe. I had two initiations with them. My second one was with Isaac Bonewits, who is well known in Druid circles. They were a pan-Indo-European Druid order. A group of us decided we wanted to be Celtic Druids because we knew that the Druids were part of Celtic culture. So, we created the Henge of Keltria. I was one of the founders of the Henge of Keltria and was there for ten years, vice president for nine of those years.

As time went on, I guess I just wanted to go deeper and deeper into the scholarship. In 1996, I pulled together the best Druid minds I knew, about 50 people, all serious into scholarship, linguistics, archaeology, who were all Druids. We discussed what is a Druid, what is not a Druid, what should someone who calls themselves a Druid know, which books they should read. We talked for a year, and by winter solstice of 1996, we decided what they should wear, what tools they should have, what books they should read, what they should learn, what the ritual should look like. We had a Druid order, which became the Order of White Oak.

I was co-chief there with Craig Melia from England for five years. When White Oak fizzled out, I created the Tribe of the Oak in 2014. Tribe of the Oak is going strong. We have a wonderful teaching program, a book list on our website, and a one-on-one mentorship training program. You start by reading the basic books, then move on to one-on-one mentorship with a Druid initiate to become an initiate. That’s kind of where I am now.

That’s quite a journey. There’s something very interesting there. A lot of people think of the idea of Druidry from what they’ve seen in films or legends, like Merlin wandering alone with ancient mystical and spiritual knowledge. But one doesn’t immediately attribute legal knowledge, medical knowledge, scholarly knowledge. This perspective corrects that. Help us understand what the actual Druid was in this context.

People have different ideas about what a Druid is. One prevailing misconception from the Victorian era is that a Druid is an old man with a beard tottering around the forest, talking to trees. That’s absolutely the wrong impression. To be a Druid was to be a tribal functionary. Celtic society had the same class system as Hinduism. Druids were the equivalent of Brahmins, the sacred class. They were the educated intellectuals, doctors, lawyers, ambassadors, judges, treaty writers, and contract negotiators. They weren’t nature mystics hugging trees. Nature is a big part of it, but being of service to the tribe is equally important. Druids always had a function, whether advising rulers, educating the children of nobility, acting as doctors and judges. They weren’t just mystically running around.

One of the things we require in Tribe of the Oak is that once you become an initiate, you have to declare what your Druid study will be and promise to teach it for the rest of your life. You become an expert and pass it on.

That’s fascinating. Unlike the typical witch on the edge of the forest, ostracized by society, Druids played integrated and important roles.

Right. There were witches, and people were terrified of them because they lived on the outskirts of society and you never knew whose side they were on. They were knowledgeable but a law unto themselves. With Druids, you always knew where they stood because they worked for the tribe’s benefit. They weren’t going to work against the tribe.

So, the ethical compass was clear. It’s like both could be surgeons, but one could be an amoral surgeon, and the other committed to the ethical code of the practice.

Yeah. You just didn’t know what the witch was going to do, which was scary.

So much of the cosmology that people confuse from this tradition or that tradition helps understand what the overall cosmology of the Druid was. What was the worldview, especially during that time period, in comparison to today’s Druids?

The cosmology included an upper world, the sky world, where the deities or sky deities were. Then you had the sacred land, with trees, animals, rivers. Below that was the underworld, where the ancestors and fairies resided. It was a three-realm structure: upper world, middle world, and underworld. This is a common Indo-European arrangement seen in other traditions like Norse mythology.

Celtic festivals celebrate earth-based events. Samhain (Halloween) marks the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, when animals are slaughtered. It’s a time of honoring ancestors and giving thanks. Imbolc is another earth festival when sheep start giving milk again. Beltane is the full moon of the seventh month, and Lunasa marks the first fruits. The solstices and equinoxes are minor observances. The eightfold Wheel of the Year is a modern creation, not ancient Celtic.

The Celtic festivals are tied to natural cycles, not fixed calendar dates. They follow a lunar calendar. Samhain, for example, is the end of the harvest, and anything left in the fields belongs to the fairies. Beltane is celebrated at the full moon, not May 1st.

I have to bring up that question: what are the fairies? What exactly is meant by “fairy”? What does the Druid see a fairy as? What’s the relationship with them?

There are many different kinds of fairies. Some people say you shouldn’t call them fairies but use terms like “the good neighbors” or “the little folk.” I make offerings to them and have a fairy altar in the backyard. There are tree fairies, house fairies, and farm fairies. As long as you are nice to them and give them gifts, they help with various tasks. There are also larger fairies, some as big as humans or bigger.

Fairies are connected to nature and different elements. For example, brownies help with housework, and other fairies help with farm work. It’s important to be polite and offer them something during festivals or family celebrations. Some fairies live in wine cellars, while others live in old oak trees. Different traditions have different types of fairies with varied behaviors.

Fairies are connected to the natural world, and there are ways to contact them. For example, sleeping under a blooming apple tree or elder tree during Beltane or the summer solstice full moon is a good time to meet them.

Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Double, double toil and trouble” from “Macbeth” create unique projections of what happens in the cauldron. You reveal hidden secret initiatory information about the secret languages of herbs and plants. Could you tell us more about that?

All the ingredients mentioned in “Macbeth’s” witches’ brew are herbs. For example, adder’s fork is stork root, and eye of newt is mustard seed. These terms were used to disguise the true ingredients during the witch persecutions. People used poetic or hidden language to protect themselves. The same principle applied to alchemists, who encoded information for initiates.

The Celtic culture stretched from the west coast of France, north into Britain, south into Iberia (northern Spain), and east to the Black Sea and Turkey. The same symbols, deities, and artistic styles were found across these regions, indicating a shared Celtic culture. For example, the triple goddess Bridget appears in various forms across different regions.

The relationship with gods depended on one’s role in society. For example, a smith might work with Bridget, while a warrior might work with the Morrigan. The gods were seen as family members, and people developed personal relationships with them through offerings and rituals. The goal was to become more like the gods and gain their inspiration and abilities.

The Druids’ oral tradition means that much of their practices were not written down. We know about the ritual of gathering mistletoe, but many other practices remain unknown. Christian missionaries wrote things down to gain credibility with the locals, but this also preserved some of the traditions.

Piecing together Druidic practices involves studying archaeology, ancient poetry, laws, and wisdom tales. Books like Pagan Celtic by Anne Ross catalog important finds, and modern scholars have compiled information to reconstruct the tradition. The Brehon laws, ancient Irish laws written down during the Christian era, provide insights into various aspects of life, including farming, bees, and violence. These laws focused on restorative justice and the importance of family and community.

Women in Celtic society had more rights 2000 years ago than many women do today. They had legal rights, could own property, and had a say in their marriages. This equality extended to other aspects of life, making the Celtic society more balanced and communal.

Druidry’s impact on law is another fascinating aspect. They had an extensive legal system, with laws covering farming, beekeeping, and personal injuries. These laws focused on restorative justice, emphasizing the importance of community and family over individual retribution. For example, if someone’s livestock damaged a neighbor’s property, the law prescribed specific compensation to restore balance.

The Brehon laws also detailed the rights and responsibilities of individuals within the tribe, including the distribution of honey and beeswax from swarms. These laws ensured that resources were shared fairly, reflecting the communal nature of Celtic society.

Interestingly, the Druids’ legal knowledge extended beyond their own tribes. They often acted as mediators and diplomats, negotiating treaties and resolving disputes between different groups. Their expertise in law and their ability to memorize vast amounts of information made them invaluable to their communities.

One of the most striking aspects of Druidic practice is their connection to nature and the cycles of the seasons. The major Celtic festivals—Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh—are closely tied to the agricultural calendar and natural events. These festivals marked important points in the year, such as the end of the harvest, the beginning of spring, and the height of summer.

Druids also had a deep respect for trees, which they believed had their own spirits and were sacred beings. Certain trees, like the oak, yew, and hazel, were particularly revered. The practice of gathering mistletoe from oak trees, as described by ancient Roman writers, is one of the few documented Druidic rituals.

The Druidic tradition is rich in myth and legend, with stories of gods, heroes, and magical beings that have been passed down through the ages. These tales were not just entertainment; they were a way to convey important cultural values and teachings. The myths of the Celtic gods, such as Dagda, Morrigan, and Lugh, reflect the Druids’ beliefs about the natural world, the cycle of life and death, and the interplay between the physical and spiritual realms.

Modern Druidry continues to draw on these ancient traditions, adapting them to contemporary life while maintaining a connection to the past. Today’s Druids often engage in environmental activism, seeing the protection of nature as a sacred duty. They celebrate the same festivals, practice meditation and ritual, and seek to live in harmony with the natural world.

In conclusion, the Druidic tradition is a complex and multifaceted spiritual path with deep roots in Celtic culture. It encompasses a wide range of practices, from legal scholarship to nature worship, and continues to evolve in the modern world. By studying the Druids, we gain insight into a worldview that values knowledge, community, and a profound connection to the earth.