Les druides

by Christian J. Guyonvarc'h

collection mythes et religions. in12. Broché. 156 pages. Bon Etat / Usures d'usage (lu) / Couvertures et dos légèrement défraîchis voir photo / Intérieur : Très Bien propre ok lecture

Genres: Nonfiction

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Lyx Robinson]

I cannot in good conscience rate such a gigantic academic undertaking; as it was done in the 70s I do believe it was the first to actually pull together all resources to demystify the truth around the druids (in French, at least, though these authors speak English/French and all modern Celtic languages so they were very much in conversation with their contemporary anglophonic researchers). Totally fascinating & a clearly seminal tome to have on the shelf, though there are some places that have a 70s bias; especially regarding the role of women & female figures in mythology & historical anecdotes. In other places the language gets a little too refined & metaphysical to actually make a lot of sense, especially concerning life after death in Celtic belief, and their attempt to explain what is essentially the concept of Brahman (when tackling the theme of multiplicity that keeps returning in Celtic symbolism/gods/etc). The problem with academic French is that it can really get in its own way sometimes by phrasing something so prettily that the initial concept ends up void of actual meaning or clarity.

I told myself I would limit research to just a couple of seminal overarching books & focus on my novel............ BUT now I have four other books coming, namely the Táin Bó Cúailnge (because I am sick of hearing Cú Chulainn's name by now & need to know the story in full!!!!) + Anne Ross's enormous work on the gods (as this book does not elaborate on the gods at all asides from shining a litte light on Lug & the Dagda) + some more stuff on the cosmology because there are clearly different schools of thought regarding what the Otherworld actually represents, how it relates to death + how animal reincarnations/shape-shifting factors into it all. Basically after finishing this book I wanted to climb to my roof and yell I HAVE QUESTIONS!!!!!!!! however these authors are long dead, therefore one must truss up one's sleeves & wade into the plethora of modern research books, between the dubious and the serious, and hope one picks up the good ones. In conclusion, I know I haven't said anything about the actual druids in this review but that's because I don't want to be spoiling what I'm gonna borrow for my books; and though I AM going to crack on with writing because you can't let the questions prevent you from doing so, I really am feeling that "realisation of how little you actually know/how enormous the subject matter is" that you get once you've properly dug into an academic topic. :'D

(Sidenote: the druidic "magic system" so to speak is super metal & I cannot wait to play around with it; was also fascinating as always to see how many similarities there are between Celtic & Germanic symbol systems, and how ancient some of these concepts are. I keep having Stern Talks with myself to not explode all over my art program & illustrate the supposed Celtic origin myth, which has just been sitting in my brain since that last chapter & is such a great image)