The Barddars and other Meso Druid works of Edward Willams

Edward Williams aka Iolo Morganwg

 (A work in progress 22-03-2015)

This Druid Elders Council Positions Paper ask:

The Barddas and works of dear Edward Williams 1747-1826. Iolo of Glamorgan. 

A recommed read for all Druids by me. He was a Stonemason, self educated polymath, Welsh antiquarian and accused Literary Forger. To me perhaps the most influential person in Meso-Druidry with roots running deep in Neo-Druidry still. 

What are your views. Do you accept any, most, none of his views and works on Druidism once you know he is the source?

Replies:

Some views of those in the "Druid Elders Council (Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/DruidEldersCouncil/ ) and other groups and people.

 Druii Searles O'Dubhain reprinted with permission.

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Searles O'Dubhain This is what I teach about Iolo:

Copyright Searles O'Dubhain

Iolo Morgannwg (1747 – 1826) is considered by some to be a fraud and by others to be a direct source to ancient Welsh Bardism and Druidry. His birth name was Edward Williams and his profession was that of a stonemason. His avocation and love was poetry and Welsh traditions. His addiction was to the drug laudanum which is mainly opium. His character was at once inspired and compromised. 

During his life, Iolo had access to many ancient documents that have not survived to the modern day. He translated these and offered them as a modern guide to the ancient ways of Druidry. Unfortunately, he was also known to pass off his own works as such. His contributions to the Druid Revival are a look into how one person attempted to reconstruct modern Druidry and the Gorsedd of the Bards of Britain that he founded. One could perhaps see a structure in his effort that is useful while avoiding the pitfalls of thinking that one's own personal gnosis is an imbas from the gods.

Iolo's approach (and others like Robert Graves) is reminiscent of an encounter that was related to me of a Native American lady who was asked by an anthropologist what her people would do if they lost all their traditions and cultural practices. She looked at him and said:

"We'd find them again in the same way that we found them the first time."

This was most probably the original development approach for any tradition. Time then tested the theories, thoughts and conjectures of the people until the foundations of a culture and way of life were reestablished. In some traditions, it is the seers who go beyond to discover the secrets and mysteries that can be useful to the people. It is the experience and the history of the people that verify the truth or falsehood of such insights however. Time is the never ending test of anything. As people who are interested in following the Druid way we should also test gnosis and insight in our own practice with an objective eye for what actually works, and for that which is harmonious with what we already know. This is most probably why Druids studied the traditions for so many years. Traditions were the standards by which any new knowledge was judged on the Druid way and is still the standard today. 

Iolo’s research, actions and fabrications merged (some would say confused) tradition, experience and inspiration for Druids of today. His work in establishing the Gorsedd of the Bards in Wales and his writings, particularly Barddas, a complete system of Druidism from Iolo’s mind and imagination, have literally forged themselves onto the Druid way. What worked from all this has been retained by reputable modern Druid orders. That which was in error has slowly been eroded away by criticisms and new studies on the more traditional and true Druid way. 

The Druidry of today was shaped by Iolo as surely as a mason shapes a stone when constructing any monument or building. Druids today are discovering the old ways again in much the same way that they were first discovered in ancient times through inspiration, imagination and serendipity. What we know of the Druid way and tradition is still the standard that is being used to determine what is consistent with the past as well as the experiences and discoveries of the present. It is a building being constructed one discovery at a time, with some notable reworking for many false starts and shoddy workmanship. Scholarship is ongoing and the ways are improving.

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George King:

>>The Views of Druii Searles O'Dubhain match most of mine and also Druii Janice Scott-Reeder that she has shared with me in the past.

The Barddas and works of dear Edward Williams 1747-1826. Iolo of Glamorgan. (A recommend read for all Druids by me) He was a Stonemason, self educated polymath, Welsh antiquarian and accused Literary Forger. To me perhaps the most influential person in Meso-Druidry with roots running deep in Neo-Druidry still.

Of course one must arm with Awen when walking in the Leaves of Barddas. I do not pretend to have the skills to judge Dear Iolo Morganwy and his Barddas works. Yet many Druid Orders do, even as they still weave much of his concepts into their beliefs and writing.

 No matter what is the true history of his sources, Edward Williams was a Great Welsh antiquarian. And Neo-Druidry owes him a great deal of respect as he above all helped pave our revivals.

 Yet when using some of his work as a reference one can expect some biting by CR's and others also so be warned in advance.

TDK

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Should we be so blessed as to also get other Druid Elders views we will just keep adding them to this Positions Paper.

Some places to start your own research:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iolo_Morganwg

A most useful site:
http://www.iolomorganwg.wales.ac.uk/

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/ub/v13n05p282_the-ancient-druids-their-history-and-religion.htm

http://sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/bim1/index.htm

Our favorite definitions of term 'Druid Druidic Druidism Druidry'

Ok here is a start

D::

Druid /ˈdruːɪd /▸ noun a priest, magician, or soothsayer in the ancient Celtic religion. a member of a present-day group claiming to represent or be derived from this religion.

– DERIVATIVES Druidic adjective,Druidical adjective,Druidism noun.

– ORIGIN from Latin druidae, druides (plural), from Gaulish; related to Irish draoidh ‘magician, sorcerer’.

(Lisabeth Ryder) (References ?)

Druidism:

The Cultrural and Spiritual heritage of the Celtic Peoples, a polytheistic religion orginating in the archaic Proto-Indo-European past.

(Tadhg MacCrossan 1993)./ shared by tdk

Doire (IG) > The origin of the word ‘Druid’’ is unclear, but the most popular view is that it comes from ‘doire’, an Irish-Gaelic word for oak tree (often a symbol of knowledge), also meaning ‘wisdom’. Druids were concerned with the natural world and its powers, and considered trees sacred, particularly the oak.

Druidism can be described as a shamanic religion, as it relied on a combination of contact with the spirit world and holistic medicines to treat (and sometimes cause) illnesses. They were said to have induced insanity in people and been accurate fortune tellers. Some of their knowledge of the earth and space may have come from megalithic times. 

Ref. http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofWales/Druids/

I do like this discription. (Druidism can be described as a shamanic religion) TDK

M::

Masonic encyclopedia (view I ran into and as they had influence in Meso Druidry, I felt we should add it also. tdk)

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DRUIDICAL MYSTERIES

The Druids were a sacred order of priests who existed in Britain and Gaul, but whose mystical rites were practiced in most perfection in the former country, where the isle of Anglesea was considered as their principal seat. Godfrey Higgins thinks that they were also found in Germany, but against this opinion we have the positive statement of Caesar.

The meanings given to the word have been very numerous, and most of them wholly untenable. The Romans, seeing that they worshiped in groves of oak, because that tree was peculiarly sacred among them, derived their name from the Greek word, apes, drus thus absurdly seeking the etymology of a word of an older language in one comparatively modern. Their derivation would have been more reasonable had they known that in Sanskrit druma is an oak, from dru, meaning wood. It has also been traced to the Hebrew with equal incorrectness, for the Druids were not of the Semitic race. Its derivation is rather to be sought in the Celtic language. The Gaelic word Druiah signifies a holy or wise man; in a bad sense a magician; and this we may readily trace to the Aryan druh, applied to the spirit of night or darkness, whence we have the Zend dru, a magician. Druidism was a mystical profession, and in the olden time mystery and magic were always confounded. Charles Vallencey (Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicus, iii 503) says: "Walsh, Drud, a Druid, that is the absolver or remitter of sins; so the Irish Drui, a Druid, most certainly is from the Persic duru, meaning a good and holy man"; and Ousely (Collectanea Oriental iv, 302) adds to this the Arabic dari, which means a wise man. Bosworth (Anglo-Saxon Dictionary) gives dry, pronounced dru, as the Anglo-Saxon for a magician, sorcerer, druid. Probably with the old Celts the Druids occupied the same place as the Magi did with the old Persians. Druidism was divided into three orders or Degrees, which were, beginning with the lowest the Bards, the Prophets, and the Druids. Godfrey Higgins thinks that the prophets were the lowest order, but he admits that it is not generally allowed. The constitution of the Order was in many respects like that of the Freemasons. In every country there was an Arch-Druid in whom all authority was placed. In Britain it is said that there were under him three arch-flamens or priests, and twenty-five flamens. There was an annual assembly for the administration of justice and the making of laws, and, besides, four quarterly meetings, which took place on the days when the sun reached his equinoctial and solstitial points. The latter two would very nearly correspond at this time with the festivals of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist. It was not lawful to commit their ceremonies or doctrines to writing, and Caesar says (Commentarii de bello Gallico vi, 14) that they used the Greek letters, which was, of course, as a cipher; but Godfrey Higgins (page 90) says that one of the Irish Ogum alphabets, which Toland calls secret writing, "was the original, sacred, and secret character of the Druids."

The places of worship, which were also places of initiation, were of various forms: circular, because a circle was an emblem of the universe; or oval, in allusion to the mundane egg, from which, according to the Egyptians, our first parents issued; or serpentine, because a serpent was a symbol of Hu, the druidical Noah; or winged, to represent the motion of the Divine Spirit; or cruciform, because a cross was the emblem of regeneration.

Their only covering was the clouded canopy, because they deemed it absurd to confine the Omnipotent beneath a roof; and they were constructed of embankments of earth, and of unhewn stones, unpolluted with a metal tool. Nor was anyone permitted to enter their sacred retreats, unless he bore a chain.

The ceremony of initiation into the Druidical Mysteries required much preliminary mental preparation and physical purification. The aspirant was clothed with the three sacred colors, white, blue, and green; white as the symbol of Light, blue of Truth, and green of Hope. When the rites of initiation were passed, the tri-colored robe was changed for one of green; in the Second Degree, the candidate was clothed in blue; and having surmounted all the dangers of the Third, and arrived at the summit of perfection, he received the red tiara and flowing mantle of purest white. The ceremonies were numerous, the physical proofs painful, and the mental trials appalling. They commenced in the First Degree, with placing the aspirant in the pastes, bed or coffin, where his symbolical death was represented, and they terminated in the Third, by his regeneration or restoration to life from the womb of the giantess Ceridwin, and the committal of the body of the newly born to the waves in a small boat, symbolical of the ark. The result was, generally, that he succeeded in reaching the safe landing-place, but if his arm was weak, or his heart failed, death was the almost inevitable consequence. If he refused the trial through timidity, he was contemptuously rejected, and declared forever ineligible to participate in the sacred rites. But if he undertook it and succeeded, he was joyously invested with all the privileges of Druidism. The doctrines of the Druids were the same as those entertained by Pythagoras. They taught the existence of one Supreme Being; a future state of rewards and punishment; the immortality of the soul, and a metempsychosis; and the object of their mystic rites was to communicate these doctrines in symbolic language, an object and a method common alike to Druidism, to the Ancient Mysteries and to Modern Freemasonry (see also Druidism, Dudley Wright, London, 1924, containing a bibliography of the subject). <<
TDK

Some more recent work I have done. TDK
http://howtobeadruid.blogspot.com/2016/09/r-earliest-written-records-of-druids_19.html