Editing Druid (section)

==Druids in Real Life==
The Druids were the priestly class of the ancient Celts. It should be noted that we know incredibly little about the original, ancient Druids, their practices, beliefs or religion. This is because they refused to write anything down, instead relying on memorization, something that they were very good at [this was actually a rather common approach to record keeping for ancient cultures, the ancient Indians (as in actually from India) had the same mindset]. Most of the information we do have on Druids comes from the Romans, who the Druids were enemies of, and thus must be taken with a grain of salt. The Druids were not just the religious leaders of the Celts either; they also functioned as the advisors to tribal leaders, were poets and entertainers, and even acted as legal experts, judges and arbiters in disputes. Training to become a druid could take somewhere close to twenty years. It should be noted that the druids were not exactly 'nature worshipers'/animists the way they are depicted in most fantasy settings; they had sacred groves of oak-trees that they worshiped at, but they were pagan priests, not shamans; they worshiped a pantheon of various gods, not spirits of the natural world.  Their Roman enemies had similar mindsets and even similar religious sites revering the gods in the natural world. The Druids died out in Continental Europe once the Romans conquered Gaul, and later would be wiped out in England as well, only surviving in Ireland and Scotland and a few parts of Wales. Once Ireland and Scotland converted to Christianity, they died out there as well (the tale of St Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland is actually thought by some to be poetic hyperbole of him converting all the druids, since there's no real evidence snakes ever lived on that island in the first place), with one exception; Bards. Basically, one of the original duties of the druids was reciting, composing and memorizing poetry, laws, stories, and history, as well as advising chieftains and kings. Bards were a subset of druids that specialized in exactly that while ignoring most of the religious or ceremonial stuff. When the regular druids died out, the bards remained, even after the coming of Christianity, albeit reduced in status to pure entertainers.