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Illustration of human sacrifices in Gaul from Myths and legends; the Celtic race (1910) by T. W. Rolleston. While other Roman writers of the time described human and animal sacrifice among the Celts, only the Roman general Julius Caesar and the Greek geographer Strabo mention the wicker man as one of many ways the druids of Gaul performed sacrifices.
Pliny's account has largely contributed to the popular depiction of druids today, as white-clad wise men performing sacrifices in the forests and equipped with golden sickles. [9] Chateaubriand incorporated a dramatized version of Pliny's scene in his Les Martyrs, in which the druidess Veleda plays a part. [3]
Rives remarked that it was "ambiguous" whether druids ever performed such sacrifices, for the Romans and Greeks were known to project what they saw as barbarian traits onto foreign peoples including not only druids but Jews and Christians as well, thereby confirming their own "cultural superiority" in their own minds.
Druids were alleged to practice human sacrifice, a practice abhorrent to the Romans. [10] Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) wrote "It is beyond calculation how great is the debt owed to the Romans, who swept away the monstrous rites, in which to kill a man was the highest religious duty and for him to be eaten a passport to health."
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by Dan O'Halloran and David Bowers.Druids weren't always night elves and tauren ...
While many Early Mediaeval writers, particularly in Ireland, had demonised the ancient druids as barbarians who had practiced human sacrifice and tried to suppress the coming of Christianity, certain Late Mediaeval writers had begun to extol what they believed were the virtues of the druids, and reinvented them as national heroes, particularly ...
Anglesey was invaded as it was an important centre for the Celtic Druids and their religious practices which made it a place of resistance to Roman rule. [3] No surviving Roman sources mention Anglesey, which was recorded in Latin as Mona (and is still known as Môn in modern Welsh), after its conquest.
Almost all information on Germanic religious festivals concerns Western Scandinavia, [368] but Tacitus mentions a sacrifice to the goddess Tamfana took place in the autumn, while Bede mentions a festival called MÅdraniht that occurred in early February, [366] and Jonas of Bobbio's Life of Saint Columbanus (640s) mentions a festival to Vodan ...