Druid

A druid was a member of the educated, professional class among the Celtic peoples of Gaul, Britain, Ireland, and possibly elsewhere during the Iron Age. The druid class included law-speakers, poets and doctors, among other learned professions, although the best known among the druids were the religious leaders.

Various recurring themes emerge in a number of the Greco-Roman accounts of the druids, including that they performed animal and even human sacrifice, believed in a form of reincarnation, and held a high position in Gaulish society.

In fiction, Druid culture is often combined with other pagan belief systems, with filmmakers, writers and creators liberally borrowing the elements that they like and incorporating them into a wholly new ideology.


 * In the 1973 horror film The Wicker Man, Howie journeys to the remote Hebridean island, Summerisle, to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Rowan Morrison. Howie, a devout Christian, is disturbed to find the islanders paying homage to the pagan Celtic gods of their ancestors. They copulate openly in the fields, include children as part of the May Day celebrations, teach children of the phallic association of the maypole, and place toads in their mouths to cure sore throats.


 * In the 1990 supernatural thriller The Guardian, a woman known as Camilla becomes the nanny to Kate and Phil Sterling. She demonstrates her connection to her Druidic heritage by engaging in human sacrifice and using nature magic to embody the physical characteristics of a tree.


 * A druid character ended up becoming a major antagonist in season three of the HBO television series True Blood. Russell Edgington was an ancient Celt from the Carpathian Mountains and a Pagan Druid. He was made a vampire around the year 750 BC. 700 years ago, he fled to Greece and met Talbot, a Greek prince whom he then took as his lover.


 * On the MTV television series Teen Wolf, modern-day Druids are associated with werewolf packs. It is the custom that each werewolf pack has a single Druid assigned to them to serve as a guardian to the pack. Beacon Hills veterinarian Alan Deaton, who was the former Druid of a wolf pack becomes the guide and mentor to neophyte werewolf Scott McCall, as well as those supernaturals who form his own unique pack.