An Argument Against The Common Neo-Pagan Concept That Wicca (or any derivation thereof) Is Descended From The Celts, And The Draoi In Particular

by Iain McAnTSior

The following is by no means an indictment of the religion called Wicca. Wicca is indeed a valid and powerful path for those who truthfully walk it and understand it. However, there is an increasing body of people who believe that Wicca is the descendant of the religious ways of the ancient Celts.
The people who say this are usually of two sorts. The first and most common person who says this, simply doesn't know any better. They have usually either assumed this to be the case, or, they have fallen prey to the less common unscrupulous teacher. The unscrupulous teacher is the second one to state this, they knowing propagate this untruth to draw in people who haven't access to the information it takes to refute the falsehood. All religions have these types, and that they also exist within Wicca should also not serve as a reason to condemn that path.
People who with utter conviction state that Wicca is a Celtic path usually have derived this idea by one of two forms of logic.
The first is conveyed by their stating something to the effect of, "...drew upon Celtic lore when putting it together... ." The second statement used is, "...it just *is* Celtic, it's always been Celtic, it's always been in places like Ireland and Scotland." Both of these arguments are both easily disproved. The following shall go toward that end.

Toward dispelling the first notion let's state some facts that are universally accepted as fact. The first is that modern neo-paganism is highly impacted by and reflective of, Gardnerian Wicca and it's derivatives. The second is that when Gardner was putting his creation together he drew upon Eastern philosophies, Egyptian ideologies and Judaic ceremonialism, in addition to Celtic lore.
Now I can see where it may become confusing, but when something is made up of components, the whole mechanism is not solely of any one of those components. To state that, is severely faulty logic.
Let me demonstrate this. For a great many years American Motors Corporation (AMC) put out a whole line of automobiles. These automobiles very often had Ford engines, and Chrysler transmissions, Chrysler brakes, Ford Seats and I believe in one instance even General Motors instrumentation. All of those components, motors, transmissions, seats etc., were fixed into a body made by AMC. Yet the complete car wasn't a Ford because it had a Ford engine, nor was it a Chrysler because it had their transmission. It was an AMC, a creature all of it's own.
The same is true about Wicca. It has a Hindu engine, an Egyptian torque converter, and a Celtic transmission. These things set in a ceremonial body that is Wiccan alone. It is a creature of it's own.

Concerning the second approach to the misnomer. I shall direct your attention at two areas. These two areas will suffice nicely in dispelling the false notion that Wicca just *IS* Celtic. The first area is the theologies of the two systems.

The two systems, Wicca and Celtic and in particular Gaelic Celtic contradict each other on several points. These contradictions are enough to as a whole form a severe dissonance between the two religions.
In Celtic religion, there are three basic spheres. These are the Sky, the Sea and the Land. Each of these has a ruling body. For the Sky the sun, for the Sea the Moon and for the Land the Earth. Each of these ruling bodies have aspects that are masculine and feminine, as well as that which transcends them both. By careful study of the ancient texts we see that the sun orb was feminine, the sun light masculine etc. Most of this is deeper philosophical stuff, and the average person held or holds that the Sun is Feminine and the Moon Masculine. This contrasts sharply with Wicca which is based wholly on a Feminine Moon and Masculine Sun. Wicca is a religion whose philosophical foundation is dualism. A Goddess and a God. Not only is Celtic religion vastly different in that it is polytheistic and animistic, but the very processes of logic upon which the whole of Celtic culture was based was Triune in nature.
The nature of the rede is untenable to Celts. The whole morality of Wicca is "harm none". While it is a theoretical statement, it is one with little real life practice. This is not true of Celtic religion, wherein is found a "heroic" morality. In real life the term "harm none" is typified by the stated moralities of Wicca, Xianity, Hinduism, etc., where the primary imperative is to not hurt others. "Heroic" is typified by Celtic and Norse religions primarily, though other examples exist. "Heroic" morality is summed up by Diogenes Laertius as the teaching that "the gods must be worshipped, and no evil done, and manly behavior maintained", and by the hero Gaelic Caelte as "truth in our hearts, strength in our arms and fulfillment in our tongues". "Heroic" morality is rooted in concepts of personal honor. The vision conceived and portrayed by Wicca, of what comes after this life is limited and vague at best. Celtic religion has a complex and intricate conceptualization of the otherworld. In fact, OtherWorld's interaction this world is in many ways central to the Celtic religion. Wicca is primarily an invocatory/ecstatic religion which revolves around special ceremonies. In Celtic religion the tenets are votive in nature and stress ethics and morality, only secondary importance placed on ritual. To Celts, life itself is ceremony, the whole of which is spiritually significant. In Wicca sacred space is created. In traditionally based Celtic religion all of the land is sacred. Sacred space is omnipresent, and the practitioners simply find certain places to do certain things. What is done depends on the natural predisposition of an area or it's history. Wicca is an initiatory mystery religion. Celtic religion is inclusive, with very little initiatory elements. Within Wicca there are the various
degrees and levels, each having it's own mystery, each mystery being revealed by someone in authority. In Celtic religion, the declarations of the Gods are found in the Order of Nature. The revelations are from the Gods themselves and each person, with sincerity seeks to understand the natural world around them.
Wicca uses the classical elements as a fundamental concept. Celtic religion does not use the classical elements (air, fire, water and earth) in any way even remotely similar to Wicca. For Celts, there are Sky, Sea and Land. These have their correlating Fire (Sun), Water (Moon), and Earth (land), these are legs upon which the Cauldron of the World are set. The four directions, while having certain powers aren't cognate to the Greek pattern of elements in each direction. It would be impossible to accurately correlate the two systems in this matter. Wicca places little emphasis on mythology. Yet in Celtic religion mythological stories are a central feature. These in fact form the core of magical practice, ritual and teaching. In Wicca there is no clear teaching of what is required to break past the cycles of rebirth. Yet in Celtic religion, the requirement can be clearly and concisely stated. That being to fulfill one's duty, to always be honorable and to stand for the truth come what may, these while understanding what is honorable is considered so.

Having shown how the two religions are dissimilar as far as their most basic of tenets go, lets now address the evidence found in Celtic culture. I will state what is held by Wicca in general and contrast that with elements from the culture itself. Where to start? Perhaps with the misnomers surrounding the Celts. They were not a single tribe. They were not a unified force in any way, they were therefore not an empire. They were however, a great many individual, autonomous tribes, of perhaps different racial mixtures which shared similar artistic expressions, and spoke a language or set of languages which were related. (The Celts-the people who came out of the darkness, Gerhard Herm; The Celts, Nora Chadwick; Celtic Realms, Dillon and Chadwick)

Now in this, I do not pretend to speak about the Brythonic Celts, the Pretani. Most of my sources are Irish and Scottish, therefore by and about Gaelic Celts.

In Gaelic culture, there where three divisions, the Ruada, the Cerd, and the Aire (ah-ree). The Ruada was the warrior caste. Amongst the Cerd was the Fili' (poet) they were the skilled caste. The Aire was the caste which in a modern sense was the farmers. These divisions in the culture seem to be found in all "celtic" tribes. (The Celts-the people who came out of the darkness, Gerhard Herm; Celtic Realms, Dillon and Chadwick; A History of Religious Ideas Vol.'s 1&2, Mircea Eliade; The Druids, Peter Berresford Ellis)

Celtic people, generally speaking, held (and hold) to strict ideas about honor and responsibility. Their personal and legal codes abound with statements which prove such. Many of these documents still exist. These include The Welsh Triads (Trioed Ynys Prydein) and many Irish texts which secured for the future, the laws of ancient Ireland (the Senchus Mor, Brehon Law of Ancient Ireland, Book of Rights, the Ilbreachta, etc.).

Part of fulfilling ones responsibility and hence being honorable was the mastering of ones particular skill. It could take as long as 19 years {related to the lunar cycle} to fully learn a skill (The Ogygia, Roderick O'Flaherty, 1645, and various classical historians such as Tacitus, Pliny, even Caesar though these writings are as much propaganda as history, in some cases more so). It must be noted that these long periods of time were because the skills also had an associated poetic regiment that was learned. This is where the basic skilled person became Fili.

It must be remembered that these were tribal peoples, and the efforts of each person toward their own survival was insured through the survival of the tribe, this was of paramount
importance. It must also be remembered, that we who think within the context of the western mindset must bear in mind, that to interpret other cultures in the light of our own understanding, will cause us to arrive at fallacious conclusions. These were tribal peoples with their own processes of logic, and ways of looking at the world.

Once a person mastered a skill, they were expected to take on apprentices and teach their skill. This makes perfect sense as the skills would be necessary for the survival of the tribe. At least one of the Welsh Triads speak of how, one who does not pass on their knowledge is accursed of the Gods. Those who held the skills, and these include healers, brehons, smithies, etc., had to learn their knowledge in poetic form (eight foot verse). These verses included what we would call the technical knowledge, it also included the history, and the so called magickal knowledge. They didn't split things up, they walked their talk, they lived their beliefs. As with tribal people everywhere their spiritual views were bound up with the rest of their worldview and were manifested in their customs. (Celtic Heritage; Alwyn and Brinley Rees contains supporting evidence).

This is why some of the classical historians thought of Ireland at least, as a land of rhyme and song. These were the things that the teachers taught. These teachers were Fili who had mastered their skill. They, when in the capacity of a teacher were called DRAOI (dree), which by consensus has become druid. This is similar to the Japanese "sensei" who is a teacher, period, not necessarily of Karate. The word DRAOI simply means, "they who teach beneath the oak." Even as late as the middle ages young people from England and the continent were being sent to Ireland to "study beneath the Oak". (the Orechetnecus; The History of the Irish Race, Seumas MacManus; the Ogygia, Roderick O'Flaherty; Lebor Gabala Erenn, Irish Texts Society; Keatings Social History of Ireland, Irish Texts Society; Dineens Gaelic-English Dictionary; The Druids, Peter Berresford Ellis, Erdmans Publishing, c. 1994, ISBN 0-8028-3798-0; etc.).

As people of skill they did their jobs and taught their skills. One proverb still found in the Dinneens says: seven years a child, seven years an apprentice, seven years a scholar. What the Draoi actually were, was obscured by their being demonized at the hands of Christian monks. It is only current scholarship that is actually looking at all of the evidence, and once again finding out that they were simply masters of a skill in the position of teaching. The Druids, by Ellis, is one of these current works, yet the sense of their place can be gleaned from studying the earlier works.

The males were called Draoi; the females Bean-Draoi (ban dree). Their particular skills denoted them as other things. Feminine skills for example: Anumcara, or one who helped a dying person in the transition, made use of herbs for healing etc.; or the Bramach-ghuluin, in English a mid-wife, but more involved because she also gave/gives the minor baptism (which predates Christianity) to keep the baby safe, etc. They were not called witches, witta, wicce or anything of the sort. (Carmina Gadelica, Alexander Carmichael; History of Religious Ideas Vol. 1, Mircea Eliade; even Joe Campbell in The Masks of God-Primitive Mythology touches on it).

The Wicce are Saxon in origin, and patriarchal from the start, they were the members of the Lodges of Cunning Men (The Pickengill Papers-The Origin of the Gardnerian Craft, W.E.
Liddell, Capall Bann pub. ISBN 1-898307-10-5). They have nothing to do with the mythological Druids (a product of the British revival effort of the 18th century). The Wicce have even less to do with the historical Draoi. Such histories, as have connected the two groups of people, are in fact pseudo-histories, or as Margot Adler calls them in her book, Drawing Down The Moon , "myths". These same histories state that the word wicca, derives from the Saxon word, Witan. However, the Witan was the proto-parliament of old Saxon England (Oxford History Of Britain). If one wishes to twist etymology in this way, it would be more correct to trace the word witch, back to the word wicga, which is Old English for
the insect known as the earwig, and which transliterates to "creepy-crawly" (Dictionary of Word Origins, John Ayto, Arcade, c. 1990, Library of Congress# 91-2958).

The truth is that modern Wicca, as it is most commonly practiced, is a fairly modern construction (A HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT-Sorcerers, Heretics and Pagans, Jeffrey B. Russell, Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0-500-27242-5; Drawing Down The Moon, Margot Adler, ISBN 0-8070-3253-0; The Pickengill Papers, W.E. Liddell). All this can be best summed up by one Dr. Marilyn Wells Ph.D., Anthropology Department at Middle Tennessee State University, who has referred  to modern Wiccans as Neo-Wiccans. In other words, there is little to no connection between Gardners creation and the Wicce of the middle ages, and no connection to the Celts; except for what they have borrowed and incorporated. As a matter of fact, if the veracity of The Pickengill Papers is complete, as many Gardnerians have vouched, then the Lodges of Saxon Cunning Men stood in the place of adversary to the Celtic Wise Women (Grugach), which also goes to support this essay.

More evidence supporting this, can be found in a body of religious laws called the "Law of the Craft". This is a body of laws, which is found to have varying degrees of consistency from one Wiccan group to another. There are printed copies of this body to be found in the public domain, in such books as "Lady Sheba's Grimoire", and "The King of the Witches" by June Johns. There is also to be found on the Internet a work, comparing several versions of that body of law. There are three items of note, where that law is concerned. They are:

1. The uniform appellation given to modern Wicca, as a brotherhood.

2. The quote,"... as a man loveth a woman by mastering her...".

3. The quote,"...let her(the high priestess)ever mind that all power is lent...from him(the priest)..."

-italics added by author-

All three of these items fly in the face of how women were viewed by pre-Christian Gaelic people. Our people viewed women as the complete equals to men. They had the right to possess and disburse property. They possessed the right to inheritance. They possessed ascendancy to the throne; in many places above the right of men to do so. They possessed the right to keep and bear weapons, and be it noted that subjugating an armed populace is
indeed a difficult thing to do. It was not until Christianity was firmly implanted, that women lost these rights, and the equality of the law concerning women came into question.(The
Story of the Irish Race, Suemas MacManusDevin-Adair, c. 1966, ISBN 0-517-06408-1; The Druids, Ellis).

Other corollary evidence comes from Wiccan statements about themselves. The best example being, that they "..are the priestcraft for the pagan people...". Yet, within Gaelic/Celtic culture all people were considered capable and responsible to mediate the Gods on their own behalf. Celtic regard for personal responsibility in regards to mediating the Gods on ones own behalf is so obvious and well known that even pop culture books such as "The Celtic Tradition" (Caitlin Matthews, Element Books, 1989,  ISBN 1-85230-075-2) tell of this truth. Even the Triads of our  people show where the redactors hands slipped on occasion, and let go expressions of the feeling among our forebearers, that kept priests
were an abomination. The idea, being that the first place we give up our personal power over our lives, is to priestcrafts. From there on out, it is one piece of our lives at a time, until we are veritable slaves. Slavehood is not a position taken with grace by our people.

Much, much more could be added, including the fact that there isn't even a 'W ' in the Gaelic language, so neither Wicca nor Witta as a derivation could be Gaelic. As concerns the Gaelic language, the sound [w] does exist in Gaelic, or at least in Old Irish, as a lenited
/m/ or /b/, like the [w] in the current pronunciation of Samhain [sawhIn] that's not an L, it's a capital I, in case that didn't come thru). But that never occurs at the beginning of a word.
In technical speak the 'w' does not exist in the language, nor is [w] ever its own phoneme, just an allophone of /m/ or /b/ (depending on the word). Since lenition is rare at the beginning of a word though, it is extraordinarily unlikely that any native Gaelic word would have a [w] at the beginning, and thus 'Wicca' is practically impossible in Gaelic even transliterated into the Roman alphabet.

When I was asked to write this essay, I was also asked to keep it as short as possible, yet not neglecting thoroughness. This should be enough though, to establish the premise quite securely, that Wicca is not descended form our Gaelic/Celtic ancestors.

Slan,

Ian McIntyre

Back to Main