[Dungeon Fantasy] Druid without obligation to Nature

[Tuk the Weekah]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Actually I think there are a couple sentences in Tacitus and perhaps a few others, so at least we know there really were some priests called druids - Caesar didn't make them up entirely.

To be fair, evileyeore did say "contemporary first-hand", and Tacitus is getting most of his cultural info for Britain and Germany from his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, who campaigned there some 20-30 years before Tacitus did any writing. It *may* be less biased than Caesar's work (although it could equally be a very early example of the romanticization of the Noble Savage contrasted with the Debased Civilization of Rome), but it is most definitely second-generation, second-hand info.

All of this would have been so much easier if Caesar had seen fit to write sacerdos or vates or what have you, instead of transliterating the (theorized) Keltic word *druwides into Latin.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Tuk the Weekah

To be fair, evileyeore did say "contemporary first-hand"...

Exactly.

It *may* be less biased than Caesar's work (although it could equally be a very early example of the romanticization of the Noble Savage contrasted with the Debased Civilization of Rome), but it is most definitely second-generation, second-hand info.

Which is largely what I suspect was going on with many of the Greek philosophers who wrote about the Celtic Druids.

All of this would have been so much easier if Caesar had seen fit to write sacerdos or vates or what have you, instead of transliterating the (theorized) Keltic word *druwides into Latin.

It would also be easier if the Druids had kept written records instead of using the apprentice/oral teaching tradition.


I can't wait for time travel to be invented so we can get proper first hand accounts of history.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I can't wait for time travel to be invented so we can get proper first hand accounts of history.

If time travellers considered our knowledge a priority, we'd already have it.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by johndallman

If time travellers considered our knowledge a priority, we'd already have it.

Time travelers don't need to prioritize either.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by johndallman

If time travellers considered our knowledge a priority, we'd already have it.

Depends on which theory of paradox or observer effect or timey-whimey sciencey-whiencey you're following... but no, there might be good reasons for them to not divulge such information just yet.

Damn time travelers. Harumph.

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by johndallman

If time travellers considered our knowledge a priority, we'd already have it.

But they might consider their own knowledge a priority and in any case I wouldn't want to be the first time traveler to test whether making intrusive changes to the past has ripple effects down the line.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

But they might consider their own knowledge a priority and in any case I wouldn't want to be the first time traveler to test whether making intrusive changes to the past has ripple effects down the line.

You could just ask somebody from the future how it went when you did it instead.