Been reading through Mythic Britain and I find myself wanting to know more about the British isles at that time and other places.
Does anybody have any good sources? I'm particularly interested in anything people have about at the time druidism, and anything about Ireland circa 500ad, but mainland European regions near Britain could also be interesting.
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I might be misremembering things, but there's actually only like one historical reference to druids; Roman, maybe, and all it's about are some dudes who climb trees.
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To start, that's an overview about the sources we generally have.
I don't know a ton about the subject though and don't have any great sources about the 5th and 6th century to point to.
What Druids were actually like is not very well known since most of it comes from Greeks and Romans who did not have a great understanding of foreign religions.
Modern Druidism is essentially Wiccan.
I was aware modern druidism wasn't real druidism. I thought we knew more than I've been able to find though.
What do we know about 5-6ths century Ireland?
They were divided into small chiefdoms and, supposedly, were at least partially peopled by some of the same tribes that inhabited Britain proper (Brigantes, Coriondi and Manapii).
They were pirates and raiders who didn't get along with their Celtic neighbors to the east.
They supposedly had a high king but it was mostly ceremonial.
Wow, it's pretty depressing how little we know about Druids.
They were thought to be against literacy or at least not for it. The result is everything fades away.
That and the Anglesey massacre.
Yeah, apparently business transactions were written down, but from what I understand, religion was a more personal thing, with community and mentorship as key components, and they thought relying on written works would corrupt it somehow.
...
I mean, looking at all the bullshit that later happened (in part) because of different translations/editions of holy books, they were on to something.
If I could do one thing small thing with time travel, a good contender would be bringing one of the druids that would have been slaughtered, ahead, to today, and get everything I could from him about their customs, beliefs, and practices, recorded. Sure, it would be hard to verify time travel. Maybe he could be DNA tested.
Got any good sources you would recommend?
I've got the Pendragon book about Ireland, and a bad scan of the gurps Ireland book. Got anything else/better?
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Dal Riata stronk! Remove Pictish Heathen!
Read the Ulster Cycle stories and the like. Read them closely and read analogies of them to see what is most valued in Irish society.
Also of note is the fact that Irish mercenaries regularly turn up all over Europe in later periods, and in the earlier periods (dark ages particularly) there is evidence of Irish priests writing down poetry in the margins of bibles as far as Austria.
One big problem for you will be deciding how much to run a game based in history and how much to base it in myth. There is a middle ground to be taken, but you'll probably agonise over it.
It's worth noting that if you're looking for historical facts, a lot of what was previously believed about British history has been debunked in the last few decades with the advent of DNA testing and more advanced archaeology, for instance that there were no "invasions" of "celts" or saxons.
This isn't really any kind of source, but the King Arthur stuff by Bernard Cornwell is some pretty good dumb fun. He tries to remain reasonably accurate to 6th century Britain, but accidentally draws some Germanic customs in there like trial by combat. The audiobooks are especially good. The narrator manages to make it a surprisingly emotional story.
Buellt & Gewissa; kingdoms that you could literally walk the length and breadth of in a day of serious hiking. I like it.
For the... druid gene?
Or do you want him to be compared to a body that no longer exists because you ripped him from the timeline?
Or if material gets duplicated through time travel, why aren't we strip mining the paleolithic era?
Ronald Hutton wrote a lot about the folklore practices in Britain post-roman through to early modern, delving into the pre-christian eras of paganism and druids as well.
He's (in)famously disliked by a lot of the new-age/wiccan/druid people, so that tends to make me think he's probably a bit closer to the mark in terms of being historically accurate.