Druids

Wales

Druids are far rarer in medieval Welsh literature than in Irish, partly because the Welsh corpus is smaller and partly because it presents the same source-critical difficulties. Where they occur, an individual is called a dryw and certain figures derwydon, words credibly but not certainly rendered as 'druid' and 'druids'. The word dryw also means 'wren', a bird associated with magic. Unlike the Irish druí, the derwydon function purely as prophets. The 10th-century poem Armes Prydein has a line usually translated "Druids foretell all that will happen", although its standard edition renders the word as 'wise men', and in the Book of Taliesin poem Kat Godeu the derwydon prophesy to King Arthur, foretelling Noah's Flood, the Crucifixion and Doomsday.