The Problem of Druidic Liturgics
Robert Barton

Liturgy is the area of religious research where we know the least about what the ancient Celtic peoples actually did. The fact is that there are few examples of rites actually being performed and the process of actions involved in those rites. This dearth of written or recorded examples of complete rituals has presented some problems and caused a great deal of confusion. Many scholars of Celtic studies have been led by the above fact to make some erroneous conclusions such as stating that we can know nothing about Celtic religion. These scholars though well educated in Celtic studies, archaeology and anthropology generally lack any training in the formal study of religious phenomenology and so they make the error of equating liturgy with religion and believe that if you do not have sufficient information of liturgy then you do not have sufficient information on religion. Finding themselves in a peculiar position based on two things the first of which is that they have an excellent knowledge of the available evidence given by their years of study and the second of which is that they are completely ignorant of how to assess that evidence in the context of religion. This position leads to erroneous statements about religious practice which are often accepted as authoritative because of the academic background in one of the two areas needed in this research. One solution to this problem is to combine research in Celtic studies and research in the study of religions allowing the knowledge of general religion to guide the search through the evidence specific to Celtic peoples. Another solution is to apply strict academic rigor in examining statements, proposals and conclusions never accepting anything as fact simply based on the authority of the person making the statement and judging the truth value of the statement based only on the evidence used to support the position.
 Most descriptions are not of a rite being conducted from start to finish but are rather glimpses of individual actions or steps within the rituals. From these peeks at what was done long ago we can see some things about the various principles and actions. And while we do not have any ritual scripts of the liturgies conducted in the distant past we are able to identify some of the concepts and stages included in those rites. Examples of what we do know about the liturgical principles that we see among various Celtic groups include; the presence of fire as an ontological catalyst, the definition of sacred space, the presence of a sacred center, the giving of sacrificial offerings based on a principle of reciprocity, the act of divination, that rites were at times performed for the benefit of a corporate or group identity and at other times done for the benefit of individuals and the existence of ritual specialists who often performed these rites. We certainly cannot say that every rite performed by the various Celtic peoples would have include any or even most of these things, but we can say that these were things which were commonly present in ritual.
Though we tend to think of the ancient Celts as single culture the nature of the Celtic peoples was actually very tribal with the people living in large self contained socio-political units each with a very clear individual identity.  While there are many social and cultural commonalities among these tribes and they spoke similar related languages there was no larger concept of a Celtic nationality, race or political body. This becomes very important when we are searching in the area of liturgy because we must remember that there never would have been any sort of standard Celtic liturgy; no ‘Book of Common Celtic Prayer’ would have been available to provide a consistent set of standards from tribe to tribe. What the visitor would have seen is each tribe/nation having their own identity and their own specific rites to the deities that they worshipped. Even though the various Celtic peoples would have had common principles of belief and worldview and would have even held some deities in common the exact details of when and how the various rites of worship were conducted would have had some variance from one people to the next with the words and other details being as tribal and individualistic as all other aspects of life. It is of great import in our research that we keep a clear vision of the nature of Celtic culture so that we can avoid errors in thought which would have us searching for some imagined Pan-Celtic liturgy that just never would have existed.
Here we stand, people practicing a religion which is consistent with many aspects of ancient religious practices. We share with these ancients similar theology, cosmology and ontology and we are worshiping the same Gods and with the same basic belief system. Yet we cannot say that we are conducting the exact same rituals in the exact same ways that any particular ancient Celtic tribe did. We must recognize this fact and then proceed to worship as we are called and with rites that suit our needs now and feed our souls while maintaining the relationship between the people and the sacred.  In order to do this we must study the general principles of liturgy and ritual which are found present across the board in good ritual and then within this framework of good liturgical structure we build rites which are consistent with our beliefs and worldview and we include in this building process many of the details that we do know were present in  some ancient Celtic rites and which will serve our current spiritual needs and relationships.