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Druids
A druid was a member of the high-ranking class in ancient Celtic cultures. Druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no written accounts. While they were reported to have been literate, they are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in written form. Their beliefs and practices are attested in some detail by their contemporaries from other cultures, such as the Romans and the Greeks. The earliest known references to the druids date to the 4th century BCE. The oldest detailed description comes from Julius Caesar's ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico'' (50s BCE). They were described by other Roman writers such as Cicero, Cicero (44) I.XVI.90. Tacitus, and Pliny the Elder. Following the Roman invasion of Gaul, the druid orders were suppressed by the Roman government under the 1st-century CE emperors Tiberius and Claudius, and had disappeare ...
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Druidry (modern)
Druidry, sometimes termed Druidism, is a modern spiritual or religious movement that promotes the cultivation of honorable relationships with the physical landscapes, flora, fauna, and diverse peoples of the world, as well as with nature deities, and spirits of nature and place. Theological beliefs among modern Druids are diverse; however, all modern Druids venerate the divine essence of nature. While there are significant interregional and intergroup variations in modern Druidry practice, Druids across the globe are unified by a core set of shared spiritual and devotional practices: meditation; prayer/conversation with deities and spirits; the use of extra-sensory methods of seeking wisdom and guidance; the use of nature-based spiritual frameworks to structure devotional practices and rituals; and a regular practice of nature connection and environmental stewardship work. Arising from the 18th century Romanticist movement in Britain, which glorified the ancient Celtic peop ...
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Commentarii De Bello Gallico
''Commentarii de Bello Gallico'' (; en, Commentaries on the Gallic War, italic=yes), also ''Bellum Gallicum'' ( en, Gallic War, italic=yes), is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it Caesar describes the battles and intrigues that took place in the nine years he spent fighting the Celtic and Germanic peoples in Gaul that opposed Roman conquest. The "Gaul" that Caesar refers to is ambiguous, as the term had various connotations in Roman writing and discourse during Caesar's time. Generally, Gaul included all of the regions primarily inhabited by Celts, aside from the province of Gallia Narbonensis (modern-day Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon), which had already been conquered in Caesar's time, therefore encompassing the rest of modern France, Belgium, Western Germany, and parts of Switzerland. As the Roman Republic made inroads deeper into Celtic territory and conquered more land, the definition of "Gaul" shifted. Con ...
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Neopaganism
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Africa and the Near East. Although they share similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse, and do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts. Scholars of religion may characterise these traditions as new religious movements. Some academics who study the phenomenon treat it as a movement that is divided into different religions while others characterize it as a single religion of which different pagan faiths are denominations. Because of these different approaches there is disagreement on when or if the term ''pagan'' should be capitalized, though specialists in the field of pagan studies tend towards capitalisation. Prominent modern pagan religions include Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry, Rodnovery, and the Goddess movem ...
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Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during Republican era, Cisalpina was annexed in 42 BC to Roman Italy), and Germany west of the Rhine. It covered an area of . According to Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Gallia Belgica, Belgica, and Gallia Aquitania, Aquitania. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture, which extended across all of Gaul, as well as east to Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia, and southwestern Germania during the 5th to 1st centuries BC. During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule: Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 204 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC. Julius Caesar finally s ...
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Celtic Revival
The Celtic Revival (also referred to as the Celtic Twilight) is a variety of movements and trends in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries that see a renewed interest in aspects of Celtic culture. Artists and writers drew on the traditions of Gaelic literature, Welsh-language literature, and so-called 'Celtic art'—what historians call Insular art (the Early Medieval style of Ireland and Britain). Although the revival was complex and multifaceted, occurring across many fields and in various countries in Northwest Europe, its best known incarnation is probably the Irish Literary Revival. Irish writers including William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, "AE" Russell, Edward Martyn, Alice Milligan and Edward Plunkett (Lord Dunsany) stimulated a new appreciation of traditional Irish literature and Irish poetry in the late 19th and early 20th century. In aspects the revival came to represent a reaction to modernisation. This is particularly true in Ireland, where the relationship betwee ...
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Magician (paranormal)
Magic, sometimes spelled magick, is an ancient Praxis (process), praxis rooted in sacred rituals, spiritual Divination, divinations, and/or cultural Lineage (anthropology), lineage—with an intention to invoke, manipulate, or otherwise manifest supernatural forces, beings, or entities in the Nature, natural, incarnate world. It is a categorical yet often ambiguous term which has been used to refer to a wide variety of beliefs and practices, frequently considered separate from both religion and science. Although connotations have varied from positive to negative at times throughout history, magic continues to have an important religious and medicinal role in many cultures today. Within Western culture, magic has been linked to ideas of the Other (philosophy), Other, foreignness, and primitivism; indicating that it is "a powerful marker of cultural difference" and likewise, a non-modern phenomenon. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Western intellectuals per ...
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Truth
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences. Truth is usually held to be the opposite of falsehood. The concept of truth is discussed and debated in various contexts, including philosophy, art, theology, and science. Most human activities depend upon the concept, where its nature as a concept is assumed rather than being a subject of discussion; these include most of the sciences, law, journalism, and everyday life. Some philosophers view the concept of truth as basic, and unable to be explained in any terms that are more easily understood than the concept of truth itself. Most commonly, truth is viewed as the correspondence of language or thought to a mind-independent world. This is called the correspondence theory of truth. Various ...
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Proto-Indo-European Language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language, and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age. The majority of linguistic work during the 19th century was devoted to the reconstruction of PIE or its daughter languages, and many of the modern techniques of linguistic reconstruction (such as the comparative method) were developed as a result. PIE is hypothesized to have been spoken as a single language from 4500 BC to 2500 BC during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, though estimates vary by more than a thousand years. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the proto-Indo-European homeland, original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in th ...
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Wren
Wrens are a family of brown passerine birds in the predominantly New World family Troglodytidae. The family includes 88 species divided into 19 genera. Only the Eurasian wren occurs in the Old World, where, in Anglophone regions, it is commonly known simply as the "wren", as it is the originator of the name. The name ''wren'' has been applied to other, unrelated birds, particularly the New Zealand wrens ( Acanthisittidae) and the Australian wrens ( Maluridae). Most wrens are visually inconspicuous though they have loud and often complex songs. Exceptions include the relatively large members of the genus '' Campylorhynchus'', which can be quite bold in their behaviour. Wrens have short wings that are barred in most species, and they often hold their tails upright. Wrens are primarily insectivorous, eating insects, spiders and other small invertebrates, but many species also eat vegetable matter and some eat small frogs and lizards. Etymology and usage The English name "wren" de ...
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Prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the supernatural source to other people. The message that the prophet conveys is called a prophecy. Claims of prophethood have existed in many cultures and religions throughout history, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, ancient Greek religion, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Hinduism , and many others. Etymology The English word '' prophet'' is the transliteration of a compound Greek word derived from ''pro'' (before/toward) and ''phesein'' (to tell); thus, a προφήτης (''prophḗtēs'') is someone who conveys messages from the divine to humans, including occasionally foretelling future events. In a different interpretation, it means advocate or speaker. In Hebrew, the word נָבִיא (''nāvî''), "spokesperson", tradi ...
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Eurasian Wren
The Eurasian wren (''Troglodytes troglodytes'') or northern wren is a very small insectivorous bird, and the only member of the wren family Troglodytidae found in Eurasia and Africa (Maghreb). In Anglophone Europe, it is commonly known simply as the wren. It has a very short tail which is often held erect, a short neck and a relative long thin bill. It is russet brown above, paler buff-brown below and has a cream buff supercilium. The sexes are alike. The species was once lumped with '' Troglodytes hiemalis'' of eastern North America and '' Troglodytes pacificus'' of western North America as the winter wren. The Eurasian wren occurs in Europe and across the Palearctic – including a belt of Asia from northern Iran and Afghanistan across to Japan. It is migratory in only the northern parts of its range. It is also highly polygynous, an unusual mating system for passerines. The scientific name is taken from the Greek word "troglodytes" (from τρώγλη "hole", and δῠ́ ...
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Middle Welsh
Middle Welsh ( cy, Cymraeg Canol, wlm, Kymraec) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 15th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed directly from Old Welsh ( cy, Hen Gymraeg). Literature and history Middle Welsh is the language of nearly all surviving early manuscripts of the ''Mabinogion'', although the tales themselves are certainly much older. It is also the language of most of the manuscripts of Welsh law. Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker. Phonology The phonology of Middle Welsh is quite similar to that of modern Welsh, with only a few differences. The letter ''u'', which today represents in North Western Welsh dialects and in South Welsh and North East Welsh dialects, represented the close central rounded vowel in Middle Welsh. The diphthong ''aw'' is found in unstressed final syllables in Middle Welsh, while in Modern Welsh it has b ...
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