Ronald Hutton: Wicca and other invented traditions
When I met Ronald Hutton, Professor of History at the University of Bristol, at the British Library, he had just come from lecturing to a group of sixth formers at the Camden Centre. When I asked what he had been lecturing on, he answered briskly: "Oliver Cromwell." For an author who's just published a book on Druids, and whose earlier work (Triumph of the Moon, The Stations of the Sun, Shamanism) centres on paganism, wicca, ceremonial magic and seasonal rituals, this seemed fairly mild stuff.
"Did the students ask any questions about your other interests?" I asked. "No," he replied, "that's not part of A levels." Then he paused for a moment, and added: "Not yet." Given the quality of Hutton's work and the passion he devotes to it, as well as the recent academic interest in subjects like the occult, esotericism, and his own patch, paganism, I'd say it was only a matter of time.
Hutton's most recent work, The Druids, a compact and lively account of what historians and other seekers of the past have made of these "appallingly insubstantial figures", could arguably be looked at as a history of the Druids in which no "real" Druid appears. The Druids left no writings, no images and no tombs. Accounts of them, from Tacitus down, are frustratingly inconclusive, and drift from anecdotal, to biased, to forged, to sheer invention. Most of us associate them with mistletoe, megaliths and human sacrifice, and the three turn up often enough; but the fact is that the Druids, at one time or another, have appeared as all things to all men.
Hutton gives us chapters on "The Patriotic Druids", "The Wise Druids", "The Green Druids", "The Demonic Druids", "The Fraternal Druids", "The Rebel Druids" and, perhaps most important to his popular readers, "The Future Druids". Like the Knights Templar, at least in the British Isles, the Druids have been a handy peg on which to hang a backpack of imaginative, insightful, and sometimes half-baked ideas, dealing with national identity, religious revelation, ancient societies, nature and ourselves. When I mentioned that it seemed like a history of what people have thought about the Druids, Hutton eagerly agreed.
"My colleagues would kill me for saying this, but historians are increasingly conscious of the fact that we can't write history. What we can write about is the way in which people see history and think history happens." And turning my remark back at me he continued, "So, is this a book about Druids with no Druids in it, or are the real Druids these amazing characters like William Price, William Stukeley, Iolo Morganwg and the rest?"...
Read entire article at Independent (UK)
"Did the students ask any questions about your other interests?" I asked. "No," he replied, "that's not part of A levels." Then he paused for a moment, and added: "Not yet." Given the quality of Hutton's work and the passion he devotes to it, as well as the recent academic interest in subjects like the occult, esotericism, and his own patch, paganism, I'd say it was only a matter of time.
Hutton's most recent work, The Druids, a compact and lively account of what historians and other seekers of the past have made of these "appallingly insubstantial figures", could arguably be looked at as a history of the Druids in which no "real" Druid appears. The Druids left no writings, no images and no tombs. Accounts of them, from Tacitus down, are frustratingly inconclusive, and drift from anecdotal, to biased, to forged, to sheer invention. Most of us associate them with mistletoe, megaliths and human sacrifice, and the three turn up often enough; but the fact is that the Druids, at one time or another, have appeared as all things to all men.
Hutton gives us chapters on "The Patriotic Druids", "The Wise Druids", "The Green Druids", "The Demonic Druids", "The Fraternal Druids", "The Rebel Druids" and, perhaps most important to his popular readers, "The Future Druids". Like the Knights Templar, at least in the British Isles, the Druids have been a handy peg on which to hang a backpack of imaginative, insightful, and sometimes half-baked ideas, dealing with national identity, religious revelation, ancient societies, nature and ourselves. When I mentioned that it seemed like a history of what people have thought about the Druids, Hutton eagerly agreed.
"My colleagues would kill me for saying this, but historians are increasingly conscious of the fact that we can't write history. What we can write about is the way in which people see history and think history happens." And turning my remark back at me he continued, "So, is this a book about Druids with no Druids in it, or are the real Druids these amazing characters like William Price, William Stukeley, Iolo Morganwg and the rest?"...