For your interest... Dr´y-cræft

[jez]

Dr´y-cræft

is the Old English word that probably referred to the druids who must have still been around, or remembered...

By the time OE was being written down, these are the meanings it carried.

--

DRÝ, drí; gen. drýs; dat. acc. drý; pl. nom. acc. drýas; gen. dríra? dat. drýum, dríum; m. A magician, sorcerer, wizard; magus, malĕfĭcus :-- Drý magus, Wrt. Voc. 74, 41. Petres wiðerwinna wæs sum drý, se wæs Simon geháten: ðes drý wæs mid ðam awyrgedum gáste afylled Peter's adversary was a certain sorcerer, who was called Simon: this sorcerer was filled with the accursed spirit, Homl. Th. i. 370, 32: 374, 18: 376, 3: 380, 16: Homl. Blick. 173, 8, 18, 28, 32: 175, 6, 17, 31: 183, 17: 187, 32. He getengde wið ðæs drýs he hastened towards the magician, Homl. Th. i. 374, 5. Petrus cwæþ to ðam drý Peter said to the sorcerer, i. 372, 6: 380, 21: Homl. Blick. 173, 2, 9, 33: 175, 25. Hí woldon forbærnan ðone drý they would burn the magician, Homl. Th. i. 372, 30: 374, 22: 376, 10: 380, 23: Homl. Blick. 173, 11, 30: 175, 1: 181, 33. Ðú miht mid ðý gebéde blóð onhǽtan ðæs deófles drý thou mayest with prayer heat the blood of the devil's wizard, Salm. Kmbl. 89; Sal. 44. Hý drýas wǽron they were sorcerers, Exon. 70 a; Th. 260, 23; Jul. 301: Andr. Kmbl. 67; An. 34. Hý getrymedon hyra drýas their magicians encouraged them, Ors. 1, 7; Bos. 30, 21. Cwǽdon ða drýas to Pharaone dixērunt malefĭci ad Pharaōnem, Ex. 8, 19: 9, 11. Dríra [dría?] magōrum, Mone B. 4018. Herodes biswicen wæs from drýum oððe tungulcræftgum Herōdes insulsus erat a magis, Mt. Kmbl. Lind. 2, 16. Ðýlæs-ðe se deófol us be dríum [MS. drian] máge lest the devil have power over us by sorcerers, Glostr. Frag. l0, 30. [Orm. drig-menn magicians: Gael. draoi, draoidh, druidh, m. a druid, magician.]

drý. Add: gen. drýes, dnt. drýe, dat. pl. drym :-- þá ludéas þone Hǽlend genámon , . . and sǽdon ~þ he dry wǽre, Nic. 19, 40. Nectane-bases þæs drýs, Ors. 3, 9 ; S. 126, 25. Hé wearð á. ýsedfrám þæs drýes bendum . . . and arn bysmrigende þæs drýes yfeldǽdum, Hml. Th. ii. 414, 24: 412, 30. Ánes drýes folgere, i. 468, 8. þá deóflu gecyrdon tó ðám drýe . . . Cwæð se apostol tó ðám dry, 416, 9-13. Drýas maríi, An. Ox. 4476. Drías, 2, 338. Dréas arioli, Kent. Gl. 868. Mon sægð j? drýas tó heora cræftum þysse wyrte (vervain) brúcen, Lch. i. 170, 20. Drýra magorum, An. Ox. 4019. Hí befæston t> wíf drýnm (drým, v. /. ) puellam maleficis tradidenmt, Gr. D. 73, 16. [O. /r. drui.]

drý-lic; adj. Of magic, magical :-- Mid drýlices fácnes galdre magicae fraudis necromanlia, An. Ox. 2907. Mid drylicum sclnlace magica praesligia, 3261 : 4699. Mambres ontýnde ðá drýlican bee (hbros magicos) his bréðer, Nar. 50, 13.

drý-man [n], es; m. A magician, sorcerer :-- Hé eóde to anum drýmen . . . þá gebrohte se dryman þone cnapan to his deófle, Hml. S. 3, 367. Fela sǽdon þá drýmen þurh deófles cræft, lamnes and Mambres,17, 114. Drýmen þe mid dydrunge farað, Hml. Th. ii. 330, 27. þurh drýmanna dydrunge, Hml. S. 21, 474. Antecrist hæfð mid him drymen. Wlfst. 194, 17 ; Hml. Th. ii. 472, 14. [Magy sinndenn . . . drigmenn, Orm. 7076. An defiess þeww Symon Drigmann (Simon Magus') jehatenn, 16051.]

drý-men magicians, sorcerers, Homl. Th. ii. 472, 14, v. drý.

drýicge, an; f. A sorceress: -- Cwǽdon Romware ^ heó wǽre drýegge, Shrn. 56, 13. Þá þe hér bióð þá mǽstan drýicgan, and gealdorcræftigan, Nap. 4. -J.

drý-cræft, es; m. [cræft craft, art] Magical art, magic, sorcery; ars magĭca vel malĕfĭca :-- Hí sǽdon ðæt hió sceolde mid hire drýcræft ða men forbredan they said that she should overthrow the men by her sorcery, Bt. 38, 1; Fox 194, 30. Gif hí hwylcne drýcræft hæfdon si quid malĕfĭcæ artis habuissent, Bd. 1, 25; S. 486, 40 : Ex. 7, 11. Sum man wæs mid drýcræfte bepǽht some man was deceived by magic, Homl. Th. i. 448, 13. Warna ðé ðæt ðú ne gíme drýcræfta ne swefena ne hwatena nec inveniātur in te, qui ariolos sciscĭtētur et observet somnia atque augŭria, Deut. 18, 10. Drífan drýcræftas to exercise magical arts, Bt. Met. Fox 26, 107; Met. 26, 54. Mid drýcræftum by sorceries, Ors. 1, 7; Bos. 30, 22.

drý-cræft. Add: I. sorcery, magic :-- Syxte mægen is ^ drýcræft bám men ne dereþ þe hine (agate) mid him hæfð, Lch. ii. 298, 10. Ðín drýcræft ðe tó nánre freme ne becymð, Hml. Th. ii. 414, 14. Agróf se mon on ǽrenum brede drýcræftæs word, Shrn. 141, 16. ' Miht Þú ádwǽscan þǽra cristenra drýcræft ?'. . . ' Beó ic scyldig gif ic his scýncræft nemæg ádwǽscan mid mlt. um drycræfte, ' Hml. S. 14, 54-58. Gif wíf drýcræft begǽð si mtilier artem magicam exerceat, Ll. Th. ii. 130, 15. Drýcræft wyrcan, 154, 8. II. a magic art or practice :-- Drýcræftas necromantiae, An. Ox. 4, 29. He sǽde ~~ hé (Joseph) ðǽr (in Egypt) drýcræftas geleornode and of þǽm drýcræftum t* hé gewunode monige wundor to wyrcenne, and (> he mihte swá wel swefn reccan . . . and he ssede "J5 he of þǽm drycræfle geleornode godcundne wisdom. Ors. r> 5 ! S. 34, 3-8. Se deófol geswutelað þǽre wiccan hwæt heó secge mannum, ~p þá been fordone þe ðæne drýcræft sécað, Hml. S. 17, 113. Hé wæs fyrmest on þám drýcræftum in magtcis operibus primus fuit, Gr. D. 27, 20: Hml. Th. ii. 414, 4. Soroaster cúðe manna ǽrest drýcræftas (magicae artis repertor), Ors. 2 ; S. 30, III. magical apparatus :-- Se dry nam þone stæf and gewende ham, and genam ealne his drýcræft and brohte to ðám apostole, and began hi to forbaernenne, Hml. Th. ii. 418, 3. [Or m. drijcrafft.] v. dreó-cræft in

drý-cræftig, drí-cræfteg; adj. [cræftig crafty, skilful] Skilful or crafty in magic or sorcery, magical; magĭcæ artis perītus, magĭcus :-- Sió, hí sǽdon, sceolde bión swíðe drýcræftigu she, they said, would be very skilful in sorcery, Bt. 38, 1; Fox. 194, 20. Pharaon gegaderude ealle ða drícræftegustan men vocāvit Pharao sapientes et malĕfĭcos, Ex. 7, 11.

drý-cræftig; adj. Add: drý-cræftiga, an; m. A sorcerer :-- On þám ylcan tíman þe þá drýcræftigan (malejici) wurdon árásode, Gr. D.27, 15-

-lác (?) sorcery, magic :-- Gif þíne æceras nellaþ wel wexan oþþe þǽr hwilc ungedéfe þing ou gedón bið on dry ( = drýláce) oððe on iybláce, Lch. i. 398, 3.

--

Thought it might prove of interest.

--

Jez

[Craig]

Fascinating Jez.

See what I mean about layers people? Each historical or social or spiritual layer is like blotting paper, it takes up a little of what was before and bleeds into what is yet to come. From such traces we can begin to create a better picture of what there was from which to draw the wisdoms we can apply now.

It's late, I'm tired and I'm beginning to like Yoda sound...

[jez]

Dr´y-cræft

I'll add some detail, since most people don't have the background in OE
--

Herodes biswicen wæs from drýum oððe tungulcræftgum Herodes insulsus erat a magis, Mt. Kmbl. Lind. 2, 16. Ðýlæs-ðe se deófol us be dríum [MS. drian] máge lest the devil have power over us by sorcerers, Glostr. Frag. l0, 30. [Orm. drig-menn magicians: Gael. draoi, draoidh, druidh, m. a druid, magician.]

This is actually star-magic tungulcræftgum



drý-lic; adj. Of magic, magical :-- Mid drýlices fácnes galdre magicae fraudis necromanlia, An. Ox. 2907. Mid drylicum sclnlace magica praesligia, 3261 : 4699.

The first is specifically referring to fácnes galdre a deceitful magic using song.

The second specifically refers to sclnlace which means a spectral appearance (of an ancestor?)


drýicge, an; f. A sorceress: -- Cwædon Romware ^ heó wære drýegge, Shrn. 56, 13. Þá þe hér bióð þá mæstan drýicgan, and gealdorcræftigan, Nap. 4. -J.


This bit suggests that there were mæ(r)stan - boundary stones - which were associated with druids, or with magical practices.

Is this the earliest such reference?

And gealdorcræftigan is specifically sung magical charms


Drýcræftas necromantiae, An. Ox. 4, 29.


And this is specifically translated as necromantiae which became our word sorcery, in the sense of dealing with the dead.

--

Jez

[littleraven]

This is excellent.

When I first read Brian Bates 'The Way of Wyrd', I sung it's praises as a fascinating set of ideas and possible directions for study. A lot of people I knew would not even read it because it was about Saxons and Christians and therefore irrelevent.

My first thought on finishing the book was: "Who taught them when they first arrived?".

[Heron]

Yes my battered glossary of Old English from my undergraduate days lists 'dry' = 'sorcerer' and gives the derivation as [Celtic : drui].

The Geiradur Prifysgol Cymru has entries for 'Derwydd' and 'Dryw' for 'Druid'. But both can mean something else. The fact that 'derwydd' can also mean oak trees seems to have caused the connection betwen druids and oaks (the Geiriadur notes that the 17th linguist John Davies made the connection and that it subsequently "became a popular derivation". The word is recorded in Welsh from the 13th cent.: derwydon doethur, darogenwch y arthur. Dryw, which seems to retain the original syllable 'drui' can also mean 'wren' (again as in the 13th cent usage in Math when Lleu gains his name by pinning a 'dryw' to the side of the boat. And the 'druid ' meaning of dryw is also recorded from that century.

[ceinach]

Nov 21, 2008 12:04:09 GMT -1 littleraven said:

This is excellent.

When I first read Brian Bates 'The Way of Wyrd', I sung it's praises as a fascinating set of ideas and possible directions for study. A lot of people I knew would not even read it because it was about Saxons and Christians and therefore irrelevent.

My first thought on finishing the book was: "Who taught them when they first arrived?".

My favourite book ever! I didn't want it to finish. An interesting weave of beliefs and their conflicts. A well researched fact based fiction novel well worth a read..

oh did I mention that Brian signed mine for me - bless, he's a lovely man - ok enough of the name dropping, but he is pretty local

[Heron]

Nov 21, 2008 9:09:44 GMT -1 @jez said:

Dr´y-cræft

I'll add some detail, since most people don't have the background in OE
--

Herodes biswicen wæs from drýum oððe tungulcræftgum Herodes insulsus erat a magis, Mt. Kmbl. Lind. 2, 16. Ðýlæs-ðe se deófol us be dríum [MS. drian] máge lest the devil have power over us by sorcerers, Glostr. Frag. l0, 30. [Orm. drig-menn magicians: Gael. draoi, draoidh, druidh, m. a druid, magician.]

This is actually star-magic tungulcræftgum

As opposed to 'tungel-witeg' ('star-prophecy' - astrology)? Does this imply something more than that?


[...]

Drýcræftas necromantiae, An. Ox. 4, 29.


And this is specifically translated as necromantiae which became our word sorcery, in the sense of dealing with the dead.

I notice these are all references to what might be termed bad magic, specifically sorcery rather than enchantment or a general sense of religious authority such as might be associated with druids. Does this indicate a late adoption for this word to refer to magic that is disapproved of? The examples I found looking through my old copy of Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader seem to be post-christian, as in King Alfred's use of it to describe the ability of Circe to turn men into animals as drycraefte in his translation of Boethius.

[Adam]

Nov 21, 2008 9:09:44 GMT -1 @jez said:

drý-lic; adj. Of magic, magical :-- Mid drýlices fácnes galdre magicae fraudis necromanlia, An. Ox. 2907. Mid drylicum sclnlace magica praesligia, 3261 : 4699.

The first is specifically referring to fácnes galdre a deceitful magic using song.

I find this one particularly interesting as it brings to mind conversational hypnosis and covert suggestion strategies, and one of my many fanciful conjectures is that some of the mythic magic workers had a faculty with and working knowledge of the relationships between trance and language (and music)... I've used covert suggestion in the context of healing chants and poems I've written for friends, though personally not taken it further, though I suspect that working with layered loops of cadence and rhythm and scansion would enhance the trance effect... and a reputation for being a magic worker would just magnify it completely... do you have any reference to this being used in story/myth?

[jez]

All the written references are post-Christian, by definition. The pagan AS peoples do not seem to have written things down, and their poetry is the main survival, as it is with all oral cultures overtaken by 'literate' invaders (I use the term advisedly, as the Christian religion changed at least as much as the physical invasions did).

But remember, the Brythonic peoples were already Christian when Old English became the dominant tongue. The words which survive in OE from Brythonic roots, such as dr´y- root words carried the Brythonic associations, not AS ones. The OE words for magician and 'good' magic workers were in OE already. The ones I have quoted here are just a few extra ones.

In OE, there are hundreds of words relating to heathen magical practice, and they carry far fewer 'wicked' connotations.

I think what you have there may well be the Christian hang-ups over the druid-craft added to the later Christian baggage which began to taint the AS magicians a few generations later when heathenry was overtaken in its turn.

--

Jez

[jez]

Nov 21, 2008, 10:09am, Jez wrote:

Dr´y-cræft

I'll add some detail, since most people don't have the background in OE
--

Herodes biswicen wæs from drýum oððe tungulcræftgum Herodes insulsus erat a magis, Mt. Kmbl. Lind. 2, 16. Ðýlæs-ðe se deófol us be dríum [MS. drian] máge lest the devil have power over us by sorcerers, Glostr. Frag. l0, 30. [Orm. drig-menn magicians: Gael. draoi, draoidh, druidh, m. a druid, magician.]

This is actually star-magic tungulcræftgum

As opposed to 'tungel-witeg' ('star-prophecy' - astrology)? Does this imply something more than that?

The reference is as I posted. They are the only references to what might have been 'druids' in any OE word-forms.

The other words all refer to heathen practices, which are many and varied

Tungel-witeg or 'star-knowledge' is not usually 'prophecy' in heathen contexts, as the star-knowledge was often/usually related to navigation.

The North Star is Tiw's star, the Guide of Travellers, and other constellations and stars have heathen associations as well. But this is not the place for that discussion...

--

My main point was that some words for (malific) magic had probably preserved a small memory of the druids from a time long before the Saxons/Jutes etc arrived and temporarily wiped out Christianity as the top-dog religion.

It would not be a surprise to find that these word-memories were only used when referring to 'bad' magic - you only have to look at the translations of the African religious words in Christian missionary reports to see that the Christianisation of the Brythons would have already demonised the druid-craft long before the arrival of heathens. And that once they got the upper hand in AS times, the OE words very quickly followed the Brythonic ones and were relegated to descriptors of wickedness

You mainly find all of these words in laws forbidding their use, or in translation of the bible.

--

Jez

[megli]

OE dry is, as various people have said, one of the extremely few Celtic borrowings in OE. It corresponds in sound exactly to Old Irish drui, 'druid', (and NOT to Welsh dryw), and thus the likelihood is that it passed into OE via Irish missionaries in Northumbria, like St Aidan, rather than coming from a time when druids were remembered in Britain - that's a false inference. (This was picked up in Thomas Charles-Edwards' magisterial 'Early Christian Ireland', for example.)


dryw is the original Welsh cognate of Irish drui (compare Welsh syw, 'sage', as the cognate of Irish sui); derwydd is probably a somewhat later formation, perphaps influenced by the 'oak' words (dar, derw) and perhaps by the plural of the Irish word drui, which was druid (confusingly for english speakers), and was pronounced 'droo-ith', with th as in 'those'.

I'm delighted by this start reference: it probably also reflects Irish missionary influence in that the Magi of the Matthew's gospel are habitually refered to as 'druid' (druids) in Old Irish, and Simon Magus is termed Simoin Drui, 'Simon Druid'.

Jez, do you mind if I use this in my book? It's directly relevant to my chapter 2 but my grasp of OE is basic.

[jez]

Be welcome.

The online AS dictionary I quoted from is the Bosworth Toller, available as a free download.

--

You'll have to google for it, as I downloaded the mac version...

--

The comments are my own, from some research I have been doing for a talk in June.

--

Jez

[megli]

Thanks!! It's actually an incredibly useful link for my research so I'm v. grateful.