Ellen Evert Hopman speaks about Druidism, part I

Ellen Evert Hopman, initiated Druid, priestess, elder, and author, shares with the Boston Pagan Examiner some details of her faith, and points out some differences between Druidism and Wicca. Rev. Hopman is a Celtic Reconstructionist Druid. She researches and practices “prayers, ritual, and poetry that was actually used by people for millennia,” she explains.

“In the Celtic worldview, you don’t have four directions; you have three worlds,” she says. Most Druid rituals include offerings to these three worlds. The Sky World is above us; the Earth is all around us; the World of the Ancestors is under the Earth. The Sky World is associated with fire, which “carries offerings to the Sky World via smoke.” The World of the Ancestors is associated with water; historically Druids "made offerings to lakes, ponds, streams, the ocean, and any other living body of water," she says. 

Trees are especially important to Druids, as they “span the three worlds. They have roots that go down, and branches that go up. The tree is always visualized as an intermediary between the worlds. The tree is to a Druid as a church is to a Christian.” Different areas honored different specific trees: in Gaul, Oak was the most important tree; British Druids honored the Yew; Scots, the Rowan; in Scandinavia, the Ash.

Rev. Hopman also speaks about keeping the deities of different traditions separate. Any given Druid ritual invokes deities from one tradition only. “We think it’s rude, to force Kwan Yin to hang out with Thor. As a Druid, when I go to rituals like that [with mixed traditions], I get seasick. Now I’m in Greece, then they throw in a Native American chant... We assume deities feel comfortable hanging out” with their own pantheons, she says.

In the next article, Rev. Hopman discusses which sabbats Druids celebrate, comments on Druids’ relationships with deities, and tells about her latest books.