that came military generals and spiritual leaders,popularly known as Druids. Within Celtic societies, aside from the king himself, there were three groups which held exceptionalpower and influence. These groups were the Bards, the Vates, and the Druids. The Bards were extraordinarilytalented musicians, poets and story tellers of the tribe. They recounted orally the multitude of Celtic myths andlegends upon which their complex belief system was based. The Vates and Druids, who included diviners,soothsayers, and natural philosophers, held a very important place within the tribe. The Celts were very spiritualand turned to these groups for relief in times of strife, prosperity for the future, to keep law and order, and to grantjustice to the whole of the tribe. Bards, Vates, and Druids each had very strong ties to the natural world, and theypossessed within them the entire history of the tribe and culture, and knowledge about the intricate workings ofnature and spirituality, which they handed down to subsequent generations in the forms of traditional lore. Thusthey were vital to the process of understanding all that is essential to the Celtic way of life (Pennick, 1997).Portions of lands called tuaths were occupied by a specific group of families, or a deirbhfine, who hadequal ownership of the land. Generally the deirbhfines consisted of five generations of a male lineage and all of itsrelations, including the male offspring of a father, his brothers, his uncles, and so on, all equally sharing everyaspect of life, including belongings, work, food, and housing. Sometimes several tuaths would align themselves,forming a local kingdom, and they in turn would be ruled by an over-king. When several local kingdoms formedan alliance, they would be ruled by a provincial king (Lavin, 1999). Despite the well-defined class system adopted by the Celts, high status was not always reserved to those ofnoble lineage. Landless members of society...
