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emony. Again, although originally there were set cer- quotes; who knows what actually happened in ancient
emonies, by the time I joined Druidism, the liturgy Greece! We knew that one was supposed to pour liba-
had become fairly fluid, and a lot was left to the discre- tions in the name of various gods, so we did that. And
tion of the presiding priest. The feasts were almost al- then in addition, I translated the opening part of the
ways celebrated in the evening the evening before the Druid service, that I just recited a ways back on the
official day. Samhain, for example, the beginning of tape, into Greek, and that s there as well.
the religious year, is an ancient festival from the Celtic
tradition. The official day of Samhain is November 1st,
Eric: You mentioned earlier having received the Parapherna-
but it actually begins at sundown the previous day. This
lia. What exactly was all that?
period was considered a day between years. It was dur-
ing that day that the forces of the underworld could
Dick: The most important part of the Paraphernalia were the
come out, and that s the origin of Hallowe en.
mimeograph masters for The Druid Chronicles, which
I believe have since vanished. We did a printing in  71,
 Us Reformed Druids were pretty tame: no burnt sac-
and I believe that was the last time they were actually
rifices, certainly not human sacrifices, although in the
used. There was another printing after that, but I haven t
Celtic tradition there is very strong evidence for them.
seen a copy of that, and I don t know whether [it] came
(Although, one always has to remember that virtually
from the same masters or not.
all of the historical information about the historical Dru-
ids came from their enemies; so a lot of the stuff you
In addition there was a red glass chalice, about four
have to take with a grain of salt.) Our celebrations chiefly
inches in diameter, I d say. That, I m pretty sure, was
involved lighting a fire; the basic service was pretty much
not original. The original chalice, I believe, was green;
the same as the ordinary weekly service, but it had ad-
the tradition is very fuzzy on that. There was a revers-
ditional parts in it to commemorate the specific day.
ible chasuble that was made I forget by whom back
in Fisher s day for Fisher himself. Fisher had a flair for
Eric: Where did you hold your meetings? Was it on the Hill
the dramatic. Everybody else wore sheets, but he wore
of Three Oaks?
black! So he stood out, with this chasuble in addition
to that. It was primarily green on one side and prima-
Dick: We had three locations that were used with some regu- rily red on the other. The tradition very early grew up
larity. I d say the majority of services were held on the that during the summer half of the year, from May
Hill of Three Oaks. I always preferred Monument Hill, until November 1st, one wore the green side out, and
although in passing I have to mention that at that time for the [other] half of the year when actually very little
Monument Hill was kept quite mowed, and it was much ever happened, except on February 1st, which was one
more manicured than it is now. The grove near the of the feast days you wore the red side out. (During
monument, the circular grove, was a very wide and the winter half of the year, also, the Waters of Life were
open place, and from it you could see a lot of the Up- the Waters of Sleep: they didn t have any scotch in
per Arb. To me, that s the heart of Druidism, and in them.) That chasuble was still around in my day, and
fact, that s where Druidism started. That s where the still around in Don Morrison s day; but I think it s
first services were held. since vanished.
Occasionally we would hold services on what we knew There was originally a staff for the Arch-Druid, but that
as Faculty Hill. If you take the drive that goes behind was lost before my time. A friend of mine gave me a
Goodhue, and go down across the creek and up on the staff, but it turned out not to be particularly useful,
other side where there s that Postage Stamp Prairie, because in getting services ready and hauling stuff to
there s a road leading off towards the east that goes by wherever the service was to be held, you needed all the
an open area that we knew as Faculty Hill. That s where hands free you could get. The staff just got in the way,
the Classics Department Picnic was usually held. The so I tended not to use it. I don t think that s part of the
Arch-Druid, if he happened to be a Classics student, tradition anymore anyway.
usually presided over that ceremony as well. That s
where the first Samhain service was held, and tradi-
Then there were three books. These were all named
tionally, in our day, that s where we usually held
because of the color of the covers they were in: The
Samhain services. But typically those were the only ser-
Black Book, which contained all the liturgy; The Green
vices that were held there.
Book, which was the book of readings that Frangquist
had put together; and The Blue Book, which was all
Nowadays there are several other spots that they use, kinds of miscellaneous archives. To this day, when we
and I know that they don t use Faculty Hill, because say  the Carleton Archives, we have to be careful about
when I walked by there with Michael Scharding, he whether we re referring to the Grove Archives, which
was surprised to discover that any services had ever was The Blue Book, or the Carleton College Archives,
been held there. And it s not called Faculty Hill any- which, after a couple of these busts in the boom-or-
more; I m not sure what they call it. It s not really a hill bust cycle of Druidism, we began to appreciate as the
anyway. But those were the three main locations. 465 Right Place to keep things!
The sort of things that were in The Blue Book were occurs about this time in England. The Christian church
letters from various places, including a note from Lee took it over and made it Candlemas. The Christian
Mauk, the chapel monitor who informed Fisher (I be- church has this wonderful way with holidays: if any-
lieve) that the Dean of Men did not look kindly on body insists on celebrating something, the general atti-
these chapel slips being submitted by Reformed Dru- tude is,  Well, if you can t beat  em, join  em; we ll just
ids, and would not count toward the chapel require- co-opt this thing and make it a holiday  which is why,
ment. There were copies of  Tonian articles, and things by the way, Samhain is not the festival of any particular
of that sort, things of vague historical interest. saint, but the festival of All saints: one saint wasn t
enough to make that properly Christian, I guess!
That was largely it.
But Oimelc was always held in the computer lab be-
cause it s damn cold on February 1st in Northfield!
Eric: These things were always passed on from one Arch-
Druid to another? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]