Fantasy religion and culture

[salamandraga]

So originally I was thinking about adding a few little things to help flesh out my fantasy religion while avoiding cultural appropriation. I've created the mythology and come up with the structure of the faith. My characters pray, blaspheme, and utter minced oaths. I've made holidays, festivals, and folklore. I've got holdouts still clutching to

Comments

[crossoverqueen]

If Druids are to be seen as a sort of clergy, they were reputed to be resolutely anti-literacy because literacy damages the memory.

As a pagan myself, I've never heard that sort of mindset expressed from the druids OR the other bards. In fact, a lot of us LOVE books and are quite literate. The main reason literacy wouldn't have caught on was not because they hated books, but because the bards and druids themselves were pretty much living encyclopedias and they wouldn't have thought books were necessary. Christianized bards and druids had no problem adapting to literacy; a lot of the reason we HAVE any of the mythology is because a bard/druid who kept the pagan mentality knew they had to write it down.

For example, I rarely read sheet music anymore because I learn music by ear, but I haven't abandoned sheet music and I didn't use my choir music as scratch paper when I got it. Far from damaging my memory, writing things down or reading sheet music actually helps.

Since books in antiquity and medieval times were made of expensive hides, it wouldn't have helped the general illiteracy. Making books out of paper would be even harder to do, since the Celts had laws against the cutting of certain tree species that are still vehemently held to today.

[randomstasis]

No, Sollersuk is correct; emphasis was placed on memorizing and developing mental skills, not reading skills in the Celtic bardic and Druidic traditions. That's why books weren't necessary, as you say. They did have a writing system that was not used for storing information; that was strictly verbally stored.
And literacy does in fact have an adverse impact on memory development, as evidenced in many cultures that rely on oral traditions.

You're referring to neo-pagan "Druids" which are not at all the same thing

[crossoverqueen]

Ah. My mistake on both counts--it's REALLY hard to tell between syncretized Christo-paganism, outright propaganda, and what they actually believed. Especially since the only options I have are the internet and secondhand bookstores.

And, well, I came from a heavily syncretic background (Filipino Catholicism), so a lot of stuff seems to fly under my radar in the first place.

But even the other Irish Reconstructionist pagans I've met don't seem to hold with the "anti-literacy" mentality, what with the necessity of being literate in modern society.

[randomstasis]

"what with the necessity of being literate in modern society"

Right, that's exactly what I meant by not the same thing;) modern neo-pagans start out immersed in a culture that's hugely dependent on literacy, so would never emphasize or develop those memory skills, however authentic.
And, as you say, it's almost impossible to know much about the original Druids; the Romans went to a lot of trouble to wipe out everything - unusual, in the RE, but the Druids were their most implacable opposition, soo.. the fact that their learning system was antithetical to written records is one of the few things we do know, and one of the reasons we know so little- mostly what we do have is propaganda from their Roman enemies' records, and some very late, heavily interpreted & Christianized hearsay. Well, and archeology, which is really hard to get this kind of stuff from!

I agree that's what the OP is doing too-so many assumptions based in the Judeo-Christian tradition; not just the contempt for the body and the material world; a lot of people just don't realize how hard the Church worked to marginalize women and create that second-class status, to the extent of actually denying their possession of (equal) souls. No religion that included women in the hierarchy would be able to so, let alone a female dominated one!