Modern Druids honour three kinds of ancestors, those of blood, of place and of tradition. In some ways, ancestors of tradition are the most interesting because these are the ancestors we choose. We each get to decide whose ideas to take forward. We pick our influences and sources of inspiration, and decide who we remember and honour. Some of us will have chosen Druidic figures as ancestors. Druids also tend to choose thinkers, philosophers, activists, bards and teachers of all kinds. If anyone wants to talk about their chosen ancestors in the comments, that would be most welcome.
One of my more important ancestors of tradition was a chap called Dave James. He taught me stagecraft and MCing, and from him I learned a great deal about running community spaces. He devoted a lot of effort to building people’s skills, turning nervous people into confident performers. He taught quite a few people to MC, and he departed this world leaving a legacy of ideas. My son and I have been very deliberate about carrying on many of his ways of working. Although James was quite young when he last saw Dave, the influence has been profound. As he grows into his own skills, his style is discernibly closer to Dave than mine is. I have no doubt this would have delighted Dave, who greatly encouraged my lad as a young performer.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how a person gets to be an ancestor of tradition. I currently have three young people I am mentoring to run spaces, and who I hope will take on an assortment of things I have been doing. Passing things on means being willing to make yourself expendable. It can mean relinquishing roles to let other people have a go. The person who wants to be powerful and important will find this difficult. The irony here amuses me, because it is the people who do not make it all about them who have the most scope to become ancestors of tradition.
Where you get a cult of the individual, what exists around them tends to falter if they leave or die. We don’t get traditions from people following in the wake of greatness carrying on in someone else’s name. By definition, traditions have to be bigger than one person. When you help people do what they want to do, there is more chance some of your ideas will live on in their work. The more dictatorial a person is, the more likely rebellion and rejection will follow, as they get replaced by the next person who wants to be at the centre of a cult of personality.
I think OBOD is a good example of an organisation working to create tradition and longevity. We’ve seen a number of people who worked key roles for a long time hand over smoothly to new people taking up the work. I’m not going to name anyone whose druidic enterprise did not outlive their active leadership in any significant way, but if you’ve been on the Druid scene for a while you will have encountered some of this.
Coming from a folk background, I have a longstanding interest in tradition. Real traditions belong to communities, not individuals. Tradition is what we share, bigger than any one of us. To be a folk person is to be a few stitches in a great tapestry connecting past and future. This is a good antidote to self-importance and illusions of grandeur. We are all of us small beings with elements of greatness, and there is significance in being a link in a chain.
For the long term, the solid links in the chain of tradition are far more important than the self-aggrandising folk who often leave only dead ends behind them. ChristopherBlackwell
on June 29, 2026, 8:24 pm