The Druids, first published in 1985, remains the finest and most scrupulous record of all the fragmentary evidence we have on the Druids. 

'On no subject has fancy roamed with more licentious indulgence than on the Druids and their institutions.' So wrote an English parson in 1784. Disentangling the 'fancy' from the reality, Professor Piggott presents in this standard work a marvellously erudite and entertaining account of the Druids as they really were, and of what they have become in popular imagination.

Druidism, it seems, was the religion of the Celts of preRoman Gaul and Britain. Described by Greek and Roman writers, it fell from view with the coming of Christianity, only to be rediscovered by classical scholars of the Renaissance. The subsequent erroneous attribution to the Druids of monuments such as Stonehenge served to create the myth which endures to this day, and which has its colourful manifestation in the annual procession of white-robed Druidical priests on Salisbury Plain at the summer solstice.

One of the world's most distinguished archaeologists, Stuart Piggot was Abercromby Professor of Archaeology in the University of Edinburgh from 1946 until his retirement in 1977.


'A masterly summary of pre-Roman Celtic beliefs'  - The Daily Telegraph