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Title: The Druid Source Book: From Earliest Times to the Present Day by John Matthews ISBN: 0-7137-2572-9 Publisher: Blandford Press Pub. Date: August, 1996 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95

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Average Customer Rating: 2.5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Well presented book
Comment: I believe the previous review is somewhat "misguided" in representing this interesting book. Yes, it does contain "outdated" and "antiquarian" sources, but the author/editor clearly states why he is using these sources and leaves it up to the reader to dwell on what is said but more importantly what is NOT being said to draw their own conclusions if there are to be any. Since there is no written source(s) from the actual time of the Druids (as far as we "know" it was all oral, passed from teacher to student), all we have to go by is what has been written or passed down, but this information and more is already in all of us if we wish to see. No book can really tell you anything absolute about any subject matter, but it can be a guide.
I would recommend this as well as any book by the author of the Foreward, Philip Carr-Gomm, and his late mentor, Ross Nichols.

Rating: 1
Summary: Outdated Scholarship, Misleading Information
Comment: John Matthews presents this as a source book for those wishing to be druids today. He gives the impression that this book will give you accurate information about what the druids were like. However, what he has collected is a number of essays and excerpts that tell you what antiquarians and occultists from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries *thought* druids were like. The scholarship is outdated, though it may be of interest to those studying the druidic revival as a sociological or historical event. If you are interested in learning what is truly known about the druids, rather than an imaginative depiction, I recommend Piggott's _The Druids_ or Miranda Green's _World of the Druids_. Those books provide all the essential information and direct you to other sources for further reading. For an insightful study of the image of druids through the ages, see Leslie Ellen Jones' _Druid, Shaman, Priest._