Category: Druidry

Friday the 13th: Fear, Foklore, and Liminality

London Druid1 Comment
Worried-looking grey cat in front of a stormy sky with lightning, next to a yellow warning sign that reads “Friday the 13th”.

The calendar tells me it’s Friday the 13th. For many, this date carries an uneasy twinge – a day of ill luck, caution, or strange occurrences. Its reputation is rooted more in modern Western superstition than in ancient tradition, but as a Druid, I always find these cultural touchstones an interesting mirror of our collective psyche.

Numbers have always held meaning for humans. Thirteen unsettles some because it falls just outside the neat symmetry of twelve – twelve months, twelve zodiac signs, twelve hours on a clock face. Thirteen feels like a step beyond the known order, a hint of wildness. In that sense, it speaks rather beautifully to those of us who walk liminal paths. Druidry, after all, often dwells in those thresholds – neither one thing nor the other, but the rich space in between.

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Whose Druidry Is It Anyway? (Part 1)

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Misty ancient woodland with twisted trees and moss-covered rocks, sunlight streaming through the branches. 
Examining the sometimes forgotten roots of modern Druidry

The other night in a Glastonbury pub, I found myself trying – unsuccessfully – to finish a sentence. I was saying that modern Druidry, particularly as practised in groups like OBOD, owes as much to the English Druid Revival as it does to Welsh cultural tradition. But before I could finish the thought, I was met with a series of good-humoured objections. Iolo Morganwg’s name was invoked almost immediately (because of course it was), and I was told – more than once – that Druidry is Welsh. Full stop. End of debate.

Except it isn’t. That version, as poetic and proudly Cymric as it may sound, leaves out half the tale. This post is the train of thought I didn’t get to finish…

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What Is Druidry?

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The first time I sat beside the Thames and felt its breath moving through me, I didn’t call it Druidry. I didn’t call it anything at all. There was no ritual, no robe, no sacred chant whispered into the wind. Just a stillness. A sense that I had stumbled into a conversation already in progress – between water and stone, current and moon, memory and presence. That moment wasn’t a beginning or an epiphany. But if I were to map my Druid path from here to there, it might be the place I’d draw the first spiral.

I’m often asked, now, what Druidry is. Not academically, not even always spiritually – just… what is it? Is it a religion? A philosophy? A kind of nature-based mindfulness? Something old and mysterious, or something new and made-up? And where do I, a queer neurodivergent man living in suburban London with a Labrador and a growing collection of fox folklore, fit into that?

This is my answer – or at least, a glimpse of it.

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