W ho are the gods in Druidry? This is a vast question with many different levels of interpretation. I will offer my own view here, on what makes a god (when I use the term god, I am referring to deity of any gender, both and none), how we can honour the gods in our lives and create a relationship with deity that provides us with awen. If you are an atheist or prefer to not work with the gods, then please feel free to proceed to the next chapter. I will recount my own experiences with deity, in all shapes and forms, and encourage you to seek out your own should you so wish.
First let’s define what is a god. In Druidry, we work with the ancestors and the spirits of place and these can often become interwoven with concepts of deity, their stories, and their form. As a Hedge Druid, I can make up my own mind about what constitutes deity and what does not, based on both research and experience. For me, deity can be several things. It can be a collective energy of a place in nature. It can also be a collective energy of human nature, such as love, anger, compassion, or time. I prefer to work with a less anthropocentric view toward deity, but when viewing concepts such as love or anger as deity, it can be very illuminating. Deity can also be the collective energy of ancestral stories, where we find named gods in the old tales, such as Brighid or Lugh, Taranis, or Nemetona.
Examples of the collective energy of a place in nature would be the god of the heath upon which I walk and work or the god of the North Sea that rolls up and down the coastline where I live. Some of these deities are named and some are not. The god of the heathland has no name or has not shared one with me. The god of the North Sea is sometimes known as Nehalennia, a female deity depicted on altars found in the Netherlands, just across the water from where I live on the Suffolk coast. Sometimes the North Sea is just the North Sea with all its murky waters and shallow depths, an ancient land bridge to the continent lying beneath its waves. When a deity is the collective energy of a place in nature, it is the sum total of all the parts. The parts may consist of the spirits of place (those who live there: animal, vegetable, mineral), the ancestors (again, animal, vegetable, or mineral), beings and Fair Folk from the Otherworld, and more. (More on these subjects in subsequent chapters.)
Some collective energies of human nature can be seen as deity in order to have a better relationship with that energy. Sometimes putting some specifications on an energy allows us to better relate to it. With nature, it’s often easier to communicate to an anthropomorphised deity of the sun seen as a shining male god brandishing a spear of light than it is to honour a huge ball of gas. We can apply that as well to the collective energy of human nature and so we may see a version of “Father Time” when we work with the collective energy or the concept of time. There are anthropomorphised gods of love, war, fertility, and more, which help us to relate to these somewhat abstract concepts. For some, there is no need to humanise this energy and simply see it as a flow or current that runs through humanity accessing it, harnessing it, or working with it.
The named gods of mythology and folklore are, combined, the collective energy of ancestral stories, tales that have been passed down from generation to generation, shared among tribes and peoples. This energy might originally have started as a collective energy of nature or human nature and become something that now represents the concept—to be passed down along the lineage of human beings and encompassing a broad spectrum of associations. Brighid may have once started as a goddess of fire or of sacred springs or of healing and has since developed into an anthropomorphised goddess who shares all these attributes and more, with her own stories of how she came about with her powers and of bestowing them upon others. These tales are told, spread from tribe to tribe, eventually creating a deity that is recognised widely, but perhaps having different names. Brighid is also known as Brig, Brigantia, Brigit, Brighde, Bride, Braint, Ffraint, and more. They may have taken on many attributes; Brighid is the goddess of poets, healers, blacksmiths, the season of spring, sovereignty, fire, sacred wells, and more.
So why do we need or create gods of any specification?
As stated earlier, it is often easier to connect with an abstract energy or concept when we deify and anthropomorphise it. In doing so, we can talk to it, worship it, and work with the energy. It becomes personal. When we correlate a deity with a gender, we are expanding this notion even further and so the goddess Rhiannon might become an important deity for all women to consider—or Morrigan or Andraste. We might find a strong kinship with their stories, tales that resonate and reflect our own lives and experiences back to us, perhaps even providing us with guidance on how to get through the difficult times or how to receive the awen, how to live life fully, and how to die honourably.
There are many different forms of incorporating deity into Druid practice. Many Druids are pantheists, where the entirety of the universe is a connected manifestation of deity. We also have polytheism, which is the veneration of more than one deity or many deities, perhaps in a pantheon. Many Druids would advise working in a single pantheon, if one is to work with more than one deity, in order to keep the energy clear. Some deities from differing pantheons might not work very well together—then again, they just might. It worked for the Romans, who incorporated many British deities into their pantheon. When in Rome … or in Britain … or Gaul …
Most Druids also work with deities associated with Celtic religion and spirituality, although some have incorporated other deities. To each their own. Some examples of deity found in the Druid tradition are listed below:
Irish Deities
• Brighid—goddess of healing, poetry, smithcraft, fire, sacred wells, sovereignty
• Lugh—a many-skilled god, associated with the festival Lughnasadh, where he honours his mother, Tailtiu
• Danu—mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann, associated with water
• Morrigan—The Great Queen, goddess of battle and regeneration
• Manannán mac Lir—god of the sea and guardian of the Otherworld
• Dagda—god of fertility, magic, renewal
• Tailtiu—goddess of agriculture, fertility, harvest
Welsh Deities
• Arianrhod—Lady of the Silver Wheel, of the starry heavens
• 
—god of the sea
• Gwyn Ap Nudd—ruler of the Otherworld, Annwn, and King of the Faeries or the Tylwyth Teg
• Blodeuwedd—goddess of transformation, liberation
• Ceridwen—goddess of rebirth, initiation, and inspiration
• Gofannon—god of smithcraft
Gaulish and Brythonic Deities
• Belenus—god of the sun, light
• Cernnunos—lord of wild animals, the Underworld
• Andraste—goddess of victory, the indominatable one
• Coventina—goddess of wells and springs
• Taranis—god of thunder
• Nodens—god of healing, the sea, and hunting and dogs
• Epona—goddess of fertility and all equine
• Nemetona—goddess of the sacred grove
This is but a short list of the many deities that can be found in the Druid tradition. The descriptions are only a part of the whole of each deity; they are much more than their popular associations. Deity is something to be experienced and not merely called upon due to his or her aspects or associations. When we work with deity, we must first establish a relationship. No one likes to be called up out of the blue by strangers, asking for this or that. No one likes to be known as just having one or two skills and that’s all they’re good for. No one likes to be pigeon-holed. We must truly come to learn all that we can about a deity and then reach out in order to experience fully. If we’re very lucky, a deity might choose to work with us, but it is still up to us to find out all about them, to do the work and not just know them in name only.
Later in this book, we will design a ritual to dedicate yourself to a particular deity, should you so wish, working with them for however long a period. We will also meet in inner journeys with certain gods such as Gwynn ap Nudd, Herne, and Arianrhod. It is important that you have a personal connection with deity before choosing to dedicate yourself to a particular god or goddess. Perhaps some of these gods may become part of your life, perhaps not. Deity is an extremely personal experience and though you may find many similarities between your experience and that of others, you will also find differences. Those differences must be respected in your experience and in that of others. Do not put down someone else’s experience because it does not match yours, for who is to say who is right and who is wrong? Only the gods themselves can determine that, and it may be that they choose to present themselves differently to each individual.
She prays by the light of the moon to her goddess, Andraste, lady of the land upon which she lives. She feels her energy in the moonlight, feels her breath upon the cold winter’s breeze. An owl hoots in the ash tree and a dog barks once in the darkness. She feels the energy of her goddess all around her, enchanting her soul, filling her with awen. She knows she has a duty to this land, to her goddess, and she recites a blessing chant upon the pool of water before her, which at other times doubles as a bird bath. She gazes into the water and sees aspects of her goddess appear: the flames of a fire, the shoreline of the beach, the sandy heath and heather-laden countryside, the swift movement of the adder, the utter stillness of the hare. She calls in her mind to her goddess and connects to her deeply, allowing her to imbue her spirit and her work with her blessing. When she is done, the Hedge Druid bows deeply to the full moon, honouring her for all that she is.