#filid

"...the poet's profession is not something peaceful, their words uncontested or inconsequential in their impact upon everyday thought, nor the fate of rulers or the reputations of the worthy or unworthy alike. To be a poet is to be combative, not only in words but in ideas. To take up the poet's mantle is not to express one's self alone in a battle for authenticity amidst a banal world, it is to speak for the people, but also for the land, the legacy of the ancestors, and occasionally for the gods themselves in a struggle which has the entire world as stakes. To be a fili is to stand against a wave, and with one's words to turn those waves back when necessary."

"It is often thought...that what the medieval Irish filid had of the practices of seership, of lore-keeping, and of supernatural contact was inherited or appropriated from what would have been 'originally' druidic custom and functions. This seems unlikely for all sorts of reasons- including that the poetic and the druidic functions were separate and distinct from an early period- but this may be the case especially in Ireland, where the evidence for the religious status of druids as anything other than diviners and practitioners of certain varieties of magic is scant, and little is known in general of their status, their functions, or their teachings."