Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-25936766-20170228175626/@comment-25936766-20170320043205

...............Mmmm......I would really like to know why both websites say the Dryads were also known as the Sidhe Draoi....fairies from celtic lore? "Fairy Dictionary" even says they originated in Celtic Countries. Maybe they were similar, but that doesn't mean they are the same.

It was once proposed that the Aos Sí were influenced by greek mythology, or even derived from it.....a theory that is nowadays deemed unlikely, and any similarities or "influence" are easily explained as both cultures sharing moral foundations, due to their shared Indo-European backgrounds.

At the same time "Nature Spirits" says the celtic Druids based their name on "Dryad"....fun fact: They didn't. "Druid" is derived from latin "Druides", and possibly "Druidae".

Aditionally, the word is cognate with the later insular Celtic words: Old Irish druí "druid, sorcerer", Old Cornish druw, Middle Welsh dryw "seer; wren"...thus the hypothetical Proto-Celtic word could've been "Dru-wid-s" (Druwides), IOW "Oak-Knower" or "Oak-Seer". The 2 elements of the word, in itself, can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European "Deru" and "Weid".

The idea of it coming from "Oak-Seer" in some way was also supported by Gaius Plinius Secundus, who in his work "Natural History" back in early ancient rome, considered the word to be derived from greek "Drys" (Oak tree) and the greek suffix "-ides".

So in the end, the Druids did not name themselves after Dryads. At most, they named themselves after similar words from which the word Dryad was likely based on in itself, but not on the Dryads themselves.

So overall, there's questionable information, to varying degrees, in both websites..........not particularly reliable.