Several years ago, we embarked on a threefold series of youth courses on Druidism. The Bardic Youth Course, which was first launched in 2006, began the story of Taliesin the Bard who takes the student on a journey of Druid wisdom and knowledge. In 2012, this story was continued in the Ovate Youth Course. Today, Taliesin's story will finally be completed with the third and final course of this trilogy: the Druid Youth Course.
The Druid Youth Course draws from the knowledge and wisdom already obtained in the previous two courses, and adds new knowledge and wisdom to it. The student becomes more familiar with the Celtic Otherworld through myths and meditations, and with the importance of the Ancestors. This course will also help the student with the practicalities of setting up his or her personal Druid Altar, and performing simple (seasonal) rituals.
The course is, as of today, available on the Grove of Dana, our Online Druid College. In addition, it is also available as printed book which can be purchased at our online bookshop:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/new-order-of-druids/the-roots-of-the-forest/paperback/product-24163837.html
The Druid Youth Course is available for free for all NOD members. While it is primarily aimed at a younger audience, there are no age limits for enrolling. However, the minimum age is 13 (unless the laws in your country dictate otherwise), and students younger than 13 need to provide a parental approval slip before beginning the course.
It should be noted that you can only enrol in the Druid Youth Course, if you have completed the Bardic Youth Course and Ovate Youth Course first. It is not possible to skip courses in the series of youth courses, and there is no placement exam. All these courses are also free, and also come with mentor guidance.
If you had already read the books of the Bardic and Ovate Youth courses, and you can't wait to find out how the story unfolds, you can already purchase the book from our online store. You can buy our course books without having to enrol in the course, however the course assignments are not listed in the printed books.
You can find all the books of the youth courses here:
1. BARDIC YOUTH COURSE: ENTERING THE FOREST
2. OVATE YOUTH COURSE: WALKING WITH TREES
3. DRUID YOUTH COURSE: THE ROOTS OF THE FOREST
The first two books are also available in Dutch ("Leerling van het Woud" & "Wandelen met Bomen"). The Druid Youth Course will probably become available in Dutch next year.
You can find all currently available course books at our bookshop at this link: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/neworderofdruids
On an additional note, we would like to point out that the youth courses have recently been revised. This means that we have done some slight layout improvements and filtered out some spelling errors; the contents of the course largely remains unchanged. If you are currently enrolled in any of the youth courses, we advise to re-download your course package, to have the latest version of your course handbook. If you already had purchased the printed book, you don't need to buy it again in order to be able to take the course. This applies to the Bardic Youth Course (both English and Dutch) and the Ovate Youth Course (only English).