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The Celts believed so strongly in relying solely on the oral traditions of poetry, song, and storytelling for passing on knowledge that their Druids chose not to write down their myths and stories even though the Druids could read and write in Latin and Greek. They memorized all the knowledge and wisdom of the communal tribal groups. The ancient Celts were foremost pilgrim travellers embarked on a spiritual journey living a physical existence (one of many interconnected lifetimes) in an eternal sea of ever evolving sacred spiraling energy. Druids were the clan elders, the advisors, astronomers, diviners, judges, healers, historians, musicians, philosophers, and shamans of the Celtic tribes. To them the veils between the realms, worlds, and dimensions were gossamer thin, dancing about with the winds of cyclical change and the poetic rhythms of divinity. Many Celtic tales focus on the ability to shapeshift or to morph or phase from the shape of a human into that of an animal, bird, or fish for purposes of knowledge, initiation, training, travel, reconnaissance, or escape.
The ancient Celts believed
that it was possible to shapeshift back and forth between the human and animal
realms of existence. To them the ethers and dimensions were fluidic and
malleable. If one could cognize the underlying matrix and reason for being of
the hare, then one could become the hare at least for as long as one could hold
the focus of "hareness". Even if one did not want to experience being a
particular animal, acquiring some of the attributes of the animal might be
desirable such as the swiftness of the hare.
The magical transformation of the caterpillar to the butterfly attests to both the possibility and probability of the globally linked human being morphing into a cosmically resonant harmonic Being. Druids often acted as Shamans and Shamanism was practiced by the ancient Celts. The living waters of rivers, springs, and wells were venerated because they were believed to have both magical and curative powers. Some of the most superbly crafted and enchantingly enduring of the Celtic tales (like those about Taliesin and Fionn mac Cumhail) were richly textured with symbolism about alternate realities, animal totems, divination, drumming, ecstatic dance, journeying, healing, oracles, shamanic trance, shapeshifting, soul loss retrieval, spirit guides, transformation, and vision quests. Working within the context of the Celtic Cosmology, the Druids used their power to access the Otherworld and their knowledge of what they had personally seen to help and benefit others.
Three was a Celtic holy
number which had many different meanings beside the most traditional of the
representations, that of the three realms of land, sea, and sky...
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Celts
Celtic Ancient Civilization 
