I remember reading a series about a druid who somehow survived the romans eradicating druids in the past and living for 2.000 years with the help of a special tea. He had an animal companion, a big hound, who had his priorities straight: bacon and poodles. The druid could telepathically communicate with his hound to be informed of the life-threatening situations, such as missing out on the mandatory breakfast sausage. Or lunch.
The whole book was very witty, but reading the thoughts of the hound was probably the best part of it.
Basically nothing much happened for 2.000 years while the druid was hiding but with the beginning of the first book he goes out of hiding and starts to fight some of the gods who have been searching for him for the last 2.000 years.
It starts with old Irish gods and later goes on to Norse gods, Greek gods, Roman gods, Japanese gods, ... Basically he gets drawn into a war between different pantheons where the bad guys from each pantheon were trying to recruit other bad guys and the gods couldn't do anything because they weren't allowed to do anything out of the ordinary according to the religion to which they belonged. Divine politics.
Later he got a female apprentice and tried to make her a druid. This probably happened around book 3 or 4. I've read maybe 5 books and there was supposed to be a total of around 10 books. They were just getting released when I was still reading the series so it can't be much older than a few years.
Random stuff I still remember:
- the druid had an amulet with magical powers
- he could shapeshift into animals
- he preferred not to fight, but still ended up in lots of fights in every book
- the druid could use magic to influence the nature around him
- he could "talk" to the elements by touching the earth and trying to communicate via emotions
- basically all supernatural creatures were found throughout the series: werewolves, vampires, kitsune, ...
I loved the series, but I stopped reading it when there were no newer books, though I know that there were still some books supposed to be written. Can you help me remember the name of the series so that I can continue reading it? Now I am off for some bacon...