Cult of the Wqrror Heo
Warfare in various forms was central to Celtic society, and classical historians have labeled the Celts a warlike people. In the first century AD the Roman chronicler Strabo described the Gauls as warlike the whole nation is war mad, both high-spirited and ready for battle. Within Celtic culture the warrior was revered, and together with druids and bards he held a unique place in Celtic myth. Previous page A Celtic fortified center Oppidum under attack from another Celtic tribe. It was...
Introduction identifying the problems
The problems of identifying, dating and explaining the La Tene in Ireland are even more fundamental than for Britain. First of all, it would not be pure casuistry to ask how far the types representative of the Irish La Tene are in fact La Tene at all. Types such as Y-pendants are not part of the La Tene repertory in Continental Europe, and the one type that is ubiquitous in great numbers in Continental Europe, the safety-pin brooch, is represented in Ireland by barely thirty examples. A second...
The Evolution of the Celtic Cross
7V t the end of the fourth century, the mission of St Ninian to the people who lived north of the Roman province of Britain led JL to the foundation of the first Christian church in Caledonia. This was the so-called Candida Casa White House at Whithorn in Galloway. In the fifth and sixth centuries, the Candida Casa was a centre of Christian missionary activity in northern Britain and Ireland. St Enda, founder of the early monastery at Killeany on the Aran island of Inishmore, was an alumnus of...
Hunting And Wild Animals
There is a strong hint in the vernacular literature of a close correlation between hunter hunted and the divine world. Hunted animals were sometimes perceived as messengers of the Otherworld powers, the means of bringing living humans, either directly or indirectly, to the underworld. The hunted creature itself may be enchanted or possess magical qualities it may be a transformed human or a god in zoomorphic form. Tales of the hunt involve, above all, the wild pig or boar and the stag. In...
Branwen
aunt, Uirne. One day the dog returned from hunting with Sadb, a beautiful woman who was under the spell of a druid and appeared in the form of a young doe. The druid's enchantment was broken when Fionn and Sadb fell in love. Later, Sadb was lured back into the forest and resumed the form of a doe. In some versions of the tale, Bran the hound discovered the couple's child in the forest and brought the infant oisiN back to Fionn. Bran 3 An Irish hero. The son of Febail, Bran journeyed to an...
Celtic Fire
back to life unless they have been decapitated. The kitchen servant Gwion Bach became the all-seeing poet Taliesin when he accidentally sampled the magic potion brewed in Ceridwen's cauldron. Gundestrup Cauldron An ornate silver cauldron was found in Gundestrup, Denmark in 1880. Originally gilded, it depicts Celtic gods, goddesses, and mythological scenes. The cauldron may have been made in Gaul, but its origin and its age are not known for certain. The decorations on the Gundestrup Cauldron...
Brown Bull Of Ulster
ity, cattle, crops, and healing. She is also a goddess of poetry, worshiped by poets. She may even be a mother goddess. One side of her face is lovely while the other is ugly. Brigit was the daughter of the father god Dagda. She mated with Bres the Beautiful to produce a son, Ruadan. She had two lesser-known sisters. Both were also named Brigit. One was a physician and one was a Smith. The two minor sisters are probably simply other aspects of the dominant Brigit. Taken together, the three...
Branwen 1
of Welsh tales collected in the Middle Ages, she married an Irish king, but his subjects disliked having a foreign queen. As a result, she was treated poorly. She suffered miserably for three years while training a bird to speak. She then sent the bird to alert her brother, the giant king of Britain, Bendigeidfran also known as Bran 1 the Blessed , of her fate. The news angered him so much that he waded across the ocean to her rescue. A war then began between Britain and Ireland. In some...
The Torc
The most characteristic artefact of Celtic culture is another round structure, the tore, which is literally a binding of metal. Originating in the fifth century bce during the La Tenc period, the tore is essentially a body ornament made of precious metal in the form of a curved rod with identical free ends that face one another, almost touching. In effect, tores are incomplete circles. Worn on the neck or arm, they must be flexible enough to enable the wearer to put them on and take them off,...
FERTILITY GODDESSES See mother goddesses
Fiachra In Irish myth, one of the unfortunate children of Lir 2 , a member of the Tuatha De Danann. Fiachra and her three siblings were turned into swans by their father's second wife, their jealous stepmother who was also their aunt, AiFE 2 . The children remained swans for 900 years until the curse was broken by the marriage of a man from the North and a woman from the South. FlACHU MAC Fir FhEBE An Ulster hero who, along with Fergus, fought with Queen Medb of Connacht against his own...
Torrs and its affinities
This period of innovation and experimentation culminated by the third century in the mature phase of insular Celtic art, and the production of a number of high-status pieces of parade armour and related ceremonial or symbolic metal-work. Foremost in this group are the Torrs pony-cap and horns, the Witham shield and the Wandsworth circular shield boss, all of which display a combination of repouss relief ornament and engraved, two-dimensional designs, and which have generally been regarded since...
Red Man of All Knowledge Celtic god
who helps the hero Diarmait in the tale of the Loathly Lady. The Red Man is a messenger, prophet, and wise man from Land Under Wave, a place located in the Otherworld. He helps Diarmait in his quest to find the cup of healing water to cure the Loathly Lady, who is really a fairy princess. He also warns Diarmait of what will happen once the lady is cured, advising him to refuse all gifts except for the offer of a ride home on an enchanted ship. RHIANNON Welsh princess, wife of king Pwyll and...
DERMOT See Diarmait
DESTRUCTIONS One of the story types found in Celtic myth. The tales describe the destruction of a building, often by fire. The best known of this literary form is The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel. In that story, a king's failure to follow his sacred vows result in his death. DlAN A Fianna chieftain who traveled to the Otherworld and back. Upon returning, he told his friends that he would rather be a slave of the Fianna than a ruler in the Otherworld. Another Dian was one of the three sons...
The CeLtic Identify
Homer. Hesiod. and Herodotus were among the first writers to give the Celtic peoples an identity. Who were the Celts From the first reeorded links between the Mediterranean world and Celtic civilization the Celts have exuded an element of mystery. The term Celtic itself has obscure origins, and several theories have been proposed about where it came from. Apart from the archaeological evidence, everything we know about the Celts camc from the Creeks and Romans. Known as the Keltoi or Calatai by...
Cymraeg Cymric A dialect of the Celtic
language that was spoken in Wales and also used a unique alphabet. The Celtic language evolved from the Indo-European languages, which were the basis for all languages spoken in Europe, India, Persia, and some parts of Asia. As the Celts spread out through Europe and Great Britain, they began to pronounce words differently or use different terms for the same ideas. Under British rule, Cymraeg was discarded or outlawed in favor of the English language. Today, because of renewed interest in...
The Structure Of Celtic Christianity
The Celtic church had four grades of brethren, reflecting the quaternary structure of the land of Ireland, the symbolic image of wholeness. At the lowest level were the Juniores Alumni, students who served above them, the Operarii, lay brothers, who did the manual labour above them, the Seniores, elders, dedicated to prayer and teaching and over the whole community ruled the head, Abba Pater or Pater Spiritualis, who lived apart from the others on higher ground. The four circles inherent in the...
Personal Symbols In Ancient Europe
There are historic links between the Celts and the Scythians, and Scythian elements appear in the early Celtic art of the La Tene period. During the same period, aristocratic Thracian women were being tattooed. Thracian priestesses of Dionysos are shown with their tattoos on fifth-century bce Greek vases. Later, the sword-wielding woman attacking the bull on the base of the Celtic-influenced Gundestrup Cauldron first century bce is depicted with tattoos similar to those of Thracian priestesses....
The Amazons were tribe
of female warriors, supposedly descended from RES, the Greek war god, and the naiad Harmonia Their home was situated beyond the Black Sea. It is thought that their name refers ro their breast less condition, for Amazons voluntarily removed their right breasts in order that the 'might more easily draw a bow. The ancient Greeks believed these fierce warriors periodically mated with the men from another Eribe, afterwards rearing their female children but discarding or maiming all the males. During...
General patterns
Knotwork Interlace- The pattern shows the interconnection of life and mankind's place within the universe. For instance, the Trinity knot represents the Holy Trinity or the Triple Gods Goddesses of the ancient Celts and the Lover's Knot represents the concept of two become one resembles intertwined infinity symbols . Spirals- Spirals shows the accomplishment of an individual to balance his inner and outer self and reflects on his personal spirit. The pattern also symbolizes the Cosmos, Heavens...
England
Maiden Castle, near Dorchester, Dorset The largest Iron Age hill-fort in Britain, the imposing fortifications of Maiden Castle were excavated during the 1930s and 1980s. The site is now maintained by English Heritage. Maiden Castle is open throughout the year, and a self-guided trail is provided. Website Danebury, near Stockbridge, Hampshire The Iron Age hill-fort of Danebury was extensively excavated over some 20 years, making it the most closely studied hill-fort site in Britain. Danebury is...
Towers in the north
While reconstruction drawings can give some sense of how impressive the timber roundhouses might once have been, it is perhaps only with the broch towers of the north and west that we can gain a real sense of the visual impact of such buildings 18 Vie broch lower of Mousa in Shetland is one of the best preserved prehistoric buildings in Britain, standing close to its original height at around 13m tall. and of the central role of the roundhouse in Iron Age life. Yet brochs and duns have tended...
Bronze Age houses in the Sutherland glens
The most common prehistoric houses visible in the landscape today are hut circles. This rather antiquated term encompasses a wide variety of architectural forms that need share little more than a tendency to decay into a ring-shaped earthen bank. Many were originally imposing and elaborate buildings to which the rather disparaging term 'hut' does little justice. These roundhouses are among the most common prehistoric remains in the Scottish landscape, with more than 2000 known in Sutherland...
Fairy Mounds
for all she gives, this fairy lives off of and drains the life force of her human lover, who remains her slave until he can find someone else to take his place. The Irish leipreachain, or lepracaun a name which means shoemaker , is another solitary fairy who sometimes plots mischief against humans they are also known as Cluricauns a drunk leprechaun and Far Darrig red man or practical joker . Yeats describes leipreachains as withered, old, and solitary and badly dressed, slouching, jeering,...
Further Reading
adomnan alba colum cille constantine curetan donnan eilean i hagiography kentigern printing Boyle, Analecta Bollandiana 94.95 106 Carey, Studies in Irish Hagiography 49 62 Galbraith, 'The Sources of the Aberdeen Breviary' Herbert amp Riain, Betha Adamnain 36 41 Macfarlane, William Elphinstone and the Kingdom of Scotland 1431 1514 231 46 Macquarrie, Innes Review 37.3 24 Macquarrie, Records of the Scottish Church History Society 26.31 54 Macquarrie, Saints of Scotland esp. 6 10. Aberffraw was the...
Milesians
he tricked Eochaid into letting her go. Either way, Eochaid and his men rescued Etain and brought her back home again. Milesians The final wave of invaders of Ireland, as described in the Lebcjr GabAla Book of Invasions . They were led by MiL Espaine, who wanted to avenge the death of his uncle, Ith. Mil, for whom the group was named, did not survive the journey. When Mil's sons and followers arrived in Ireland, they were greeted by Banba, Eriu, and Fodla. Each of the three beautiful goddesses...
Methods and use of cavalry forces
The Celts used cavalry units in a number of ways they could act as advance or reconnoitring troops they guarded marching columns they challenged and taunted they ambushed foraging Romans they cut off supplies and in pitched battles, they harried and outflanked. A favourite method of fighting was to charge, hurl javelins and then dismount to fight hand to hand. Cavalry operate best in open country Tacitus describes Celtic cavalry tactics in wooded areas of Britain, where troops dismounted and...
Enchantment And Shapechanging
We have discussed the way in which certain kinds of animal were depicted and perceived in the early literature. But underpinning any analysis of the roles different beasts could play are two basic principles concerning animals in general. The first is the concept of the enchanted creature, which possesses qualities beyond its natural limits the properties of human speech or wisdom, or the ability to communicate with the world of the supernatural. The second, related, idea is that of...
Cincinnatus was a roman
hero who was instrumental in saving the early Republic In 458 BC, Rome was in danger of being destroyed by the Aequi, a neighbouring Italian tribe. To defeat this threat, the Senate voted to appoint Cmcmnatus as dictator, a temporar ' office vested with unlimited powers A deputation was sent to his small farm, which was the smallest landholding allowed to qualify for citizenship. The senators found Cmcmnatus at work tending his crops He was told of the Senate's decision and was saluted as...
Celtic ethnicity Celtic languages and Celtic art
The first questions that should be addressed in a book that incorporates the phrase 'Celtic art' in its title are whether the term 'Celtic' is justified, and in what sense is it being applied Chapman 1992 cast doubt on the belief that Celts in Iron Age Europe existed as an ethnic group at all. Collis 2003 was more qualified in his critique, noting that Caesar's identification of the inhabitants of his third part of Gaul, who were known as 'Celtae in their own language, but Galli in ours' de...
spiral chains
The spiral is probably the most characteristic and distinctive symbol of the Celtic style. In this chapter, you will learn how to create spiral units to form beautiful, hand-made chains that reflect the timeless, swirling patterns of the ancient craftsmen. Experiment with using other gauges and types of wire than those suggested here you will be surprised at how different the results can look The spiral is perhaps the most identifiable sliape of Celtic culture and this chain is the epitome of...
Diarmait
Her father, wanting only to please the girl, told her that such a man lived nearby. He was NoisE, the nephew of Conchobar. His hair was as black as a raven's feathers, his skin was as white as snow, and his cheeks were flushed red as newly spilled blood. Deirdre pined for this man whom she had never met. She became so melancholy that her father agreed to arrange a meeting. The young man and the maiden fell in love instantly. Recognizing Deirdre as the infant who had been promised to his uncle...
Pliers and cutters
You will need a good pair of wire cutters and two or three kinds of pliers. There are three types of pliers used in making wire jewelry round-nose, flat-nose, and chain-nose although, to get started, round-and flat-nose ore the most essential. It is well worth investing in good-quality versions. Round-nose pliers have tapered shafts, around which you bend the wire so they ore ideal for Chain-nose piiers ore similar to flat-nose pliers, but have tapered ends. They are useful for holding very...
Expressions of ethnicity
We might expect the emergence of tribal units to be accompanied by some material expression of tribal or ethnic identity. However, in the early part of our period the surviving artefacts suggest precisely the opposite. During the Later Bronze Age. the status-conscious elites flaunted elaborate bronzes that bore striking similarities to those of their peers elsewhere in Europe. The appeal of these items probably lay as much in their exotic associations as in the time lavished on their...
Conclusions
To the question 'can we meaningfully talk about Celtic art ', we have answered in the affirmative, but not simply as careless shorthand for La Tene art. It is possible to argue from the documentary record of ancient historians and geographers that there were people known to the classical world as Celts, and even people who regarded themselves as Celts. Furthermore, the evidence of personal and place-names, admittedly in many cases known from Roman period sources, allows us to infer, in the...
Bibliography
Armit, Ian Towers in the North The Broclis of Scotland Stroud, Gloucestershire Tempus Publishing, 2003 Armit, Ian Celtic Scotland London B.T. Batsford for Historic Scotland, 2005 Barrett, J.C. et al., Cadbury Castle, Somerset London B.T. Batsford for English Heritage, 2001 Bradley, R. and Ellison, A. Rams Hill - British Archaeological Reports No. 19 Oxford Archaeopress, 1975 Chadwick, Nora and Cunliffe, Barry The Celts A Penguin History London Penguin, 1997 Cunliffe, Barry and Miles, David...
Motif style and meaning
The conventional approach to archaeological classification, the recognition of types and type-sequences, study of their recurrent associations, and the plotting of spatial distributions of key types, has been criticized over the past generation as descriptive rather than explanatory or interpretative. Accepting that analysis is not an end in itself but a means of distilling order from the mass of data available as an essential preliminary to interpretation, this study of Celtic art will retain...
Sualtam mac Roich Husband of Deichtine and foster father of Cuchulainn
Sucellus SUCELLUS, The God Striker A Gaulish god whose function is unclear. He carried a large hammer. He was possibly a king of the gods or a god of the dead. The cup or purse he carried could mean that he was a fertility god or a god of wealth and well-being. His consort was the water goddess Nantosuelta. Sulis A Gaulish goddess of healing and fertility. sun gods and sun goddesses The male and female deities often regional connected with the Sun. Male figures included Belenus and Beli Mawr....
INNER BOTTOM RIGHT Kym
30 x 30 Minimum Complete Pattern 58 x 58 30 x 30 Minimum Complete Pattern 58 x 58 30 x 30 Minimum Complete Pattern 58 x 58 30 x 30 Minimum Complete Pattern 58 x 58 30 x 30 Minimum Complete Pattern 58 x 58 30 x 30 Minimum Complete Pattern 58 x 58
Yeats William Butler Famous Irish POET
and dramatist leader of the nineteenth-century renewal of Celtic and traditional Irish culture. Yeats's poems, plays, and books reflected his deep love of Ireland and its myths. His life's work gained him the Noble Prize for literature in 1923 and deeply influenced a renewal of worldwide interest in Celtic culture. Born in Dublin in 1865, Yeats was just a baby when his family returned to London. He spent many of his boyhood summers at his grandparent's home in County Sligo, Ireland. He was not...
Creating Key Borders
Now we come to probably the most common use of key patterns - narrow borders. These are to be found in just about every Celtic manuscript in existence, and most likely in the hundreds that have been destroyed or lost. Even the most primitive of the manuscripts - such as the Book of Deer - which contain little of the decoration we think of as Celtic, still have key pattern borders. These make the greatest use of the Celtic edging, as they consist of little other than top and bottom edges put...
Sheep 1
Less common than pigs, sheep none the less feature in the meat-offerings and ritual banquets of Celtic shrines and graves. Sheep seem to have been treated similarly to pigs, in that again the preference was for young beasts. Lambs of 3 or 4 months old were favoured at Gournay, but only the shoulder and leg portions were brought into the sanctuary and consumed. At Mirebeau, sheep were slaughtered at 2 years old, as they attained adulthood this would be the optimum time for killing, in that the...
Tiibal interaction
In view of the territoriality and social fragmentation that seems to characterize the middle centuries of the first millennium BC, the lack of evidence for inter-tribal contact prior to the Roman incursions conies as little surprise. Steatite, found only in Shetland, was transported to Orkney and to a few sites on the west coast, but apparently not in any significant quantities. Similarly, iron ore must have been traded to some extent, as presumably was timber for the construction of monumental...
CagLc waLL plAque
he eagle is associated with strength and wisdom, it appears many times in illuminated manuscripts as an evangelist symbol for St ohn. although in The Book of Durroiv the eagle is used to represent Si Mark. In Durrow. the eagle Is very stylized, having a perfectly round head and eye facing right, with a forward facing body. In The Hook of Kelts the eagle appears much more frequently, giving the opportunity for a far greater variety of designs. Some eagles are depicted with four wings, and one...
Selection Consumption And Ritual Feasting
An interesting aspect of animal-sacrifice concerns the criteria of selection. In many religions, the appearance, species, sex and age of beasts for sacrifice are important factors determining choice. Appearance is something we cannot generally trace archaeologically. That it may have mattered is implied by Pliny's comment in his Natural History22 that the two bulls chosen for sacrifice by the Druids on the occasion of the mistletoe festival on the sixth day of the moon were white. The Tables of...
Caesars Commentaries on the Gallic War to the
Proper Names in Gallic inscriptions on stone or from the various potteries on terra-cotta, to the 20 or so words in the Vienna Gaulish-Latin Glossary including avallo apple , to a few others recorded in ancient writers both Latin and Greek, and to such loan-words as we have just seen in Gallo-Latin, Gaulish deserves a place in our present study and will be called on whenever it has something to contribute Having divided the Celtic family of six into two equal parts according to their treatment...
origins of Celtic knotworks
The Celtic knots were the creation of Celts in the early Celtic Church who resided mainly in Ireland. Around AD 450, Christian Celtic artwork was influenced by pagan Celtic sources which incorporated an additional knotwork category of life form motifs. The Celtic knots then spread to the Scottish Highlands and Europe via missionary expeditions. This traditional culture of knotworks in manuscript painting was passed down orally with non-existent written records. Many groups of people began to...
rDdiichtha welsh
M. my heer W. fy nhir of motherland ii thy Irish, Gaelic, Manx aspirate Welsh, Cornish, Breton soften e.g. thy house iii his as for thy e.g. his dog iv her Goidelic leaves consonants unchanged Brythonic aspirates e.g. her dog Before a vowel, however, a her requires the insertion of H, except in Cornish. In Breton it is added to the pronoun e.g. her soul. W. ei henaid B. heh ene but C. hy enef. v our your their In Irish all eclipse in Gaelic, our and your,though the same words as the Irish ar,...
The Natural World Of The Celts
Modern urban dwellers are cushioned, to an extent, from the rhythm of the seasons, from the immediate effects of good or poor harvests and of the health and fertility of flocks and herds. But in any pre-industrial and essentially rural society, the association of communities with the natural environment and their dependence on it are both close and direct. The world of the Celts was no exception. The single farm or small nucleated settlement was the home of many Celtic peoples, and even the...
Brigit
promised, Bricriu left the hall before the start of the great feast. But before departing, he turned and told the guests that they should decide among themselves who deserved the champion's portion. Bricriu and his wife then crept up into a balcony to watch and enjoy the chaos. As expected, each of the three Ulstermen announced his claim to the champion's portion. The argument soon became a fistfight. A wise Ulsterman, Sencha mac Ailella, ended the fight by suggesting that each guest get an...
Kzszszszsz
b, c, and d Different Methods of Shading a . r Surface Pattern, produced by repeating 6 . A few new patterns see Pig. 6 may be produced by placing the chevron with the point of the V facing to the right or left, thus, lt or gt , instead of upwards or downwards, thus, A V thus, gt gt 4 The same as a , but with a horizontal line through the points of the V's. r The same as a , but shaded, o' The same as bl, but shaded. Figs. 7 to io give the triangular paiterns, plain and shaded, produced by...