Pronunciation
HE vowels are pronounced generally as in Italian. In the Lithuanian diphthong ai the first element predominates almost to the suppression of the second. Russian e has the sound of the English word yea or of ye in yes Lithuanian e often written ie is pronounced like yea, but with a slight -sound added yaa , and u is equivalent to uoa very like English whoaa Lettish ee is simply e English a in fate Polish ie is like English ye in yes Russian iy is practically the i in English pique. The Slavic i...
PLATE VIII Squatting God
The deity has torques on his neck and lap, and is encircled by two serpents with rams' heads. Traces of horns appear on his head. He may possibly be a form of Cernunnos see Plate XVI , and would thus be a divinity of the underworld. From an altar found at Autun, Saone-et-Loire. For a representation on a Gaulish coin see Plate III, 3 cf. also Plates IX, XXV. Trespass on a sacred place is implied in the story of Eochaid, who eloped with his step-mother. Oengus, in disguise, told him not to camp...
Plate Xiv
Dispater was the great Celtic god of the underworld see p. 9 and is here represented holding a hammer and a cup for the hammer cf. the deity Sucellos, Plates XIII, XXVI, and see Plate IX, B the cup suggests the magic cauldron of the Celtic Elysium cf. pp. 41, 95-96, 100, 109-12, 120, 151, 192, 203-04 and see Plates IX, B, XXV . If the goddess beside him holding a cornucopia cf. Plate IX, A is really Aeracura, she probably represents an old earth goddess, later displaced by Dispater. From an...
Authors Preface
rl a former work I have considered at some length the religion of the ancient Celts the present study describes those Celtic myths which remain to us as a precious legacy from the past, and is supplementary to the earlier book. These myths, as I show, seldom exist as the pagan Celts knew them, for they have been altered in various ways, since romance, pseudo-history, and the influences of Christianity have all affected many of them. Still they are full of interest, and it is not difficult to...
Chapter Viii The Myths Of The British Celts
THE surviving myths of the British Celts Brythons , as distinguished from the Irish Celts Goidels , exist in the form of romantic tales in the Mabinogion and similar Welsh stories and in the Arthurian and Taliesin literature, or are referred to in the Triads and Welsh poems. Have the divinities who there figure as kings and queens, heroes and heroines, magicians and fairies, retained any of their original traits and functions The question is less easily answered than in the case of Irish...
Gods Helping Mortals
IN Greek mythology the gods were represented as coming to man's help, and in Christian legend saints were seen hovering above an army in battle and giving it substantial aid. So in Celtic myth deities were often kindly disposed toward men or assisted them, sometimes for ends of their own. Such a myth is associated with the historic King Mongan of Ulster in the sixth and seventh centuries. He is shown to be son of the god Manannan by a mortal mother, and as has been seen, he had powers of...
Worship Of The Dead Especially Ancestors
AT first the pagan Slavs burned their dead, but later they practised burial as well as cremation.1 With singing and wailing the corpse was carried to the funeral-place, where a pyre had been erected and this, with the dead body laid upon it, was set on fire by the relatives. The pyre and the body having been consumed by the flames, the ashes, together with the charred remnants of bones, weapons, and jewels, and with all sorts of gifts, were collected in an urn and placed in a cairn. If the...
Plate Vi
1. General view of the tumulus. 3. Plan of the central chamber. 4. View of the stone-work of the Brug and its entrance, after the removal of the earth. 5. General ground-plan of the Brug. See also Plate I and cf. pp. 66-67, 176-77. fluenced by the view that some of the Tuatha De Danann had died as mortals, Dagda has long since passed away, and the mounds are places of sepulture, perhaps a reflection of the fact that kings were interred there. Yet they are apportioned by the chief survivors,...
Plate Xviii
The monument shows figures of Mercury cf. pp. 9, 158 and a child, and of a god with a club cf. Plates IV-V . Mercury and the child have been equated with Lug and his son, Cuchulainn see pp. 64-65, 82-84, 158-59 for Lug see also pp. 25, 28-33, 4 gt I22 gt and for Cuchulainn pp. 36, 69-71, 86-88, 128, 134, 139-59, 209, 212 . The latter has also been identified with Esus, but with scant plausibility see Plates XX, A, XXI . his origin is semi-divine. Sualtam's mother was of the sid-folk he was...
Plate Ii
1. Coin of the Nervii, with horse and wheel-symbol cf. Plates III, 4, IV, XV . 2. Gaulish coin, with horse, conjoined circles, and S-symbol cf. Plates III, 3, IV, XIX, 2-5 . 3. Coin of the Cenomani, with man-headed horse cf. Plate III, 2 and wheel. 4. Coin of the Remi , with bull cf. Plates III, 5, IX, B, XIX, 1, 6, XX, B, XXI , and S-symbol. 5. Coin of the Turones, with bull. 6. Armorican coin, showing sword and warrior dancing before it exemplifying the cult of weapons 7. 8. Gaulish coins,...
Tuatha De Danann And Milesians
THE annalistic account of the conquest of the Tnatha.De Danann by the Milesians cannot conceal the divinity of the former nor the persistence of the belief in Drnidic magic and supernatural power. M. d'Arbois has shown that the scheme which makes the Tuatha-De Danann masters of_Lre-landior one hundred and .sixty-nine years untiLlheJMiksians came is the invention of Gilla Coemain, who died in 1072. The Bmk-of Invasions adopted it, and it assumes that the gods reigned in succession as kings until...
Plate Ix
A. The obverse shows a seated god and goddess. The god is squatting cf. Plates III, 3, VIII, XXV , and holds a torque in his hand. The goddess has a cornucopia cf. Plates XIV, XV , and a small female figure stands beside her. B. On the reverse is a squatting god with a purse in his right hand to the left is a god with a hammer see Plates XIII, XIV, XXVI , and to the right is a goddess. Three bulls' heads are shown below cf. Plates II, 4-5, 9, III, 5, XIX, 1, 6, XX, B, XXI . From an altar found...
Celtic Mythology 1
HE annalistic account of the groups of people who succes- __sively came to Ireland, some to perish utterly, others to remain as colonists, represents the unscientific historian's attempt to explain the different races existing there in his time, or of whom tradition spoke. He wrote, too, with an eye upon Biblical story, and connected the descendants of the patriarchs with the folk of Ireland. Three different groups of Noah's lineage arrived in successive waves. The first of these, headed by...
THE DIVISION OF THE SlD
CELTIC deities may have been associated in pagan times with hills and pre-historic tumuli, especially those near the Boyne and within these was the subterranean land of the gods, who also dwelt on distant islands. If this were the case, it would help to explain why mounds were regarded as the retreats of the Tuatha De Danann, and why they are still supposed to emerge thence as a kind of fairies. If the folk believed that the old gods had always been associated with mounds, it was easy for the...
The Heroic Myths 1
THE annalists gave a historic aspect and a specific date and ancestry to Fionn and his men, the Feinn, but they exist and are immortal because they sprang from the heroic ideals of the folk if they were once men, it was in a period of which no written record remains. Their main story possesses a framework and certain outstanding facts, but whatever far distant actuality the epos has is thickly overlaid with fancy, so that we are in a world of exaggerated action, of magic, whenever we approach...
The Loves Of The Gods
LIKE the gods of Greece and India, the deities of the Celts had many love adventures, and the stories concerning these generally have a romantic aspect. An early tale of this class records that one night, as Oengus slept, he saw a beautiful maiden by his bed-side. He would have caught hold of her, but she vanished, and until next night he was restless and ill. Again she appeared, singing and playing on a cymbal, and so it continued for a year till Oengus was sick of love. Fergne, a cunning...
The Strife Of The Gods
Ti atha De Danann. Finally the Miieskns the ancestors of the Irish, arrived and conquered the T.uatha De. Danann, as the amp eJiad defeated tJieJiomoriaiis 1 Little of this is actual history, but how much of it is invention, and how much is based on mythic traditions floating down from the past, is uncertain. What is certain is that the annalists, partly as a result of the euhemerizing process, partly through misunderstanding, mingled groups of gods with tribes or races of men and regarded them...