Category Archives: Celtic society

Celtic religion, Celtic society, England, Travel

Arthurian England Part 9: Lesser Known Stone Circles

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Lanyon Quoit as the mists rolled in.

Britain is famous for its standing stones, partly because no one knows exactly what they were for. Were they ritual sites? Giant calendars? Something to do with aliens or Atlantis? All of these theories and more have been posed. One that is certain is they marked places that were somehow special to the ancient inhabitants of the land.

I’ll get to Stonehenge and Avebury next week, but this week I wanted to introduce you to some smaller stones and circles you may not have heard about. I didn’t know them before going on the trip, but I am sure glad I had a chance to visit. In many ways, these are even cooler than their more famous counterparts, partly because they still have an air of authenticity to them that’s been worn away by the tourist traffic at the more popular sites.

Lanyon Quoit

Linda and me under Laynon Quoit.

Linda and me under Lanyon Quoit.

Not far outside of Madron is the dolmen of Lanyon Quoit.  It is three vertical stones supporting a horizontal capstone. It’s a little over five feet tall, which I know because I was able to stand under it. Its purpose is unknown, but it was thought to be a burial site. It was destroyed in a storm in the 1800s, but rebuilt, minus one of its vertical stones. Local lore says each of the original stones was aligned with a cardinal direction, leading some to speculate it was a ritual site. Rumor also has it that it was once tall enough for a horse and rider to stand underneath.

The mists were just rolling in when we were there, so it was very picturesque (and cold). I was fascinated by this structure for some reason and my photos of it make me want to go back and spend more time there (we were chased away by a school group). If you want a cool 360 degree view, check out this site.

Random Stone

I wonder what this stone marked or if it was once part of a circle?

I wonder if this lonely stone was once part of a circle?

Near Lands End, we were driving along when Jamie suddenly pulled over and got out, proclaiming, “I think I just saw a standing stone!” Sure enough, there it was, all by itself in the middle of a field. Only in Europe would you find such a thing. It makes me wonder what the ancients were marking with it.

Boscawen-Un

Boscowen-Un

Boscawen-Un

This was my favorite stone circle. It’s about 3,000 years old and is still used by the Druids today. It’s a circle of 19 stones unique in several aspects: 1) One of its stones, the Healer’s Stone, is made of pure quartz. 2) The center stone has always been set at an angle (as opposed to other circles where stones have fallen that way) and 3) its center stone lines up with the Beltane (May 1) sunrise and several other nearby standing stones, which are all on a ley line.

The Healer’s Stone, made of pure quartz.

When we got to the circle, we all held hands and silently wove in and out between the stones, which was very powerful, especially when you think we were tracing the footsteps of worshipers who came several thousand years before us. For me, the tip of the center stone is very powerful. When I stood in front of it, it felt like a beam of golden light was passing into my solar plexus and heart chakras. I also sat and meditated beneath it and had some very powerful experiences. When we left, I felt like I had the ancient “fire in the head” – my head was very hot, to the touch and felt that way from the inside, too. I have no doubt it was some kind of inspiration.

If I lived in the area, I’d go to this circle every chance I had.

The Merry Maidens

Merry Maidens
The Merry Maidens is one of the more well-known smaller stone circles in England. Legend says that a group of 19 women were caught dancing on the Sabbath. As punishment, they were all turned to stone, along with their two pipers, which are two outlying stones not far from the circle. It’s a smaller, quieter, place with a very peaceful energy.

Have you been to any of these stone circles? What were your experiences? What do you think the purpose of stones like these are?

Arthurian Legend, Celtic society

What Did Camelot Really Look Like?

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Think this is what Camelot looked like? Think again.

Think this is what Camelot looked like? Think again.

When I say the word “Camelot” what do you think of?

Probably a grandiose medieval castle made of stone with turrets and spires, something out of a fairy tale. And that is how it has been portrayed in drawings, movies and TV shows.

(Full disclosure, my Camelot does have some of these elements, but I’ve also given you a logical explanation of why it could be possible. In that, I’m invoking the fantasy side of the genre of historical fantasy. But all of the other castles in my books are true to the time period.)

But the reality of Celtic castles, if we assume King Arthur lived somewhere in the late fifth to early sixth century, is very different. In fact, the word “castle” really doesn’t even accurately describe them. They were more like fortifications than homes. For the most part, rulers didn’t have permanent residence there. The castles were protection for the surrounding populous and their livestock in case of attack.

Cadbury Castle in Somerset, which some believe to be the real location of Camelot. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Cadbury Castle in Somerset, which some believe to be the real location of Camelot. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Most Celtic castles were likely hillforts, which kind of resemble what would later become the motte and bailey style of castle. They were based on large earthenwork hills. The castle itself was at the top in the center, surrounded by one or more wooden palisades, and usually at least one earthen wall or ditch. There are many where the hill is terraced and each terrace has wooden walls and earthen ditches or ramparts to make it even more difficult for the enemy to succeed in siege.

The castle itself was likely to be wooden because timber was readily available. The exception is that stone was plentiful in Highland Scotland, and some British rulers, especially on the western coast, were thought to have fortified their wooden castles using stone. But they didn’t build them the way we picture until the 10th century. In fact, castles as we think of them didn’t come into prominence until the reign of Edward I, who is credited with building the great castles of Northern Wales.

These hillforts would have been defended with arrows, swords, axes and spears, along with sling shots. In order to conquer one, the enemy (depending on what technology they had available) may have used ballista bolts in addition to pure manpower.

Examples of hillforts in Arthurian legend include Traprain Law (King Lot’s capital in Lothian), Badon (if one takes Solsbury Hill outside of Bath to be the location of the battle of mount Badon), Maiden Castle (which is linked to several Arthurian stories), and Cadbury (which Geoffrey Ashe and many other scholars believe is the true location of Camelot).

Tintagel, long thought to be Arthur's birthplace. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Tintagel, long thought to be Arthur’s birthplace. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

But what about Tintagel, you might ask?  It’s the most famous surviving castle linked to Arthurian legend (Arthur’s birthplace) and it’s made of stone. We know the site was occupied during what I’ll call the Arthurian period, but the castle itself dates to the 13th century. I’ll be visiting Tintagel in less than a month, so I can tell you more when I get back.

PS – Scholars can’t agree on if Camelot existed, much less where. Someday I’ll do a post on some of the possible locations. What I’ve described here is typical of the time period, but we may never know for sure what Camelot really looked like.

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Sources
British Forts in the Age of Arthur by Angus Konstam
Strongholds of the Picts by Angus Konstam
Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World by Matthew Bennett and Jim Bradbury, et al
There are probably more because I wrote most of this post from memory. Please check my research page for more possible sources.

How do you picture Camelot? What have you seen portrayed in movies, books or TV? Are there any other Arthurian castles you’re curious about?

Celtic religion, Celtic society

Poets Most Powerful: Celtic Satirists

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Siuil a Run by Vassantha on DeviantArt

Siuil a Run by Vassantha on DeviantArt

In a comment to last week’s post on children in Celtic law, Cassandra Page asked what satirists are. I started to answer her, but then realized it is far too complex a subject for a comment. Hence, today’s blog post.

In the modern world, when we hear the word “satire,” we may think of a kind of humor that makes fun of politics or culture in general, ala Saturday Night Live or The Colbert Report. But in the Celtic word, satire was a much more serious matter.

Poets or bards had two major functions in Celtic society: to praise or blame. If praised, a person would be remembered as a hero or great person down through the centuries. If blamed, they would be infamous forever. It is the satirists who did the blaming. The Celts, particularly the Irish, gave these poets full sacred status. Their words were so powerful they could be considered magic. A person’s reputation could be enhanced through praise, or damaged by satire. Satire was thought to be so powerful, it could kill. Poets were known in myth to “rhyme to death” people and animals (usually rats). There was a poet’s spell called Firt Feled that could cause one’s enemies to die.

Satirists most often criticized nobility for lack of generosity or hospitality, giving bad advice or dishonorable conduct, but they could also pressure them into obeying their own laws. Satirizing someone without legal cause was a serious crime that carried with it heavy penalties, including loss of sick maintenance (a duty of the tribe to all classes of Druids due to their station) or in the case of women, loss of honor price. Women were dealt with more severely under Brehon law than men, and a vast majority of illegal female satirists appear to have used the power of their words to curse. But women were legally able to satirize under many conditions, including when a person to whom she had made a pledge rendered the pledge invalid. This was one way Celtic society made sure people kept their word.

For an example of the power of satirists, read material from the Ulster Cycle where it is clearly shown that kings sometimes acted against their natural inclinations out of fear of satire. Because Celtic kings could not rule if they were maimed or blemished, it said that all a satirist had to do to depose a king was raise a boil on his skin by means of his satirical words. (I imagine this something like giving him hives from anger or anxiety.) Because of the power of their words, originally poets and satirists were treated with much respect and their requests never refused. But toward the end of the Celtic era, they began to abuse their power, and became so hated that the role of satirist was outlawed.

Have you ever heard of satirists before? Have you read about them in legend? What do you think of the belief that people’s words can hold so much power? Do you have any additional questions about Celtic life?

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Sources:
Secrets of the Druids by John Matthews
 Magic of the Celtic Otherworld: Irish History, Lore and Rituals by Steve Blamires
Celtic Myth and Religion: A Study of Traditional Belief by Sharon Paice Macleod
http://loki.stockton.edu/~kinsellt/litresources/celts/review/supernatural.html

Celtic society

Children in Celtic Law

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Girl from Malorossiya by Nikolas Kornilievich Bodarevsky [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Girl from Malorossiya by Nikolas Kornilievich Bodarevsky [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In a tribal society where kinship was revered above all, children were given special prominence in law.

Raising children was generally the equal responsibility of both parents and their families. Oddly enough, if a child was born due to rape, seduction or if the family didn’t give consent, the responsibility for raising the child fell to the father. (You’d think it would be the other way around, but maybe this was a form of punishment for wrongdoing.) The father was also responsible if the mother was dead, ill, disabled, insane, a satirist or outcast from her tribe.

The mother had the sole responsibility for the rearing of the child if the father was foreign, a slave, a satirist or outcast from his tribe. If a woman got pregnant by a son with no income/lands of his own against the wishes of his father, she was responsible for the child. Also, a prostitute was responsible for all of her children.

Illegitimacy
There was no such thing as an illegitimate child in the Celtic world. All children were raised by the tribe. However, in the case of nobility, a man would have to “adopt” his illegitimate son for him to be considered an hier.

Fosterage
Fosterage was very common. In short, it meant that a child, whether male or female, would spend some part of his or her childhood in the household of another family, learning a trade, how to fight or govern (depending on their class) from them. The child could be sent to the foster family at any time once he or she reached one year of age. The child would return to their birth family when he or she reached marriageable age (14 for girls, 17 for boys).

This situation not only helped educate their children for their future roles in society, it strengthened bonds between families and tribes. During the time the child was being fostered, the foster family was responsible for their education (facing heavy penalties if it wasn’t imparted well) and was responsible for any harm or injury to the child.

There was also literary fosterage, where ollamhs, or masters of craft, who took students in for payment (or in some cases, nothing). These students were essentially adopted by the masters.

Adoption
Under Celtic law, a man was required to care for her elderly parents. If he couldn’t afford to care for both, he was to care for his father and forget his mother (so much for the rights of Celtic women!) Couples who had no boys had the option of adopting a male heir, although this was considered a last resort under Irish law, and not even mentioned in Welsh law (Thompson 134). Kin could also adopt children if something happened to their parents. Nothing that I have read mentions adoptions by childless couples, but I’m sure it happened.

Inheritance
As with everything else in Celtic law, inheritance was complex. Under Irish law, children had the same rights of inheritance regardless of the status of their mothers (first wife, second wife, mistress, etc.). So the son of the chief wife and the son of a lesser union (see the types of Celtic marriage for examples) had equal right to inherit, provided the father acknowledged both children. However, the sons of known prostitutes, sons who were outlawed, or abandoned children who had not been formally adopted could not inherit.

Daughters were entitled to a share of personal property, but not necessarily to land unless there were no sons or the daughter’s husband was a foreigner with no land of his own. Even when a daughter was considered an heiress, she “received only a ‘life estate’ of family property which then reverted back to her paternal family group at her death” (Thompson 138). However,  Thompson also notes that “in some tracts, daughters divided property equally with sons, whereas in others, a single daughter divided the estate with her brothers. In any event, parent-daughter(s) transmission of wealth was clearly guaranteed by law in the late-classic and early Christian periods of Irish history” (146).

I promise, this is the last post on Celtic law for a while…maybe ever. I just felt that I’d be remiss to not to broadly cover these important parts of Celtic life.

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Sources
Ancient Celts: Celtic Marriage by Epona Perry
Women in Celtic Law and Culture by Jack George Thompson
The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook by Laurence Ginnell

What do you think about this topic? How have you seen inheritance or other laws regarding children played our in Arthurian or Celtic literature? Please let me know in the comments.

Celtic society

Celtic Divorce

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Photo by Jennifer Pahlka from Oakland, CA, [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo by Jennifer Pahlka from Oakland, CA, [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

A few weeks ago, we talked about Celtic marriage. Sadly, not all those ended in happily ever after. In fact, divorce was common in the Celtic world, and relatively easy to obtain in comparison with today’s tangled web of courts and lawyers. There was no social stigma against it, since it was simply viewed as the breaking of a contract, like any business agreement.

In the case of a handfasting where no permanent contract had been signed, tradition tell us that at the end of their year and a day, the couple’s hands were symbolically unbound and they were placed back to back. Each gave their consent to the divorce and they walked away from one another. (Modern neo-pagans sometimes copy this tradition.) Easy enough.

But in a contractual marriage, things got a little more complicated, mainly due to the Celtic concern over property rights and alliances. Although Ginnell argues that “divorce was easy and could be obtained on as slight grounds” as some of the current states of the US, Thompson writes that it was more complicated than that. Ginnell generalizes that the law favored women, who took most of their own property, as well as their husband’s with them (212) in cases of divorce, but Thompson shows the opposite.

The law also changes depending on what part of the Celtic world a couple lived in. I haven’t found any sources that speak of Britain directly, so we need to look at her neighbors to get an understanding of what the law may have been.

Wales
“Medieval Welsh law allowed either husband or wife to dissolve a marriage at whim, and legal grounds for divorce only affected the division of property. If both parties agreed to the divorce, and the marriage had lasted at least seven years and three nights, joint marriage property was divided equally…If only one party filed for divorce and/or the marriage lasted less than seven years and three nights, Welsh law used a complex formula to decide which properties would be awarded to the husband, which to the wife and which were to be divided proportionally between them. (Thompson 135). Welsh men could divorce their wives for adultery and they would get all of the marriage property. But if the husband was caught, this wasn’t grounds for divorce; he just paid a fine. Women could divorce only her husband had bad breath (you’d think that would be common…), impotency or leprosy. By the way, these laws were in use through at least the 10th century.

Ireland
In Ireland, things were better. Either party could file for divorce and there were a lot more legally accepted reasons. A man could divorce his wife for not keeping house well, if she stole on a regular basis (wonder how many women were one-time or infrequent offenders?), had an abortion, betrayed him to his enemies (yeah, I’d want a divorce, too!) or dishonored him (not sure how this was defined). A woman could get a divorce for 14 different reasons, including her husband’s failure to provide for her or her family due to unemployment, mental or physical illness or entry into a monastery; emotional or physical abuse; impotency, sterility, bisexuality or homosexuality (Thompson 136).

If both wanted the divorce, they would get their own private property back and the equivalent land and goods they brought to the marriage. Anything acquired during the marriage was divided equally. If either the husband or the wife had committed any of the above offenses, the non-guilty party would claim all profits (Thompson 136).

Other Instances
Perry notes that there are reasons for divorce that would enable a woman to reclaim the bride price (dowry) her father paid for her, including her husband leaving her for another woman, failure to support her, or her husband “telling lies or satirizing her or  seducing her into marriage by trickery or sorcery.” She could also divorce him for being ” indiscreet enough to tell tales about their love life.” In addition, either party could obtain a “no-fault” separation if one wished to enter the priesthood or religious life.

Perry also notes an interesting legal temporary separation I haven’t seen documented elsewhere. The husband of a barren woman could leave for a while to impregnate a woman in a more informal form of marriage and the wife of a sterile husband could leave to get pregnant by another man. In either case, the child was considered the husband’s. (I think this is what Marion Zimmer Bradley may have been going for in The Mists of Avalon during the controversial scene with Guinevere, Arthur and Lancelot, but that’s only a guess. There are a million theories out there.) And this is a good segue into next week, when we’ll talk about the rights of children in the Celtic world.

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Sources
Ancient Celts: Celtic Marriage by Epona Perry
Women in Celtic Law and Culture by Jack George Thompson
The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook by Laurence Ginnell

What about you? What do you think about these laws? Are they any more complicated than ours? Have you read any other information?

Arthurian Legend, Celtic society

Marriage in the Celtic World

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The Uninvited Guest by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Uninvited Guest by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

“Marwage. Marwage is whaught bwings us togethor, today. Marwage, that bwessed awangement, that dweam within a dweam.”

(If you don’t know where that quote is from, get thee to Netflix!)

Celtic marriage was very different from what we think of today. It was very rarely done out of love, usually out of political gain for the families/tribes involved. It also was not a religious event, but a contractual agreement. (Celtic law is very complex, so what I’m going into here merely skims the surface. It’s based in Brehon Law, which is the only extant law we have for the Celtic people. It is known as the law of Ireland, but likely similar laws existed in Britain as well.) The laws governing marriage were set up to ensure children were protected (illegitimacy did not exist – more on that in a future post), make clear the rights of the husband and wife, and protect the property rights of both parties.

You may have heard of the practice of handfasting, trial marriages that lasted a year and a day. These did happen, most commonly on Lughnasa when the tribes were together, but when this occurred, it was more like an engagement. The realities of contractual marriage were much more complex. (If you want details that will make your head spin, read Thompson’s book, p. 129-175)

Under Brehon Law, there were 10 forms of marriage, each diminishing in importance, legal rights and desirability (thanks to Epona Perry for this simplified list):

  1. A first degree union takes place between partners of equal rank and property.
  2. A second degree union in which a woman has less property than the man and is supported by him.
  3. A third degree union in which a man has less property than the woman and has to agree to management of the woman’s cattle and fields.
  4. A fourth degree union is the marriage of the loved one in which no property rights changed hands, though children’s rights are safeguarded.
  5. A fifth degree union is the mutual consent of the man and woman to share their bodies, but live under separate roofs. (And ideal situation for some, I’m sure!)
  6. A sixth degree union in which a defeated enemy’s wife is abducted. This marriage is valid only as long as the man can keep the woman with him. (We see this a lot in Arthurian legend and traditional Welsh tales.)
  7. A seventh degree union is called a soldier’s marriage and is a temporary and primarily sexual union (a one night stand).
  8. An eighth degree union occurs when a man seduces a woman through lying, deception or taking advantage of her intoxication (equivalent to the modern definition of “date rape”).
  9. A ninth degree union is a union by forcible rape (this also occurs in Arthurian legend and Celtic folk stories).
  10. A tenth degree union occurs between feeble-minded or insane people.

Under the law, women had the right choose their husbands and could not be forced to marry. Although, given the nature of some of the types of marriage listed above, and the likely influence (read: threats) of family members, one has to wonder how much choice some women really had. Dowries were very important, as brides were purchased from their fathers by their husbands for what became known as a bride-price. Some of this was kept in reserve for the woman, should her marriage end at the fault of her husband, so she would not be left destitute. (More on divorce in a future post.) There was also a virgin-price that guaranteed the wife’s purity. It’s also interesting to note that if two people of unequal rank wanted to marry, the person of lower rank was responsible for the financial burden. We can assume this was meant to keep Celtic nobility from “marrying down.”

The Celts were believers in polygamy, so second wives and concubines were common, especially before the Roman invasion of their native lands. Multiple husbands were less common, but not unheard of. There were even laws that stated a first wife could legally murder the second wife within the first three days of marriage! She would still have to pay a fine, but other than that she was within her rights. (Brehon Law used the payment of fines to solve just about every problem, from divorce to murder.) Some say this is where the tradition of a honeymoon, or a husband and second wife going away for the first few days of their marriage, originated. (Seriously, I couldn’t make this stuff up.) A chief wife had rights to her husband’s estate, while other wives were govered by informal contracts that often didn’t require the first wife to provide for them at all, or for the husband to leave them anything in the event of his death.

It’s hard to tell how Roman law, and then Christianity, affected these practices, but I believe it’s safe to assume polygamy and some of the more scandalous forms of marriage fell out of favor once Christianity became a major factor in Celtic life. We know that by the time these laws were written down by Irish monks, they were already amending pagan-era rules to suit their Christian audiences.

In my books, I use these laws as the basis for my characters’ actions, but I don’t stick strictly to them since we know so little about where and when they were really applied. Besides, the threat of death is much more dramatic than just paying a fine, and I find it hard to believe that the war-like Celts didn’t exact bloody revenge when they were wronged.

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Sources
Ancient Celts: Celtic Marriage by Epona Perry
Women in Celtic Law and Culture by Jack George Thompson
The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook by Laurence Ginnell

What about you? What have you read/heard about Celtic marriages? How have you seen them portrayed in books and in Hollywood? What do you think about these laws?

Celtic society

Cooking with the Celts

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Celtic iron age roundhouse WyrdLight.com [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Celtic iron age roundhouse WyrdLight.com [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Ever wondered what it would have been like to eat with a Celt? What do you mean, “no?” Go with me on this anyway.

The answer depends on the location and time period. I’m confining my discussion to Britain because that’s what I know best.

The pre-Roman Celts ate with fingers and dagger off of plates made from wood or bread. Food was either passed around or served at a low table. They sat crossed legged or squatted on floors covered in rushes or animal skins. Food was usually cooked over a central fire in a round house. We know the Celts ate well, with pork or beef being boiled in large cauldrons or roasted on a spit. It was also salted for later use. Fish, bread, honey, butter, cheese, venison, boar and wild fowl were also common. A favorite was salmon with honey. Porridge was a typical breakfast, possibly along with ale or mead and maybe a few bannocks (flat cakes made from barley or oats).

Hospitality was highly valued, so much in fact that strangers were allowed to eat before being asked their name or what they needed. At banquets, the chief or king gave the “hero’s portion,” the choice thigh, to the bravest man in the clan.

Replica of a Roman kitchen by Linda Spashett (Storye book) (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Replica of a Roman kitchen by Linda Spashett (Storye book) (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

After the Roman invasion, kitchens of Celts who adopted the Roman ways weren’t too different from yours, at least in terms of cooking implements. They didn’t have microwaves, but they did have ovens to bake bread and stoves/hearths on which to boil, fry or stew. They also had sieves and ladles, chopping boards, baking sheets, and pots and pans of iron or bronze. They could even adjust the heat level of their stoves by placing the cooking vessels over metal tripods of varying heights.

The Romans brought with them many new  foods, such as onions, leeks, lettuce, lentils, celery, plums, apples and walnuts. They also brought herbs used in healing and cooking such as dill, garlic, fennel, sage and rosemary. Their love of food was accompanied by a great love for wine, which had been imported by the southern and eastern Celtic tribes before the invasion, but was in high demand after. Oddly enough, the Celts were known for their dislike of olive oil, something highly prized by the Romans.

With these new foods came new table manners. Roman men ate on couches, their left hand supporting them, right hand used in eating. Women sat on basket chairs. They used finger bowls to cleanse the fingertips and napkins to wipe their mouths. Napkins were also used to take home leftovers (ancient doggie bag!) According to Gifford, they ate with knives and spoons of bronze, bone or silver. Other historians claim the spoon wasn’t invented until much later on. Those people say soup was eaten out of a communal bowl that was passed among the dinners. (Eww…Soup is off the menu in my books just because I can’t verify which way is correct for eating it.)

What about you? What have you heard, read or seen in books (fiction or non-fiction) or movies about the eating habits of the Celts?

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Sources

Alcock, Joan. Food in Roman Britain.
Alcock, Leslie. Kings, Warriors, Craftsmen, and Priests: Britain AD 550-850
Duffy, Kevin. Who were the Celts?
Gifford, Clive. Food and Cooking in Ancient Rome.

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Celtic religion, Celtic society, sabats

Solstices and Equinoxes: Celtic Season Midpoints

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Sunrise at Stonehenge on the Midwinter Solstice by Mark Grant (Own work) [CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Sunrise at Stonehenge on the Midwinter Solstice by Mark Grant (Own work) [CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Tomorrow (December 21) is Yule, also known as Midwinter or the Winter Solstice. Have you ever wondered why this day is called Midwinter, yet we refer to it as the first day of winter? That’s because our calendar is messed up. In Celtic times, Midwinter was exactly that, halfway been the start of winter (October 31) and the beginning of spring (February 1).

There’s great debate over whether the Celts actually celebrated the solstices and equinoxes, or whether they only kept the four major holy days of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasa. You’ll find historians on both sides of the argument. Given that the Druids were very attuned to both nature and the movement of the heavenly bodies, I would think they did mark the occasions. After all, even though the Druids had nothing to do with building Stonehenge, Avebury, Newgrange or the other Neolithic stone circles, they no doubt understood they were there to at least mark the passage of time, if not for some greater purpose.

Let’s assume for a moment that the Celts did celebrate the equinoxes and solstices. If so, why? What did they mean? Well, they certainly would have been important to the cycle of the land, if not in the mythology in which the people believed. Here’s a look at each one, and what it may have meant in the lives of Celtic people:

Midwinter Solstice: This is the longest night of the year.  This was a great gathering of the clans, with many symbols of fire and light used to try to encourage the sun to wax stronger once again. Agriculturally, the land lies fallow and covered in snow, waiting for spring. Mythologicaly, it is the rebirth of the god (call him Lugh, Mabon, Mithras, what have you) who died at Samhain. The goddess, by whatever name you call her, pauses from her role as Winter Hag to give birth to her son/Sun, only to return to her dark form thereafter until spring. (Last year I wrote about three possible festivals the Celts may have celebrated on this day.)

Vernal Equinox: Day and night are in equal balance. After this day, the light of day will eclipse the dark of night. The goddess is in her aspect of the maiden, and the god is young, but the two have not yet married and mated (that’s Beltane). She walks across the land, waking it from its winter slumber, leaving flowers where her feet touched. Agriculturally, the ground has thawed and it is time for tilling and planting to begin. Many festivities around this time involve the blessing of tools, seeds and even whole fields to ensure a bountiful harvest – though many of those same things also happened on Imbolc and Beltane.

Midsummer Solstice: The Sun is at the height of its power and so is the god. He is the strong, virile warrior. The goddess is with child, proclaiming her fertility just as the land does. Light and fire are the themes of this festival, including fire wheels being rolled down hills and in to lakes, symbolizing the sun’s strength. This is an auspicious time for gathering herbs, especially magical ones, which the Druids likely would have participated in. Nature spirits were thought to be especially active this night, long before Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Autumnal Equinox: Again, night and day are equal, but this time night will take the upper hand. The god has been wounded at Lughnasa, but will not die until Samhain. His power wanes along with the sun. The goddess, heavy with child, reflects the fruits of the harvest in her swollen belly. All around, the earth is preparing for winter, feeding people and animals alike with bounty to store during the cold, dark nights that lie ahead. Trees blaze a riot of colors while preparing for their winter dormancy. The Celts held especially sacred the cutting of the final sheaf of the harvest (just as they did the first on Lughnasa). This was done by chance, rather than electing a specific person for the honor. The final sheaf would be plaited into a “corn dolly” in the shape of an animal or human, which was kept until the end of the next harvest and burned when a new one was created. The person who cut it was given a special elevated position for the day.

This is only a brief overview of what these feasts might have been. If you want more information, I recommend The Apple Branch by Alexi Kondratiev, from which much of the material for this post was taken.

What do you think? Do you think the Celts celebrated the solstices and equinoxes? Why or why not? Do you think they are important? If you lived during that time, would you have celebrated them? Do you celebrate them now?

Celtic religion, Celtic society

Ogham: Secret Celtic Language

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The Ogham alphabet. Image by de:Benutzer:Filid (German Wikipedia) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Ogham alphabet. Image by de: Benutzer: Filid (German Wikipedia) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Chances are you’ve heard that the Celts passed all of their knowledge on orally, which is one of the reasons why we know so little for certain about their beliefs. This is true, but the Celts did have a system of written language, called Ogham.

The earliest inscriptions we have in this language date to somewhere in the 4th century, mostly in Ireland, Wales and Southern Britain. But some historians and archeologists believe it dates back much further than that – even as far back as the Sycthians, who may have been the Gaelic Celts’ ancestors dating to about 1300 BC (Laing 22). Ogham is mentioned often in ancient Irish myth, where it is said to be used for poetry, Druidic spells and even political challenges (Ellis 164-165). There is also evidence that Druidic books existed before Christianity, although we don’t know in what language they were written because they were burned. (Ellis 165).  The 4th century evidence we have mostly takes the form of Celtic tombstones (Laing 167-168), or as Matthews theorizes, tribal boundary markers (196). The main source of written knowledge about Ogham is a 14th century manuscript called The Book of Ballymote, now housed in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy.

Why Ogham?
Ogham was named after the Celtic god Ogma (Irish) or Ogmia (British), the god of literature and eloquence, who supposedly invented the script (Ellis 126). We know with relative certainty that the Druids corresponded with one another in Greek, and due to the extent of the Roman dominance over their lands, they knew Latin as well. But some people theorize that Ogham was developed as a secret language known only to those they trained (Matthews 196). However, some inscriptions have been found in Wales that include both Latin and Ogham (Alcock 241), so perhaps hiding knowledge from the Romans was not the only intent. Other people believe Ogham was developed by early Christian communities in Ireland as a sort of shorthand to aid in transcription of documents.

Written
Ogham can either be written or used as a kind of sign language (you’ll see both in my second book). Written, it appears to the modern eye like a series of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines, the number and shape of which indicate the letters (Matthews 198-199). The alphabet had 20 characters, arranged in series of four. Later, five additional characters were added. Explaining what each letter looked like, was called and may have represented is beyond my expertise, so if you’re interested, check out this article on Wikipedia.

Kilmalkedar Ogham Stone (image is public domain via Wikimedia commons)

Kilmalkedar Ogham Stone (image is public domain via Wikimedia commons)

As Sign Language
The use of Ogham as sign language is very controversial and certainly not accepted by all historians. As hand signals, the fingers of the hand and certain locations on the palm represent letters or phrases. A person signing this way would use the placement of fingers across the shinbone, nose, thigh, foot or on the palm or fingers of the opposite hand to indicate a letter, word or phrase. Matthews even goes so far as to suggest that the sign language may have come first and been written down much later (199-200).

Other Uses
You may hear people refer to Ogham as the “Celtic tree alphabet” and call it a form of divination, but there is no historical evidence to back this up. Some modern groups cite Robert Graves’ book, The White Goddess (p. 165 – 204) as the basis for these “facts.” While his book is a fascinating look at mythology, it’s not known for its reliability. Graves is the one who aligned the letters of Ogham with the “seasonal calendar of tree magic” and also re-ordered the letters. The divination that is associated with this comes from Tochmarc Étaíne, a tale in the Irish Mythological Cycle. In the story, the Druid Dalan takes four wands of yew, and writes Ogham letters upon them. Then he uses them as tools for divination. Based on this story, Graves associated each letter with a tree or other plant, with meanings are derived from their properties. But again, these ideas (which he says are based in on a 17th century book called Ogygia) first appear in his 1948 work, not in ancient sources.

Have you ever heard of Ogham, in fiction, history or maybe movies? It’s even popular on jewelry. What do you think about it?

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Sources
Arthur’s Britain by Leslie Alcock
The Druids by Peter Berresford Ellis
The White Goddess by Robert Graves
Celtic Britain and Ireland by Lloyd and Jennifer Laing
Secrets of the Druids by John Matthews