Category Archives: Celtic society

Celtic religion, Celtic society, sabats

Samhain: The Celtic New Year (Part 2)

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Image is public domain via wikimedia commons

Some of you may remember that last year I did a post on the Celtic feast of Samhain that was a sort of experiential fiction. It was a nice experiment, but I’m not sure it conveyed information the way I would have liked, so this year I’m going to talk about the holiday in a more straightforward fashion.

Samhain (October 31 or November 1, depending on your source), was the beginning of the Celtic new year. It was also the Celtic feast of the dead. (You may see similarities between the modern Day of the Dead and even Catholic All Souls and All Saints celebrations.) It was the day when the veil between the worlds was thinnest (Beltane, May 1, is the second) and it was believed we could touch the spirit world and it could touch us. Ancestors were revered and remembered. To this day, people in the Celtic world still follow the same ritual they did 1,000 years ago: doors are left unlocked, meals are prepared for those who have passed and a light is left burning to guide the spirits to a place of warmth and welcome at the hearth fire.

But ancestors were not the only spirits abroad on Samhain. The Sidhe (also called the faerie) rode out from their hill forts, searching for mortals to beguile and lead back to their kingdom. The Pooka (or Puca) roamed the forest. This strange creature could shape-shift, but most often appeared as a black stallion with fiery golden eyes, or a hybrid animal that was part goat, horse and bull. The shake of its mane struck fear into the hearts of the Celts. All fruits or crops still on the vine on Samhain were property of the Pooka, and to disobey this unspoken agreement was to risk a great curse.

Due to the nearness of the spirits, divination was a common practice. There were many types, but apples, apple seeds, and hazelnuts were commonly used on this day, especially when asking about the all-important topics of love and health. Another common practice was for each member of the household to cast a white stone into the hearth fire. If it was moved in the ashes when the family arose the following morning, whoever cast it would not live to see the next Samhain (kind of morbid, no?).

Samhain marked the beginning of the darkest part of the year, the beginning of winter. Just as the earth went dormant, so too, did the tribe, hunkering down in the ice and cold and praying they would survive the lean days to come. Agriculturally, it was the end of the growing season. The full moon nearest to the feast was (and still is) called the “blood moon” because this is the time of year when shepherds/ranchers would slaughter part of the herd to be able to feed the animals through the sparse nights of winter. This was the last time most families would eat well until the summer harvest.

The god Cernunnos as depicted on the Gundestrup Cauldron. Image is public domain via wikimedia commons.

The symbol of Samhain is undoubtedly the bonfire. Not only did it dispel the evil spirits, it united the tribe. In some areas, every single fire in the whole tribe/village was rekindled from the bonfire (although the same has been said about the bonfire at Imbolc as well.) If nothing else, the bonfire served as a rallying point for the party, during which men and women ate seasonal foods and danced to keep the dark spirits at bay. Sacrifices and wishes were often thrown into the fire in the hopes of swaying the gods. Some go so far as to say animals or humans were part of this, but as you can imagine, this a subject of great controversy.

In its religious aspect, Samhain memorialized the death of the God (commonly called Cernunnos or Herne the Hunter). He is often symbolized in the King Stag, the deer whose horns would either fall off with the coming of winter or be wrenched from his head when the young stag takes over (i.e. the old year giving way to the new, just as the generations do). It was also the day of the Crone aspect of the Goddess (commonly called Cerridwen or Hecate). She is the symbol of death, she to whom all return in the end, but she is also the bringer of rebirth through her cauldron of life (do you see where the traditional image of the witch came from?). She is not to be feared, as much as venerated for her wisdom. On this day, all made their peace with the inevitability of meeting her at their death.

Here’s a Samhain meditation I think captures the Celtic nature of the feast quite well, even though it’s geared toward modern neo-pagans: “Harken Now, the Darkness Comes,” by Lark. (I’m waiting to get her permission to post in full. Until then, I’m linking to it.)

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Sources:
The Apple Branch by Alexei Kondratiev
The Golden Bough by James Frazer

What about you: have you ever heard of Samhain? Seen it written about in fiction set in Celtic or Arthurian times? Have you ever celebrated it? If so, how?

Arthurian Legend, Celtic society, Saxons

The Anglo-Saxons in Britain: Part 2

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Pre-1066 illustration of Anglo-Saxon warriors on horseback. By Anon. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

When last we left the Saxons, they were defending the British against the Picts and Scots under a peace treaty that paid them in money, food and land for their services. All was well for a time, but then the Saxons began to think bigger.

It is clear that by the mid-fifth century, the Saxons were growing restless with their narrow strip of land and seeking greater inroads into the country. They brought more and more of their Germanic fellows to Britain and demanded increasing amounts of payment. Eventually, they broke their treaty and began sacking British towns. According to Gildas, the leaders of the Saxons were called Hengest and Hosa and they ruled Kent. Nennius tells us that Vortigern married Hengest’s daughter in an effort to secure peace and Bede gives us the story of the hidden daggers in the Saxons’ boots at the council where they betrayed Vortigern. But that is the stuff of mythology and folk legend, not verifiable history.

On and on the two sides fought, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, neither really gaining ground. According to Phillips and Keatman, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (which Snyder discredits as unreliable during this time period) “lists no battles between 465 and 473. This must have been a period of consolidation on both sides when defenses were prepared and personnel organized” (73). In 473 (again, according to the Chronicle), the Saxons won a great victory, but then shortly thereafter, the Britons held them at bay.

This is the time period of Arthur’s 12 great battles (as given to us by Nennius), if you believe that Arthur existed. If not, the closest historical leader scholars can point to is Ambrosius Aurelianus. Synder credits him with challenging the Saxons in multiple locations until the battle of Mount Badon (somewhere between 485-510). After that defeat there was a period of peace. As Phillips and Keatman write, “In the half century that followed Badon, until the time of Gildas’ writing, Britain enjoyed a period free from external attack. Indeed, there is archeological evidence of a reverse Anglo-Saxon migration; considerable numbers returned to the continent of Europe, uncertain, no doubt, of their precarious foothold in Britain” (77). Especially since Phillips and Keatman’s archeological evidence is weak (pottery shards in Germany that supposedly show they were settlers direct from Britain – but they don’t talk about how or why the shards lead us to this conclusion), I doubt the validity of the reverse migration. I have a feeling that while some may have returned home, the Saxons were, in general, still in Britain licking their wounds and biding their time to rebuild the forces they lost at Badon.

But their mindset of defeat seems to have ended in the late sixth century. By 550, the Saxons had defeated the British at Salisbury, and by 577, they had cut off the British in the southwest by taking the towns of Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester. By 614, they controlled Devon and by 682, had the whole of the southwest peninsula under their control, save Cornwall. To the north and west, the Angles rose to power, and by the eighth century, they had overtaken most of the rest of the country. By 927, the Saxon king Athelstan, successor to Alfred the Great, united the country into a single kingdom first called Angelcynn, then Englaland and today, England (Phillips and Keatman 78). The remainder of the Britons settled in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany, eventually to carry on only in Wales – the beginning of the divide between England and Wales that exists still today.

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Sources:

The Britons by Christopher A. Snyder
The Anglo-Saxons by James Campbell (ed.)
King Arthur: The True Story by Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman

What about you? What have you heard about the Anglo-Saxon invasions? Does it agree with or contradict what’s written here? (It’s a complex topic.) What sources do you recommend?

Arthurian Legend, Celtic society, Saxons

The Anglo-Saxons in Britain: Part 1

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A.D. 500-1000, Anglo-Saxons. By by Albert Kretschmer, painters and costumer to the Royal Court Theatre, Berin, and Dr. Carl Rohrbach. (Costumes of All Nations (1882)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

If you’re anything like me, you have hazy memories of learning about the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in high school. You may even recall a map with arrows pointing from the continental Europe to the Eastern coast of Britain, indicating where the Angles, Saxons and Jutes landed. That was about all I remembered before I started researching for these books, and although this isn’t my area of focus, I thought I’d share a little of what I’ve learned.

The traditional view of how the Anglo-Saxons (my catch-all term for the Angles, Saxons and Jutes – I have no desire to try to explain the difference) came to Britain is that massive waves of them invaded the isle in bloody battle (a view popularized by Bede, Gildas and Nennius). In this view, their first major attack on Britain was either 408 or 41o, during the reign of Constantine when he was busy in Brittany and Rome was rapidly pulling its support from Britain. It was a sound defeat for the Britons that only led to more trouble as the years went by.

Now this thought is being replaced by one that I, personally, think is more realistic. While it lacks the drama of earlier theories, the idea that the Saxons slowly settled over time is consistent with many other “invasions” throughout history (look at the English who colonized America or the Irish who inhabited Dalriada in what is today Scotland – those certainly weren’t all at once).

According to Snyder, the new way of thinking goes like this: in the late fourth century, the Anglo-Saxons  left their homeland in search of more prosperous lands (possibly due to changing weather conditions, rising sea levels or famine in Germanic areas). They must have come a few families or small tribal groups at a time because there is little evidence for major Saxon settlements until around 440. It is likely that in between this time, the Saxons were settling where they could, bringing their women and children over from Germany and Denmark or intermarrying with the Britons on the eastern coast, and slowly increasing their population in this new land.

In the 430s, a group of Britons sent an appeal for help against their other enemies, the Picts and the Scots, to the Roman general Aetius in Gaul, but he didn’t respond. The Britons held a council to try to decide what to do, led by a “proud tyrant,” whom mythology tells us is Vortigern (whose name/title means “proud tyrant”). Vortigern, or whoever led the council, decided to hire the Saxons as mercenaries to defend against the “peoples of the north” (Gildas, quoted in Snyder 83). The Saxons sent word to their homeland, and warships of warriors came to the isle under a peace treaty that ensured the Saxons were protected, paid and fed for their services, which they performed well.

But that only lasted so long. Next week, we’ll look at what went wrong and how the Saxons eventually took power from the Britons, forming the country we know today as England.

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Sources:

The Britons by Christopher A. Snyder
The Anglo-Saxons by James Campbell (ed.)
King Arthur: The True Story by Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman

What about you? What have you heard about the Anglo-Saxon invasions? Does it agree with or contradict what’s written here? (It’s a complex topic.) What sources do you recommend?

Arthurian Legend, Blogs, Celtic society, Everything else, Writing process

Everything Old is New Again

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First of all, I’m sorry this is kind of a cop-out post. I’ve been ill and we’ve had a death in my family, so I haven’t had as much time to devote to writing or blogging in the last two weeks as I’d like. But, we have lots of new readers here at Through the Mists of Time, so instead of skipping a week, I thought I’d share some old posts you may not have seen. Please, click around, explore and comment on as many as you like! (Posts are listed oldest to newest in each category.)

I’ll get back to new content next week, I promise. Oh, and I’m working on a guest blogging policy, so if you’re interested in guest blogging (or having me guest on your blog), please let me know!

Arthurian Legend

Why Arthurian Legend?
Arthurian Legend 101
Arthurian Legend 201
Avalon Part 1: Myth and Legend
Avalon Part 2: Glastonbury
Avalon Part 3: Avalon in My Books
Guinevereian Fiction
Historical Sources of Arthurian Legend
Literary Sources of Arthurian Legend (Part 1)
Literary Sources of Arthurian Legend (Part 2)
Guest Post: Searching for King Arthur in Turkey
Arthurian Legend: Historical Fiction or Fantasy?
E is for Excalibur
N is for Names, or the Identity Crisis in Arthurian Legend
British Identity After the Withdrawl of Rome

Celtic Society

Picture it: Britain 475 A.D.
A Celtic Primer (Top 10 Fun Facts)
Class in Celtic Society
Time in the Celtic World
Outlaws in the Celtic World
Celtic Warriors
P is for Pick Your Poison: Alcohol in Post-Roman Celtic Britain
Q is for Queens in the Celtic World
U is for Unguents and Celtic Herbalism
V is for Votadini, One of the Tribes of the Gododdin

Celtic Religion

Meet the Druids
Pick a God, Any God
Accessing the Divine – Celtic Inspiration
Samhain: The Celtic New Year
Imbolc: Herald of Spring
Beltane: Celtic Fertility Festival
Lughnasa: Gathering of the Tribe
O Holy Night, Times Three
Celtic Christianity
I is for Insight: Celtic Divination
M is for Magic: How I Handle it in My Books

Writing/Writing process

Writing Process? No Thanks, I Have Characters in My Head
The Casting Couch…er Book
In Defense of Editing Guest Post: Find Your Inspiration
On Historical Fiction Writing
Love/Hate: Ramblings About Research & Editing
The Author Platform or “What Is It You Do, Again?”
F is for Fearsome Heroines
J is for Jargon in the Writing and Publishing World
R is for Resources and Recommendations
S is for Songs that Inspire
T is for Tense: Past and Present Verbs in Fiction
Z is for Zilch, Otherwise Known as Writer’s Block

Books and Authors

A Dream Come True: Meeting Alyson Noel
Five Summer Book Picks
My Top 10 Favorite Fiction Books
Book Review: King Arthur’s Children
D is for Daughter of Smoke and Bone
K is for Kushiel’s Dart
X is for Xenophon, the Original “Horse Whisperer”
Y is for Young Adult Fiction
Book Review: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Other

An Aspiring Writer’s 12 Days of Christmas
Six Blogs to Check Out in 2012
Midnight in Paris: A Movie for Writers (comments are closed due to spam)
Photos from Ireland
Trinity College Old Library Long Room – Heaven on Earth
Pendragon University, School of Arthurian Legend

Celtic society

British Identity After the Withdrawl of Rome

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Mosaic of a Roman villa in the Bardo National Museum. Image is public domain. Source: Wikimedia commons.

It’s a crisis of identity every country that has ever been ruled by another faces when gaining it’s independence. Who are we without imperial ties? This was a question no doubt on the minds of the generations of Britons who lived between the withdrawal of Rome around 410 AD and the rise of the Saxons around 600 AD. This is also the time in which I have placed Arthur and Guinevere, so it’s a question I, and my characters, have thought a lot about.

Bearing in mind that we have very few records for this Dark Age/early Middle Ages time period, this is a tough question to answer. Scholars have, until recently, ignored this time period, skipping from Rome to the Saxons, as though the time in between means little. But it meant a lot to the people who lived it. Many historians subscribe to the theory that almost immediately after the withdrawal of Rome, the native Britons returned to their pre-Roman way of life. This is due, in part to the writings of foreign historians like the Greek Zosimus who wrote of a Saxon attack on Britain in 409, “They reduced the inhabitants of Britain and some the Gallic peoples to such straits that they revolted from the Roman empire, no longer submitted to Roman law, and reverted to their native customs” (quoted in Synder, 81).

Recreation of a Celtic roundhouse, National History Museum of Wales, 2007. Image is public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

A few days ago I was watching a mini-series on PBS called Michael Wood’s Story of England: Romans to Normans. I don’t know anything about Wood – I’m sure he’s a great historian – but the show made it seem like the Celts went directly from Roman rule back to the round houses and comparatively primitive lifestyle common before Boudicca led her revolt.

I’m not a historian (yet), but I find it difficult to believe that after 400 years of Roman rule, the Celts would abandon Roman influences so quickly. Yes, the money from Rome dried up, as did the imperial protection. I’m sure some, if not most, of the ruling class fled. It’s natural, as Synder states, that the Britons would have “reverted to native laws and local rulers” (82). That’s the system they knew and could live with. It’s also the reason for the myriad of civil wars that preceded the unprecedented moment when someone – possibly Arthur – united the Britons against the Saxons at the Battle of Mount Badon.

But just because the post-Roman Celts reverted in some ways to their tribal traditions doesn’t mean the population of Britain immediately became uncivilized. Rome brought great feats of architecture, technology and organization to the British tribes. The Britons of the time were used to a certain standard of living and, like any of us, likely would have done what they could to preserve it. I’m sure Roman villas were reused, some technologies were kept (although we know that by the late 5th century the baths at Aque Sullis were already in decline, though the town continued on for some time) and some people clung to the Roman ways. Even as tribal rulers reoccupied the Celtic hillforts, many Roman towns and forts continued to be centers of power.

So in the end, we have no clear answer to how the Celts self-identified after Rome departed. Until archeology gives historians a clearer picture of the time, we will have only speculation. But comparing that time period to other post-imperial cultures, it seems likely that the people were of a mix of mindsets. Some probably clung vehemently to the Roman ways, while others were happy to shake off the yoke of the empire and embrace the tribal identity of their ancestors. While a third group was likely somewhere in between, whether for the sake convenience and maintaining their chosen lifestyle or in an attempt to find peace in the middle ground. And in my books, you’ll find characters on all ranges of the spectrum, trying to survive and thrive in a world their ancestors likely never thought would come to pass.

What about you? What do you think life was like for the people of Britain after the Romans left? What theories have you heard or read? What do you think history tells us?

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Sources:

The Britons by Christopher A. Snyder
Michael Wood’s Story of England: Romans to Normans

A to Z Blogging Challenge, Celtic society

V is for Votadini, Tribe of the Gododdin

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Ptolemy’s map of Scotland south of the Forth. The Votadini are called “Otadini” on this map. Map created by Notuncurious. Obtained from Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Chances are good that unless you’ve studied Celtic history, you’ve never heard of the Votadini. I hadn’t either, until I began my research. They are one of the four tribes of living in what is today southern Scotland, but was in Arthur’s time (approximately 450-550 AD) the northern part of Britain. The area is most easily defined as between Hadrian’s Wall and Antonine Wall, or from the Firth of Forth to the Solway Firth. The Votadini’s land was in the southeastern section of this area. Other tribes between the walls included Damnonii, Selgovae and Novantae.

The Votadini, or Gododdin people, are best known from a 13th century manuscript of an earlier poem called Y Gododdin, which describes a battle fought at Catterick in Yorkshire in the late sixth century. In this poem, a group of British from the Gododdin, estimated at upwards of 2,000 footmen and cavalrymen set out from Din Eidyn (Endinburgh) to attack the walled palace of Catrarth, which was held by the Angles.  They were defeated, but their heroism was remembered in song, including one of the first known references to the man who is believed to be King Arthur: “He brought down black crows to feed before the walls of the city, though he was no Arthur.”

The daily life of the Votadini is a mystery. They were Britons somewhere between Pictish and Roman, and some sources say they were allied with the Romans, but allowed to keep their independence. According to Philip Coppen, the Votadini worshiped the god Llew and held Traprian Law as their capital. (For those who know Arthurian legend, that is the home of the fearsome King Lot.)

At some point around the time of Arthur, the Votadini were granted safe haven in the kingdom of Gwynedd (modern northern Wales).The Votadini provided formidable defense against the Irish in exchange for new lands on which to settle. Phillips and Keatman suggest this happened at the insistence of Ambrosius after the withdrawal of Rome, but don’t explain why.

This is only a brief introduction to the Votadini and other tribes of the area. I will probably do a longer series on these intriguing people once I’ve had the chance to read Tim Clarkson’s insightful books on the subject. (I own two, I just haven’t gotten around to reading them yet. It’s a shame research takes so long.) The reason I’m even bringing them up at all is that the Votadini are the ancestors several of my main characters (you’ll have to read the books to find out who) and the majority of book 3 will take place in the Gododdin.

Have you heard of the Votadini or their homeland of the Gododdin? Do you have additional details or sources to share? I’d love to hear from you!

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Sources:

Kings, Warriors, Craftsmen and Priests by Leslie Alcock
Land of the Gods by Philip Coppen
King Arthur: The True Story by Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman

Post updated August 4. 2013 to rectify errors in previous source material.

A to Z Blogging Challenge, Celtic society

U is for Unguents and Celtic Herbalism

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Jarrow Hall from Herb Garden, Bede’s World, near to Jarrow, South Tyneside, Great Britain. Copyright Andrew Curtis. Obtained from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0.

Long before Shakespeare’s witches muttered “double, double, toil and trouble” Celtic priestesses and wise women had bubbling cauldrons filled with herbs and other healing potions that could rival most modern medicine. Deeply connected to the earth, they knew which plants could staunch bleeding, cure illness, alleviate pain, or lessen suffering when wounds or illness could not be cured. Today, we call this “alternative medicine;” during Celtic times, it was the only medicine.

Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor or an herbalist, or even particularly skilled with herbs (outside of cooking) so don’t take anything you read here as medical advice. Don’t try this at home without the advice of a medical professional.

Herbal medicine came in many forms. Tinctures were highly concentrated doses of an herb, usually added to tea or some other drink. Poultices were crushed herbs mixed with mud or a sticky herb like slippery elm to make them stick together. They were applied to the skin. Fomentations were strong herbal teas in which a cloth was dipped (or filled with herbs) and applied to a body part (kind of like medicated gauze is now). Syrups were often made from boiling herbs, water and honey, much like our liquid medicines today (and they probably tasted about as good). Unguents were oils/lotions/salves made from lanolin (natural oils in a sheep’s wool) or beeswax and herbs. The herbs were used fresh when possible, but also dried for use in winter.

The Celts believed that the time of year and phase of the moon affected the potency and/or properties of herbs. Midsummer was traditionally when they were believed to be at their most potent, and herbs were never harvested after Samhain, as they (along with any other crops) were believed at that time to belong to the nature spirits. Some herbs were best harvested under the full moon, while others should be taken under the new moon. The most famous of these is the description from Pliny the Elder (which may or may not be accurate) of white-robed Druids harvesting mistletoe with a golden scythe on the sixth day of the new moon.

Many of the herbs common to our kitchens and gardens today (or at least mine!) would have been introduced to the Celts by the Romans. These include dill, parsley, rosemary, oregano, spearmint, rue, thyme, marjoram, garlic, fennel, basil and sage. Herbs native to Britain included wild chives, round mint, mistletoe, loveage, mallow, wild lettuce, foxglove and water dropwort.  Examples of Celtic usage of herbs include:

  • Hawthorne berries to protect the heart
  • Elder flowers to calm a fever
  • Willow and/or ivy bark to relieve pain
  • Rue to induce vomiting or as an antidote to snake bites
  • Fennel to prevent gas or to wash out the eyes
  • Borage to soothe inflammation and burns
  • Pine oil to relieve coughs
  • Henbane for nerves
  • St. John’s wort for burns and mood ailments
  • Seaweed with rose hips for coughs
  • Horehound to cure coughs, colds and diarrhea

The Celts also used poisonous plants in healing (in small doses, of course). Mistletoe was considered a “cure all” and was thought to make sterile animals fertile and act as an antidote to poison. Hemlock was used as a sedative, antispasmodic and as an antidote to the bite of a mad dog. Eryngo (sea holly) was a diuretic, stimulant and expectorant. Water dropwort was used to treat bronchitis, tuberculosis and asthma. Orpine was used externally to cool inflamed wounds and heal burns. Nightshade, henbane and thorn apple were all used as painkillers and sleeping medicines. Columbine was used for dropsy. Ferns, tansy and mugwort were used to rid a person of intestinal parasites (apparently a very unpleasant cure). Lily of the valley and foxglove were both used to regulate the heart (foxglove still is). In The Healing Power of Celtic Plants, Angela Paine cites a recipe for an anaesthetic potion from the Physicians of Myddfai that includes hemlock, mandrake, wild lettuce, ground ivy, poppy, eryngo and orpine.

Sources:
A Druid’s Herbal by Ellen Evert Hopan
The Healing Power of Celtic Plants by Angela Paine
Food in Roman Britain by Joan Alcock
Daily Life of the Pagan Celts by Joan Alcock
Celtic Daily Life by Victor Walkey

What have you heard about Celtic herbalism or healing plants? Is there anything obvious I’m forgetting? Are there any sources you would recommend?

Celtic religion, Celtic society, sabats

Lughnasa: Gathering of the Tribe

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We’re taking a break from the A to Z blogging challenge today in honor of the Celtic festival of Lughnasa (August 1). It’s the last of the four major Celtic feasts that I’ve yet to cover (see Samhain, Imbolc, and Beltane for the others). Lughnasa also figures into my first book, so I’ve chosen to give you the facts, rather than try to present a fictionalized account, for fear of accidentally revealing my plot.

Lughnasa (later called Lammas) celebrates the birth of the god Lugh (or Llew), who was popular throughout the Celtic world, but especially so in Ireland, Wales, Britain and among the Votadini tribe of what is now Scotland (you’ll meet them in a future blog post). Lugh’s mythology is complicated and recounting it is beyond my expertise, so I’ll leave that to others. A bull was usually sacrificed in his honor on Lughnasa, and some connect this with the bull-dream ritual the Irish used to elect their kings. (Some also say humans were sacrificed on this day, but that’s up for debate.) It is also the beginning autumn and the beginning of the harvest.

Lughnasa was an important feast for Celtic tribes, a time when they came together to celebrate their identity as a people. (Whether or not this was done among people of the same tribe or among different tribes varies depending on the time, place and source you’re consulting.) Phillip Coppens says that among all of the Celtic peoples, Lughnasa was only celebrated in Britain, Ireland, France and Northern Spain. Other sources aren’t so specific. What everyone agrees on is that these assemblies were very important for securing loyalty and for general socializing, especially in a time when travel was difficult, slow, expensive, and likely dangerous. Sources note that the Lughnasa feast could last anywhere from two to four weeks.

The Sting song “Fields of Gold” is appropriate for Lughnasa

Most historians believe that Lughnasa festivals took place on hilltops. They all involved massive sporting contests (much like the modern Olympics) in honor of the annual games Lugh himself is said to have instituted to commemorate his foster mother, Tailtu. Common sports of the time included horse racing, hurling and weight throwing. It was also common for two opposing tribes or villages to build forts of grasses and roots and battle one another. Whether or not these battles involved real injury or were mock is a matter of speculation. (Judging from the general behavior of the war-like Celts, I doubt if the participants came away unscathed.) Some say these fights were in commemoration and/or imitation of faerie battles. Drinking, dancing, fighting and other unruly behavior also characterized the feast.

Lughnasa was also a popular day for handfastings, trial marriages that – according to some – lasted a year and a day, and could be dissolved the following year with no repercussions. Marriage or no, this feast was second only to Beltane in its sexual promiscuity.

The first stalk of wheat, symbolic of the first harvest, was cut with great solemnity and baked into cakes for the whole assembly, who also partook of the first fruits of the local harvest, both wild and domesticated. In some versions of the mythology behind the feast, the cutting of the first stalk also represented the wounding of the god, who will die at Samhain (this is especially popular among neopagans, but how much emphasis it was given in the past is uncertain.) A woman was chosen from the tribe to represent the harvest goddess or an effigy was created, with offerings laid at her feet.

Unlike Beltane and Samhain, which are fire festivals, Lughnasa is a water festival. Just as cattle were purified by driving them between bonfires on Beltane, so horses were ridden through water (forcing them to swim) to bless them. Other customs included dressing sacred wells with flowers and the burial of flowers to signify the end of summer. Billberries, blueberries and blackberries were included in the ritual feasting.

Lughnasa lives on in the neopagan world today, its chaotic nature captured in the film Wicker Man and the play Dancing at Lughnasa (both historically inaccurate).

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Sources

The Apple Branch by Alexei Kondratiev
The Land of the Gods by Philip Coppens
The Golden Bough by James Frazer

A to Z Blogging Challenge, Celtic society

Q is for Queens in the Celtic World

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I love this image of Boudicca because I think she looks like Rachelle Lefevre.

“I am woman, hear me roar” may have been spoken out loud for the first time in the 1970s, but it may as well have been the mantra of Celtic women. Compared to their contemporaries in the Roman Empire, Greece and just about every other civilization, Celtic women had amazing rights and freedoms. I’ll go into more detail in the future, but suffice for now that they could own land, marry and divorce at will and were well represented under the law.

But yet, scholars disagree on whether or not Celtic Queens were the exception or the norm. Recent thought (in the books I’ve read) seems to show a disfavor for the idea of many historical queens, dismissing the ideal of the now mythologized matrilineal society/succession as unlikely, if not impossible. Personally, I think more women ruled than those we have records for. Do I have evidence for this? Absolutely not. But the Celts weren’t big on writing things down, so who is to say there weren’t more that are lost in history? I find it hard to believe that a society that was so supportive of women didn’t also have more women rulers. Since history is written by the victors (in this case, men), we’re lucky to know about the few we do.

But I digress. Here are two Celtic women from history who fought for and against the Romans, doing what they thought was best for their people.

  1. Cartimandua – Cartimandua was Queen of the Brigantes, a large tribe in northern Britain (around modern Yorkshire). According to the evidence we have to date, she was the first hereditary queen to rule any part of Britain. Unlike Boudicca, who married into her Queenship, Cartimandua was born to rule and her husbands held the role of consorts. It is likely that she was already Queen and married to her first husband, Venutius, before the Romans came in 43 AD. The Romans needed her help and protection if they were to extend their rule in Britain and Cartimandua was a wise woman, so she made a treaty with Emperor Claudius. However, her pro-Roman leanings were not popular and she had to quell a series of revolts among her subjects. In 48 AD, Roman forces helped her end these revolts. Three years later, her warriors captured the leader of the resistance, Caratacus, and turned him over to the Romans, winning their continued support. Twice during 52 – 57 AD, her husband attempted to overthrow her by allying with the anti-Roman Celts, but Cartimandua’s Roman allies intervened. During this time, some sources say she divorced her husband in favor of his cup-bearer (or armor-bearer, depending on the source), Vellocatus, while others say that eventually, Cartimandua and her husband came to an accord and reigned together until 69, when she then divorced him for Vellocatus. In 69, Venutius rebelled again and was successful in ousting Cartimandua from the throne. What happened to her after that is unknown, but her legacy is that during her entire reign, she kept her lands free from Roman occupation. Fun side note: Cartimandua is even said by some to be the model for the Arthurian character of Guinevere, thanks to the love triangle she created with her husband and lover.

  2. Boudicca – Boudicca (also spelled Boadicea) was of the Icini tribe in Southeast Britain in the early first century AD. Her husband, Prasutagus, saw advantage in allying with Rome, and this decision brought them many years of peace. When Prasutagus died, the Romans discovered he had named the Emperor co-heir with his two daughters. The Romans couldn’t bear the thought of sharing power – much less with two women – so they attacked the Icini villages. Boudicca, now Queen, was publicly flogged and her two daughters raped. Enraged, she rallied the people and they revolted, destroying several large Roman cities during the years 60-61 AD, including Camulodunum, Londinium (modern London) and Verulamium. Pursuing the Romans even further, she met Gaius Suetonius Paulinus and his forces in the Battle of Waltling Street. Although the Romans were vastly outnumbered, their military discipline and precision resulted in their victory. Thousands of Celts died. No one knows for sure what happened to Boudicca. She is believed to have survived the battle and either died from illness or taken poison (possibly along with her daughters) to avoid capture, public humiliation and eventual execution by Rome.

I was going to cover some mythological Queens, too, but I think this is enough for one day.

What do you think? Did the Celts have more Queens than these two? Have you  ever heard of Boudicca or Cartimandua before this? (Cartimandua was new to me, but I find her fascinating.)