Tag Archives: celtic society

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.)

Celtic religion, Celtic society, sabats

Imbolc: Herald of Spring

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Imbolc (February 2) is the second of four high holy days in the Celtic year. Although it takes place amid cold and snow, it marks the beginning of spring, for the Celts believed all life begins in the darkness of the womb of the earth. It’s also the feast of the goddess Brigid, patroness of fire/forge, poetry/inspiration and the mysteries of hearth and home, including healing and childbirth. Step back in time with me to a cold February morn to get a glimpse of the way this feast may have been celebrated.