The pagan character of the mythology found in Irish literature is very clear. The Welsh tales, collected mainly in the Mabinogion, are much later (fourteenth century) and are contaminated more by time and changing literary fashions.
Rites and Rituals
Caesar wrote that the Gauls burnt men alive in huge, wicker effigies. Lucan speaks of ‘cruel Teutates, horrible Esus and Taranis whose altar is as bloody as that of the Scythian Diana’. Medieval accounts tell of men hung from trees and torn to pieces in honour of Teutates, and of victims burnt in hollow trees as sacrifices to Taranis.
How reliable or typical these horrific tales may be is a matter of judgement. It is to be expected that Caesar and the sycophantic Lucan might emphasize the cruelty of Celtic cults to justify Roman massacres and the systematic extermination of the druids. Equally, Christian historians had an interest in discrediting paganism.
Druids may be named after the oak, their sacred tree. They were highly esteemed in Celtic society not only as holy men but also as teachers, philosophers, judges, diviners and astronomers. There were no druidesses as such, although priestesses are reported to have stood alongside the druids as they tried to resist the Roman occupation of Anglesey (ad 60).
It was forbidden for the druids’ secrets to be written down lest they be profaned and lose their power. Consequently, laws, histories, traditions and magic formulae, which took many years to learn, were lost to posterity.
Without authentic written records Druidism is shrouded in mystery and obscured by romanticism, but the writings of Classical observers, such as Caesar, give us some idea of Druidic customs. We know, for example, that they were a well-organized, inter-tribal group who met annually to confer and to elect a leader. They held their ceremonies in forbidding, sacred groves which were allowed to grow thick and wild, and they presided at sacrifices, some of which might well have been human. Druids taught that the soul does not perish after death but that it transmigrates or moves into a new body. Perhaps some of the victims were willing participants who saw themselves as dying for the good of the tribe.
Mistletoe, a perennial plant, was considered sacred by the druids. They saw the relationship between the plant and the trees on which it grew as similar to that between the soul and the body. Like the soul, mistletoe was thought to proceed from the gods.
The tolerance shown by the Romans to the religions of the vanquished did not extend to the druids. The emperors Augustus, Tiberius and Claudius all sought to eradicate them. They painted a grim picture of them as unsavoury figures associated with disgusting ritual practices. This persecution was probably born of fear rather than moral scruple. The druids were a powerful group and a potential focus for rebellion.
Certain Celtic deities were associated with particular places such as sacred groves, remote mountains and lakes. Springs were thought to be the homes of goddesses in the service of the Earth Mother, the source of all life. Sulis, for example, guarded the hot springs at Aquae Sulis (present-day Bath).
The Celts believed that their gods and goddesses had powers to heal and protect, and to influence the outcome of important and everyday events. Celts asking a favour of a particular deity would make a sacrifice. If they were appealing to a water goddess, they might throw valued possessions into the water. Archaeologists have made some of their most important discoveries of weapons and other Iron-Age objects in the mud at the bottom of lakes.
Saints and Survivals
The religious practices of the Celts survived well into the Christian era. This is shown by resolutions passed at Church councils in the sixth century ad and by the edicts of Charlemagne (ad 789) against ‘the worshippers of stones, trees and springs’. Powerless to suppress the old beliefs, Christianity assimilated aspects of paganism.
This appropriation accounts for the large number of saints rooted in Celtic gods and heroes, the springs dedicated to saints or to the Virgin and the sanctuaries built on sacred mounds. Indeed, the Christian religion is a rich source for the study of Celtic spirituality.
From ad 432, St Patrick established a form of Christianity in Ireland to suit a society that was still tribal. Rural monasteries, where monks followed the teachings of their founders, varied from the urban system of churches and Bishops, which was favoured by Rome. This was a much more familiar approach for the Celts, whose structures centred on the family, the clan and powerful local leaders. This form spread to other Celtic countries until the Celtic and Roman Churches met at the Synod of Whitby (ad 664) where the Roman approach prevailed. Thereafter, many of the teachings favoured in Ireland and Britain were forced underground.
The Celtic church was distinctive in many ways which betrayed its ancient roots: its affinity with nature in all its aspects, for example; its respect for the seasonal festivals; the equality it afforded women; and the active participation of the congregation during worship.
The Christian church adapted stories of Celtic divinities as miraculous events in the lives of the saints. Many reflect the Celtic sympathy with nature and the ability of the gods to assume the shape of animals. St Ciaran, for example, trained a fox to carry his psalter; St Kevin had his psalter returned by an otter when he dropped it in a lake; and St Columba subdued the Loch Ness Monster. St Patrick was attributed the most miracles, many of which arise from his struggle with the druids; it was said he could take the form of a deer.
The four main religious festivals of the Celts that were absorbed into the Christian calendar were Samain, Imbolc, Beltaine and Lughnasa. Samain (1 November) marked the end of the agricultural year and the beginning of the next. It was a time for important communal rituals, meetings and sacrifices, as well as being a period when spirits from the otherworld became visible to men. Under Christianity this celebration became Harvest Festival and All Souls Day. The eve of the festival, known today as All Hallows Eve or Halloween, was particularly dangerous.
Imbolc (1 February) was sacred to the fertility goddess, Brigit, and it marked the coming into milk of the ewes and the time for moving them to upland pastures. It was subsequently taken over by the Christians as the feast of St Brigid.
At Beltaine (1 May), people lit bonfires in honour of Belenus, a god of life and death. The festival was seen as a purification or a fresh start. It is likely, too, that the fires were used to fumigate cattle before they were moved to the summer pastures. Under Christianity it became the feast of St John the Baptist.
Finally, there was the festival of Lughnasa (1 August), which the Christians renamed Lammas. It honoured the sun god, Lugh.
Recurring Themes
The myths of the Celts, found in Irish, Welsh and Continental vernacular literature, have inspired the imagination of poets and storytellers from the twelfth century to the present day. Their archetypal themes and imagery, though cloaked in novel forms by each new generation, never lose their potency.
No Celtic creation myth has survived, although Caesar, among other ancient commentators, testifies that they did have one. The nearest we have is a collection of stories in the Book of Invasions (twelfth century), which provide a mythical history of Ireland from the Flood to the coming of the Gaels (Celts).
Love is a central theme in Celtic mythology; love between deities and between gods and humans. The love triangle is a recurring variation, often involving a young couple and an unwanted suitor or an older husband. The outcome is often tragic. Typical of this genre are the Welsh story of Pwll and Rhiannon and the Irish tales of Diarmuid and Gráinne, and Deirdre and Naoise.
Sometimes the triangle involves the young woman’s father, who is often represented as a giant. In these stories the hero is frequently set seemingly impossible tasks to complete before winning the daughter’s hand. A primary example is the Welsh tale of Kilhwch and Olwen. Here Kilhwch seeks the help of Arthur and his band of warriors to complete a list of tasks which culminate in a hunt for the monstrous boar, Twrch Trwyth.
Another theme i
s that of sacral kingship and sovereignty, in which the coupling of the king and the goddess of fertility ensures prosperity in the land. The goddess sometimes appears as a hag who turns into a beautiful young woman following the ritual.
Magic is an essential feature of Celtic myths. It is commonly used as a means of escape, as in the case of Diarmuid and Gráinne who evade Finn’s huntsmen for years using a cloak of invisibility, borrowed from Óengus, a love god. A typical form of magic found in many of the myths is the Celtic deities’ ability to transform themselves or others into a variety of creatures. For example, Midir, the Irish lord of the otherworld, turns himself and the beautiful Étain into swans to escape from the palace of Óengus. The skill is also commonly used to deceive and punish.
Cú Roi and Sir Bartilek are transformed into giants for the beheading game, to make them unrecognizable to Cúchulainn and Gawain. When Math returns home to discover that his foot-maid has been raped by his nephews, Gwydion and Gilfaethwy, he punishes them by turning them into a succession of animals, one male and one female, demanding they produce offspring every year.
Love and enchantment are intimately linked in Celtic tales: Oisín is enchanted by Naim’s beauty; a love potion is the undoing of Tristan and Iseulte; Diarmuid is enchanted by Gráinne; Naoise is enchanted by Deirdre.
Other common themes are the otherworld feast and the feast where dramatic events occur. Such a feast might include a seduction, as in the story of Diarmuid and Gráinne, or a dispute, as in the tale of Briccriu’s Feast. In the latter, an argument over who should receive the choicest cut of meat leads to the contenders taking part in a game to prove who is the most courageous. This involves their submitting without flinching to beheading. Because he is the only one brave enough to go through with it, the Ulster hero, Cúchulainn, is spared the ordeal and wins ‘the champion’s portion’.
The Arthurian Legends
Tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, which swept Europe in the Middle Ages and beyond, were designed to entertain.
But, like the Irish and Welsh legends, they were echoes of the mythology which must have existed in Ireland, Britain and Gaul at the time of the Roman conquests.
Early references to Arthur appear in a Welsh poem by Aneirin (sixth century ad), the writings of the British monk, Gildas (sixth century ad) and of the Celtic historian, Nennius (eighth century ad). A tenth-century Latin history of Wales lists his victories and his defeat at the battle of Camlan. There is no proof that Arthur actually existed, but it is possible that he was a Romanized dux bellorum (battle leader) who lived in Britain in the late fifth century and was famed for resisting the Saxons. By the Middle Ages he and his band had become firmly imbedded in the popular imagination, sharing many of the attributes of Finn mac Cumaill and the Fianna.
Arthur had many faces before emerging as a Christian king, the epitome of medieval chivalry and the once and future saviour of his people. In early stories he is given the epithet Horribilis and is called a tyrant. The eleventh-century Welsh story, Kilhwch and Olwen, the earliest, fully fledged Arthurian tale in a Celtic language, portrays him as a Celtic king and benefactor touched with magic. In later romances he is shown as flawed, falling into slothful states from which it is difficult to arouse him.
The popular image of King Arthur was begun by Geoffrey of Monmouth. His twelfth-century History of the Kings of Britain inspired the Norman poet, Wace, who wrote a more courtly version and introduced the Round Table. The French poet, Chrétien de Troyes, developed the story later in the twelfth century, adding novel elements from Continental sources and the songs of Breton minstrels. It was Chrétien who introduced the idea of courtly love and the earliest version of the Grail legend. In the thirteenth century, Layamon wrote a longer, English version, replacing love and chivalry with earlier Celtic traditions and Dark Age brutality. German contributions followed and, in the fourteenth century, the greatest single Arthurian legend in Middle English, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, appeared. In the fifteenth century Thomas Malory published the Le Morte d”Arthur, which was to become the best-known and most complete version of the story.
The pagan roots of Arthurian legend are clearly evident in typical devices such as the band of warriors (the knights), the love triangle (Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot), the search for a magic cauldron (the Grail), the beheading game (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) and the otherworld (Avalon, Arthur’s final resting place). Medieval authors, from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Malory, found inspiration in these themes, and wove them with other elements into a form which spoke to their courtly contemporaries. So powerful and archetypal is the imagery that it continued to enthrall succeeding generations. In the nineteenth century, English poets such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) and Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) revisited the themes. In the twentieth century, further Arthurian interpretations and adaptations appeared in literature (T.H. White’s Once and Future King – 1958) and in new media such as film and television. The latter range from the brutally realistic (John Boorman’s Excalibur – 1981) to the ridiculous (Monty Python and the Holy Grail – 1974).
The Invasions Cycle
Introduction
Tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Early Milesians
The three stories which introduce this volume are based on tales selected from the Book of Invasions, otherwise known as the Mythological Cycle. This chapter begins after the conquest of the Fir Bolg by the Tuatha Dé Danann, the god-like race, whose name translates as ‘the people of the god whose mother is Dana’. Three of the most outstanding stories have been chosen for this section, each of which has an especially powerful narrative impact.
The Tuatha Dé Danann are recorded as having originally travelled to Erin from the northern islands of Greece around 2000 bc. They possessed great gifts of magic and druidism and they ruled the country until their defeat by the Milesians, when they were forced to establish an underground kingdom known as the Otherworld or the Sidhe, meaning Hollow Hills.
Lugh (pronounced ‘Lu’, ‘gh’ is silent, as in English) of the Long Arm, who also appears later in the Ulster Cycle as Cúchulainn’s divine father, emerges as one of the principal heroes of the Tuatha Dé Danann who rescues his people from the tyranny of the Fomorians. The Quest of the Children of Tuirenn, together with the sorrowful account of Lir’s children, are undoubtedly two of the great epic tales of this cycle.
The Wooing of Étain which concludes the trio, was probably written sometime in the eighth century. The story unfolds after the People of Dana are dispossessed by the Children of Miled and for the first time the notion of a Land of Youth, or Otherworld, is introduced, a theme again returned to in the third and final Fenian Cycle.
The Quest of the Children of Tuirenn
Nuada of the silver hand rose to become King of the Tuatha Dé Danann during the most savage days of the early invasions. The Fomorians, a repulsive band of sea-pirates, were the fiercest of opponents who swept through the country destroying cattle and property and imposing tribute on the people of the land. Every man of the Tuatha Dé Danann, no matter how rich or poor, was required to pay one ounce of gold to the Fomorians and those who neglected to pay this tax at the annual assembly on the Hill of Uisneach were maimed or murdered without compassion. Balor of the Evil Eye was leader of these brutal invaders, and it was well known that when he turned his one glaring eyeball on his foes they immediately fell dead as if struck by a thunderbolt. Everyone lived in mortal fear of Balor, for no weapon had yet been discovered that could slay or even injure him. Times were bleak for the Tuatha Dé Danann and the people had little faith in King Nuada who appeared powerless to resist Balor’s tyranny and oppression. As the days passed by, they yearned for a courageous leader who would rescue them from their life of wretched servitude.
The appalling misery of the Tuatha Dé Danann became known far and wide and, after a time, it reached the ears of Lugh of the Long Arm of the fairymounds,
whose father was Cian, son of Cainte. As soon as he had grown to manhood, Lugh had proven his reputation as one of the most fearless warriors and was so revered by the elders of Fairyland that they had placed in his charge the wondrous magical gifts of Manannan the sea-god which had protected their people for countless generations. Lugh rode the magnificent white steed of Manannan, known as Aenbarr, a horse as fleet of foot as the wailing gusts of winter whose charm was such that no rider was ever wounded while seated astride her. He had the boat of Manannan, which could read a man’s thoughts and travel in whatever direction its keeper demanded. He also wore Manannan’s breast-plate and body armour which no weapon could ever pierce, and he carried the mighty sword known as ‘The Retaliator’ that could cut through any battle shield.
The day approached once more for the People of Dana to pay their annual taxes to the Fomorians and they gathered together, as was customary, on the Hill of Uisneach to await the arrival of Balor’s men. As they stood fearful and terrified in the chill morning air, several among them noticed a strange cavalry coming over the plain from the east towards them. At the head of this impressive group, seated high in command above the rest, was Lugh of the Long Arm, whose proud and noble countenance mirrored the splendour of the rising sun. The King was summoned to witness the spectacle and he rode forth to salute the leader of the strange army. The two had just begun to converse amiably when they were interrupted by the approach of a grimy-looking band of men, instantly known to all as Fomorian tax-collectors. King Nuada bowed respectfully towards them and instructed his subjects to deliver their tributes without delay. Such a sad sight angered and humiliated Lugh of the Long Arm and he drew the King aside and began to reproach him:
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