A Brief History of the Celts

by Peter Berresford Ellis

  The Celtic idea of immortality was that death was but a changing of place and that life went on with all its forms and goods in another world, a world of the dead, or the fabulous Otherworld. When people died in that world, however, their souls were reborn in this. Thus a constant exchange of souls took place between the two worlds; death in this world took a soul to the Otherworld, death in that world brought a soul to this. Philostratus of Tyana (c. AD 170–249) observed correctly that the Celts celebrated birth with mourning for the death in the Otherworld, and regarded death with joy for birth in the Otherworld. So firm was the Celtic belief in the Otherworld, according to Valerius Maximus writing in the early first century AD, that ‘they lent sums of money to each other which are repayable in the next world, so firmly are they convinced that the souls of men are immortal.’ As we have seen, rich grave goods, personal belongings, weapons, food and drink were buried with the dead to give them a good start in the Otherworld.

  My view is that the Celts did not borrow their philosophy from the Greeks, nor did the Greeks borrow it from the Celts. The evolution of the doctrine of immortality of the soul was a parallel and differing development in several Indo-European cultures, and might originate from an earlier common belief.

  We have used the term ‘Otherworld’ for this world of the dead because it has become so popular. The insular Celts themselves had numerous names for the Otherworld – all euphemisms, for the Celtic languages are filled with euphemisms. We find over half a dozen names for the sun and the moon, with prohibitions as to when those words could be used. Doubtless this was the case with the Otherworld. In old and middle Irish we find the words cenntar as meaning ‘this world’ and alltar meaning the ‘Otherworld’.

  To take Irish mythology alone we find, among the synonyms for the Otherworld: Tír na nOg (Land of Youth); Tír Tairnigiri (Land of Promise); Tír na tSamhraidh (Land of Summer); Magh Mell (Plain of Happiness); Tír na mBeo (Land of the Living); Magh Da Cheo (Plain of Two Mists); Tír fo Thuinn (Land Under the Wave); Hy-Breasail (Breasal’s Island); Hy-Falga (Falga’s Island) and Dún Scaith (Fortress of Shadows).

  Insular Celtic literature is filled with stories of voyages or journeys to the Otherworld, such as Cúchulainn’s trip to Hy-Falga, or the Voyage of Bran, or that of Mael Duin, or the journey of Pwyll to Annwn in Welsh literature. One of the most famous sojourns in the Otherworld in insular literature was that of Oisín who rode off on a magical horse with Niamh, the daughter of the sea god, Manannán Mac Lir, and stayed there for 300 years.

  The Otherworld, for the brave traveller who undertook the journey, could be reached by various means, through a cave, in a lake, but most popularly by voyaging across the great sea to the south-west or west. Even in modern English we have a survival of this – when someone was killed in wartime he was referred to as having ‘gone west’. One Irish name, Hy-Breasail, Breasal’s Island, was so accepted in people’s minds as a real land to the west that it was marked on medieval maps. When in 1500 the Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral reached South America, he thought he had discovered Hy-Breasail and thus named the country Brazil.

  The gathering place of the souls of the dead was always regarded as a small island to the south-west of Ireland and a similar belief was held in Wales. The souls were then transported by the god of the dead to the Otherworld.

  The actual location of the Otherworld, whether in this world or a spirit world not of this earth, has caused some confusion. The poet Lucan, in Pharsalia, refers to it as orbe alio, implying that it was merely a different area of the world known to us. Furthermore, there are many different concepts of what the Otherworld was like, ranging from dark and brooding places to happy, rural paradises.

  There was one day of the year when the Otherworld could become visible to this world: on the feast of Samhain, the eve of 31 October to 1 November. This was a time when the supernatural boundary between the two worlds was broken down and people, the dead and living, could move freely between the two lands. It was a time when those who had been wronged by the living could return and haunt them. Christianity, unable to suppress the belief, adopted it. 1 November became All Hallows Day or All Souls’ Day and the evening before, ‘Hallowe’en’.

  In Irish myth there are two ‘gatekeepers’, the deities who escorted souls to the Otherworld: Bíle, the one-time consort of Danu, and Donn, although Donn is often confused in the texts with Bíle. Tech Duinn (House of Donn) was the name given to the assembly place of the dead off the south-west of Ireland.

  Who administered the religion of the Celts? Pomponius Mela states that the Druids ‘profess to know the will of the gods’. Caesar says: ‘The Druids officiate at the worship of the gods, regulate public and private sacrifices, and give rulings on all religious questions.’ But it is clear that this is only one small part of what a Druid did. As we have seen, the Druids were the intellectual caste and incorporated the priesthood within their ranks. This is why the Greeks and Romans are not consistent in using the word Druid for a priest and why Druids are not referred to in many parts of the Celtic world while the intellectual professions are mentioned. Even in areas where Druids are referred to, such as Gaul, other words for priests are used: gutuatri, for example, perhaps incorporating the Celtic word for ‘voice’ which survives in the Irish guth. The office of gutuater is referred to in inscriptions at Maçon, Haute-Loire and Autun. Livy talks of the priests of the Boii as antistes templi while Ausonius speaks of the aedituus Beleni.

  Having established that the ancient Celts believed in a pantheon of gods, whom they saw as ancestors and not as creators, and that they believed in an immortal soul and in the Otherworld, can we now find evidence of their moral code? Diogenes Laertius observed that the chief maxim was that the people ‘should worship the gods, do no evil and exercise courage’. From the various insular sources, comparing them to classical writers’ comments, we may argue that the Celtic priesthood taught that the ideal was for people to live in harmony with nature and themselves, accepting that pain and death were not evils but essential parts of the divine plan, and that the only evil was moral weakness. As Professor Myles Dillon has pointed out, the notion of Truth as the highest principle and sustaining power of creation pervaded all early Irish literature.

  The old Irish word for ‘truth’ is the basis for the linguistic concepts of holiness, righteousness, faithfulness, as well as for religion and for justice. Even in modern Irish one can say: ‘Tá sé/sí in áit na fhírinne anois’ when a person dies. This literally means: ‘He/she is in the place of Truth now.’ This basic philosophy of pre-Christian Celtic religion has many parallels with eastern Indo-European concepts and we find an exact parallel in the Persian-Iranian religion of Parseeism. In the Hindu Vedas we find that Truth (rta) is a land in the highest state of paradise and the source of the sacred Ganges. The Vedas say that ‘by means of Truth the earth endures’. The same concept is expressed in the famous Audacht or will of the Brehon, Morannmac Cairbre, who left instructions for the high king, Feradach Finn Fachtnach (AD 95–117), which are recorded in Leabhar Laignech (Book of Leinster).

  The Celtic religion was based on a moral system which distinguished right from wrong. In old Irish the terms were fas and nefas, what was lawful (dleathacht) and unlawful (neamhdleathacht), and the teachings were impressed on people by a series of taboos (geasa). Moral salvation was the responsibility of the individual. The Celtic Christian theologian Pelagius (c. AD 354–420) was accused of reviving pre-Christian Celtic philosophies, specifically the ‘Natural Philosophy of the Druids’; he argued that men and women could take the initial and fundamental step towards their salvation, using their own efforts and not accepting things as preordained.

  Augustine of Hippo had taught that mankind took on Adam’s original sin and had no free will in effecting its own salvation. Whether people did good deeds or bad deeds in life, they were already fated, everything was preordained. Pelagius argued that Augustine’s theories imperilled the entire moral law. If men and women were
not responsible for their good or evil deeds, there was nothing to restrain them from an indulgence in evil-doing on the basis that it was preordained and they were not responsible.

  Pelagius’ arguments were an echo of the more progressive aspect of pre-Christian Celtic philosophy. But Augustine of Hippo prevailed and Pelagius was declared a heretic. For many centuries, the Celtic Christian movement was considered to be imbued with Pelagius’ teachings. It was not that the Celts consciously accepted Pelagius’ teachings, but the belief that men and women had free will and were responsible for their actions was an essential part of the Celtic culture. Curiously, although Christianity finally accepted Pelagius’ teachings, Augustine of Hippo is still regarded as a saint and Pelagius as a heretic.

  Concurrently with Pelagius, there were several other Celtic philosophers writing tracts which are now all lumped together as ‘Pelagian’. They shared a common set of philosophies. It is not surprising that we can identify them as Celts and their early writings also showed a social philosophy which has distinct echoes in insular Celtic law systems. The British Celtic bishop Fastidius, writing De Vita Christiana (The Christian Life) about AD 411, argued:

  Do you think yourself Christian if you oppress the poor? . . . if you enrich yourself by making others poor? if you wring your food from other’s tears? A Christian is a man who . . . never allows a poor man to be oppressed when he is by . . . whose doors are open to all, whose table every poor man knows, whose food is offered to all.

  The hospitality of Celtic kings and chieftains is well documented in mythology and stipulated in law. The rights and duties of a ruler to see that no one, particularly strangers in his land, went hungry, the law forbidding the exploitation of workers, the fines in Irish law for anyone profiting from causing injury – all these point to the fact that Pelagius and the other ‘Pelagian’ writers shared a particular cultural background.

  We know that, like most ancient peoples, the Celts practised divination, foretelling the future or will of the gods by the presence of good or bad omens. The Greeks and Romans claimed that the Celtic priests searched for prophetic signs in the entrails of sacrificial animals and in the flight of birds. Augury, or bird flight, was a method particularly used by the Etruscans who, like the Romans and other civilisations, also looked for signs in animal entrails. This was known as haruspices (auspices) and the art was called the Etrusca disciplina. A college of Etruscan augurs was established in Rome.

  Both Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, using as their only source Poseidonius, claimed that the Druids (or Druidic priests) divined from the death throes of human victims. Caesar repeated the information. They described the Celtic priests as plunging a dagger into a victim and watching his death throes. Tacitus, echoing these earlier writers, says: ‘The Druids consult the gods in the palpitating entrails of men.’ Indeed, the reputation of the ancient Celts as indulging in human sacrifice relies on several Roman-orientated writers, who can all be traced back to one informant only – the source of all ‘human sacrifice’ tales is Poseidonius. Those who mention human sacrifice all explain that it was only used in divination or to propitiate the gods. Cicero among others repeats this: ‘they find it necessary to propitiate the immortal gods and defile their altars and temples with human victims.’

  Of course, human sacrifice in religious matters was certainly practised in the ancient Indo-European world and we may ask why the Celts should have been singled out for criticism in this way. Yet we have only the unsupported word of Poseidonius as the basis for all these accusations. We also have to bear in mind that the Romans had an agenda of their own in denigrating the Celts and making them less than human. The curious thing is that the Romans practised human sacrifice themselves. For after Hannibal’s victory at Cannae in 216 BC, the Romans sacrificed two Celtic prisoners and two Greek prisoners by burying them alive in the Forum Boarium in Rome to propitiate their gods.

  Roman writers loved to talk about Celtic savagery, the quality of being fierce, cruel and uncivilised. By Rome’s own bloodthirsty standards, any Celtic cruelty seems to have been quite mild. Ritual killings were a way of Roman life and in the Tullianum, at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, state prisoners were ceremonially executed to appease the gods of war. What else is this but human sacrifice? Vercingetorix, who surrendered to save his people in 52 BC, was incarcerated for six years before being ritually slaughtered to celebrate Caesar’s triumph.

  The view of Roman society as advanced and moral, and the acceptance of their condemnation of human sacrifice among the Celts, based on a single authority who was then repeated ad nauseam, is curious to say the least. In 264 BC Marcus and Decimus Brutus decided to mark the death of their father by having three pairs of slaves fight to the death as a sacrifice to the Roman gods and with the approval of the priests. Julius Caesar in 46 BC, so disapproving of human sacrifice among the Celts, had slaves fight to the death to commemorate the funeral of his daughter Julia.

  This form of sacrifice reached its peak in the fourth century AD. Diocletian (AD 284–305) is recorded as having had 17,000 men, women and children slaughtered in the arena in one month alone. By the first century AD most Roman writers, even if begrudgingly, agreed that human sacrifice among the Celts was a thing of the past. They obviously could not repeat Poseidonius’ comments as applying to their own time; a time when tens of thousands were being ritually slaughtered in the Roman arena for the sake of entertainment.

  It is certainly true to say that in the insular Celtic literatures there is no tradition, no shadow of a tradition, of human sacrifice. As this material was written down by Christian clerics, who would have taken any opportunity to denigrate the pagan beliefs of their ancestors, it must be argued that had there been any such practice it would have come under fierce attack.

  In terms of divination of the future, Greek and Roman writers observe that the Celts were renowned for their ‘speculation from the stars’, which meant that they practised astrology and were adept at astronomy. We have already considered this aspect of Celtic culture in Chapter 9.

  14

  CELTIC MYTH AND LEGEND

  The evidence of the myths and legends of the ancient Celts is, strictly speaking, scanty. The reason for this is that those myths and legends were not committed to a written form until the Christian period when they were given a Christian ‘gloss’ and when the ancient gods and goddesses were adjusted to new roles to fit in with the precepts of the new religion.

  Even with this caveat, the Celtic languages contain one of Europe’s oldest and most vibrant mythologies. What do we mean precisely by mythology? It is a sacred tradition embracing a whole set of concepts covering the philosophical beliefs of a given culture. Some have argued that myths are parables to explain ideas on imponderable questions. Basically, the function of mythology is to give an account of the religious ideas, including the concept of creation, and the fortunes of a people. It leads, almost seamlessly, into the legends of a culture, that is the oral history of the people from the distant past. Again, there is a fine line between legend and the historical reality.

  When the insular Celtic traditions were first committed to writing about the sixth century AD, it was a development of a far earlier and highly sophisticated oral tradition. Those entrusted with handing on the myths orally had to be word perfect and, as Julius Caesar remarked, it sometimes took twenty years for trainees to learn the lore before they were regarded as ‘qualified’. Therefore, the traditions contained an echo of voices from the dawn of European civilisation. The late Professor Kenneth Jackson once described the Irish Táin Bó Cuailgne as ‘a window on the Iron Age’.

  Certainly the Irish myths still have a particular vibrancy as Ireland was the only Celtic land to escape Roman conquest and was relatively uninfluenced by contact with Rome until the Christian period. Then, however, Latin culture was the vehicle by which the new religion was imported. The Christian scribes tended to bowdlerise the pagan vibrancy of the myths and give them a Christian veneer.

 
; Some of this veneer is quite blatant. For example, the sea god Manannán Mac Lir, in one story, foretells the coming of Christ to save the world. In another, the great hero Cúchulainn pleads with St Patrick to intercede with Christ to save him from the ‘Fires of Hell’, out of which the saint has summoned him to prove a point to a pagan Irish monarch. As the stories were set down by individuals, working at varying times and copying more often than not from older books as well as oral tradition, the pre-Christian vitality in Irish myth has not been entirely obliterated.

  Irish mythology has been categorised into four sections. ‘The Mythological Cycle’ relates to the various ‘invasions’ of Ireland, from that of Cesair, at the time of the Deluge, through the invasions of Partholón, Nemed, the Firbolg, the Dé Danaan and the sons of Milesius, the progenitors of the Gael. In the background lurk the ancient deities of Ireland, the Tuatha Dé Danaan, the Children of Danu. This group of tales are the closest to the creation myths in any Celtic language. We find the gods and goddesses, the Children of Danu, have arrived in Ireland from their four fabulous Otherworld cities, to overthrow the Firbolg and claim Ireland for their own. However, the real villains are the Tuatha de Domhain, the Children of Domhnu, who are also called the Fomorii (fo, under, morii, sea, so ‘undersea dwellers’). It becomes clear that the Children of Danu are the deities of light and good, while the Children of Domhnu are the deities of darkness and evil. The cycle ends with the arrival of the mortals in Ireland, the sons of Golamh, known in Latin as Míle Easpain (Soldier of Spain) or Milesius. He is identified as an Iberian Celt who has wandered the world selling his military services. He has served Nectanebus, the pharaoh of Egypt, and married his daughter, Scota. This is a device to explain the word ‘Scotii’ as applied to the Irish of this period and eventually the name ‘Scotland’. There is another Scota in Irish mythology who was the daughter of the pharaoh Cingris and became the wife of Niul, mother of Goidel.