Celtic religion

UNIT 1

THE COMING OF THE CELTS

From the seventh to the third centuries before Christ, the Celtic tribes, originally occupying North-western Europe, were moving across the Continent in many different directions. The Celts, in their earlier day, showed as much vigour in migration as any race that came after them. One great part of them settled in France and became an important element in the racial content of the Gaulish nation. A southern wing settled in the valley of the Po, put an end to the Etruscan hegemony in Italy, and about 387 ВС sacked Rome. Others pushed into Spain, others into the Balkans. During the same centuries a northern wing of this great world movement overran Britain and imposed Celtic rule and language on its inhabitants. The Celtic invaders of Britain came in successive tribal waves, each with a dialect of its own. At least two big wave* of Celtic invasion can be distinguished: first the Gaels or Goidels, still found in Ireland and Scotland; secondly the Cymri and Brythons still found in Wales. Among the Brythonic peoples were the Belgea and other tribes whom Caesar found spread over Southern England. These Britons seem to have been already settled in the island that is still called by their name, at the time when a Greek traveller recorded his visit to the "Pretanic isle" in the days of Alexander of Macedon. The Celts who overran so much of Europe in the last six centuries before Christ were tall, light-haired warriors, skilful in ironwork, which was then replacing bronze, and in arts and crafts of their own, much admired by modern archaeologists.

UNIT 2

CELTIC RELIGION

Of Iberian and Celtic religion we know next to nothing save what little can be deduced from the fairy folklore of Celts in Christian times. Local gods and goddesses haunted particular springs, caves, mountains, forests and other natural objects, and easily became the local fairies and water-spirits of later times. The most detailed account.of the old Celtic religion by a contemporary was written by Julius Caesar. His imagination was stirred by the power of the organized hierarchy of priestsc the Druids — strong in Gaul and strongest in Britain. They had all education in their hands and administered justice in the courts, and made a disobedient layman an outlaw. "Persons are held impious and accursed; men will not meet or speak with them", writes Caesar. The power of the Druids was distasteful to the Roman patrician, for Rome had not yet bowed her neck to the hierarchies from the East. "All the Gauls", he observes, "are as a nation much given to superstition, and, therefore, persons afflicted by severe illness or involved in wars and danger either make human sacrifices or vow to do so, and use the Druids as their ministers in these ceremonies". "The Germans", he adds, "differ much from the Gauls in these customs. For they have no Druids to preside over their religion". And if Caesar had known the Anglo-Saxons and the Norsemen he might have said the same of them. Thus, the paganism of the Celts in France and Britain was a religion of fear and priestcraft as compared to the paganism of those other barbarian races destined to wrest from them the supremacy of the island.

UNIT 3

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