Celtic polytheism refers to the religious beliefs and practices of ancient Celts, prior to the Christianization of the Celtic-speaking lands. At various times those lands included Ireland, Britain, Celtiberia, Gaul, areas along the Danube river, and Galatia. Celtic religious practices bear the marks of Romanization following the Roman Empire's conquest of Gaul (58–51 BCE) and Britain (43 CE), although the depth and significance of Romanization is a subject of scholarly disagreement.

Beliefs

Theology

Celtic theology was both polytheistic, believing in many deities, and animistic, believing in spirits of nature, some of whom were also venerated as gods. There was no canonical set of gods worshipped across the entire Celtic world, but some gods were common across different Celtic lands, albeit under different regional names.

Animism & local deities

Main article : Celtic animism

The Celts were animists, believing that all aspects of the natural world contained spirits, and that these spirits could be communicated with. According to classical era sources, the Celts worshipped the forces of nature and did not envisage deities in anthropomorphic terms, as other pagan peoples such as the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians did.

These animistic deities were often worshipped, so places such as rocks, streams, mountains and trees may all have had shrines or offerings devoted to a deity residing there. A similar belief is found in modern Shinto in Japan, through the belief of kami. These would have been local deities, known and worshipped by inhabitants living near to the shrine itself, and not pan-Celtic like some of the polytheistic gods.

Among the most popular sites for the veneration of animistic deities were trees; the oak, ash and thorn were considered to be the most sacred. Hot springs and rivers were also popular sites for worship, and were commonly associated with healing. Fairies as a recurring belief in animistic gods One of the most popular theories for a belief in fairies in christianised Celtic areas is that they were a recurring folk belief of these animistic deities, placed under a Christian worldview, where they were seen no longer as nature deities but as malevolant spirits. Sometimes these fairies were treated just the same as previous pagan nature gods had been, with offerrings being placed on trees and other shrines to both placate them from comitting negative actions and ensuring a good harvest or hunt etc.

Polytheism & pan-Celtic deities

Main article : Celtic theology

The Celts were polythiests, believing in a number of different gods and goddesses. Whilst the majority of these were animistic, local gods, some were pan-Celtic, being worshipped across the Celtic world (albeit under regional names). Notable Celtic gods include:

• The god Lugus; Lugh in Ireland, Lleu Llaw Gyffes in Wales.
• A god of thunder; Taranis in France, Britain and Spain.
• A god of tribal protection; Toutatis in Britain and France.
• A horned god of the wild; Cernunnos in France.
• A god of healing; Belenos in France.
• A mother goddess; Rhiannon in Wales, Danu in Ireland
• A goddess of water; Sulis
• A goddess of horses; Epona
• A divine couple;
• A divine bull;

When the Romans conquered the Celts, they associated the Celtic gods with their own deities. For instance, they claimed that the Gaulish Celtic god Belenos was the same as their own god Apollo. These Roman descriptions comparing Celtic and Roman deities are one of the few sources of literary information that we have about the Celtic gods.

The two other main literary sources come from mediaeval Irish and Welsh mythology, as contained in literary works such as Táin Bó Cúailnge and the Mabinogion. Under Christian dominance, the old pagan gods had been demoted to being considered historical figures, for example, in early Christian Ireland, the Celtic gods were claimed to be an ancient tribe of humans called the Tuatha Dé Danann.

Insular Celts swore their oaths by their personal or tribal gods, and the land, sea and sky; as in, "I swear by the gods by whom my people swear" and "If I break my oath, may the land open to swallow me, the sea rise to drown me, and the sky fall upon me."

Afterlife

There is no direct information that has survived on what the Celts believed happened after death. However, from archaeological discoveries, Roman accounts, and later mythology, possible ideas of a Celtic afterlife can be established.

Celtic burial practices, which included burying food, weapons, and ornaments with the dead, suggest a belief in life after death.

The druids, the Celtic learned class which included members of the clergy, were said by Caesar to have believed in reincarnation and transmigration of the soul along with astronomy and the nature and power of the gods.The Otherworld A common factor in later mythologies from christianised Celtic nations was the otherworld. This was the realm of the fairy folk, who would entice humans into their realm. Sometimes this otherworld was claimed to exist underground, whilst at other times it was said to lie far to the west. Several scholars have suggested that the otherworld was the pagan Celtic afterlife, though there is no direct evidence to prove this.

Festivals

Insular sources provide important information about Celtic religious festivals. In Ireland the year was divided into two periods of six months by the feasts of Beltane (May 1) and Samhain (Samain; November 1), and each of these periods was equally divided by the feasts of Imbolc (February 1), and Lughnasadh (August 1). Samhain seems originally to have meant "summer," but by the early Irish period it had come to mark summer's end. Beltine is also called Cetsamain ("First Samhain"). Imbolc has been compared by the French scholar Joseph Vendryes to the Roman lustrations and apparently was a feast of purification for the farmers. Beltane ("Bright Fire") was the festival of the beginning of summer, and there is a tradition that on that day the people drove their cattle between two fires as a protection against disease. Lughnasadh was the feast of the god Lugh and a celebration of the first fruits or early harvest.

The Coligny calendar has sometimes been looked to for information regarding the Gaulish year including holy days.

Beltane

Beltane is a festival held on the first day of May in Ireland and Scotland, celebrating the beginning of summer and open pasturing. In early Irish lore a number of significant events took place on Beltane, which long remained the focus of folk traditions and tales in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. Like Samhain, Beltane was seen as a time when the spirit realm is especially close at hand.

Samhain

The beginning of the month of Samhain (Old Irish samain), was one of the most important calendar festivals of the Celtic year. At "the three nights of Samhain", held around the beginning of November, the world of the gods and spirits was believed to be made visible to humans. The deities and spirits may play tricks on their mortal worshipers, and it was a time filled with supernatural episodes. Samhain was traditionally a time of sacrifice, whether in offering to the deities or due to the need to slaughter any livestock that it would be impossible to feed for the entire winter. Samhain was an important precursor to the later festival of Halloween, as it was a time for the Celts to honour the dead, the spirits and deities, and to face the realities and fears of the coming winter.

Practises

Worship

According to Poseidonius and later classical authors Gaulish religion and culture were the concern of three professional classes—the druids, the bards, and the vates. This threefold hierarchy had its reflection among the two main branches of Celts in Ireland and Wales, but is best represented in early Irish tradition with its draoithe (druids), filidh (visionary poets), and Faidh (seers). However these categories are not always fixed, and may be named or divided differently in different primary sources.

Classical sources claimed that the Celts had no temples (before the Gallo-Roman period) and that their ceremonies took place in forest sanctuaries. However, archaeologist have discovered a large number of temple sites excavated throughout the Celtic world, primarily in Gaul. In the Gallo-Roman period, more permanent stone temples were erected, and many of them have been discovered by archaeologists in Britain as well as in Gaul. Indeed, a distinct type of Celto-Roman temple called a fanum also was developed. This was distinguished from a common Roman shrine by having an ambulatory on all four sides of the central cella.

Celtic religious practice was probably sacrificial in its interactions with the gods. Roman writers stated that the Celts practiced human sacrifice in Gaul: Cicero, Julius Caesar, Suetonius, and Lucan all refer to it, and Pliny the Elder says that it occurred in Britain, too. It was forbidden under Tiberius and Claudius. However there is also the possibility that these claims may have been false, and used as a sort of propaganda to justify the Roman conquest of these territories. There are only very few recorded archaeological discoveries which preserve evidence of human sacrifice and thus most contemporary historians tend to regard human sacrifice as rare within Celtic cultures. There is some circumstantial evidence that human sacrifice was known in Ireland and was later forbidden by St. Patrick, a claim which has also been disputed.

The early Celts considered some trees to be sacred. The importance of trees in Celtic religion is shown by the fact that the very name of the Eburonian tribe contains a reference to the yew tree, and that names like Mac Cuilinn (son of holly) and Mac Ibar (son of yew) appear in Irish myths. In Ireland, wisdom was symbolized by the salmon who feed on the hazelnuts from the trees that surround the well of wisdom (Tobar Segais).

There was also a warrior cult that centered on the severed heads of their enemies. The Celts provided their dead with weapons and other accoutrements, which indicates that they most likely believed in some form of an afterlife.

An example of a ceremony was the ritual of the oak and the mistletoe.

Religious vocations or castes

Druids

A Druid was a member of the learned class among the ancient Celts. They acted as priests, teachers, and judges. The earliest known records of the Druids come from the 3rd century BC. Some scholars have suggested that the Druids were the Celtic counterparts of the Brahmans of India.

Bards and filid

In Ireland the filid were visionary poets, associated with lorekeeping, versecraft, and the memorization of vast numbers of poems. They were also magicians, as Irish magic is intrinsically connected to poetry, and the satire of a gifted poet was a serious curse upon the one being satirized. To run afoul of a poet was a dangerous thing indeed to a people who valued reputation and honor more than life itself.

In Ireland a "bard" was considered a lesser grade of poet than a fili - more of a minstrel and rote reciter than an inspired artist with magical powers. However, in Wales bardd was the word for their visionary poets, and used in the same manner fili was in Ireland and Scotland.

The Celtic poets, of whatever grade, were composers of eulogy and satire, and a chief duty was that of composing and reciting verses on heroes and their deeds, and memorizing the genealogies of their patrons. It was essential to their livelihood that they increase the fame of their patrons, via tales, poems and songs. As early as the 1st century AD, the Latin author Lucan referred to "bards" as the national poets or minstrels of Gaul and Britain. In Gaul the institution gradually disappeared, whereas in Ireland and Wales it survived. The Irish bard through chanting preserved a tradition of poetic eulogy. In Wales, where the word bardd has always been used for poet, the bardic order was codified into distinct grades in the 10th century. Despite a decline of the order toward the end of the European Middle Ages, the Welsh tradition has persisted and is celebrated in the annual eisteddfod, a national assembly of poets and musicians.

The evidence for Celtic religion

The evidence for the nature of Celtic religion comes partly from ancient literature (from the Classical commentators on the Celts, and from the vernacular mythic sources of Ireland and Wales) and partly from archaeological evidence, especially in the Roman period when inscribed dedications and religious images contribute significantly to our knowledge. What we lack because of the virtual non-literacy of Iron Age Celts is written testimony from the Celts themselves.

It is important to exercise some care in using all three of these sources for Celtic religion. The classical historians were inevitably subject to bias, distortion, ignorance, misunderstanding, literary convention and barbarian stereotyping, all of which combine to present a picture of Celtic religion which is somewhat skewed and, to a certain extent, unreal. Because of their chronological separation from the pre-Christian world, the early Welsh and Irish vernacular sources, written in the Welsh and Irish languages, must be scrutinized with even more rigour than the classical sources in assessing their validity as evidence for pagan Celtic religion. While it is possible to single out specific texts which – because of their pagan content – can be strongly argued to encapsulate genuine echoes or resonances of the pre-Christian past, the earliest mythic stories of Ireland and Wales were not compiled in written form until the mediaeval period. Opinion is divided as to whether these texts contain substantive material derived from oral tradition as preserved by bards or whether they were the creation of the mediaeval monastic tradition.

The archaeological evidence does not contain the bias inherent in the literary sources. Nonetheless, our interpretation of this evidence is inevitably coloured by the twenty-first-century mindset.

Four main types of source provide information on Celtic polytheism: the minted coins of Gaul, Raetia, Noricum and Britain; the sculptures, monuments and inscriptions associated with the Celts of continental Europe and of Roman Britain; Greek and Roman literature; and the insular literatures of Celtic mythology that have survived in writing from medieval times. All pose problems of interpretation. The pre-Roman coins of the 1st century BC and early 1st century AD bear few relevant inscriptions, and their iconography derives partly from standardized Hellenistic numismatic prototypes and partly presents highly local emblems. Most of the monuments, and their accompanying inscriptions, belong to the Roman period and reflect a considerable degree of syncretism between Celtic and Roman gods; even where figures and motifs appear to derive from pre-Roman tradition, they are difficult to interpret in the absence of a preserved literature on mythology.

Only after the lapse of many centuries – beginning in the 7th century in Ireland, even later in Wales – were Celtic mythological traditions consigned to writing, but by then Ireland and Wales had been Christianised and the scribes and redactors were monastic scholars. The resulting literature is abundant and varied, but it is much removed in both time and location from its epigraphic and iconographic correlatives on the Continent and inevitably reflects the redactors' selectivity and something of their Christian learning. There are nevertheless many points of agreement between the insular literatures and the continental evidence. This is particularly notable in the case of the Classical commentators from Posidonius (c. 135–c. 51 BC) onward who recorded their own or others' observations on the Celts.

History

The effect of Christianity

The conversion to Christianity inevitably had a profound effect on this socio-religious system from the 5th century onward, though its character can only be extrapolated from documents of considerably later date. By the early 7th century the church had succeeded in relegating Irish druids to ignominious irrelevancy, while the filidh, masters of traditional learning, operated in easy harmony with their clerical counterparts, contriving at the same time to retain a considerable part of their pre-Christian tradition, social status, and privilege. But virtually all the vast corpus of early vernacular literature that has survived was written down in monastic scriptoria, and it is part of the task of modern scholarship to identify the relative roles of traditional continuity and ecclesiastical innovation as reflected in the written texts. Cormac's Glossary (c. 900) recounts that St. Patrick banished those mantic rites of the filidh that involved offerings to "demons", and it seems probable that the church took particular pains to stamp out animal sacrifice and other rituals repugnant to Christian teaching. What survived of ancient ritual practice tended to be related to filidhecht, the traditional repertoire of the filidh, or to the central institution of sacral kingship. A good example is the pervasive and persistent concept of the hierogamy (sacred marriage) of the king with the goddess of sovereignty: the sexual union, or banais ríghi ("wedding of kingship"), which constituted the core of the royal inauguration seems to have been purged from the ritual at an early date through ecclesiastical influence, but it remains at least implicit, and often quite explicit, for many centuries in the literary tradition.

Nagy has noted the Gaelic oral tradition has been remarkably conservative. The fact that we have tales in existence which were still being told in the 19th century in almost exactly the same form as they exist in ancient manuscripts leads to the strong probability that much of what the monks recorded was considerably older. Though the Christian interpolations in some of these tales are very obvious, many of them read like afterthoughts or footnotes to the main body of the tales, which most likely preserve traditions far older than the manuscripts themselves.

Mythology based on (though, not identical to) the pre-Christian religion is still common place knowledge in Celtic-speaking cultures. Various rituals involving acts of pilgrimage to sites such as hills and sacred wells which are believed to have curative or otherwise beneficial properties are still performed. Based on evidence from the European continent, various figures which are still known in folklore in the Celtic countries up to today, or who take part in post-Christian mythology, are known to have also been worshipped in those areas that did not have records before Christianity.

Revival

Various groups claim association with Celtic polytheism. These groups range from the Reconstructionists, who work to practice ancient Celtic religion with as much accuracy as possible; to new age, eclectic groups who take some of their inspiration from Celtic mythology but place little significance on any sort of historical precedent.

Celtic Reconstructionism

Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism is an effort to reconstruct, in a modern Celtic cultural context, Celtic polytheistic practices from surviving written, archaeological and cultural examples of Celtic polytheism.

Neo-druidism and Wicca

Modern eclectic religions such as Wicca and Neo-druidism place little emphasis on historical basis or reconstruction, instead blending many outside influences into a modern religion that draws little influence from, or resemblance to, historical Celtic polytheism outside of borrowed imagery or terminology.

See also

• Animism
• Celtic mythology
• Celtic languages
• Germanic paganism
• Gundestrup cauldron
• Irish mythology

• Horned helmet
• Paganism
• polytheism
• Proto-Indo-European religion
• Welsh mythology

References

Further reading

• de Vries, Jan (1961) Keltische Religion, a comprehensive survey
• Duval, Paul-Marie (1976) Les Dieux de la Gaule, new ed. updated and enlarged.
• Green, Miranda (1986, revised 2004) Gods of the Celts,
• Mac Cana, Proinsias (1970) Celtic Mythology, copious illustrations.
• Nagy, Joseph Falaky (1985) The Wisdom of the Outlaw: The Boyhood Deeds of Finn in Gaelic Narrative Tradition, tales and analysis in Gaelic and English.
• O'Rahilly, Thomas F. (1946, reissued 1971) Early Irish History and Mythology
• Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise (1949, reissued 1982; originally published in French, 1940) Gods and Heroes of the Celts comparisons between deities of the various Celtic cultures vs Classical models.
• Stercks, Claude (1986) Éléments de cosmogonie celtique, contains an interpretive essay on the goddess Epona and related deities.
• Vendryès, Joseph; Tonnelat, Ernest; Unbegaun, B.-O. (1948) Les Religions des Celtes, des Germains et des anciens Slaves.

External links

• The Religion of the Celts
• Heart of Scotland Celtic Mythology
• The Sacred Grove

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Celtic polytheism refers to the religious beliefs and practices of ancient Celts, prior to the Christianization of the Celtic-speaking lands. At various times those lands included Ireland, Britain, Celtiberia, Gaul, areas along the Danube river, and Galatia. Celtic religious practices bear the marks of Romanization following the Roman Empire's conquest of Gaul (58–51 BCE) and Britain (43 CE), although the depth and significance of Romanization is a subject of scholarly disagreement.

Beliefs

Theology

Celtic theology was both polytheistic, believing in many deities, and animistic, believing in spirits of nature, some of whom were also venerated as gods. There was no canonical set of gods worshipped across the entire Celtic world, but some gods were common across different Celtic lands, albeit under different regional names.

Animism & local deities

Main article : Celtic animism

The Celts were animists, believing that all aspects of the natural world contained spirits, and that these spirits could be communicated with. According to classical era sources, the Celts worshipped the forces of nature and did not envisage deities in anthropomorphic terms, as other pagan peoples such as the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians did.

These animistic deities were often worshipped, so places such as rocks, streams, mountains and trees may all have had shrines or offerings devoted to a deity residing there. A similar belief is found in modern Shinto in Japan, through the belief of kami. These would have been local deities, known and worshipped by inhabitants living near to the shrine itself, and not pan-Celtic like some of the polytheistic gods.

Among the most popular sites for the veneration of animistic deities were trees; the oak, ash and thorn were considered to be the most sacred. Hot springs and rivers were also popular sites for worship, and were commonly associated with healing. Fairies as a recurring belief in animistic gods One of the most popular theories for a belief in fairies in christianised Celtic areas is that they were a recurring folk belief of these animistic deities, placed under a Christian worldview, where they were seen no longer as nature deities but as malevolant spirits. Sometimes these fairies were treated just the same as previous pagan nature gods had been, with offerrings being placed on trees and other shrines to both placate them from comitting negative actions and ensuring a good harvest or hunt etc.

Polytheism & pan-Celtic deities

Main article : Celtic theology

The Celts were polythiests, believing in a number of different gods and goddesses. Whilst the majority of these were animistic, local gods, some were pan-Celtic, being worshipped across the Celtic world (albeit under regional names). Notable Celtic gods include:

• The god Lugus; Lugh in Ireland, Lleu Llaw Gyffes in Wales.
• A god of thunder; Taranis in France, Britain and Spain.
• A god of tribal protection; Toutatis in Britain and France.
• A horned god of the wild; Cernunnos in France.
• A god of healing; Belenos in France.
• A mother goddess; Rhiannon in Wales, Danu in Ireland
• A goddess of water; Sulis
• A goddess of horses; Epona
• A divine couple;
• A divine bull;

When the Romans conquered the Celts, they associated the Celtic gods with their own deities. For instance, they claimed that the Gaulish Celtic god Belenos was the same as their own god Apollo. These Roman descriptions comparing Celtic and Roman deities are one of the few sources of literary information that we have about the Celtic gods.

The two other main literary sources come from mediaeval Irish and Welsh mythology, as contained in literary works such as Táin Bó Cúailnge and the Mabinogion. Under Christian dominance, the old pagan gods had been demoted to being considered historical figures, for example, in early Christian Ireland, the Celtic gods were claimed to be an ancient tribe of humans called the Tuatha Dé Danann.

Insular Celts swore their oaths by their personal or tribal gods, and the land, sea and sky; as in, "I swear by the gods by whom my people swear" and "If I break my oath, may the land open to swallow me, the sea rise to drown me, and the sky fall upon me."

Afterlife

There is no direct information that has survived on what the Celts believed happened after death. However, from archaeological discoveries, Roman accounts, and later mythology, possible ideas of a Celtic afterlife can be established.

Celtic burial practices, which included burying food, weapons, and ornaments with the dead, suggest a belief in life after death.

The druids, the Celtic learned class which included members of the clergy, were said by Caesar to have believed in reincarnation and transmigration of the soul along with astronomy and the nature and power of the gods.The Otherworld A common factor in later mythologies from christianised Celtic nations was the otherworld. This was the realm of the fairy folk, who would entice humans into their realm. Sometimes this otherworld was claimed to exist underground, whilst at other times it was said to lie far to the west. Several scholars have suggested that the otherworld was the pagan Celtic afterlife, though there is no direct evidence to prove this.

Festivals

Insular sources provide important information about Celtic religious festivals. In Ireland the year was divided into two periods of six months by the feasts of Beltane (May 1) and Samhain (Samain; November 1), and each of these periods was equally divided by the feasts of Imbolc (February 1), and Lughnasadh (August 1). Samhain seems originally to have meant "summer," but by the early Irish period it had come to mark summer's end. Beltine is also called Cetsamain ("First Samhain"). Imbolc has been compared by the French scholar Joseph Vendryes to the Roman lustrations and apparently was a feast of purification for the farmers. Beltane ("Bright Fire") was the festival of the beginning of summer, and there is a tradition that on that day the people drove their cattle between two fires as a protection against disease. Lughnasadh was the feast of the god Lugh and a celebration of the first fruits or early harvest.

The Coligny calendar has sometimes been looked to for information regarding the Gaulish year including holy days.

Beltane

Beltane is a festival held on the first day of May in Ireland and Scotland, celebrating the beginning of summer and open pasturing. In early Irish lore a number of significant events took place on Beltane, which long remained the focus of folk traditions and tales in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. Like Samhain, Beltane was seen as a time when the spirit realm is especially close at hand.

Samhain

The beginning of the month of Samhain (Old Irish samain), was one of the most important calendar festivals of the Celtic year. At "the three nights of Samhain", held around the beginning of November, the world of the gods and spirits was believed to be made visible to humans. The deities and spirits may play tricks on their mortal worshipers, and it was a time filled with supernatural episodes. Samhain was traditionally a time of sacrifice, whether in offering to the deities or due to the need to slaughter any livestock that it would be impossible to feed for the entire winter. Samhain was an important precursor to the later festival of Halloween, as it was a time for the Celts to honour the dead, the spirits and deities, and to face the realities and fears of the coming winter.

Practises

Worship

According to Poseidonius and later classical authors Gaulish religion and culture were the concern of three professional classes—the druids, the bards, and the vates. This threefold hierarchy had its reflection among the two main branches of Celts in Ireland and Wales, but is best represented in early Irish tradition with its draoithe (druids), filidh (visionary poets), and Faidh (seers). However these categories are not always fixed, and may be named or divided differently in different primary sources.

Classical sources claimed that the Celts had no temples (before the Gallo-Roman period) and that their ceremonies took place in forest sanctuaries. However, archaeologist have discovered a large number of temple sites excavated throughout the Celtic world, primarily in Gaul. In the Gallo-Roman period, more permanent stone temples were erected, and many of them have been discovered by archaeologists in Britain as well as in Gaul. Indeed, a distinct type of Celto-Roman temple called a fanum also was developed. This was distinguished from a common Roman shrine by having an ambulatory on all four sides of the central cella.

Celtic religious practice was probably sacrificial in its interactions with the gods. Roman writers stated that the Celts practiced human sacrifice in Gaul: Cicero, Julius Caesar, Suetonius, and Lucan all refer to it, and Pliny the Elder says that it occurred in Britain, too. It was forbidden under Tiberius and Claudius. However there is also the possibility that these claims may have been false, and used as a sort of propaganda to justify the Roman conquest of these territories. There are only very few recorded archaeological discoveries which preserve evidence of human sacrifice and thus most contemporary historians tend to regard human sacrifice as rare within Celtic cultures. There is some circumstantial evidence that human sacrifice was known in Ireland and was later forbidden by St. Patrick, a claim which has also been disputed.

The early Celts considered some trees to be sacred. The importance of trees in Celtic religion is shown by the fact that the very name of the Eburonian tribe contains a reference to the yew tree, and that names like Mac Cuilinn (son of holly) and Mac Ibar (son of yew) appear in Irish myths. In Ireland, wisdom was symbolized by the salmon who feed on the hazelnuts from the trees that surround the well of wisdom (Tobar Segais).

There was also a warrior cult that centered on the severed heads of their enemies. The Celts provided their dead with weapons and other accoutrements, which indicates that they most likely believed in some form of an afterlife.

An example of a ceremony was the ritual of the oak and the mistletoe.

Religious vocations or castes

Druids

A Druid was a member of the learned class among the ancient Celts. They acted as priests, teachers, and judges. The earliest known records of the Druids come from the 3rd century BC. Some scholars have suggested that the Druids were the Celtic counterparts of the Brahmans of India.

Bards and filid

In Ireland the filid were visionary poets, associated with lorekeeping, versecraft, and the memorization of vast numbers of poems. They were also magicians, as Irish magic is intrinsically connected to poetry, and the satire of a gifted poet was a serious curse upon the one being satirized. To run afoul of a poet was a dangerous thing indeed to a people who valued reputation and honor more than life itself.

In Ireland a "bard" was considered a lesser grade of poet than a fili - more of a minstrel and rote reciter than an inspired artist with magical powers. However, in Wales bardd was the word for their visionary poets, and used in the same manner fili was in Ireland and Scotland.

The Celtic poets, of whatever grade, were composers of eulogy and satire, and a chief duty was that of composing and reciting verses on heroes and their deeds, and memorizing the genealogies of their patrons. It was essential to their livelihood that they increase the fame of their patrons, via tales, poems and songs. As early as the 1st century AD, the Latin author Lucan referred to "bards" as the national poets or minstrels of Gaul and Britain. In Gaul the institution gradually disappeared, whereas in Ireland and Wales it survived. The Irish bard through chanting preserved a tradition of poetic eulogy. In Wales, where the word bardd has always been used for poet, the bardic order was codified into distinct grades in the 10th century. Despite a decline of the order toward the end of the European Middle Ages, the Welsh tradition has persisted and is celebrated in the annual eisteddfod, a national assembly of poets and musicians.

The evidence for Celtic religion

The evidence for the nature of Celtic religion comes partly from ancient literature (from the Classical commentators on the Celts, and from the vernacular mythic sources of Ireland and Wales) and partly from archaeological evidence, especially in the Roman period when inscribed dedications and religious images contribute significantly to our knowledge. What we lack because of the virtual non-literacy of Iron Age Celts is written testimony from the Celts themselves.

It is important to exercise some care in using all three of these sources for Celtic religion. The classical historians were inevitably subject to bias, distortion, ignorance, misunderstanding, literary convention and barbarian stereotyping, all of which combine to present a picture of Celtic religion which is somewhat skewed and, to a certain extent, unreal. Because of their chronological separation from the pre-Christian world, the early Welsh and Irish vernacular sources, written in the Welsh and Irish languages, must be scrutinized with even more rigour than the classical sources in assessing their validity as evidence for pagan Celtic religion. While it is possible to single out specific texts which – because of their pagan content – can be strongly argued to encapsulate genuine echoes or resonances of the pre-Christian past, the earliest mythic stories of Ireland and Wales were not compiled in written form until the mediaeval period. Opinion is divided as to whether these texts contain substantive material derived from oral tradition as preserved by bards or whether they were the creation of the mediaeval monastic tradition.

The archaeological evidence does not contain the bias inherent in the literary sources. Nonetheless, our interpretation of this evidence is inevitably coloured by the twenty-first-century mindset.

Four main types of source provide information on Celtic polytheism: the minted coins of Gaul, Raetia, Noricum and Britain; the sculptures, monuments and inscriptions associated with the Celts of continental Europe and of Roman Britain; Greek and Roman literature; and the insular literatures of Celtic mythology that have survived in writing from medieval times. All pose problems of interpretation. The pre-Roman coins of the 1st century BC and early 1st century AD bear few relevant inscriptions, and their iconography derives partly from standardized Hellenistic numismatic prototypes and partly presents highly local emblems. Most of the monuments, and their accompanying inscriptions, belong to the Roman period and reflect a considerable degree of syncretism between Celtic and Roman gods; even where figures and motifs appear to derive from pre-Roman tradition, they are difficult to interpret in the absence of a preserved literature on mythology.

Only after the lapse of many centuries – beginning in the 7th century in Ireland, even later in Wales – were Celtic mythological traditions consigned to writing, but by then Ireland and Wales had been Christianised and the scribes and redactors were monastic scholars. The resulting literature is abundant and varied, but it is much removed in both time and location from its epigraphic and iconographic correlatives on the Continent and inevitably reflects the redactors' selectivity and something of their Christian learning. There are nevertheless many points of agreement between the insular literatures and the continental evidence. This is particularly notable in the case of the Classical commentators from Posidonius (c. 135–c. 51 BC) onward who recorded their own or others' observations on the Celts.

History

The effect of Christianity

The conversion to Christianity inevitably had a profound effect on this socio-religious system from the 5th century onward, though its character can only be extrapolated from documents of considerably later date. By the early 7th century the church had succeeded in relegating Irish druids to ignominious irrelevancy, while the filidh, masters of traditional learning, operated in easy harmony with their clerical counterparts, contriving at the same time to retain a considerable part of their pre-Christian tradition, social status, and privilege. But virtually all the vast corpus of early vernacular literature that has survived was written down in monastic scriptoria, and it is part of the task of modern scholarship to identify the relative roles of traditional continuity and ecclesiastical innovation as reflected in the written texts. Cormac's Glossary (c. 900) recounts that St. Patrick banished those mantic rites of the filidh that involved offerings to "demons", and it seems probable that the church took particular pains to stamp out animal sacrifice and other rituals repugnant to Christian teaching. What survived of ancient ritual practice tended to be related to filidhecht, the traditional repertoire of the filidh, or to the central institution of sacral kingship. A good example is the pervasive and persistent concept of the hierogamy (sacred marriage) of the king with the goddess of sovereignty: the sexual union, or banais ríghi ("wedding of kingship"), which constituted the core of the royal inauguration seems to have been purged from the ritual at an early date through ecclesiastical influence, but it remains at least implicit, and often quite explicit, for many centuries in the literary tradition.

Nagy has noted the Gaelic oral tradition has been remarkably conservative. The fact that we have tales in existence which were still being told in the 19th century in almost exactly the same form as they exist in ancient manuscripts leads to the strong probability that much of what the monks recorded was considerably older. Though the Christian interpolations in some of these tales are very obvious, many of them read like afterthoughts or footnotes to the main body of the tales, which most likely preserve traditions far older than the manuscripts themselves.

Mythology based on (though, not identical to) the pre-Christian religion is still common place knowledge in Celtic-speaking cultures. Various rituals involving acts of pilgrimage to sites such as hills and sacred wells which are believed to have curative or otherwise beneficial properties are still performed. Based on evidence from the European continent, various figures which are still known in folklore in the Celtic countries up to today, or who take part in post-Christian mythology, are known to have also been worshipped in those areas that did not have records before Christianity.

Revival

Various groups claim association with Celtic polytheism. These groups range from the Reconstructionists, who work to practice ancient Celtic religion with as much accuracy as possible; to new age, eclectic groups who take some of their inspiration from Celtic mythology but place little significance on any sort of historical precedent.

Celtic Reconstructionism

Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism is an effort to reconstruct, in a modern Celtic cultural context, Celtic polytheistic practices from surviving written, archaeological and cultural examples of Celtic polytheism.

Neo-druidism and Wicca

Modern eclectic religions such as Wicca and Neo-druidism place little emphasis on historical basis or reconstruction, instead blending many outside influences into a modern religion that draws little influence from, or resemblance to, historical Celtic polytheism outside of borrowed imagery or terminology.

See also

• Animism
• Celtic mythology
• Celtic languages
• Germanic paganism
• Gundestrup cauldron
• Irish mythology

• Horned helmet
• Paganism
• polytheism
• Proto-Indo-European religion
• Welsh mythology

References

Further reading

• de Vries, Jan (1961) Keltische Religion, a comprehensive survey
• Duval, Paul-Marie (1976) Les Dieux de la Gaule, new ed. updated and enlarged.
• Green, Miranda (1986, revised 2004) Gods of the Celts,
• Mac Cana, Proinsias (1970) Celtic Mythology, copious illustrations.
• Nagy, Joseph Falaky (1985) The Wisdom of the Outlaw: The Boyhood Deeds of Finn in Gaelic Narrative Tradition, tales and analysis in Gaelic and English.
• O'Rahilly, Thomas F. (1946, reissued 1971) Early Irish History and Mythology
• Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise (1949, reissued 1982; originally published in French, 1940) Gods and Heroes of the Celts comparisons between deities of the various Celtic cultures vs Classical models.
• Stercks, Claude (1986) Éléments de cosmogonie celtique, contains an interpretive essay on the goddess Epona and related deities.
• Vendryès, Joseph; Tonnelat, Ernest; Unbegaun, B.-O. (1948) Les Religions des Celtes, des Germains et des anciens Slaves.

External links

• The Religion of the Celts
• Heart of Scotland Celtic Mythology
• The Sacred Grove

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