of the Celts 4 страница

Very interesting is, for example, an early Welsh poem, in which King Arthur and his knights venture into the Otherworld in his ship Prytwen to conquer a mysterious cauldron. This poem, "Preiddeu Annwn", "The prey of the Underworld" from the Book of Taliesin, is full of enigmatic and mythical allusions in spite of its Christian introduction:

I praise the Lord, the Supreme Ruler and King of the Kingdom,
Who has extended his power over the world’s shores.
Perfect was Gweir’s prison in Caer Siddi
according to the report of Pwyll and Pryderi.
No one went in front of him, to the heavy, blue chain,
which binds him, the faithful youth.
And before the spoils of the underworld he laments
and will remain until the Day of Judgment in the bardic prayer.
Three times as many men as Arthur's ship Prytwen takes, we went in,
Except seven none returned from Caer Siddi.
Famous I will be when my song will only be heard
In Caer Pendryvan, the quadrangular fortress, the quadrilateral.
My first praise about the cauldron was sung there,
the breath of nine maidens kindle its glow.
The cauldron of the Lord of the underworld - What is he up to?
Rimmed is its edge and set with pearls.
For the coward it cooks no meal, this is not provided!
A shiny sword in the hand of Lleminawc .....
And outside the front gate of hell were burning lamps.
And when we went in with Arthur - gloriously difficult undertaking
None returned, except seven, from Caer Veddwit.
I'll be famous, my song is heard.
In Caer Pedryvan, on the island of the strong door,
Midday and dark night flow into each other.
Sparkling wine their drink in front of their entourage
Three times as many men as Prytwen takes, we moved across the sea.
Except seven none returned from Caer Rigor.
As Lord of poetry I do not attach importance to common people.
Beyond Caer Wydyr, the Glass Castle, nothing was heard about Arthur's heroic deeds.
Three times twenty squadrons stood on the wall.
Difficult was it to talk to their guardian.
Three times as many men as Prytwen takes crossed the sea with Arthur.
Except seven none returned from Caer Golud.

The Celtic underworld is here probably for the sake of Christianity once called hell, with which it otherwise has nothing to do. Here also the Lord of the Otherworld occurs as guardian of the cauldron, who later corresponds to the Grail King or Fisher King, also known as Bron. He is wounded, which is the reason for his country being barren, and will be healed by the right questions, which must be asked by the Grail-seeker, who is subjected to a kind of trial. The actual healing power emanates from the Grail, itself a chalice or cauldron, which is brought in by the Grail-bearer, followed by a procession with the bleeding lance, the usually broken sword that is to be made whole again, and the silver plate, which correspond to the four sacred objects of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the godlike people of Irish mother Goddess Danu, namely the cauldron of plenty, inspiration and rebirth of the god Dagda, the burning spear of the god Lugh, the sword of light from King Nuada and the stone of destiny, the Lia Fáil, which designates the high kings of Ireland and who correlate to the four elements and the four directions. The four holy objects could also be detected in the nowadays well known fortunetelling game of cards, the Tarot, in the four symbols of the chalices, swords, rods (instead of the lance) and coins (instead of the stone or plate).

Very vividly is the description of the Grail-procession, as presented in Chretien de Troyes:
"Torches made the hall shine in such brightness, that no one could find a more splendidly illuminated house all over the world. While those present were still talking casually, a squire emerged from a room, who carried a bright shiny lance at its shaft. A drop of blood poured from the iron spear-head, and flowed onto the hand of the squire. Subsequently, two more squires of great beauty came in, carrying in their hands two candlesticks, decorated with gold. In each one of them burned at least ten candles. With them came a beautiful young woman, dressed in noble robes and adorned with precious jewelry, carrying a Graal in her two hands. As she entered, the hall was imbued by such an enormous brightness and splendor, that the candles paled in it like the moon and the stars when the sun is rising. Behind her came another young woman who was carrying a precious silver plate. The Graal itself was made of pure fine gold. He was adorned with a variety of precious stones, the most expensive and most beautiful which exist around the world. "

Although the sword is missing here, the picture is still very impressive. It could also be observed, that the most sacred object, the Grail, is owned by a woman, the Grail-bearer who earlier represented the goddess herself, and was originally and most likely representing the symbol of the actual female, life-giving power of creation. To find the source of this divine life-energy, rooted in the spiritual, and to merge with it, was the true quest of the Grail-knights, which scattered them into diverse directions and made them experience numerous adventures. But only a few came close to the Grail.
The true Grail-knight is Percival, whose path of development through the various adventures seems actually to signify an initiatory quest. In fact he becomes the next King of the Grail after he does speak the right words at the second visit after his first failure in the Grail Castle. This "right" words vary somewhat, the most famous version is the question about the suffering of the King of the Grail. Frequently it is the question concerning the significance of Grail-procession. A version that could reveal a deeper meaning is: "Whom does the Grail serve?" This could be seen as the final formula of an initiation-ritual for the service of the goddess, whom of course the Grail does serve. But Gawain experiences several similar adventures like Percival, for example, the visit to the castle of women, where he has to deal with a moving bed, flying lances, lions and storms.
Even Lancelot, as the best knight, comes very close to the Grail, but he cannot reach it because of his misconduct with Guinevere. However, the decent, solid Bors can achieve the sight of the Grail and returns to the everyday world to tell the tale. Later on the Grail-hero Galahad is introduced, the absolutely pure, untouched, who is actually a creation of the Christian writers, who wanted to introduce a kind of Christ-figure into a myth that seemed them to be too pagan. Nevertheless his name has predecessors among the Celtic figures.

Well, unfortunately, Brittany goes a bit too short. There are of course the local versions and developments of the Arthur- and Grail-myths. But there are also stories that specifically relate to Brittany. One of them should still be presented here very briefly, the legend of the city of Ys:

The King of Cornuaille, Gradlon, built for his daughter Dahud the beautiful city of Ker Ys, the city of the depth, which was protected with locks and dykes against the sea. However Dahud and the other inhabitants of the city led a corrupt and vicious life, the admonitions of the Holy Gwenole were ridiculed and mocked by Dahud. Once she gave to her lover the keys to the locks. But this was the devil, which opened the floodgates and the whole city sank into the sea. King Gradlon was able to escape with the help of the Holy Gwenole, but Dahud was thrown back into the water, where she still swims around with the fishes in her city, which can sometimes be seen beneath the sea.

This idea of a country or kingdom sunken into the sea can frequently be found in the Celtic myths and may have a connection with the Celtic Otherworld, hidden in the depths of the water.

So in Christianity the idea of the Celtic paradise or the Otherworld, which was often imagined on islands in the sea, but also under the sea, has finally sunk into the sea, and with it the spiritual contents and the deeper meanings of the Celtic myths and the gods, which were regarded as negative by the new morality and ethics of Christianity. Nevertheless, one can guess and find out quite a lot from the old stories, and wrest from oblivion some of the deeper meanings and ancient symbolisms.

Triskel ornament from Tybroughney Cross, Ireland

Ornament from Dysert Ó Dea Cross, Ireland

Ornament from Tybroughney Cross, Ireland

Bronze Deer from Salzburg, Austria
Face, Bronceapplikation from Dürnberg, Hallein, Austria

Portrait of a god, silver plate, gold plated, Gundestrup cauldron, Denmark

Bronce belthook of Hölzelsau in Kufstein, Austria, possibly representing a god

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Stone effigy of a god or Druid
From Effigneux, France

MYTHOLOGY OF THE CELTS
PART THREE
THE DRUIDS

Now this is quite a difficult subject because on the one hand incredibly much has been conjectured into this term, on the other hand it is asserted that we do not know who or what they were. Indeed many of the authors, who wrote at the end of the second century BC, copied from the Historia of a certain Posidonius, which itself is no longer preserved, even Caesar, but did not mention him. It is also possible, that Posidonius himself has copied from a much older work. The other problem that has a strong impact, especially on Caesar, is the fact of political motivation, with which the conquest and subjugation of the Celtic peoples, particularly the Gauls, and then also the Britons, had to be justified and underpinned ideologically. Therefore, the Celts had to be portrayed as primitive or savage people, and their priests, the druids, who were dangerous for Caesar, as they supported national resistance, had to get a negative image. So Caesar eagerly takes up the proposition of human sacrifices, which had only been referred to by Posidonius, even though this originated highly probable from a bygone era, when this was still common in the Mediterranean. The contradiction becomes apparent, when Caesar speaks of his personal encounters, such as the Gallic prince and druid Diviciacus, whom he describes as an educated, intelligent, and highly moral interlocutor.

In general, if you are aware of these problems, you can find a lot of valuable information about the druids in the ancient authors. A valuable background is offered by the largely coincident reports of the long educational training that led to the position of a druid, whose division into three sections and the taboo associated with writing. Although the Celts used for their practical and economic concerns the Greek and later the Latin alphabet, they refused to entrust their wisdom teachings to written records, so it could not be abused, by which of course the position of the educated class was strengthened enormously. Another motivation was, that a decline in mental powers was apprehended through the relief and convenience, which was offered by writing. The knowledge, which was acquired during the long approximately twenty-years training has in fact passed on orally without exception and everything had to be known by heart, memorized and stored in the memory to be available when needed. That actually means a tremendous training of the brain, of an extent we have not the slightest notion nowadays, relying only on the written word and finding every piece of information available everywhere.

In the first training section of the three-part training you became a bard. The bards were the artists, writers, poets and musicians. They recited the praises of their respective rich lords, knew the long genealogies and pedigrees, possessed a large repertoire of historical and mythological narratives, they were able to exercise a great influence by their respective positive or negative propaganda and probably quite early performed on harps. Diodorus Siculus wrote in his Historia by about 8 BC. "Among them there are poets of verses whom they call bards. They sing to instruments, that are similar to the lyre, praises about the one and the other they revile." The bards were highly respected they administered the tradition of their people and represented the creative and artistic element.

From the second training stage emerged the so-called Ovates, Vates or Ouates. They dealt with clairvoyance and prophecy, such as the flight of birds, with sacrifices and prayers, but also with the natural sciences, nature observation and the healing arts. Here, in the rapture of prophetic vision, in the often magically defined use of herbs and spells, a certain shamanic element could be found. They interpreted the cycles of life and the problem of death and rebirth. In this training stage, they were probably already familiar with the mystic scenarios, which provided the foundations of the philosophy of the graduates of the third level of education, the druids. Lucan writes in his "Pharsalia" about 60 AD. about the knowledge of the druids about the gods of heaven and the migration of souls: "They say that the shades of the dead do not seek the silent land of Erebus and the pale halls of Pluto, but that the same soul elsewhere gets a body again and that the death, if it is true what they sing, is just a point in the middle of a long life." This would indicate that their wisdom teachings also included the idea of reincarnation.

Even Caesar says in his "De bello Gallico": "The main principle they try to teach is, that the soul does not die, but after death passes from one to the other, and because of this belief, the fear of death is pushed to the side, and bravery is enhanced for them." Diodorus Siculus, who has copied extensively from the previous Posidonius, writes that "the souls of men were considered to be immortal, and that they live a second life after a certain number of years, when the soul passes into another body."

The druids were apparently after their training not only of an immense knowledge, but also healers, priests and prophets, and also wisdom teachers and philosophers. Not unfounded they are by some authors such as Cicero or later in the 4th century AD. Ammianus Marcellinus related to the Pythagoreans, the representatives of the philosophy and theory of harmony of the wise Greek Pythagoras in the 6th century BC from Sicily.

Diodorus Chrysostomos, who was writing in the 1st century AD, and Diogenes Laertius around 250 AD., compare the druids with the Magi of Persia and Media, the Brahmins of the Indians, the Chaldeans, the Babylonians and the Egyptian priests. Strabo, who also relies a lot on Posidonius, describes in his Historia from the 1st century AD. druids as mentally outstanding moral philosophers, who taught very developed ethics and legal opinions, and even also administered justice. They were employed for settlement of all serious legal and controversial dispute cases and were able to make far-reaching and responsible decisions, such as to prevent an outbreak of local wars, set boundaries and speak sentences for crimes. If somebody did not accept their decision, he was therefore excluded from the common religious gatherings and the tribal confederation.
The children of the aristocratic families were usually educated by druids and every king or prince had his own druid as a consultant who had the right to speak first of him.

Caesar writes: "A large amount of young men gather around them in order to receive teachings and pay them great honor .... Also are many young men induced by the great privileges (freedom from taxes and military service), to cope with this training, many are sent by their parents and relatives. The reports tell that they have to memorize in the druid schools a large number of verses, and they spend many decades on these teachings. And they do not find it correct, to put any of it down to writing, though they apply the Greek alphabet in many other matters, as with private and public business calculations …….. They are the ones who publicly and privately decide in almost all disputes, if someone was killed, when a crime was committed, or if any dispute arises about succession or boundaries, so they also decide it and put down penalties and compensation payments. "

There existed a strong cohesion and exchange of ideas among the druid class, which was supported by their big annual meeting in the land of the Carnutes, in the area of today's Chartres in France. They exercised an immense influence on the social and political life in Gaul, and had an even higher rank as nobles and kings. This constituted a great threat to the plans of conquest Caesar had, so he sought to eliminate them despite all the personal esteem for them as men of the mind and intellectuals.

All the ancient authors emphasize the enormous knowledge of the druids about nature, the earth itself, the stars and the whole universe. Caesar writes: "They have a lot of discussions concerning the stars and their movements, the size of the universe and the earth, the order of nature and the strength and power of the immortal gods, and they pass on their knowledge to the younger ones." Caesar was of the opinion, that the most important training-site of the Druids in Britain was the island of Mona, today's Anglesey, off the Welsh coast. From there, allegedly, originated the movement, which maintained the ideological and cultural cohesion of the Celtic peoples over large areas, like Britain, Ireland, Gaul, perhaps even central Europe. This Mona was attacked by the Roman commander Suetonius AD 60 and razed to the ground with the intention to finally break the resistance of the British Celts, of which Tacitus gives a rather theatrical portrayal.

But there could also have been other reasons for this. Mona was actually a trading center for the gold then found abundantly in the Wicklow Mountains, which put the control of wealth and economy into the hand of the druids. In this context, an archaeological find is interesting which the British historian Ann Ross describes in detail, namely, "the man of Lindow Moss", a body found in the bog of the local environment. He had suffered a triple death, he was killed with three blows of an ax on the back of the head, the carotid artery was opened, and he was drowned. This was most likely in the year after the destruction of Mona and the suppression of the revolt of the Celtic Queen Boudicca by the Romans. The first theory that this is a criminal who has suffered the death penalty seems rather unlikely. A triple death that is mentioned in some myths, apparently had a ritual background and would have been rather inadequate. Moreover, the body was so well maintained, that he must have belonged to the highest class. In his stomach grains of the sacred mistletoe were found. Also any traces of defense or cramping that occur during a violent death are lacking, it looks as if the man went voluntarily to his death. Ann Ross concludes that it could have been a kind of self-sacrifice of a druid, perhaps with the purpose of preserving Ireland from Roman conquest, which indeed did actually not occur. That would prove again that among the druids in very special cases human sacrifices took place, albeit on a voluntary basis and only in extremely critical situations, but it is not proven, there is still the possibility that it was a punishment, perhaps he was a dangerous traitor or they wanted to prevent his soul to return.

Here I should like to comment on the reports of ancient authors, where human sacrifices are mentioned. They go back to a very early period, and were copied in Caesars times again and again. It is said that for the sky- and thunder-god Taranis human sacrifices were burned in wooden cages, for the forest- and wildlife-god Esus they were hung on trees, and for the tribal- and war-god Toutatis they were drowned in the water. The character of these procedures seems more likely to have a certain resemblance to courage and initiation rituals that occur in the Shamanic sphere, where an inauguration ceremony in connection with the respective God could have been, for example, to expose the initiates in a sort of wooden frame for a certain period to extreme heat of a fire, hang them for a while suspended by their feet from a tree and immerse them for several minutes under water. Of course, with such experiments a lot can go wrong, and it may also lead to deaths. It may well be that an uninformed observer did not know what was going on there and arrived at the wrong conclusions. You also do not know what the Celts might have told about their customs to the Romans. If one can conclude from today's Irish on the former Celts, they are only too willing to tell fairly awkward stories to the wondering strangers, which are then often taken too literally and written down accordingly. However, the Romans had in any case great interest to represent the Celts as barbarians, who should be conquered and civilized, and to them such stories were an enormous advantage. The kind of religion that was described by Caesar and the later authors of their own experience and are not copied from somewhere, gives a very different impression.

Archeology creates a different picture as well. The Gauls had wooden, brightly painted temples with arcades which stood in sacred groves, which they called Nemeton. There, meetings and services were held, where food and animal sacrifices were offered, as was customary with the Romans themselves. Many of the gods described are already provided with a Roman epithet. There was a Minerva, such as Sulis Minerva in Britain, who was worshiped at the thermal springs of Bath, or Minerva Bellisama from the continent. There is a Mars Louketios which forms a pair with a goddess named Nemetona, and a kind father or Jupiter figure, called Dis Pater, also a god of eloquence called Ogmios and the young god Lug, gifted with many talents, who is often referred to as Mercury (among others by Caesar), or is interpreted as a sun god. Among the archaeological finds, especially stone reliefs and statues, we find the divine couple Sucellos and Nantosuelta who would emphasize a kind of god of sky and thunder together with a land- or house-goddess, the goddess Rosmerta with the cornucopia, which often has Mars or Mercury as a companion, and Rigantona, the great queen.

Also interesting are the votive offerings, little figures made of wood or bronze, which were found, for example, in the Celtic sanctuary Sequana on the banks of the Seine, and the inscription plaques made of bronze or lead. On the tablet of Chamalière the God Maponos, which is identified with the Welsh Mabon, is evoked and asked for health, peace and victory, the plate of Larzac contains a curse by or against sorceresses, both of which are also of importance for the study of only fragmentarily known Gallic language.

Particularly interesting is the Calendar of Coligny, most likely authored by druids, who was found at Bourg en Bresse, Dept. Ain, in France, and originates probably from the beginning of the first century AC. It consists of fragments of a bronze plate in which is engraved in the Latin alphabet and numbers, but in the Gallic language, a detailed calendar, in whose time calculation the twelve lunar months with two times 14 days are brought into accordance to the solar year by the insertion of a thirteenth month of a varying length. The months as well as the days that started in the Celtic era with the night were divided into favorable and unfavorable. Likewise also the year began with its dark half, the winter, which was the beginning of the first November, Samon. The Gallic names of the following months are very clear: The dropping of the seeds; The darkest depths; The cold time; The constantly at-home-time; The time of the ice; The time of the wind; The plants sprout; The life of brightness; The horses-time; The time of the claims or negotiations; The time of the decisions and the time of the songs. In August marriages and financial affairs were often negotiated, decisions were made in September. The calendar contains many abbreviations, but one can see that the four principal festivals of the Celtic year as we know them later on from the Irish are already indicated.

The hard start of the year, the first of November, here Samon, in Irish Samhain, which means "end of summer", is in Ireland a time when the gates to the Otherworld were open for three days and you could go back and forth. You could enter the fairy-mounds and meet the immortals, but should not eat or drink there, so that one was able to return again to the normal world. You could also be visited by fairies, gods or the spirits of the dead, for which in Ireland often dishes with milk or food were prepared.

The second major festival, the first of February, was called Imbolc, which means all-round cleaning. It was dedicated to the goddess Bríd or Brigid, a goddess of fire and water, which was a patron of poets, blacksmiths and healing-springs. So it was a festival of purification, poetry and prophecies.

The third feast was called May Day, Beltane or Bealtainne, of the significance bright, radiant fire. It was a spring- and fertility festival, where there was dancing and revelry, the Queen of May was chosen and the Lord of the animals and the forest was betrothed to her, and the cattle were driven between two fires which should be beneficial for cleaning and promoting their prosperity.

The last festival was Lunasa or Lughnasadh, the festival of the young, beautiful, with many talents gifted God Lugh on the first day of August, dedicated to his foster mother Tailltiu, the goddess of the land. It was a kind of harvest festival with lots of music and competitions, on which various agreements and marriages have been arranged, including the so-called Teltown-Marriages in Ireland, trial- marriages for a year. The town's name Teltown derives from Tailtiu.

Very holy and worthy of reverence for the druids were the trees as you already can see from the concept of the sacred grove, Nemeton, and the correlated goddess Nemetona, then the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth, the water especially had a healing function, which is shown by the many sacred springs and the votive offerings in them, also the land itself, which was usually worshiped in the form of a beautiful, often threefold goddess, and the whole universe, especially the sun and the moon but also the stars and planets.

By Pliny the Elder, writing in the 1st century AD, we find the well-known passage, where a Druid in a white robe is climbing an oak-tree on the sixth day of the moon to cut a branch of the particularly revered mistletoe, called all-heal, with a golden sickle, which then fell into a white cloth. At the same time two white bulls were sacrificed. Besides the fact that it is impossible to cut mistletoe with a golden sickle, because the gold is too soft, unless it would be a gilded bronze-tool, this proves at any rate that the druids had much knowledge about herbs and plants, and appreciated particularly impressive, magical - mystical ceremonies. In Pliny there is also the mention of the strange snake-egg, the Anguineum, a talisman of the Druids, which is produced from the saliva and excreta of angry snakes, which also are magical animals. It can hardly be guessed what was meant by it.

I would now like to consider the druids first from the Irish, and then also from the Welsh tradition. In Ireland it was the monks who started in their monasteries to write down from the 6th and 7th centuries on not only the Gospels and saints' lives, but also the myths of their people. Besides many messages were about practical life, about the life of the kings, courtiers and advisers of kings and nobles, and about culture and justice were added. As in Ireland the transition from the old religion to Christianity was not that violent as in the rest of Europe, but more gradually, much remained from the earlier ideas and ways of thinking. Many of the first monks had a druidic family background and regarded this not necessarily a contradiction. Even St. Columcille said: "Christ, the Son of God, is my druid." Only later the druids were defamed by the Church as sorcerers and magicians and finally prohibited.

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