L ittle is known about the religious beliefs of the Celts of Gaul. They believed in a life after death, for they buried food, weapons, and ornaments with the dead. The druids, the early Celtic priesthood, taught the doctrine of transmigration of souls and discussed the nature and power of the gods.
The Celtic religion, druidism, was closely tied to the natural world and they worshipped their gods in sacred places like lakes, rivers, cliffs and bushes. At Samhain summer's end , modern 1 November, the Celtic feast of the dead was celebrated, when the barrier between the world of men and the Otherworld was believed to have thinned, allowing contacts between the spirits and humans. Ancestors were honoured and invited home while harmful spirits were warded off.
Bonfires were lit and the Celts wore costumes and masks to disguise themselves as harmful spirits as a means of avoiding harm. The festival survives to the present day as All Hallow's Eve or Halloween and the term Samhain is still used in modern Irish to refer to the month of November.
The light half of the year started at Bealtaine 1 May , the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, which was a day for dance and song, today Midsummer's Eve.
Lughnasadh held on 1 August was seen as the wedding of the Sun god Lugh to the Earth goddess, which caused the ripening of crops. The church transformed this into an offering from the first fruits of the year, the first loaves baked from the new wheat were offered at the Loaf Mass, which became corrupted to Lammas. It was also called Brigantia for the Celtic female deity of light, due to the Sun's being halfway on its advance from the winter solstice to the spring equinox.
John Chapel of St. Religion of the Celt. A sign of a good leader was generosity. The ancient Celts were famous for their colorful wool textiles, forerunners of the famous Scottish tartan. And, while only a few tantalizing scraps of these textiles survived the centuries, historians believe that the Celts were one of the first Europeans to wear pants. The Celtic religion, for example, required animal and human sacrifices to a pantheon of gods, but that esoteric knowledge was restricted to Celtic priests called Druids and passed on orally from generation to generation.
Druids were figures of great respect and honor in Celtic society and were among the few who could safely travel among warring tribes, says John Koch, a historical linguist specializing in early Celtic languages at the University of Wales. Even though the Celtic tribes never unified politically under one kingdom, their oral traditions helped to create and maintain a cultural unity across great geographical distances.
That explains why Celts were most easily identified by their shared language. Boudicca, Queen of the British Iceni tribe, a Celtic tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire. The Romans conquered Britain in 43 A. The legendary Celtic queen Boudicca led a bloody revolt against the Romans in 61 A. In Celtic culture, women could hold the highest position in the social hierarchy.
I think there are few groups of immigrants that kept the nostalgic memories of home so alive, and passed them onto their children and grandchildren. I think it is a spiritual, mystical connection we are born with.
I'll have to think about this question some more and answer it in a post some day soon. Oh how I loved this! I love researching out Irish history and imagining how it was when my ancestors were there!
This post makes me even more bound and determined to get to Ireland one day! I believe part of the attraction is an instinictual desire to honor all of God's creation.
After so much time of modern human disrespect and delusions of controlling the Mother Earth and her inhabitants that balance is longed for. We have ventured so far from what feeds us both physically and spiritually. I love how the Celtic people believed that there were spaces of nature that the supernatural existed. This makes me wish I was more of a Celtic rooted person.
Although I think my ancestors might be from Scotland, I have never been there myself. Anyhow thank you for your post! Hi Alan - I believe Celtic is a state of mind, and our Celtic ancestors always valued that which could not be seen, heard or felt, but which is perceived on a totally spiritual level.
I hope you get to visit Ireland and Scotland someday. Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Subscribe to receive a free e-book. Facebook Instagram Pinterest Twitter. Uragh Stone Circle, Co. Kerry, Ireland. Fifteen Exquisite Goat Cheese Appetizers.
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