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CELTIC RECORDS
Early Bronze Disk This disk with the head of Acheloos, an Etruscan river god, was made of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, sometime in the early 5th century BC. It comes from the necropolis of Monte Quaglieri in Tarquinia. Alloys are made by smelting two different metals together. At first the ancients did not understand the customs of the Celts and later they needed excuses to conquer and 'civilize' them. So their portrayal of these people as fearsome, undisciplined barbarians who gloried in war and indulged in disgusting rituals is not reliable. Some of their observations, however, have been confirmed by archeology.
Artifacts of Celtic life From artifacts and Romano-celtic inscriptions, archeology has also discovered much about Celtic life which is not mentioned by Classical writers. Such discoveries show the Celts to have been an intelligent, complex and wealthy people whose art and technical brilliance was unsurpassed in prehistoric Europe.
Celtic Mirror (Iron Age ) The Irish and Welsh texts were written down much later by monks in a post-Roman, Christian setting and they relate entirely to geographical areas which were peripheral to pre-Roman, Celtic Europe. As such, their use is limited in helping us to form a true picture of the mythology of the pagan Celts. Nonetheless, these texts are of enormous interest in themselves and they provide invaluable insights, particularly into those mythological traditions which were to inspire the great Arthurian romances of medieval Europe. Christianity helped to preserve Celtic mythology by adapting the legends as miraculous events in the lives of Celtic saints. Some of the exploits of St. Patrick, for example, echo those of Cúchulainn. Symbolic imagery, involving animals and plants,was also adapted, as in the character of St. Columba, whose name means 'dove'. This imagery, expressed in the traditional, highly decorative style-developed by the pagan Celts, resulted in the magnificent illuminated manuscripts produced for Christian missionary work in the seventh and eighth centuries CE. The most famous are the Book of Durrow, the Lindisferne Gospels and the Book of Kells.
THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLEAmong the Irish texts is a collection of prose stories which includes the Book of Invasions, the Book of Kells and the History of Places. Both texts were compiled in the twelfth century CE, But the more interesting Book of Invasions has its origins in earlier attempts by monastic scholars of the sixth and seventh centuries to construct a history of Ireland. In effect it is an Irish creation myth, which follows a succession of legendary invasions of the country from the Flood to the coming of the Gaels, or Celts. The most important invasion is that of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the 'People of the Goddess Danu', the divine race of Ireland. To establish themselves, they had to expel the Fir Bolg and overcome the demonic Fomorians. Their father-god was the Dagda, the 'Good God'. Other deities included a triad of craft-gods called Goibniu, Luchta and Credne, and King Nuadu who handed over power to Lugh after he lost an arm in battle. Myths involving Lugh are not confined to the Book of invasions. He turns up elsewhere as the father of the hero Cúchulainn. The Tuatha Dé Danann are said to have retreated underground when the Gaels conquered Ireland.
THE ULSTER CYCLEThis is the name given to a collection of Irish epic prose stories of which the most important is a group called the Táin (pronounced 'toyn') or the Cattle Raid of Cooley of the Dun cow. The story is much older in origin, however, and can be traced to the eighth century and possibly earlier. The Táin is not a tale of mundane cattle rustling; it is about supernatural beasts around whom a battle myth is woven. The fighting over the Brown Bull, The Donn, and the White Bull, Finnbennach, symbolizes the prolonged and fruitless struggle between Ulster and Connacht, the two most northerly of the five ancient provinces of Ireland. Traditional rivalry between the provinces is suggested by the fact that the bulls have already pursued their ferocious conflicts in various guises. Compiled in a Christian setting, the story must have undergone some reinterpretation. Nevertheless a considerable mythological content remains: the superhuman warrior Cúchulainn champions the Ulster cause; Connocht is ruled by the queen-goddess Medh (pronounced 'Maeve': and the destiny of the two kingdoms is in the hands of the death and destruction goddess, the Morrigan.
THE FENIAN CYCLEThe earliest manuscript fragments of the Irish Fenian Cycle date from the eighth century CE, although the tales are thought to derive stylistically from the third century CE. The first complete synthesis of its eight major parts did not appear until the twelfth century CE, however. The cycle comprises a very large body of verse and prose, romances from which, it has been argued, the themes of the Arthurian sagas are derived.
A fifteenth-century manuscript showing the crowing of King Arthur The supernatural supernatural hero of this cycle is the poet and seer Fin Mac Cool, a late development of the earlier god, Lugh. He is the leader of an elite and highly disciplined band of Irish warriors, the Fianna, who are pledged to defend the king and who are chosen for their strength and courage.
Finn's divine status is confirmed by many features of his life. He is brought up by a druidess and he marries an enchanted woman transformed into a deer. He acquires the wisdom from contact with the Salmon of Knowledge, he has the gift of prophecy, he uses magic and he is a superhuman warrior. These stories are sometimes referred to as the Ossianic Cycle after Finn's principal son, the great poet and warrior Oisin (pronounced 'Usheen;), who features prominently in the later tales.
EARLY WELSH MYTHSThe Master work of medieval Welsh literature is the Mabinogion, made up of the Four Branches, or tales of the Mabinogi and various other stories, numbering 12 in all. The earliest surviving manuscripts of the Mabinogion are the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest which date from the fourteenth century. The stories must be much older than this, however, because they contain so many ancient Celtic elements, such as godlike heroes, enchanted animals, the love of feasting and the Otherworld. By the time they came to be written down they were overlaid with elements of chivalry, knights on quests and ladies in distress, which are all products of later, Continental influence.
The Four Branches, three of which concern the hero Pryderi, are the stories of Pwll, Branwen, Manawydan and Math. The remaining stories fall into two groups: 'Four Independent Native Tales' and 'Three Romances'. The story of Taliesin is included in later compilations. Among the 'Native Tailes', the collection boasts the earliest surviving Arthurian tale in Welsh, Culhwch and Olwen, which shows forms of eleventh-century style, vocabulary and custom. In this story, Arthur appears as something between a crude, Celtic chieftain and a courtly king. The story of Culhwch and Olwen, told in the Mabiogion, is on of the most important for students of Arthurian legend because of its Celtic authenticity. It was probably first written down in the eleventh century, but its kingship to earlier Irish texts shows that it comes from a much older tradition. Probably of more interest to scholars than the story itself is the list of Arthurian characters it introduces. Culhwch alone mentions 200 names, including an inventory of Arthur's court. Equally important is the text's early, unadorned treatment of themes which recur in later narratives with medieval, Continental embellishments.. The tale has a number of supernatural elements. For example, there is a suggestion of shape-shifting in the hero, whose name means 'pig run' and whose birth-link with pigs is developed in his final struggle with Twrch trwyth, a prince transformed into a boar. Also, Culthwch is portrayed as a godlike hero, radiant from head to foot. There are some typical elements too. The story is a quest tale comparable to the Labors of Hercules in Classical tradition, and the main plot, comparable to that of the Classical Jason and Medea, falls into a category of folklore known as 'The Giant's Daughter'.
BRETON TALESAlthough Gerald of Wales wrote of 'tale-telling Bretons', no Breton literature survives from before 1450 other than the so-called 'Breton Lais', and there is nothing to compare with the earlier Irish and Welsh manuscripts. The twelfth-century writer Marie de France, popularize the 'Breton Lai', a short narrative poem in French which dealt with Celtic and Arthurian themes. Breton folk tales, as such, were not collected until the nineteenth century, when stories from people living in remote villages were gathered under the title Songs of Brittany Nevertheless, some scholars believe there were Arthurian traditions in Brittany surviving from the influx of Irish, Welsh and Cornish refugees in the fifth century CE, and that it was these, and not the Welsh sources, which inspired Chrétien de Troyes' twelfth-century romances. Extended passages of the Arthurian story are set in Brittany; Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed that his seminal work was based on a 'Breton book'; and Marie de France held that her tales were drawn from old Breton sources since lost. The story of Lanval is taken from a Breton Lai and it shows on characteristic of Marie's view of love; that is, an almost inevitable association between joy and suffering.
OTHERWORLD VOYAGES The 'Imram', or voyage, is a class of Old and Middle Irish narrative in which travelers explore an Otherworld, usually an archipelago of wondrous islands in the western ocean. Typical is the seventh- or eighth-century Imram Brain, the Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal, Brân's Otherworld goal is the Land of Women where there is no grieving, winter or want. After many adventures he returns home to find that a considerable time has passed in his absence. His family and friends are long dead, and his voyage is remember as an ancient story. Other notable voyages were made by Maíle Dúin and St Brendan.
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The
Pagan Celts left no written records. They passed down their laws, traditions
and religious beliefs by word of mouth. Consequently our knowledge of
their culture is based on the testimonies of Classical Greek and Roman
observers, archeological remains, and later Irish and Welsh texts.
