The Magical World of the Celts

Two things are most valuable to Gale: fame and spirit.
Katon

If we were to look for what is written about Celtic culture and civilization in history textbooks, we would come across descriptions of the “culture of field with hearths,” of “animism” in their beliefs, of their good knowledge of metallurgy, and their developed blacksmith and pottery crafts, of their making various decorations, ornaments, and the like. We would come across a bare depiction of the culture that could not inspire us to further exploration. Especially since the developed peoples of the Mediterranean region shaped perceptions of the Celts or Gauls (as a branch of the Celts) that could mostly be reduced to Celts being mere barbarians. However, records from Celtic contemporaries, regardless of their brevity, provide a different insight into their reality. For example, Greek historian and geographer Strabo records:

The entire people we now call Gauls or Celts are inclined to warfare; they are irritable and ready for battle, but of simple nature and not at all extravagant. n… When provoked, no matter where or when, even for the slightest reason, they are immediately prepared to defy danger and engage in battle, relying solely on their strength and bravery. If one is to believe, they dedicate themselves to useful tasks, even to the pursuit of science and literature. Their strength is partly based on their tall stature and partly on their numerous manpower. If they can easily gather in large numbers, it is because of their simplicity and personal pride, so they are always associated with the anger of those who are victims of some injustice.

Diodorus will also talk about their stature, strength, courage, and immense self-confidence in his Universal History…

In this article, we will try to reach the misty horizon of the Celtic world. We will strive to study and revive the spirit of those people who saw, experienced, and shaped reality in their own unique way.

The Origins of the Celts

The Celts are an Indo-European people who settled in the area of present-day… Eastern France, southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria belong to the Celtic lands. The Celts were the first “historic” people in Europe, north of the Mediterranean. The Golden Age of the Celts refers to the period from the 6th to the 2nd century BC when they conducted successful wars and influenced the course of South European history. In the 6th century BC, Celtic tribes moved towards the Pyrenees and present-day Spain. In the 5th and 4th centuries BC, one wave migrated to the British Isles, while another moved towards the French Mediterranean coast. Around 400 BC, they arrived in Italy and conquered the Po Valley, which was then called Cisalpine Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina). There, they established their cities such as Milan (Mediolanum), Brescia, Vicenza, Modena, Verona, and Bologna. In 387 BC, they conquered Rome (except for the Capitoline Hill) but later withdrew after receiving a ransom. According to legend, during the weighing of the noble metals for the ransom, the Romans complained about the Celtic-made weighing scales. In response, Bran, the Gallic leader, shouted, “Vae victis!” (Woe to the vanquished!) as he threw his sword onto the scales. In the calendar, the day of defeat remained recorded as dies ater – a black day. After that, Celtic tribes move east, reaching Czechia (the tribe Boii, after which Czechia got its old name Bohemia), the Carpathians, Romania, Pannonia, and Bulgaria. Supposedly, in 335 BC, there was a meeting between the Celts and Alexander the Great. According to tradition, when Alexander asked what his people feared the most, their leader replied: “The only thing the Celts fear is that the sky will not fall on their heads!” In the 3rd century BC, they moved towards Thrace and Macedonia, and crossed Thessaly into Greece. The Gallic tribe attempted to plunder Delphi in 279 BC, but they were prevented by a fierce storm. Furthermore, Strabo reports on the Gallic penetration into Asia Minor, where they settled as Galatians. With the end of conquest in the 2nd century BC, the Celts permanently settled in the conquered territories and assimilated with the local population. During this period, the boundaries of the Roman Empire expanded, and the Germanic tribes grew stronger, attacking Celtic lands. The Celtic tradition survived on the British Isles until the early Middle Ages and the arrival of the Germanic tribes, the Angles and Saxons, with the advent of Christianity, which considered the eradication of pagan beliefs as its mission. Today, the Celtic language is spoken by approximately one million people in Ireland, parts of Wales, Scotland, and the Isle of Man.

Although the Celts conquered a large territory, they never created a state. However, they achieved cultural unity that connected various aspects of life into a cohesive whole. The elements that united all Celtic tribes and formed them into one nation were religion and mythology, their understanding of life and death, the concept of time and calendar, and social organization.

It is difficult to learn more about the Celtic worldview from archaeological sources. Short references by ancient writers about Celtic history, religion, and customs provide some insight, but these texts often conserve knowledge that has been forgotten in terms of meaning and purpose.

Sources
A Bronze predatory bird on top of an iron helmet, dating back to the 3rd century BC, found in northwest Romania.

Myths contain the spiritual life of every culture, but in order to understand them, we must be familiar with the symbolic language in which they are written. Every myth is imbued with deep ethical meaning, offering a pedagogical model that can provide answers to profound human questions. They contain criteria and values that gods and heroes realize on the grand cosmic stage, while humans embody them on Earth. Warriors, kings, druids, poets, prophets, and all others find inspiration and role models in myths; by living these mythical examples, history is created.

Georges Dumezil It is believed that the Celtic tradition has faithfully preserved three Indo-European mythological-social functions, which is evident in the division of society into druids (priests), warriors, nobles, and free craftsmen.
The mythical hero Cuchulainn is a prototype of a Celtic warrior: proud, powerful, and invincible.
Warriors
Battle represented for the Celts a renewal of the heroic battles fought by the gods. The mythical hero Cuchulainn serves as a role model for bringing a code of honor into combat: not killing the unarmed, charioteers, servants, women, and children. He replaces the king who attends the battle but does not fight. The essence of the warrior role is based on virtue and resourcefulness.
Their battles were imbued with magical and warrior rituals: bodies painted and adorned with jewelry, shields with emblems, and the war cries they emitted when charging into battle sent shivers down the spines of the Romans. According to Roman historians, they approached enemy ranks, challenging the bravest to single combat. They sang of the exploits of their ancestors and boasted of their bravery. They tried to undermine the opponent’s self-confidence with words.

King

The king is the mediator between the priestly and warrior classes from which he originated. The king distributes goods and creates balance in all areas of human activity. Since the king is a judge and warrior, he does not fight, but his presence is necessary for victory because as the Irish proverb says: A battle is not won without a king.
The king must be flawless: physically, mentally and mentally. If he is not like that, or if he fails to prove his abilities, he is overthrown and his palace is burned. When, according to legend, the Irish king Nuada had his hand cut off during the battle of Mag Tuired, he had to abdicate. The God healer then made him a new, silver hand, and he was able to take over the rule again.
In the 1st century BC, Titus Livius called the Gaulish king Bituriges Ambigatus, “The one who fights on two sides”, “The one who possesses double power” (spiritual and worldly).
… In the darkness of time, in the whirlpool My darling,
while everything changes,
you will sleep like the dead
and the world will remember you only as kings.

Druids
According to myths and writings of ancient authors, true guardians of knowledge and pillars of Celtic society were the druids – priests.
The name druid comes from the word druvid, meaning “very learned”, “those with strong insight”, “those who know the future”. Strabo refers to them as explorers of ethics, Poseidonius as philosophers, attributing them great abilities, and Cicero admires their knowledge. Diodorus Siculus says that among the Gauls there were singers, philosophers, and prophets called druids, who were skilled in the art of fortune-telling, and he adds that Pythagorean teachings had an influence on them, referring to teachings about the transmigration of souls. Julius Caesar, in the Gallic War, says that the role of the druids was immense: they predicted the future, participated in the selection of kings, and governed the kingdom. They taught about the immortality of the soul and metempsychosis. They memorized their teachings, which required immense effort and About twenty years ago. They were also called “teachers of words” because they believed that knowledge must be transmitted orally in order to remain alive. They already knew the Greek alphabet during Caesar’s time, but they didn’t use it to write down sacred texts or literary works.

According to their divine laws, it was not allowed to write down their teachings. (…) It seems that the reason for this prohibition was twofold: first, they did not want their teachings to be known to everyone, and second, their students would neglect the development of their memory, which usually happens when we rely on books. The essence of their teachings was that souls do not disappear, but after death, they pass on to another human being, and according to them, this migration was the greatest test of courage.

The Druids also knew the Ogham script, which belonged to the god Ogham. It was depicted as an old man in a lion’s skin leading his students with chains attached to his tongue on one side and to their ears on the other. This was a symbolic depiction that be the guardians of the spoken word, because Ogham was the god of war, battle, magic, and the protector of oratory. The Ogham script was not used for transmitting knowledge. It was believed to be filled with magical power, and according to tradition, magical messages were written with it on wooden tablets.

Gundestrup Cauldron

From a brief note by Strabo from the 1st century, it is evident that there were three levels of priesthood, or rather, three magical-religious roles: bards or singers, prophets or vates, and druids. Among the Celts, there were mainly three types of people who were particularly respected, and these were the singers, prophets, and druids. Singers were involved in hymns, prophets in offering sacrifices and studying nature, and druids added the study of morality to their exploration. Their fairness is so strongly believed in that they are given the right to decide in public and private disputes, and their decisions have so far prevented conflicts. (…) Both they and the others (bards and prophets) believe that the soul is indestructible, like the world, but that water and fire. On a certain day to take over.

Poets – Bards

In Celtic society, the role of poets was important and had a completely different meaning than it does today. Poets engaged in music and poetry and were educated for that profession in special schools where they were divided based on their level of education. There was a special, esoteric way of poetic expression. Tradition distinguishes between “obscure language of poetry” and “ordinary language”; one is the language of the gods, the other of mortals. In addition to the hermetic nature of expression, the difficulty of understanding bardic poetry was also contributed by the brevity of expression. Namely, it was considered a great skill to say a lot with few words. The tradition calls exceptional bards “scholars of concise speech.” Through awen, divine inspiration, the poet finds rhythm in prose, language, words; “captures” the principle of rhythm, the vibration of waves.

Bards are the keepers of history, legends, and heroic acts. After the disappearance of druids, a large part of their knowledge disappeared, but a part of it remained preserved in the songs of bards. Bard Circles of schools, gorsedds, which have existed in Scotland since the 18th century, were responsible for preserving the memories and teachings of peace, truth, and justice on the Earth, in order to establish the value of good and triumph over the evil.
Torkves or torc necklaces are insignias of Celtic warriors, tribal leaders, and heroes. They are usually made of a single piece of metal, such as bronze, iron, silver, or gold. The twisted silver torc with ends shaped like stylized bird heads originates from the later Iron Age.
Prophets – Vates, Ovates
Their name comes from the root “wat,” which means weaving or braiding. They studied nature and were healers and physicians. They possessed knowledge about the directions of Earth’s currents and were able to channel the energies of nature, which is why they were called prophets. They were also involved in raising and educating young people. They were lawyers as well and could participate in battles as warriors.
Teachings of the druids
The Greek Diogenes Laertius summarizes their teachings with words he heard from a druid: Our teachings are to worship the gods, not to commit injustice and to persevere in bravery.

Druids are intermediaries between the world of gods and the world of humans. During the great annual festivities, they established ritual connections with the “other world”. They were experts in the sacred laws of nature and guardians of tradition and morality.

The foundation of their teachings was the belief in the immortality of the soul, which goes through many lives in the world of Abred – the world of migration and destiny, thus gaining experiences and purifying itself. The migration of the soul is its journey through the circle of life and death. After death, according to the Celts, the soul goes “beyond” and continues its life there. But even “death” is transient because every human being returns to this world in order to gain new experiences and awareness of their immortal, divine nature. When the soul completes the cycle of purification, it arrives in the circle of Gwenwed, the Circle of White Light or the Circle of Bliss.

Celtic culture and civilization established a duality of life-death without great trauma, connecting them into one whole. Life and The death has two faces of the same coin and both are accepted from the early years of life with the first teachings. Just as nature cyclically renews itself every year and does not die completely every autumn, so does the human soul “enter” the manifest world and “exit” from it. That is why, as Caesar says, the Celts knew how to live and die.

Inspired by the teachings of the druids, the poet Lucan from the 1st century wrote:

Here they are, immortal, flying and circling around,
to unite with new bodies in new worlds,
and thus life endlessly flows, and death only
crosses the universe like a line;
under the northern sky, they will only feel the breath of happiness
that scorns the worst of all – the fear of death;
that’s why they are not afraid of this fragile existence,
they boldly step on the blade of the knife, they exist,
they challenge their fate and do not regret life or interruption
because they will soon repeat themselves.

Living with nature

Just as man is not only material but also has a soul, so everything in nature is alive and has a soul; it is infused with forces and energies, inhabited by vi Divine and invisible beings inhabited the mountains and hills. Springs, rivers, and water in general were known as diva or devona (“divine”). The springs were givers of miraculous healing powers. Sometimes these places served as an “entrance” to the “other world”, guarded by fairies, dwarves, and sometimes even giants.

Celtic temples were sacred groves or forest clearings. They believed that the One whose temple is the cosmos and nature should not reside in a human-made house. In nature, in the open space, man is closest to God. The sacred or celestial forest clearing (nemeton) is a place where the divine and human worlds meet. Nemeton is also the center of the world in miniature. Every nemeton is an omphalos, the eye of the world because the tree with roots buried in the soil and its top touching the sky serves as a mediator and a connection between these two realms. In Ireland, each tribe had its sacred tree in the center of its tribal territory. If an enemy were to uproot that tree of life, it would be the greatest misfortune and humiliation for the tribe. Caesar mentions a sacred place (locus consecratus) in the Carnuntum forest which was the center of Gaul. The sanctuary of Mediolanum (“central plain”) was the center of Cisalpine Gaul.

The famous Celtic saying that they “only fear the sky falling on their heads” shows that they felt directly responsible for their actions which could ultimately disrupt the cosmic order.

* * *

Although the Celts were perceived as enemies and barbarians whose customs were foreign and incomprehensible by their ancient neighbors, the traces they left from Ireland in the west to Turkey in the east reveal a different image of this ancient people today. Found objects adorned with intricate ornamentation introduce us to their world of symbols and showcase exceptional craftsmanship in metalworking, while the druids emerge as synonymous with wisdom and knowledge of nature. From their tradition emerged the character of the medieval wizard Merlin and legends of King Arthur, his knights, and the quest for the Holy Grail. The Celtic tradition is woven into richly illuminated early Christian manuscripts, and it is also strongly present in the famous Lord of the Rings whose characters bring us closer to the noble ideals of that ancient world, which are still an inspiration to all those who encounter their magical world.

Do you know where the night stays,
when it follows the course of the day?
Do you know the sign?
Have you counted the leaves on the trees?
Do you know who built the mountains
before the elements came into being?
Do you know who supports life on earth?
The soul complains, it does not know the answer.
Who taught us that? Who knows the sacred?
I respect books
even for what they do not know.

Taliesin