A Brief History of the Celts

by Peter Berresford Ellis

  In Britain the god appears at Cirencester in a small stone relief whose legs are turned into the ram-horned snakes themselves which rear up, tongues protruding. On either side of the god are open purses of money. Cernunnos also appears on a Celtic silver coin dated c. AD 20, of the Belgae Remi, found at Petersfield, Hampshire. Here, between the antlers, the god bears a solar wheel. It is now in the British Museum.

  Clearly Cernunnos is a major god in the Celtic pantheon. Scholars have argued that his zoomorphic accompaniment indicates that he was ‘Lord of Animals’. Shiva, in the Hindu pantheon, was also called Pasupati, meaning ‘Lord of Animals’. When Sir John Marshall was excavating at Mohenjodaro, in north-west India, he found a seal on which Pasupati was represented. ‘The general resemblance between the Cernunnos panel and the Mohenjodaro seal [now in the Delhi Museum] is such that one can hardly doubt their common origin,’ commented Professor Myles Dillon.

  The Dagda carries a club which can destroy at one end and restore to life with the other. If The Dagda is also Cernunnos and a cognate with Shiva, then we can see vague similarities to the Hindu triple forms of Brahma (Creator), Vishnu (Preserver) and Shiva (Destroyer). The famous hill-figure carving of the Cerne Abbas Giant in southern England, some 55 metres high, carrying a club and with penis erect, is argued to be Cernunnos and therefore the British Celtic equivalent of The Dagda. The figure is almost a replica of a carving found at Costopitum (Corbridge, Northumberland) now in the Newcastle upon Tyne Museum of Antiquities. It certainly has all the attributes of Cernunnos. Shiva is also regarded as the male generative force of the Vedic religion whose symbol was the linga or phallus. In Greek and Roman perceptions this would equate with Heracles, whom they often saw as progenitor of the Celts.

  We saw in Chapter 1 that the Celts believed their origins lay with the mother goddess, Danu, ‘divine waters from heaven’. She fell from heaven and her waters created the Danuvius (Danube), having watered the sacred oak tree Bíle. From there sprang the pantheon of the gods who are known as the Tuatha de Danaan (Children of Danu) in Irish and the Children of Dôn in Welsh myths.

  It has been argued, not with any degree of conviction, that Anu, occurring in both Continental and Irish Celtic forms, is unrelated to Danu. Sanas Chormaic in the tenth century clearly describes Anu as ‘Mother of the Irish Gods’. In an etymological list, the Cóir Anmann (The Fitness of Names), the earliest form we have is from the fourteenth century. Anu was a fertility goddess and patroness of the Eóghanacht kingdom of Munster in Ireland; the term Iath nAnann (Land of Anu) was a name given to Ireland, reinforcing the Eóghanacht claim to the kingship of all Ireland. In Co. Kerry there are two hills called Dá Chích nAnann (Paps of Anu).

  Anu appears in an inscription at Vaucluse where Professor John Rhys argues that the name occurs in dative form Anoniredi, translated as ‘chariot of Anu’.

  Most of the major Celtic deities were venerated in the form of triune gods and goddesses – that is, they had three aspects called by three names, and many representations of them are given three faces or three heads. The triads through which the Druids taught, and the sacredness of the number three, are highly important and a very common feature of the Indo-European tradition. Examples of such triple representations of deities include the janiform head from Leichlingen, Germany, dating from the fourth century BC, the stone triple head from Wroxeter, Shropshire, and the head from Reims in France. There is even a triple image of Cernunnos, with his antlers, on a bronze statuette from Étang-sur-Aroux. The pre-Roman Celtic coins of the Remi (of Reims) depict a triple-headed deity.

  This triune or triple form of deity was not confined to the Celts but, as we have said, permeates the Indo-European cultures. In Hindu belief the Trimurti consisted of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer. Ancient Greeks used three as a symbol of deity and also had their triune aspect in Zeus (heaven), Poseidon (sea) and Pluto/Hades (underworld). There are, of course, three Fates, three Furies, three Graces, three Harpies; the Sibylline books are numbered as three times three, as are the Muses.

  Ireland was represented by a female triune goddess – Éire, Banba and Fótla – and there were three craft gods, Goibhniu, Luchta and Credhne. The Mórrígú, triple goddess of death and battles, appeared as Macha, Badb and Nemain, embodying all that is perverse and horrible among the supernatural powers. The Dagda himself was worshipped in triune form.

  This philosophy can go even deeper for the Celts saw Homo sapiens as body, soul and spirit, the world was divided into earth, sea and air, the divisions of nature were animal, vegetable and mineral, and the cardinal colours were red, yellow and blue. It might also be remembered that it was a Gaulish Celt, Hilary, bishop of Poitiers (c. AD 315–367), regarded as one of the first native Celts to become an outstanding philosophical force in the Christian movement, whose great work De Trinitate defined the concept of the Holy Trinity for the first time; a triplicity that is now so integral to Christian belief.

  We have mentioned some of the major Celtic deities whose surviving inscriptions appear throughout the Celtic world. Another important god was Lugus, found throughout the Continent in both inscriptional form and in the place-names of towns such as Lyons, Léon, Loudan and Laon (in France), Leiden (in Holland), and Leignitz (in Silesia). He also appears in insular Celtic place-names, for example in the original form of Carlisle (Luguvalium). His festival (1 August) marked the beginning of the harvest season and the name of this festival, Lugnasad, survives as a name for the month of August in modern Irish as Lúnasa, inManx as Luanistyn and in Scottish Gaelic as Lùnasad.

  Lugh and his Welsh equivalent Lleu appear in the insular Celtic myths. He is portrayed as a warrior god of shining light. He is a master of all crafts and skills. Caesar says that the Gauls worshipped ‘Mercury’ as ‘inventor of all the arts’. Caesar’s Mercury couldwell have been Lugus. Nuada, ruler of the gods in Ireland, surrenders his rule to Lugh. Lugh is also called Lugh Lámhfhada (of the Long Hand/Arm) in Ireland and Lleu Llaw Gyffes in Welsh (of the Skilful Hand). In the Hindu pantheon the god Savitar is called Prthupani (of the Large Hand) in the Rig Veda. Both Lugus and Savitar are claimed as solar deities. ‘The god with the great hand stretches up his arms so that all obey.’ The god of the large hand is an Indo-European concept and known from Ireland and Sweden to the Punjab.

  Another of the Celtic pantheon is the god of eloquence, literacy and learning. Ogmios on the Continent is also found in Britain as Ogmia and in Ireland as Ogma. Ogmia in Britain is represented on a pottery piece from Richborough as a figure with long curly hair and sun rays emanating from his head with his name inscribed below. Ogma in Ireland is a son of The Dagda and he is credited with the invention of the Ogam script, which is named after him. The Greek writer Lucian (c. AD 115–after 180) identified him with Heracles, and this is confirmed in our insular mythological sources, where his parentage and adventures are in many ways comparable with those of Heracles, the son of Zeus, father of the Greek gods. Zeus, of course, is cognate with Dyaus in Sanskrit and The Dagda in Irish.

  Camulos was a male god known throughout the Celtic world and an inscription at Bar Hill, on the Antonine Wall in Scotland, identifies him in Latin as ‘the god Mars Camulos’. It would seem, therefore, that Camulos was a war god. The same link is made in dedications in Reims, Rindern and Dalmatia. There are votive inscriptions to the god stretching from Rome toMainz. Camulos gave his name to the chief city of the Trinovantes in Britain, hence Camulodunum (Fort of Camulos, now Colchester) which became, for a brief time, the capital of the Roman province of southern Britain. The name is found as the original name of Almonbury in Yorkshire, and in southern Scotland in the place-name Camulosessa, argued to be ‘seat of Camulos’. In Ireland, the name of the god may be seen in the name Cumal, father of the famous Fionn Mac Cumhail. The word cumal in old Irish also meant ‘warrior’ or ‘champion’, which could fit in with the image of a war god. (This form of the word does not appear to be related to cumal used as a unit of currency nor cumal u
sed as the name for a female servant.)

  One of the most famous Celtic gods had a fertility festival which is still acknowledged today as the feast day of a saint that bears her name, St Brigit. The name means ‘Exalted One’ and it is suggested that she was another personification of Danu. Her name, as Brigandu or Brigando, is found in Valnay. She is identified as the Celtic equivalent of the Roman goddess Minerva. As Brigantia she is identified with Minerva on a relief from Birrens in southern Scotland, now in the National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh, which portrays her with Minerva’s accoutrements. Brigantia was worshipped in Britain, primarily in the north of the country. The tribal confederation of the Brigantes seem to have adopted her and seven votive inscriptions are found in their area. However, her name also occurs in the names of the rivers Brent (in Middlesex) and Braint (in Anglesey).

  One of the most famous Celtic gods had a fertility festival which is still acknowledged today as the feast day of a saint that bears her name, St Brigit. The name means ‘Exalted One’ and it is suggested that she was another personification of Danu. Her name, as Brigandu or Brigando, is found in Valnay. She is identified as the Celtic equivalent of the Roman goddess Minerva. As Brigantia she is identified with Minerva on a relief from Birrens in southern Scotland, now in the National Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh, which portrays her with Minerva’s accoutrements. Brigantia was worshipped in Britain, primarily in the north of the country. The tribal confederation of the Brigantes seem to have adopted her and seven votive inscriptions are found in their area. However, her name also occurs in the names of the rivers Brent (in Middlesex) and Braint (in Anglesey).

  In Ireland, as Brigit, she appears in the myths as the daughter of The Dagda with two sisters, also called Brigit. She was associated with the art of healing and the craft of the smithy and was a patroness of poetry. Overall, she was a goddess of fertility. The Christian saint who bears her name, Brigit (c. AD 455–c. 525), not only took over the feast day of the goddess, the traditional commencement of spring, or Imbolc in old Irish (1 February), but also encompassed the veneration of fertility and light. St Brigit’s cross, when examined, is a solar wheel, a symbol of good fortune which appears throughout Indo-European culture and in Hindu culture as the swastika, a symbol perverted by the Nazis. In Vedic Sanskrit svastika derived from sú, good and asti, being.

  The difficulty about the Celtic pantheon – if indeed we can accept that there was a single pantheon, merely varying among the Celts of differing areas – is that there is no way of identifying a rigid structure of the gods.

  The Romans feigned shock and horror at the Celtic practice of taking and preserving the heads of people they admired, whether they were friend or foe. Most of the classical sources refer to the Celts taking the heads of their enemies after they had fallen in battle and it is noted as early as 295 BC, after the Senones smashed a Roman legion at Clusium, that:

  They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The bloodstained spoils they hand over to their attendants and carry off as booty, while striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses . . . They embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies, and preserve them carefully in a chest and display them with pride to strangers, saying that for this head one of their ancestors, or his father, or the man himself, refused the offer of a large sum of money. They say that some of them boast that they refused the weight of the head in gold.

  But the Celts believed that the soul reposed in the head. Strabo, among others, says that the Celts believed that the human soul was indestructible. Thus the head was venerated as the source and power of the human spirit. It was a mark of great respect to take the head of one they admired, to embalm it in cedar oil and offer it up in a temple or keep it as a prized possession. Dr Simon James, however, argues: ‘By keeping the head of an enemy, they may have thought that the spirit was also controlled.’ We are told by Livy that the Boii, having killed the Roman consul Lucius Postumius, in 216 BC, took his head to their temple. The Celts also put heads into sacred rivers as votive offerings.

  It is quite wrong to interpret this as evidence that the Celts were ‘head hunters’. They did not go out looking for heads. Decapitation only took place after the victims were slain in battle or died, and then only if they were deemed worthy of respect.

  Archaeological evidence from various sources supports the information on temple offerings. A number of skulls have been found in Celtic shrines, for example at Roquepertuse, Nages and Entremont. At Roquepertuse in Provence there is a skull portico dating to the fourth and third centuries BC. The skulls in this portico are of adult men, most of whom were obviously slain in battle as scars and sword damage to the bone demonstrate. The sanctuary itself was constructed as early as the sixth century but fell into disuse after the Roman conquest of the area in the second century BC. At Entremont, capital of the Saluvii, fragments of a statue have been recovered and a reconstruction shows a figure seated in the lotus position bearing on its lap six severed heads. The figure wears a conical war helmet and a torc around his neck.

  Entremont was destroyed by the Romans in 124 BC. Excavations of the shrine have shown that it was on the highest part of the hill and approached by a pathway lined with statues of heroes and heroines. Within this shrine stood a tall pillar carved with twelve heads. Entremont is remarkable for a large array of severed head sculpture.

  One of the most interesting severed head sculptures comes from Noves in southern France, a stone sculpture dating to the third or second century BC. It is of a fearsome-looking scaly beast which squats on its hind legs. It has apparently devoured a human being, for an arm protrudes from its mouth. Under its forepaws it holds the severed heads of two people who are bearded and apparently wearing caps.

  Heads have also been uncovered at a shrine in Cosgrove, in Northants, while a coin of the British king Cunobelinus shows a warrior brandishing a human head that he has taken after a battle. Skulls have been found placed in pits, and some excavated from fortresses where they had been fixed on poles on the walls or over gateways.

  A large number of skulls from the Celtic period have been discovered in the River Thames at London, at the point where the Walbrook flows into it. The Thames was probably considered, like most rivers, to be sacred. But why were the votive offerings placed near the mouth of the Walbrook?

  When the Anglo-Saxons took over London, the evidence is that they did not occupy the old city but built more to the north, in the vicinity of Moorgate. It is obvious, simply from the place-name, that the Celts clung to the area of the Walbrook, hence Weala-broc, the brook of the foreigners. Welisc (foreigners) was the name that the Anglo-Saxons gave to the British Celts. But why did the Celts hang on here of all places? And why were there so many skulls and other votive offerings? It is clear that this was a sanctuary which the Celts were loath to leave. Fascinatingly, the major gate from the city, facing on to the river, was called Bíle’s gate (Billingsgate) and Bíle was a god of the dead who transported souls to the Otherworld. The Celtic dead of the city were probably taken out of the gate to commence their last journey on the Thames, just as their fellow Indo-Europeans are carried to the Ganges for burial. Maybe just the heads of the important citizens were taken through the gate to be deposited at the sanctuary now marked by the Walbrook?

  The mythological traditions of Ireland and Wales are full of references to the importance of the head. Heads were endowed with the ability to live on once separated from the body, confirming the idea of the soul reposing there. In the Mabinogion, Bran Bendigeidfran is mortally wounded by a poison. He orders his men to cut off his head before the poison reaches it, and to take the head back to Britain. On the journey, the head talks, jokes and gives advice to them.

  Heads often talk once stricken from the body. The famous decapitation game in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has its origin in Celtic myth and appears in one of the Red Branch tales with C�
�chulainn in the role later assumed by Gawain. Cúchulainn takes the heads of his enemies without compunction and, like the Celts mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, he hangs them from his chariot: ‘. . . terribly, he comes. He has in the chariot the bloody heads of his enemies.’

  This reverence for the head was not displaced by Christianity for many centuries. The doorway from Dysert O’Dea and the doorway from Clonfert, Ireland, both Romanesque, display a preoccupation with heads. Professor Barry Cunliffe has remarked that it is often impossible to distinguish pre-Christian and Christian Celtic head carvings. The gargoyles, corbels and other decorative forms on churches, particularly down to the eleventh and twelfth centuries AD, owed much to the Celtic belief that the soul dwelt in the head.

  The Celts believed in an afterlife. The Gaulish teaching was that the soul was immortal. According to Diodorus Siculus it was Polyhistor who first mentioned that the ‘Pythagorean doctrine’ prevailed among the Gauls. The Alexandrian school of writers, as we saw in Chapter 4, spent much time debating whether the Celts had taken the doctrine of the soul’s immortality, its reincarnation, from Pythagoras or whether Pythagoras took it from contact with the Celts. But how close were their teachings? Pythagoras, of course, wrote nothing down or, if he did, nothing has survived even in copies. From later writers we hear that he taught that the soul was immortal, a fallen divinity imprisoned in a body. The soul, by its actions, determined how it would be reincarnated in human, animal, or even plant form. Eventually, the soul would obtain its release from worldly cares by keeping itself pure, which involved an austere regime of self-examination, abstention and so on. This theory of metempsychosis was alien to Greek philosophical traditions at this time.

  However, in other Indo-European cultures, notably in India, it was believed that due to its karma a soul transmigrated from one life to another in a never-ending cycle which could only be broken in Nirvana. Nirvana was the state of supreme bliss which, once achieved, liberated the soul from the repeating cycle of death and rebirth.