The Legacy of the Celts

Stonehenge in Wiltshire was probably designed as a huge cosmic amphitheatre from which the passage of the stars could be observed.

The culture and tradition of the Celts survives not only among their descendants in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and the Isle of Man – who each still speak their own distinct Celtic language – but spreads right around the globe. Music, story and song reconnect us all with the legends of the ancestral Celtic lands and their people.

From all over the world, visitors to the British Isles seek to reawaken memory by walking the ancient roads of their forebears in order to listen to the healing wisdom of springs and lakes, to be inspired by the hills, mountains and forests, and to read and listen to the myths and legends of the wise and warm-hearted people. The beliefs of the Celts, their traditions and rituals, their songs and poems, have affected the very way we think and feel, as well as how we react to the world around us.

The bardic traditions that have preserved the memory of these legends are still an important part of Celtic life. In Ireland, the government recognizes ‘the people of the gift’ – artists, storytellers and musicians – as cultural treasures. In every Celtic land today, there are competitions in which poets and musicians can be seen and acclaimed as the most accomplished of their people. These modern bards still keep open the Otherworldly doors of vision, singing and telling the myths and legends of their ancestors.

The tradition of respect for the land, its trees and animals, which was such an essential part of Celtic life, shows us that we can still learn from the past. The importance of recognizing our own connection with the land is now more urgent than ever as climatic and other environmental changes result from human neglect of nature. In this respect, the Celtic gods and the Faery people are not merely mythical archetypes but can also be interpreted as the living guardians of the land’s health. Thus the power of Celtic lore and tradition continues to hold us in the golden webs of its weaving, preserving an eternal, ever-changing pattern of thought, image and dream.

Celtic Myths & Legends by John Matthews, © Jarrold Publishing, 2002

Mysterious Landscapes

Castlerigg Stone Circle in Cumbria, also known as the Keswick Carles. According to local tradition, they are people who were turned into stone because they danced on the Sabbath.

Everywhere in the lands where the Celts have lived there are mythological signposts. In Ireland, the Hill of Tara was both a religious and political centre where, for centuries, new kings celebrated their sacred marriage to the land. Brug na Bóinne (Newgrange), in Meath, is an astonishing complex of Neolithic sacred sites that became a focus for celebrations associated with the Celtic sacred year. In the story of Diarmait and Gráinne, the lovers, fleeing for their lives from Gráinne’s angry husband, Fionn mac Cumhaill, slept outdoors at a series of places that are still remembered as ‘The Beds of Diarmait and Gráinne’. The whole landscape of the Celtic world is thus peopled with strange and wonderful objects, some natural and others man-made.

The Stiperstones in Shropshire are believed to have come from the Devil, who let them fall from his pockets as he rushed across the countryside.

Megalithic monuments have acquired their own mythology and legends. In England, the great chalk-hill figures, such as the Wilmington Long Man and the Uffington White Horse, which almost certainly predate the arrival of the Celts, also became a focus for sacred practices and acquired their own stories. According to an early account, Stonehenge was built by Merlin, King Arthur’s enchanter, who brought the stones across the sea from Ireland and erected them as a lasting memorial to King Ambrosius. The same account cites the origin of the stones as Africa and emphasizes that water poured over the stones had healing properties – a belief that persisted until the seventeenth century.

Other stones were credited with similar properties. those at Men-an-Tol, in Cornwall, were said to cure babies of various ailments, while the toothache-relieving properties of the chambered tomb at Carraig-an-Taláidh, near Skipness in Strathclyde, is outshone by the Crick Stone, near Horton in Gloucestershire, which is said to cure children of rickets. Rituals connecting stones with childbirth are found from the Orkneys to western Ireland. On the Isle of Man, which is named after the sea god Manannán, Maughold’s Head is said to have been created as St Maughold, flying across the sea from Ireland, touched the water with his knee and, to this day, the waters of this area are believed to cure eye ailments.

Merlin's Cave in Cornwall has strong associations with the enchanter. Above it, perched on the rocks, is Tintagel Castle, which is reputed to be the birthplace of Arthur.

The catalogue of stories anchored in the landscape includes tales of hidden treasure, of stones which cannot be counted of which move by themselves, and of tombs which become the burial places of countless heroes, from King Arthur to Sir Francis Drake, and which were built by giants, the Devil or the Faery people.

These sites still possess a powerful attraction for us. Accustomed as we are to seeing the surrounding landscape in three dimensions, through the eyes of the Celtic tradition we can also see it as a magical place, steeped in legend and peopled by beings of the Otherworld.

Celtic Myths & Legends by John Matthews, © Jarrold Publishing, 2002

The Faery World

Bryn-celli-ddu, on the island of Anglesey, has strong associations with the Faery people, as well as containing some of the oldest and most mysterious of any carvings found elsewhere in the British Isles.

The Faery people occupied a place of great importance for the Celts, who saw them, if not as gods, then as descendants of gods. Some called them the Tuatha Dé Danann, or Children of Dana, who was one of the oldest gods of Ireland. Others saw them as one of the aboriginal races of Britain, representative of an older way of communion with the natural world – a way which did not seek to control or manipulate it by the use of iron, a metal traditionally inimical to the Faery folk.

For many people, they are the Sídhe, the people of the Hollow Hills, who dwell beneath the earth in palaces roofed with gold and wield a wild and unpredictable magic. Descriptions of them paint a portrait of beings larger than life: tall, fair and terrible. As the poet Fiona MacLeod wrote:

How beautiful they are,
The Lordly Ones,
Who live in the hills,
In the Hollow Hills.

The Eildon Hills, near Edinburgh, were believed to be the haunt of the Faery people as well as the home of the legendary wizard Michael Scott.

Faery hills, mounds, trees and springs are found everywhere across the landscapes of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany, marking hundreds of ways into (but not always out of) the Faery realms. Numerous stories tell of encounters with the Faery folk: midwives called upon to nurse Faery children; human children exchanged for Faery offspring; musicians asked to play at Faery banquets; and treasure-seekers falling by accident into Faery mounds – either never to be seen again or emerging changed forever.

The Faery tradition of the Celts remains one of the richest in the world, with hundreds of tales set in a world where anything can happen: where heroes can grow overnight to such a size that their feet stick out of the window of the house; where animals talk and know more than humans; where beauty is often synonymous with danger, as those who pursue Faery women find to their cost. Throughout much of the Celtic world, many people still believe in the Faery people. As one collector of Celtic Faery lore, Jeremiah Curtin, remarked:

The Reverend Robert Kirk was believed to have vanished into a Faery hill in the 18th century. This site at Aberfoyle, near Stirling in Scotland, may be his final resting place.

When I was a boy … nine men in ten believed in fairies, and said so; now only one man in ten will say that he believes in them. If one of the nine believes, he will not tell you; he will keep his mind to himself.

The perilous, shining Faery realm underlies much of Celtic myth and legend, occasionally spilling over into this world, which is always the richer for the contact.

Celtic Myths & Legends by John Matthews, © Jarrold Publishing, 2002

Quests

Dinas Bran in North Wales is traditionally identified with the Castle of the Grail.

Like the voyages to other worlds, quests for sacred or mysterious objects are also a popular subject among Celtic storytellers, probably the most famous being the quest for the Grail. Later medieval accounts focus on the search for spiritual treasure by the Knights of the Round Table but, in the earliest reference, King Arthur himself leads a raid on the Underworld of Annwn, sailing with a band of heroes in his magical ship Prydwen in quest of a magical life-restoring cauldron. The poet Taliesin left a mysterious account of this in one of his poems, part of which reads:

… my song sounded
In the four-towered Caer, forever turning,
And of its Cauldron was my first song sung.
Nine maidens kindled it with their breath -
Of what nature is the Lord of Annwn’s Cauldron?
Enamelled iridescence and pearly white its rim.
It will not boil the coward’s portion …
When we went with Arthur – splendid labour -
Except seven, none returned from the Caer of the Honey-Mead.

Bardsey Island, off the coast of Wales, is traditionally the place to which Merlin retired, taking with him the Thirteen Treasures of Britain.

Such cauldrons were common in Celtic myth and could dispense anything from inspiration to food for heroes. A Welsh manuscript contains a catalogue of mysterious, much sought-after treasures – the Thirteen Treasures of Britain – including:

Dyrnwyn, the Sword of Rhydderch the Generous, which, in the hands of a nobleman, bursts into flame from hilt to tip.

The Hamper of Gwyddno Garanhir, into which food for one man can be placed and food for a hundred will be found when it is next opened.

The Horn of Bran Galed, which dispenses whatever drink is desired.

Pendragon Castle in Cumbria is believed to have been the original home of Uther, father of King Arthur, and local tradition tells of hidden treasure.

All Thirteen Treasures reveal a preoccupation with the worthiness of the person finding or using them; they will not work for the unworthy. According to an old legend, Merlin is believed to have been the guardian of the Treasures, and to have taken them with him when he retired to the island of Bardsey, off the coast of Wales. There he built an invisible tower of glass, in which he bides still, protecting the Treasures from the eyes of curious seekers.

Celtic Myths & Legends by John Matthews, © Jarrold Publishing, 2002

Voyages

The story of Brendan's Voyage describes how the saint and his men made camp on the back of a gigantic sea creature, probably a whale.

Throughout Celtic tradition, magical places are seen to lie ‘over the sea’, ‘through the circle’ or ‘at the World’s End’. A whole genre of works, known in Irish as Imrama (Voyages), was devoted to journeys to these places. the voyages of Bran mac Febail, Máel Dúin, St Brendan and Mac Conglinne, among others, take the form of visits to a series of islands which represent stages on the soul’s journey. The heroes of these stories and poems learn from the experience, encountering gods, spirits and wondrous creatures who exist both to challenge and instruct.

Thus we find Bran mac Febail meeting a wonderful Faery woman who shakes a branch of silver hung with golden apples to send him forth on his adventure, while Máel Dúin, on his voyage, encounters a veritable menagerie of curious beasts, strange beings, and wondrous Otherworldly people on each island.

Other notable voyages are those of Snegdus and Mac Riagla, which begins as a quest for vengeance and ends when the heroes are transformed by the wonders of the islands that they visit, and of Ua Corra (the sons of Corra), who undertake their venture as a penance for their misspent youth!

Perhaps the most famous is that of St Brendan. In this, the saint learns of an earlier voyage in search of the Land of Youth and sets out to follow the same route. On the way he encounters the great whale Jasconius, on whose back he and his followers camp overnight. They visit the Island of Ageless Elders and the Island of Birds but, although they come close to the Land of Youth, they are not permitted to go ashore.

'Tristan and Isolde', by John Duncan, shows the two famous Celtic lovers about to drink a love potion while on a voyage from Ireland to Cornwall.

An account of another wonderful voyage comes not from a Celtic source but from a Classical Roman description of Britain, which those living elsewhere often perceived as being not unlike the Otherworld. when the historian and geographer Procopius describes the island that he called ‘Brittia’, he makes it clear that this is no ordinary place and tells how the fishermen of Brittany are called upon to ferry the dead across the sea to Cornwall. Although they can see nothing of their passengers, their boats are heavy on the way out but light and empty on the way home.

The tradition of the great voyage has continued to intrigue ever since. Writers as diverse as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in his ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, and C.S. Lewis, in his Voyage of the Dawn Treader, have drawn upon these ancient Celtic stories, while the adventures of the USS Enterprise in Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek take the voyage still further – out into the stars.

Celtic Myths & Legends by John Matthews, © Jarrold Publishing, 2002

Heroes

The god Cernunnos was portrayed as the Lord of the Animals. His character probably influenced the later Herne the Hunter.

Heroic tales and legends comprise a large part of Celtic literature, which is not surprising because the Celts were a warrior people who loved fighting for its own sake.

In Ireland, the greatest heroes were the Red Branch Knights of Ulster, particularly Cúchulainn, while both Ireland and Scotland share the great warrior-poet Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn mac Cool). Cycles of stories tell of the wondrous births, fantastic adventures, wild loves and strange deaths of this pair, many of whose adventures centred around Navan Fort (Emain Macha) in Armagh and the Hill of Allen (Almu) in Kildare.

Cúchulainn, whose birth name was Sétanta, gained his adult name after killing the fierce hound of Conchobar mac Nessa’s smith, Culann. In recompense for the loss, Sétanta agreed to guard Culann’s forge until a suitable dog could be found – and thus became Cúchulainn (Hound of Culann). He was famed for his great skills: the salmon leap, which enabled him to leap over obstacles, and his use of Gáe Bulga – a terrible spear which inflicted a death blow whenever it was used. He was also renowned for his battle frenzy, in which state his body contorted itself horribly, blood spurted from his head in a great gush and his anger was unquenchable unless a host of women were sent to minister to him.

Branwen, daughter of Llŷr, was given in marriage to the King of Ireland, who mistreated her. A tame starling took a message to her brother, who came to her rescue.

Fionn mac Cumhaill was fostered by a druidess called Bodhmall and Liath Luachra, a woman-warrior who taught him battle skills and the arts. Under the name of Demne, he learned poetry from the druid Finnéces and, in the process, gained the ability to see the future by eating of the Salmon of Knowledge. In due time he became head of the Fianna, an elite fighting force that protected Ireland from its enemies. He was briefly married to the lovely Gráinne, but he was by far the older and she eloped with the handsome warrior Diarmait. Fionn pursued the pair and brought about the death of Diarmait, who faded away into the Otherworld.

The Grave of Taliesin (Bedd Taliesin), on the shores of Lake Bala in Wales, is believed to be the resting place of the great 6th-century bard.

In Wales, King Arthur and his band of heroes were the most frequent subjects of story and myth, although their rough and often savage ways were a far cry from the chivalrous medieval tales of the Knights of the Round Table. Among the 150 heroes of Arthur’s war-band were men whose skills were decidedly Otherworldly: Cei, for instance, who was the model for Sir Kay in English Arthurian romance, could hear an ant getting up in the morning five miles (eight kilometres) away, while Sgilti Lightfoot was so swift that he could run on the tops of the grass and Gilla Stag-Shank could leap over three fields at a single bound. The legends of Arthur are founded on the wonderful richness and invention of the Celtic storytellers, and many of the stories that became world-famous in the Middle Ages originated in the time of the Celts.

Celtic Myths & Legends by John Matthews, © Jarrold Publishing, 2002

Gods & Goddesses

This carving depicts the three Matronae, or Mothers, the triple goddesses of the Celtic world, who represent both human fertility and the fertility of the Earth.

The early Celts saw deity – in the form of trees, rivers, lakes and mountains – as a manifestation of the natural world. They only began to make semi-human images of their gods and goddesses after encountering the Classical traditions of Greece and Rome. However, although there is no clearly defined pantheon of Celtic deities, we do find a Father, Mother, Son and Daughter – a family of deities, like a human family.

In Ireland, the role of the Father is fulfilled by the Dagda, or ‘Good God’, a figure of immense energy and strength, alternately characterized as wise and generous or uncouth and gluttonous. The Welsh equivalent is Brân the Blessed (Bendigeid Vran), regarded as supreme guardian and dispenser of knowledge and wisdom, particularly through the power of story.

The goddess Epona marks the great devotion towards horses that is shared by most of the Celtic peoples.

In Welsh tradition, the figures of the Mother and Son – Modron and Mabon – are shadowy. ‘Modron’ and ‘Mabon’ are titles rather than names: Modron, the Divine Mother, encompasses all the goddesses, while Mabon, the Divine Child, is the guardian of all young people. The Triple Mother Goddess(es) in Celtic tradition are known as the Matronae and dedications to them are found all over the Celtic world. The Daughter is Creiddylad, who, as the Spring Maiden, becomes the subject of an age-long battle between the Kings of Summer and Winter. The winner receives the hand of the Spring Maiden, and thus the turning of the Wheel of the Year is assured.

In addition, there are the gods and goddesses who reign over aspects of the natural world. In Welsh myth, Rhiannon represents the strength of the earth, while the goddess Arianrhod rules over the stars from her fortress of Caer Siddi. Arawn, the dark-natured, crafty Lord of the Underworld, hunts with a pack of white-bodied, red-eared hounds and has been linked with the Wild Hunt, which features in folk cultures around the world. Ceridwen, the goddess of inspiration, is sometimes represented as a Divine Hag, or Mountain Mother, who lets fall huge stones from her apron (womb) to create the landscape. Her haglike aspect is represented in Scottish Highland folklore by the Cailleach Bheur, a wild natural force which, when ‘overcome’ by the warmth, sunlight and new grass of spring, flies into a rage and disappears in a whirling cloud of anger.

This ancient stone from Boa Island, Lough Erne, County Fermanagh, is one of the oldest depictions of deity to be found in Ireland.

The Irish sea god, Manannán mac Lir, appears in a horse-drawn chariot that travels as easily upon the waves as beneath them. He also possesses a magical boat which obeys the thoughts of whoever is sailing it and a herd of pigs which, the day after they have been killed and eaten, return to life.

It was through such deities that the Celts maintained contact with the natural world, observed the turning of the seasons and celebrated the presence of the divine in all things.

Celtic Myths & Legends by John Matthews, © Jarrold Publishing, 2002