Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore

529 Pages·2008·2.8 MB·English

by  Monaghan, Patricia.

the e n c yc l op e di a of
C E LTIC MYTHOLO GY
AN D F OLKLORE
Patricia Monaghan
The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore
Copyright © 2004 by Patricia Monaghan
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Monaghan, Patricia.
The encyclopedia of Celtic mythology and folklore / Patricia Monaghan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8160-4524-0 (alk. paper)
1. Mythology, Celtic—Encyclopedias. 2. Celts—Folklore—Encyclopedias.
3. Legends—Europe—Encyclopedias. I. Title.
BL900.M66 2003
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CONTENTS
6
INTRODUCTION
iv
A TO Z ENTRIES
1
BIBLIOGRAPHY
479
INDEX
486
INTRODUCTION
6
Who Were the Celts? tribal names, used by other Europeans as a
The terms Celtand Celticseem familiar today— generic term for the whole people.
familiar enough that many people assume that If the name itself is not exact, neither is what
they are ethnic descriptions, words that define a it names. There is no one agreed-upon definition
people related by blood and culture. Such peo- of what constituted Celtic society and the Celtic
ple are imagined as fair-skinned, possibly red- worldview. Indeed, some claim that Celtic peo-
haired, often freckled. More important, it is ples adapted themselves to and absorbed influ-
presumed they share an inborn mystical inclina- ences from pre-Celtic cultures wherever they
tion. They see in ways that others do not or can- lived and that, therefore, the idea of a Celtic cul-
not. They acknowledge a world beyond the ture is itself hopelessly flawed. Narrowly, a Celt
world of the senses. Some even have the second can be defined as someone who spoke or speaks
sight, the ability to see fairies and other spirits a Celtic language. Beyond that, scholars and
dancing through the soft evening. For evening other experts disagree as much as they agree.
always gathers around the Celts, a misty twilight
where things are never quite solid and defined. The Celts in Classical Literature
The image is a charming one; it has drawn Literacy is not a value shared by all cultures.
many to the study of Celtic culture. But it is also The Celts did not write down their myths and
incorrect. The word Celtis not as exact as many histories, honoring instead the spoken word and
people presume. It does not define a race or a the human memory. As a result, we have no
tribe; the alleged Celtic mysticism is not an written documents from early Celtic times,
invariably inherited trait. Nor does “Celtic” when they were settling central Europe. Instead,
describe a culture that was so centralized that all the earliest writings we have about the Celts are
Celts everywhere felt the same way toward in the languages of their enemies: the Greeks
nature, worshiped the same gods, and per- and, later, the Romans.
formed rituals in the same fashion. The Celts were already a mature culture
No ancient people called themselves “the when they began to appear in the writings of
Celts.” They called themselves Belgae, Cantii, their southern neighbors. Until then, they lived
Icini, Brigantes, Voconces, Arverni, or by any too far away to be of interest, and besides, they
one of scores of other tribal names. Where con- were no threat to the wealth and power of
temporary imagination sees a single culture, Greece and Rome. In the last several centuries
these ancient people themselves knew dozens of before the common era, however, the Celts
linguistically related groups, each bearing a began to seek new territories. Whether this was
name derived from an ancestor, a god or a god- because they were being pushed out of tradi-
dess, a totem animal, a sacred location. The tional homelands by other invaders, or because a
word Celtmay originally have been one of these population explosion put pressure on resources,
iv
Introduction V
we do not know. But within a few hundred years become emperor, Julius Caesar, who fought the
of their first appearance in historical documents Celtic people and recorded what he knew of
the Celts posed a real threat to the safety and sta- them in his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. In
bility of the Mediterranean world. Simply put, the Celts, whom he called Gauls, Caesar faced
the Greeks and Romans had land and resources the most significant impediment to his imperial
that the Celts needed. Conflict was inevitable. plans. As aggressive as the Celts had been in
The earliest written reference to the Celtic their period of expansion, the Romans under
tribes is found in the late sixth century B.C.E. in Caesar were just as aggressive.
the works of Hecataeus of Miletus, who This time, the Celts were fighting to main-
described Narbonne, in today’s France, as a city tain their home territories, not to move into new
of the Celts. A hundred years later, the Greek ones. Classical sources tell us of the fierceness of
geographer Herodotus described a people, the Gaulish and British warriors, but if the Celts
Keltoí,as the most westerly of the European peo- were a people to be feared, they also occupied
ple but also holding territories at the source of lands the Romans wished to conquer. And
the Danube River. The fourth-century B.C.E. because the Celtic warriors fought individually,
Greek writer Ephoros described the Celts as one for personal glory, while the trained Roman
of the four great barbarian races, the equal of the legions were pawns in a larger economic game,
powerful Libyans, Persians, and Scythians to the the Celts were ultimately beaten back. Classical
south, east, and north of the Greeks respectively. literature tells of the carnage of battle and the
These writers were reporting what they had horror of massacre that, even from the point of
learned from travelers; they had no firsthand view of the victors, was unendurable. Roman
experience of Celtic ways. historian Tacitus tells us of the rebellion of the
For two centuries, central and western British queen Boudicca against the invading
Europe was essentially under Celtic control. Romans who had raped her daughters; Polybius
Then the Celts began to expand, moving south tells of the powerful Celtic warriors who wore
and west. At the height of their expansion, Celtic little clothing apart from their great gold neck-
tribes occupied territory that stretched from pieces and who sliced off the heads of their van-
Galatia in Asia Minor—today’s Turkey—west to quished enemies, only to die as miserable
Ireland, and from northern Germany to Italy. captives after being paraded naked through the
They were the first truly European civilization. streets of Rome.
They were also aggressive in expanding their Because the Celtic people themselves left no
territories. Around 387 B.C.E. the Celts reached written records, we only hear the voices of their
the steps of the Roman capital, where the city literate enemies. Although Caesar, Ammianus
leaders were hiding in terror. A siege ensued, Marcellinus, Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus, and oth-
broken when the sacred geese in the temple of ers recorded many interesting details about
Juno called an alarm that roused the captives Celtic culture, we cannot rely solely upon them.
against the last rush of the invasion. Had the They were writing, after all, for an audience that
geese not squawked when they did, Europe may cheered the extermination of this fierce foe. The
well have been a Celtic continent. But the tides temptation was strong to portray the Celts as
of fortune turned against the Celts, and by the more savage and brutal than they were in reality.
first century C.E. a Roman empire stretched Such Roman material must be read with suspi-
across much of the ancient Celtic territory. cion. When Marcellinus speaks of the “great
It is from this period that we learn the most pride and insolence” of the Celtic warrior, for
about Celtic traditions, religion, and ritual. But instance, it is easy to dismiss the comment as
the source is suspect: The writer was their intended to drive fear into the hearts of the
fiercest enemy, the Roman general who would Roman citizenry. But what of his claim that
VI The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore
Celtic women helped their men in battle? Was Celtic sites (material culture) and analysis of
this an observed fact, or a way of showing the Celtic languages (nonmaterial culture).
Celts to be more barbaric than the Romans, who
left their wives at home when they invaded Archaeological Traces
Celtic lands? When Strabo says that the Celts Where language cannot reach, the archaeologist
are “war-mad and uncouth,” we can recognize reads instead the artifacts of ancient cultures.
his propagandizing tone, but what of his report Unlike warrior generals who slander their oppo-
that the Celts placed a premium on education nents, potsherds and earthen walls do not delib-
and eloquence? erately lie nor distort the facts. But because time
Despite their defeat, the Celtic peoples were destroys anything not made of stone, metal, or
not exterminated. Many remained in their old bone, even the richest site leaves many unan-
territories, intermarrying with Roman soldiers swered questions about cultures of the past.
to become the ancestors of many of today’s Leather, cloth, and even ceramics can decay after
Europeans and, by further migration, Euro- several hundred, much less several thousand,
pean-Americans. Others migrated into territo- years. Thus archaeologists are forced to piece
ries traditionally occupied by the Germans, together a picture of Celtic life that relies solely
whom they fought or married or both. Celtic on non-decaying materials, sometimes compar-
languages and Celtic customs continued to ing their finds with the written texts in a search
migrate and adapt. for common themes. It is impossible to know
Both on the Continent and in Britain, the with certainty how close the re-created Celtic
Celts had constant contact with the German or culture is to the original.
Teutonic tribes, who spoke a different language The search for the origins of the Celts begins
and had different customs, but who shared more than three thousand years ago, in Bronze-
enough of their characteristics philosophically Age central Europe. There, faint traces of an
and socially that at times the two groups are dif- energetic people have been found and categorized
ficult to distinguish. The Anglo-Saxons, a Ger- by scholars, who seek to determine which of the
manic group that invaded England in early related and contiguous cultures were proto-Celtic
historic times, encountered Celtic people there; and which were not. The analysis of archaeologi-
the resulting British culture combined features of cal remains points to religious and social changes
the two parent cultures. There, and in other that led, with unusual rapidity, to the creation of a
Celtic lands as well, contact with Scandinavians dynamic culture. At what point this culture can be
occurred when Vikings raided, and sometimes called Celtic is a subject of debate.
settled in, the coastal areas; these visitors brought Approximately 1,400 years before the com-
their own languages and religions, so that in the mon era, people buried their dead in a distinctive
ancient Celtic lands we often find words, myths, way, by building mounds or “barrows” over the
and folklore of Scandinavian origin. graves. A few hundred years later, burial prac-
Thus what we know today as “Celtic culture” tices changed: after cremation, ashes of the dead
is based in part upon biased literature written by were placed in urns and buried in designated
enemies of the Celts, and in part upon oral tra- cemeteries. This, the Urnfield stage, was the
ditions written down in medieval or later times first of many steps in the development of a dis-
in lands where the Celts mingled with other tinctive Celtic culture; the culture of this time is
tribal people; both sources raise questions even usually considered proto-Celtic, for while it is
as they answer them. But scholars have other not yet fully Celtic, it appears related.
ways of finding information about the Celts that The Celts remained in prehistory longer
are not reliant upon these potentially tainted than other Europeans did, for they did not
sources. They are archaeological excavations of develop writing, except for a rudimentary script
Introduction VII
called ogham that was used for short inscrip- tion took place in several, or many, waves—a
tions. But illiterate does not mean unintelligent belief that is found as well in ancient literature
or lacking in genius. The Celts were both inven- and medieval scholarship.
tive and artistic, as the beautifully wrought After the arrival of the Roman legions, Celtic
objects from the second stage of Celtic culture— art and artifacts changed. Whereas in earlier
named for its primary archaeological site, Hall- times, the Celtic people did not portray their
statt in Austria—reveal. By this time, the Celts divinities in human form, later artists adopted
had become metalworkers of some renown in Roman styles, probably to please their patrons
the ancient world. The mirrors, jewelry, and clients. From this period (ca. 100–400 C.E.)
weapons, and other splendid metal objects from we find statues and reliefs of gods and goddesses,
the Hallstatt culture were created during the many clad in Roman togas but wearing Celtic
Iron Age, from 800 to 450 B.C.E.; most were jewelry or carrying Celtic cult objects. Some such
found in barrow graves, for unlike the preceding sculptures are inscribed with names of the divin-
Urnfield people, those of Hallstatt had resumed ity depicted. Because the Roman legions practiced
erecting great mounds over their gravesites. what was called the “interpretatio Romana,” giv-
Examples of their workmanship have been found ing the names of their gods to those of the people
in non-Celtic areas of Europe, showing that they colonized, many Celtic gods were labeled
there was significant trade in their metalwork. with Latin names. In some cases, the original
The manufacture of ornate but useful objects name was included, but often not even that sur-
continued in the late Iron Age culture called La vived. Thus Celtic and Roman cultures were also
Tène, from “the shallows” of Lake Neuchâtel in melded and can be difficult to distinguish.
Switzerland, where a hoard of metal objects was
discovered and dated to approximately 450 B.C.E. Celtic Languages
From then until the 1st century B.C.E., the fluid At base, the term Celticrefers not to a culture but
style developed at La Tène was the dominant to a language group. In addition to the similari-
one among the European Celts; its influence ties of archaeological finds like the Urnfield
affected neighboring people as well, while the burials and the swirling metal patterns of the La
skillful artists and artisans of La Tène expanded Tène artists, similar words are found across the
their repertoire by using designs inspired by the old Celtic lands—today’s nations of Germany,
Etruscans, the Scythians, and other distant cul- Austria, France, England, Scotland, Wales, and
tures. Some scholars date the beginning of Ireland. While the names of gods and goddesses
Celtic culture to this period. may differ, some words found in place-names
From these early sites in central Europe, the suggest the spiritual values of the people who
Celtic tribes moved out to settle throughout used Celtic languages, like nemeton for “sacred
western Europe. Celtic migrations began early, grove” and find for both “white” and “radiant.”
with people colonizing today’s Spain and France What the word Celticitself means is unknown; if
in the Hallstatt period. Later, Celtic people it was not, as many assume, the name of a small
moved from their continental homelands to the group within the larger Celtic world, it may
islands off the west coast of Europe. First Britain derive from the Old Norse word for “war,” for
and then Ireland were invaded by groups of the Celts were known as a warrior people.
Celts who found earlier, non-Celtic people in Celtic is a branch of the great Indo-European
residence. Joining with or fighting these groups, language family that includes Germanic lan-
the Celts created what is called insular Celtic guages such as English and Dutch; Romance
culture, in which elements of earlier culture sur- languages such as Italian, Spanish, and French;
vived in vestigial form. Scholars disagree about Slavic languages such as Russian; the Baltic lan-
when the Celts arrived, but agree that the migra- guages, Lithuanian and Latvian; Sanskrit, the
VIII The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore
language of ancient India; and the odd outpost of Breton boasts 1 million speakers, but because
Tocharian along the Silk Road near China. The the peninsula of Brittany has been part of France
Indo-European-speaking people are not, as was for the last six hundred years, schoolchildren
assumed in the 19th century, all racially related. there are taught French, not Breton. The last
But they share a linguistic family tree that native speaker of Manx, Ned Maddrell, died in
reaches back to central Europe in approximately 1974; in Cornwall the language lost its native
2,500 B.C.E.The Celtic tongues were among the status more than a hundred years ago. Both
first to branch off from the trunk of that tree; languages are now the domain of scholars and
thus some ancient verbal forms are maintained cultural enthusiasts.
in the Celtic tongues that were lost in later The economic value of speaking English, the
branches of the language tree. world’s major language for commerce, has been
Today, six Celtic tongues are known. They a primary reason for the decline in the use of
fall into two groups, divided by pronunciation Celtic languages over the last several centuries.
and, to a lesser extent, by grammar. Irish and Because Celts are not racially distinct people but
Scottish, both called Gaelic, and Manx, the people who speak Celtic languages, if those lan-
dying language of the tiny Isle of Man, are called guages die, so do the Celts.
Goidelic Celtic or P-Celtic, while Welsh, Bre-
ton, and Cornish are called Brythonic or Q- The Oral Tradition
Celtic. The Goidelic languages are more Literate people often presume that something
grammatically complicated, while the Brythonic transcribed into writing is permanent and unal-
tongues are slightly more streamlined; in addi- terable, while the spoken word disappears
tion, the letter pronounced as Q (or C) in the quickly and can be readily changed. But written
Brythonic languages became P in the Goidelic, works are more fragile, and memorized works
hence their alternate names. For instance, the more enduring, than is commonly believed. The
number “four” in Irish is ceathar;the same word Greek poet Sappho was only known from a few
in Cornish becomes peswar. Similarly, “head” lines quoted by other writers and from her repu-
and “son” in Irish are cennand mac,while in Cor- tation as one of the great poets of antiquity, until
nish they are penand map. a mummy was discovered whose embalmer had
Although these languages have lasted more used strips from an old manuscript of Sappho’s
than three thousand years, they are in danger poems in his work. The burning of libraries, as
today. Some 16.5 million people live in the at Alexandria in Egypt in the third century C.E.,
ancient Celtic lands, but only approximately 2 has meant incalculable loss to human learning. If
million people speak Celtic tongues, and fewer the written word is not necessarily permanent,
still speak them as first languages. Political and neither is it unalterable. Changes in dialect or in
cultural pressure has meant that other lan- spelling can create misunderstandings at a dis-
guages—notably French and English—are the tance in time or place. Writing something down
official tongues of Celtic countries. Only in Ire- does not in itself insure that it will survive as the
land is the indigenous language the language of author intended.
the state, and even there English is used for Conversely, skilled storytellers have been
most communication. Scots Gaelic is spoken on found by researchers to be astonishingly accurate
both sides of the Atlantic, in the Cape Breton in their recall of details and compositional frame-
Island and in the aptly named Nova Scotia as works. It is now believed that the epics of Homer,
well as in Scotland itself, but it is a minority despite their great length, began as orally trans-
language, as is the case in Wales, where the mitted works and were written down only later;
Celtic tongue, Welsh, was not officially recog- the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed aloud
nized until 1969. and shared through public recitation rather than
Introduction IX
private reading. In addition, oral societies have although short, they reveal some information
social structures that support frequent recitation (names of gods, social rank, family names) about
of stories, dispersing those stories through the the people who inscribed and deposited them.
community in a way that the solitary experience Among the insular Celts, the situation was
of reading cannot match. dramatically different. Celtic languages contin-
So although they were not literate, the Celts ued to be spoken after the arrival of literacy,
did not lack learning or poetry or historical which in most cases was contemporaneous with
knowledge. They believed that words gained Christianization. In Ireland many early poems
power by being spoken rather than written. To and epics—previously recited and memorized by
the Irish Celts, the craft of poetry was a form of the bardic classes—were written down by monks
magic, related to incantation and enchantment. who belonged to the culture whose works they
Especially powerful was the satire, a stinging were transcribing. In Wales the same thing
verbal rebuke so strong and effective that it occurred, although somewhat later. While the
could change the physical world. A satire could transcribers may not have felt any temptation to
raise boils on the skin of a stingy king or twist propagandize against their Celtic ancestors, they
the arm of a thief. While we do not know may also have been uncomfortable with some of
whether the continental Celts held the same the values expressed in the stories they were
beliefs, evidence from classical writers empha- writing down. Especially when it comes to
sizes the importance they placed on eloquence. women, the insular Celtic written sources must
Even after literacy was introduced, it was not be read with care. But compared to the works of
widespread, and extemporaneous composition of their Roman enemies, the words of the Celtic
stories and poems continued. At the same time, storytellers offer complex and nuanced informa-
works held in the oral tradition were written tion about the society from which they sprang.
down, so that early Celtic literature was pre- In some cases, the works were transcribed in
served and passed along by a newly literate class: the original languages; in a few cases, the lan-
the monks, who in Christian times took the guage used was classical Latin, the language of
place of the bards of antiquity. Ireland, which the Church. Sources in Celtic languages carry
was spared the ravages of Roman invasion and with them some of the values embedded and
therefore never developed artistic styles that imi- encoded in the words and structure, while Latin
tated those of the conquerors, is the source of and other tongues may occasionally convey dif-
the greatest number and variety of written ferent meanings than the original may have
sources, with Wales and Britain trailing behind, intended. The greatest number of Celtic-
while little remains to tell us the myths of the language texts are in Irish, which boasts the dis-
continental Celts. tinction of being Europe’s third-oldest literary
language, after Greek and Latin.
Celtic Textual Sources In addition to works of direct transcription of
For the earliest periods of Celtic culture and for myths, we have some early writings by Celtic peo-
the continental Celts into historical times, ple themselves that reveal religious beliefs and
archaeologists must listen to the mute testimony practices, such as the geographical and historical
of artifacts. Few texts exist from ancient Gaul. works of the historian Nennius and the author
After Roman occupation, some Celts became lit- Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales). These
erate, no doubt for economic and social advance- are not necessarily free from bias, whether delib-
ment. From several of these literate Celts, we erate or not, for authors can only write from their
have inscriptions connected to religious prac- own perspective, which is necessarily limited.
tices. Written on rugged lead tablets, the inscrip- Texts were typically written on fragile mate-
tions were found in graves and at cult sites; rial like vellum made from sheepskin or on