• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1052 0

Goddess Danu”—were the fourth of five races that invaded Ireland and fought two battles for supremacy. In the first, they defeated the clumsy Firblogs. The second was against the Fomorians, a race of misshapen, violent, and evil beings who controlled the country. But after defeating the Fomorians, the Tuatha gave them the province of Connacht. Because this account provides a list of most of the divinities that the Irish Celts worshipped before they were Christianized after 400 CE, it is a valuable resource for piecing together the rudiments of late Celtic mythology. The Tuatha were ultimately replaced with the arrival of the Celts, who were said to come from Spain (perhaps Celtic Galicia, hence the derivation of the word “Gaels,” for Irish). Following their defeat, the Tuatha retreated to the underground mounds called sídh, where they continued to play a major role in Irish legend as the “little people,” aka leprechauns.

The second collection of tales is called the Ulster Cycle, and the most important of these is the Táin Bó Cúailnge, or The Cattle Raid of Cooley—and often referred to simply as the Táin. Combining ancient myth with legends of early Irish heroes, the Táin is Ireland’s Iliad and Aeneid all wrapped into one, a story that describes the conflicts between two of Ireland’s northern provinces, Ulster and Connacht. Steeped in the supernatural, the Táin features a goddess-queen Medb (Maeve), who may well be based on an actual historical figure, and Ireland’s greatest national hero, Cuchulainn (koo-hool-n), an Irish version of Gilgamesh, Hercules, and Achilles.

The third group of significant Irish stories is found in the Fionn (Fenian) Cycle, also compiled in the twelfth century, which chronicles the adventures of another Irish folk hero, Finn MacCool, and his band of warriors, called the Fianna, who are famed for their great size and strength. Again, these characters are legendary figures, probably based on real people—just as the Iliad may have been—although they also interact with true mythic deities. The events in the Fionn Cycle are believed to hint at the actual political and social conditions in Ireland around the year 200 CE.

Finally, the Mabinogion is a collection of Welsh tales that was also compiled sometime in the twelfth century CE. These stories describe the mythical history of parts of Britain, though many of the gods who appear in Welsh mythology largely resemble the Tuatha Dé Danaan in Irish mythology, possibly because Irish Celts migrated to Britain and took their myths with them. These stories are significant not only because they offer a view of Welsh Celtic myths, but also because they introduce the first references and early tales of a figure who would evolve over centuries into the legendary King Arthur.

MYTHIC VOICES

(Druids) concern themselves with questions of ethics in addition to their study of natural phenomena. And because they are considered the most just of all, they possess the power to decide judicial matters, both those dealing with individuals and those involving the common good. They have been known to control the course of wars, and to check armies about to join battle, and especially to judge cases of homicide…. And both they and others maintain that the soul and the cosmos are immortal, though at some time in the future fire and water will prevail over them.

—STRABO (63 BCE-24 CE?), Geography (translated by Timothy Gantz)

Did the Druids practice human sacrifice?

When they weren’t storming around on horseback, sacking villages, and plundering their enemies, the ancient Celts had time to gather for worship ceremonies in natural, outdoor settings, like forests, where the oak was considered especially sacred. But before you conjure up some pastoral image from a Walt Disney film in which the birds, rabbits, and other forest creatures join forces to gently drape daisy chains around the neck of some benevolent Merlin-like character, consider this—human sacrifice was clearly part of the deal for the Celts. Clubbing, a sliced jugular, garroting—being strangled with