Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [135]
In 1984, the mummified remains of a man were dug out of a peat bog in Lindow Moss, near Manchester, England. Peat is an excellent natural preservative and the fellow in the bog—since known as Lindow Man—was exceptionally well preserved. Hands uncalloused, indicating he was probably highborn and not a laborer, Lindow Man might have been an Irish Druid prince. We even know what Lindow Man ate before his ritual death—bits of a blackened hearth cake that included traces of mistletoe. Then his skull was flattened with three blows of an ax; he was strangled by a cord knotted three times; and his blood was emptied with a slice through his jugular. According to authorities on the Celtic world who studied his remains, Lindow Man may have offered himself as a sacrifice to the gods in order to aid in the defeat of the Romans then assaulting Britain, in about 60 CE. He was a willing victim—a sacrifice for the good of his people.*
But, to be fair, early Celtic worship was not just about human sacrifice. Archaeological evidence from burial sites suggests that the Celts believed in the afterlife as well as the immortality of the soul. They provided their dead with weapons and other necessities to carry along on their journey. Sometimes, with a buried body, they placed small wheels that were intended to be emblems of the sun, to provide light in the afterlife.
The Celts were also pantheists who revered a range of nature deities, including the gods of thunder, light, water, and sun, as well as stags and horses. Concerned about having a continuous food supply, they looked to gods like Sucellos—the “Good Striker”—who made sure the plants woke up in the spring. Sucellos did this by striking the winter-hardened earth with the long-handled hammer he always carried.
Perhaps the least understood—and, recently, most romanticized—aspect of Celtic belief was the class of hereditary priests called Druids. Skilled in magic and fortune-telling, they advised kings and chieftains, served as judges in trials, and oversaw religious ceremonies—including sacrifices—often in groves of oak trees. (Linguists suggest a connection between the words “druid” and “oak.”) In Celtic Ireland, Druids were also “knowledge-keepers,” who memorized the tribe’s history—as opposed to the bards, who sang the legends, and seers called filidh, who kept the sacred traditions and managed, unlike Druids, to survive into the Christian era. Though few historical reports exist, one memorable and oft-cited passage by a Roman writer describes how the Druids dressed in white robes and used a golden sickle to cut down mistletoe. The sacred plant they called “all-heal,” mistletoe was thought to possess the miraculous power to cure disease, promote fertility in women, make poisons harmless, protect against witchcraft, and generally bring blessings and good luck. It was also baked into the cake eaten by Lindow Man before his ritual death.
In fact, mistletoe was considered so sacred that even enemies who happened to meet beneath it in the forest would lay down their arms, exchange a friendly greeting, and keep a truce until the following day. From this old custom grew the practice of suspending mistletoe over a doorway or in a room as a token of peace. The use of this once-powerful Druidic plant in modern Christmas festivities is just one example of the crossover of Celtic and other pagan customs to Christian practices. But when Britain was converted to Christianity, the bishops did not allow the mistletoe to be used in churches, because it was considered the central symbol of a pagan religion.
What did