Ancient Celts enter recorded history around the sixth century BCE. By the end of the third century they had conquered and settled almost all of Central Europe as well as many of its southern regions, from Spain through northern Italy and on into the Balkans as well as areas of Grease and Turkey.
Celts of Old
The name Celti originated with the ancient Greeks, who called the barbarian people Keltoi, which appears to mean warriors. The Celts never became an empire, and the area in which they lived was a place of constantly changing tribal nations.
The Romans portrayed the Celts as a primitive barbarian race that fought all day and feasted all night.
Aside from their battle fury the Celts were a simple agrigarian people who felt closeness with the land. Their primary interests seem to have been in the here and now. They only fought when it was necessary and had little interest in the quest for empire. So instead empires were built by others, such as the Romans.
The Germanic and Dacian tribes, as well as the rising power in Rome gave them powerful competition. The Celts were passionate fighters and a headhunting aristocratic warrior-culture. Their women were feared in battle as much as their men. They did not have a highly centralized system of military of a political organization, nor did they have a taste for it. As such this gave the Roman Empire an advantage over them, and when the Romans defeated Gaul, Britain became, for a time, the centre of Celtic resistance to the Roman expansion in the west.
The Romans never conquered outposts in Wales and Scotland. They never even tried raiding Ireland, Considering it to small and remote to be of any strategic significance. For this reason, in these areas of the Celtic fringe, (Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Scotland) we can find the strongest elements of Celtic culture today.
The Celts lived Gypsy fashion. Their huts were built as movable chattels rather than land or buildings. What they owned they carried with them on horseback, proving to everyone they encountered that portable capital was best. They avoided becoming fat and potbellied.
Celtic lands include: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, England, Brittany, Gaul, Iberia, Sections of Byzantium and Egypt, parts of Delphi, Glacia: possible Tarsus, the Pu valley, parts of Russia, Mongolia and Scandinavia.
Celtic culture was never completely eliminated from Europe; it still shines through to this day. It is present in the livening heritage of Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall, the Isles of Man, and Brittany. It has also left its mark on many religions, as well as English and French customs and traditions.
Celtic people believed that spirituality encompassed every aspect of daily life. They expressed this in art, poetry, and mythology, all of which are remarkable and breathtaking. They also had a very high regard of women, this is evident in the many goddesses they had.
Celts did not look upon their gods as their creators, but as ancestors.
Celts view sexuality as a sacrament. It is known that in many ancient fertility festivals there was abundant copulation.
Many Celtic monuments were either raided and used for building materials, or covered over by brush or bog...
Celts, understood words such as culpability and responsibility, but they had extreme difficulty understanding the Christian concept of sin.
The Celts of old seem to have been polygamous and perhaps even polyandrous.
Polybius: “Their villages were unfortified, their houses without furnishings. As they slept on straw, usually ate meat and did nothing other than fight and farm, their existence was very simple… Individual possessions consisted of cattle and gold, because only such things could be carried about anywhere, in any circumstances.”
Warriors
Although their culture was influenced by other conquering cultures such as the Romans and Christians and eventually overcome by them, there is still much in the form of poems, art and mythology to be explored.
The Celtic way of fighting was not only effective, their enemies found it terrifying! Some of their warriors wore bronze helmets with pictures of animals on them, some even had horned, a custom commonly confused with the Vikings. Some Celtic warriors covered themselves with breast-armor made of chains, but most went naked into battle believing that it released the full brunt of their karma, and if they died allowed a quick journey to the next world, or plane of existence.
Before a battles, swords were ritually beaten against their shields, possibly invoking their gods of war as well as the war-lust among their kin. They sounded strange horns while swinging weapons wildly as a challenge to the enemy. And it was common for one or more of them to challenge the bravest of the enemy to a duel while others swung their weapons menacingly.
Eventually their warriors broke rank. In battle, chariots would carry two riders, one to drive, and the other to throw spears until he ran out. He would then leap from the chariot and join the fray while the driver returned the chariot to their flanks, ready for a quick retreat. Their horse-riders also rode double using the same tactics until their projectiles were depleted.
Many of their swords were wavy over the entire length, inflicting deadly wounds. Others were straight. Their weaponry was cruel and they cut off the heads of their enemies, mounting them like trophies, nailing them above their houses as one would display the skulls of animals he had slain. The highest ranking heads of their victims were preserved in wooden boxes using cedar oil.
Bards
The Bardic tradition is responsible for the existence of Druids today. If they had not carried their stories of Druids for many generations there would be little to no information to be found.
Druids
In the ancient days, beliefs and customs of the Roman and Celtic religion were hued, reformed and intertwined with nature to form the Druids. The druids, later, openly opposed Roman rule and were murdered and persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church. Their resistance has been the inspiration for many Bards and storytellers over many hundreds of years.
The Druids were renowned for their expertise in astronomy, law, science (or Magic), and calendar making. They could tell time at night by the positions of the stars. This information, after being passed on, helped seamen to perform amazing feats while at sea.
Druids worshiped in open places and without churches. This shows just how close they were with nature and how they were in commune with it. These open places were called groves, some of which venerated particular oak trees which had been marked by lightning.
The Druids of old were reactivated around the year 1694 by the antiquary Jon Aubury and consolidated by John Toland in 1717. In 1792 the Mason and Bard Iolo Morgannwg (Edward Williams) conducted a Gorsedd of Bards on Primrose Hill, to the north of London. There, inside a circle of stones, Iolo set up rituals which later became the National Welsh Eisteddfod (see Eisteddfod). Iolo was not of Welsh Nationalism. He was able to establish a common bond with the English and the Welsh Druids while there, inside the circle of stones made a solemn declaration that from that day forward the English language was to be considered equally authentic with Welsh for all Bardic and Druidic purposes.
Claudius attempted to “wholly abolish” the Druids in Ad 54. Tiberius banned Druids by decree of the Roman senate, and Augustus excluded Druids from Roman citizenship by forbidding the practice of Druidical rights. Perhaps this was all a clause to root out the intellectual class, the Druids, rather than a disapproval of inhuman rites. It was the Druids who could, and eventually did cause a national revolt against Rome.
The loss of Druidic culture was partly self-imposed since the Druids favored oral tradition more than written.
Celtic Legend
Celtic legend tells how the first humans were transformed from trees by divine powers. The woods were expressed to be the seat of sylvan powers, of nymphs and fawns. Savage men took their birth from the trunks of trees and stubborn oaks. The first woman was a rowan tree and the first man was an alder.
Celtic Language
The ancient Celts had at least two language strands: the P Celts and the Q Celts. The Q Celts have a harsh-speaking “Gaidheal” sound. The P Celts have a softer sounding Brythonic tongue.
The Gaidhlig became the guttural languages of the Scots-Gaelic Irish and Manx. The Brythonic emphasis formed the Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and Gaulish (which disappeared around the 4th or 5th century AD). Today there is about sixteen million people living in Celtic countries while only about half million of them speak a Celtic language.
Wealth
The Celts wealth was based upon salt extraction and sale. Because of the development of new technology of Iron lead to Celtic blacksmithing. These blacksmiths produced the best metal in Europe; this metal became greatly sought after by the Greeks. Thus an important two-way trade developed. Eventually their superior weaponry, including new types of sword, chain mail and chariot, allowed the Celts to conduct military expeditions against neighboring tribes and nations, including the Romans and Greeks. They then became so renowned for their fighting that they were sought after as mercenaries. Unfortunately, because they were unable to establish a unity or an empire of their own, they were in retreat shortly after the first century B.C. by Slavic tribes and Roman forces. First they come under Roman rule in northern Italy, then in modern Switzerland, southern Germany, Gaul (modern France), and Austria. Many Celts fled into Britain and began to influence the culture there, thus the Arthurian Era.
Conclusion
The ancient Celts were not destroyed, many Celts secretly opposed Roman rule. Until the time came when it was safe for them to practice the beliefs they passed down their culture (in secret). Even the Celtic culture that was transformed by other religions such as Catholicism and Christianity was not completely destroyed, but lived on in a new form...