Paganism: the honoring of the spirits of one's locality.

 

To mention the words Pagan and Heathen, even to this day, is undoubtedly an insult. Direct these words toward someone of a faith different than your own and you will undoubtedly get a hostile reaction or a dirty look. These words are largely surrounded by centuries of conflict. This conflict intensified when the followers of the Christian religion quit trying to persuade people who worshiped other gods to follow their god through peaceful means and instead began trying to influence them through violence, murder, and government acts.

The word pagan originated from the Latin word pagus, which was used to describe the people who lived on uncultured land. Likewise, the word heathen originally referred to a person who lived in the heaths, which are open wastelands full of wild shrubs, including heather.

Today these words denote little more than a derogatory word for a believer in strange things, or someone who practices old rituals. This seems a far cry from a country person living on uncultivated land. Quite an example of how prejudice has twisted perceptions through out time.

These people hardly considered themselves as pagans, in today’s sense of the word, and probably didn’t even consider themselves as religious. More accurately they were a primitive people with a view similar to the early Native Americans; lovers of art, music and a well spun tale. They even adapted a way of telling stories for use in teaching their children how to respect the land so as to preserve it for future generations (a far cry from our current view). Their stories included other teachings as well, tho’ they are too numerous to list here.

Without written record in is extremely difficult to truly say what the Celts actually believed. I am fairly sure that it had something to do with the tales of their parents told them, and others in which they were exposed to throughout their lives (Which is true of any religion or culture). All people of all religions believe theirs to be the correct one – even the Celts. This does not make them a bad people, far from it; it shows that these people had a moral code in which they lived by - a code which respected nature, and had a high regard for women.

 

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