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The Religion of the Ancient Celts
THE RELIGION
OF THE
ANCIENT CELTS
BY
J.A. MACCULLOCH
HON. D.D.(ST. ANDREWS); HON. CANON OF CUMBRAE CATHEDRAL
AUTHOR OF "COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY" "RELIGION: ITS ORIGIN AND FORMS" "THE
MISTY ISLE OF SKYE" "THE CHILDHOOD OF FICTION: A STUDY OF FOLK-TALES
AND PRIMITIVE THOUGHT"
Edinburgh: T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street
1911
Printed by
MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED,
FOR
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
TO
ANDREW LANG
PREFACE
The scientific study of ancient Celtic religion is a thing of recent
growth. As a result of the paucity of materials for such a study,
earlier writers indulged in the wildest speculative flights and
connected the religion with the distant East, or saw in it the remains
of a monotheistic faith or a series of esoteric doctrines veiled under
polytheistic cults. With the works of MM. Gaidoz, Bertrand, and
D'Arbois de Jubainville in France, as well as by the publication of
Irish texts by such scholars as Drs. Windisch and Stokes, a new era
may be said to have dawned, and a flood of light was poured upon the
scanty remains of Celtic religion. In this country the place of honour
among students of that religion belongs to Sir John Rh[^y]s, whose
Hibbert Lectures _On the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated
by Celtic Heathendom_ (1886) was an epoch-making work. Every student
of the subject since that time feels the immense debt which he owes to
the indefatigable researches and the brilliant suggestions of Sir John
Rh[^y]s, and I would be ungrateful if I did not record my indebtedness
to him. In his Hibbert Lectures, and in his later masterly work on
_The Arthurian Legend_, however, he took the standpoint of the
"mythological" school, and tended to see in the old stories myths of
the sun and dawn and the darkness, and in the divinities sun-gods and
dawn-goddesses and a host of dark personages of supernatural
character. The present writer, studying the subject rather from an
anthropological point of view and in the light of modern folk
survivals, has found himself in disagreement with Sir John Rh[^y]s on
more than one occasion. But he is convinced that Sir John would be the
last person to resent this, and that, in spite of his mythological
interpretations, his Hibbert Lectures must remain as a source of
inspiration to all Celtic students. More recently the studies of M.
Salomon Reinach and of M. Dottin, and the valuable little book on
_Celtic Religion_, by Professor Anwyl, have broken fresh ground.[1]
In this book I have made use of all the available sources, and have
endeavoured to study the subject from the comparative point of view
and in the light of the anthropological method. I have also
interpreted the earlier cults by means of recent folk-survivals over
the Celtic area wherever it has seemed legitimate to do so. The
results are summarised in the introductory chapter of the work, and
students of religion, and especially of Celtic religion, must judge
how far they form a true interpretation of the earlier faith of our
Celtic forefathers, much of which resembles primitive religion and
folk-belief everywhere.
Unfortunately no Celt left an account of his own religion, and we are
left to our own interpretations, more or less valid, of the existing
materials, and to the light shed on them by the comparative study of
religions. As this book was written during a long residence in the
Isle of Skye, where the old language of the people still survives, and
where the _genius loci_ speaks everywhere of things remote and
strange, it may have been easier to attempt to realise the ancient
religion there than in a busier or more prosaic place. Yet at every
point I have felt how much would have been gained could an old Celt or
Druid have revisited his former haunts, and permitted me to question
him on a hundred matters which must remain obscure. But this, alas,
might not be!
I have to thank Miss Turner and Miss Annie Gilchrist for valuable help
rendered in the work of research, and the London Library for obtaining
for me several works not already in its possession. Its stores are an
invaluable aid to all students working at a distance from libraries.
J.A. MACCULLOCH.
THE RECTORY, BRIDGE OF ALLAN, _October_ 1911.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See also my article "Celts" in Hastings' _Encyclopaedia of
Religion and Ethics_, vol. iii.
[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Throughout this book, some characters are used
which are not part of the Latin-1 character set used in this e-book.
The string "[^y]" is used to represent a lower-case "Y" with a
circumflex mark on top of it, "[=a]" is used to represent a lower-case
"A" with a line on top of it, and "[oe]" is used to represent the
"oe"-ligature. Numbers in braces such as "{3}" are used to represent
the superscription of numbers, which was used in the book to give
edition numbers to books.]
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY 1 II. THE
CELTIC PEOPLE 8 III. THE GODS OF GAUL
AND THE CONTINENTAL CELTS 22 IV. THE IRISH MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE
49 V. THE TUATHA DE DANANN 63 VI. THE
GODS OF THE BRYTHONS 95 VII. THE CUCHULAINN
CYCLE 127 VIII. THE FIONN SAGA
142 IX. GODS AND MEN 158 X. THE
CULT OF THE DEAD 165 XI. PRIMITIVE NATURE
WORSHIP 171 XII. RIVER AND WELL WORSHIP
181 XIII. TREE AND PLANT WORSHIP 198 XIV.
ANIMAL WORSHIP 208 XV. COSMOGONY
227 XVI. SACRIFICE, PRAYER, AND DIVINATION 233 XVII.
TABU 252 XVIII. FESTIVALS
256 XIX. ACCESSORIES OF CULT 279 XX. THE
DRUIDS 293 XXI. MAGIC
319 XXII. THE STATE OF THE DEAD 333 XXIII.
REBIRTH AND TRANSMIGRATION 348 XXIV. ELYSIUM
362
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES THROUGHOUT THIS WORK
(_This list is not a Bibliography._)
BRAND: Rev. J. Brand, _Observations on the Popular Antiquities of
Great Britain._ 3 vols. 1870.
BLANCHET: A. Blanchet, _Traite des monnaies gauloises._ 2 vols. Paris,
1905.
BERTRAND: A. Bertrand, _Religion des gaulois._ Paris, 1897.
CAMPBELL, _WHT_: J.F. Campbell, _Popular Tales of the West Highlands._
4 vols. Edinburgh, 1890.
CAMPBELL _LF_: J.F. Campbell, _Leabhar na Feinne._ London, 1872.
CAMPBELL, _Superstitions_: J.G. Campbell, _Superstitions of the
Highlands and Islands of Scotland._ 1900.
CAMPBELL, _Witchcraft_: J.G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in
the Highlands and Islands of Scotland._ 1902.
CORMAC: _Cormac's Glossary._ Tr. by J. O'Donovan. Ed. by W. Stokes.
Calcutta, 1868.
COURCELLE--SENEUIL.: J.L. Courcelle-Seneuil, _Les dieux gaulois
d'apres les monuments figures._ Paris, 1910.
_CIL_: _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum._ Berlin, 1863 f.
_CM_: _Celtic Magazine._ Inverness, 1875 f.
CURTIN, _HTI_: J. Curtin, _Hero Tales of Ireland._ 1894.
CURTIN, _Tales_: J. Curtin, _Tales of the Fairies and Ghost World._
1895.
DALZELL: Sir J.G. Dalzell, _Darker Superstitions of Scotland._ 1835.
D'ARBOIS: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, _Cours de litterature celtique._
12 vols. Paris, 1883-1902.
D'ARBOIS _Les Celtes_: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, _Les Celtes._
Paris, 1904.
D'ARBOIS _Les Druides_: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, _Les Druides et
les dieux celtiques a formes d'animaux._ Paris, 1906.
D'ARBOIS _PH_: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, _Les premiers habitants de
l'Europe._ 2 vols. Paris, 1889-1894.
DOM MARTIN: Dom Martin, _Le religion des gaulois._ 2 vols. Paris,
1727.
DOTTIN: G. Dottin, _Manuel pour servir a l'etude de l'antiquite
celtique._ Paris, 1906.
ELTON: C.I. Elton, _Origins of English History._ London, 1890.
FRAZER, _GB_{2}: J.G. Frazer, _Golden Bough_{2}. 3 vols. 1900.
GUEST: Lady Guest, _The Mabinogion._ 3 vols. Llandovery, 1849.
HAZLITT: W.C. Hazlitt, _Faiths and Folk-lore: A Dictionary of National
Beliefs, Superstitions, and Popular Customs._ 2 vols. 1905.
HOLDER: A. Holder, _Altceltischer Sprachschatz._ 3 vols. Leipzig, 1891
f.
HULL: Miss E. Hull, _The Cuchullin Saga._ London, 1898.
_IT_: See Windisch-Stokes.
_JAI_: _Journal of the Anthropological Institute._ London, 1871 f.
JOYCE, _OCR_: P.W. Joyce, _Old Celtic Romances_{2}. London, 1894.
JOYCE, _PN_: P.W. Joyce, _History of Irish Names of Places_{4}. 2
vols. London, 1901.
JOYCE, _SH_: P.W. Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland._ 2 vols.
London, 1903.
JULLIAN: C. Jullian, _Recherches sur la religion gauloise._ Bordeaux,
1903.
KEATING: Keating, _History of Ireland._ Tr. O'Mahony. London, 1866.
KENNEDY: P. Kennedy, _Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts._ 1866.
LARMINIE: W. Larminie, _West Irish Folk-Tales and Romances._ 1893.
LEAHY: Leahy, _Heroic Romances of Ireland._ 2 vols. London, 1905.
LE BRAZ: A. Le Braz, _La Legende de la Mort chez les Bretons
armoricains._ 2 vols. Paris, 1902.
_LL_: _Leabhar Laignech_ (Book of Leinster), facsimile reprint.
London, 1880.
LOTH: Loth, _Le Mabinogion._ 2 vols. Paris, 1889.
_LU_: _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ (Book of the Dun Cow), facsimile reprint.
London, 1870.
MACBAIN: A. MacBain, _Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language._
Inverness, 1896.
MACDOUGALL: Macdougall, _Folk and Hero Tales._ London, 1891.
MACKINLAY: J.M. Mackinlay, _Folk-lore of Scottish Lochs and Springs._
Glasgow, 1893.
MARTIN: M. Martin, _Description of the Western Islands of
Scotland_{2}. London, 1716.
MAURY: A. Maury, _Croyances et legendes du Moyen Age._ Paris, 1896.
MONNIER: D. Monnier, _Traditions populaires comparees._ Paris, 1854.
MOORE: A.W. Moore, _Folk-lore of the Isle of Man._ 1891.
NUTT-MEYER: A. Nutt and K. Meyer, _The Voyage of Bran._ 2 vols.
London, 1895-1897.
O'CURRY _MC_: E. O'Curry, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish._
4 vols. London, 1873.
O'CURRY _MS. Mat_: E. O'Curry, _MS. Materials of Ancient Irish
History._ Dublin, 1861.
O'GRADY: S.H. O'Grady, _Silva Gadelica._ 2 vols. 1892.
REES: Rev. W.J. Rees, _Lives of Cambro-British Saints._ Llandovery,
1853.
REINACH, BF: S. Reinach, _Bronzes Figures de la Gaule romaine._ Paris,
1900.
REINACH, BF _Catal. Sommaire_: S. Reinach, _Catalogue Commaire du
Musee des Antinquitee Nationales_{4}. Paris.
REINACH, BF CMR: S. Reinach, _Cultes, Mythes, et Religions._ 2 vols.
Paris, 1905.
RC: _Revue Celtique._ Paris, 1870 f.
RENEL: C. Renel, _Religions de la Gaule._ Paris 1906.
RH[^Y]S, _AL_: Sir John Rh[^y]s, _The Arthurian Legend._ Oxford, 1891.
RH[^Y]S, _CB_{4}: Sir John Rh[^y]s, _Celtic Britain_{4}. London, 1908.
RH[^Y]S, _CFL_: Sir John Rh[^y]s, _Celtic Folk-Lore._ 2 vols. Oxford,
1901.
RH[^Y]S, _HL_: Sir John Rh[^y]s, _Hibbert Lectures on Celtic
Heathendom._ London, 1888.
SEBILLOT: P. Sebillot, _La Folk-lore de la France._ 4 vols. Paris,
1904 f.
SKENE: W.F. Skene, _Four Ancient Books of Wales._ 2 vols. Edinburgh,
1868.
STOKES, _TIG_: Whitley Stokes, _Three Irish Glossaries._ London, 1862.
STOKES, _Trip. Life_: Whitley Stokes, _The Tripartite Life of
Patrick._ London 1887.
STOKES, _US_: Whitley Stokes, _Urkeltischer Sprachschatz._ Goettingen,
1894 (in Fick's _Vergleichende Woerterbuch_{4}).
TAYLOR: I. Taylor, _Origin of the Aryans._ London, n.d.
_TSC_: _Transactions of Society of Cymmrodor._
_TOS_: _Transactions of the Ossianic Society._ Dublin 1854-1861.
_Trip. Life_: See Stokes.
WILDE: Lady Wilde, _Ancient Legends and Superstitions of Ireland._ 2
vols. 1887.
WINDISCH, _Tain_: E. Windisch, _Die altirische Heldensage Tain Bo
Cualgne._ Leipzig, 1905.
WINDISCH-STOKES, _IT_: E. Windisch and W. Stokes, _Irische Texte._
Leipzig, 1880 f.
WOOD-MARTIN: Wood-Martin, _Elder Faiths of Ireland._ 2 vols. London,
1903.
_ZCP_: _Zeitschrift fuer Celtische Philologie._ Halle, 1897 f.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
To summon a dead religion from its forgotten grave and to make it tell
its story, would require an enchanter's wand. Other old faiths, of
Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome, are known to us. But in their case
liturgies, myths, theogonies, theologies, and the accessories of cult,
remain to yield their report of the outward form of human belief and
aspiration. How scanty, on the other hand, are the records of Celtic
religion! The bygone faith of a people who have inspired the world
with noble dreams must be constructed painfully, and often in fear and
trembling, out of fragmentary and, in many cases, transformed remains.
We have the surface observations of classical observers, dedications
in the Romano-Celtic area to gods mostly assimilated to the gods of
the conquerors, figured monuments mainly of the same period, coins,
symbols, place and personal names. For the Irish Celts there is a mass
of written material found mainly in eleventh and twelfth century MSS.
Much of this, in spite of alteration and excision, is based on divine
and heroic myths, and it also contains occasional notices of ritual.
From Wales come documents like the _Mabinogion_, and strange poems the
personages of which are ancient gods transformed, but which tell
nothing of rite or cult.[2] Valuable hints are furnished by early
ecclesiastical documents, but more important is existing folk-custom,
which preserves so much of the old cult, though it has lost its
meaning to those who now use it. Folk-tales may also be inquired of,
if we discriminate between what in them is Celtic and what is
universal. Lastly, Celtic burial-mounds and other remains yield their
testimony to ancient belief and custom.
From these sources we try to rebuild Celtic paganism and to guess at
its inner spirit, though we are working in the twilight on a heap of
fragments. No Celt has left us a record of his faith and practice, and
the unwritten poems of the Druids died with them. Yet from these
fragments we see the Celt as the seeker after God, linking himself by
strong ties to the unseen, and eager to conquer the unknown by
religious rite or magic art. For the things of the spirit have never
appealed in vain to the Celtic soul, and long ago classical observers
were struck with the religiosity of the Celts. They neither forgot nor
transgressed the law of the gods, and they thought that no good befell
men apart from their will.[3] The submission of the Celts to the
Druids shows how they welcomed authority in matters of religion, and
all Celtic regions have been characterised by religious devotion,
easily passing over to superstition, and by loyalty to ideals and lost
causes. The Celts were born dreamers, as their exquisite Elysium
belief will show, and much that is spiritual and romantic in more than
one European literature is due to them.
The analogy of religious evolution in other faiths helps us in
reconstructing that of the Celts. Though no historic Celtic group was
racially pure, the profound influence of the Celtic temperament soon
"Celticised" the religious contributions of the non-Celtic element
which may already have had many Celtic parallels. Because a given
Celtic rite or belief seems to be "un-Aryan," it need not necessarily
be borrowed. The Celts had a savage past, and, conservative as they
were, they kept much of it alive. Our business, therefore, lies with
Celtic religion as a whole. These primitive elements were there before
the Celts migrated from the old "Aryan" home; yet since they appear in
Celtic religion to the end, we speak of them as Celtic. The earliest
aspect of that religion, before the Celts became a separate people,
was a cult of nature spirits, or of the life manifested in nature. But
men and women probably had separate cults, and, of the two, perhaps
that of the latter is more important. As hunters, men worshipped the
animals they slew, apologising to them for the slaughter. This
apologetic attitude, found with all primitive hunters, is of the
nature of a cult. Other animals, too sacred to be slain, would be
preserved and worshipped, the cult giving rise to domestication and
pastoral life, with totemism as a probable factor. Earth, producing
vegetation, was the fruitful mother; but since the origin of
agriculture is mainly due to women, the Earth cult would be practised
by them, as well as, later, that of vegetation and corn spirits, all
regarded as female. As men began to interest themselves in
agriculture, they would join in the female cults, probably with the
result of changing the sex of the spirits worshipped. An Earth-god
would take the place of the Earth-mother, or stand as her consort or
son. Vegetation and corn spirits would often become male, though many
spirits, even when they were exalted into divinities, remained female.
With the growth of religion the vaguer spirits tended to become gods
and goddesses, and worshipful animals to become anthropomorphic
divinities, with the animals as their symbols, attendants, or victims.
And as the cult of vegetation spirits centred in the ritual of
planting and sowing, so the cult of the divinities of growth centred
in great seasonal and agricultural festivals, in which the key to the
growth of Celtic religion is to be found. But the migrating Celts,
conquering new lands, evolved divinities of war; and here the old
female influence is still at work, since many of these are female. In
spite of possessing so many local war-gods, the Celts were not merely
men of war. Even the _equites_ engaged in war only when occasion
arose, and agriculture as well as pastoral industry was constantly
practised, both in Gaul and Britain, before the conquest.[4] In
Ireland, the belief in the dependence of fruitfulness upon the king,
shows to what extent agriculture flourished there.[5] Music, poetry,
crafts, and trade gave rise to culture divinities, perhaps evolved
from gods of growth, since later myths attributed to them both the
origin of arts and crafts, and the introduction of domestic animals
among men. Possibly some culture gods had been worshipful animals, now
worshipped as gods, who had given these animals to man.
Culture-goddesses still held their place among culture-gods, and were
regarded as their mothers. The prominence of these divinities shows
that the Celts were more than a race of warriors.
The pantheon was thus a large one, but on the whole the divinities of
growth were more generally important. The older nature spirits and
divine animals were never quite forgotten, especially by the folk, who
also preserved the old rituals of vegetation spirits, while the gods
of growth were worshipped at the great festivals. Yet in essence the
lower and the higher cults were one and the same, and, save where
Roman influence destroyed Celtic religion, the older primitive strands
are everywhere apparent. The temperament of the Celt kept him close to
nature, and he never quite dropped the primitive elements of his
religion. Moreover, the early influence of female cults of female
spirits and goddesses remained to the end as another predominant
factor.
Most of the Celtic divinities were local in character, each tribe
possessing its own group, each god having functions similar to those
of other groups. Some, however, had or gained a more universal
character, absorbing divinities with similar functions. Still this
local character must be borne in mind. The numerous divinities of
Gaul, with differing names--but, judging by their assimilation to the
same Roman divinity, similar functions, are best understood as gods of
local groups. This is probably true also of Britain and Ireland. But
those gods worshipped far and wide over the Celtic area may be gods of
the undivided Celts, or gods of some dominant Celtic group extending
their influence on all sides, or, in some cases, popular gods whose
cult passed beyond the tribal bounds. If it seem precarious to see
such close similarity in the local gods of a people extending right
across Europe, appeal can be made to the influence of the Celtic
temperament, producing everywhere the same results, and to the
homogeneity of Celtic civilisation, save in local areas, e.g. the
South of Gaul. Moreover, the comparison of the various testimonies of
onlookers points to a general similarity, while the permanence of the
primitive elements in Celtic religion must have tended to keep it
everywhere the same. Though in Gaul we have only inscriptions and in
Ireland only distorted myths, yet those testimonies, as well as the
evidence of folk-survivals in both regions, point to the similarity of
religious phenomena. The Druids, as a more or less organised
priesthood, would assist in preserving the general likeness.
Thus the primitive nature-spirits gave place to greater or lesser
gods, each with his separate department and functions. Though growing
civilisation tended to separate them from the soil, they never quite
lost touch with it. In return for man's worship and sacrifices, they
gave life and increase, victory, strength, and skill. But these
sacrifices, had been and still often were rites in which the
representative of a god was slain. Some divinities were worshipped
over a wide area, most were gods of local groups, and there were
spirits of every place, hill, wood, and stream. Magic rites mingled
with the cult, but both were guided by an organised priesthood. And as
the Celts believed in unseen gods, so they believed in an unseen
region whither they passed after death.
Our knowledge of the higher side of Celtic religion is practically a
blank, since no description of the inner spiritual life has come down
to us. How far the Celts cultivated religion in our sense of the term,
or had glimpses of Monotheism, or were troubled by a deep sense of
sin, is unknown. But a people whose spiritual influence has later been
so great, must have had glimpses of these things. Some of them must
have known the thirst of the soul for God, or sought a higher ethical
standard than that of their time. The enthusiastic reception of
Christianity, the devotion of the early Celtic saints, and the
character of the old Celtic church, all suggest this.
The relation of the Celtic church to paganism was mainly intolerant,
though not wholly so. It often adopted the less harmful customs of the
past, merging pagan festivals in its own, founding churches on the
sites of the old cult, dedicating sacred wells to a saint. A saint
would visit the tomb of a pagan to hear an old epic rehearsed, or
would call up pagan heroes from hell and give them a place in
paradise. Other saints recall dead heroes from the Land of the
Blessed, and learn the nature of that wonderland and the heroic deeds
"Of the old days, which seem to be Much older than any history That is
written in any book."
Reading such narratives, we gain a lesson in the fine spirit of
Christian tolerance and Christian sympathy.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Some writers saw in the bardic poetry a Druidic-esoteric system
and traces of a cult practised secretly by the bards--the "Neo-Druidic
heresy"; see Davies, _Myth. of the Brit. Druids_, 1809; Herbert, _The
Neo-Druidic Heresy_, 1838. Several French writers saw in "Druidism" a
monotheistic faith, veiled under polytheism.
[3] Livy, v. 46; Caesar, vi. 16; Dion. Hal. vii. 70; Arrian, _Cyneg_.
xxxv. 1.
[4] Caesar, vi. 15, cf. v. 12, "having waged war, remained there and
cultivated the lands."
[5] Cf. Pliny, _HN_ xvii. 7, xviii. 18 on the wheeled ploughs and
agricultural methods of Gauls and Britons. Cf. also Strabo, iv. 1. 2,
iv. 5. 5; Girald. Camb. _Top. Hib._ i. 4, _Descr. Camb._ i. 8; Joyce,
_SH_ ii. 264.