As a result of the scarcity of surviving materials bearing written Gaulish, it is surmised that the most of the Celtic writings were destroyed by the Romans, although a written form of Gaulish using Greek, Latin and North Italic alphabets was used (as evidenced by votive items bearing inscriptions in Gaulish and the Coligny calendar). Julius Caesar attests to the literacy of the Gauls, but also wrote that their priests, the druids, were forbidden to use writing to record certain verses of religious significance (Caesar, "Commentarii de Bello Gallico" 6.14) while also noting that the Helvetii had a written census (Caesar, "De Bello Gallico" 1.29).
Historical sources
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology | Historical sources
As a result of the scarcity of surviving materials bearing written Gaulish, it is surmised that the most of the Celtic writings were destroyed by the Romans, although a written form of Gaulish using Greek, Latin and North Italic alphabets was used Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context. As a result of the scarcity of surviving materials bearing written Gaulish, it is surmised that the most of the Celtic writings were destroyed by the Romans, although a written form of Gaulish using Greek, Latin and North Italic alphabets was used. Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
how long does it take for painted turtles to hatch
user
Hatched turtles grow until sexual maturity: 2–9 years for males, 6–16 for females.
assistant
where are they most commonly found?
user
North America
assistant
and what is their preferred domain of habitation?
user
It lives in slow-moving fresh waters, from southern Canada to northern Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific
assistant
who labelled this species for the first time?
user
Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
assistant
what do they mostly feed on?
user
It also consumes plants and skims the surface of the water with its mouth open to catch small particles of food.
assistant
are they preyed on by other animals?
user
Garter snakes, crows, chipmunks, thirteen-lined ground and gray squirrels, skunks, groundhogs, raccoons, badgers, gray and red fox, and humans.
assistant
where did this particular species of fox you just mentioned originate?
user
The species is Eurasian in origin, and may have evolved from either "Vulpes alopecoides" or the related Chinese "V. chikushanensis", both of which lived during the Middle Villafranchian
assistant
when did they migrate to north america?
user
Red foxes colonised the North American continent in two waves: during or before the Illinoian glaciation, and during the Wisconsinan glaciation.
assistant
do they appear in any myths or legends?
user
Yes, In Greek mythology, the Teumessian fox or Cadmean vixen, was a gigantic fox that was destined never to be caught. The fox was one of the children of Echidna. In Celtic mythology, the red fox is a symbolic animal
assistant
can you name some of historical records from which the myths of the last culture you mentioned has been gleaned?
user
Red foxes feature prominently in the folklore and mythology of human cultures with which they are sympatric. In Greek mythology, the Teumessian fox or Cadmean vixen, was a gigantic fox that was destined never to be caught. The fox was one of the children of Echidna. In Celtic mythology, the red fox is a symbolic animal. In the Cotswolds, witches were thought to take the shape of foxes to steal butter from their neighbours. In later European folklore, the figure of Reynard the Fox symbolises trickery and deceit. He originally appeared (then under the name of "Reinardus") as a secondary character in the 1150 poem "Ysengrimus".
Red fox | In folklore, religion and mythology
The myth, like so many others, may be a folk memory of gradually rising sea levels at the end of the ice age. The physical remains of the preserved sunken forest at Borth, and of Sarn Badrig nearby, could have suggested that some great tragedy had overcome a community there long ago and so the myth may have grown from that.
Cantre'r Gwaelod | Origins of the myth
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure. For Celts in close contact with Ancient Rome, such as the Gauls and Celtiberians, their mythology did not survive the Roman Empire, their subsequent conversion to Christianity and the loss of their Celtic languages. It is mostly through contemporary Roman and Christian sources that their mythology has been preserved. The Celtic peoples who maintained either political or linguistic identities (such as the Gaels in Ireland and Scotland, the Welsh in Wales, and the Celtic Britons of southern Great Britain and Brittany) left vestigial remnants of their ancestral mythologies that were put into written form during the Middle Ages.
Celtic mythology | Introduction
The oldest body of myths stemming from the Heroic Age is found only from the early medieval period of Ireland. As Christianity began to take over, the gods and goddesses were slowly eliminated as such from the culture. What has survived includes material dealing with the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorians, which forms the basis for the text "Cath Maige Tuired" "The Battle of Mag Tuireadh", as well as portions of the history-focused "Lebor Gabála Érenn" ("The Book of Invasions"). The Tuatha Dé represent the functions of human society such as kingship, crafts and war, while the Fomorians represent chaos and wild nature.
Celtic mythology | Irish mythology
Patrick came and banished the heathen. One quatrain runs: "It was not with his sword he kept it/ Neither with arrows or bow. / But when he would see ships sailing, / He would cover it round with a fog." (Str. 4) ". So Mannanan here is said to have raised a mist or fog to conceal the whole island from detection (cf. Féth fíada). The fee or rent that Mannanan demanded was a bundle of coarse marsh-grass like rushes ("leaogher-ghlass"), to be delivered every "Midsummer Eve" (June 24th) In the Manx tradition of folklore, there are many stories of mythical creatures and characters.
Culture of the Isle of Man | Myth, legend and folklore
Nagy has noted the Gaelic oral tradition has been remarkably conservative; the fact that we have tales in existence that were still being told in the 19th century in almost exactly the same form as they exist in ancient manuscripts leads to the strong probability that much of what the monks recorded was considerably older. Though the Christian interpolations in some of these tales are very obvious, many of them read like afterthoughts or footnotes to the main body of the tales, which most likely preserve traditions far older than the manuscripts themselves. Mythology based on (though, not identical to) the pre-Christian traditions was still common place knowledge in Celtic-speaking cultures in the 19th century.
Ancient Celtic religion | Folkloristic survivals
Recent epigraphic studies suggest that they spoke a ‘Q-Celtic’ language akin to the neighbouring Gallaeci Lucenses and Braccarenses (see Gallaecia). Although the Celtic language was lost during the Low Middle Ages it still endures in many names of villages and geographical features, mostly associated to Celtic deities: the parish of Taranes and the villages of Tereñes, Táranu, Tarañu and Torañu related to the god Taranis, the parish of Lugones related to the god Lugus or the parish of Beleño related to the god Belenus, just to name a few. According to classic authors, their family structure was matrilineal, whereby the woman inherits the ownership of property.
Astures | Culture
As a result of the scarcity of surviving materials bearing written Gaulish, it is surmised that the most of the Celtic writings were destroyed by the Romans, although a written form of Gaulish using Greek, Latin and North Italic alphabets was used (as evidenced by votive items bearing inscriptions in Gaulish and the Coligny calendar). Julius Caesar attests to the literacy of the Gauls, but also wrote that their priests, the druids, were forbidden to use writing to record certain verses of religious significance (Caesar, "Commentarii de Bello Gallico" 6.14) while also noting that the Helvetii had a written census (Caesar, "De Bello Gallico" 1.29).
Celtic mythology | Historical sources
The Gwragedd Annwn sometimes become the wives of human men. One such tale recorded by John Rhys in "Celtic Folklore", considered by him to be the most complete and representative of its type, recounts how in the twelfth century there lived a widow at Blaensawdde near Llanddeusant, Carmarthenshire. One day she sent her son to graze their cattle on the Black Mountain range near the lake of Llyn y Fan Fach, and there he saw a beautiful maiden sitting on the surface of the lake combing her hair. He tried to court her by offering her some bread and cheese, but she gently refused saying the bread was too hard, and she disappeared beneath the water.
Gwragedd Annwn | Folklore
Rome introduced a more widespread habit of public inscriptions, and broke the power of the druids in the areas it conquered; in fact, most inscriptions to deities discovered in Gaul (modern France and Northern Italy), Britain and other formerly (or presently) Celtic-speaking areas post-date the Roman conquest. Although early Gaels in Ireland and parts of modern Wales used the Ogham script to record short inscriptions (largely personal names), more sophisticated literacy was not introduced to Celtic areas that had not been conquered by Rome until the advent of Christianity. Indeed, many Gaelic myths were first recorded by Christian monks, albeit without most of their original religious meanings.
Celtic mythology | Historical sources
The Celts also worshiped a number of deities of which little more is known than their names. Classical writers preserve a few fragments of legends or myths that may possibly be Celtic. According to the Syrian rhetorician Lucian, Ogmios was supposed to lead a band of men chained by their ears to his tongue as a symbol of the strength of his eloquence. The first-century Roman poet Lucan mentions the gods Taranis, Teutates and Esus, but there is little Celtic evidence that these were important deities.
Celtic mythology | Remnants of Gaulish and other mythology
As well, the faunal remains recovered from such sites are typically feature the long, upper limb bones of domesticated livestock, archeologically associated with animal exploitation for meat, and also suggestive of animals being previously processed, or slaughtered, butchered, and eaten on site. As "fulachtaí fia" emerged alongside developments in animal husbandry in Upper Palaeolithic Europe, pyrolithic technology emerged in response to the newfound importance of livestock. This is further compounded by the scarcity of game animal remains throughout all sites, and otherwise prevalence of sheep, pig, and cattle bones. This is not to discredit the lesser though still significant presence of red deer bones.
Irish cuisine | Bronze Age (2000-500 BC)
The iconography of the human head is believed by many archaeologists and historians to have played a significant part in Celtic religion. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, writing in the 1st century BCE, described how Celtic warriors "cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses." Strabo meanwhile commented in the same century that until the Roman authorities put a stop to it, among the Celts, "the heads of enemies held in high repute they used to embalm in cedar oil and exhibit to strangers." Archaeological evidence indicating that the Celts did indeed behead humans and then display their heads, possibly for religious purposes, has been unearthed at a number of excavations; one notable example of this was found at the Gaulish site of Entremont near to Aix-en-Provence, where a fragment of a pillar carved with images of skulls was found, within which were niches where actual human skulls were kept, nailed into position, fifteen examples of which were found.
Ancient Celtic religion | Head hunting
Although the Celtic world at its height covered much of western and central Europe, it was not politically unified nor was there any substantial central source of cultural influence or homogeneity; as a result, there was a great deal of variation in local practices of Celtic religion (although certain motifs, for example the god Lugh, appear to have diffused throughout the Celtic world). Inscriptions of more than three hundred deities, often equated with their Roman counterparts, have survived, but of these most appear to have been "genii locorum", local or tribal gods, and few were widely worshiped. However, from what has survived of Celtic mythology, it is possible to discern commonalities which hint at a more unified pantheon than is often given credit.
Celtic mythology | Overview
The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland was preserved in oral tradition. This oral tradition is known as 'Béaloideas'. With the arrival of Christianity, the first manuscripts were written in Ireland, preserving many of these tales in medieval Irish literature. Though the Christian influence is also seen in these manuscripts, this literature represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology. Although many of the manuscripts have not survived and much more material was probably never committed to writing, there is enough remaining to enable the identification of distinct, if overlapping, cycles: the Mythological Cycle, the Ulster Cycle, the Fenian Cycle and the Historical Cycle.
Irish mythology | Introduction
Celtic mythology has no stories of gay or lesbian relationships nor LGBT characters. Ancient Greek and Roman commentators attribute sexual activity between males, including pederasty, to pre-Christian Celtic tribes. However, Peter Chicheri argues that homosexual affection was severely punished in Celtic culture due to influence from Christianity, and suggests that any non-procreative sexual experience was later expunged from mythic tales. In the Fourth Branch of the "Mabinogion" of Welsh mythology, Gwydion helps his brother Gilfaethwy rape Goewin, Math's female servant. When Math hears of this, he turns his nephews into a series of mated pairs of animals; Gwydion becomes a stag for a year, then a sow and finally a wolf.
LGBT themes in mythology | Celtic
These stories stayed in the oral tradition because the Irish had not been invaded at the time like surrounding countries. In conjunction, the druidic schools wanted to maintain the stories in verbal form. This kept the stories in circulation to the culture and public. When Christian scribes came to Ireland, they wrote down the stories in Latin. Unfortunately, in succeeding centuries many of the texts were lost or destroyed during Viking raids. The remaining texts were rerecorded in manuscripts in the 11th and 12th century. Though previous manuscripts were are dated to 3-4 centuries earlier in the Irish language.
Mythological Cycle | History of the Mythological Cycle
In the Irish and Welsh vernacular sources from the Middle Ages, various human mythological figures were featured who have been thought of by many scholars as being based upon earlier gods. The historian Ronald Hutton however cautioned against automatically characterizing all Irish and Welsh mythological figures as former deities, noting that while some characters "who appear to be human, such as Medb or St Brigit, probably were indeed once regarded as divine ... the warriors who are the main protagonists of the stories have the same status as those in the Greek myths, standing between the human and divine orders.
Ancient Celtic religion | Insular mythology
Rhys Jones), who assumed that the custom had once existed on the basis of conversations with elderly Welsh people during the 1920s, none of whom had ever seen such a practice. One had claimed that: "It must have disappeared before I was born, and I am seventy-three". Gwynn's dating of the custom to the 18th century rested on the assumption that it must have disappeared before these elderly interviewees were born, and on his misreading of the baptism register of the parish of Llansantffraid Glyn Ceiriog. Local variations of the custom were developed in different parts of England and Wales.
Jumping the broom | British Romani customs
Literary evidence for Celtic religion also comes from sources written in Ireland and Wales during the Middle Ages, a period when traditional Celtic religious practices had become extinct and had long been replaced by Christianity. The evidence from Ireland has been recognised as better than that from Wales, being viewed as "both older and less contaminated from foreign material." These sources, which are in the form of epic poems and tales, were written several centuries after Christianity became the dominant religion in these regions, and were written down by Christian monks, "who may not merely have been hostile to the earlier paganism but actually ignorant of it." Instead of treating the characters as deities, they are allocated the roles of being historical heroes who sometimes have supernatural or superhuman powers, for instance, in the Irish sources the gods are claimed to be an ancient tribe of humans known as the Tuatha Dé Danann.
Ancient Celtic religion | Irish and Welsh records
The euhemerised deities arrived in five sets of migrations (see "Lebor Gabála Érenn"), but none of the individual migrations tales (; sing. tochomlod) survived intact. Remnants of the migration tales are the summarised accounts given in the LGE (Book of Invasions). Apart from these are the tale of Tuan mac Cairill, Fintan mac Bóchra colloquy. Tuan and Fintan are ancient beings from the Antediluvian past, who have reincaranted into different creatures, and are referred to in the LGE as well. Of the battle tales (; sing. cath), the full narratives of the First and Second Battle of Moytura (Battles of Mag Tuired) survive in relatively late (16th century) manuscripts.
Mythological Cycle | Survey of prose tales
Folklore is an important part of the culture of Erris. A number of well-known folklore tales have their origins in (or are associated with) the area. The Children of Lir, according to tradition, are buried on the island of Inisglora. The children were turned into swans by their jealous stepmother and doomed to spend the next 900 years on lakes and waters in Ireland. When they finally reclaimed their human form on Inisglora, they were so old that they died and were buried there. "Táin Bó Flidhais" is the tale of a cattle raid in which raiders came to Erris from the Royal site at Cruachán (Rathcroghan) at Tulsk, Co.
Erris | Legend and folklore
Other 15th-century manuscripts, such as "The Book of Fermoy" also contain interesting materials, as do such later syncretic works such as Geoffrey Keating's "Foras Feasa ar Éirinn" ("The History of Ireland") (ca. 1640), particularly as these later compilers and writers may have had access to manuscript sources that have since disappeared. When using these sources, it is, as always, important to question the impact of the circumstances in which they were produced. Most of the manuscripts were created by Christian monks, who may well have been torn between the desire to record their native culture and their religious hostility to pagan beliefs resulting in some of the gods being euhemerised.
Irish mythology | Sources for Myths
However, Kirk believes that Native American myths "are not evocative or nostalgic in tone, but tend to be detailed and severely practical". In many Native American mythologies, animals once acted like humans, during the mythical age; but they don't any longer: the division between animals and men is now a firm one, and according to Kirk, "that in itself reduces the effectiveness of myth-telling as a reconstitution" of the mythical age. As for Greek myths, many of them fall outside any sacred age of origins: this challenges Eliade's claim that almost all myths are about origins, and that people retell and reenact myths to return to the time of origins.
Eternal return (Eliade) | Scholarly criticism
The text is dated from linguistic evidence to the 12th century. The text records conversations between the last surviving members of the Fianna and Saint Patrick and runs to some 8,000 lines. The late dates of the manuscripts may reflect a longer oral tradition for the Fenian stories, the same oral tradition which was interpreted from Gaelic to English by James Macpherson in the Ossian stories. The Fianna of the story are divided into the Clann Baiscne, led by Fionnghall, and the Clann Morna, led by his enemy, Goll mac Morna. Goll killed Fionnghall's father, Cumhal, in battle and the boy Fionn was brought up in secrecy.
Scottish mythology | Finn and Fianna
It is often suggested that the tale of Lyonesse represents an extraordinary survival of folk memory of the flooding of the Isles of Scilly and Mount's Bay near Penzance. For example, the Cornish name of St Michael's Mount is "Karrek Loos y'n Koos" - literally 'the grey rock in the wood'. Cornish people around Penzance still get occasional glimpses at extreme low water of a sunken forest in Mount's Bay, where petrified tree stumps become visible. The importance of the maintenance of this memory can be seen in that it came to be associated with the legendary Brython hero Arthur, although the date of its inundation is actually c.
Lyonesse | Analogues in Celtic mythology
In the Celtic Revival, such survivals were collected and edited, thus becoming a literary tradition, which in turn influenced modern mainstream "Celticity". Various rituals involving acts of pilgrimage to sites such as hills and sacred wells that are believed to have curative or otherwise beneficial properties are still performed. Based on evidence from the European continent, various figures that are still known in folklore in the Celtic countries up to today, or who take part in post-Christian mythology, are known to have also been worshiped in those areas that did not have records before Christianity.
Ancient Celtic religion | Folkloristic survivals
In Greek mythology, the perceived cultural divisions among the Hellenes were represented as legendary lines of descent that identified kinship groups, with each line being derived from an eponymous ancestor. Each of the Greek "ethne" were said to be named in honor of their respective ancestors: Achaeus of the Achaeans, Danaus of the Danaans, Cadmus of the Cadmeans (the Thebans), Hellen of the Hellenes (not to be confused with Helen of Troy), Aeolus of the Aeolians, Ion of the Ionians, and Dorus of the Dorians. Cadmus from Phoenicia, Danaus from Egypt, and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized.
Achaeans (Homer) | Greek mythology
These Gallic tribes developed distinct forms of Gallo-Roman culture after the Roman sacking of Gaul in the second century. The first settlers inhabited modern day Brittany, and the mythology of the northernmost Gallic tribes, including werewolves and other mischwesen, survive in lais from Medieval manuscripts. Between the 3rd and 7th century, Germanic migrants began to settle in Roman-Gaul. As the Western-Roman empire began to collapse, the German migrants who would become known as the Franks began to exercise their influence over the west of France. The Franks shared many of the customs and superstitions with other Germanic peoples, and spread many of their nature rituals and beliefs across western France.
Mythology in France | History of Myth in France
In the middle 3rd century BC, Celts from the middle Danube valley, immigrated from Thrace into the highlands of central Anatolia (modern Turkey), that was called Galatia after that. These people, called Galatians, a generic name for “Celts”, were eventually Hellenized, but retained many of their own traditions. They spoke Galatian, a name derived from the generic name for “Celts”. Some closely fit the concept of a tribe. Others are confederations or even unions of tribes.
List of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes | <a href="Galatians%20%28People%29">Galatians</a>
There is no reference to such a gathering in the annals, but the medieval "Dindsenchas" includes a tale of a hero lighting a holy fire on Uisneach that blazed for seven years. Ronald Hutton writes that this may "preserve a tradition of Beltane ceremonies there", but adds "Keating or his source may simply have conflated this legend with the information in "Sanas Chormaic" to produce a piece of pseudo-history." Nevertheless, excavations at Uisneach in the 20th century found evidence of large fires and charred bones, showing it to have been ritually significant.
Beltane | Before the modern era
To regard characters such as Cú Chulainn, Fergus Mac Roich or Conall Cernach as former gods turned into humans by a later storyteller is to misunderstand their literary and religious function ... Cú Chulainn is no more a former god than Superman is." Examining these Irish myths, Barry Cunliffe stated that he believed they displayed "a dualism between the male tribal god and the female deity of the land" while Anne Ross felt that they displayed that the gods were "on the whole intellectual, deeply versed in the native learning, poets and prophets, story-tellers and craftsmen, magicians, healers, warriors ...
Ancient Celtic religion | Insular mythology
While the ancient Celtic religions were largely subsumed by Christianity, many religious traditions have survived in the form of folklore, mythology, songs, and prayers. Many folkloric practices never completely died out, and some Celtic Reconstructionists (CRs) claim to have survivals of Irish, Scottish or Welsh folkloric customs in their families of origin. Language study and preservation, and participation in other cultural activities such as Celtic music, dance and martial arts forms, are seen as a core part of the tradition. Participation in the living Celtic cultures – the cultures that exist in the "areas in which Celtic languages are actually spoken and in which Celtic traditions have been most faithfully handed down to the present day" – is a vital part of their cultural work and spiritual practice.
Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism | Practices
The bearers of the La Tène culture were the people known as Celts or Gauls to ancient ethnographers. Ancient Celtic culture had no written literature of its own, but rare examples of epigraphy in the Greek or Latin alphabets exist allowing the fragmentary reconstruction of Continental Celtic. Current knowledge of this cultural area is derived from three sources comprising archaeological evidence, Greek and Latin literary records, and ethnographical evidence suggesting some La Tène artistic and cultural survivals in traditionally Celtic regions of far western Europe. Some of the societies that are archaeologically identified with La Tène material culture were identified by Greek and Roman authors from the 5th century onwards as "Keltoi" ("Celts") and "Galli" ("Gauls").
La Tène culture | Ethnology
When growing corn waves in the wind, a shiver appears to run through it; and this was often described (by pre-industrial populations) as some imaginary creature running through the field. This supernatural 'creature' could be identified with the last sheaf cut at harvest time, as could certain female entities, preserving traces of half-remembered, pre-Christian goddesses. The association of grain with a goddess could be as old as the first attempts at sowing seed and collecting plants that were useful for food, and the grain field as a human-made environment in the British Isles and Ireland dates from the Neolithic period, with its attendant mythology (surviving only as iconography) colouring later Celtic myth.
Scandix pecten-veneris | English names
John Koch ("Celtic Culture", 2005) incorporates some of Skene's material on Manaw (and credits Skene for it), including an independent view of the historical record (reaching the same general conclusions as Skene), but also asserting conjectures as though they were facts (e.g., asserting that the "Iudeu" mentioned in the "Historia Brittonum" was at Stirling). John Rhys ("Celtic Britain", 1904) both repeats and cites Skene, but adds nothing new. John Edward Lloyd ("History of Wales", 1911) makes only a few comments about Manaw in passing, and John Davies ("History of Wales", 1990) omits even that. Christopher Snyder ("An Age of Tyrants", 1998) mentions Manaw twice in passing, saying nothing about it there or in his references to the literary "Y Gododdin".
Manaw Gododdin | Treatment by historians
With his golden sickle, and in one chop, the Chief Druid would remove the mistletoe to be caught below. This ritual was recorded by Pliny (AD 24-79) in his Natural History (16.24), not as a part of a seasonal festival, but in the context of a sacrifice of two white bulls to invoke prosperity from the gods. The holiday is observed in a manner that commemorates the death of the Holly King identified with the wren bird (symbolizing the old year and the shortened sun) at the hands of his son and successor, the robin redbreast Oak King (the new year and the new sun that begins to grow).
Alban Arthan | Introduction
Greek mythology has changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their culture, of which mythology, both overtly and in its unspoken assumptions, is an index of the changes. In Greek mythology's surviving literary forms, as found mostly at the end of the progressive changes, it is inherently political, as Gilbert Cuthbertson (1975) has argued. The earlier inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who, using Animism, assigned a spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits assumed human forms and entered the local mythology as gods. When tribes from the north of the Balkan Peninsula invaded, they brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest, force, prowess in battle, and violent heroism.
Greek mythology | Survey of mythic history
The nuts would fall into the water, causing bubbles of mystic inspiration to form, or were eaten by salmon. The number of spots on a salmon's back were thought to indicate the number of nuts it had consumed. The salmon of wisdom caught by Fionn mac Cumhaill had eaten hazel nuts. Very similar tales related by Taliesin are retained in the Brythonic tradition. Traces of hazelnuts have been found in a 'Celtic' style three-chained suspension bowl discovered in a post-Roman burial dated to 650 CE in London. The name of the Irish hero Mac Cuill means 'son of the hazel'.
Celtic sacred trees | Hazel
One of their enigmas is the fact they were not mentioned in local and foreign medieval documents. Franciscan chronicles which recorded many unusual things, like Turkish cemetery, did not mention them. Folk tradition preserved mythical perception full of superstitions and fantasy tales. It implies that occurred discontinuity of historical memory among all three ethnic groups, caused by ethnic migrations and religious conversions during the Ottoman occupation. It is considered that the first itinerary mention of stećci is by Benedikt Kuripešić from 1530. Evliya Çelebi in 1626 described them as tombstone monuments of some unknown heroes. The oldest local author to mention them is Andrija Kačić Miošić in the mid-18th century.
Stećak | Legacy
The other students laughed and called him “Ciarán half-Matthew.” St Finnian silenced them and said, “Not Ciarán half-Matthew, but Ciarán half-Ireland, for he will have half the country and the rest of us will have the other half.” Another tale relates that as a student, a young fox would take his writings to his master, until it was old enough to eat his satchel. Yet another tale tells of the other Irish saints envying him to such a degree that every one of them (apart from St Columba) prayed for his early death; and finally, he is supposed to have told his followers that upon his death, they were to leave his bones upon the hillside, and to preserve his spirit rather than his relics.
Ciarán of Clonmacnoise | Legends
Morris stated he had collected "remnants" in Farney, Monaghan c. 1900, and that these versions connected Balor and the cow Glasgaivlen with places as far afield as "south Monaghan to Rockabill Island off the coast of Dublin".
Balor | Localization of the legend
The archaeological evidence does not contain the bias inherent in the literary sources. Nonetheless, the interpretation of this evidence can be coloured by the 21st century mindset. Various archaeological discoveries have aided understanding of the religion of the Celts. Most surviving Celtic art is not figurative; some art historians have suggested that the complex and compelling decorative motifs that characterize some periods have a religious significance, but the understanding of what that might be appears to be irretrievably lost. Surviving figurative monumental sculpture comes almost entirely from Romano-Celtic contexts, and broadly follows provincial Roman styles, though figures who are probably deities often wear torcs, and there may be inscriptions in Roman letters with what appear to be Romanized Celtic names.
Ancient Celtic religion | Archaeological sources
According to legend, they did not, however, touch her. After enduring this for a number of days, in an effort to persuade her to recant, she was led into the arena to see the sufferings of her companions. Finally, as the last of the martyrs, she was scourged, placed on a red-hot grate, enclosed in a net and thrown before a wild steer who tossed her into the air with his horns. In the end, she was killed with a dagger.
Blandina | Traditional history
Other important sources include a group of four manuscripts originating in the west of Ireland in the late 14th or early 15th century: "The Yellow Book of Lecan", "The Great Book of Lecan", and "The Book of Ballymote". The first is these is housed in Trinity College as well as three others are in the Royal Academy. The Yellow Book of Lecan is composed of sixteen parts and includes the legends of Fionn Mac Cumhail, selections of legends of Irish Saints, and the earliest known version of the "Táin Bó Cúailnge" ("The Driving-off of Cattle of Cooley"). This is one of Europe's oldest epics written in a vernacular language.
Irish mythology | Sources for Myths
A Bronze Age urnfield exists on the moor top, north of Mytholmroyd. It is a burial ground with cremation urns, dating between the 16th and 11th centuries BC of national importance. Evidence of pre-historic farming is apparent because they cleared the upland forests for cattle grazing and created the peat moorlands. Most of the Celtic Iron Age settlements were concentrated on the hillside terraces which avoided the wooded and poorly drained valley floors. Most of the older listed buildings are located on the hillsides away from the valley. A Roman coin hoard has been found to the south of Mytholmroyd.
Mytholmroyd | History
After some time, they crossed the Irish Sea to invade Caledonia North of Roman Britain, successively capturing Iona, the cities of "Rigmhonath" and "Bellathor" in the process. The latter places are echoed by the appearance of "Cinnrígmonaid" and "Cinnbelathoir" in the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba". The territory so conquered was then named Scotia after Scota, the Egyptian wife of Spartan commander Nél or Niul, and St. Patrick converted the people to Christianity. Once the Picts adopted Gaelic culture and their actual characteristics faded out of memory, folkloric elements filled the gaps of history. Their "sudden disappearance" was explained as a slaughter happening at a banquet given by Kenneth MacAlpin (an international folklore motif) and they were ascribed with powers like those of the fairies, brewing heather from secret recipes and living in underground chambers.
Scottish mythology | National mythology
A number of animal skeletons discovered at the site suggest that the Iron Age Celtic population may have believed in hybrid-animal monster myths akin to those of the Mesopotamians, Ancient Greeks and Egyptians. The bone finds, which appear to have been deliberately arranged, include a two-headed hybrid with a sheep's skull at the front and a bull's at the rear along with a horse with a cow's horn sticking into its forehead.
Duropolis | Animal burials
J. Kneen, Dr John Clague, and Edmund Goodwin, were all founding members of Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh in 1899 in Peel. Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh was not concerned only with the preservation and promotion of the Manx language, but rather with all things related to Manx culture:Though called the Manx Language Society, it should, I think, by no means confine its energies to the promotion of an interest in the language, but extend them to the study of Manx history, the collection of Manx music, ballads, carols, folklore, proverbs, place-names, including the old field names which are rapidly dying out in a word, to the preservation of everything that IS distinctively Manx, and, above all, to the cultivation of a national spirit.In 1948, after a visit to the Isle of Man by An Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, the Irish Folklore Commission was tasked with recording the last remaining native speakers on fragile acetate discs.
Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh | History
There are several versions of the myth. The earliest known form of the legend is usually said to appear in the "Black Book of Carmarthen", in which the land is referred to as "Maes Gwyddno" (). In this version, the land was lost to floods when a well-maiden named Mererid neglected her duties and allowed the well to overflow.
Cantre'r Gwaelod | The myth
Some, like the Lindow Man, may have gone to their deaths willingly. Ritual decapitation was a major religious and cultural practice which has found copious support in the archaeological record, including the numerous skulls discovered in Londinium's River Walbrook and the 12 headless corpses at the French late Iron Age sanctuary of Gournay-sur-Aronde. Some Irish bog bodies from various periods are interpreted as local "kings" who were ritually executed, presumably after crop failures or other disasters. Old Croghan Man, from between 362 and 175 BCE, is an example, as is the far older Bronze Age Cashel Man.
Ancient Celtic religion | Human sacrifice
Various Greek and Roman writers of the ancient world commented on the Celts and their beliefs. Barry Cunliffe stated that "the Greek and Roman texts provide a number of pertinent observations, but these are at best anecdotal, offered largely as a colourful background by writers whose prime intention was to communicate other messages." The Roman general Julius Caesar, when leading the conquering armies of the Roman Republic against Celtic Gaul, made various descriptions of the inhabitants, though some of his claims, such as that the Druids practiced human sacrifice by burning people in wicker men, have come under scrutiny by modern scholars.
Ancient Celtic religion | Greek and Roman records
According to M. Gimbutas (1991), "The discontinuity of the Varna, Karanovo, Vinča and Lengyel cultures in their main territories and the large scale population shifts to the north and northwest are indirect evidence of a catastrophe of such proportions that cannot be explained by possible climatic change, land exhaustion, or epidemics (for which there is no evidence in the second half of the 5th millennium B.C.). Direct evidence of the incursion of horse-riding warriors is found, not only in single burials of males under barrows, but in the emergence of a whole complex of Kurgan cultural traits." According to J.
Varna Necropolis | Historical impact
The other study focused on Paleo-Balkan mythology, and in particular on the supposed contributions of ancient Dacians and Getae to Romanian folklore: "Credințe, rituri și superstiții geto-dace" ("Gaeto-Dacian Beliefs, Rites and Superstitions"). The book was a co-recipient of the Vasile Pârvan Award, granted by the Romanian Academy. The decision was received with indignation by archeologist Constantin Daicoviciu, who deemed "Credințe, rituri și superstiții geto-dace" unworthy of attention, as an indiscriminate collection of quotes from "authors good and bad", without any "sound knowledge" of its subject.
Alexis Nour | Final years
Indeed, though there is much in common with Irish myth, there may have been no unified British mythological tradition "per se". Whatever its ultimate origins, the surviving material has been put to good use in the service of literary masterpieces that address the cultural concerns of Wales in the early and later Middle Ages.
Celtic mythology | Welsh mythology
Eagles play a small role in Celtic mythology. The eagle is said to be the oldest of birds, and a form that may be taken by a deity or other mythological figure. In the Welsh tale of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, the protagonist escapes death at the hands of a hunter by taking an eagle's form and killing the hunter who assaulted him.
Golden eagles in human culture | Religion
Keating's "History" is more a compilation of traditions than a reliable history, but in this case scholars point to references in early Irish poetry and the existence of a closed hunting season for deer and wild boar between Samhain and Beltaine in medieval Scotland as corroboration. Hubert Thomas Knox speculates that "they were bodies of Gallowglasses such as appeared in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but then under command of adventurers who were not inhabitants of the province, Free Companies who sold their services to any one who could raise their wages."
Fianna | Historicity
The influence of Celtic mythology did not disappear after the Roman invasion, with the rituals and practices of Druidism still exerting influence over the mythology of the Gauls. Druids in Roman-Gaul were the philosophers and religious figures of the Gallic tribes. Druids were the educated classes among Celtic and Gallo-Roman culture, having knowledge about nature, astronomy, literature, and the law. Druids were unable to record any of their knowledge in written form, but records from Julius Caesar survive, giving details of Druidic rituals. Caesar writes that Druids were responsible for conducting both human and animal sacrifices for those who were sick or at risk of dying in battle.
Mythology in France | Druidism
Many of the later sources may also have formed part of a propaganda effort designed to create a history for the people of Ireland that could bear comparison with the mythological descent of their British invaders from the founders of Rome that was promulgated by Geoffrey of Monmouth and others. There was also a tendency to rework Irish genealogies to fit into the known schema of Greek or Biblical genealogy.
Irish mythology | Sources for Myths
The Cauldron of Khath Meigol and its powers of resurrection hark back to Welsh mythology's tale of the Cauldron of Annwn, and a number of the deities seem to have Celtic or Welsh roots: Paul is known as Pwyll after his sacrifice, while Macha and Nemain come straight from Irish mythology. The wild boar that attacks Kevin, marking him as Liadon, closely resembles the Twrch Trwyth. Cader Sedat, the island where the renegade mage Metran works his dark magic in The Wandering Fire, is the analogue of Caer Sidi from the poem Preiddeu Annwfn, a poem that is, in the trilogy, ascribed to Taliesin, one of the names used by Flidais.
The Fionavar Tapestry | Myths and legends
Ritual sites near the mithraeum, were found to contain nearly 14,000 animal remains. The few that could be fully reassembled were: 1 Spanish mackerel, 1 hare, 1 jackdaw, 2 eels, 10 piglets, 14 lambs, and 285 chickens. During the 1st and 2nd century, Spanish mackerel was a rare food found commonly in Roman sites due to its popularity. The reconstructed jackdaw relates to the usage of black birds in religious temples, which is specific to the religion of mithraism. A majority of these animals were pigs, sheep and chickens, killed in a juvenile state, while the other birds were killed as adults.
Tienen Mithraeum | Archaeological remains
Patrick banished those mantic rites of the "filidh" that involved offerings to "demons", and that the church took particular pains to stamp out animal sacrifice and other rituals repugnant to Christian teaching. What survived of ancient ritual practice tended to be related to "filidhecht", the traditional repertoire of the "filidh", or to the central institution of sacral kingship. A good example is the pervasive and persistent concept of the hierogamy (sacred marriage) of the king with the goddess of sovereignty: the sexual union, or "banais ríghi" ("wedding of kingship"), which constituted the core of the royal inauguration, seems to have been purged from the ritual at an early date through ecclesiastical influence, but it remains at least implicit, and often quite explicit, for many centuries in the literary tradition.
Ancient Celtic religion | Christianization
This etymology shows that Pytheas interacted not so much with Irish, as they used Q-Celtic. Rather, Pytheas brought back the P-Celtic form from more geographically accessible regions where Welsh or Breton are spoken presently. Furthermore, some proto-Celtic was spoken over all of Greater Britain, and this particular spelling is prototypical of those more populous regions. Diodorus, based on Pytheas reports that Britain is cold and subject to frosts, being "too much subject to the Bear", and not "under the Arctic pole", as some translations say. The numerous population of natives, he says, live in thatched cottages, store their grain in subterranean caches and bake bread from it.
Irish people | Prehistoric and legendary ancestors
They appear to be related to the Aquitanians and the Basques. Inscriptions in the Tartessian language have been found in the area, in a variety often referred to as Southwest Paleohispanic script. The name "Conii", found in Strabo, seems to have been identical with the "Cynesii", who were mentioned by Herodotus as the westernmost dwellers of Europe and distinguished by him from the Celts.
Cynetes | Culture
However, the key problem with the use of these sources is that they were often biased against the Celts, whom the classical peoples viewed as "barbarians". In the case of the Romans who conquered several Celtic realms, they would have likely been biased in favour of making the Celts look uncivilised, thereby giving the "civilised" Romans more reason to conquer them.
Ancient Celtic religion | Greek and Roman records
After the sacking of Gaul by the Romans in the 2nd century, the spiritual and mythological practices of the Gauls in the French region began to change due to Roman influence. Traditional Celtic Paganism draws on the deities of the Celtic pantheon, an extensive grouping of gods and goddesses traditionally worshiped in Celtic lands, and acknowledges the supernatural within the natural environment. As the Roman Empire began to expand, many Celtic beliefs and practices merged with the beliefs of the Romans. By the 3rd century, the Gauls worshiped many Roman deities like Mercury and Mars, and some uniquely Gallo-Roman Gods, like Teutates and Dea Matrona.
Mythology in France | Gallo-Roman Myth
When he has said nine times, 'Ghosts of my fathers, go forth!' he looks back, and thinks that he has duly performed the sacred rites." Perhaps the black beans carried with them connotations of warding away or dispelling bad things in general, whether it be unwelcome spirits haunting a household as seen during Lemuria, or preventing undesired gossip towards an individual as in the old hag's ritual during Feralia. Also, in the context of sacrifices, the black beans are similar to the black animals used in sacrifice to the 'chthonic deities'. It is implied through Ovid's choice of words, ""hostiles linguas"" and ""inimicaque ora"", that the ritual is intended to curb gossip about a girl's reputation.
Feralia | Rites and tradition
The grand ruins and tumuli remaining from the Bronze Age gave the pre-literate Greeks of the 10th and 9th centuries BC a sense of a grand and vanished age; they reflected this in the oral epic tradition, which would crystallize in the "Iliad". Copious renewed offerings begin to be represented, after a hiatus, at sites like Lefkandi, even though the names of the grandly buried dead were hardly remembered. "Stories began to be told to individuate the persons who were now believed to be buried in these old and imposing sites", observes Robin Lane Fox.
Greek hero cult | Introduction
In the eighteenth century the Picts were co-opted as a "Germanic" race. In the Celtic domains of Scotland, also known as "Gàidhealtachd", there were ancient pre-Christian structures. In the farthest end of northwest Scotland there are standing stones at Callanish on the Isle of Lewis, in a vertical position, which are akin to the Stonehenge; these are believed to be older than Stonehenge and are standing for more than 5000 years and said to be denoting sun worship.
Scottish mythology | National mythology
After spreading its domination over Eastern Europe, these Jewish-Tatars suddenly disappeared from the stage of history. What became of them? A part of these Khazars will have looked early on for a shelter in Transylvania, from where they crossed to the Danubian countries, especially in Muntenia, particularly in Muscel and Romanați districts where the traditional memories regarding them seem to be concentrated. [...] The settlements and their dwellings left important traces that took on colossal proportions in people's imagination. People of a supernatural size seemed to have lived [...] in an ancient time, which the old can hardly remember, and our peasants call those giant people Jews or Tatars." The scholar referred to various constants in folkloric accounts: peasants' testimonies which attributed large stone ruins to the Jews (whom they occasionally referred to as giants or supernaturally powerful people) and the "red" antagonists in fairy tales such as Ion Creangă's "Harap Alb" (the "Red Emperor", the "Red Man" and people with red-colored facial markings, all placed by Șăineanu in connection to the "Red Jews" myth).
Lazăr Șăineanu | Work in Romanian folklore
They lived Southern Central Europe (in the Upper Danube basin and neighbouring regions) which is hypothesized as the original area of the Celts (Proto-Celts), corresponding to the Hallstatt Culture. Later they expanded towards the Middle Danube valley and to parts of the Balkans and towards inland central Asia Minor or Anatolia (Galatians). Hercynian Forest ("Hercynia Silva"), north of the Danube and east of the Rhine was in their lands. Celts, especially those from Western and Central Europe, were generally called by the Romans “Galli” i.e. “Gauls”, this name was synonym of “Celts”, this also means that not all of the peoples and tribes called by the name “Gauls” (Galli) were specifically Gauls in a narrower more regional sense.
List of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes | <a href="Eastern%20Celts">Eastern Celts</a>
A profound interest in genealogy and family history is noted as a feature of the culture of the Celtic nations and regions and people with a Celtic heritage. People in traditional Celtic areas can recite their genealogy back though the generations as history, moving rhythmically from one name to another using only Christian name as illustrated by lyrics of the Runrig song Sìol Ghoraidh "The Genealogy of Goraidh". The disease hereditary Haemochromatosis has by far its highest prevalence rate among people of Celtic ancestry. Other traits far more prevalent among people of Celtic ancestry include lactase persistence and red hair, with 46% of Irish and at least 36% of Highland Scots being carriers of red-head variants of the MC1R gene, possibly an adaptation to the cloudy weather of the areas where they live.
Celts (modern) | Ancestry
Walter Burkert warns, "To what extent one can and must differentiate between Minoan and Mycenaean religion is a question which has not yet found a conclusive answer". Burkert suggests that useful parallels will be found in the relations between Etruscan and Archaic Greek culture and religion, or between Roman and Hellenistic culture. Minoan religion has not been transmitted in its own language, and the uses literate Greeks later made of surviving Cretan mythemes, after centuries of purely oral transmission, have transformed the meager sources: consider the Athenian point of view of the Theseus legend. A few Cretan names are preserved in Greek mythology, but there is no way to connect a name with an existing Minoan icon such as the familiar serpent-goddess.
Minoan religion | Legacy in Mycenaean and classical Greek tradition
Some scholars, such as Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick, have speculated that the Celts venerated certain trees and others, such as Miranda Aldhouse-Green, that the Celts were animists, believing that all aspects of the natural world contained spirits, and that communication was possible with these spirits. Places such as rocks, streams, mountains, and trees may all have had shrines or offerings devoted to a deity residing there. These would have been local deities, known and worshiped by inhabitants living near to the shrine itself, and not pan-Celtic like some of the polytheistic gods. The importance of trees in Celtic religion may be shown by the fact that the very name of the Eburonian tribe contains a reference to the yew tree, and that names like Mac Cuilinn (son of holly) and Mac Ibar (son of yew) appear in Irish myths.
Ancient Celtic religion | Animistic aspects
The double axe is used by Cretan folklore preservation societies and associations both in Greece and abroad, on occasion with the spelling "lavrys" reflecting modern Greek pronunciation.
Labrys | Culture
Many of the authors relating ethnic names of Germanic peoples speculated concerning their origin, from the earliest writers to approximately the Renaissance. One cross-cultural approach over this more than a millennium of historical speculation was to assign an eponymous ancestor of the same name as, or reconstructed from, the name of the people. For example, Hellen was the founder of the Hellenes. Although some Enlightenment historians continued to repeat these ancient stories as though fact, today they are recognised as manifestly mythological. There was, for example, no Franko, or Francio, ancestor of the Franks. The convergence of data from history, linguistics and archaeology have made this conclusion inevitable.
List of ancient Germanic peoples | Mythical founders
According to local legend, Pontius Pilate was born in its shade and played there as a child. Dr Paul S Philippou, honorary research fellow in history at the University of Dundee, has suggested the legend is historically inaccurate and is an embellished myth.
Fortingall Yew | Legend
In his compendium of folk and faerie (encounters with the "Daoine Sìth" race) tales of the mainland, Sir George Douglas records that the ancestral dialogues and mythological apologues of the Scottish peasantry, and the folkish customs employed in recounting them, "still linger in the remote western islands of Barra; where, in the long winter nights, the people would gather in crowds to listen to those whom they considered good exponents of the art. At an earlier date, – but still, at that time [in the mid twentieth century], within living memory, – the custom survived at Poolewe in Ross-shire where the young people were used to assemble at night to hear the old ones recite the tales which they had learned from their fore-fathers.
Loch Ewe | Ancient Mariner folklore
During the Middle Ages, Germanic peoples were successively converted to Christianity. The study of Germanic mythology has remained an important element of Germanic philology since the development of the field and the topic is an integral component of Heathenry, the modern revival of Germanic paganism. Elements of Germanic mythology has survived into modern Germanic folklore.
Germanic mythology | Legacy
The Celts settled in Armorica toward the 8th century BCE. Some of early groups mentioned in the written records of the Greeks were the Redones and the Namnetes. They spoke dialects of the Gaulish language and maintained important economic ties with the British Isles. Julius Caesar's invasion of Armorica in 56 BC led to a sort of Romanization of the population. Gaulish continued to be spoken in this region until the 6th century CE, especially in less populated, rural areas. When the Bretons emigrated to Armorica around this time, they found a people who had retained their Celtic language and culture.
Gallo language | Celtic, Latin and Germanic roots
Welsh mythology consists of both folk traditions developed in Wales, and traditions developed by the Celtic Britons elsewhere before the end of the first millennium. As in most of the predominantly oral societies Celtic mythology and history were recorded orally by specialists such as druids (). This oral record has been lost or altered as a result of outside contact and invasion over the years. Much of this altered mythology and history is preserved in medieval Welsh manuscripts, which include the Red Book of Hergest, the White Book of Rhydderch, the Book of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin. Other works connected to Welsh mythology include the ninth-century Latin historical compilation "Historia Brittonum" ("History of the Britons") and Geoffrey of Monmouth's twelfth-century Latin chronicle "Historia Regum Britanniae" ("History of the Kings of Britain"), as well as later folklore, such as the materials collected in "The Welsh Fairy Book" by William Jenkyn Thomas (1908).
Welsh mythology | Introduction
Mythological stories besides having been preserved both in various literary forms, have also been collected from various oral traditions, some of these folktales are still told. Some of these sources are from people of the Han ethnicity and some from other ethnic groups.
Flood Mythology of China | Collected mythology
Cognates deriving from the Proto-Indo-European First Priest "*Manu" ("Man", "ancestor of mankind") include the Indic Manu, legendary first man in Hinduism, and Manāvī, his sacrificed wife; the Germanic Mannus (from Germ. "*Manwaz"), mythical ancestor of the West Germanic tribes; and the Persian Manūščihr (from Av. "Manūš.čiθra"), a Zoroastrian high priest of the 9th century AD. From the name of the sacrificed First King "*Yemo" ("Twin") derive the Indic Yama, god of death and the underworld; the Avestan Yima, king of the golden age and guardian of hell; the Norse Ymir (from Germ. *"Jumijaz"), ancestor of the giants ("jötnar"); and most likely Remus (from Proto-Latin "*Yemos" or "*Yemonos"), killed in the Roman foundation myth by his twin brother Romulus.
Proto-Indo-European mythology | Legacy
Pre-Christian traditions of the veneration of trees (particularly the oak, see Donar's oak), springs and woods native to the Low Countries survived in Christianized guise into the Middle Ages. Sources for the reconstruction of pre-Christian traditions include the accounts of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries to the region, medieval and modern folklore and legend, and local toponymy.
Mythology in the Low Countries | Introduction
A pre-Christian Celitc origin for the legend has been proposed, and endorsed by some writers. French archeologist Isidore Gilles proposed the pre-Christian pagan origins for the legend of the tarasque, and connected with the so-called "tarasque of Noves", unearthed at the village Noves, once called "Tarasconnet". The find was a stone statue of a sharp-toothed chimeric beast with a scaly back, "crunching a human arm in its mouth". Gilles postulated this was a Celtic deified beast to which human sacrifices were offered. Gilles's theory was embraced by the Provençal poet Frederic Mistral, and Dumont was disinclined to dismiss Mistrl's belief altogether.
Tarasque | Celtic origin hypothesis
After she formally declaims the purpose of her actions, as customary in Greco-Roman magic ritual, saying, "I have gagged spiteful tongues and muzzled unfriendly mouths" ("Hostiles linguas inimicaque uinximus ora"), she departs intoxicated. The use of the black beans in the old woman's ritual may be related to rites that lend themselves to another festival of the dead in the month of May, called Lemuria. During Lemuria the dead ancestor spirits, particularly the unburied, called lemures, emerge from their graves and visit the homes in which they had lived. It was then necessary to confront the unwelcome spirits and lure them out of one's house using specific actions and chants.
Feralia | Rites and tradition
Sensing danger, Piri-Piri disappeared in a cloud, never to return. In the place where the warrior was last seen, a plant sprouted which also gave off his magnificent aroma; in his honor, this plant was named "piripirioca", later shortened to priprioca.
Cyperus articulatus | In Folklore
This may have been a cultural memory of an extinct Madtsoiidae python-like serpent, a water dwelling ambush predator, part of the extinct megafauna of Australia that disappeared between 40,000 and 20,000 years ago. Coastal dwelling Whadjuk have an oral tradition describing the separation of Rottnest from the mainland, which occurred between 12,000–8,000 BCE, technically a post-glacial Flandrian transgression.
Whadjuk | Culture and pre-history
In keeping with his ritualist approach to myth and other preoccupations in "The Golden Bough", J.G. Frazer thought that the pigs, rather than merely accompanying Persephone in her descent, were an original feature of the story, representing the "corn spirit" that was later anthropomorphized as the young goddess.
Eubuleus | Myth
Comparative methods can reveal that some motifs of folktales, fragments of songs or rhymes of folk customs preserved pieces of the old belief system. Some records tell about shaman-like figures directly. Shamanic remnants in Hungarian folklore was researched among others by , based on ethnographic records in Hungary and comparative works with various shamans of some Siberian peoples. Ethnographer Mihály Hoppál continued his work of studying Hungarian shamanistic belief remnants, comparing shamanistic beliefs of Uralic language relatives of Hungarians with those of several non-Uralic Siberian peoples as well.
Hungarian mythology | Remnants in folklore
Thus, the extinct species may be the immediate ancestor of "G. eremita", which would have originated at the western extent of its range. Some authors even include the Bulgarian population in "G. eremita", but most are more cautious. "G. balcanicus" may also represent a lineage related but not ancestral to the northern bald ibis, which inhabited the inland regions northeastwards of the European Alpides and – like the immediate ancestor of "G. eremita" in this scenario – was isolated from the ancestors of "G. calvus" when gene flow across tropical Africa ceased.
Geronticus | Fossil record
Para-Celtic has the meaning that these peoples had common ancestors with the Celts but were not Celts themselves (although they were later Celticized and belong to a Celtic culture sphere of influence), they were not direct descendants from the Proto-Celts. They may in fact have been Proto-Celto-Italic, predating the Celtic or Italic languages and originated earlier from either Proto-Celtic or Proto-Italic populations who spread from Central Europe into Western Europe after new Yamnaya migrations into the Danube Valley. Alternatively, a European branch of Indo-European dialects, termed "North-west Indo-European" and associated with the Beaker culture, may have been ancestral to not only Celtic and Italic, but also to Germanic and Balto-Slavic.
List of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes | Possible Para-Celts
They spoke Goidelic (an Insular Celtic language of the Q Celtic type. According to Ptolemy's "Geography" (2nd century AD) (in brackets the names are in Greek as on the map):
List of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes | <a href="Gaels">Goidels</a> / <a href="Gaels">Gaels</a> / <a href="Gaels">Hibernians</a>
The legend of Cantre'r Gwaelod is comparable to the deluge myth found in nearly every ancient culture and it has been likened to the story of Atlantis. Several similar legends exist in Celtic mythology which refer to a lost land beneath the waves. Both the Breton legend of Ker-Ys and the Arthurian tale of Lyonesse refer to a kingdom submerged somewhere in the Celtic Sea, off the coast of Brittany or Cornwall respectively. A weaker parallel is the Gaelic otherworld Tír na nÓg ('Land of Youth'), often conceived of an mystical land reached via a sea voyage; however, it lacks an inundation myth.
Cantre'r Gwaelod | Analogies in other legends
Attested place names include "Acitorīgiāco" ("[Settlement of] "Acitorīx""; compare "Acitodunum" in Gaul), Άρτικνιακόν ("Articniācon", "[Settlement of] "Articnos"" ["Bear-son"]), Δρυνέμετον ("Drunemeton"; < Proto-Celtic "*dru-" "oak" and, by extension, "great"; cf. Old Irish "druí", Welsh "dryw" [< "*dru-wid-s"], "druid, wise man" [literally "greatly wise"], Old Irish "neimed", Welsh "nyfed" "holy place, [sacred] grove"), the meeting place of the Galatian tetrarchs and judges, and Ούινδια ("Uindia" Fair/White/Holy Place"; Old Irish "finn", Welsh "gwyn" [masc.], "gwen" [fem.] "fair, white; holy").
Galatian language | Place names
He also published an English version of a study by Paul-Yves Pezron of Gaulish. In 1767 James Parsons published his study "The Remains of Japhet, being historical enquiries into the affinity and origins of the European languages". He compared a 1000-word lexicon of Irish and Welsh and concluded that they were originally the same, then comparing the numerals in many other languages.
Celtic studies | History
However, there is evidence of destruction at the end of the Early Helladic III period at Korakou (near Corinth) and Eutresis in Boeotia. Nevertheless, Caskey found the Middle Helladic people to be the direct ancestors of the Myceneans and later Greeks. Although scholars today agree that the Mycenean Greeks descend from the "Minyans" of the Middle Helladic period, they question Caskey's suggestion that (proto-Greek) Indo-European invaders destroyed Early Helladic II settlements throughout Greece. In fact, the layers of destruction Caskey found at Lerna and Tiryns were ultimately attributed to fire. Moreover, there are indications of Early Helladic II culture being directly succeeded by Early Helladic III culture.
Minyans | Excavations
The nature and functions of these ancient gods can be deduced from their names, the location of their inscriptions, their iconography, the Roman gods they are equated with, and similar figures from later bodies of Celtic mythology. Celtic mythology is found in a number of distinct, if related, subgroups, largely corresponding to the branches of the Celtic languages:
Celtic mythology | Overview
The culture of Classical Antiquity, including mythology, Hellenistic religion and magical or cultic practice was very influential on the formative stage of Christianity, and can be found as a substrate in the traditions of all territories formerly colonized by the Roman Empire, and by extension in those territories reached by Christianization during the Middle Ages. This includes all of Europe, and much of the Middle East and North Africa. These traditions inherited from folk beliefs in the Roman era were syncretized with local traditions, notably Germanic, Celtic and Slavic. Many folk traditions also originated by contact with the Islamic world, especially in the Balkans and in the Iberian peninsula, which were ruled by Islamic empires before being re-conquered (in the case of the Balkans, partially) by Christian forces.
European folklore | History
Autonous became a stone curlew (Greek όκνος, because he "was not in time", όκνησε in Greek, to save Anthus), Hippodamia became a lark (the bird has a crest which symbolizes her courage) and Acanthis became a thistle finch; others became birds whose Greek names are the same as their personal names were when they were humans. Erodius and Anthus' servant were transformed into black and white heron respectively; birds of these two species are never seen together.
Autonous | Mythology