Celts And Their Religion And Holidays

Samhain (pronounced "sow-in" or "saw-in") is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the "darker half" of the year. In ancient Celtic mythology, Samhain was believed to be a time when the boundary between the living and the dead became blurred. The veil between the two worlds was thought to be at its thinnest, allowing for communication with ancestors and spirits. The festival was marked by feasting, bonfires, and divination rituals to predict the future.

Transcript

The Celts,

Their religion and festivals The first reference to Great Britain in European annals,

Of which we know was the statement in the 5th century BC of the Greek historian Herodotus,

That the Phoenician sailor went to the British Isles,

He called them the Tin Islands.

The people with whom these sailors traded must have been Celts,

For they were the first inhabitants of Britain who worked in metal instead of stone.

The Druids were priests of the Celts,

Centuries before Christ.

There is a tradition in Ireland that they first arrived there in 270 BC,

700 years before Saint Patrick.

The account of them written by Julius Caesar,

Half a century before Christ,

Speaks mainly of the Celts of Gaul,

Dividing them into two ruling classes,

Who kept the people almost in a state of slavery,

The Knights,

Who waged war,

And the Druids,

Who had charge of worship and sacrifices,

And were in addition physicians,

Historians,

Teachers,

Scientists and judges.

Caesar says that this cult originated in Britain,

And was transferred to Gaul.

Gaul and Britain had one religion and one language,

And might even have one king.

The Celts worshipped spirits of forest and stream,

And feared the powers of evil,

As did the Greeks and all other early people.

Very much of their primitive belief has been kept,

So that the Scotch,

Irish,

And Welsh peasantry brooks,

Hills,

Dales,

And rocks abound,

In tiny supernatural beings,

Who may work them good or evil,

Lead them astray by flickering lights,

Or charm them into seven years' servitude unless they are bribed to show favour.

The name Druid is derived from the Celtic word druid,

Meaning sage,

Connected with the Greek word for oak,

Drus.

From the Taliesin,

Battle of trees,

The rapid oak tree,

Before him heaven and earth quake,

Stout doorkeeper against the foe,

In every land his name is mine.

For the oak was held sacred by them,

As a symbol of omnipotent God,

Upon whom they depended for life,

Like the mistletoe growing upon it.

Their ceremonies were held.

Oak grows.

Later,

From their name,

A word meaning magician was formed,

Showing that these priests had gained the reputation of being dealers in magic.

They dealt in symbols,

Common objects to which was given by interposition of spirits,

Meaning to signify certain facts,

And power to produce certain effects.

Since they were tree worshippers,

Trees and plants were thought to have peculiar powers.

Caesar provides them with the galaxy of Roman divinities,

Mercury,

Mars,

Jupiter and Minerva,

Who of course were worshipped under their native names.

Their chief god was Baal,

Of whom they believed the sun,

The visible emblem.

They represented him by lowlier tokens,

Such as circles and wheels.

The tree foil,

Changed into a figure composed of three winged feet,

Radiating from a centre,

Represented the swiftness of the sun's journey.

The cross too was a symbol of the sun,

Being the appearance of its light shining upon two or stream,

Making to the half-closed eye little bright crosses.

To Baal they made sacrifices of criminals or prisoners of war,

Often burning them alive in vicar images.

These bonfires lightened on the hills,

Were meant to urge the god to protect and bless the crops and herds.

From the appearance of the victims sacrificed in them,

Omens were taken that foretold the future.

The gods and the other supernatural powers in answer to prayer were thought to signify their will by omens,

And also by the following methods,

The ordeal,

In which the innocence or guilt of a person,

Shown by the way the god permitted him to endure the fire or utter torture,

The driving out of demons by saying mysterious words or names over them,

Becoming skilled in interpreting the will of the gods,

The Druids came to be known as prophets,

Or gods.

Idre,

Terrible child,

For thee,

Red star of our ruin,

Great weeping shall be in Eri,

Woe,

Woe,

And priege in Ulla,

Thy feet shall tremble,

The mighty,

And stumble on the heads to last.

They kept their lore for the most part a secret,

Forbidding it to be written,

Passing it down by word of mouth.

They got immortality of the soul,

That it passed from one body to another at death.

They believed that,

On the last night of the old year,

October 31st,

The Lord of Death gathered together the souls of all those who had died in the passing year,

And had been condemned to live in the bodies of animals,

To decree what forms they should inhabit for the next twelve months.

They could be coaxed to give lighter sentences by gifts and prayers.

The badge of the annitiated Druid was a glass ball reported to be made in summer of the spittle of snakes,

And caught by the priests as the snakes tossed it into the air.

And the potent adder stone,

Gendered for the autumnal moon,

When in undulating twine the forming snakes' prolific join,

It was real glass,

Blown by the Druids themselves.

It was supposed to aid the wearer in winning lawsuits and securing the favor of kings.

An animal sacred to the Druids was the cat,

A slender black cat,

Reclining on a chain of old silver,

Guarded treasure.

In the old days,

For a long time cats were treaded by the people because they thought human beings had been changed to that form by evil means.

The chief festivals of the Druids fell on four days,

Celebrating phases of the sun's career.

Fires of sacrifice were lighted especially at spring and midsummer holidays,

By exception on November 1st.

May Day and November Day were the more important,

The beginning and end of summer,

Yet neither equinoxes or solstices.

The time was divided then,

Not according to sowing or reaping,

But by the older method of reckoning,

From when the herds were turned out to pasture in the spring and brought into the fold again at the approach of winter,

By a pastoral rather than an agricultural people.

On the night before Beltane,

The first of May,

Fires were burned to Baal to celebrate the return of the sun during summer.

Before sunrise the houses were decked with garlands to gladden the sun when he appeared,

A rite which has survived in going May.

The May Day fires were used for purification.

Cattle were assigned by being led near the flames,

And sometimes bled that their blood might be offered as a sacrifice for a prosperous season.

When low a flame,

A wavy flame of ruddy light,

Leaped up the farmyard fence above,

And while his children's shout rang high,

His cows the farmer slowly drove across the blaze,

He knew not why.

A cake was baked in the fire,

With one piece plagued with charcoal.

Whoever got the plagued piece was thereby mocked for sacrifice to Baal,

Later only the symbol of offering was used,

The victim being forced to leap thrice over the flames.

In history it was the Day of Good.

Bart Holon,

The discoverer and promoter of Ireland,

Came to Earth from the other world to stay three hundred years.

The gods themselves first arrived there through the air on May Day.

June 21st,

The day of the summer solstice,

The height of the sun's power,

Was mocked by midnight fires of joy and by dancers.

These were believed to strengthen the sun's heat.

A blazing wheel to represent the sun was rolled downhill.

A happy thought,

Give me this cartwheel,

I'll have it tied with ropes and speared with pitch,

And when it's lighted,

I will roll it down the steepest hillside.

Spirits were believed to be abroad,

And torches were carried about the fields to protect them from invasion.

Chants were tried on that night with seeds of fern and hemp,

And dreams were believed to be prophetic.

Lo!

In old Highland's speech,

The summer sun,

The hour may hit her drift,

When at the last amid the oswery tree,

Very of long delight and deadless joys,

One you shall love may fade before your eyes,

Before your eyes may fade and be as mist,

Caught in the sunny hollow of Lo's hand,

Lord of the day,

For father one of the gods,

And for mother the daughter of a chief of the enemy.

Lo may be the Celtic Mercury,

For they were alike skilled in magic and alchemy,

In deception,

Successful in combats with demons,

The bringers of new strength,

And cleansing to the nation.

He said farewell to power on the first of August,

And his foster mother had died on that day,

And that became his feast day.

The occasion was called Lugnasart,

The Bridal of Lo.

At the earth whence the harvest should spring.

It was celebrated by the offering of the first fruits of harvest,

And by athletic sports.

In Mead Island this continued down into the 19th century,

With dancing and horse racing the first week of August.

Reviews

That was very enjoyable to listen to as well as informative