Myths and Legends of the Celts (Penguin Reference) Read Free Page A

complex social structures and a relatively strict morality. We now have detailed information about domestic accommodations, dress, diet, artisanship, agriculture and, especially, funerary rites. Abundant physical representation of what appear to be anthropomorphic deities often survives in sharp relief. The face of a god or goddess cannot, however, always be matched with a name. And even when we have names, some coordinated with those of classical commentators, we lack the narrative setting to make the Celtic deity a figure of action, as we do with Greek and Roman traditions.
    Most discussed of the physical evidence is the celebrated Gundestrup Cauldron, named for the village of the Jutland Peninsula, Denmark, where it was found in a peat bog in 1880. Standing 14 inches high, 25.5 inches in diameter, capable of holding 28.5 gallons, the cauldron is made of 96 per cent pure silver, was originally gilded and weighs nearly 20 pounds. Ornate, detailed figures, some demonstrably of Celtic origin, such as its ram-headed snakes and the boar-headed war trumpet, decorate the seven outer and five inner plates, all of which are separable. Animals appear along with ordinary mortals and gods, conventionally seen as larger than human. A female deity flanked by wheels, as if riding in a cart, evokes Queen Medb of Connacht, as she is seen in medieval Irish narrative. A tall divine figure holding a man over a vat evokes the ferocious Teutates of Gaulish religion, accepting a human sacrifice. And, most impressively, a horned god, seated in what almost looks like a yogi’s full lotus position, can now be identified with Cernunnos, a lord of nature, animals, fruit, grain and prosperity. Known elsewhere in more than thirty representations, Cernunnos may have been a principal god of the Continental Celts.
The succession of images on the cauldron, armed infantry and cavalry, a sacred tree, a spotted leopard, a small acolyte in a bull-horned helmet offering a chariot or cart wheel to the bust of a bearded god, all tease out the possibility of a narrative. Most scholars discern no continuity in the imagery, but one, Garrett Olmstead, has argued provocatively that the figures on the Gundestrup Cauldron can be seen as an anticipation of the episodes in the
Táin Bó Cuailnge
[The Cattle Raid of Cooley], the great epic of early Irish literature, of which Queen Medb is a leading figure.
    Each new discovery of even the smallest artifact, together with each new evaluation of the physical record, enlarges our grasp of ancient Celtic life. This new knowledge tends to circumscribe and diminish what we have received from the ancient written record in Greek and Latin, the several dozen writers known as the classical commentators. Learned men in Athens and Rome seemed so familiar with the presence of the Celts that they felt no need to explain or contextualize any observations about them. Ephorus (fourth century BC ) classified the Celts as one of the four principal barbarian peoples, along with the Scythians of eastern Europe, the Persians of Asia and the Libyans of Africa. The Greek ‘Father of History’, Herodotus (
c
.485–428 BC ), recorded much of the Celts, as did the Roman historians Livy (58 BC - AD 17) and Tacitus ( AD 55–117), whose purview included Roman Britain during the rule of his fatherin-law Julius Agricola ( AD 78–84). The philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC ) cited the Celts when discussing bravery. More valuable are the asides and digressions of Polybius (204–122 BC ), who gives details of Celtic dress and living conditions as well as depicting the selfless heroism of raiders preying upon the Italian peninsula. Abundant particulars, despite his heavy-handed condescension, may be found in the
Geography
of the Greek Strabo (58 BC - AD 24) who lived in Rome. He found the Celts ‘war-mad’, though not fundamentally of evil character. Despite their strength and courage, Strabo wrote, the Celts were easily outwitted by their more