Air Max LTD The Religion of the Celts

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Superstition and Human Sacrifice
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The Celts and their Belief Systems
A Brief Introduction to the Celts
Who Were the Ancient Druids?
They were a polytheistic people like the Romans and the Greeks but unlike them, the Celts did not have an established pantheon of gods and goddesses. Their gods and goddesses tended to be deities with a local identity and thousands of them may have existed; only a few gods and goddesses were ‘national’.
In addition to overseeing religious practices, druids were responsible for all of Celtic learning, law and philosophy. They were teachers, lawmakers and keepers as well as upholding the moral system of the tribes.
The Celts had sacred places, lakes and rivers and groves or woods. Here the druids carried out ceremonies, mistletoe being cut from oak trees usually accompanied by a bull sacrifice, but the significance to us is now obscure.
Religious Intolerance
Sources
Woodland Groves and Watery Places
Ritual and sacrifice, including human sacrifice,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], was believed to sanction approval from and influence benevolent supernatural powers. The Celtic year was interspersed by festivals celebrating the seasons and, the druids, the guardians of the Celtic oral traditions, told tales and myths that were handed down through the generations.
Wood, J, The Celts: Life, Myth and Art, 1998, Duncan Baird Publishers, London
The druids also had a political role and at times were even called upon to decide on military matters.
The druids held the knowledge of the Celts and, as such, wielded enormous influence, an influence that was a threat to Roman dominance. The Romans demonised the druids, emphasising their ritual of human sacrifice, and almost eliminated them.
The druids were the administrators of the Celtic religion. The Greeks and the Romans described the druids as ‘priests’ but their function in the community was much more complex, and had a much wider influence. It took twenty years to learn the druidical cannon and no wonder.
Celtic God
Although in previous conquests the Romans showed a remarkable tolerance for other religions, it was not to be the case for the Celtic religion and the druids.
The Celts were the first culture to believe in an afterlife, weeping at a birth and celebrating a funeral.
When the Celts converted to Christianity,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the druids survived as bards,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], judges and historians.
But they were deeply superstitious. They believed that the gods and goddesses could change shape to animal or bird form and as such believed that all objects in their physical environment were filled with magical powers.
One Roman writer describes how before a battle, both armies lined up against each other, swords drawn, spears at the ready, a druid might charge between the bands of men and stop the conflict.
Ellis, Peter Berresford, The Celtic Empire 1000BC – 51AD, 1990, Constable and Company Ltd, London
Druids
The Celts were not a religious people in the way that we would understand religion and religious conformity today.
The Celtic word for ‘oak’ shares a linguistic tie with the word druid, and mistletoe,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a parasitic plant, is often found growing on oaks.
Mistletoe is a symbol of Celtic practices. Mistletoe is a bright evergreen plant that during cold northerly winters may have been given spiritual weight by the druids as evidence of eternal life.
The Roman orator Cicero (106-43 BCE) writes that druids were great natural scientists with knowledge of astronomy and physics that they used in the making of calendars, calendars much more complex than the Julian calendar.
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