The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts

ELOQUENCE

The Celts have always admired eloquence, believing it to be more powerful than brute strength.

ETAIN

Etain of the Tuatha dé Danann was the heroine of the Irish love story Midhir and Etain. This tale has been the inspiration of poems and plays, and is probably best known through Fiona McLeod’s play The Immortal Hour and Rutland Boughton’s opera, which in turn is based on the McLeod play (see Part 6: Celtic Twilight and Revival).

EWEIN WHITETOOTH

King of Powys in the early sixth century. He was murdered by Maelgwn, the notorious King of Gwynedd, and succeeded by his (Ewein’s) son Cynlas. Cynlas was nicknamed, possibly privately by Gildas, Cuneglasus, which meant “Pale Dog” in Brittonic.

FANNELL

See Religion: Headhunting.

FARANNAN

An Irish monk from Sligo who went with Columba when he left for Iona.

FEIC

See Fiacc of Sletty.

FERGNA BRIT

An abbot of Iona, 608–624.

FIACC OF SLETTY

A magus or wizard of Loegaire, High King of Ireland. Fiacc or Feic was a student under Dubthach Maccu Lugir. He was the only one of Loegaire’s magi to accept Patrick (See Magicians).

FILIDH

See Learning.

FINGAR OF GWINNEAR

A Cornish saint. He was the son of an Irish king called Clyto. When Patrick visited Clyto’s court in Ireland, Fingar alone honored him. Fingar was apparently disinherited and emigrated to Brittany (via Cornwall) where he founded monasteries with his sister Piala and 770 companions and seven bishops. They were accompanied by St. Hia, who traveled by herself on a leaf. This odd convoy landed at Hayle, where it was attacked by the local King Theodoric, a pagan who was afraid the missionaries would convert his subjects. He had been warned by Clyto that his son had sailed and fell on the rear of one party and killed them. According to one account, Fingar’s party then surrendered and were massacred. Fingar himself was beheaded, but he replaced his head and went on to perform several miracles.

FINNIAN OF CLONARD

Finnian was the “teacher of the saints of Ireland.” He founded Clonard, where he encountered the magus Fraychan.

Finnian’s mother founded a monastic house for women, together with the mother of Ciaran of Clonmacnoise.

Finnian lived on a simple diet of bread, vegetables, and water, and a little fish on feast days. He slept on the ground with a stone pillow. He died in 551.

His tradition was hard, rather like St. David’s, but without the harshness or arrogance that was attributed to David. Finnian was said to be full of learning and compassion.

FOGOU

A low-ceilinged subterranean passage in Cornwall. Fogous are similar to souterrains in being associated with settlements, but they are made in a different way. The Breton souterrains were burrowed out of sand, while the Cornish fogous were built in open trenches with side walls of stone and roofed with capstones; they were then covered with backfill. There is the same discussion about their function as with souterrains; on balance it is most likely that their primary use was as grain stores.

The fine fogou at Carn Euny in Cornwall was made in the first century BC. The passage is 66 feet (20m) long with, unusually, a circular side chamber.

FOILL

See Religion: Headhunting.

FOOD AND FEASTING

Ceremony surrounded the Celtic domestic hearth. Even more ceremony surrounded the provision of large meals. Banquets and feasting were major characteristics of the Celtic way of life.

Posidonius described a feast:

The Celts sit on hay and have their meals served up on wooden tables raised slightly above the earth. Their food consists of small numbers of loaves together with a large amount of meat, either boiled or roasted on charcoal or on spits. This food is eaten cleanly, but they eat like lions, raising up whole limbs in both hands and biting off the meat…

When a large number dine together they sit around in a circle with the most influential man in the centre, like the leader of the chorus, whether he surpasses the others in warlike skill, or lineage, or wealth. Beside him sits the host and next on either side the others in order of distinction…

The Celts sometimes engage in single combat at dinner. For they gather in arms and engage in mock battles, and fight hand-to-hand, but sometimes wounds are inflicted, and the annoyance caused by this may even lead to killing unless the bystanders restrain them. In former times, when the hindquarters were served up the bravest hero took the thigh piece, and if another man claimed it they stood up and fought in single combat to the death.

Feasts such as these were designed to reinforce the pecking order among the warriors, and to strengthen the ties among members of the band.

The main drinks in an Iron Age Celtic feast were beer and mead, though the nobility adopted wine as soon as the trade routes to the Mediterranean allowed. At first it was a very expensive luxury. There was even a tale current in Rome that the Celts had crossed the Alps and invaded Italy just to get closer to the vineyards.

FORTIFICATIONS

On some of the hilltops there were large hillforts, surrounded by complex ramparts and palisades. Although called forts, they had several functions. They were stock enclosures and refuges in times of danger, they housed permanent settlements, and they were the focus of tribal gatherings and feastings (See Food and Feasting, Tribes). They probably also had a ceremonial and religious function, as well as acting as clear territorial markers—literally landmarks—that would help to create a sense of cohesion among people who were normally scattered across the landscape in separate homesteads.

The hillfort was usually laid out on the summit of a hill and surrounded by an earthwork that was intended to be clearly visible from below. The massive squared ramparts were faced front and back by rows of upright timbers tied by horizontal crossbeams. The earthen rampart was topped by a stout palisade, to defend the fighting-platform behind it, as at Hollingbury in Sussex. All the timber breastworks have disintegrated now, and the earth and rock they supported has slipped sideways, yet the ramparts can still be imposing. Maiden Castle in Dorset is the most impressive of the hillforts, with a complex mazelike entrance; it was the capital of the Durotriges tribe.

In Galicia, there were lots of defended homesteads built on hilltops. The presence of these castros distinguishes Galicia from the rest of the Iberian peninsula; they are the hallmark of its ancient Celtic past. The castro is a hilltop settlement, like a miniature hillfort, defended by multiple walls. Within, there is an ordered settlement, mostly with round stone houses built to a high density. Castro de Baroña is a fine example (See Dwellings).

FUNERAL ODES

One of the duties of a Celtic bard was to write a funeral ode on the death of his king. A fine example has survived, entitled Marwnad Uthyr Pendragon, which can be translated as The Funeral Ode to the Wonderful Pendragon. For a long time this was thought to be the funeral ode for Uther, Arthur’s father, but the word “uter” can be an adjective meaning “terrible” or “wonderful,” while pendragon is a Celtic title for High King or dux bellorum. This means that the ode might have been addressed to Arthur himself:

The longing and lamentation of the multitude

Are unceasing throughout the host.

They earnestly yearn for the joyful prize of blue enamel.

There your stone with your name became a riddle.

They also wish for their Prince.

All around appears the rule of order at the head of the feast.

They seek to dress the head of the feast with black.

They unendingly shed blood among the war-bands,

Longing for you to defend them and give them succour.

The sword that was in the van in taming the brothers of Caw of the Wall.

They crave with longing for a portion of your cause

And for refuge in the manliness of Arthur.

They long for your coming in a hundred fortresses.

A hundred manors long for your assurances.

They long for your coming in a hundred schools.

A hundred chieftains long for your coming:

The great and mighty sword that supported them.

They look for your best judgements of merit,

The restoration of principalities.

Your sayings are remembered, soothing the aggressive.

The eloquence of the bards is not great enough:

Toiling for weeks with the eagerness of beavers,

With the names of men and war-bands to compare you.

Above the eagles, above the fear of disorder,

I am the one who is with the great Warrior.

I am the bard, the bagpiper. I am with the Creator;

Seventy musicians create the great rhapsody of the first power…

The Leader of Heaven has left the nation without a roof.

“Caw of the Wall” seems an odd phrase. The Life of Cadoc tells us that Caw (Cauus) lived in southern Scotland, not far from Hadrian’s Wall; he was the father of Gildas.

In another poem, The Dream of Rhonabwy, Arthur is described as sitting with Gwarthegydd, another son of Caw.

Other evidence confirms that Arthur and Caw were contemporaries, so the ode was written at the right time to have been for Arthur. If it is his eulogy, it tells us a great deal about the way he was regarded at the time of his death. The final image is the most telling of all: “The Leader of Heaven has left the nation without a roof.”

GABRAN

See Bridei.

GAMES

Celtic chiefs undoubtedly played board games and maybe their subjects did too.

Gaming pieces made out of wood have not survived, but a set made out of glass was found in a royal grave at Welwyn Garden City, just north of London. It consisted of a set of 12 white marbles and an opposing set of 12 black marbles, both highly decorated. The wooden game board was 2 feet (0.6m) square and badly decayed. This was a game similar to Ludo, and it was designed for two players. Although Ludo itself was patented in the nineteenth century, it was based on a very old board game.

Dice have been found at other sites, but in the Welwyn grave there were six fragments of beads and bracelets, which may have been thrown to determine the number of moves each player made.

GENEALOGY

Kings and princes were entitled to their privileges by birthright, in other words according to who their mothers and fathers were. They therefore had a strong vested interest in establishing and committing to memory their family trees. No doubt these were transmitted orally for countless centuries and written down only from about the seventh century AD onward, when the process of Christianization made written records much commoner (See Writing). The lack of interference from the Romans in Ireland has meant that more in the way of Irish genealogy has survived.

King lists were drawn up and doubtless recited on special occasions by bards. These were designed to establish the king’s entitlement to his position, and doubtless flattering connections with long-dead heroic figures were added as a matter of course. A considerable amount of invention is involved in some of them. The powerful Irish chiefs of the Middle Ages wanted to be descended from Celtic gods, or from Egyptian pharaohs. But sometimes the names of heroes and kings follow one another in a credible sequence that recurs in other genealogies, and this corroboration inspires more confidence.

According to bardic sources, Slaine the Firbolg was the first High King of Ireland. From the time of his accession to the year 1, there were 107 High Kings: nine Firbolgs, nine Tuatha dé Danann, and 89 Milesians. After the rebellion in the first century AD, the High Kingship was reinstated, and after that there was an unbroken line of 81 High Kings until Rory O’Connor who, in 1175, surrendered his overlordship to Henry II of England.

The texture of the bardic genealogies often shows a shift from the mythic to the historic. Conaire Mor was the son of the bird god Nemglan; by contrast Ollamh Foola, the eighteenth High King, who came to the throne in 714 BC, is said to have provided Ireland with its first law code, which has a more historic ring to it.

GERAINT

A Dumnonian (Cornish) king who was born in about 480 and a contemporary of King Arthur. His pedigree survives. He was Geraint (or Gerontius in Latin), son of Erbin, son of Kynoar, son of Tudwaol, son of Gorwaor, son of Gaden, son of Cynan, son of Eudaf Hen, and known as Geraint Llyngesog, the “Fleet-owner.”

He was married first to Gwyar, daughter of Amlawdd Wledig, by whom he had four children: Selyf, Cyngar, Iestyn, and Cado. He then married Enid, daughter of Ynywl, Lord of Caerleon. Geraint himself was the son of Erbin, who held lands in both south-east Wales and Dumnonia. Early sources name both Geraint and his son and heir Cado or Cato as “rulers who ruled with Arthur.” This supports the idea that there were several Cornish sub-kings, with Arthur as their overking.

The poem Geraint may be a genuine sixth-century poem. It is an elegy for the warriors who fell at the Battle of Llongborth, written in the wake of one of Arthur’s battles (see Funeral Odes). Llongborth means “Port of the Warships” and is thought to be the westernmost of the Saxon Shore Forts: Portchester, at the head of Portsmouth Harbor, a likely location for the battle with the Saxons:

In Llongborth I saw spurs

and men who did not flinch from spears,

who drank their wine from glass that glinted.

In Llongborth I saw Arthur,

heroes who cut with steel,

the emperor, ruler of our labour.

In Llongborth, Geraint was slain,

heroes of the land of Dyfnant,

and before they were slain they slew.

GIFTS

Celtic chiefs competed with each other in the giving of lavish feasts, so feasts should be regarded as a form of gift (See Food and Feasting). There was also a principle of reciprocation: the guest was expected to respond in kind, inviting his host to another banquet.

This set in train an endless cycle of exchanges of food and drink, the purpose of which was to consolidate social ties. Of course the feasts were very enjoyable, but the temptation to be over-zealous was always there, to try to outdo your host. Ariamdes, a Celtic nobleman from Galatia, threw a feast that was so extravagant that it represented a year’s supply of food.

GILDAS

Gildas the Wise was a Celtic monk who lived and wrote in the sixth century. He was born in Alcluith, the son of Cauus, and possibly the brother of Cuillus, who rebelled against Arthur. He migrated, probably in infancy, to Wales. He attended Illtud’s famous school, along with with Samson and Paul Aurelian.

Gildas preached in north Pembrokeshire in the time of King Tribinus and his sons. He preached in northern Britain, received a message from Brigit, and sent her a bell. He arranged a marriage between Trifina, the daughter of Weroc of Vannes, and the evil tyrant Conomorus (who died in 560). Conomorus cut off Trifina’s head, which Gildas promptly restored.

Gildas wrote strongly condemning the harsh discipline of St. David, and equally strongly supported the milder rule of Illtud and Cadoc of Lancarfan. He returned from a visit to Ireland, visited Cadoc, and supervised the school for a year, writing a Gospel that would later be bound in gold and silver. He spent a winter on Echni (Flat Holm, an island in the Bristol Channel), where he was disturbed by pirates from the Orkneys. After that, in the days when King Melwas ruled Somerset, he went to Glastonbury, where he died in 570.

Gildas is of special interest in being the only historian or commentator who was actually writing at the time of Arthur. His theme was the condition of Britain, which he thought was in a poor state politically and morally, though it was a beautiful land. His book opens with a surprisingly lyrical description of Britain’s watery beauty:

This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land … decked with lucid fountains, abundant brooks wandering over snow white sands, transparent rivers that glide with gentle murmur, lakes which pour forth cool torrents of refreshing water.

Written in Latin in about 540, the book has the title Book of Complaint on the Ruin and Conquest of Britain. Gildas describes a great British leader called Ambrosius Aurelianus initiating an increasingly successful campaign against the Saxons in the run-up to the Battle of Badon, which he identifies as a landmark in history. By 540, the battle, which had been fought 20 or so years earlier, was seen as a watershed engagement: one that marked the end of one phase of history and the start of another, much as Trafalgar or Waterloo would have been perceived by a mid-nineteenth century historian. It is strange that Gildas does not mention Arthur in connection with Badon, as great a puzzle as Aristotle’s total silence regarding his pupil Alexander the Great.

What Gildas was complaining about above all was the complacency of the British. Those who had struggled to push back the Saxons in the years leading up to Badon had died. The new generation was “ignorant of the storm”—it had no idea what efforts were needed to defend Celtic Britain against the invaders.

It is an articulate and emotionally highly charged account, with a great deal of invective directed at one British ruler after another: Gildas was dissatisfied with nearly all of them. Probably with conscious understatement, he calls his thunderous accusations admonitiuncula, “just a little word of warning.”

The text is largely compiled from biblical quotations, making it more sermon than history. Another frustration is the obscure Latin style Gildas uses, making it rich in ambiguity when what we want is clarity.

There may also have been more than one version. Bede’s specific references to Gildas imply that he, in 731, was working from a different version than the one we have today, and we have no way of knowing which is the more authentic. Gildas died in 570.

THE GODODDIN

A series of elegies in 103 stanzas about a disastrous expedition of the bodyguard of Mynydd Mwynfawr, King of Din Eidyn (Edinburgh). The expedition was ranged against the Anglians at Catraeth (probably Catterick).

The Gododdin has survived in a single manuscript called The Book of Aneirin. We are told simply, “This is The Gododdin. Aneirin composed it.” The subject matter and the detail tell us that this is a genuine sixth-century Celtic poem. The bard Aneirin lived in the second half of the sixth century. The Gododdin of the title are the men of the Votadini tribe, but the warriors on this expedition include handpicked men from kingdoms all over Britain—Elmet, Clyde, Gwynedd, and Dumnonia—which tells us that communications among the British kingdoms must have been effective and that the Britons were ready to help one another against the Anglo-Saxons (See Alduith).