Celtic Trivia – when & who
Here’s a snippet of info about the Celtic Way of Life. I suppose I had better clarify what I mean by Celtic or rather when and who I refer to.
| Late Bronze Age | C1300 – 800 BCE (before the current era) |
| Iron Age | 800 – 600 BCE (Hallstatt Iron Age C) |
| Late Iron Age | 600 – 475 BCE (Halstatt iron Age D) |
Now I am certainly not an expert or even particularly knowedable about much of these periods but, because of the novel I was writing, Raiding Cúailnge, I found my self adapting background details for my setting of the North East of Ireland circa 400 BCE and while much of the information and backropund information I collected was to do with the widely varying tribes of Celtic people roaming Europe, my tale is firmly set in Ireland during what is known among the manuscripts as the Ulster Cycle, which describe some episodes from the life of my main character, Setanta, aka Cú Chulainn.
Anyway, these are the original documents on which all the known translations are based.
None of the manuscripts contain a complete account of the period so I hope my stitching together of events in my novel will be acceptable, even to the purists.
| The Book of the Dun Cow | Written in the 11th century. Thought to have been based on texts from the 9th century which in turn were based on texts from 7th century (texts no long extant) |
| The Yellow Book of Lecan | Circa 14th century. Ditto re earlier texts |
| The Book of Lenister | Late 12th century |
That’s probably enough for now.
Red Branch Chronicles 