Celtic Trivia – Red Branch Chronicles

2. Cathbad

The sacred mound dominated the landscape of the valley of the wide, slow flowing river Boann. The moon broke through a gap in the lowering clouds showing the huge quartz and granite stones used to create the impressive white façade nestled in the bend of the river where the ground rose to form a long hill commanding a panoramic view of the valley. The draoidh, Cathbad, paused by the outer ring of stone henges to catch his breath, for the journey here had been long and wearying. Squatting down in the shadow of the henge, he laid aside his wooden stave and fumbled in his leather pouch for some of the dried mushrooms he had collected earlier when the moon was on the wane. Breaking them into smaller pieces he chewed them thoroughly, washing them down with the cold spring water in the dried gourd he had slung over his shoulder. The féis of Samhain was past and the now was the time, he knew, when the following dawn’s sunlight would pierce the inner chamber of the mound, marking the continuing of the cycle of seasons and the safe rebirth of Lugh sun god of the Tuatha Dé Danann – after the long dark days of winter. Great portents were on the rise and kings would come and go but more than all this, it was clear that his hand was involved and the events that were foretold were now imminent.

With a grunt, Cathbad heaved himself to his feet and approached the kerbstone before the entrance passage to the inner chamber of the drum shaped mound which towered above him. Running his hand over the elaborately carved spirals, lozenges, coils and swirls which decorated the entrance stone, he marvelled at the perfectly carved designs etched into the stone before clambering over the kerb stone and, stooping, entered the passage lined on either side with large standing stones. Waiting until his eyes became accustomed to the pitchy blackness in the passage, Cathbad fumbled in his shoulder bag for his flint and kindling before managing to light his pine-resin torch. The light flared briefly before the firebrand settled down to a crackling glow showing the passage ahead bending slightly to the right. Holding the light ahead of him, the draoidh slowly made his way along the passage to the chamber at the end, small in comparison to the size of the covering mound yet wondrously dome roofed with interlaced slabs of rock. Ignoring the two small recesses at the back and to the left of the chamber, Cathbad entered the larger recess to the right where two stone basins stood. The upper basis had been painstakingly fashioned from a lump of granite and sat on a large slate stone and was partially filled with charred bones and ashes of those long dead. Squatting down with his back to the lower basin, he propped up his torch and let the cool stillness envelop him with its aura of calm and peace. Almost immediately he began to feel a tingle throughout his body as he relaxed back against the ancient stones. His senses appeared heightened and in the dim glow from his torch the relief patterns on the low slab roof above him appeared magnified, taking on a life of their own, swirling, curling and twisting across the surface of the stone and away into the further gloom around him. Surfaces seemed to ripple, shimmer, or breathe, while his stave, water gourd and leather shoulder bag appeared to warp, morph and change solid colours. An aura surrounded the dying firebrand beside him and Cathbad felt himself melt into the womb of the chamber, everything so vivid around him that he felt as if he could not only taste but feel them as well. Visions of the great hill fort at Eamhain Macha flickered across the back of his closed eyelids where a mighty king rose up, supported by a heroic champion in the greatest hour of need. Women, tall and willowy but dimly obscured, appeared, weeping and beseeching, asking for help while screams rent the air of a feast in a long hall, armies on the march, torches flickering in the night while fires flared up over burning rooves. Horses reared and flailed the air with iron shod hooves while chariots swerved and long swords clashed. Badb, the scaldy crow of warfare, croaking over the blood soaked land but above all Lugh, the deity of light and all power appeared serene and all powerful announcing the future birth of his son who would deliver all from harm.

With a start, Cathbad came to himself, sore and stiff from the long vigil on the rocky floor of the chamber. The torch had long since died out and the darkness surrounding him was complete. Suddenly, gleaming rays of light shot through the gap above the entrance stone giving the passage and the chamber where he lay a golden hue and he clambered slowly to his feet and followed the ray of light down the passage and out over the kerb stone where the sun, rising higher in the early morning sky, bathed the ancient monument in its nacreous light.

Only one thing was clear, it would be a long journey before he could hope to reach the great hill fort of Eamhain Macha in the kingdom of the Ulaidh and hope to make sense of the visions he had seen.

***

Ness, the consort of Fachtna Fathach, was bored. Sighing, she stretched her long legs before her and impatiently pushed her embroidery away. There must be more to life, she thought, than sitting around, listening to the idle chatter of her slaves and doing embroidery that she was no longer interested in. Instead her thoughts turned to her foster fathers and the cruel fate that had befallen them. If she were a warrior, she would have avenged them, not like her fool of a father – the yellow heel! Oh, to be a man, she thought and then giggled to herself as her mind jumped to the idea of having a man. The mere thought made her blush and her loins ache and she jumped when one of her slaves, fearing that something was wrong, asked if she needed something.

“Arragh, don’t be at me. I do be going mad, sitting here,” Ness stamped her foot and pushed away the restraining hands of the slave girl and thrust her unfinished embroidery towards her.

“Would yis ever leave me alone,” she commanded. “Sure, I wish to be by myself, so go on with yourselves back to the fort and build up the fires for you know my lord will soon be returning from the hunt, laden down with wild boar and deer and him roaring out of him for strong drink. Go on with you now, I’m telling you.”

Pushing her long tasselled cloak over her shoulder, Ness picked up the hem of her light linen tunic and skipped out of the main entrance of the fort and headed down towards the river. In the cool shade of the willow tree she sat on a rounded boulder and dipped her feet into the water. Silence all around her now, she waited and watched for something to happen. Life could sometimes be so boring. Why hadn’t her own father agreed to seek compensation for the death of her foster fathers, she wondered. Everyone knew it was that band of outlaw warriors without the restraining hand of a liege lord who had slaughtered her beloved foster fathers as they sat together, befuddled with food and drink, roaring and singing out of them. That was the time when she knew she could twist them all around her little finger and get just what she wanted from any one of them – another gold ring, or a finely wrought torc of bronze or perhaps a new brooch for her cloak, silver maybe, studded with amber, so smooth and warm to the touch. Now, what did she have? She reflected bitterly. A doddery father, afraid of his own shite – “but there were no witnesses to the attack, love of my heart,” he would whine, “and so we can not seek compensation for their deaths because of that.” She had heard it all before, and more of the same from Fachtna who still had not managed to fire her loins and make the hair stand up on her head. Another night of his pathetic fumbling, as he tried to disentangle her from her simple tunic and shift, his rough hands pawing ineffectually at her breasts, and yet, when she reached for him, yearning for a thrusting hardness, all she could find was a soft tumescence, a broken back worm wriggling feebly in her hand, and she would scream. The smell of drink on him, and him cursing and snivelling, as he attempted to push his bod into her, it was enough to put the heart sideways in her, she thought crossly.

Bending down to pick up a twig to throw into the stream, she caught the flicker of movement among the bushes across the water. Carefully and cautiously, she slipped off and behind the boulder she was sitting on. A man it was, sure enough, but what class of one was he? Not a warrior certainly for he had no sword or shield. Not a noble either for his cloak was ragged and unadorned but a fine figure of a man, all the same, with the shaven head, smooth as a river pebble, on him, Ness thought to herself. A craftsman maybe, for he looked capable enough, the hand holding the wooden stave, strong and lean, covered with fine black hair. Before she could continue her furtive examination of the stranger, he saw her, his eyes, the pale blue of a thrush’s egg, suddenly binding her and compelling her to rise.

“The blessing of the day on you, Ness, consort of the king,” the man called out as he hoist up his robe, revealing strongly muscled legs covered in a coarse black pelt of hair, and waded nimbly across the stream towards the girl.

“May the road rise before you, stranger but tell me this and tell me no more, how is it that you know my name?”

“Sure, don’t I know the past and the future and I know it’s about your present you are concerned.”

“Well if you are so smart then so, tell me this then, what is this very hour lucky for?” Ness demanded impudently.

Cathbad paused and looked at the girl more carefully. She was well grown and her breasts pushed tight against the fine, red-embroidered tunic under the speckled cloak she had pushed back over one bare shoulder. Her honey-yellow hair was tied in three tresses; two of them wound in front of her head, framing her broad brow while the third fell down her back almost to her mid calf. Her eyebrows were pitch black while the long eyelashes cast shadows on her pink cheeks. Her lips, a deep Parthian red, were plump and sensuous and Cathbad felt the blood rush to his loins.

“I’ll tell you so, this hour is right for the making of a king on a queen like yourself”.

The words hung for a moment in the air between them and Cathbad could see the sudden intake of breath that their meaning made the girl take.

“Is that the truth now, or are you trying to take advantage of me, with that big thing there you have on you?” The girl’s voice was husky and Cathbad felt a thrill run down his spine and, despite himself, his eyes dropped unashamedly to the prominent bulge under his cloak.

“By Lugh and all the gods that you and I both know, I swear that this is true. A son conceived now, his name will be sung forever in this land and his actions will shake the world.”

Ness hesitated for a moment, looking nervously over her shoulder in the direction of Eamhain Macha and then made up her mind. There was no one near them, certainly no other men, and the drooping branches of the willow formed an almost perfect screen. The day was less than half over and Fachtna would not return before nightfall.

“Right so, come over here to me then” she whispered and felt again the grip of those pale blue eyes as the man approached her.

His hand felt rough but touched her breasts gently and she felt her nipples harden, his breath sweet on her cheek as one strong arm encircled her waist and lifted her off her feet before lowering her gently to the leaf strewn ground. Her breath quickened as he pushed her tunic up over her hips and quickly she spread her legs, her hips arching up to meet his stiffened bod, already twitching with the life inside it.

His hands caressed her milk white body, while a flow of liquid fire suffused her and she thrust her loins up hungrily. Her lips sought his and she wriggled deeper against him as his tongue, sweet and sharp, thrust into her mouth, mirroring his fierce and rapid thrusting, her hands gripping his shoulders to pull him more deeply into her warm, moist lips. Again and again he pounded into her, his eyes alight with that strange blue fire, the sweat from his bare chest dripping onto her belly, oiling the two of them as their rhythmic thrusting and rocking brought the pair of them to the brink of no return. Her legs locked tight around his calves, his pelvis ground into hers bringing her higher and higher as if she were mounting a never-ending spiral until Ness felt that she was looking down on herself from a great pinnacle, watching her own body twine and coil with his. Then deep inside her, she felt the hot rush of his seed and she knew the truth of what he had claimed.

***

Fergus Mac Rioch was sure of many things – he was a man hardened by fighting and brawling, knowing the way of the spear and the sword, hand to hand, face to face, smelling and feeling the hot gush of red blood from his opponent’s body in fierce mortal combat – but of this one thing he was not so sure. He loved Ness. Ever since Fachtna’s death, he had desired his widow, the cool, aloof Ness who somehow always, contrived to avoid his demands upon her. He could have beaten her and forced her into submission, tied her like a slave or an animal and used her that way. But he hadn’t. The blood-lust part of him urged him to attack her, to subdue her physically and violently take her. Ness, on the other hand treated him coolly, managing to avoid his bed while at the same time taunting and provoking him yet there was something cold and hard, some malevolent intelligence inside her that both stayed his hand from fear while at the same time made him crave for her touch. His love for her consumed him and she was in his head all the time. The thought of the coolness of her long blonde hair, the warmth of her skin, the sweetness of her breath, enticed him while the lure of her nobility galvanized him in ways he did not yet understand.

Fergus had assumed the kingship of the Ulaidh when his brother Fachtna, King of the Ulaidh had died over a minor disagreement in the feasting hall. Dark and smoky, lit by banked peat fires and rush lamps, the men of Ulaidh ate and drank their fill, sprawled on hides and skins covering the floor of the hall. Boasting drunkenly of former exploits, Aenghus reached out to take the hind leg of meat for himself and was stopped by an outraged Fachtna. What should have been settled with curses and dares followed by mere blows slipped instead into bloody violence when an unlucky dagger thrust caught the drunken king under the ribs, ripping open his heart. Fergus had taken his place then, both through bloodline and seniority and there was no man there, drunk or sober, who could have stood up to Fergus in things physical. No man, true, Fergus thought to himself, no man right enough but a woman, Ness, mother of the child Conor, had managed to evade his hardening desire for too long now. That was going to change soon because he had challenged her to a game. And she had accepted. She stood to gain anything and everything she wanted, while he knew that he could give her anything for he had it all. All that is, except for her. He ached to give her whatever she asked in return for control and ownership of all that she could offer up to him, the cool but puzzling aloofness a thing of the past. As for her, she had nothing to lose!

***

“Of course he’ll agree,” the tall, lean draoidh snapped. “Don’t you see he must? He can’t fight it. One sight of your paps and you’ll have him drooling like a hound, and then you will have secured a place for the boy.” Cathbad paused and looked across to where the boy, Conor, was quietly playing with a flat bladed ash wood hurling stick. Conor was now ten winters old and was accustomed to going on long walks with the draoidh who filled his head with stories and the songs of ancient gods, heroes and their brave deeds.

Ness smiled as she saw the intense expression on Cathbad’s face. “Yes, but I don’t think even Fergus is that stupid”.

“He’ll do it,” insisted Cathbad, rising to pace excitedly. “Of course he will, he won’t be able to resist. Just treat it lightly and make much of how fond he is of the boy.”

That was true enough, Ness reflected. Conor seemed to have attracted the attention of the king and it would be no great difficulty, Ness thought to herself, to persuade Fergus, in return for her pleasure, to allow the boy to hold the reins of kingship, for however brief a time.

***

“Oh my honey,” Ness cooed, pouring more of the dark red Gaulish wine into Fergus’ cup while she stroked the back of his neck with a languid hand.

They were lying on a pile of bearskins behind the heavy leather curtain that separated them from the rest of the feasters in the great hall at Eamhain Macha.

“Don’t you see, you’ll still be the real king, Conor will just be a token figure? And besides it will only be for a year.” Her lips grazed Fergus’ rough cheek while her perfume seemed to enflame his senses as the wine soothed and nourished him. Ness’ hand travelled slowly down over Fergus’ chest and down under his loose tunic towards his groin where his thickening member stirred expectantly at her cool touch.

“Yes, my darling, anything you want,” he moaned, closing his eyes and leaning back as, Ness, on her knees, lowered her head to give homage to his rising power.

***

No sooner had Fergus fallen into a deep and soporific slumber than Ness began her search for his fabled wealth so that she could give it away to the nobles and warriors to buy favour for herself and especially her son. Cathbad had assured her that if she gave away enough rings of silver and jet stone, oxen, ornamented brooches in the swirling new patterns, to the nobles and the tapered iron swords and shining daggers, shields of woven willow reinforced with iron bosses and studs to the warriors, food, drink and patronage to the bards, that she would be able to guarantee her and Conor’s success.

Aghast at the outflow of his wealth and the ever shifting allegiances away from him and over to his ethereally beautiful wife and her son Conor, his foster son, Fergus counted the days until he would be released from his sworn geas and his power and wealth restored to him.

Rising unsteadily to his feet now, Fergus peered down the length of the great hall. On either side of the hearth-way, warriors and nobles lay or sprawled in groups around food that had mostly been already eaten. Pots of potent black ale had been generously distributed along with the liquid fire, so honey golden in colour in the firelight. Ness and her son reclined on Fergus’ left hand and behind them stood the thin gaunt figure of the draoidh, remote and hard.

“Men of the Ulaidh I do, this day and time, by the line of Rioch, hereditary king of the Ulaidh, claim back my kinship from the regency of my foster son, Conor, and my wife, the queen Ness”.

Fergus glanced around the dimly lit hall again.

“Let he who gave all of it away so freely and so recklessly, now let him reclaim it if he must.” The roar came from the back of the hall and Fergus squinted uncertainly in the dim light to see who it was who had called out so ungraciously.

The wink of torch light, the gleam of firelight on naked metal sparked bright in the smoky hall and then Cathbad strode forward, his arms upraised to quell the sudden tumult of shouting that had arisen.

“Lookit here to me,” Conall Cernach lumbered to his feet and grabbed Cathbad’s shoulder but the draoidh spun on his heel, breaking free of the giant man’s grip.

“Would the lot of youse ever wait there now,” although Cathbad’s voice was quiet there was a certain resonance to it, backed up by the humming blur of his staff whirling around his head. “Let Fergus speak.”

As the noise died down, Fergus belched, swaying on his feet, one hand brandishing his goblet, the other hand resting on the hilt of his sword,

“Would youse ever listen to me, your liege lord” were the words he meant to roar in defiance but to his own ears his voice was hardly more than a squeak, an unintelligible keening of sound, almost a bat’s squeak. Looking around wildly, his feet transfixed to the ground, his whole body swaying as if drunk, Fergus roared silently against the power of the draoidh’s sapphire blue eyes which now held him in their rigid grip.

Sinking back into the robes, Fergus watched mesmerized as Cethirn lurched to his feet and brandished his horn, slopping wine on the men crouched watchfully at his feet. Cethirn of the Red Sword Edge was a warrior known to all, respected by all, including himself, Fergus thought bitterly, not only for his fighting ability but for his voice that could talk a trout out of a stream and into your waiting hand.

“Hold your horses there, my fine bucko, we didn’t like you just handing over the kingship in the first place to a young gossoon just for the asking, but, mind you, he did right by us and was a decent lad, what with all the swords, shields, rings and, I couldn’t tell you what not, that he forked over to us, so stand and defend yourself because if you don’t, we’ve decided that we want to keep Conor Mac Nessa, not you, Fergus Mac Rioch, the Unwise.”

Locked by the tight blue eyes of Cathbad from across the hall of feasting and drinking men, rising to their feet to toast in drunken obeisance their new king of the Ulaidh, Fergus could only struggle within his invisible bounds as the boy beside him rose to his feet, receiving and accepting the roar of the crowd.

And so the boy Conor became – and stayed – king.

The Champion’s Portion 10

Chapter Ten

Samhain was the start of the Celtic year and a time for sacrifices and community gatherings. The portals between life and that of the world of the Tuatha de Danamm were more apparent at the beginning of winter or the “darker half” of the year and a time when wondrous events could be expected.

Cú Chulainn had left Eamhain Macha for his own lands and dun at Dun Delga and Conall had gone to Dal Riata to collect his due.

The hunchback, Scél was in the act of closing the outer gates when they were rudely thrust open and a massive churl shouldered his way in past him and made for the hall of the Craobh Ruadh where Conor and his nobles ate and drank. A rank stench rose from his rough hide mantle filled the hall as the churl entered, his yellow eyes flicking around the benches. In one hand, his thick fingers clutched an axe, the dully-gleaming iron head of which would have weighed that of a bull, its edge honed so that it caught the light. In the other he carried a splintered chopping block. His stained tunic barely covered his rump and his naked legs were thick as oak stumps.

Without a word the brute stamped his way down the hall and came to a halt, slouched against one of the fork beams near the central hearth.

‘Come stranger, sit at our table for we would liefer hear tales of strangeness which, I warrant, you could tell.’

The churl grunted but did not move from where he leant against the pillar.

‘Far have I travelled on my quest, through Alba and Britannia, even to Gaul, Greece and Scythia and nowhere have I found a man to do me fair play. But you, men of the Ulaidh, warriors of the Craobh Ruadh, such is your strength and valour, dignity and generosity bruited abroad that I have come here in expectation of my boon.’

‘Tell us that what you seek,’ asked Conor, leaning forward the better to look at the churl.

‘If you guarantee fair play?’

‘There is no man here,’ Sencha intervened, ‘who would rather not die than to break his sworn word. In this great hall of the Craobh Ruadh, surely you will find many here who are worthy of you, with the exception of Conor on account of his crown and Fergus mac Rioch for the same privilege.’

‘Come then,’ the churl boomed, straightening up, ‘this is what I crave, Come who ever you are, so that, with this axe, I first may sever your head tonight and he mine tomorrow.’

Laoghaire laughed nervously, ‘The other way around, surely you mean? You to suffer the beheading here now but tomorrow there can be none of that nonsense.

‘If that were my quest, it would have been easily found,’ the churl replied. ‘But by my troth, then I will honour your request provided that you honour me so on the morrow.’

Laoghaire stood up and took the axe from the churl’s grasp. The brute laid the block on the floor in front of the high table and knelt, stretching his bare neck out on the stained block.

Laoghaire paused and spat on his hands before grasping the axe again. Taking a deep breath, he raised the axe above his head, the weight making his arms tremble with the strain before smashing the finely honed edge on the churl’s neck. The head sprang from the trunk as a thick gout of blood poured onto the strewn rushes of the flagged hall.

Scarcely had Laoghaire wrenched the axe free from where it was embedded in the wood of the chopping block when a gasp from the high table made him look over his shoulder as the headless trunk quivered and ponderously pushed itself up onto its knees, its muscular arms sightlessly groping for its head. Having found it and clasping the axe and block to his bloodied chest, the churl moved jerkily down the hall, filling all those who saw the spectacle with awe at the marvel that had witnessed.

‘If that púca, having been lopped tonight, comes back tomorrow, not a man alive will be left among us,’ Bricriu declared.

The following night, however, the churl returned but Laoghaire was nowhere to be seen.

‘Where is Laoghaire the Triumphant? Surely it is not right that he should break his covenant with me?’ The churl demanded looking around the great hall. ‘Is there anyone else here who would pledge their word with me?’ He raised his great axe above his head and shook it threateningly.

Conall who was sitting there with the other nobles made not a stir out of him and the churl spat noisily on the floor and left after shouting out that he would return the following night for the last time to meet any new challengers.

The next night the churl returned, fierce in aspect and furious in manner and continued to rebuke the nobles of the Craobh Ruadh. The great hall was crowded that evening as everyone craned forward to get a glimpse of the strange marvel.

‘I now know that the men of the Craobh Ruadh, the warriors of Eamhain Macha, the fighting men of the Ulaidh have lost their valour and their prowess is no more. It has been widely bruited abroad that ye covet the CP yet have you no man that can contest it. Where is the pup you call the “Hound” I would fain know if his word be better than the bond of others.’

‘I have no lust for adventure and nor do I need a churl such as you to validate my word.’

‘Likely so,’ the churl sneered, ‘as you fear to die like all the others.’

Cú Chulainn sprang up, his face flushed with anger and snatched the axe from the curl’s hand. Not waiting for the block to be placed on the floor, Cú Chulainn twirled on his heel and leaping in the air, he swung the axe with the full force of his body behind it so that the head crashed against the panel separating the high table from the rest of the hall. Not content with that, Cú Chulainn scooped up the dripping head on the flat of the axe blade and tossed it in the air before swinging the axe like a hurley, sending the head crashing among the top rafters of the Craobh Ruadh.

The headless body again struggled to its feet, picking up the axe and block and then stumbled down the hall in search of its head.

Cú Chulainn had left Eamhain Macha for his own lands and dun at Dun Delga and Conall had gone to Dal Riata to collect his due.

His stained tunic barely covered his rump and his naked legs were thick as oak stumps.

Without a word the brute stamped his way down the hall and came to a halt, slouched against one of the fork beams near the central hearth.

‘Come stranger, sit at our table for we would liefer hear tales of strangeness which, I warrant, you could tell.’

The churl grunted but did not move from where he leant against the pillar.

‘Tell us that what you seek,’ asked Conor, leaning forward the better to look at the churl.

‘If you guarantee fair play?’

‘Come then,’ the churl boomed, straightening up, ‘this is what I crave, Come who ever you are, so that, with this axe, I first may sever his head tonight and he mine tomorrow.’

Laoghaire laughed nervously, ‘the other way around, surely you mean. You to suffer the beheading tonight for you need not about retribution the following day if you behead your adversary now.’

‘If that were my quest, it would have been easily found,’ the churl replied. ‘But by my troth, then I will honour your request provided that you honour me so on the morrow.’

Laoghaire stood up and took the axe from the churl’s grasp. The brute laid the block on the floor in front of the high table and knelt, stretching his bare neck out on the stained block.

‘If that púca, having been lopped tonight, comes back tomorrow, not a man alive will be left among us,’ Bricriu declared.

The following night, however, the churl returned but Laoghaire was nowhere to be seen.

‘I have no lust for adventure and nor do I need a churl such as you to validate my word.’

‘Likely so,’ the churl sneered, ‘as you fear to die like all the others.’

The headless body again struggled to its feet, picking up the axe and block and then stumbled down the hall in search of its head.

The following night, the hall was crowded to see if Cú Chulainn would avoid his appointment with the mysterious churl as the other heroes had done. Conor sat by his side while Fergus busied himself with pouring strong drink for himself and his foster son.

Cú Chulainn sat, sunk in silence, his chin resting upon his chest and Conor knew the youth was scared. Indeed a gloom had settled on the hall and no amount of candlelight could dispel the darkness that would attend on them when the churl returned.

Cú Chulainn looked up at Fergus and his king. ‘Stay with me here, I beg you, until my pledge is fulfilled. I fear death is nigh but I would fain die with honour and not defame the ancient prophesies.’

The door to the hall was suddenly thrown open with a crash and the churl strode in, angrily glaring around him.

‘Where is the pup, Cú Chulainn?’ He demanded.

Cú Chulainn stood up and jumped down from the dais to meet his nemesis.

‘Here, I am here,’ he said shortly.

‘Not so chatty, now, I perceive,’ chuckled the churl, slowly grinding a sharpening stone along the already keen edge of his axe.

‘You are a bit lifeless compared to the previous time we met and yet,’ he paused and the nobles in the hall shrank back from the grinding sound of the whet stone on the iron blade, ‘it is more lifeless I will leave you when I depart. Stretch your neck out now, boaster,’ the churl demanded, testing the edge of his blade with a horny thumb.

Cú Chulainn knelt down and laid his head in the depression in the reeking block.

‘A bit more, stretch out your neck more so that I can see it,’ the churl demanded as he laid the sharp edge on Cú Chulainn’s neck, preparatory to raising the weapon above his head.

‘Don’t jeer at me so,’ Cú Chulainn cried, ‘finish me off if that is what you mean to do but do not delay.’

‘I can’t,’ said the churl ‘for your neck is so small and the depression in the block so deep that the axe cannot reach it properly, stretch your neck out more so that I can see it.’

Cú Chulainn took a deep breath and pushed and strained against the block so that a child’s fist could be inserted between each of his ribs. Again the churl raised the axe above his head and waited a moment before sweeping the blunt side down and touching Cú Chulainn gently with it.

‘Arise Cú Chulainn, most noble and valourous of all men for you alone braved the head test and for that alone I accord you the champion of all the Ulaidh warriors, the CP to be your just reward, disputed by none and that the Lady Emer should take precedence above all the ladies of the court always. And I swear now before you all on the name of the ancient Gods that whoever moves against you in these things, his life will be forfeited accordingly.’

The churl had vanished and in its place stood the mighty Cu Roi mac Dairi who vanished as soon as the nobles had caught sight of him.

The door to the hall was suddenly thrown open with a crash and the churl strode in, angrily glaring around him.

‘Where is the pup, Cú Chulainn?’ He demanded.

Cú Chulainn stood up and jumped down from the dais to meet his nemesis.

‘Here, I am here,’ he said shortly.

‘Not so chatty, now, I perceive,’ chuckled the churl, slowly grinding a sharpening stone along the already keen edge of his axe.

Cú Chulainn knelt down and laid his head in the depression in the reeking block.

‘A bit more, stretch out your neck more so that I can see it,’ the churl demanded as he laid the sharp edge on Cú Chulainn’s neck, preparatory to raising the weapon above his head.

‘Don’t jeer at me so,’ Cú Chulainn cried, ‘finish me off if that is what you mean to do but do not delay.’

‘I can’t,’ said the churl ‘for your neck is so small and the depression in the block so deep that the axe cannot reach it properly, stretch your neck out more so that I can see it.’

The churl had vanished and in its place stood the mighty Cu Roi mac Dairi who vanished as soon as the nobles had caught sight of him.

Bricriu’s Feast & The Champion’s Portion

The Champion’s Portion is an extension to the story of Bricriu’s Feast and is thought to have been based on texts from the 9th century which, in turn, were based on texts from 7th century (those texts are no longer extant) but the tale would have been orally transmitted for centuries before eventually being committed to writing.

Bricriu’s Feast is found in several manuscripts, including The Book of the Dun Cow (Lebor na hUidre) c.1106 so called because the original vellum, upon which it was written, was made from the hide of a brown cow supposedly owned by the abbot of the monastery at Clonmacnoise.

The Book of the Dun Cow was written in the 11^th century and is the oldest surviving miscellaneous manuscript in Irish literature but is badly damaged: only 67 leaves remain and many of the texts are incomplete.

The manuscript is thought to be the work of three scribes, identified with the letters A, M and H.

A and M were contemporary. A began the manuscript and several of the texts, which were continued by M, identified as Máel Muire, murdered by Vikings at Clonmacnoise in 1106.

Based on orthography and an English loanword, H (so named for his fondness of inserting homilies into the texts) was apparently writing in the late 12th or early 13th century and added a number of new texts and passages, sometimes over erased portions of the original, sometimes on new leaves. Vellum, made of lamb, calf, or goat skin, was expensive, so a page was often re-used by scribes for another document after the original text had been scraped or washed off.

Bricriu’s Feast is also found in The Book of Leinster, a medieval Irish literary compendium of stories, poetry, and history, and it appears, from annals included in it, that it was written between 1151 and 1201, although largely completed by 1160 and now kept in Trinity College, Dublin.

The manuscript is a composite work and more than one hand appears to have been responsible for its production. The principal compiler and scribe was probably Áed Ua Crimthainn who was abbot of the monastery of Tír-Dá-Glas on the Shannon.

Book_of_Leinster,_folio_53 — The Book of Lenister Trinity College, Dublin

In the story, Bricriu promises the Champion’s Portion of his feast to three different heroes. A violent dispute over precedence ensues, which leads to a series of contests. One night a giant carrying an ax challenges the warriors of the Ulaidh to behead him in exchange for a chance to behead them in turn. On successive nights two of the heroes behead the giant, who, each time, replaces his head and leaves but comes back to take his turn only to find that the warriors have departed.Finally, the undisputed hero, Cú Chulainn, beheads the giant and, when the giant returns, places his own head on the block, true to his word. The giant, really a wizard in disguise, proclaims Cú Chulainn the first hero of the Ulaidh.

This is considered the source for the beheading game used in Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight, a late 14th century tale in Middle English while Bricriu’s Feast was the definitive source for W.B.Yeats’s play The Green Helmet. Not bad for an old Irish tale!

Bricriu’s Feast was the first old world saga or story I ever read that made me laugh out loud. The story teller was fully aware of the comic aspects of the heroic tale.

There are, however, so many repetitions and duplications, which may well have sounded better in the telling, but the structure of the manuscripts leaves something to be desired. Errors in transcription and transmission and the insertions of the different Christian scribes do not make for easy reading.

Sticking closely to the original translations*, this is my version of the story broken into digestible (I hope) and coherent chunks.

I will post Chapter One soon.

*Translations

Early Irish Myths and Sagas, Translated and with an introduction and notes by Jeffrey Gantz. Penguin Classics 1981

Fled Bricrend (The Feast of Bricriu), translated by George Henderson,

Medieval Irish Series, Cambridge Ontario 1999

Lady Gregory’s Complete Irish Mythology

Originally published as separate volumes by John Murray Publishers, London

Gods and Fighting Men (1904) and Cuchullain of Muirthemne (1902)

Celestial Time Keeping, Solstices, Atomic Clocks and the Celts

There I was thinking about the solstice – the longest day of the year – and once again I missed it in the sense that I am a bit late with this post as well as actually missing the actual day itself. I used to love it when I was a child in Ireland. Summer time would have kicked in and it would be bright until at least 21:30 or even later. Anyway, here in Perth, in the southern hemisphere I decided to keep a lookout for it – Jun 21 in Ireland and Dec 21 here in Perth. Or so I thought. How do you work out the longest day? By counting the hours and minutes of sunlight, I suppose and even that managed to elude me, for the most part!

As if that accurate counting of hours and minutes weren’t enough of a hurdle, Lord Kelvin first came up with the idea of using atomic transitions to measure time when he was in his mid-fifties. Born in 1824, he defined absolute zero as -273.15 Celsius or -459.67 Fahrenheit and after whom the base unit of absolute temperature in the International System of Units was named. (Probably something to do with living through Irish winters.) All I ever knew about time was that it was the instrument by which change is measured! A modern dictionary definition of time is more exacting ‘Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, to the future.’

Here’s my attempt to measure time –

2019	Sat Dec 14	Sun Dec 15	Mon Dec 16	Tue Dec 17	Wed Dec 18	Thu Dec 19	Fri Dec 20	Sat Dec 21	Sun Dec 22	Mon Dec 23
Sun Rise	5:03	5:03	5:03		5:04	5:04	5:05	5:05	5:06	5:06
Sun Set	19:16	19:17		19:18	19:19	19:20	19:21	19:21	19:21	19:22
Hours of light	14:13	14:14			14:15	14:16	14:16	14:16	14:15	14:16

Anyway, one hundred and forty years after Kelvin came up with the idea of atomic clocks, which measure the electromagnetic signal emitted by electrons in atoms when they change energy levels, they have become our most accurate time and frequency standards today. Atomic clocks support time distribution services internationally, television broadcasts wave frequency and global navigation satellite systems.

In 1949 an atomic clock (less accurate than a quartz one) first demonstrated the physical concept before Essen and Parry built an accurate, and bulky, atomic clock to a caesium standard half a dozen years later.

By 1964, Hewlett-Packard had released much smaller rack-mountable devices with increasing accuracy which led the scientific community to redefine the second in terms of a specific atomic frequency in 1967.

Smart phones and us, presumably, have benefitted from these advances in technology as accurate, battery-driven atomic clocks became commercially available in 2011, most easily seen in Google or Apple Maps on our phones and in our cars. Four years later, NASA launched Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC), a miniaturised, ultra-precise, mercury-ion atomic clock more accurate then mere terrestrial clocks, which are maintained by national standards agencies, synchronised to an accuracy of 1 part in 10¹⁴seconds per day! How did we ever survive without such pinpoint accuracy? How did I miss marking the longest day, the summer solstice, here in the Southern Hemisphere?

So, how was time measured before pendulums, wind-up watches, quartz timepieces, grandfather clocks and smart devices became ubiquitous? What served as units of time if seconds and minutes could not be conveniently measured or counted? The apparent motion of the sun across the sky, the phases of the moon, and the beat of a heart must have served some such purpose while day and night marked longer periods.

Time calculation still takes two distinct forms – the calendar, a geometrical way of organising intervals of time, and the clock, a physical device that counts the passage of time.

The ancient Egyptians may have divided the day into twelve smaller parts on their sundials, influenced no doubt by the 12 lunar cycles in a year. Their sundial used a gnomon to cast a shadow on a set of markings calibrated to the hour. The Romans used a clepsydra, a vessel with holes for the outflow of water. As the water emptied, it measured time, sort of like an hour glass with sand.

‘May the gods destroy that man who discovered hours and first set up a sundial here, to cut up my day!’

All of the above led me to the impending solstice which occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly point as the Earth rotates and orbits the Sun. Bizarrely, I have been attempting to record daily sunrise and sunset where I live here in Perth – see the chart above – and it literally comes down to one or two minutes difference over the course of a week or so.

The Sun’s daily arc affects the length of daytime experienced and amount of daylight received during a given season. The two moments, when the angle of Earth’s rotational axis is towards the Sun, are the solstices, occurring annually, around June 21 and December 21, when the Sun’s motion comes to a stop. When it is the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere in Australia, it is the winter solstice in the Northern. The day of a solstice in either hemisphere has either the most sunlight of the year (summer solstice) or the least sunlight of the year (winter solstice). The summer solstice is when the Sun reaches its highest position in the sky and has the longest period of daylight. Conversely, the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, when the Sun is at its lowest daily position in the sky.

The word solstice is derived from the Latin sol (‘sun’) and sistere (‘to stand still’) because at the solstices, the Sun’s daily path seems to stop at a northern or southern limit before reversing direction. The Ancient Greeks used the term “ηλιοστάσιο” (heliostāsio), meaning stand of the Sun. The Sun’s westerly motion never ceases as Earth is continually in rotation.

The concept of the solstices was embedded in ancient Greek celestial navigation. When they realised that the Earth was spherical they devised the idea of an imaginary spherical surface rotating with the planets and stars fixed in it. The stars move across the inner surface of this imaginary celestial sphere along the circumferences of circles in parallel planes perpendicular to the Earth’s axis. The Sun and the planets do not move in these parallel paths but at an angle to the axis, bringing the Sun and planets across the paths of, and in among, the stars.

The exact solstice time is not easy to determine as I found out. The angle become smaller as the Sun gets closer to its maximum/minimum declination. The days before and after the solstice, are barely detectable with devices like sextant and impossible with more traditional tools like a gnomon^. It is also hard to detect the changes on sunrise/sunset azimuth due to the atmospheric refraction changes.

According to Google, in 2019 the summer solstice will occur between December 20 and December 23 in the Southern Hemisphere and between June 20 and June 22 in the Northern.

How did Iron Age societies calculate such things as the start or separation of seasonal change? Did the druids base their pronouncements on observations of the sky and how was time calculated?

Ancient Indian philosophers believed that Time repeated ages over the lifespan of the universe, leading to beliefs in rebirth and reincarnation, as did the Celtic druids.

Ancient Greek philosophers wondered if time was linear or cyclical and if it was endless or finite while the Islamic and Judeo-Christian world-view regard time as linear and directional, beginning with God creating the world. The traditional Christian view sees the present order of things coming to an ‘end time’ although I don’t think that was ever mentioned in my primary school catechism which was a list of questions and answers that we were expected to memorise. I can only remember two of them now – ‘Who is God? God is our father in heaven’ and ‘Who made the world? God made the world.’

Celtic and other nomadic groups more than likely used the moon as a time-measuring device as early as 6,000 years ago with Lunar calendars of 12 or 13 lunar months corresponding to cycles of Moon phases. Seasons quickly come adrift in a lunar calendar and it became the prerogative of the druid class to calculate and add days or months to some years to balance things out.

Julius Caesar put the Roman world on a solar, or Julian, calendar in 45 BC indicating the seasons relative to the apparent position of the Sun but that, too, was faulty as the astronomical solstices and equinoxes moved by more than ten minutes per year. The solar day was the time interval between two successive journeys of the Sun across the local meridian – an imaginary line running from north to south – passing directly overhead. At this ‘solar noon’ the Sun reaches its highest point or zenith on its daily arc across the sky. It was not until 1582 that Pope Gregory XIII introduced a correction with the Gregorian solar calendar, now the most commonly used calendar around the world but which does not correspond to cycles of Moon phase.

The Celtic Coligny calendar, found in France in 1887, dates back to the first century A.D. and was used to define the beginning and length of the day, the week, the month, the seasons, quarter days, and festivals and was an attempt to reconcile the cycles of the moon and sun, as did the modern Gregorian calendar. However, the Coligny calendar considers the phases of the moon to be important, and each month always begins with the same moon phase.

Among the Celts, the year was divided into a light half and a dark half. As the day was seen as beginning at sunset, so the year was seen as beginning with the arrival of the darkness at the feis of Samhain (around 1 November in the modern calendar).The light half of the year started at Bealtaine (around 1 May, modern calendar). Longer periods were reckoned in nights, as in the surviving English term fortnight meaning two weeks.

Those accuracy issues make it possible to determine the solstice day only with the use of more complex tools, which of course I don’t have, nor would I know how to use them, but my smart phone weather gizmo gives me – I presume – accurate readings for sunrise and sunset each day, as in the attached table. How did ancient societies do it? This is not a rhetorical question!

For vague comparison, the Southern Hemisphere (Winter) Solstice of 21 June 2019 had sunrise 07:15 and sunset at 17:18 giving a meagre daylight of 10 hours and three minutes.

Bealtaine

The ancient Celtic year was divided into four main parts, according to the seasons, each of which was preceded by a great religious festival and accompanied by feasting, sports, games and religious observances.

In the Celtic world, Bealtaine (end of April or May 1)* marked the start of the summer quarter and the return of the sun’s warmth and the consequent fertility of crops and animals and was observed by lighting bonfires, the smoke of these holy fires associated with the Celtic sun god Belenos. Druids officiated at these ceremonies, muttering incantations and throwing handfuls of bones of both animals and warriors into the flames that flared orange against the darkening sky to the west, while the people and their cattle walked around and between two great fires, and young boys dared each other to leap over the flames and embers from the burnt offerings which the druids believed had purifying powers used to kill pests on cattle before they were driven out to open grazing

May Day customs – dancing at crossroads – still remain popular in many parts of the Celtic world with all hearth fires and lamps extinguished as night fell and the only light coming from the two sacrificial fires lit by the druids. All domestic new fires had to be kindled from these new sacred fires.

Yellow flowers of gorse, hazel and marsh marigold were used to decorate the entrances to the dwellings so that their sweet scent permeated the warm night air of early summer. Bealtaine dew was also thought to enhance beauty and maintain youthfulness if one rolled naked and washed in the dew or it could be collected in a jar and left in the sunlight, for the ‘filtered essence’ was thought to maintain youthfulness and increase sexual attractiveness!

Bealtaine, like its counterpart festival, Samhain, was a time most auspicious for the Sídhe, or the fairy folk, who were particularly active at the start of Bealtaine, emerging from their ancient passage mounds, leaving their gold and treasure momentarily unguarded for the greedy and the unwary.

Bealtaine may also refer to the Bilé, the Celtic god of life and death and may have associations with Baal, the Eastern deity.

Christianity’s first major confrontation with Celtic and pagan Ireland also took place during the festival of Bealtaine when St. Patrick, later to become the patron saint of the island, lit the paschal fire at Slane before the druids of king Laoghaire first lit the sacred fire of Bealtaine on the holy mound of Tara in 433 A.D.

In Australia, of course, the seasons are revesed and Bealtaine would be held at the end of October or the very beginning of November

Paint Saddy

Well, it’s that time again – Saint Paddy’s Day. Amazing really, what the day inspires – from massive street parades with green beer to the most unlikely people – Genghis Khan, that sort of thing – discovering that they have Irish ancestry hence it is ok to wear lurid green t-shirts, hats, ties and, (God help me), male and female briefs with stupid slogans – “Kiss me, I’m Irish.” or “Top of the morning to you.”

I broke down recently, for the first time, ever. Really. I promise. I actually bought St. Patrick whatdymecallit – gimcracks? – from an outlet here imaginatively and (honestly called) The Reject Shop – Why Pay Too Much?.

A pack of four small, moulded plastic hats in bright green with tight elastic chin string cost $3. Anyway for the past week or so, The Reject Shop – and possibly such places as The Five Dollar Store – have offered an array of Irish themed crap while the TV here has bombarded viewers with ancestry ads offering family searches back over many generations.

So, I beg to ask, is St Paddy just for the Irish or is he a “Kissable Everyman” for all comers.

What have we done to deserve this? Are Irish people, gender indiscriminate, so cuddly adorable that they deserve to be smothered with kisses like some sleepy koala cub, or cheeky kitten? And is it anything actually to do with Saint Patrick at all. How does that reflect on Irish people in general? Does it apply to other nations’ National Days?

Country National Day

Ireland 17 Mar St Patrick’s Day

USA 04 July Indolence Day

England 23 Apr St George’s Day

Scotland 30 Nov St Andrew’s Day

Wales 01 Mar St David’s Day

France 14 Jul Bastille Day

Italy 02 June Festa della Repubblica

China 01 Oct National Day

Vietnam 02 Sept National Day

Belgium 21 July National Day

Australia 26 January Australia Day

Does anyone in Australia give a tinker’s curse about Belgium’s National Day (and vice versa) and do the Scottish go out of their way to celebrate the festa della Republica? Yet punters, (including myself this year) really do buy ridiculous paraphernalia (green bowler hats, scarves, commerative plates and plaques, t-shirts, key rings, dolls, fake red hair and beards, hideous plastic shillelaghs and grinning leprechauns sitting atop spotted toadstools) otherwise such price conscious emporiums wouldn’t stock them, I suppose.

How much junk is produced for France’s National Day for example, – model guillotines, and plastic strings of onions? Are mini dragons or bravely waving plastic or ceramic flags sold in bulk for other National Days. Who, except perhaps the Americans who actually go so far as to dye their beer green for March 17, would treat their national drink with such disrespect as to add food colouring. Imagine the French dying their wine green or blue!

Ok, so Paint Saddy’s day is both a Feast Day – and a Holy Day of Obligation! (Roman Catholics in Ireland are obliged to attend Mass) – but does that mean we deserve (unreservedly?) to be kissed? So, my point, labouriously, is this, why are Irish, and not specifically other nations, to be kissed on their National Day. Not reviled, despised, thanked, rewarded, recognised, applauded, awarded but kissed? How did this come about?

Is it the culture, the music, the quaintness, the far flung western isle sort of thing, the heavy Arran-knit sweaters or is it more likely that 17 March falls conveniently halfway through the period known as Lent, when Christians “voluntarily” beginning a period of penance by refraining from something or other. In my childhood, it was giving up sugar or chocolate (later it was cigs and the pints) until the breakout on Easter Sunday with chocolate rabbits and eggs, However, on St Paddy’s Day, the traditional Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol were lifted for the day, which probably has done more to encourage and promote the Saint Patrick’s Day tradition of alcohol consumption in terms of Messrs Guinness & Jameson than any other thing.

Maybe that’s why the Irish are kissed? Because we found a way to have a bit of a knees-up in the middle of a drab penitential period.

I’ll definitely make an effort (not much required, actually, if the truth be known) to drink a Guinness on Paddy’s Day- either draught in some non-local pub or drink the elegant long cans sedately in my own garden. I’ll probably have a whiskey too, a Jameson, for old time’s sake, I’ll tell myself. I’ll pin up the green plastic mini top hats so thanks Paint Saddy, or Naomh Pádraig, as I knew him when I was a kid.

Here are a few misconceptions about Ireland’s Patron Saint?

He never drove the snakes out of Ireland, as there were never snakes in the island. He is responsible for starting this idea of the ‘island of saints and scholars”. Possible an accomplished womaniser and not too adverse to accepting a back-hander from local chieftains apparently, as, at his trial, he was accused of both. He certainly raised the ire of the British heretical bishops following the Pelagian branch of Christianity at the time while he reviled slavery and its widespread practice.

I don’t think he ever left the “blessèd isle” from when he arrived in his second coming, as it were, in 432 until his death in Four Sixty something A.D. I’ve always admired perseverance, dedication and effort and I’d have to give the Saint full marks there.

Walking through Celtic Heartlands

I have been guilty of ethnocentricity in my collection of posts about Celtic Iron Age Technology in that I related them solely to the culture and lifestyle associated with Ireland from roughly 300 BCE to the arrival of Christianity some 730 years later. Of course, no one in Ireland during that time would have considered themselves Celts – or Irish – for that matter, but Celtic is what they were.

This year, travelling through France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia I realised that I was in the very heartlands of the people known by the Romans as Galli or Galatae and as Keltoi by the Greeks, but what they called themselves is conjecture. Prehistoric Bronze Age peoples, loosely linked by a common heritage, style, languages, customs and art, from the central and east central plains of Europe coalesced around 750 BCE, with the discovery and use of iron to become the most powerful people in Europe from about 450 BCE – 250 BCE.

Initially a nomadic, pastoral people who favoured the cow and the horse above all other, they adopted agriculture and settled down around La Tène in modern day Switzerland and around the Lake Neuchatel in modern Austria.

Archaeologists labelled certain cultures within the Late Bronze Age over view. The culture known as Urnfield, where the dead were cremated in pots, is considered ‘proto’ Celts followed by the Hallstatt – after a huge site in Austria – in 1200 BCE.

From 450 BCE, Celtic culture was marked by La Tène – after a lakeside site in Switzerland. There, a large quantity of material goods was found. With their discovery of iron, both in agricultural – better ploughshares – and in war – spears and swords – the Celts flooded new areas, urged on by increasing population and the need for more farmland.

Spread out from their base in North East Europe, inevitably they came into contact, and met resistance, from the expanding Roman Empire. Pushed back north and west into Gaul, modern-day France, the Celts were hemmed in by Scandinavian tribes moving south themselves as Slavic tribes pushed in from the east.

Under pressure on all sides, the Celts retreated to Britain and Ireland before even those in Britain were pushed to the extremes of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall by the arrival of the Saxons and other Germanic and Scandinavian tribes with the last remnants of true Celtic culture ensconced in Ireland until the arrival of Christianity circa 400 A.D.

So goes the myth anyway, I suppose, but at the same time, I felt comfortable and at ease walking through these heartlands. Perhaps it was the beer!

Saint Paddy

(I know, I know this isn’t really Celtic Iron Age Trivia / Technology like the other posts in this category have been but …. well, it was just St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) this day last week so here goes – sorry if I dispell any myths!).

Go into any Irish pub anywhere outside of Ireland itself and no doubt there will be a mural or picture of the saint himself, mitred, robed, smiling beatifically or looking suitably sombre and not a pint of Guinness in sight.

The reality was rather different as it turns out.

Patrick, whose birth name was Maewyn Succat (b.390 CE), was the son of Conchessa and Calpurnius, a tax collector appointed by the Roman administration in western Britain. Patrick’s family were local stock who had long accepted Roman rule and custom and would be considered well to do in that they themselves were slave-owners.

Constantine the Great had earlier exempted Christian clergy from city council duties and, as increasingly frequent raids on the coastal districts made collecting taxes difficult, Maewyn’s grandfather, Potitus, had taken full advantage of the exemption by entering into a relaxed form of Christianity.

Calpurnius, however, was obliged to resort to harsh methods to collect the amounts demanded by Rome as, if less than demanded was collected, the “exactor,’ as Calpurnius was known, had to make up the deficit from his own pocket.

Stillicho, a Roman legate, was insisting on the full tax levy and Calpurnius was under a lot of pressure to buy and sell slaves to redress the difference

In 406 CE, Irish raiders attacked their Roman style villa and enslaved the 16 year old Maewyn to herd and tend sheep in the rugged countryside around Slemish, Northeastern Ireland. By 410 CE, all Roman forces had withdrawn from Brittania, leaving the country exposed to continuing raiding by Goidels or Irish raiders.

The youth spent 6 years in thrall to Irish pagans, where he discovered both his “anam cara” – the friend of his soul with his God and an empathy for his captors as much cut off from the true religion as he felt himself to be. Guided by a voice only he could hear, he escaped captivity and, convinced of his divinely inspired mission, studied under Bishop Germanus in Auxerre and again in Rome, determined to bring salvation to the people controlled by their pagan druids.

In 431 Pope Celestine I, concerned more at the growth of Pelagianism in Britain than the rife paganism in Hibernia, sent his bishop to suppress the Pelagian heresy but Palladius died with no success in Scotland in 432.

Maewyn, meanwhile, had received the tonsure at Lérins Abbey and taken the name Patroculus, and jumped at the chance to return to the island of his slavery and pagan druidism. Celestine sensed that Patroculus was made of sterner stuff than his former envoy and as a womaniser, a fighter, a hard man of his times, well used to both the power of the word as well as the sword, he would be an invaluable bulwark against the bishops in Britain who stuck to their heretical ways. Patroculus certainly never claimed to be a saint but by his death in 461 he had founded a base for Christianity in the far-flung western isle that has never wavered since.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day for next year if you missed it!

Ancient Celtic Druids and the Bhagavad Gita

Bengal to Donegal

According to Julius Caesar and other writers and chroniclers from the first century BCE, such as Strabo, a Greek geographer, and Diodorus Siculus, an historian from Sicily, the ancient Celtic druids were more than just a semi-mystical priesthood.

Caesar certainly saw them not only as an organised inter-tribal brotherhood who acted as living repositories of their tribal histories and legends, negotiating, legislating, judging and officiating over all individual and community oaths and sacrifices but also as a rival authority to the extension of Roman power among the so-called barbarian tribes of the north.

Others regarded druids as poets and bards, seers, teachers, historians, astronomers, medical practioners and – later through the distorted lens of early Christians – as devious wizards and magicians who kept their people in thrall with simple sleight-of-hand tricks.

Probably all of the above is true, in some sense, in that they were, without doubt, the learned men of their people who had the recognised and unquestioned power to ‘excommunicate” individuals from community events. All commentators agree that they had a vast store of knowledge which they acquired orally and passed on to their followers over a 20 year training period.

No doubt they were poets and bards as the easiest way to memorise huge tracts of knowledge relating to tribal law and ownership was to make use of standard poetic functions such as alliteration, rhyme, onomatopoeia, simile and metaphor as a way of preserving and keeping alive tribal history and legends.

However, as no written records*¹ exist of what the druids knew or learned, it is mere conjecture to say what they actually did.

Nevertheless, it is feasible to consider how the classical ancients described them and to put that knowledge into a suitable context.

It is likely that the druids became the sole provider of laws and customs among the widely varied nomadic and pastoralist Celtic people inhabiting Europe from the Early Iron Age, c.800 BCE. Being outdoors as a way of life, the druids would have become very receptive to the divine powers inherent in nature and would willingly have entered into a communion with them, having gradually assimilated facets from other existing codes of law and belief into their own oral bodies of knowledge. As nomadic people settled and adopted agriculture, more elaborate rituals and sacrifices were needed and the druids eventually became the predominant social and political bond uniting all Celtic people that Caesar feared so much and vowed to destroy.

What is known is that druids could be both male and female, with the men shaving their head across the forehead, leaving the hair long at the back, and that they were exempt from taxes and military service. Extraordinary attention was paid to the human head, which was seen as the location of the human spirit or soul. Heads, taken as a trophy in battle, implying control of an enemy’s spirit, were later preserved in cedar oil. Shrines often contained these mummified skulls or artistic representations of them.

With the rise of the hill forts and their ascendant chieftains, druids gravitated to the throne where they acted as trusted advisors. Regarding their role as seers and astronomers, they believed in a future or imagined worlds such as Tír na nÓg, Uí Breasail and Magh Mell.

Such powers they may have exercised would have depended upon their knowledge of the seasons and seasonal change, and their priveledged status, as intermediaries in the communion between men and gods, giving them the authority to initiate the planting and harvesting of crops and rites of thanks for success.

Seasonal change may have involved a close study of nature with such signs as frogs spawning deeper than usual or the trees showing the backside of their leaves and so on, being an imminent sign of changing weather patterns.

Similarly, like shamans world-wide, they perhaps used local plants to alter their worldly perception and also that of their people through the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms and plants such as foxglove or belladonna or perhaps, on a more one-to-one situation, hypnotism.

Oak groves were sacred to the druids as were certain rivers, and natural features of their landscape such as hilltops and valleys. Certainly, sacrifice of plants and animals took place while classical writers shuddered in scandalised horror at the idea of human sacrifice, ignoring their own brutal histories of slavery, torture and sacrifice in the public arenas.

Caesar seemed to feel Druidism originated in Britain, most especially in the modern day region of Anglesley Island off Wales, known then to the Romans as the Isle of Mona and that druidism spread to most of Europe but not as far south as Spain or Italy but it is more likely the other way round. As Caesar advanced into Gaul, gradually pushing back the barbarian tribes, the old knowledge retreated along with the population until further encroachment from Germanic tribes in the north meant that remaining Celts retreated to the islands of the Atlantic or clung to the northernmost fringes of Europe. Pushed again and finally hemmed in by the legions in Britain, the druids reputedly met their end facing off against advancing Roman legions who stormed the Isle of Anglesey in 60 CE, wiping out the last stronghold of Celtic druidism. That he knew of, anyway!

Inevitably druids continued, unhindered in their ways, in the far flung western isle of Ireland, relatively untouched by Roman rule, for a further 500 years until the arrival of Christianity on the shores, (not taking into account of the hundreds of Christian enslaved from raids on both the European mainland but also from the west coast of Britain, a trade that was to continue for many more centuries).

The Hindu Link

Recent Celtic scholarship*² has shown that the origins of druidism share a common Indo-European heritage with the Brahmins of Vedic India. Strong parallels exist between ancient Celtic and Hindu society, with their common Indo-European roots in law and customs going back to the Early Bronze Age or even the Neolithic period.

As far back as 1786, Sir William Jones discovered close links between ancient Sanskrit – the language of the Vedas – and Greek, Latin, Celtic and Germanic languages. Linguistically, Italic and Celtic (the fore-fathers of Latin and Old Irish) and Indo-Iranian (Persian, or Avestan, and Sanskrit) were part of the much greater family of Indo-European languages sharing many common features and lexical cognates.

By the third millennium BCE, The Indo-Aryan cattle-rearing nomads roaming the Eurasian steppes west of the Urals dispersed west to Europe and, circa 1500 BCE, arrived in the north west plains of India from the mountain passes of Afghanistan where their beliefs merged with pre-existing ones to form the basis of Hinduism. Similar to the Celts of Western Europe, their culture was characterised by domesticated cattle and horses, chariots, spoked wheels and elaborate metalworkings.

Certainly, early Celtic society was based on a shared or common language – (Proto-Celtic), an authoritative priesthood (Druids), a strict social hierarchy (Chieftains / Kings – Nobles / Warriors – Priests / Druids – Farmers / Craft-workers – Slaves) with acknowledged descent from a single, known ancestor and where cattle represented both wealth and prestige. The Indus valley civilization at a comparable time was remarkably similar as society was based on the pillars of language (Sanskrit), an authoritative priesthood (the Brahmins) and a social hierarchy of chieftains supported by the Brahmin priestly caste overseeing a warrior nobility with ordinary people below them and subjugated people or slaves at the bottom).

The Celtic grouping of families into four generations – the Irish “derbfine” is similar to the Indian notion of “sapinda.” Ancient Irish marriage laws paralleled ancient Indian ones, so too did the laws of inheritance through the female line. The use of fasting – a hunger strike – to “dishonour” a transgressor is common to this day in both societies – think Gandhi, Bobby Sands and the many others who have pledged their life for a principle! The ancient oral Irish legal foundation, the laws of Fénechus, transcribed from the 7th century CE by Christian scribes and constantly annotated and added to, and later known as the Brehon Laws, share many similarities with the Vedic culture and laws of the North West Indus valley in modern day India.

According to The Book of Invasions, (see earlier post on Epochs and the Books of Invasions) a collection of poems and prose narratives that presents itself as a chronological “history” of Ireland and the Irish, the earliest of which was compiled by anonymous scribes during the 11th century, Amergin was a Milesian seer or druid who fought against the Tuatha De Danann and is chiefly remembered even today for his song where he subsumes the world into his own being with a philosophic outlook that parallels the declaration of the Lord Shri Krishna in the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita.^*3

The Song of Amergin

I am the wind that blows across the sea;

I am the wave of the ocean;

I am the murmur of the billows;

I am the ox of the seven combats;

I am the vulture on the rock;

I am a beam of the sun;

I am the fairest of flowers;

I am a wild boar in valour;

I am a salmon in the pool;

I am a lake on the plain;

I am the skill of the craftsman;

I am a word of science;

I am the spear point that gives battle;

I am the God who creates in the head of man the fire of thought.

Who is it that enlightens the assembly upon the mountain, if not I?

Who tells the ages of the moon, if not I?

Who shows the place where the sun goes to rest, if not I?

Who is the God that fashions enchantments – The enchantment of battle and the wind of change?

Compare with Chapter 10, The Divine Manifestations, of the holy book of the Bhagavad Geeta ^*3

I am the electric Force in the powers of nature

I am the mind

and I am the intelligence in all that lives,

I am the Whirlwind among the winds

of the waters, I am the Ocean

I am the Thunderbolt of weapons

of cows I am the Cow of Plenty

I am the Eagle among birds

I am the passion in those who procreate

I am the eternal present,

I am the lion among beasts

I am the beginning, the middle and the end in creation

I am time inexhaustible

I am all devouring death

I am the origin of all that shall happen

Whatever is glorious, excellent, beautiful and mighty,

be assured that it comes from but a fragment of my splendour.

Whatever the case, it is beguiling to think of a single strand of humanity sowing the seeds of civilization from Bengal to Donegal as attested by this dedication from the 1935 edition of The Geeta to W.B. Yeats!

*1 The Coligny Calendar, dating from the first century CE has sixteen columns of months covering a period of five years and has been compared with Vedic cosmology. Major festival, according to Diodorus Siculus were held every five years and festival days were marked on the calendar.

*2 Kelly, Fergus (1988). A Guide to Early Irish Law. Early Irish Law Series 3. Dublin: DIAS. ISBN 0901282952.

Binchy, D. A. 1972. “Celtic Suretyship, a fossilized Indo-European Institution?” The Irish Jurist 7, 360–72.

Charles-Edwards, Th. 1980. “Nau Kynwedi Teithiauc.” In D. Jenkins and M.E. Owen (eds.), The Welsh Law of Women. Studies presented to Professor Daniel A. Binchy on his eightieth birthday, 3 June 1980. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 23–39.

*3 The Geeta – the Gospel of the lord Shri Krishna

Put into English by Shri Purohit Swami 1935 Faber & Faber Ltd.

Iron Age Hero Traits

Along with the rise of the hill forts circa 1000 BCE, and the emphasis on items both as weapons and ornamentation, the stratification of society, into chieftains or kings surrounded by nobles and warriors supported by priests or druids interceding for farmers, craft-workers and slaves, was firmly established. This hierarchy inevitably involved the notion of the hero or champion and was marked by a leader able to distribute gifts and largesse while, at the same time, host feasts and celebrations where warriors would vie with each other for the favour of their liege. Such restrained power necessitated the rise of the heroic warrior, the hero, to stand alone and unbeaten. No doubt the flowering of literature of the twelfth century French Romance and Mallory’s later Arthurian romances must all have stemmed from the Iron Age concept.

Not everyone would – or could – be a hero. While all young boys played fierce physical games with wooden sticks – a proto Hurley? – before weapons could be handled, a hero was always set apart. Never having recognised parents and a mysterious background, Arthur is fostered at an early age just as Oedipus is brought up in ignorance of his parents and Lancelot of Arthurian legend is raised by the shadowy Lady of the Lake while Cú Chulainn’s birth is similarly shrouded in mystery.

Not obvious parentage means the hero has no name and must acquire one through his own actions – Sétanta kills the forge hound and becomes Cú Chulainn, while later Celtic heroes, Finn and the Welsh, Gwion, gain their later names of brilliance and light. The significance of having no family means a concomitant feeling of standing alone – the hero can expect no aid in his quest for glory but at the same time no limits are placed on his ambitions for his name to live on, forever, on the lips of men.

Never accepted in his own country, the Iron Age hero must leave his comfort zone, undergoing training at the hands of learned druids or experienced warriors. Tests of physical prowess, – ability to jump or vault over a stick their own height, run barefoot through a forest without breaking a twig underfoot, defend against 9 men throwing spears, remove a thorn from his foot while running – must be passed, but the hero must also be erudite and knowledgeable about poetry. Strangers approaching the territory of a chieftain had to undergo single combat or compose a poem on the spot.

Cú Chulainn trained under the tutelage of the warrior woman, Scáthach, who presented the fearsome gae bolga to the hero, along with a warning of its consequent use. Beowulf sought out sea monsters before going on to defeating Grendel and its mother, Arthur trained under the venerable Sir Ector de Maris, all to achieve the fame they sought. Beowulf leaves for the court of Denmark; Tristan of Arthurian legend travels to Ireland from his native Cornwall.

Nowhere in the manuscripts is it ever suggested that Cú Chulainn is not from the kingdom of the Ulaidh (modern day Ulster in Northern Ireland) nevertheless, when all the fighting age men of the area are stricken with an ancient curse, Cú Chulainn alone is exempt. Like all his fellow outsiders, having no ties to hamper his actions, the hero inevitably becomes a force for disruption, change and catastrophe.

Heroes must claim their weapons forcibly or obtain them from supernatural forces – Lancelot receives his sword from the Lady of the lake, Beowulf discovers a sword in the lair beneath the lake, and Cú Chulainn smashes King Conor’s armoury before the king himself presented the nascent hero with his very own weapons while the youthful Arthur plucks the sword from the stone.

A tipping point occurs in all the lives of the heroes when the focus on honour and glory supersedes the needs or bonds of their society. Achilles rejects his mother’s help and chooses to die before the walls of Troy. Cú Chulainn hears the druid’s prophecy of bloody and glory but still chooses to seek the latter. This tipping point influences the remaining portion of the heroes’ life. Every further irrevocable action with the umbrella-like spear, the gae bolga, that Cú Chulainn accepts from the hands of Scáthach maintains or furthers the glorification of his name. Chulainn, in his killing fury, is just as prepared to slaughter his enemies as his compatriots once his battle fury descends upon him.

Mortal enemies of the heroes often involve demonic or supernatural forces as human weapons have little effect upon them, Achilles is dipped in the pool of immortality, Arthur is protected by the power of Excalibur and Cú Chulainn is unassailable when he is in his battle fury. The inevitable downfall of the hero is, therefore, always linked with the breaking of a vow or the forsaking of an oath. Arthur is killed at the hands of his illegitimate son, Cú Chulainn dies alone after breaking the taboos that ruled his life, Beowulf meets his demise by neglecting his role of kingship and acting as if he were still the hero.