PICTURE PLACE HEERE!
Belenus and Epona, the horse-goddesses the only Celtic goddesses to be honoured in Rome.
Samhain (Gaelic, Samhainn) marked the beginning of October 31st (later known as Halloween, the vigil of all Hallows).at Sanhain, the two worlds are torn aside: the earth opens, spirits were able to roam the land, and dead warriors came back to life. Gods and demons walked the dark places. The air was filled with cries of torment. Fires were lit on hill tops to guide returning warriors, local legend tell that a stone-age horseman rides the road near an ancient burial mound. This road (between Cranborne and Handley) bisects the old roman road to Sarum and is an ancient track way the linked the Celtic villages of the durotriges with the coast. The ghostly rider is described to be a young Celt, bare-legged and wrapped in a long grey cloak, people continued to observe Samhain in the traditional way, but the British Isles to Christianity, it was changed into a harvest festival.
Imbolc was a fertility festival held on the first day of February and associated with the goddess Brigit. Beltane was kept on the first of May, when cattle were ritually purified by being driven between two fires. Household fires were extinguished and then rekindled with a torch lit at the ritual fire. Lughnasa was the agrarian harvest festival, celebrated for a month between mid-July and mid-august.
The druids
Members of the druid priesthoods were trained for twenty years to serve as guardians of the mysteries of their religion. Their traditions were passed on orally, and they also served as tribal judges and historians. Secret rites were taken place in wooded areas the Romans called this the “sacred groves”. Druids wore white robes as they celebrated the sixth night of a new moon by cutting a sprig of mistletoe from a sacred oak with a gold sickle. (“The word druid comes from the Gaelic for knowing the oak tree”) the mistletoe was dropped onto a white cloak spread below a tree, and magic potions were used, the druid had knowledge of astronomy equal to that of the Romans, and they used astrology to predicts future events. Each family was responsible for the actions of all its members, wrong doers were punished by their family members. The Romans disliked the druids and did everything in their power to uproot them because the druids were very powerful and religious which influenced many Celts. Druidic priest were made outcasts, the majority of druids were Celtic chiefs, the druids and their followers were killed or driven from their land, their sanctuaries were destroyed and sacred groves were burnt. Roman military tired to put an end to Celtic civilisation.
Celtic sanctuaries
Most Celtic sanctuaries were found near lakes or rivers, and in forest sites the poet Lucan describes one sacred wood, Caesar and other roman generals destroyed many sanctuaries in both Gaul and Britain The druids worshipped their gods with out making temples-weapons, cauldrons and bronze items-were given as ritual offerings that ceased after the Romans invaded the islands in ad 60. Destroying woods that Tacitus described as “devoted to barbarous superstitions”
During Romano-Celtic times, through the influence of roman practices, curses were inscribed on lead sheets, thrown in to a stream, or nailed to a post, usually near a temples or shrine. To seek revenge against offenders. Examples made at Uley (Gloucestershire) uncovered more than a hundreds such curses.
The Celtic Christian church
The precise date when Christianity first reached the British Isles remains a mystery. The Celts traded throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, and it is probably the merchants first bought word of the inspired prophets. News of the Risen Christ would have spread like wildfire through Celtic society. Indeed, many traditional stories suggest that the Celts were well prepared to receive this revelation. Phoenician and Aramaic traders brought news from the Holy Land. Legend relates that Joseph of Arimathea, the wealthy merchant who provided Christ’s tomb, came to Cornwall to trade for tin, bringing the Child Jesus with him, According to the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul addressed the Celts (gauls) in Galatia.
The earliest Celtic Christians, called the Culdees, accepted the Old Latin (Itala) bible as the revealed word of God-a theology to be accepted and obeyed in every particular, in the tradition of the druidic “word” .Speculation or debate concerning the revealed Word was forbidden. God was supreme provider and creator. Men and Women were created by him, and through the exercise of devotion and the ability to live according to God’s Word it was possible to enter paradise, the Land of the Ever Young. The notion of free will was the touch stone of sanctity.
The concept of the Trinity was coloured by Celtic tradition and belief. As in the druidic teaching, there was no place for those who chose to disobey, a point on which the Culdee Church was adamant. Those ho rebelled against God the Father could not dwell with Jesus in paradise, the land of the ever young
