The Celts.

The Celts

            Who are the Celts? Aren’t they a basketball team? Don’t they all look like Merlin and go around casting spells? The Celts (pronounced with a hard “C”) are a people who who dominated much of Europe from approximately 900 to 50 BCE (Before Common Era) and survive today in the west of Europe: in Ireland, Scotland, north of Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria), Wales, and Bretagne in France. There are a celtic languages alive to in Ireland, Wales and Bretagne, the most important of them is gaelic the only official celtic language of the European Union.

            Celtics were a warlike people who lived mainly by pastoralism and farming, and there was frequent fighting between tribes. Iron Age Celts fought primarily with swords, shields, and spears. Population was divided into four groups: druids, warrior nobles, freemen and slaves. There were female warriors and druids too. Celtic women enjoyed much more freedom and status in ancient times than another societies of the same time.

            They loved personal ornamentation like earrings, bracelets, and torques, which were solid, metal neckbands. Many ancient Celtic artistic motifs, such as spirals, triskeles, and intertwining plant and animal designs, are still apparent in modern Western arts and design.

            Their druids and bards kept and passed down massive oral histories and memorized and composed epic poems, stories, and songs to entertain people and keep their traditions alive. Bards were higly respected for their work. They provided the entertainment.

            The ancient Celts belived in a pantheon of gods and goddesses, different tribes worshipped different deities, many of which were associated with the  features of the local environnment, such as springs, wells, and rivers. Prayers and offerings were often made at these sites. The ancient Celts believed in an afterlife and that heroes would pass on after death to an otherwordly place of eternal light and warmth. It was often considered to be an island in the west. They olso believed in reincarnation and the movement of souls between this world and other mythical realms. The druids were the clerics of Celtic society.

            The Romans gradually overcame the Celtic tribes or drove them northward and westward, because the Roman notions of combat stressed organization and discipline in contrast with the individualism and intertribal conflict of Celtic people.

Now enjoy your interactive activity in:  Celtic World in Britain