Talk:Celtic mythology/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Celtic mythology. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Needs Coherence

The sections "Temples" and "Celtic Worship" contradict each other within the space of several lines. I attempted to correct this by including the words "it is said" in the latter section, but that was overruled as "not an improvement". I did not want to completely rewrite the "Celtic Worship" section, which was my reason for using such a minor edit. I believe this to be an improvement, contrary to Wetman.

Sorry about the abruptness. Insertions of "Some say""legend has it" etc never makes a bad statement any better. Come back and improve this article as soon as you have time. --Wetman 05:44, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and revised the section in question simply by removing the references to temples in the section not devoted to them. --Whateley23

The article usefully notes both the popular and incorrect view (the ancient Celts had no temples) and the modern, archaeological view, but did not say what was different about Gallo-Roman temples. I added a brief mention. If I get time, I will add an article under fanum and link it in. --NantonosAedui

Deities

The whole section on Celtic deities needs massive revision. I'll look at collecting notes and taking on the task. --Whateley23

and i see that others have already been working on it. Whateley23 09:57, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Druid = Shaman? not really....

contrary to neopagan fashion, druids (while they showed some shamanic characteristics, such as occasional ecstatic rituals) were not primarily ecstatic practitioners, and so should be called priests rather than shamans. Whateley23 20:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Good call. Caesar uses the term 'sacerdos' in most of DBG (except for the specifically ethnographic chapter 4, where he uses druid), which does argue for a 'priest' designation. They are also described in eigraphy as 'Gutuater' after 'druid' became proscribed. I agree they have little in common with Siberian shamanism. --Nantonos 17:53, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Gods organization?

Is there anyway we could reorganize the side bar about the gods and whatnot to include what they were worshiped for while still keeping the area neat? --Atlastawake 01:16, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I am not certain what you mean. What sort of purpose are you thinking about when specifying 'worshipped for'?

--P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 02:54, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Tell us what the BVM is "worshiped for", and we'll put it in a sidebar. --Wetman 09:07, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

BVM?--Atlastawake 20:08, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The Blessed Virgin Mary. But I think Atlasawake meant defining the gods as "God of Light", "God of Knowledge", etc. If this is the case, I think the sidebar is probably too long as it is.--Cuchullain 03:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the breakdown I was thinking. And agreed, the sidebar is long, but right now it's not very useful. Just a bunch of names most people (like me) don't recognize.--Atlastawake 18:23, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

It'd be nice if the gods could be categorised neatly, but unfortunately given the nature of the sources that's not possible. There are very few gods, in any pantheon, that are amenable to being simply described as "god of x" or "god of y" - Mars is a "god of war" but he's also a god of healing, and who would think it adequate to call Zeus a "god of thunder", even though it's perfectly accurate as far as it goes? - and it gets more complicated in Celtic myth because all we know about Celtic gods and their natures is indirect and open to interpretation. --Nicknack009 19:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Could it work if we created a number list of "domains" (ie water, healing, war, monkeys) and then, next to each god, the appropriate number(s)? We could even color-coat the numbers; more direct/certain/established natures are one color, iffy natures another? --Atlastawake 16:30, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Good Article discussion

I see that a Good Article sticker has been added, which surprises me given the number of comments on this talk page about significant problems in the text. --Nantonos 10:33, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Seems a bit hasty to put it here when one considers the state of the article at this time.

-P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 19:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Where to start?

Looking through this page I see lots of howlers, particularly misspellings, by folk not familiar with the Celtic languages. There's a lot of well-meaning disinformation on here, some of it propagated by post-modernist "revivalists". --MacRusgail 17:03, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, yes. :) Unfortunately, there are more than a few pages on Wikipedia suffering the same ailment as those which you list here, so Celtic Mythology will just have to take a number, sit in its uncomfortable chair, and wait for a benevolent doctor to have the time to deal with it. Much like the patients receiving service from the British National Health Service, many good articles here have only a few decent people who are able to adequately deal with a disproportionately large number of cases. ;)

P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 10:33, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I've been working on a few of the related articles, but there's some which I don't know where to start on! I've started some other articles of related interest recently, if anyone is interested:

--MacRusgail 13:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Since Haukur and Wiglaf have already been spearheading the good work being done with Scandinavian mythological and religious articles, their cousins the Celts are on my list of 'stuff to do' as far as mythology and religion are concerned.... but not soon. Probably in a month or two. I am working on article cleanup work at the moment, so all in good time. When I get around to those topics, I will leave you a message. --P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 21:34, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Removal of "Celtic" Christian cross

Hello, I've removed the cross from this article. It plays no known part in Celtic mythology and gives the impression that it somehow does. There are many other examples of pagan Celtic mythology that could appear here in place of this. The cross was brought to Ireland by Christians. The symbol is appropriate for the Celtic Christianity article but simple gives the wrong impression here. Would you put a giant, Arabic-stylized cross next to the introductory paragraph of the Islam article? --Bloodofox 22:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Ha, I guess you're right, I never noticed that. But could we get some other picture in there?--Cuchullain 05:48, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a bit of knotwork or a triskele? Personally, I'd love to see a standing-stone--and if you look very closely, it would say "wikipedia" in Ogham. -- Straif 22:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Series

This article is part of
the Celtic mythology
series.

Mabinogion

Hey all, what would people say to a {{Celtic mythology}} series along the lines of that to the right? For some time I've been pining for a template to draw together the various threads of articles on Celtic religion. And if you look at {{Zoroastrianism}} or {{Bahá'í}}, you'll see just how useful these can be. Quartier Latin1968 01:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like an excellent idea. Rhion 09:59, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, cool! I've taken advantage some prolonged down-time at my work (server's down) to revamp the table at the right into a new {{Celtic mythology}} template. I hope this doesn't seem to be too drastic a change, but I moved the other table down towards the bottom of this article to make room. I haven't gone around and put the template on all the articles that it links to, however, since I thought it would be better to wait a few days and see what the public reaction is. I chose a green colour scheme because, well, it's my favourite colour, and it also has 'Celtic' associations for many people. Everybody, please suggest changes or improvements (or make them yourself)! And with a bit of luck, the template won't be deleted immediately. Quartier Latin1968 17:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Delisted GA

It seems that this article did not go through the GA nomination process. Looking at the article as is, it fails on criteria 2 in that it does not cite any sources. Most Good Articles use inline citations. I would recommend that this be fixed and submit the article through the nomination process. --RelHistBuff 15:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, nobody who's contributed much to this article ever claimed Good Article status for it; somebody just breezed by and stuck that template on top, taking everyone by surprise. Everybody agrees the article needs work. Quartier Latin1968

17:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Books

I was wondering, as I'm quite interested in Celtic mythology, especially in its proto-Celtic form, do someone here know the best books to buy to get some good info on Celtic mythology, and as well as of the current discussions around the topic, as to get a idea about the general consensus. I've noticed, as with Slavic mythology, that there are frequent misunderstandings around the percieved role of the various deities and spirits. I've looked around for a number of books, but I'm not sure what the best ones to get are. It would be nice if, atleast one, contains info that show how various deities and spirits are connected to other Indo-European cognates and counterparts, and if it contains any archaeology(as I'm going to study anthropology, I consider at least some archaeology a must). And preferably not any of those 100$ tomes that would give Uncle Scrooge a heartattack. :D Any help is accepted. Thanks in advance. Satanael 21:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

My own passionate opinion: Skip all secondary sources! Go back to the originals. So much patent nonsense is passed off as fact in the literature widely available commercially. Try to find translated copies of the real thing: the Mabinogi, the Táin Bó Cuailgne, Lebor Gabála Érenn, Cath Maighe Tuireadh, the Book of Taliesin. There are actually a lot of 100-year-old translations of old texts available in cheap reprints, thanks to the copyright expiration; PW Joyce's Celtic Romances is great; you could also try Lady Gregory's Gods and Fighting Men. A tremendous amount of old stories are also available on the web these days: http://www.ucc.ie/celt/publishd.html is the best of many great resources.

You won't find anything reliable on "Proto-Celtic mythology", because there's no such thing. At least, none survives anymore; Proto-Celtic itself is just an academic construct. You'll do better to read the mythology that does survive and look for patterns and common themes yourself. (Also, the introductions and notes to many translations point out such parallels as well.) Happy hunting! There's so much amazing material to discover... Quartier Latin1968

18:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Not Proto-Celtic and not really mythology, but Miranda Green's The Gods of the Celts (ISBN 0750934794) is a decent read. It is based upon archaeological findings combined with Irish and Roman writings. As I recall it has a good bit about the Gauls. I say it isn't really mythology, because it doesn't discuss the stories or the details of the Gods--it was more at, I suppose, the archetype level. I echo the above opinion of going to the originals. Some translations are better than others. For the Mabinogi, I strongly recommend Patrick Ford's (ISBN 0520034147)--and just about anything else he's written. --Straif 18:40, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Opps, I didn't misformulated it. I meant more things like common elements and mythemes, as well as anything we might know of inherited Proto-Celtic(if any) or common Celtic religious elements, such as cults, deities and rites. Anyway, though this is a little late, thanks for what you've told me. I have yet to get ahold of any of the books you mentioned. Please do let me know if you can think of any other good books. User:Satanael 16:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Division of labour between articles

Hi everybody. I've recently done some clean-up/reworking of the Celtic polytheism article. As part of that process, it seems to me that we should consider moving/merging a lot of the material here to Celtic polytheism if it's about Celtic religion but not specifically about mythology. See religion and mythology for an idea of the distinction I'm trying to make: basically, if it doesn't concern a narrative, it's not mythology. Any thoughts? Quartier Latin1968 19:28, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. If the article stay as it is, it will further construe the illusion that mythology is in any way synonymous with [a dead] religion. Egyptian mythology, Norse mythology and Slavic mythology suffer from this very problem. As you said, if it's not a narrative, specifically a legend or myth, then it's not part of mythology. User:Satanael 16:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Argh. Well, I've made a start. Much more remains to be done. Quartier Latin1968

04:57, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

'Branches' of Celtic mythology

I think the section on the so-called branches of Celtic mythology needs to be toned down. The current structure alleges, for example, that there is a Cornish mythology. Now I know Cornish literature pretty well, and I can assure you, there's no real mythology in that small corpus. Beunans Ke incorporates some Arthurian legend – that's about it. As for Breton mythology? Manx mythology? Scottish mythology? I think we're really talking about folklore here. As Nantonos pointed out a few sections above, there's basically two branches of mythology properly speaking: the Gaelic (written mainly in Ireland) and the Welsh (including some which might have written in southern Scotland). Quartier Latin1968 18:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Why so much info about Irish mythology, compared to a few lines and a link for the Welsh? I understand that there is more material regarding Irish but the amounts here are extremely unbalanced. 82.5.217.129 23:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Children of Llyr and Children of Don

Someone has edited the article to say that the Children of Don represented light and the Children of Llyr represented darkness. I don't see how the stories of the Mabinogion or any mentions of them in the Triads can be interpreted in this way, but if anyone has interpreted them as such then a cite would be appropriate. Somebody reputable, that is. --Nicknack009 19:07, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the sentence, there's no way any reputable source would say that.--Cúchullain ^t/c 23:41, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Help

Hi I'd like to contribute and create non exhisting articles to mythology can anyone please email me or leave a discussion on my talkk page what articles need creation or otherwise.Thanks people Cú Culainn 18:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Morgana le Fey

From Celtic Mythology: "She reappears in Arthurian legend as Morgan le Fay, that is, Morrigan the fairy." Stated as a fact but without a cite. You're sure on this? How/Why? Thanks.

You're quite right to question this; the similarities are however remarkable. Both Morrigan and Morgana le Fey were shapeshifters; both could fly and frequently assume the form of a raven or a crow; both were inciters of war amongst mankind. As a general observation I have no particular problem with it; if it comes down to issues with similarities in nomenclature, etc, then Geoffrey of Monmouth's own idiosyncratic take on reality has to be questioned here. sjc

I've removed "She reappears in Arthurian legend as Morgan le Fay, that is, Morrigan the fairy.

Pronounced as More Ree-an." There is no direct relationship; texts that claim such a relationship are using very outdated scholarship by Lucy Allen Paton, her 1960 Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance. The two words are etymologically not related. See Bromwich Triodd Ynys Prydain s.v. Morgan, and the Ph.D. dissertation by Angelique Gulermovich-Epstein _War goddess : the Morrígan and her Germano-Celtic counterparts_ UCLA 1998. I would argue that the characteristics which on the surface make the two figures appear similar are largely due to their supernatural status, rather than to a specific tie.--DigitalMedievalist--

Sounds more to me as though the pros and cons of the connection should be laid out for the reader to decide, rather than simply suppressing any mention of the possibility in this fashion. A reference to an unpublished PhD dissertation without describing its arguments is an unappealing tactic in open discussion anyway, band certainly not a wholesome rationale for removing material. Wetman 07:04, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry to jump in here with neglibigle knowledge of the subject, but I'm inclined to agree with Wetman. If not just leave it, then state why it is considered questionable and let the reader decide for him- or herself. I'm putting putting my two cents worth in because I was looking for information on Lucy Allen Paton and came across this discussion.

Why do you consider her scholarship questionable? I thought she was generally considered an expert on things Arthurian for her multiple translations from old French Arthurian literature. And, BTW, that monograph you (DigitalMedievalist) mention was originally published by Radcliffe College in 1903. It's been republished, obviously. First, I haven't read it and cannot defend it on that basis, BUT it's fairly common to make assumptions or connections of this sort based on similarity in names. Not necessarily good scholarship, but common. Second, since her monograph is based on historical texts, is the error, if you want to call it that, hers or down to the author of the original texts? AFAIK, she is first and foremost a skilled translator, so, not likely to be extrapolating to any great extent. Zlama 01:15, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Mythology/Folklore

Why does "Celtic Folkore" redirect here? Mythology and folk-lore are two different things. Josterhage (talk) 01:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

(I totally agree, folklore is fictional stories told about fictional people, wheras mythology is stories told about people not known to have really existed - S)

About Druids.

It is written in the article that the name "Druid" perhaps came from the word that means "oak". In another book that I read, in an article by the Polish Andrzej Sapokowski, he wrote that the root of the word "Druid" is obvious "Dru" or "Dr", which is the root for most of Indo-European languages' words for "tree", such as English "Tree", Russian "Дерево (Derevo)", Polish "Drzewo", Czech "Drevo", Swedish "Träd", Norwegian "Tre", and perhaps Gaelic "Dru" as well (even though Irish Gaelic for "tree" is "crann").
I am not sure this is 100% correct, but if so, perhaps it should be added to the article (in case this is confirmed by reliable sources).
Nomaed

A similar root, *deru-, is also found in word like truth, betroth, trust or endure, and tree, which implies steadfastness, firmness, solidity.

Is this from a copyrighted source? The phrase "No chapter on the Celts could fail to include " makes me wonder where it is from.

Yes, but the copyright was mine - and now wikipedia's. It's old lecture note material: I wrote it myself, but it was never published. Even so, I'll remove the phrase, thanks. clasqm

(I would like to point out that I am druid - S) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thepageeditor - S (talk • contribs) 19:42, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

The Fisher King

Added an entry to The Fisher King which seems a fairly famous aspect of Celtic mythology. Don't really know enough about it to insert it coherently into the actual artcle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.145.220 (talk) 01:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup needed

I'd like to propose a cleanup of the number of articles in this topic. At a casual glance, there's an increasing number of duplicates, one for each branch of Celtic almost, many of them in clear violation of WP:English, for example:

Glashtin redirects to Kelpie (which is fine) but Glashtyn has it's own page.
Leanan sídhe (never mind the atrocious spelling) should probably sit at Fairy lover. Also seems to overlap with Leanashe
Bean nighe (which should be Bean-nighe in any case) and Caoineag are all categorized as sub-types of Banshees. Do we really need that many stubs? Plus the lengthy discussion of the etymology on bean-sidhe on the bean-nighe page?
Abhartach is stated to have the anglicised form Avartagh, which therefore seems a better place.

Some look rather suspiciously like hoaxes, like Alp-luachra which is referenced by virtue of two sites that I'm not sure pass WP:RS and one [1] that certainly does not pass it. There's more but before I invest more time, I'd like to see if there's general interest in cleaning these up. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The Gauls/France

I think that the intro isn't really accurate : "For Celts in close contact with Ancient Rome, such as the Gauls and Celtiberians, their mythology did not survive the Roman Empire, their subsequent conversion to Christianity and the loss of their Celtic languages. It is mostly through contemporary Roman and Christian sources that their mythology has been preserved. The Celtic peoples who maintained either political or linguistic identities (such as the Gaels in Ireland and Scotland, the Welsh in Wales, and the Celtic Britons of southern Great Britain and Brittany) left vestigial remnants of their ancestral mythologies that were put into written form during the Middle Ages."

It is known that the Gaulish language was the main language in present-day France until the 5th, maybe the 6th century, before its disappearance. Some specialists argue that it was spoken in some regions until the 10th century. Gaulish language is still an important substrate language for current French. We now a very few amount of things about the Gaulish religion, but currently, a very big part of French folklore is inherited from the Gauls. Gauls maintained political and linguistic identity for a long time. The traditional administrative division of the French territory is based upon provinces divided into counties (or "lands" to be more literal with the French term of "pays"). This system was broken during the Revolution, but made its way during the Old Regime and the feudal era. It was copied from the traditional division of Gaul into tribal territories. The Romans kept that system calling the territories "civitates", the Franks kept that system calling the territories "pagi". In fact the territorial division of the French territory was the same from the Gallic independence times to the Revolution. There is probably far more elements in the French folklore coming from the Gauls, than elements in the English folklore coming from the Britons. That's why the intro saying that Gaul didn't maintain its traditional system, but Britain did, seems strange to me, because outside of Wales and Scotland, the territorial system was totally remade by the Anglo-Saxons invaders. The traditionnal counties of England have nothing to do with the ancient territories of the Celtic tribes.--CampagnardDeter (talk) 14:43, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

This isn't what Gaulish language says, nor the long quotes from its references. The "Celtic Britons of southern Great Britain" means Cornwall rather than the rest of England. Johnbod (talk) 14:51, 29 February 2020 (UTC)