7.6 Worship

Classical sources claimed that the Celts had no temples (before the Gallo-Roman period) and that their ceremonies took place in forest sanctuaries. Archaeology demonstrates this to be incorrect, with a large number of temple sites excavated. In the Gallo-Roman period, more permanent stone temples were erected, and many of them have been discovered by archaeologists in Britain as well as in Gaul.

The association of Druids with Stonehenge was invented in the sixteenth century in attempts to explain the mysteries of Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument that was abandoned long before any Druids came to Britain. There is no evidence whatever that it was ever used by authentic Druids in ancient times. Nevertheless, it has become an important site for modern movements which identify themselves as druidic.

One of the most well-known Druidic rituals for today is cutting mistletoe, growing on tops of oaks. According to Pliny, the Druids held the mistletoe in the highest veneration and groves of oak were their chosen retreats. Modern scholars suppose that mistletoe was admired because of growing not out of the ground, since then being a divine plant. The picture of golden leaves of mistletoe crowning a huge oak among bare trees is really impressive. In what is probably a fanciful extension of this story, Pliny claims that the mistletoe was cut with a gold sickle by a priest clad in a white robe, two white bulls being sacrificed on the spot. The crescent shaped knife is well known to cut easily and effectively. The mistletoe was to be caught in wicker baskets and not allowed to touch the ground to prevent contamination.

Connected with this cult is the symbolism of Bell Branch. This was traditionally a silver tree branch with gold bells attached to it. The sound of the bells is pleasing to the Gods and attracts their attention, while at the same time it is offensive to the ears of malevolent spirits who are driven away. Some stories include a goddess who invites a human into her home by presenting him with a branch with bells, fruit, or blossoms on it. This tool is used by some groups to help draw spirits from the other realm. The bell branch would be known to others as "the golden bough", the name used by Fraeser to entitle his famous book on myths and rituals. The golden bough is a branch from the oak tree that has mistletoe attached to it. In the Britain area the mistletoe berries are white, however in other parts of the world, they are yellow.

Celtic religious practice was evidently sacrificial in its interactions with the gods. There is some circumstantial evidence that human sacrifice was known in Ireland and was later forbidden by St. Patrick, a claim which has also been disputed. What we can be sure of is offerings of metalwork or other precious objects as many of such have been found in several lakes in Wales. One of the most important sites of this kind is Llyn Fawr.

Another practice of religious character is that of head-hunting. "Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world." (Paul Jacobsthal, Early Celtic Art).

The Celtic cult of the severed head is documented in the many sculptured representations of severed heads in La Tène carvings and in the surviving Celtic mythology, which is full of stories of the severed heads of heroes and the saints who carry their decapitated heads.

Diodorus Siculus, in his 1st century History had this to say about Celtic head-hunting: "They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and carry off as booty, while striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses, just as do those who lay low wild animals in certain kinds of hunting. They embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies, and preserve them carefully in a chest, and display them with pride to strangers, saying that for this head one of their ancestors, or his father, or the man himself, refused the offer of a large sum of money. They say that some of them boast that they refused the weight of the head in gold; thus displaying what is only a barbarous kind of magnanimity, for it is not a sign of nobility to refrain from selling the proofs of one's valour. It is rather true that it is bestial to continue one's hostility against a slain fellow man."

The Celts also believed that if they attached the head of their enemy to a pole or a fence near their house, the head would start crying when the enemy was near. Also if the enemy whose head was taken was important enough they would put it in a church and pray to it believing it had magic powers.

The Celtic headhunters venerated the image of the severed head as a continuing source of spiritual power. If the head is the seat of the soul, possessing the severed head of an enemy, honorably reaped in battle, added prestige to any warrior's reputation. According to tradition the buried head of a god or hero named Bran the Blessed protected Britain from invasion across the English Channel.

Burial and funeral rites in Iron Age Britain are rather diverse. During 300-200 BC few people were buried in graves when they died. As we saw some burials have been found, but these are the exception, not the rule. Individual human bones are sometimes found on Iron Age farms, hillforts and villages. More rarely, the complete skeletons of a small number of people are found placed in pits, postholes or in ditches. The evidence suggests that when most Iron Age people died they were placed somewhere until their body had rotted away, leaving just the bones - similar types of funeral rituals still take place in many parts of the world today.

At certain times in some parts of Iron Age Britain, a tribe or community would break with the traditional ways of treating the dead and, instead, bury them in graves. This was the case in Cornwall where the dead were buried in stone lined graves for much of the Iron Age. In East Yorkshire, about 400-100 BC, the dead were buried in graves arranged in long cemeteries. In south-eastern England, from about 100 BC until after the Roman conquest, the dead were cremated before being buried.

Most were buried with only a few grave goods - a plain pot or a single brooch - or none at all. A very small number were buried with more spectacular items, such as the ones we have seen, and very rarely, with a chariot. Over 700 Iron Age graves have been excavated in East Yorkshire since 1960 and only seven contain chariots. One of the examples is the grave at Wetwang on the top of a hill. The body of the woman lay in a crouched position at the south end, with a mirror propped against her legs. Her upper body was covered with joints of a pig, perhaps placed there as food for the Afterlife. The dismantled pieces of a chariot were then placed around her, the box platform carefully positioned so that it covered her body. The wood of the chariot has rotted, leaving only the metal fittings from the chariot and the horse harness. The horses themselves were not put into the ground. The grave was filled in and covered with a low mound, surrounded by a square ditch.

Nowadays much traditional rural religious practice can still be discerned from Christian interpretations and survives of the Celtic rituals, in practices like Halloween observances or harvest rituals such as corn dollies. It was believed that the corn spirit lived amongst the crop, and the harvest made it effectively homeless. Therefore, hollow shapes were fashioned from the last sheaf of wheat or other cereal crop. The corn spirit would then spend the winter in their homes until the "corn dolly" was ploughed into the first furrow of the new season.

Some traces are found in the myths of Puck and woodwoses. The Woodwose was a hairy wildman of the woods. They were a link between civilized humans and the dangerous elf-like spirits of natural woodland, such as Puck. This name derives from the Púca, that is a creature of Celtic folklore, notably in Ireland and Wales. The Puca is an adroit shape changer, capable of assuming a variety of terrifying forms. It may appear as an eagle or as a large black goat, but it most commonly takes the form of a sleek black or white horse with a flowing mane and glowing yellow eyes. The Púca is considered by many to be the most terrifying of all faery creatures. Irish tales of Faeries also derive from the Celtic mythology.

Lecture 3 Roman Britain (2 h.)