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Celtic

Specialty Definition: Celt

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The Celts are an indigenous people of central Europe with large numbers in the United Kingdom, in France, and in Ireland where they are in the majority.

The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as keltoi or hidden people, is by the Greek Hecataeus in 517 BC.

"Celt" is pronounced /kelt/, and "celtic" as /keltIk/ (in SAMPA). The pronunciation /seltIk/ should only be used for certain sports teams (eg. Boston Celtics NBA and the Scottish football (soccer) side, Celtic FC).

The use of the word 'Celtic' as a valid umbrella term for the pre-Roman peoples of North West Europe has been challenged by a number of writers - including Simon James of the British Museum. His book The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention makes the point that the Romans never used the term 'Celtic' in reference to the peoples of the Atlantic archipelago i.e the British Isles. He makes it clear that the term was coined as a useful umbrella term in the 18th Century when the English Kingdom united with the Scottish. The English found it expedient to use the hitherto neutral term British for their own imperial ends. Thus a new term was needed to unit nationalists in Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The term 'Celtic' fitted the bill. James makes the point that archaeology does not suggest a united celtic culture and that the term is misleading, no more meaningful that 'Western European' would be today, and is also anachronistic.

The Origins of the Celts

The Urnfield people were the largest population grouping in late Bronze Age Europe and were preeminent from c. 1200 BC until the emergence of the Celts in c. 600 BC. The period of the Urnfield people saw a dramatic increase in population probably due to innovations in technology and agricultural practices. The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture (c. 700 to 500 BC). The Hallstatt culture effectively held a frontier against incursions from the east by Thracian and Scythian ethnic tribesmen.

The subject of the succession of Halstatt culture by La Tène culture, the final stage of the Iron Age, and its gradual transformation into a characteristically Celtic culture is both complex and diverse, however the technologies, decorative practices and metal-working styles of the La Tène were to be very influential on the Celts. The La Tène style was highly derivative from the Greek, Etruscan and Scythian decorative styles with whom the La Tène settlers frequently traded.

Geographical distribution of the Celts

Their original homeland has been shown by archaeological findings to have been around the upper reaches of the Danube, Switzerland and southern Germany, and before that perhaps the central Asian steppes. From central Europe they spread as far south as the Iberian peninsula, as far north as Scotland and Denmark and as far west as Ireland, no doubt assimilating the previous inhabitants of these regions as they went. It was not the Celts but these previous inhabitants who had built Stonehenge and the other Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monuments in Europe. There are, however, diverging opinions on the origins of the Celts - Colin Burgess in his book the Age of Stonehenge put forward the theory that celtic culture in Britain 'emerged' rather that resulted from invasion.

But even if the Celts had not constructed these monuments themselves, the religious significance of these places may well have endured among the conquered people and the Celts eventually adopted the practice of worshipping there as well. Many Celts settled in present-day France. These were the Gauls who are described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars.

Other Celtic tribes invaded Italy, establishing there a city they called Mediolanum (modern Milan) and sacking Rome itself in 390 B.C. Not until 192 B.C. did the Roman armies conquer the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.

Other Central European tribes moved eastwards and settled in Asia Minor, there to become the Galatians (that is, Gauls) to whom an epistle of St Paul's is addressed.

Although they were for a long time the dominant people in central and western Europe, the Celts in France, Britain and Spain were eventually conquered by the Romans, while elsewhere they were pushed further westwards by successive waves of Germanic invaders, who had themselves been evicted from the Indo-European homeland on the Southern Russian steppes by Mongols, Huns and Scythians. Thus, today the Celts are still the most westerly of European peoples, as they were in Herodotus's time, since their modern descendants still inhabit the Atlantic coast. These include the Irish, Scots, Welsh, Breton, Manx and Cornish peoples and their descendants in the New World and other ex-colonies. (In fact, there are more people of Celtic descent in the United States alone than there are in all the Celtic countries combined!)

Elsewhere, the Celtic populations were assimilated by others, leaving behind them only a legend and a number of place names such as the Spanish province of Galicia (i.e., Gaul), Bohemia, after the Boii tribe which once lived there, or the Kingdom of Belgium, after the Belgae, a Celtic tribe of Northern Gaul and south-eastern Britain. Their literary heritage has been absorbed into the folklore of half a dozen other countries. For instance, the famous Arthurian tale of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is clearly an adaptation of a much older Irish legend about the exploits of the hero Cu Chulainn.

The Celts had a well-organised social system, which was harmonious with nature. They produced little in the way of literary output, preferring the bardic, oral, tradition. They were highly skilled in visual arts and produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork.

Related topics

• Celtic mythology
• Irish mythology
• Celtic language
• Welsh language
• Cornish language
• Celtic law
• Celtic knots
• Celtic High Crosses
• Celtic Christianity
• Glasgow Celtic
• Boston Celtics
• Water horse
• List of famous Celts

Reference

• The Archaeology of Late Celtic Britain and Ireland c. 400--1200 AD, Lloyd Laing, London 1975
• The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention? James, Simon

British Museum Press

In archaeology, celt is a term used for a type of ground stone tool that resembles a long, narrow axe, and which may have been used for various woodworking tasks. They are most commonly part of the lithic assemblages of more sophisticated prehistoric cultures, and have been found both in the Old World and the New.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Celt."

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Celtic Christianity

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Celtic Christianity describes Christianity as it was first received and practiced by communities with Celtic backgrounds that observed certain practices divergent from those in the rest of Europe. The conversion of pagan England was brought about by two very different missions; one, led by Augustine, from Rome that landed in Kent in AD 597, and the other from the Celtic Church, led by Columba, who went from Ireland to Iona and later to Northumbria. This term is also used to indicate a modern movement espousing the goal of recovering what it believes was the distinctive spirit of the earlier group.

How separate was the Celtic church?

It is easy to exaggerate the cohesiveness of the Celtic Christian communities. Their members never saw themselves in opposition to the Catholic establishment based on Rome as did the Arians, Priscillianists or the Donatists in North Africa. Even at the height of the conflict between these communities and other Christian groups, they acknowledged the supremacy of the Pope and acquiesced to his specific commands.

On the other hand, these communities did see themselves as separate from their competitors, the Anglo-Saxons. An early Welsh ecclesiastical rule levied penalties for interacting with the English, and for sharing communion with them. When St Augustine attempted to meet with a delegation of seven British bishops on the borders of the domains of Ethelbert of Kent, these bishops refused to talk or even dine with his party; and when Aethelfrith of Northumbria went to battle with Solomon, son of Cynan, king of Powys, hundreds of British Christian monks are said to have assembled to pray for the Venedotian king. It is noteworthy that the British failed to attempt to convert the Anglo-Saxons, and that the successful Celtic missions had come from further away, from the Dalradian Scots.

Differences from the rest of Catholicism

The exact practices by which the Celtic church varied from the rest of Catholicism differ from source to source. It is clear that two points definitely are included in this list:

• the method of calculating the date of Easter
• the method of Tonsure practiced by the clerics

Other points may have included: the form of baptism practiced, and a preference for monastic abbots, instead of bishops, to lead the communities. The Celtic cross, in which a symmetrical cross is superimposed on a circle, is a characteristic and distinctive Celtic Christian symbol. Use of this continued well past any separate organisation of Celtic Christianity, and has indeed never ceased to be common in the Celtic countries and among their emigré communities.

The Easter Problem

The Easter Problem -- that is, the proper method to be used to calculate the date Easter will fall on in a given year -- is a long and tedious story that extends beyond the topic of Celtic Christianity. As it applies to this topic, the Celtic peoples had lost contact with Rome when Victorius of Aquitania created the tables that were adopted as approved practice in 457. But as they learned of the current practice, the various communities of the Celtic church gradually returned into harmony with the predominant practice: southern Ireland agreed to this at a Synod in 632; northern Ireland at the Council of Birr around 697; the Northumbrian Church at the Council of Whitby in 664; the island of Iona celebrated Easter on the Roman date in 716; and Wales in 768. Various other churches founded or influenced by clerics trained in Ireland or Wales came to celebrate Easter on the Roman date at later times.

Saints of the Celtic church

Prominent individuals associated with Celtic Christianity include Adamnan, Aidan, Brigit, Columba, Columbanus, David, Gildas, Patrick, Piran, and Samson of Dol.

The end of the Celtic Church

Although its impact continued, Celtic Christianity officially ended in 1172 when the Synod of Cashel ended the Celtic Christian system and brought them under Rome.

Celtic Christianity to-day

The phrase Celtic Christianity has come into current used to describe a modern revival of what is believed to be a more spiritually free form of Christianity abandoned after the Synod of Whitby enforced Roman Catholicism as the standard form of Christianity in the British Isles. Many believe that this older worship more closely resembled Eastern Orthodoxy. It is also considered very close to Anglicanism in many respects.

Celtic Christianity is at present undergoing something of a revival: in the North of England at the Community of St. Aidan and St. Hilda on Lindisfarne, and in Scotland at the Iona Community. It currently embraces both Charismatic and Evangelical Christians, as well as some pagan elements. Celtic Christianity has become increasingly popular in the United States, and an annual conference on the subject is held every year.

Its main features are claimed to be:

• Love of nature
• Lack of dogmatism
• Friendship to and tolerance for other religions.

However, it is difficult to document that these particular features were unique to "Celtic Christianity" lands or that they even predominated there in earlier centuries.

External Links

• Orthodox Ireland
• The Iona Community
• Celtic Catholic Church
• Celtic Christian Spirituality

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Celtic Christianity."

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Celtic languages

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Within Indo-European, the Celtic languages are most closely related to the Italic languages, with which they form the Celto-Italic branch.

Celtic is split into two branches:

• Continental -- Celtiberian, Galatian, Noric, Gaulish, Lepontic, and perhaps including one dialect of Breton, which would be the only living language in this branch.
• Insular, which is further split into:
  • Q-Celtic -- Goidelic, including Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic and Manx
  • P-Celtic -- Brythonic, including Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric and Pictish

The differences between P and Q languages are most easily seen in the word for son, mac in Q (hard K sound) and map in P languages. P-languages have a slightly simpler structure and may be younger than the Q-languages.

Characteristics of Celtic Languages

Although there are many differences between the individual Celtic languages they do show many family resemblences. While none of these characteristics is necessarily unique to the Celtic languages, there are few if any other languages which possess them all. They include:

• Initial consonant mutation.
• Inflected prepositions.
• VSO word order as standard.
• Two grammatical genders.
• Definite but no indefinite article.
• Genitive construction by apposition.
• Counting by twenties.

Examples:
Ná bac le mac an bhacaigh is ní bhacfaigh mac an bhacaigh leat.
Not pay-attention to son the beggar's and nor will-pay-attention son the beggar's to-you.

• bhacaigh is the genitive of bacach. The i is the genitive inflection; the bh is a mutation.
• leat is the second person form of the preposition le.
• The order is VSO in the second half.

pedwar ar bymtheg ar bedwar hugain
four on fifteen on four twenties

• bymtheg is a mutated form of pymtheg, which is pump five plus deg ten. Likewise, bedwar is mutated from pedwar.
• The multiples of ten are deg, ugain, deg ar hugain, deugain, hanner cant, trigain, deg a thrigain, pedwar hugain, deg a phedwar ugain, cant.

See also

• Language families and languages

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Celtic languages."

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Celtic music

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The term "Celtic music" encompasses Irish traditional music and traditional musics of Scotland and the Shetland Islands; Cape Breton Island and Maritime Canada; Wales; the Isle of Man; Northumberland (northern England); Brittany (northwestern France); Cornwall; and Galicia (northwestern Spain). The term, though widely used, is eschewed by many traditionalists.

Common characteristic musical forms include jigs, reels, hornpipes, polkas, strathspeys (Scotland) and slow airs. Much of the music is typified by strong, repeating melodies in a set rhythm, which reflects a background as music to dance to. Ballads are also common. Largely through the immigration of the so-called "Scotch-Irish", Celtic music was the foundation for traditional "folk" music in the U.S., especially that of Appalachia. An earlier version of the above article was posted on Nupedia. This article is Open Content.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Celtic music."

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Celtic mythology

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Like other Iron Age Europeans, the Celts were a polytheistic people prior to their conversion to (Celtic) Christianity. Few of their myths have survived intact, but Celtic mythology has nevertheless influenced modern European civilisation.

Celtic mythology can be divided into three main subgroups of related beliefs.

• Goidelic - Irish, Manx and Scottish
• Insular Brythonic - Welsh, Cornish
• Continental Brythonic - mainland European

See List of Celtic Mythological Beings

Before we begin, it is important to keep in mind that the Celtic culture (and its religion(s)) were not as contiguous as the more homogenous Roman or Greek cultures. Our current understanding holds that each tribe along the vast Celtic area of influence had its own deities. Of the 300+ known deities, few indeed were commonly honored.

Celtic deities

The Dagda

The supreme god of the Celtic pantheon appears to have been the Dagda. This word means the Good God, not good in a moral sense, but good at everything, or all-powerful. The Dagda is a father-figure, a protector of the tribe and the basic Celtic god of whom other male Celtic deities were variants. Celtic gods were largely unspecialised entities, and perhaps we should see them as a clan rather than as a formal pantheon. In a sense, all the Celtic gods and goddesses were like the Greek Apollo, who could never be described as the god of any one thing.

Irish tales depict the Dagda as a figure of immense power, armed with a club and associated with a cauldron. In Dorset there is a famous outline of an ithyphallic giant with a club cut into the chalky soil. While this was probably produced in Roman times, it is very likely that it represents the Dagda. In Gaul, the Dagda appeared in the guise of Sucellos, the striker, equipped with a hammer and cup.

The Morrigan

The Dagda's consort was known by various names. The most common of these was the Morrigan (Queen of demons - sometimes spelled Morrigna), but she was also known as Nemain (Panic) and Badb Catha (Raven of Battle). She was said to change into a crow or raven and gloat over the blood on the battlefield. She reappears in Arthurian legend as Morgan le Fay, that is, Morrigan the fairy. Pronounced as More Ree-an.

Belenus

Belenus was a more regional deity, who was worshipped mostly in Northern Italy and the Gaulish Mediterranean coast. He was primarily a god of agriculture. A great festival called Beltane was associated with him.

Lug

The important position of the god Lug, also known as Lugh, in Celtic religion can be seen from the number of place names in which his name appears. The most famous of these are the cities of Lugdunum (cur: Lyon) and Lugdunum Batavorum (cur: Leiden). He is described in the Celtic myths as a latecomer to the list of deities, and is always described as having the appearance of a young man. His weapons were the throwing-spear and sling and a festival called the Lughnasa was held in his honour.

Other gods

The Celts also worshipped a number of deities of which we know little more than their names. Among these are the goddess Brigit (or Brigid), the Dagda's daughter; nature goddesses like Tailtu and Macha; and Epona, the horse goddess. Male gods included Cu Roi and Goibniu, the immortal brewer of beer.

Cernunnos (the Horned One) is evidently of great antiquity, but we know little about him. It is probably he who appears on the famous embossed silver bowl found in Gundestrup, Denmark which dates from the 1st or 2nd century BC. The Roman writer Lucan (1st century AD) mentions the gods Taranis, Teutates and Esus, but there is little Celtic evidence that these were important deities.

Some of these gods and goddesses may have been variants of each other; Epona the Gallo-Roman horse goddess, for instance, may well have been a development of the goddess Machan, who was mostly worshipped in Ulster. Polytheistic people rarely cared to keep their pantheons in the neat and tidy order in which later scholars would like to find them.

Celtic worship

The early Celts did not build temples in which to worship their deities, but held certain groves (nemeton) of trees to be sacred and worthy to be places of worship. Some trees were considered sacred themselves. The importance of trees in Celtic religion is shown by the fact that the very name of the Eburonian tribe contains a reference to the yew tree, and that names like Mac Cuilinn (son of holly) and Mac Ibar (son of yew) appear in Irish myths. Only in the period of Roman influence did the Celts start to build temples, a custom which they would later pass on to the Germanic tribes that displaced them.

Roman writers insisted that the Celts practiced human sacrifice on a fairly large scale and there is peripheral support for this in Irish sources; however, most of this information is secondhand or hearsay. There are only very few recorded archaeological discoveries which substantiate the sacrificial process and thus most contemporary historians tend to regard human sacrifice as an extremely rare occurrence within Celtic cultures.

There was also a warrior cult that centred on the severed heads of their enemies. The Celts provided their dead with weapons and other accoutrements, which indicates that they believed in an afterlife. Before burial, they also severed the dead person's head and shattered the skull to prevent the ghost from wandering.

No mention of the Celts could fail to include a reference to the druids. These people, who have been much romanticised in recent times, were simply the more or less hereditary class of priests and magicians that characterised all early Indo-European societies. In other words, they were the equivalent of the Indian Brahmin caste or the Iranian magi, and like them specialised in the practices of magic, sacrifice and augury. They were known to be particularly associated with oak trees and mistletoe; perhaps they used the latter to brew medicines or hallucinogenics. To help understand the meaning, the word druid is often believed to come from the root word meaning "oak". Bards, on the other hand, were those who sang the songs recalling the tribal warriors' deeds of bravery. The Celtic culture was NOT a historical culture - meaing it had no written history. It was a spoken history. Before discarding the notion as indicitive of an easily-forgetful history, keep in mind that, historically, cultures that rely on spoken history tend to be better at spoken records than written cultures. The bards were particularly good at this, it is assumed, because it is easier to remember exact words when put to song. In addition, there may have been a class of "seers" or "prophets". Strabo calls them vates, from a Celtic word meaning "inspired" or "ecstatic". It is therefore quite possible that Celtic society had, in addition to the ritualistic and thaumaturgical religion of the druids, a shamanic element of ecstatic communication with the underworld.

See also: Irish mythology, Celts

External links

• Timeless Myths provides information and tales from Irish and Welsh literature.
• Gundestrup Cauldron A CELTIC NATION article on the famous couldron now in the National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark.

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Celtic mythology."

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Glasgow Celtic F.C.

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Glasgow Celtic F.C. is a Scottish football club, often nicknamed the Bhoys. Together with their arch-rivals Glasgow Rangers they dominate Scottish football as the Old Firm. Their kit is green and white hooped jerseys, white shorts and white socks.

Note that "Glasgow Celtic F.C." is a misnomer. Strictly, the name of the club is "The Celtic Football Club", and it is usually referred to as "Celtic".

Celtic was founded in 1888 by Brother Walfrid as a way to raise funds to help impoverished members of Glasgow's Irish community. Celtic was the first British side to win the European Cup. They did so in 1967, defeating Inter Milan 2-1 in Lisbon, Portugal. Celtic also won the Scottish League championship nine years in a row, from 1966 to 1974.

They play at the 60,830 seater Celtic Park, known as 'Paradise' by Celtic fans.

The Celtic in the club name is pronounced 'Seltic' not 'Keltic'.

Celtic fans are known as "tims"; the name is derived from the 'Tim Malloys', a group of Catholic gangs existing in Glasgow in the early 1900's.

In 2003 they got to the Final of the UEFA Cup but lost at the hands of an extra-time penalty by Porto, marking the first use of the new silver goal rule in competition. The final score in Seville was Porto 3 - Celtic 2. At the game Celtic brought with them the biggest travelling army of fans ever seen in a European tournament. Over 75000 Celtic fans from throughout the world, travelled to the city.

Famous former players include: James McGrory, Tommy Gemmell, Jock Stein, Kenny Dalglish, Jimmy Johnstone, Pat Crerand and Billy McNeill (Caesar). Although Stein is justifiably famous as a player, he is arguably even more famous as a Celtic manager.

European Champions Cup (1): 1967.
Scottish League Champions (38): 1893, 1894, 1896, 1898, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919, 1922, 1926, 1936, 1938, 1954, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1998, 2001, 2002.
Scottish Cup (31): 1892, 1899, 1900, 1904, 1907, 1908, 1911, 1912, 1914, 1923, 1925, 1927, 1931, 1933, 1937, 1951, 1954, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1995, 2001.
Scottish League Cup (12): 1957, 1958, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1975, 1983, 1998, 2000, 2001.

See also: Glasgow

External Link

• Official website

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Glasgow Celtic F.C.."

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Modern Usage: Celtic

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Commercial Usage: Celtic

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Image Slideshow: Celtic

Photos: Celtic More pictures...

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Photo Album: Celtic

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Celtic no. 1. Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Digital Photo Gallery: Celtic
 

"Celtic Blue" by Bill Summers Commentary: "The lighting was a neon sign."	"Guinevere's Mirror" by Paige Foster Commentary: "Wooden hand mirror, decorated with celtic knotwork designs."
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers.

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Non-Fiction Usage: Celtic

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Usage Frequency: Celtic

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Usage in Company Names: Celtic

Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.

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Expressions: Celtic

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Celtic

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Modern Translation: Celtic

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