Welsh names for Festivals

[sunbird]

Newgrange is one of them, lol, I've really not been to many, but also, the lintels in the chamber at Newgrange (I think it's Newgrange, might be another one though lol) have zig zag marking son that are apparently the patters that the dust will make in the shaft of light that comes at sunrise when the correct resonance is reached in chant, or at least that's whay I read somewhere, I think it's more likely decoration, possibly representing water, as in the conduit to the spirit world.

[ennys]

I hope you won;t hate me now, I have sun, ascendant, mars and venus in Virgo and I need to say this:
Newgrange, and other megalithic monuments, aren't celtic. They are built by pre-celtic, pre-indo-european peoples, who knew quite something about astronomy etc.
The eight feasts as we know them know are a compilation of the ancient Celtic feasts and, as far as I know, the Germanic solar feasts. Of course, midwinter and midsummer have had a great importance for other peoples all over the world.

[sunbird]

A Valid point, they are not "Celtic" but the peoples of Britian did neither abandon the mound building practice, nor did they arrive, conquer and kill the inhabitants of these lands.

Archaelogoy is great for finding little bits of pottery and broken swords, but in truth it cannot give us a map of cultural evolution, The Celts and other tribes were great traders and also travellers and so we get the impression that Britain was not a Celtic Homeland but rather a place we invaded. Remeber, there are two kinds of Celtic Culture based around the two base celtic languages "P" Celtic and "Q"Celtic, and that they did not arrive here at the same time.

Yes the Gaels did arrive from the Iberian Penninsula, but the Brythonic peoples "evolved" from the those inhabitants that had been here for millenia beforehand. what could be considered "British Celticness" evolved to meet the changes in the world. Britain was changing from a warm, productive, fertile land into one of less prosperity and harsher climes. The Hunter Gatherers had discovered or been taught farming and had more control over the environment (Thus the coming of the newer Gods that taught that the darker, older forces of nature were to be feared) and to meet the needs of a life that now included raiders, droughts and floods, a warrior society needed to evolve, and it did, and that is what we call the Celtic culture. Not everything that is Celtic is Irish, Celts did not use Knotwork, that was an introduction from wither the Christians or the Vikings. Celts did not come from Ireland just because they seem to be the only people now that remember that Celtic is pronounced with a hard C (K) and isn't a football team. And also remember that Druidry, the Shamanic practice of the Celts (I know people don't always agree with me on it being Shamanic...... but it is) was not born in Europe, if it was, why were European Druids trained in Britain?

I don't hate you lol, you are my Sister of the Great Tribe of Humankind!

[ennys]

good to hear you don't hate me!
We are going to be a bit offtopic, but as the historic celts are a great interest of mine I will talk further on your post.

About the difference between P and Q celtic: originally, all celtic was Q. The P-sound is a specific British and Gaulish development, and the British celtic languages are of course P celtic languages, but originally the brits spoke Q-celtic as well! Later, the Scots from Ireland invaded Scotland and that is why Goidelic , so Q Celtic, is spoken in Scotland nowadays.

Where did you learn the Gaels did come from Spain? There are some stories which say this (Mil of Spain!) but I didn;t know it was a scientific theory too:-)

About the origins of Druidry: That would deserve an own topic and more study, I am too lazy at the moment to fetch me a book and look things up

But Now! The feasts?

We still don't have the welsh names, but are/were the four celtic feasts celebrated in Wales? I really don't know a think about Welsh folkore, so I would like to hear things about that!

Bennoziou (blessings),
Ennys

[sunbird]

lol, I agree, it is a bit off topic, but it helps the topic immensly lol. At one point all of England and Wales (and we can assume Scotland) was Prydain and the people were the Cymru, the Goidelic (thanks for reminding me of the spelling there lol) arrived later. As far as I know it's common knowledge that the Scots and Irish came from Spain & Portugal and apparently Madeira too.

The four Celtic agricultural festivals, or "fire" festivals as people call them these days, have Irish names so yes it is a good point to question whether the Welsh did indeed observe them, considering that the Irish and Welsh spent a long time at war lol, but if we travel to other places that are definately Celtic, such as Germany, the same festivals are there too, and the Norse have them so one could (I assume, but knowing the Brits we probably didn't because we're too damn proud to be the same as other tribes) assume that these four festivals (Samhuinn, Imbolc, Beltane & Lughnassadh) were indeed practiced here. Beltane is definately a more "Brythonic" name than Goidelic comeing from Belenus or Belenos which is definately P Celtic. Lol, if we travel even further to the Buryat Mongols they have festivals very similar to those that we celebrate now as "Druidic", and even further too I expect and this is why I call Druidry a Shamanism. But in that I myself am forgetting that in truth there is NO set pattern of ceremonies in a Shamanism, they lie only in religions, so we need to be looking at something older perhaps than druidry?

Perhaps we celerated the first day of spring with the return of the Geese? what we now call samhuinn could have started as a fetival to celebrate the mating season of the deer because we knew that it would provied us with good game for the next year? Who knows?

This discussion is really exciting for me and I love this kind of debate Thank you!

[ennys]

One feast you can be quite sure about it is pan-celtic is Samhain. It is mentioned on Gaulish the calendar of Coligny!
I have looked at my college notes on this subject, and found that alle these four festivals were celebrated in Wales, Scotland, England and Ireland at least, but that it is not sure (except for Samhain, 'Samonos' in Gaulish) they were celebreted by all the continental celts as well.

Still, Lugh is a very 'international' God and there are still many traditions everywhere to feast on the first oif August, so I would opt for Lughnasadh as a international feast, too..

I think the feast have Irish names nowadays because those are the names the reconstryctors/compilators/inventors of neopaganism chose to hold on. Beltane is an Irish name , too, but I dare not say much about it because it is a long time ago and I do not speak Irish.

About the Irish coming from Ireland: I never heard that story before...only in the Sons of Mil, which is mythology.

x
Ennys

[tannos]

The theory (wrong theory it has to be said) that the Celts came from Ireland is something that one can read a lot of in modern wicca books and stuff. They claim that the Celts orinated in Ireland and then moved...which makes no logical sense, why on earth would a people travelling nicely across an ocean/canal/whatever it was back then, go ROUND an island to get to Ireland only to come back again.

[sunbird]

There'a a theory that the Celts came from Irealnd?!?!! Here's another good one for you, there is a Book, called "Witta" that states the Celts held the Potato as a sacred Icon!!

Besides, everyone knows we came from space.

[tannos]

yep....Edain Maccoy has a lot to answer for....ironically enough it was she that got me into celtic wicca in the first place...I was talking to a witch in Dillons (as it was then) in Birmingham - she whispered quietly that she practices witchcraft, in England it's still not really the done thing....and then told me that if this book was still there when I got back from a walk then I was meant to buy it....it was so I did. ...(I was 18 and took a HELL of a lot of things as given!)

However, in the Witta book, she moved Stonehenge from Wessex to Land's End...impressive huh?

[sunbird]

Can anyone explain to what the heck is Celtic wicca?!!! Wicca is an invention of Gerald Gardener in the 1950's. Witchcraft is a Saxon thing and the Celts didn't practice it!!

[Aelfarh]

But May is a ROMAN thing, lol. I wanted to know if anyone knew the Celtic words, I'm not happy working with the tounge of a people who stole our people and brought about the rift we now have to heal.

No offence but... I think the Ancient Celts, will have the same opinion about English, English is a saxon language, not a Celtic one, and there were a lot of saxon invasions to the Islands, and they also stole and impose their culture. I mean it's ok if you don't like latin, or feel more comfortable using welsh or gaelic, but may be you're dealing with the wrong reasons.

[sunbird]

Thus my wanting Celtic names, obviously I am lokoing for somehting other than the one we use in Angleish

Actually, by the way, it is a popular theory that the saxons were invited here after the roman left as we were living in absolute poverty and needed a hand getting back to a healthy culture, I guess their culture probabaly just appealed to a people that had lost eveything of their own.

[Aelfarh]

Well I'm not in any ways an expert of Early Medieval British history, but for I have read about, that theories were developed for Anglo-Saxon writers after these tribes take control of what is now England, to stablish their legitimacy as "saiviours" rather than conquerors. In some of these early writings they were presented as a kind of chosen people who had left pagan Germany for the the Promised Land of Christian Britain. We all know that history is written by the winner side; so it's always important to look at the point of view of the defeated, and try to balance things.

The Britons actually ask Rome for their help in the invations that took over around 450 and 540 AD, it's recorded even like the adventus Saxonum.

The truth is that England is what it is because that mixture of cultures, Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans, etc, some by force, some in agreement, and is from my point of view, innacurate to deal with a simplistic martyr point of view of coquerors and conquest, bad and good.

Sorry If I go completely off topic here

[tannos]

erm.....to the celtic wicca.....1. I was 18...and Ive been raised in a way (christian to be exact, but this has little to do with that per sé) where it was a bad idea to ask questions....so once I felt myself drawn away from christianity, I pretty much believed what I read/heard, until I read/heard different and had an opportunity to make up my mind.....2) Celtic wicca is a branch of wicca that works with the Celtic pantheon...(in actual answer to the question)....

erm....to the bit posted by Aelfarh, although I am somewhat of a purist, I do agree with you on this, as sometimes history has been forgotten, for whatever reason (records burned etc.) and a lot of the time we have no choice but to accept what we have.....

Although it has to be said, I feel more comfortable using Welsh names than I do using Irish (which is odd, as my ancestors- on my mother's side are Irish).

Sometimes knowledge gets lost, and we can't get it back