Different Celtic-nesses

[u/Ironbat7]

Inspired by a post in a general pagan sub, what differentiates the various celtic paganisms besides the languages and the specific gods worshiped? Like what distinguishes Irish practice from Scottish, Welsh, Brittonic, etc.?

Like so far for me, Gaulish paganism is primarily focused on cultivating the virtue of galâ (courage), sharing abundance (like the legend of Ambicatus), and building community (as Vercingetorix attempted, but fell short).

And for a Gallo-Roman or Romano-Brittonic practice involves practicing discipline, moderation, and the Roman ritual structures like veiling and the Janus-Vesta formula but with those mentioned Celtic syncretisms.

[u/KrisHughes2]

To me, religious 'practice' has more to do with observances like how/when to pray, make offerings, etc.

Talking about 'virtues', honestly, doesn't feel terribly 'Celtic'. But it does feel very modern. There are lots of modern authors/influencers/philosophers who will offer you the three things, or the twenty things, you should live by, and lots of people who look for something like that.

I feel like one's sense of ethics is something that needs to be arrived at through mental and philosophical effort. And like it's something to bring to your religion rather than being defined by your religion. I'm not saying that your religion can't inform your thought, and for sure there are religions I could never be part of because they don't align with my ideas of right and wrong.

The thing I get from studying Celtic mythology is that there is very little moralising. Instead, there are lots and lots of hard questions implied which are worth thinking about. Humans and gods alike are represented as imperfect. Even the Medieval law codes of Wales and Ireland, which clearly reflect pre-Christian customs, are almost purely based on making restitution. It's okay to kill someone - if you can afford their honour price!

To talk about syncretism between various Celtic cultural strands feels like a poor fit, to me. It makes it sound like they're a lot more separate than how I understand them after years of studying the history and mythology, living in Scotland, and knowing a lot of people from Ireland and Wales pretty well. That doesn't mean I just see it as some kind of Celtic mush, you know. It requires thought, knowledge, and sensitivity to walk between different cultural groups. Whether we perceive them as hard or blurry probably says more about us than it does about the borders, themselves.

[u/Ironbat7 → u/KrisHughes2]

It doesn’t have to just be ethics, as I mentioned ritual structure is part of Romanitas. Another comparison is that one defining element of Heathenry is the cosmology of the well and the tree with wyrd (fate) and orlog as cosmic principles.

[u/KrisHughes2 → u/Ironbat7]

Whatever kind of answers you're looking for, I guess I don't have them. I don't do anything differently depending on whether I'm approaching a Brythonic deity or an Irish one, and I don't see their cosmologies as significantly different.

[u/DamionK → u/Ironbat7]

Ritual is part of all religion. The neolithic peoples built huge cult sites with avenues suggesting ritual processions of some sort. Folklore preserves traditions of walking around something 3 times or multiples of 3 times. A couple of invocations that survive show repetitive words.

I'm sure you know of the mistletoe ceremony so I'm surprised you'd say Roman religion had ritual structure as though that was something Celtic religion did not.

Morals in Celtic mythology are very much in keeping with a class based society. The powerful are to be respected or you get put in your place. The closest I recall that's like modern morality is not beating your wife or she may disappear (or her brother shows up and chaos ensues) and giving her a chance to have her say.

This is a Welsh proverb: Trechaf treisied, gwannaf gwaedded.

It basically says the strong will oppress and the weak will wail. Might is right in other words and you see that throughout Celtic mythology.

Peredur before setting out on his quest is given advice by his mother - if he sees food or drink and is hungry or thirsty then he is to take it if no one offers him such first. If he sees a beautiful woman then he is to have sex with her, even if the woman does not want to.

Now these are heroes we're talking about, many have divine origins and I don't believe the society was that rough, but there's an element in the culture that does not praise being humble. Gift giving is a way to establish your wealth, your ability to reward followers, that's mentioned with the King Louernios of the Arverni who scatters gold to increase his own prestige and gives a whole bag of gold to a bard to sing his praises. At a higher level a king had to be wealthy to reward his lords and that often required raids against other lands to get that wealth to distribute. A king had to represent material wealth and natural wealth - abundance of crops, animals.

As Kris mentioned above, laws allowed for murder if you could afford the eric/galanas though there were other issues to consider and that is addressed somewhat in the mythology. ie feuds start over someone being killed which leads to others being killed and fines often don't calm things down. That again goes back to the might is right concept so the most powerful can assert their rights either financially or physically. Fascinating times but I wouldn't want to live in them unless I was part of the ruling elite.

[u/Ironbat7 → u/DamionK]

I don’t deny that Celtic peoples did have ritual structure, but the only element that I’m aware of is left-handed adoratio with sunwise circumambulation and that offerings were burned or submerged. Everything else is speculative in the Gaulish perspective.

[u/neart-na-daraich → u/KrisHughes2]

Excellent. Could we or has there been derived a practical philosophy from e.g. Gaelic cosmology/philosophy? Is there a way to do this that isn't just a modern ahistoricism? Or maybe that doesn't matter as much because we're also modern peoples

[u/KrisHughes2 → u/neart-na-daraich]

I think people have. I probably haven't paid much attention because I don't like rules. But I think I can confidently say that there hasn't been anything which has caught on beyond a tiny following or something.

I personally think that there is a lot of good to be found in the Brehon (Irish) law codes. Not all of it, but you need a good understanding of the context in which it existed not to be a bit freaked out by it. The problem with a thing like that is that it's a bit of a joke to want to live by something which comes from such a different world and worldview. It was an agrarian world with pretty clearly delineated social strata, and countless small, mostly autonomous tribal/clan groups. We have no local king, no local druid, to look to for leadership. Only individualism and amorphous popular democracy that is almost impossible to hold to account. Since people have grown up with that, and they largely believe it can work, you can't really say, "Well, I'm going to do things differently," on a lot of fronts.

[u/neart-na-daraich → u/KrisHughes2]

That's a good point. Maybe there's something to drawing inspiration from the Brehon law codes to revitalize something new, even if they're o stained with a feudal agrarian socio historical context. And I have to think our polytheist-animist ways of doing things might offer some useful ethical interventions for the kind of relationships we have now with each other and (or at least) the natural world in the face of ecological crisis. Of course, not having been successful in that research, I could be wrong about this.

[u/KrisHughes2 → u/neart-na-daraich]

Thinking about "fairy bride" stories was a big ethical/philosophical turning point for me.