Abreviated Celtic history

[CelticsHeart]

In response to KM thinking that the Scots were not Celts I have taken it upon myself to post a small history of the Celtic Peoples. It is not what is portrayed by Hollywood, but it is something deeper and more meaningful to its people than words can convey.

I should give air-time to those who say that the Celtic people are a people born of a culture rather than a race, since there is no known "starter point" for defining where they originate from. It is said that their domination of europe - until Roman Invasion and Conquering - was so vast that it encompassed many tribes and races into a pattern of culture and shared traditions. They were considered a fierce band of tireless warriors. The origin of the word Celtic is from ancient greek, and so many think that they originate from that quarter of europe.

In Great Britain and Ireland however;

Picts (from the Latin- meaning painted ones : blue as you say KM!) were the native people of the North of Scotland and are believed to be descended from the Norsemen.

Celts were the people of the South and of Ireland as well as much of the far south West of England and Wales

Historical accounts of the Celts in Great Britain and Ireland in particular are given, in the main, by Roman historians (including Julius Caesar himself) since the Celtic peoples did not record such, but passed lore from generation to generation as songs and stories.

An account of a battle in 84BC describes 10,000 Celts under the command of Calgacus, a Celtic warrior from north of the Clyde, met and were repelled the Roman Army at Ardoch.

Quote:

84 AD - MONS GRAUPIUS
Farther north, under Agricola, the Roman armies vanquished one tribe after another until a final, decisive battle against Calgacus "the swordsman" at Mons Graupius in 84 A.D. This ended effective resistance (the Western Isles and the Highlands were left alone and up until the Clearances of the 18th century remained very much Celtic countries in language and culture).

Though Agricola may have wished to add Ireland to his conquests, no Roman expedition was ever taken across the Celtic Sea to that large, relatively unknown western island.

http://britannia.com/celtic/scotland/scot2.html

So,even as far back as the Romans the people of Scotland were considered Celtic, and still are!

Sorry to go on, but my heritage is something that makes me proud.

Hugs for all who want one !

Heart xxxx

 

[rambling man]

Was there not another group that predated the Celts called, I think, the Hibernians. Trevelyan mentions them in his Shortened History of England. They were darker in hair and complexion than the Celts

I think Celtic Heart has a point that Celts are more of a culture than any one race now. In addition, when the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain, they drove many Romano-Britons into the areas reserved for the Celts and whoever else evaded the Romans by going there. However civilized they were, they assimilated into the highland ways of life, forgetting what they once had been and becoming Celtic.

In addition to that history lesson, Bird, D.J., McHale, and Parrish are my four favorite basketball players ever

 

[SweetNick]

Also, the Celts did sack Rome in 380BC, they were also to become the Gauls, and before they went from Spain to Ireland, as most of the verbal and early written history suggests they did, there was another band of people already livingin in Ireland.

 

[CelticsHeart]

Hibernia

Indeed there was a race called the Hibernii.

It was the name the romans gave to the inhabitants on Hibernia, the large island off the west coast of Scotland. When they invaded they did not know there was an island there (someone had to tell them. They named it Hibernia, we call it Ireland. They don`t pre-date the Celts but are another name for a part of the Celtic people.

 

[rambling man]

cool...love to learn something different every day..

And I also believe, don't remember if you mentioned it or not, that the Celts/Gauls were the last group to sack Rome until the 400s AD

Celtic threads still run through American music and culture, mixing with many others to create a beauty all its own...

 

[KillerMuffin]

Sorry honey, Celts are not Scots.

Celts come from all over Europe, particularly Northern France and Germany. The migrated to the UK in or around 1,000 BC, you didn't get that far back. They did mix their culture with Scottish and pictish cultures, bringing things like Ironworking to the Scots and they did intermarry and mingle. Until celtic scots became indistinguishable as anglo-saxons became indistinguishable from Saxons. You may find this link interesting. http://www.clan.com/history/features/origins/ Lots of cool stuff in the clan.com.

http://www.celticgrounds.com/chapters/c-deities.htm This is a list of deities the Celts worshipped and a probable list of their origins. Most Gods are listed as "celtic" meaning that they are intrinsically Celt and not a product of locality. Other gods are listed as Gaul, Britian, errata. Those are gods that had only been discovered in certain celtic locations. Creidhne is a celt god, not a scottish one, so the pronunciation, while also feasible in gaelic, should logically be celtic. Rather than cree-ah-nee, it would be krej-nee or krev-nee.

Creidhne - (Celtic) Creidhne was the god of metal working. One of the trio of craft-gods of the Tuatha De Danaan, as were Goibhniu and Luchta. This is from
http://www.celtcity.com/cu/hi/deities.html . As you can see, Creidhne is attributed to be one of a trio of gods from Tuatha De Danaan, which is welsh, not gaelic and in a spot of the world the scots despised most for a large block of time. They still might, I don't know, not into modern UK history.

I think, CH, that you have a bit more studying to do on your heritage.

 

[Myrrdin]

From the site you linked KM

It is generally understood today that there are seven separate though related Celtic nations and tribes, all of which who are connected to one another by common history and culture. Many of these nations are resulting settlements of Celtic tribes in a history of diaspora. These seven nations respectively are:


Alba
(Scotland)
Cymru
(Wales)
Kernow
(Cornwall)
Mannin
(Isle of Man)
Galicia
(Spain)
Briezh
(Brittany)
Eire
(Ireland)



The name Britain derives from Celtic. The Greek author Pytheas called them the "Pretanic Isles" which derived from the inhabitants name for themselves, Pritani. This was mistranslated into Latin as "Brittania" or "Brittani". The Celts migrated to Ireland from Europe, conquering the original inhabitants. In clashes with the Romans around the River Clyde a tribe called the "Scotti" came to prominence. Later the Scotti moved from Northern Island to establish the Kingdom of Dalriada in Argyll, on the West coast of Scotland. From here the Scots expanded and supplanted the Picts, a Celtic people who arrived in Scotland earlier. Ireland was never invaded by the Romans and retains what is probably the language closest to the original Celtic, Irish Gaelic.

 

[p_p_man]

When I was a kid...

...we were taught that the Celts were the original inhabitants of the British Isles and as such were the "true" English (make sense of that if you can!).

All I know is that I wanted to be one.

 

[Never]

I descend from illegal Scottish aliens from Canada.
Soo.. I'm a Pict?

 

[CelticsHeart]

probably right there KM

However as you so succinctly pointed out the Celts are not Scots, but Scots are, in parts, Celts.

That was what I was trying to say. Thank you to Myrrdin for saying so well what I had hoped to say.

KM: What I understood from your original post was that you seemed, I say seemed carefully, to give the impression that Scots were not Celts at all. However if I have spoken in error then I will apologise in advance!

As for my needing to examine my heritage, yes you are probably quite right! I could do with a few lessons, but then so could most of the Scottish nation. As if you wander down Argyll Street in Glasgow on any given Saturday and ask are you Celtic then they will no doubt tell you that they are. I lived in Scotland for 35 years, born and bred, and left only weeks ago. So I guess on that point I can speak with some authority.

My reason for quoting 84 AD as an example of writing on Celts by the Romans was in response to your advice that Picts did not become Celts till about 950ish AD, when they married and intermingled. I didn`t think it was necessary to look to 1000 BC.

Oh, also thanks for the assistance with prononciation. I really wasn`t trying to tell Cymbidia how to pronounce, but was just saying that the word should be said softly. I am not sure how often you hear, Welsh, Scots or Irish people speak in their native tongue, but generally it is a breathy language, often it is a guttural language and other accents don`t mould well to it. That was the point I made really, no other. I don`t recall offering any pronounciation at all in fact. I also don`t recall saying that Creidhne was a scots God, but thank you once more for the info on him.

On a personal note, I speak only a little Gaelic, but I speak Doric (another Scots tongue) and Auld Scots also. My brother-in-law is Welsh and I note his speech is a light soft tone also.

Anyway, KM, thank you for "setting me straight",and thank you for renewing my interest in history too. Hopefully I will be better read in future.

 

[Markov Cain]

Fascinating thread.
Good read.
I give it two thumbs up!

 

[rambling man]

Just kind of a side note to this...

The Phoenician god Baal, which the Hebrews fought very hard against when they returned to Canaan after they left Egypt, was imported to the British Isles by Phoenician traders. Some Britons made it a part of their religion, and I hear a few still perform some sort of rites to it today.

I don't think you could call it England properly until the Anglo-Saxon invasions at the end of the Roman period

 

[alexander tzara]

Ireland was never invaded by the Romans and retains what is probably the language closest to the original Celtic, Irish Gaelic.

According to a programme on the Celts I saw a few months ago, Gaelic - both Irish and Scottish - is the oldest European language still spoken. Irish and Gaelic Scots are classed as Celtic, like the other Celtic tribes, because of the language, culture and style of design (in metal-work, jewellery etcetera) that their ancestors had.

p_p_man

...we were taught that the Celts were the original inhabitants of the British Isles and as such were the "true" English (make sense of that if you can!).

The Britons - who were also Celts - inhabited all of England and Wales and most of Scotland. They spoke the language that Welsh-speakers still speak today. I remember reading that the word "Welsh" comes from Latin (or maybe it was Anglo-Saxon) and means "foreign", which gives an idea of how the Britons were treated by invaders: made to feel foreigners in their own land. As various races - Romans, Angles and Saxons etcetera - invaded, more and more of the Britons were pushed into Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and the North of France (Britanny).