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| Aligned Stones for worship? |
So, I was surfing about the net the other day and found this article: Sacred Sites & Rituals in the Ancient Celtic Religion and began reading. You can’t find a lot on the Celts, so actually, if you think about it, how would scholars know the depth of the Celtic life?
They had an oral language where their priests memorized history and whatnots, but very little written has been found. Everyone speculates on the stones that are about the countryside, but no one really knows for certain why they are there, or if the Celts put them there. People are found in bogs, and scholars think they were used as human sacrifices when bad tidings knocked on their door.
The Norsemen preferred sleeping in the open. Celtics worshiped in the open. Under starry skies. I wouldn’t have lasted more than a day, maybe two in those sort of conditions.
Scholars say springs, river sources, and groves were sacred. Druids would stand in a grove and pray to their gods. They performed rituals and sacrifices. I’ve read people were sacrificed when great trials came upon them, such as war and invasion.
The Celts were once a great people, and immigrated from the south before spreading across Europe & Great Britain. Burial sites were found somewhere in the mid-East, the bodies tall and slim with red hair and lots of jewelry. Were those Celts too? Where did they come from?
Their religion was the interpretation of nature’s events. The Druids, or priests, were very knowledgeable and considered filled with wisdom. What did they say during these rituals? What did they do? Who rolled the big megalithic stones across country and up-ended them? What did they mean to the Druids, the Celts? It must have been important considering the time and effort expended.
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| A Druid Priest |
The World History Encyclopedia states temples and sanctuaries cleared spaces on flat ground, “surrounded by earthworks”. They had a “rampart, outer ditch, and a single gate most often on the east side”. Were there ever buildings on those sites? The pictures I saw did not seem to have had any.
Pottery and some statues of human beings seem to be the only artifacts that remain, except for the standing stones which may or may not be astronomically profound. Some say the head is where the soul is found. They say on the summer solstice some of these stones shine with moonshine or sunshine, depending on when you gather.
There’s a myth that the stones in Brittany come alive and dance the night away on certain celebratory times. If people get caught in the dancing, they are stone the following day.
Julius Caesar found the Celts complexing. The tribe he ran into was the Carnutes, which is not dissimilar to the original tribes of Greenland and the territories of Canada, the Inuits. Did they travel the high seas to scatter with the winds on Greenland, Iceland and North America? We don’t know, but the idea would be fascinating.
Were the Carnutes Druids or Celts? Did they explore the land and find something truly amazing, ethereal to worship? Is that why they worshiped in groves and near the crux of streams? How did they develop? It’s hard to read the articles I found because almost right at the first they state no one knows how the Celts were since nothing is written down. We can only surmise.
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Many thanks to : Ancient Celtic Society by Mark Cartwright and World History Encyclopedia, and another article by Mark Cartwight – Sacred Sites & Rituals in the Ancient Celtic Religion
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