Celtic Sacred Landscapes
Nigel Pennick
Number of quotes: 24
Book ID: 51 Page: 8
Section: 3B1
In the first century BCE, when the Celts in Cisalpine Gaul were conquered by Rome, Celtic families produced many outstanding men of letters, inter alia, Cato, Catullus, Varro and Virgil.
Quote ID: 1130
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 51 Page: 25
Section: 2E1,2E5
To this day, St Teilo is the patron of apple trees. In Wales, all trees growing on land dedicated to St Beuno were once deemed sacred, and could not be cut or damaged in any way.
Quote ID: 1131
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 51 Page: 27
Section: 2E1,2E5
To the Greeks and Celts, each ancient deity had her or his own type of holy tree. The oak was sacred to Zeus and Taranis, the myrtle to Aphrodite, the thorn to the Queen of the May. The Scholiast of Aristophanes notes that the olive tree was Athena’s temple and her image before the times of temples and images. Today, certain rose and thorn trees are sacred to Our Lady. (Section called Single Trees)
Quote ID: 1132
Time Periods: 07
Book ID: 51 Page: 31
Section: 2A3
Relic-takers were also the bane of St Craebhnat’s Tree at Killura. Irish seamen and emigrants took pieces of the tree in the belief that anyone who carried a piece could not drown. During the great emigrations of the mid-nineteenth century the tree was torn apart and is no more. (Section called The Tree of Inspiration)
Quote ID: 1133
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 51 Page: 33
Section: 2E1,2E3
A humorous story is told of St Martin of Tours, who travelled through northern Gaul in the late fourth century, destroying Pagan shrines - and trees in particular. In one place, the local people made a deal with him: he could cut down their holy tree only if he would stand beneath it as it fell. Sensibly, Martin declined their challenge and went elsewhere. (Section called Fairy Thorns and Sacred Places)
Quote ID: 1134
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 51 Page: 34
Section: 2E3
A similarly miraculous bush was the origin of the veneration of Our Lady at the pilgrimage shrine of Ave Maria at Deggingen in south Germany. In the fourteenth century, a rose-thorn bush of ancient veneration was about to be cut down when it was noticed that each leaf bore the words ‘Ava Maria’. Thereafter, the bush was venerated, and later a chapel, now called Alt-Ave, was erected on the site. (Section called Fairy Thorns and Sacred Places)
Quote ID: 1135
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 51 Page: 39
Section: 2E3
The ancient philosophers, among them Iamblichus, Porphyry and Proclus, stated that gods and demons, when attracted to stone images through rituals, take up residence in them, using them as media for their manifestations.
Quote ID: 1136
Time Periods: 345
Book ID: 51 Page: 47
Section: 2E1
Before it was adopted as an exclusively Christian sign, the cross had geomantic connotations. Cicero, in his De Divinatione, records that the staff with which the Roman augurs marked out the heavens was in the form of a cross. A non-Christian cross of iron was discovered in the remains of the Temple of Mithras near Caernarfon. The Celtic cross itself has provenance in the earliest period recognized as Celtic, six hundred years before Christian worship began.
Quote ID: 1137
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 51 Page: 48
Section: 2E1
In the early days of the Church, megaliths were Christianized by being marked with crosses.
Quote ID: 1138
Time Periods: 4567
Book ID: 51 Page: 64
Section: 2E3
Making offerings to the gods and spirits of rivers and lakes is a venerable Celtic tradition.The necessity of observing a lake-offering is recorded in medieval Arthurian legend. The magic sword Excalibur was taken by King Arthur from a holy lake (said to be Dozmary Pool) with the permission of its spirit, the Lady of the Lake. But once its destiny in this world was fulfilled, it was essential that Excalibur should be returned to the waters.
Quote ID: 1139
Time Periods: 17
Book ID: 51 Page: 65
Section: 2E3
Where Celtic lands came under Roman rule, the major Celtic water-shrines were incorporated into fully fledged temple complexes. Religious practices became increasingly sophisticated as certain aspects of Roman civilization were introduced. Later, when polytheism gave way to monotheism, many such shrines were occupied by churches.One of the most important holy places in Germany, the Imperial Cathedral at Aachen, stands over the Celtic curative sacred wells of Aquae Granni. To the Celts, it was a sacred place of the solar deity Grannos. To the Romans, he was Grannus, equated with the sun-god Apollo.
Quote ID: 1140
Time Periods: 01234
Book ID: 51 Page: 66
Section: 2E1,2E3
The hot springs at Buxton, known to the Romans as Aqueae Arnemetiae, were sacred to the goddess of the grove, and those at Bath, Aquae Sulis, to Sul, whose name means ‘sun’, but who, as a goddess, was assimilated with the Roman Minerva. Red wells, whose water is coloured by iron deposits, were seen as symbolizing the menstrual blood of the goddess. Later, under Christian influence, the ‘blood’ was transferred to Christ or his martyrs.
Quote ID: 1141
Time Periods: 01234
Book ID: 51 Page: 67
Section: 2B2,2E5
Just as the Roman deities absorbed their Celtic counterparts, Celtic or Catholic saints assimilated the earlier polytheistic deities. This is true for all sacred places, but is most notable at holy wells.
Quote ID: 1142
Time Periods: 6
Book ID: 51 Page: 68
Section: 2E3
Caption The little shore chapel of St Trillo at Llandrillo-yn-Rhos in north Wales is built over the saint’s holy well, beneath the altar upon which devotees place their prayers and offerings of thanksgiving.Although the great water-shrines are no more, holy wells remain in all Celtic lands. Many are venerated still, continuing to acknowledge their Niskai or sprites. Almost every saint in Irish, British and Breton tradition has a holy well named after him or her. It is clear that many holy wells existed before the introduction of Christianity, and that this renaming was a monotheistic reinterpretation of the spirit that dwells within and guards the often healing waters.
Almost identical practices can be seen at the Liebfrauenbrunnen Chapel at Werbach in Germany. Like St Trillo’s, it is built over a Celtic holy well which rises on the bank of a stream bridged by the chapel.
Quote ID: 1143
Time Periods: 0123456
Book ID: 51 Page: 69
Section: 2E3
It is customary to make a pilgrimage on the holy day of the well’s saint.
Quote ID: 1144
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 51 Page: 71
Section: 2E3
Also part of the Celtic well-head mythos are the legends that relate how many a healing or prophetic source sprang up spontaneously when someone was beheaded. This is recalled in The life of St David, where a spring wells up in a hazel grove at the place where a damsel is decapitated. The Celtic sacred springs of Alesia in Burgundy, in use long before the Christian religion, are said to have been the result of the beheading of St Reine. The identical legend is claimed by St Jutwara, St Lludd, St Noyala and St Tegiwg. Naturally, the most famous Welsh holy well of them all, that at Holywell, is said to have sprung forth when St Gwenfrewi (Winefride) was beheaded. When her head touched the ground, the waters burst forth.
Quote ID: 1146
Time Periods: 067
Book ID: 51 Page: 81
Section: 2E5
In Cisalpine Gaul, the deity of the mountain passes themselves was the goddess Brigida, consort of Poeninus. The Brigantes, who appear to have claimed descent from the goddess, dwelt in the Pennine region of Britain. Later, the Church assimilated Brigida as St Brigida or Brigid.
Quote ID: 1148
Time Periods: 0567
Book ID: 51 Page: 162
Section: 2B1
(Caption) Image of the three-breasted saint Gwen Teirbron, with her three saintly children. Known in England as St Candida or St White, Gwen Teirbron is a Christian aspect of the bounteous threefold earth mother goddess. From the Church of St Venec, Brittany.Pastor John Note: [There is a picture of this also marked on this page.]
PJ: Three in one.
Quote ID: 1149
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 51 Page: 165
Section: 2C
Here, the Christian tradition did not extirpate the earlier Pagan vision, but continued and developed it.It is sometimes assumed that everything altered radically when the Christian religion was introduced, but this was not the case. Many of the founding saints of Celtic Christianity were of upper-class birth, just the sort of people who, in earlier generations, would have become druids or temple-priests. It was natural that the leaders of the new religion should have the same career path as their Pagan predecessors.
2C
Quote ID: 1150
Time Periods: 6
Book ID: 51 Page: 166
Section: 2E3
These holy loci gradually acquired a patina of the newer creed, whilst retaining the essence of the older faith. A syncretic ‘dual faith’ came into being, in which an official Christian liturgy was supplemented by vernacular Pagan customs and usages.Page 165
The Bards believed that all things were tending toward perfection; when, therefore, they embraced Christianity, they must on their own principles have viewed it as a stage in advance of their former creed. (Quoting Barrdas, John Williams ab Ithel).
Quote ID: 1151
Time Periods: 234567
Book ID: 51 Page: 173
Section: 2B1
The cultus of St Brigid of Kildare is the epitome of this process, encapsulating every aspect of Celtic religion. Brigid was a threefold light-goddess, whose festival was Imbolc (I February).The coming into being of St Brigid was a remarkable accommodation of polytheism in a monotheistic framework, permitting the continuation of women’s mysteries under the aegis of patriarchal monotheism.
PJ: Three in one.
Quote ID: 1152
Time Periods: 567
Book ID: 51 Page: 174
Section: 2B2
...it is typical of the change from polytheism to monotheism that the older gods and heroes should be assimilated into the newer pantheon.
Quote ID: 1153
Time Periods: 014
Book ID: 51 Page: 175
Section: 2E1,2E3
Head-shrines in Catholic churches in Celtic and former Celtic lands perpetuate the practice of preserving and venerating the heads of ancestors and heroes.
Quote ID: 1154
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 51 Page: 177
Section: 2E1,2E3
Paradoxically, it was not Celtic or even Catholic Christianity that led to the comprehensive destruction of Celtic sacred places, rather it was the Reformation. When the Roman Catholic Church was suppressed in Britain, sacred places were deliberately destroyed for being alleged objects of superstition. Both Catholic and Pagan observance were extirpated together. A Scottish Parliamentary Act of 1581, epitomizes the attitude of the Puritans:The Dregs of Idolatry yet remain in divers Parts of the Realm by using of Pilgrimage to some Chapels, Wells, Crosses, and such other Monuments of Idolatry, as also by observing the Festal days of the Saints sometime Named their Patrons in setting forth of Bon-Fires, singing of Carols within and about Kirks at certain Seasons of the Year.
Quote ID: 1155
Time Periods: 7
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