Though one hears little about them today, they have left indelible traces on the Western world. They came on the scene over 2500 yeasr ago. They have influenced Eurpean history, art and religious customs. And strange, as it may seem, they have affected our daily lives. They were of Indo-European origin, and at the height of their glory, they dominated a great stretch of the ancient world from the Atlantic to Asia Minor, from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean Coast. Who were they? The Celts.
Without realizing it, we see traces of the Celts every day. It was they, for example, who spread the use of trousers in the Western world. If your community has the custom of memorializing the dead at the end of October or the beginning of November, you may be sure that centuries ago the Celts did the same thing. Also, if you know the stories of England’s King Arthur or well-known fables like Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, then you are acquainted with more or less direct legacies of that Celtic civilization.
Like amny other peoples, the Celts, in time, came to be viewed in different ways depending on who described them. Plato (Greek, 4th century B.C.E.) described them as a drink-loving, warmongering pople. In the eyes of Aristotle (Greek, 4th century B.C.E.), they were a people who scorned danger. According to the Greek-Egyptian geographer Ptolemy (2nd century C.E), the Celts feared only one thing – that the sky would fall on their heads! Their enemies generally presented them as cruel, uncivilized barbarians. Today, thanks to progress made in Celtic studies. The Celts were actually a collection of tribes held together by a common language and style of craftsmanship, military structure, and religious belief. It is therefore more accurate to speak of Celtic culture than of an ethnic group. Gauls, Iberian Celts, Senones, Cenomani, Insubres, and Boii were the names of some of the tribes who inhabited what we now know as France, Spain, Austria and northern Italy. Others, in the course of time, colonized the British Isles.
The Celts were known in ancient times as bold warriors having great physical strength. Not only did they have an imposing physique but, to strike terror in their enemies, they would wet their hair with a chalk and water mixture that, when dry, gave them a particularly ferocious appearance. And that is exactly how they were represented in ancient statues with “plaster-cast hair”.
The Celtic tribes generally led a very simple life, even ion the oppida, their characteristic fortified cities. The tribes were ruled by the aristocracy, and the commoners hardly counted at all. “The Gauls are a very religious people”, wrote Julius Caesar. A Latin historian wrote: “Their faith in the life to come and in the immortality of the soul was such that they would quite happily make loans, accepting that the repayment be made even in hell.” As a matter of fact, beside the corpses in many tombs, food and drink have been found, obviously provided for the supposed journey to the other world.
One of the common features of all the Celtic tribes was a priestly caste, organized into at least three categories: bards, vates and Druids. While the two first groups had a less important function, the ones who were responsible for dispensing both sacred and practical knowledge were the Druids, which word perhaps means “very wise”.
It was by no means easy to become a Druid. It would take the novice about 20 years to learn the caste’s religion and technical knowledge by heart. The Druids would never put anything concerning religious matters into writing. Their traditions were transmitted orally, which is why we have so little knowledge of the Celts.
THE CUNNING CELTS
Once the new visitors began to settle in, life went quite smoothly until England was invaded properly for the first time by the Celts. They came here in 650 BC from Central Europe appearently looking for tin – please don’t ask me why! The Celts were tall, blond and blue-eyed and so got all the best girls right away. This, of course, annoyed the poor Britons even more, but there was not much they could do about it as they only had sticks and fists to fight with. The Celts set up home in the south of England building flash wooden forts which the poor boneheaded locals could only mill around in awe and envy.
Now England wasn’t too bad a place to live for the next few hundred years (if you were tall, blue-eyed and blond). Then in 55 BC the late great Julius Caesar – star of stage and screen – arrived with a couple of legions from Rome, Italy. The refined Romans were repelled, in more ways than one, by the crude Celts. They did however, come back a year later with a mach bigger, better-equipped army – and guess what – were repelled again.
Stonehenge – a group of very large, tall stones put in circles which stand on Salisbury Plant, South England. They were put there in prehistoric times, perhaps as a religious sign or perhaps as a way to study the sun, the moon and stars. Some people think that were used for religious ceremonies by Druids, although this is not generally accepted by scientists. Stonehenge is a popular tourist attraction.
Avebury – another prehistoric site in South England, where there is a large ring of standing stones.
Package holiday – a completely planned holiday, which includes travel, hotel, meals, etc. Such holidays are arranged by travel agencies.
Coracle – a small light round boat, bruilt like a basker, sometimes used by fishermen on Irish and Welsh lakes.
1. Prehistoric Britons … painted animals on the walls of their caves.
a) often b) sometimes c) never
2. Nativ Britons learned to use boats … people from the continent.
a) befor e b) together with c) after
3. Historians … about the dates given by the author.
a) agree b) disagree c) are unanimous
4. The Сelts’ culture was … that of Native Britons.
a) more advanced than b) less advanced than c) as advanced as
5. The Roman invasion had … stage(s).
a) one b) two c) more than two
