A Witch on a Celtic Path
Celtic Triad: Three things to be avoided by the Wise: expecting the impossible, grieving over the irretrievable, fearing the inevitable.
Witchcraft is often described as a new age religion, especially with the emergence of Wicca, the religious practice strongly associated with modern witchcraft, in the 20th Century. However, you only need to look as far as the nearest fairy tale anthology to realise the term witch has been with us for millennia, in many different forms. The Old English words wicce and wicca were used for female and male magical practitioners as far back as 890 CE. This shows us that witchcraft is extremely ‘Old Age’ indeed! Throughout the generations the term witch has moved from meaning wise person (usually a woman) to feared crone or hilarious hermit. As with all things that are not understood by the majority, respect gives way to fear, and fear to anger and ridicule, and as we have seen through the centuries, hatred and murder.
Reassuringly, at least one ancient culture has inspired multiple stories of prophets, prophetesses, druids, poets, bards, satirists, shape-shifters, gods, goddesses and more who are not only respected but accepted as a part of day to day life. I’m speaking of the Celts, who adored and accepted what we now refer to as the supernatural. They accepted that gods and goddesses walked among us, and that animals held spirits and voices of their own. They knew of the power of trees, and the binding ways of words. They were held by geas, or taboo which could not be broken. They made heroes of warriors and the wise alike. They believed in sacred objects, and great quests to find such. They stood face to face and toe to toe with the Fae, those unearthly being from under the hills or beyond a spiritual veil.
It is no wonder then, that modern day Paganism retains so much of their influence. This includes, as you probably know, festival dates, deities and places of worship or respect. The biggest example is the wheel of the year, the seasonal structure for many Pagan paths. This is based on the festivals we believe the Celts celebrated, the four primary ones being Imbolc (or Imbolg), Beltane (or Beltain), Lughnasadh (not Lammas; Lammas is an Anglo Saxon celebration although probably has similar roots- who doesn’t want to celebrate at the height of summer!) and Samhain.
The Celts seem to have regarded Samhain as the boundary between the light and dark parts of the year; Summer’s death and Winter’s rebirth. It’s no surprise then, that many Pagans and witches see this as the start of the New Year. Robert Graves famously used the Holly King and the Oak King to represent Summer and Winter, locked in an eternal struggle for power (The White Goddess, 1978) which is an image that seems clearly inspired by the Celtic way of dividing light and dark, and of course, their reverence for trees. Many Wiccans or people on a similar path will find this metaphor familiar, as it is a core part of the Wheel of the Year now for some; a way to visualise the sun reaching its peak at midsummer, and the triumph of the dark in midwinter.
So why, when we can all see that most ‘Neopaganism’ has such Celtic roots anyway, am I a Celtic witch? What does that mean, and how is it different from any other type of witchcraft?
Well let’s look at the ‘Witch’ part first; when I say I am a witch, I’m saying I harness the energies around and within me to instigate change. Mahatma Ghandi said ‘be the change we wish to see in the world’ and much of witchcraft is this; using our inherent power as a sentient being to be a force for transformation. Anyone can do this with training, and the will and patience to gain a deeper understanding of the universe around them. You don’t need to be religious, although many witches do follow a religious path, such as Wicca or another polytheistic faith. For me, witchcraft is more about having faith in yourself and your own skill, although I also accept the existence of other-worldly beings and forces.
Onto the Celtic part: I am deeply influenced by my Celtic ancestry, and walk a path side by side with the Tuatha Dé Danann; the great folk who were one of the many races that invaded Ireland. Lebor Gabála Érenn, the Book of the Taking of Ireland, is an 11th Century text describing eight periods throughout Ireland’s ‘history’ (the book’s contents are of more mythological interest rather than indisputable fact) including the rise and fall of the Tuatha Dé Danann. The text tells us that they came to Ireland on dark clouds, and that they viewed their men of arts as gods, and knew the incantations of Druids. It is sung in the text that they are ‘without a covenant of religion’; indeed, it seems that while they accept the reality of larger than life heroes and magical transformation, they revere none as being above or beyond them. Everything is worldly and everything is within reach. This is why I feel my craft belongs to a Celtic source more than any other. I am stubborn to the point of foot stamping and petulance, yet patient enough to wait longer than most would in a tense situation. I will fight when necessary and be quiet when not. I know when presentation is important, and when subtlety is key. I accept that part of me is divine, and acknowledge that divinity within others, but I am not cowed by it. I know when to use my craft, and when elbow grease and hard work will give me a better result.
The Celts took pride in taking a skill and honing it to perfection, but also mastering a number of other skills along the way. They revered wisdom as much as physical strength which is something that I often find lacking in our modern world. The Irish Celts in particular had strict social customs and manners, and because barely anything was written down, words had a unique power which is difficult to recreate in an age where there is a record of everything.
Of course the Celts were not solely Irish, in fact it is now thought by modern historians that the Celts were various tribes who moved across Europe during the Iron Age, perhaps even from the far east, travelling through the Mediterranean, the Germanic and Baltic countries, and possibly as far north as Scandinavia. Because of the aforementioned lack of Celtic literature, their tales and myths come to us via word of mouth and the work of Christian scholars such as Áed Ua Crimthainn, compiler of the Book of Leinster. In the British Isles the stories that cling closest to our hearts tend to be the Welsh and the Irish, particularly the Mabinogion and the Ulster Cycle. My heart lies with my Irish ancestry, mainly because I have been moved and inspired all my life by the tales of the Ulster Cycle, and because bizarre twists and turns along my path have brought me into contact with other fascinated with our Celtic heritage. So while I speak of the Tuatha Dé Danann and their influence on my life, you may find a stronger connection with Gaulish deities, or perhaps the Welsh. Use my experience to create a bond that is unique to you.
But I don’t have any Celtic ancestors you may say. Well, I believe you absolutely can follow a Celtic path without any known Celtic ancestry. Our entire world would be a different place today if the Celts had not existed, so all of us can say our existence has been in some way influenced by the Celts. Celtic names, tales and art pop up throughout modern popular culture, from films to video games. The famous Halo gaming franchise has a screeching vehicle called a banshee, based on the mythical creature who wailed to foretell death. The word comes from the Gaelic bean sí meaning ‘woman from the fairy mounds’ or ‘woman of the barrows’. Charlaine Harris’ famous vampire books are filled with names from Celtic mythology and even refer to the fae themselves. Imagine the books at a tattoo artist without Celtic knots present, or a silversmith lacking the same. I had a good natured argument with someone once who disputed the authenticity of anyone calling themselves ‘Celtic’. I understood his point; we are not Celtic because the Celts are no more, if we take the word ‘Celtic’ to mean a part of a tribe of Celts. However, when I use the term ‘Celtic’ to describe a person or way of working, I take it as read that we understand already that the Celts are no more, and I am using this term to describe someone or something influenced in some way by some part of Celtic life.
As I write these chapters, I want to introduce you to a way of connecting with the world, even the universe, which harks back to the Iron Age and beyond; after all, our Celtic ancestors were themselves influenced by those who had come before. It’s important to remember that the magic we perform today will never be the same as that of our ancestors; we are influenced by our ancestors, but we are not them. We live in a very different world, and we cannot pretend otherwise, but we can reach into the threads of time to try and understand the way magic affected those who came before, and we can search for those feelings and reactions in ourselves. To think that I may be feeling something as profound as one of my ancestors from over 2000 years ago is heady indeed. We will look at simple steps towards being a Celtic Witch from my own path, from very ethereal, meditative experience, to ‘hands-on’ work building small tools to aid spell-craft. We will discuss the Celtic reverence for the bard and satirist, and how you can learn to wield words as wisely, and how to cultivate silence as a weapon. We’ll remember tales of magical transformation and wonder how we can transform ourselves. Do we want to change? Have we the will? And what is the consequence?