The Beginning
4000 years ago, the wide, grassy plains of western Asia and eastern Europe were inhabited by nomads, who then according to a popular theory, probably induced by the expansion of the Mongolian peoples of the east, wandered further south- and westwards and founded what is today known as the Indo-European cultures. When the Asian plains become known to written history, a people called the Cimmerians were roaming there, but later, they were replaced more or less by the Scythians. Some of these Cimmerians escaped to the south, and raided Persia and Minor Asia, only to disappear from history. But possibly, some of them left the plains earlier and rode into the deep forests of western Europe. Are these the ones who founded the later Germanic, Italic and Celtic cultures, as well as others?
But Europe had been inhabited for ages when our Indo-European ancestors arrived. Possibly, a large portion of the continent was inhabited by Balts, another Indo-European people from an earlier surge of migration, or maybe only non-Indo-European peoples were there, relatives of the Basque maybe, or possibly others. Maybe wave after wave had arrived since the first Neanderthal colony in the earliest stone age, long before the ice age, or maybe the direct descendants of the first Crô-Magnon people still were living here when the mounted hordes came, heirs to a culture adapted to the changing conditions of the continent for tens of thousands of years, whose ancestors had found their way to the most fertile regions of the continent through laborious wanderings by foot or waterways.
The Celtic culture arose when these Asiatic cattle raising horsemen met the grain-producing natives of the European river valleys with thousands of years of experience, heirs to people who carved pictures in stone, ground axes in stone and set up enormous monuments in stone from reasons unimagined by modern man. But Epovarros knows, and if we listen to his songs, we will know…
Epovarros and his people turned up in the forests and river valleys of Europe some time around 3000 years ago. Some 250 years later, they discovered rich salt deposits in the deep forests north-east of the Alps and started a salt trade which laid the foundations for the first rich Celtic culture. Today, this area is governed by the Austrians, who name it Salzkammergut. The period is called Hallstatt from the town where the remains of these rich salt traders were discovered. At this time, the Hallstatt culture had spread into most of the northern central Europe.
The next stage is known earliest from some distance away, it's called La Tène from a bay on the north shore of Lake Neuchâtel in Western Switzerland where the first remains were found, some 2500 years old. This culture has a more sophisticated expression, and evolves into Celtic art as we know it from historic times. At roughly the same time, a schism occurs in the Celtic language. One of the most characteristic changes is the exchange of the original Indoeuropean k(u) with p, and hence, one of the variants is called p-Celtic, continental Celtic or Brythunic, while the other is called q-Celtic, island Celtic, Goidelic or Gaelic. Q-Celtic today is spoken only in Eire and the isle of Man and in Scotland by people of Irish descent, but according to folklore, the Irish once came from Spain, and maybe it was spoken there by Hispanic Celts as well. And if this is the most ancient variety, it may have been spoken by the Hallstatt, while the La Tène switched to p-Celtic. Maybe Epovarros' real name is Ecuvarros? He only knows.
One natural explanation for the schism is that the p-Celts may be northern invaders who had to learn to speak Celtic, but imperfectly, when they settled in Celtic lands. Who they are cannot be stated with certainty, but Germans and Balts are obvious candidates. Some historical accounts indicate that the Belgian Gauls are in reality naturalised Germans, and if this is the case, earlier Germans could have given rise to an earlier p-Celtic advance as well, or the process could have been continuous from then up to the historic age. But would the Germans mistake a q-sound for a p? Perhaps the Balts are more likely to do such a thing. The other possibility is that the Celts in some areas subjected peoples who couldn't pronounce the q, whilst others of their subjects were able to.
Many language changes of course result from slow slides from one sound to another without external influence. But the reasons for changes like the q->p often are interactions with other cultures. When a people get new masters and thus have to learn a new language, they will often make some small adjustments to the sounds they find hard to pronounce. In this way, the older language or substratum will make its mark. Other features of the culture also act like this, although the culture-bearing language disappears, other features will often survive if they are sufficiently popular. In our time, it is the Celts themselves who have been the losers. They used to dominate most of Europe and some parts of Asia. Celtic remains are found in around 30 countries. But such features are found not only by archaeologists. In many countries traditions that have survived since Celtic times survive, Celtic substrate words are used in the language and the way of life itself still to some degree is marked with values embraced by the Celts.
When a country is invaded, the old inhabitants and the old culture usually don't vanish right away. Often, the conquerors aren't so numerous, and only establish a ruling elite or upper class, continuing to live side by side with the natives, or possibly, they only conquer parts of the country, leaving portions of it to the natives where the soil is less fertile perhaps, or maybe land that suit their way of life but not the one of the conquerors to the same extent. Many Indo-European cultures have traces of interactions with the natives, sometimes direct tales of episodes between them or about the invasion itself, or sometimes myths about earlier families of gods being defeated by the new ones, like the Jotuns of the Norse mythology or the Titans of the Greek. But this way, the old gods became part of the new religion, and those myths probable were made up mostly to explain why they still were worshipped, not only by the aboriginal population themselves, for some of them could become quite popular among the newcomers as well, like the Titan Cronus, who was so important for the Greeks that he was placed (or retained his place) in the sky, as the planet Saturn. The Celts have a multitude of gods, and many of them have names for which no Indo-European origin has been firmly established. Such origins could exist after all, but it would be surprising if not the Celts, too, had absorbed a lot from the natives of their lands.
What does it mean to be a Celt? Well, the ancient Celts developed a most unique culture, at a time when individuals in many parts of the world stopped to consider what men had achieved, became conscious of themselves and their abilities and sought new and more hopeful paths for their exploits. Buddha spoke in India, Lao-Tzu in China, Esaiah preached in Israel and Democritos, Pythagoras and others systematized their knowledge of the world in ancient Greece. It was the first flowering of humanism, the belief in man, a stronger and surer confidence in oneself and what was possible in this world. The Celts found their path, their system of life, under the influence not only from the strong urban civilizations of the south, but also from the old cultures they had trodden underfoot in the north, they pursued it with vigour and confidence as long as their strength lasted and still in the face of defeat continued their ways if they could, because it was more charming to them than anything else.
But what does it mean to be a real Celt, then? Why, don't we all know? You are a real Celt if you dress in colourful woven cloth, tattoo or paint your face and your naked arms, hang an open ring of costly metal around your neck and sit firmly in your saddle, swinging your longsword dexterously. You are a Celt if you wear a moustache and unshorn hair, live in round wicker houses with thatched roofs, if you decorate yourself and everything else around you with intricate plastic patterns, sing wild songs at gay feasts where beef stews boil in deep cauldrons. You venerate the word and life, but you're always ready to fight for it if you must. You are a real Celt if you prefer death to slavery, but follow your chieftain to the bitter end, if you have friends both in this world and the next and follow your druids in curious rituals among standing stones in the moonlight. Of course we know all this, or do we not?
Celticness, the faith that has charged the Celtic culture since the first salt traders in the Hallstatt area, seems to be defined as the conviction that they are chosen by fate to live a life which other people can only dream about. Maybe their early days as rich salt traders formed this sentiment in them, when generations grew up seeing how much more wealthy and powerful they were than their saltless neighbours. They were barbarians, they knew the rich and powerful kingdoms of the south, but in their pride they chose a different way, often totally opposite to the great urban civilisations, the way of the barbarians. A civilisation of the forests and the pastures, questing for ways of human achievement like the city dwellers in the south, but without locking the individuals into slum huts and strict class laws, without the same wholesale devastation of nature as theirs.
If you're going to Stonehenge or to the menhirs of Brittany or another of the ancient megaliths today, you may with some luck see druids dancing in the moonlight. However, these are not real druids, and it is doubtful if any druid in life has been guilty of such practices. Those megaliths are very old, the oldest ones of them are older than the pyramids of Egypt, and could even have inspired the Egyptians to set up theirs. Such mighty stone monuments have been built by people living in our part of the world thousands of years before the Indo-Europeans arrived. Their culture belongs to a world that was forgotten long ago. The old stones shout their message to us, loud with their size, but they have no voices.
Druid is an Indo-European word with reference to trees. The ancestors of the Celts brought it with them from their former home some place in Asia, and the shamans of the earliest Celts and their ancestors who came riding in from the grassy plains of the east probably used the same word. The Celts held some trees or groves and many other phenomena and beings of nature to be sacred and worshipped among them, so it is not surprising that their shamans were connected with trees. But the druids were not just some kind of witch-doctors. In addition to magic and medicine, they maintained the knowledge of the religious rituals, of the judicial laws and the calendar with its associated burden of astronomical knowledge. They were highly respected and wielded considerable power, a druid could stop a war by going between two fighting hordes. Exactly what they knew, nobody knows, for their knowledge was not written down, and they were forbidden to disclose it to others. Their education took place in regular druidic schools, and consisted in learning endless verses by heart, on the various subjects they were to learn. It is said that their education could last for 20 years, some say 40.
The lore of the druids is built partially on experience inherited from their Celtic ancestors of various ages, partially on impulses from the great urban civilizations or others gathered during the Humanist awakening, but also on experience, old or new, from people who lived in the places they arrived at in their wanderings as well as from their own ancestors. Maybe this part of the foundations comprises more than what is evident to the eye, maybe druids danced among the stones after all or at least used them to tell the seasons, learning about their use from the people who erected them or who took over the heritage from those who did. For isn't it strange that the centre of the druidic culture was Britannia, the sacred island and home of the druidic schools, and that the most sacred of all places was Anglesey or Mona, a place dense with megaliths. Why should the centre of the Celtic religion be in the west, when the origin of the Celtic civilization is right in the middle of Europe?