Religie celtyckie - the Celts (religion)

A celtic religion was a religion of nature it means a cult of nature like rivers, shafts or sacred trees (oak, mistletoe). Each tribe had it own deitys, but there were some general cults like a Sun cult or Samhains cult.

Animal Symbolism in Celtic Mythology
Animals in Celtic and Welsh mythology are tied in with fertility and vitality, because they are living, moving, and growing. They also provide vitality and continued life for the tribes through their meat, skins, and bones. In addition, they are a connection to the realm of spirits and the gods. This connection is seen through their use in the hunt, search for secrets and wisdom.
Specific animals have specific associations depending on the characteristics of the type of animal. Birds, fish, serpents, deer, cattle, swine, and so on all tend to be used as symbols. Boars, fishes, serpents, birds, and herd animals are the most frequently described.

Druids
They were a celtic priests. Except spiritual functions they were also judges, doctors, practicing wizardry, and they were looking at the stars to tell the future. Druids were very important persons in a celtic comunity, because they decided on many things.
The Druids emerged from the ancient Celtic tribes, at a time when the people had to live close to nature to survive. By the light of the storyteller\'s fire, and with the play of the harp, the Druids dreamed magic for their people. In the deep woods they would gather, bringing together their mysticism and philosophy, their insight and learning. Their spirit emerged from the the tides of the sea, the light of the sun, the wind in the Oak, the cry of the deer. In this way, they created an institution that inspired, frightened, and uplifted their world.
Druids filled the roles of judge, doctor, diviner, mage, mystic, and clerical scholar - they were the religious intelligentsia of their culture.
To become a Druid, students assembled in large groups for instruction and training, for a period of up to twenty years.
The mythologies describe Druids who were capable of many magical powers such as divination & prophesy, control of the weather, healing, levitation, and shapechanging themselves into the forms of animals.
Their education was so rigourous that at the end of it they were virtually walking encycopaedias. A good word for them would seem to be \"priests\", yet I am reluctant to use it for two reasons: The Romans never used it, and because Druids didn\'t minister to congregations as priests do.

They had a clientele, like a lawyer, a consultant, a mystic, or a shaman would have.
Caesar and his historians never referred to them as priests, but perhaps they could not recognise them as priests since the Roman priesthood, officiating over an essentially political religion, were primarily teachers and judges, with less emphasis on being seers or diviners, whereas the Druids appeared to have both legal and magical powers and responsibilities.

Celtic year had 7 months including 30 days, 5 months including 29 days and one extra month \"samain\". The oldest celtic calendar was connected with lunar cycle. It is a cycle belongs to believes in female deitys. Only later synchronized the calendar with solar cycle, undoubtedly under the influence of Rome.

Imbolc
Coming at lambing time, around 31 January, Imbolc (or Oimelc) celebrated the beginning of the end of winter. New lambs were born, and a dish made from their docked tails was eaten. Women met to celebrate the return of the maiden aspect of the Goddess. This survived into Christian times as the Feast of Brigid: the saint was a Christianized version of the pagan goddess who was the daughter of the Dagda. In the Outer Hebrides, Celtic Christian celebrations of this festival lasted into the twentieth century, with women dressing a sheaf of oats in female clothes and setting it with a club in a basket called ‘Brid’s Bed’.

Beltain
Beltain, celebrated around 1 May, was another fire festival; but whereas Samhain was associated with going to ground, and withdrawing, Beltain burst forth with an abundant fertility. Cattle were let out of winter quarters and driven between two fires in a ritual cleansing ceremony that may have had practical purposes too. It was a time for feasts and fairs, for the mating of animals, and for divorces - possible arising from trial marriages entered into at Lughnasadh. Like Samhain, it was a time for boardgames - as well as for travel between the worlds: the legendary poet Taliesin is said to manifest at Beltain.
Beltain was sacred to the god Belenos, the Shining One, whose name survives in placenames such as Billingsgate, and in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline - Hound of Belenus. In fact the word ‘Beltain’ derives from Bel-tinne - fires of Bel. As noted above, for the Fianna, Beltain heralded the start of the ‘fighting season’.
Beltain is the origin of pagan May Day festivities such as that of the Padstow Hobby Horse, and maypole dancing, of the ‘Queen of the May’, and of ‘well dressing’ - decking holy wells with flowers, as still practised in some rural communities.

Lughnasadh
Lughnasadh was a summer festival lasting for as long as two weeks either side of the day itself, which fell around 31 July. It was said to have been introduced to Ireland by the god Lugh, and so was sacred to this god. The Romans identified Lugh with Mercury. At any rate, both are gods associated with skills, and this festival was celebrated with competitions of skill, including horse-racing. There was horse-trading, too; perhaps this is why the festival was also linked to the fertility goddess Macha, who dies in childbirth after being forced to race against the King’s horses. In Ireland the festival was associated with Emain Macha, in Ulster, but was held in various locations, including the royal fort of Tara.

Solar festivals
We know less about Celtic celebrations of solar festivals. However, the solstices were probably celebrated. Miranda Green suggests that the fires of Beltain were ‘sympathetic magic to encourage the Sun’s warmth on earth’. She adds that Beltain, Lughnasadh and Samhain ‘celebrated critical times in the annual solar cycle’, and that pagan and Christian Celtic midsummer festivals involved rolling a flaming wooden ‘solar’ wheel down a hill and into a river. It is also significant that sun disks, solar chariot wheels and swastikas (whose arms are intended to portray a blazing, spinning sun) are important motifs in Celtic art.

Samhains day
Every year in 31th of October, they visited neighbourhood and demanded a treat (some sources say that, they wanted to burn a young girl as a victim for their god of death-Samhain). If the victim satisfied them, they lighted a candle made of a human fat and put it in a „Jack O-Lanterns head” made of stone. It was a protection against demon attacks. If the family didn\'t realize druids requests, priests put under a spell. Unhappy druids left a hecsagram, which was an invitation for Samhain and his demons to visit that unnice house at night. That ritual had survived until today as halloween TRICK OR TREATS. Nowadays children say those magic words to get some sweets or cookies.