Myths & Legends of the Celtic RaceRolleston, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race
Rolleston, T. W. (Thomas William)
Celts -- Religion; Mythology, Celtic
The German _Beute_, booty, plunder, has had an instructive history. There
was a Gaulish word _bodi_ found in compounds such as the place-name
Segobodium (Seveux), and various personal and tribal names, including
Boudicca, better known to us as the “British warrior queen,” Boadicea.
This word meant anciently “victory.” But the fruits of victory are spoil,
and in this material sense the word was adopted in German, in French
(_butin_) in Norse (_byte_), and the Welsh (_budd_). On the other hand,
the word preserved its elevated significance in Irish. In the Irish
translation of Chronicles xxix. 11, where the Vulgate original has “Tua
est, Domine, magnificentia et potentia et gloria et victoria,” the word
_victoria_ is rendered by the Irish _búaidh_, and, as de Jubainville
remarks, “ce n’est pas de butin qu’il s’agit.” He goes on to say:
“_Búaidh_ has preserved in Irish, thanks to a vigorous and persistent
literary culture, the high meaning which it bore in the tongue of the
Gaulish aristocracy. The material sense of the word was alone perceived by
the lower classes of the population, and it is the tradition of this lower
class which has been preserved in the German, the French, and the Cymric
languages.”(18)
Two things, however, the Celts either could not or would not impose on the
subjugated German tribes—their language and their religion. In these two
great factors of race-unity and pride lay the seeds of the ultimate German
uprising and overthrow of the Celtic supremacy. The names of the German
are different from those of the Celtic deities, their funeral customs,
with which are associated the deepest religious conceptions of primitive
races, are different. The Celts, or at least the dominant section of them,
buried their dead, regarding the use of fire as a humiliation, to be
inflicted on criminals, or upon slaves or prisoners in those terrible
human sacrifices which are the greatest stain on their native culture. The
Germans, on the other hand, burned their illustrious dead on pyres, like
the early Greeks—if a pyre could not be afforded for the whole body, the
noblest parts, such as the head and arms, were burned and the rest buried.
*Downfall of the Celtic Empire*
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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