"The three principal endeavors of a Bard:
One is to learn and collect sciences.
The second is to teach.
And the third is to make peace
And to put an end to all injury;
For to do contrary to these things
Is not usual or becoming to a Bard."

~THE TRIADS OF BRITAIN

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Find out more on the history of Celtic culture on wonderful Ireland tours.

Celtic Migrations. Partly as the result of wars, many Celtic tribes migrated from one region of Europe to another. From their homeland in central Europe, the Celts spread westward into modern France and the British Isles, southwest into Iberia, southward into northern Italy, and eastward through central Europe into the Balkans and Asia Minor. Ancient tribes now thought to be Celtic include the Helvetia, who lived in the area of modern Switzerland, the Boii in modern Italy, the Averni in modern France, the Scordisci in modern Serbia, and the Belgae, who inhabited northern Gaul and southern Britain in immediate pre-Roman times.
    However. After the first century BC, they were in retreat. Driven out of eastern Europe by Slavic tribes, they were vanquished in the west by superior Roman forces. First the Celts in northern Italy came under Roman rule. Then they were overwhelmed in the rest of Gaul (modern France), modern Switzerland, southern Germany, and Austria. Perhaps as the result of the Romans' pressure, many of the Belgae emigrated from what is now Belgium to southern Britain in the first century BC. Then, during the first century AD, most of Britain fell to the Roman conquerors. In the third century AD, the Celts of southern Germany were overrun by the confederation of Germanic tribes called the Alamanni. Since then, many centuries have passed, with further inroads into Celtic lands by invaders, yet Celtic culture has never been eliminated from Europe and will no doubt continue to thrive well into the next millennium. Today, Celtic culture is the living heritage of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany. It has also left its mark on English and French custom and tradition. "     ~From "The Sacred World of the Celts" by Nigel Pennick

Social Structure. The Celts did not have a caste society, though there were well-defined classes. At the top was the noble class. At some periods of Celtic history, the top man was a king. Often, the king was the head man of an individual tribe, though in later times, nations composed of several tribes came under royal rule. In its most refined form, kingship was seen as divine - rulers were men through whom the gods spoke. Kingship was not necessarily inherited, for kings could nominate their successor. The law of royal succession among the Picts was through the mother, though invariably the monarch was male, and often the king's father was a foreigner. There were also queens, who sometimes ruled in their own right. Among them are the legendary Irish warrior queen, Maeve, and the British Boudicca, who led the rebellious Iceni against Roman rule in AD 61.
     But kingship was not the only form of rule. In Gaul, before the Roman conquest, kingship was abolished by several tribes, including the Aedui, Lexovii, Lemovices, Santones, Remi, and Treviri. Instead of a king, a magistrate, the Vergobret, elected by the nobility, headed the tribe. The real power was in the hands of the noble class, whose status came from hereditary right. Noble lineages contained men of honorable origin, linked to other families through marriage alliances. They owned the land, and from their ranks came the military generals and the Druids. In Wales, this class, the cenedl, ruled until the Norman conquest.
     However in Celtic society there was not a rigid class system imposed by birth. The landless commoners had the possibility of personal advancement by making a fortune through commerce or war. Some of the lower orders who had fallen upon hard times became clients, having pledged themselves to serve a powerful nobleman. But such an obligation was different from slavery, and the commoner did not give up his rights. Caesar wrote that the object of clientage was to ensure that all common people should have protection against powerful people. Each nobleman had to guarantee that no harm should come to him supporters. If it did, he lost face, and fell in status. Clientage was a form of social welfare, with obligations on both sides. The nobleman supported the client with gifts, that required repayment by loyal service. Unlike some societies, where slavery was hereditary, and there was no chance of future generations becoming free, the Celts' slaves were captive foreigners without civil rights. They could always be freed, to become the client of the noble who had freed them.
     Slaves could not fight in times of war. Other men had the right to bear arms, but not all, for some were only permitted to fight when their lives were threatened. In Gaul, it was only possible to go to war if the common people and the priesthood consented, having received favorable omens. Although there was always a commander-in-chief, wars were conducted by an assembly called the Armed Council, that had the final say on strategic matters. Several times during the Gallic War that Caesar won, the Gaulish commander, Vercengetorix, had to give account of his conduct of the war to the Armed Council.
     The Roman author Strabo wrote that among the Gauls there were three groups of men who were held in exceptional honor: the Bards, the Vates, and the Druids. The Bards were the musicians, singers, and poets. The Vates were soothsayers, diviners, and natural diviners. Ancient Celtic religion, that underpinned every aspect of everyday life, was nature-venerating and polytheistic, recognizing many levels of supernatural beings and divinities, female as well as male. The Celts believed that the course of nature is the will of the Gods. Thus they venerated both local and general deities, usually in natural sanctuaries, especially shrines at springs, rivers, lakes, and in woodland. The Bards, Vates, and Druids had an integrated relationship with the natural world. They possessed an immense body of traditional lore, concerning nature, the seasons, astronomy, death, and transformation. Most of the ancient skills and wisdom of these men are known still, underlying contemporary Celtic spirituality, that is the synthesis of Celtic Spirituality, that is essential for a continuing, living tradition.

Celtic Clans. Clann is a Gaelic word that means children. A clan is a family, descended from some notable individual, often bearing his name. The currant clan chief, who is the prime descendant of the founder, is nominally the father of the whole clan, having moral authority over all its members. Although the clan system is Celtic in origin, the contemporary Scottish clans, who have maintained the system in its most ancient form, are of mixed ancestry. Some Scottish clans are descended from the ancient Scots who emigrated eastward from Ireland from the sixth century onward. Others are descended from Norman, English, and Viking notables.
     The community structure of the clans was formerly universal among the Celts, but this structure was gradually eroded away everywhere except in the highlands of Scotland. Strictly speaking, a clan consists of the chief's family and the branches that can prove descent from the founder through the female line. Although this is the strict familial definition of a clan, it was rarely interpreted so rigidly, and in practice the clan included every family that accepted the authority and protection of the local clan chief. Spirituality. Celtic Spirituality understood that all of existence has a cyclic nature, and that there is a direct continuity between the material world and the otherworld. Druidic teachings, that have come down to us through Welsh tradition, recognized that there is an unseen world that interpenetrates and affects the visible world. Things are just not what they seem. Everything exists on several simultaneous levels. Human beings can understand things as having three levels: the physical, the spiritual, and the symbolic. Thus, Celtic culture was integrated with nature, and expressed itself through the multiple possibilities of life itself. Celtic religion taught the reincarnation of all individual souls, and the appearance of divine beings on Earth.

Dress & Appearance. "Both classical and native sources furnish us with some first class descriptions of the early Celts whom, it would seem, were highly distinctive in both appearance and demeanor. It is generally agreed that they were tall and powerfully built, with blue eyes and blond or reddish hair. Diodorus Siculus describes the men as favoring moustaches to beards, while both sexes were highly conscious of their appearance and anxious to make the most of their natural good looks, Celtic women vying with their men folk in size and stature.
     Overall we may safely say that the general impression from all sources of evidence designates the Celtic aristocratic society as being tall, physically powerful men and women with fair or reddish hair, grey-blue eyes, light skins, oval faces, and fresh complexions."     ~From "Practical Celtic Magic" by Murry Hope