Monday, April 30, 2012

Warrior Women of the Celts (bonus Boudicca the movie)


source dragoncourt

According to His-Story ... The so-called 'Celts' built no cities, founded no empires and never developed a written language. Their name derives from the Greek 'Keltoi', meaning 'hidden people' ... a reference to their lack of a written language and all tales were memorised and passed down through the generations by the Druids or 'WiseOnes' who studied long years to commit all their knowledge to memory.

Although they functioned as lawgivers as well as priests, and could read and write Greek and Latin, they chose to pass on the chronicle of their people's existence orally in the form of verse.

It wasn't until the 6th and 7th centuries AD that Irish monks began to transcribe Celtic history and lore, and the famous collection of Legends known as the Ulster Cycle which is thousands of years old, that we learn of the ancient traditions of lore, their concepts of 'kingship', of truth and of the 'fitness of things' which held their Society together.

The Gods and Goddesses of the ancient Celts were living forces in their imagination and worship, and although Victorian scholars thought their savage war-goddesses; their barbaric sea-gods and the mysteries of the Otherworld, quaint, barbaric and often incomprehensible, these myths reveal the beautiful and often profound beliefs of a passionate, resourceful and creative people.

For the pagan Celt, the essence of the universe and all its creativity was female and they left permanent traces of a culture in which women were the spiritual and moral pivot. The mother goddess and all her personifications of fertility, sovreignity, love and healing, was an essential basis of their very role in the world.

Women feature prominently in Celtic Myth and their Goddesses occupied positions that represented women of practical, everyday Celtic life. They were free to bear arms, become Druids and engage in politics unlike their Greek sisters, who were highly idealised in myth but not representative of the reality governing the lives of Greek women.

The very phrase 'Celtic Women' evokes all kinds of images - fearsome warriors, romantic heroines and tragic, wronged queens - goddesses by the score, from old hags to screaming harpies, to beautiful wise women and learned Druidesses, to the great female saints of the early Celtic church.

The women of the Celtic myths are a reflection of the historical women of early Celtic society with all their problems, loves, heartaches and triumphs. They display a range of characters and positions in society being powerful weak, serious, capricious, vengeful and ambitious - there are no empty-headed 'beauty queenszzz' ...

As Moyra Caldicott says in 'Women in Celtic Myth' . . . "one of the things I find so refreshing in the Celtic myths is that the women are honoured as much for their minds as for their bodies. The dumb blond would not stand much of a chance ancient Celtic society."

Celtic women then achieved high positions in society and a standing which their sisters in the majority of other contemporary European societies did not have. They were able to govern; they played an active part in political; social and religious life.

They could be warriors, doctors, physicians, judges and poets. They could own property and remain the owner even when married. They had sexual freedom, were free to choose their partners and divorce, and could claim damages if molested.
Celtic women could, and often did, lead their men into battle.

Among the ancient Celts women rulers and warriors were so common that when a group of Brigantian captives was brought to Rome in the reign of Claudius they automatically assumed his wife, Agrippina the Younger, was the ruler and ignored the Emperor while making their obeisance to her.

MORE HERE

And if you didnt watch the movie yet, here is the link with a great Alex Kingston playing fierce Boudicca

AICI FILMUL DACA NU L-ATI VAZUT INCA

cybershamans (karmapolice) / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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