Rodney Castleden - The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts

The name “Ogham” comes from the name of the Irish god Ogma, the godof poetry and learningwho is said to have devised the alphabet himself.

It is likely the Ogham alphabet was used for writing on perishable materials such as wood, leather, and bark, but these have not survived. The inscriptions that have survived are all on stone and they all date from AD 300 to 700.

The intensification of agriculture in Ireland meant that many Ogham stones were threatened. Some were rescued and put on display at University College Cork; the West Wing Stone Corridor there houses the largest collection of Ogham stones in Ireland. These stones are a national treasure, in that they represent the earliest examples of writing in Ireland, unless we count the remarkable Neolithic symbols carved on the Boyne passage graves. Another collection of Ogham stones is housed at Mount Melleray monastery near Cappoquin in County Waterford.

Some of the standing stones were raised as boundary markers. Some, mainly the later ones, were raised to mark graves. Many of the surviving Ogham inscriptions have been translated to read “name of person + name of father + name of tribe.”

An Ogham stone from Ballymorereagh in County Kerry carries a Latin inscription on its face, which reads FECT QUENILOC , “Made by Qeniloc.” Along the edge is Qeniloc’s name and ancestry in Ogham.

Ogham was not confined to Ireland; Irish migrants took it to Wales.

See Genealogy .

Each tribehad at least one oppidum : a big market center with everything except a defensive rampart. By the first century BC every civitas had at least one, which functioned as its capital. It was a kind of town, with residential areas and areas of workshops, though unlike modern towns, it also included pasturage for livestock. Julius Caesarnoted that he found a great many livestock in Cassivellaunus’s oppidum .

Caesar’s account of the Gallic War is of particular interest because the date of his account is so precise, 58–51 BC, and this is exactly the time when the Celtic oppida were at their fullest development.

See Caratacus .

A Celtic tribein Gaul, living in the extreme north-west of Brittany. They were first mentioned by the Greek traveler Pytheas in the fourth century BC. He located them on the western tip of Brittany, on a headland then called Kabaion; this was later known by the Latin name Finis Terrae, the End of the World, and is still known by the French version of this, Finistère .

The main town of the Osismii was Vorgium: modern Carhaix. The tribe submitted to Julius Caesarin 57 BC, though the following year they joined the Venetiin a revolt against Caesar, who suppressed them.

Ossian was an ancient Gaelic bardinvented by James Macpherson. The Poems of Ossian , also concocted by Macpherson, were published in the 1760s. They were an immediate sensation and Ossian acclaimed as a Celtic Homer.

During the next 30 years, the poems were widely read and translated into many languages. Goethe translated parts into German. Napoleon carried a copy with him on his march to Moscow. He also commissioned the artist Ingres to paint The Dream of Ossian .

The poems were extremely influential. They gave a huge impetus to the dawning Romantic movement. Poets as different from each other as Blake, Byron, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were affected by them. The composers Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Brahms wrote musicinspired by Ossian. The poems also stimulated the study of folklore and ancient Celtic languages.

When Macpherson first published his book, he claimed it was a translation of an ancient manuscript in Gaelic: a copy of an original work by Ossian. Several people challenged this, including Samuel Johnson, who said the poetry was the work of Macpherson himself, but Macpherson neither owned up nor produced the ancient manuscript. The controversy went on for many years.

Macpherson’s fake Celtic world was based on some authentic Celtic material. Fingal is based on Fionn Mac Cumhaill; Temora is Tara; Cuthulinn is Cú Chulainn; and Dar-Tula is Deirdre of the Sorrows. Parallels such as these create an air of authenticity, but most of the incident is Macpherson’s own invention.

One of the poems is Fingal . Macpherson presented his “translation” in continuous prose. Here I have broken it up into lines to make it easier to read. This is how Book 1 opens:

Cuthullin sat by Tura’s wall;

by the tree of the rustling sound.

His spear leaned against the rock.

His shield lay on the grass by his side.

Amid his thoughts of mighty Cairbar,

a hero slain by the chief in war;

the scout of ocean comes, Moran the son of Fithil!

“Arise,” said the youth, “Cuthullin, arise.

I see the ships of the north!

Many, chief of men, are the foe.

Many the heroes of the sea-borne Swaran!”

“Moran!’ replied the blue-eyed chief.

“Thou ever tremblest, son of Fithil!

Thy fears have increased the foe.

It is Fingal, king of deserts,

with aid to green Erin of streams.”

“I beheld their chief,” says Moran,

“tall as a glittering rock. His spear is a blasted pine.

His shield the rising moon! He sat on the shore!

like a cloud of mist on the silent hill!’

“Many, chief of heroes!” I said,

“many are our hands of war.

Well art thou named, the mighty man;

but many mighty men are seen from

Tura’s windy walls.”

He spoke, like a wave on a rock,

“Who in this land appears like me?

Heroes stand not in my presence:

they fall to earth from my hand.

Who can meet Swaran in fight?

Who but Fingal, king of Selma of storms?

Once we wrestled on Malmor;

our heels overturned the woods.

Rocks fell from their place;

rivulets, changing their course,

fled murmuring from our side.

Three days we renewed the strife;

heroes stood at a distance and trembled.

On the fourth, Fingal says, the king of the ocean fell,

but Swaran says he stood!

Let dark Cuthullin yield to him,

that is strong as the storms of his land!

#x2019; “No!” the blue-eyed chief replied.

I never yield to mortal man!

Dark Cuthullin shall be great or dead!

Go, son of Fithil, take my spear.

Strike the sounding shield of Semo.

It hangs at Tura’s rustling gale.

The sound of peace is not its voice!

My heroes shall hear and obey.’

He went. He struck the bossy shield.

The hills, the rocks reply.

The sound spreads along the wood:

deer start by the lake of roes.

Curach leaps from the sounding rock!

and Connal of the bloody spear!

Crugal’s breast of snow beats high.

The son of Favi leaves the dark-brown hind.