The Celtic Creation Myth

We know precious little about the religious and mythological doctrines of the ancient Celtic peoples. From the beginning the Celts have been mysterious, hidden half-seen in the mists of oblivion that surround them, heroic, proud, mighty, and frightening figures when they appear in history.

This is due almost entirely to the secrecy of the Druids, the keepers of knowledge, lore, and justice in the Celtic culture, whose teachings were so precious it was absolutely forbidden to write them down. Though the motivation for this may not have been an aversion to writing itself, because they knew how to use the alphabet and did for mundane purposes. Rather because their secret doctrines were so sacred to them they feared them becoming known to the common people, and to outsiders. The unfortunate result of this is that we will probably never know the full extent or shape of their traditions, with certain pieces, such as knowledge of a Celtic creation myth, being lost to us.

The Celtic Creation Myth: Creation According to the Celts

Due to the secrecy of the Druids, very little remains to us of the knowledge they held. Not that this knowledge is any more or less important than the histories and tales of any ancient people, except perhaps in hindsight only because they appear all the more valuable now that they appear to be beyond our reach. My belief is that this knowledge was historical in nature, a collection of oral traditions of their people and culture. Perhaps containing elements of early science (astronomical knowledge specifically) including spiritual ideas also, which we know with reasonable certainty, due to multiple ancient accounts of the Celts doctrine reincarnation. Nothing else seems important enough to be included.

Julius Caesar in his works concerning the Celts recorded that the Druids held public lectures on “the nature of things,” that is, on the nature of the world, the earth, and heavens. Probably on the gods too, their deeds, genealogies works and origins. He spent over a decade warring in the northern lands of the Celtic peoples, so he probably gleaned his knowledge through a network of spies and through torture. It is unlikely that he ever walked freely in Celtic lands whilst their people carried on life as usual, holding public talks at leisure. A frightened atmosphere and a public version of a war council is more likely.

From Caesar’s personal account of the Gallic Wars, as well as from many other ancient scholars of Greece and Rome including Tacitus, Arrian of Nicomedia, Strabo, Apollonius, Diodorus Siculus, and Ammianus Marcellinus, we have been given snippets of what they may have thought and believed. Though in none of the scattered fragments that have survived, whose historical veracity is an unknown quantity, nor even in the rich and extensive legendary literature of the Irish, in which we may have the greatest quantity of preserved Celtic culture, we have no mention of a Celtic creation myth.

We have nothing resembling those known to us, which are, intriguingly, surprisingly similar to one another. The Sumerian/Akkadian peoples had a creation myth which was handed down to the Babylonians known as the Enuma Elish. The core myths, legends, and accounts of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians heavily influenced their descendants, the Hebrews (since their patriarchs where Sumero-Akkadian, Abraham hailing from the Sumerian city of Ur) from which we can trace the original legendary accounts and themes that formed the foundation of Old Testament Biblical tradition in its roots as the Torah even influencing the full Tanakh, though much changed in the intervening millennia.

The Sumero-Akkadian creation epic tells of the ancient pantheon’s triumph over a ferocious creature and her horde of monsters, known as Tiamat. The gods prevailed due to their cunning and power, and later created humanity. Egypt tells a similar story, of how the sun (personified by the great god Atum) was born from 8 primordial principles called the Ogdoad, before diverging into the creation of Geb and Nut, earth and sky respectively, who gave birth to Tefnut (moisture) and Shu (air), Shu sneaking between Geb and Nut to separate them. The Greek tradition is heavily based on the Near Eastern tradition (which I include Ancient Egypt as part of) though replacing some of the names. To the Greeks Earth and Sky were Gaia and Uranus, and their son Kronos snuck between them, which is why their is air between the firmament and the starry heavens.

The Nordic/Germanic creation epics tells an incredibly similar story, especially with the Egyptian account. To the Norse creation begins in the dark void they called Ginnungagap, space ruled by the All-Father, with the northern land of Nifelheim being first created, cold, dark, horrible, and dangerous. Nifelheim was chaos compared to the bright and warm “southern” region they called Muspelhiem, a land of radiant fire.

Out of Nifelheim flowed a pure spring called Hvergelmer forming 12 great rivers called Elivgar. As the radiant sparks of fire fell from Muspelheim onto the cold, dark, ice of Nifelheim the ice melted and the drops fell to form the original gangling humanoid giant called Ymir, who fed his hunger on the sweet milk of the primordial cow Auðumbla (pronounced Athumbla). (The cow motif is important, as the cow was a central symbol in Celtic mythology, indicating both their familial and cultural link with the Germanic peoples, indeed with Indian, Roman, Greek, Iranian, Hurrian, and many other Near Eastern peoples also, as well as the fact that they were herdsmen.) Even the Indic tradition is remarkably similar to these three I have briefly described, although in the case of India, there are a number of traditions.

Though coming from the ancient Celts, we have nothing but resounding silence. A silence that originates with the Celtic scholars, the Druids themselves. Which is rather ironic, considering that their tradition was orally transmitted, and the only way to learn an oral tradition is constant discourse and repetition of a tale, history, or piece of knowledge from master to pupil, again and again until the details are firmly placed in memory. Thus in private the Druids were certainly quite talkative, repeating their tradition more times to the air than any other tradition has been spoken in its entirety, perhaps, with the exception of the oral Vedic tradition learned, mastered, and taught by the Hindu priestly caste, the Brahmin.

Their silence on the matter of a Celtic creation myth is curious, and convinces me that they had something, at least, to say, perhaps even in great detail. Not least since they were learned men, and learned men in my experience have a tendency to overestimate their knowledge and understanding, expounding opinions and theories beyond the bounds of certainty. So it seems unlikely that the Druids had nothing to say on the matter.

On The Things of Nature

While we have no true Celtic creation myth dealing with the creation of the universe, the world, the gods, humans, or animals – the common elements that are discussed in a story of creation – what we do have are a number of folk-beliefs explaining the creation of nature, though this is not a true Celtic creation myth.

They lived in a world where spirits animated brook and stream, mountain and tree, certain hills that dotted the landscape and even significant stones. This kind of thinking is found in the ancient and indigenous spiritual beliefs of Japan, called Shinto. It is also found in ancient Greek thought too, as well as many ancient cultures the world over, an orientation of thought we call animism today.

It’s often regarded as primitive thought, though one that I am personally fond of because it adds a little more life to the world. Though one that pleases me as a good work of fiction, for fun, not for truth and genuine understanding. Something to look for and see beneath the surface of nature as we walk and explore, remembering our ancestors as we do so.

The average Celtic peoples in ancient times, at least by their folk-traditions, lived in a world where mountains were created by giants, heaping mounds from their digging of the Earth, like from a dog digging a hole. Perhaps a byproduct of their work digging ravines and gullies. Islands were stones that were thrown by giants.

Another common theme is that of the sky being held up apart from the Earth by pillars, or perhaps by a mountain, or that the Earth itself was perched on great cosmic pillars (which stood on what, I don’t know). One tradition speaks of a mountain near the headwaters of the Rhone River, which rises in Switzerland before running southwards through France emptying into the Mediterranean. This mountain is the tallest within a mastiff located in the Urner Alps in Switzerland known as the Dammastock, which has been considered the rough geographic center of the alps, remembered by its Latin name Solis columna or Column of the Sun, which certain Celtic traditions attest held up the sky, so large that even the sun circles around it. and is considered the center of the Alps.

If they came across a natural spring, they knew that this was probably the place where the blood of a martyr had been shed, or where a fairy touched their staff to the Earth, the force of their magic calling water to surge up from the depths of the Earth. [2]

Rivers, lakes, or the sea might have formed of the blood, sweat, or tears of some supernatural creature such as a giant, fairy, or a god. Though in later times once Christianity had taken over, the names of the deities to whom a river or lake was once attributed, were overwritten by the name of a saint, the original gods name being lost to us. The Celtic Sea-God Manannán mac Lir (“son of the sea”) who was drawn across the waters in his boat scuabtuinne (“wave sweeper”) by his trusted horse Enbarr (“sea foam”) is said, when his son died, to have cried so vociferously that his tears formed no less than three lakes.

This is not unlike the traditions that we find elsewhere in the world, in nearly every culture. Certainly not too different from ideas in Egypt, Greece, India, Mesoamerica or elsewhere in the world, where many natural events were explained as the work of a deity or spirit of some kind, who then personified that natural force. In Mesopotamia we have the folk tradition that the Tigris and Euphrates where initiated by one of their great creator deities, Enki, from his penis in fact, the waters literally his semen, fertilizing the land for eternity. In Egypt also the fertility of the Nile has on occasion been linked to the fact that their civilizing hero, Osiris, had his penis cut off by his brother Set and dumped into the Nile waters which steeped the Nile in his seed, like life-giving tea.

While these traditions are amusing, and obviously primitive, we should not judge harshly. In some ways they lend more color to the world than the clarity and truth of science. Though ideally, we should be aware of both. Traditions should not be lost amid science and reason. Neither should we confuse these types of ideas as a description of reality. Nor, I think, should we mistake these as the knowledge kept by the druids. If everyone knows it, if it is a folk-belief, then it is not a secret. And the Druidic traditions were secret.

The Origin of Man

One interesting facet of the Celtic worldview, which is actually quite common among the ancient races who originated and spread from around the region of Anatolia in prehistory, is that they did not believe they were created by the Gods. They believed that they were the descendants of the gods.

In the case of the Celts, specifically the Celts of Ireland who we may know as the Gaelic Celts, even though their rich legendary literature is completely silent on any fundamentally Celtic creation myth dealing with the creation of man, gods, earth, and universe, they do tell of the origin of their people, their ancestors.

The story they tell in detail is the events involving a certain group of people. These people were the descendants of an earlier wave of illustrious immigrants to the land of Ireland, led by a deity named Nemed. His daughter was the goddess named Danu, who led her people collectively remembered as the Tuatha Dé Danann which translates as the “Tribe of the Goddess Danu”.

The heart of Irish and Celtic tradition speaks of this tribe of “gods” from whom are descended Celtic peoples, and whose blood notably infuses the blood of kings through Irish legendary history. The Tuatha Dé (Tribe of Gods) together form a pantheon remembered throughout the entire region of Celtic habitation, whose names vary by tribe and region.

The Tribe of Gods (Tuatha Dé) were skilled in the sciences, arts, architecture, and magic and were regarded as essentially supernatural beings. The Irish Myth of Invasions deals with the story of the wars that the Tuatha Dé fought against ferocious enemies who invaded their islands and wrought destruction. First it was the Fir Bolgs, who were ultimately defeated. Then the Fomorians, whom they also defeated.

Though in the end they were defeated by the final third wave of invaders, the Milesians, and in a deal made were given rule over the land beneath the ground, while the Milesians ruled all land above ground. As the Tuatha Dé Danann are associated with passage graves, I believe this “rule of all land below ground” is a way of saying that they died. Their line and culture were ultimately consumed by later peoples, though not forgotten in tradition, culture, or blood which still survives to this day.

Poetically speaking they faded away, passing into the supernatural realm and residing in the Otherworld, known by many names, three of which are Annwn (Welsh), Tír na nÓg (Irish), and Avalon. A number of traditions even tell how to reach Annwn, some saying that one must go across the western sea (Atlantic Ocean), others saying that one could reach Annwn by going underwater, through passage graves and burial mounds, or by being fortunate enough (or unfortunate, as the case may be) to catch the eye of a beautiful goddess of the Tuatha Dé and so be invited. The Son of the Sea, Manannán mac Lir, was associated with the Tuatha Dé Danann and was believed to be the guardian and protector of Tír na nÓg.

This legendary remembrance of the origin of the Celtic people is the closest that they have to a Celtic creation myth, though it only deals with the earliest history of their own people. Curiously it is not a universal story of creation, like those of other great cultures. While this account was written down c.800 CE it is impossible to say how old it actually is, or how close it is to its original form. Though this is the type of knowledge which I believe would have been important enough for the Druids to spend an incredible 20 years of their lives (according to Caesar c.60 BCE) learning and memorizing, and for them to keep secret, even when facing death.

Like the pharaohs of Egypt who believed that they were the descendants of Osiris, possibly tracing their noble line back to some divine ancestry, like the Greeks who traced their genealogies through their semi-divine heroes back to the gods and goddesses of Mt. Olympus, and just as certain Mesopotamian rulers traced their ancestry to certain deities, notably the great Gilgamesh who was 3/4 divine, so too did the Celts.

The Celts of Gaul, who were the Celts who lived in the land of Gaul which roughly equates to modern France, a piece of druidic tradition that did survive is their belief they they were the descendants of the god Dispater, who was essentially a deity associated with the underworld and fertility (which often seem to go hand in hand, interestingly enough, especially when one includes the association of the harvest as is the case with the Egyptian god Osiris, as well as Mesopotamian Dumuzi who was killed by Ishtar and spent time in the underworld before she retrieved him, or literally go hand in hand as is the case with Hades and Persephone).

There are a number of references in ancient times to specific tribes within the greater Celtic world who derive the name of their entire tribe from some divine ancestor. Which we see in ancient Greece also, such as the Heracleidae, the royal line of Dorian kings who were believed to be descendants of Hercules (the historical human hero, not the mythologized god, another example of how ancestors were deified). Thus the Dorians in general were regarded by the Greeks at large as the tribe of Heracles. Which I might add is almost certainly an historical fact.

A nation wouldn’t associate a tribe with such a powerful and important figure to their entire culture and empire lightly, not without centuries of tradition. That would be like everyone in the United States suddenly adopting the belief that Jesus was born in Los Angeles! That honor and distinction would not be universally accepted unless that was the tradition from the beginning. Greater Greece wouldn’t attribute such an honor to the Dorians – not with their mightiest of heroes, the model of their entire culture in some ways – unless that was the tradition from the beginning, unless when Heracles was alive and gained notoriety it was commonly known that he was a Dorian king, because the historical man was from the region.

The End of All Things

Interestingly, the lack of a Celtic creation myth is silent at both extremes: it says nothing of the beginnings of things, and is also silent on the end. We have no Christian End of Days, or Rapture, nor the cycles of time found in the Yugas of Indic thought, or the many worlds of the Maya and Aztec’s who saw periods of destruction and rebirth of the Earth. Nor do they have a Ragnarok as prophesied in the ancient traditions of Scandinavia (perhaps Germania too).

The few scant pieces that we have left to us come from Strabo who writes in his Geography that “Both the druids and others assert that both the soul and the world are indestructible, but that sometimes fire and sometimes water have overwhelmed them.” Even here we have recollections of the Earth being occasionally overrun by both fire and by water, akin to the beliefs of ancient Central America, and many of the ancient high cultures of the world.

This is further accented by the peculiar brand of oath that comes down to us from a number of sources. From Gaelic sources, other Celtic sources through Greek or Roman authors, or from accounts of Alexander the Great’s meeting with two Celtic ambassadors, when he met with them in order to request their assistance in protecting his land of Macedon while he was away conquering the world.

I have come across a couple of versions of the story. While at a feast in the honor of their esteemed guests, who were respected and feared warriors, as Alexander would not rely on any but the best (aside from his own army) to protect his country, people, home, family, and children while he was gone. As legend has it, at the close of their discussions, Arrian reports that Alexander asked them who they most feared, to which the Celtic ambassadors replied:

“We fear no man. We fear only that the sky should fall on us, that the Earth burst asunder and swallow us, or that the great ocean washes over its shores to drown us.”

The other version of the story goes that Alexander asks them what proof he has that they will not neglect their duties and protect his homeland, to which the Celtic warriors reply with the solemn oath that “If we observe not this engagement, may the sky fall on us and crush us, may the earth gape and swallow us up, may the sea burst out and overwhelm us.”

Apparently this convinced Alexander. For even now this oath rings powerfully, solemn and deep. It is a statement that has appeared a number of times in Celtic literature and history, in various forms. Moreover, it also contains within it what I see as memories, of a distant time when the world was struck by great floods, falling meteors, and earthquakes, which obviously decimated their people as it is the one thing that could bring them to their knees. Literally nothing but this could contend with their will and power to complete their mission.

The closest that I have come to an account of the end of the world is from a prophecy. This prophecy was given in the Irish legendary literature by a goddess who fought with tribe of gods who were led by goddess Danu, the Tuatha Dé Danann. Her name was Badb (pronounced as Bathv) whose name means “crow” as she was a goddess of war, and was known by a couple of other names depending on region, one of which, Badb Catha, literally translates as “battle Crow.”

Badb was part of a trinity of Battle Goddesses, who in my mind at least (due to the fact that they are three women of particular magical power) are akin to the Fates of Greek mythology, or the three Norns of Norse mythology. Together Badb and her two sisters Macha and Nemain (who is sometimes substituted with Anand or a few others names) where known as the Morrigán.

After the Second Battle of Mag Tuired when the Tuatha Dé Danaan defeated the Fomorians, she first sings a prophecy of peace in light of their victory, yet follows it with a prophecy foretelling a bleak future for her people, and perhaps for the world. The date for this composition and the myths recorded in the Irish Book of Invasions are not known. Yet if we have any account of the ancient Celtic Creation Myth dealing with the end of the world, this is the best option I have come across:

“I shall not see a world which
will be dear to me:
Summer without blossoms,
Cattle will be without milk,

Women without modesty,
Men without valor.
Conquests without a king…
Woods without mast.
Sea without produce…

False judgments of old men
False precedents of lawyers,
Every man a betrayer.
Every son a reaver.

The son will go to the bed of his father,
The father will go to the bed of his son.
Each brother’s brother-in-law
He will not seek any woman
outside his house…

An evil time,
Son will deceive his father,
Daughter will deceive…