276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Hands-on History! The Celts : Step Into The World Of The Celtic Peoples With 15 Step-By-Step Projects: Step into the World of the Celtic Peoples, with ... Projects and Over 400 Exciting Pictures

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

There’s a ridiculous number of introductory books on Celtic mythology out there. Figuring out which ones are the best can be a daunting task. This already difficult quest is further complicated by the fact that most of these books have extremely generic titles like “Celtic Myths and Legends” or “Celtic Mythology.” At first glance, they all appear to be more or less identical. Dagda lazily swept his fingers across the strings of a harp and played a beautiful melody. The music of grief made the Fomorians stop and bow as they sniveled. Soldiers sobbed, too but drew their mantles to ensure no one could see their tears flowing. There were three main branches of Celts in Europe – Brythonic, Gaulic and Gaelic. Brythonic Celts (Britons) settled in England. From an academic perspective, I have a few problems with Roberts' methodology, in that she never quite establishes how one identifies ethnicity archaeologically, particularly when it comes to ethnicity as a personal identity. That is to say that, while the book discusses at length markers that we might use, problematizes the evidence available, and ultimately settles on language as the central aspect of Celtic identity, Roberts does not delve very deeply into the question of how to understand 'Celticity' as a feature one attributes to oneself, as an identity that brings Gauls, Britons, and Galatians together (indeed, she even suggests that it does not), as opposed to something ascribed by others (whether contemporary or modern historians) or described by others (e.g. Caesar writes that the Gauls called themselves Celts, but does not establish how far the Gauls use this identity to link themselves to other groups). It is also, I would argue, a little dismissive of Tacitus to describe his work as 'propaganda' for the Roman elite, as fair a description as that may be of Caesar's works. Roberts' approach to the Mediterranean 'empires' is perhaps the weakest part of the evidence in the book, as she persistently refers to the 'Greek empire', which is not an historical entity. The 'Greeks' - almost as contentious a term as 'the Celts', if we are honest - were politically disparate for much of the period under discussion, and their regional and civic identities might actually provide a good parallel for the disparate, changing location and identity of the Celts. I think it’s a demonstration of just how colossal our ignorance is, that we’re limited to hopping round these two or three figures. Of course, as soon as you’ve got two or three figures in the Dark Ages, it means you’ve got literally tens of figures who we don’t know anything about, who could equally be candidates for the Arthurian legend.

It happened when human lives were profoundly connected to the land, the food it produces, and the seasons.

How to Vote

Several tribes made up the larger population of the Celtic people. Indeed, the Gaels, Gauls, Britons, Irish and Galatians were all Celtic tribes. But it is not the Greeks but the Celts who are under discussion, and Roberts goes into great detail about major evidence spanning centuries and a whole continent. Given that the book is quite short, she does so admirably and interestingly. I will certainly be delving into the further reading at some point. Furthermore, Roberts' openness about certain aspects of her methodology - and archaeological methodology in general - is exactly what popular archaeology (and history) requires. She admits where she moves from solid to speculative evidence, is unconvinced by certain evidence, and allows for others to disagree with her. She anticipates many (fair) criticisms of her work, aptly displaying how archaeology and history should work: debate, discussion, disagreement - but amicably. It is largely only those who hold too strongly to their ideas and will not be challenged that are the problem in historical studies.

The Celtic cross represents the region’s unique take on the Catholic cross. In addition, many Celtic folklore stories, such as the legend of Cu Chulainn, are still told in Ireland.What Tom Green argues is that Arthur actually never existed. He argues that all the legends we have about Arthur demonstrate that what we have here is essentially an Iron Age god. Some people over the years have suggested this in passing, but Tom Green is the first person to make a really strong stand-up case. The Iron Age ended when the Romans invaded Britain and set up their own civilisation and government. One of the liveliest commentators in Britain, always worth reading and pleasingly contrarian' Jeremy Paxman, Guardian There are a few problems here, some of which is caused by the simple fact that Celts pretty much had their history described hundreds of years later, yup, by those victor enemies who insert a little promotion and propaganda (history is often written by the victors), and the Celt ruling class of Druids had a word of mouth communication for all their important 'laws'. So right from the off we're involved in conjecture. Roberts repeats, in fact she belabours the warnings that we cant assume this that or the other, but then does herself no favours by repeatedly referring to just a few contemporary sources for current theory. Yet at the end of the book we're provided a pretty good 'more reading' list? Why didn't she dip into it more?

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment