Celtic Women's Spirituality: Accessing the Cauldron of Life - Edain McCoy 1998
The Warrior and Her Goddesses
Much iconographic evidence exists to support the predominance of unnamed war “Goddesses.” Some icons contain no identifying inscriptions, so these could be merely statues and reliefs depicting Celtic women ready for battle.47 It has been easy to name these ancient renderings “Goddesses” simply because of our modern prejudice against human women as capable fighters. What these icons do show clearly is that Celtic feminine figures were deeply associated with their society’s primary preoccupation: war.
It is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of warrior culture to the Celts. Warriors represented the highest caste attainable in their soeiety, ranking only below kings and queens and possibly the most skilled of Druids. Though we usually think of war as being something started, conducted, and concluded by men, a surviving pre-Celtic legend from Ireland tells us that war was invented by women, two sisters named Ain and Iaine who married their own brothers to entail their property in perpetuity so that no other family would be able to rule the island. The institution of war was their way of seeing to it that the land they ruled stayed within their family if their right to it was ever chal, lenged. Celtic women served as warriors until at least the seventh centuryal, though after about 50 C.E. they were likely few in number.
Debate rages today among feminists and Celtic scholars as to the issue of women’s impressment, with several feminist revisionist historians putting forth the theory that women were forced to serve as warriors. There are two holes in this theory, one pertaining to the old Celtic laws and another that relates to the high ranking of the warrior cast.
Under old Irish Celtic law, all landowners were required to serve their clans as warriors. Since women had the privilege of owning land, they also had the obligation to defend it in this culture where war was always a con, stant threat.48 Early Irish law was one of the least sexist legal codes ever con, ceived and executed, and it made no distinction between women and men when it came to property rights. Non-propertied women were free to fight or not when the opportunity presented itself, though formal admission into the warrior class was harder to come by for them.
In living memory, many of our young people have chosen to flee their homelands rather than serve as warriors/soldiers, but we live in a world where the value of war has been eroded—despite all evidence to the contrary—which makes it difficult for us to fully comprehend the status of the warrior elite of the Celts. Young men and women aspired to membership in the war, rior class in the same way that western young people today dream of being doctors, lawyers, or high-powered executives. To achieve this status was to rise like cream to the top of the human milk pail. Those not born to the warrior class, or who did not own land had only one avenue to warriorhood open to them: fosterage. If the parents of the young woman could afford the foster price, they could have their daughter (or son, though the foster price was higher for girls than for boys) fostered by a warrior whom she would serve and by whom she would be taught many of her first battle skills. If the foster price was not within the means of the family, a few young people managed to rise in rank due to their prowess in defending their clans and lands, but these in, stances were rare, especially if the young warrior was not awarded land for her successes.
To suggest that large numbers of Celtic woman were forced to become war, riors is as ludicrous as suggesting that large numbers of modem women have been forced to become successful, respected, and wealthy against their will. True, there may have been the occasional Celtic woman unhappy in her role as warrior, but in a society that valued war and warriors above all else there would have been too many eager to take her place for her to be “impressed” for long into battle service. If she did not want the honor, someone else would gladly take it.
Women were not restricted from battle service until 697 C.E., when an Irish and Scottish law known as the Cain Adamnain was drafted by a bishop named Arculf, who later became St. Adamnain. Church legend tells us that the saint’s mother was dismayed at seeing women fighting with one another, and persuaded her son to put an end to the practice. His law declared that women, children, and clerics must be exempt from the terrors of war and protected from all its acts.49 This, in effect, had the result of denying women the right to serve as warriors. The very fact that this law was created attests to the fact that there were still women with warrior status well into the seventh century, though it is a given that many of their privileges as warriors had been eroded.
At the time that Celtic society flourished, women had not been routinely starved, corsetted, and given debilitating drugs to curb unfeminine ambition.50 These were not the emaciated models of our own time who make a living out of destroying their natural bodies for the sake of attaining a culturally-approved appearance, nor were they fragile Victorian flowers who had to be carefully tended by their menfolk lest they wither, but women who were confident that they were the equal of anyone just as they were. Diodorus Siculus, a Sicilian historian and geographer living in the first century B.C.E., wrote of Celtic women as possessing unprecedented strength; as being as large and tall as the men, just as quarrelsome, and always ready to fight. He goes on to describe their intense battle fury and their enviable and frightening warrior abilities.51 The warrior emperor Julius Caesar wrote in his chronicle of his battle in Gaul that an entire Roman battalion would barely stand a chance against the Celts should their women be called into the fray.52
The idea that a woman would even want to be thought of as too delicate to engage in physical actively was completely beyond the scope of the Celtic mindset until well into the common era. Women were appreciated for their physical prowess as much as for any other attribute they possessed. Irish myths give us numerous examples of athletic heroines. Luaths Lurgann, known as “the speedy footed one,” was not only the aunt of famous fianna warrior Fionn MacCumhal, but was also noted as Ireland’s fastest runner. When she met her death in a running mishap, her thigh bone became the center point around which grew the lake known as Lough Lurgann. In the legend of “Deirdre of the Sorrows,” the attributes of her servant, Lavercam, are often downplayed to those of the traditional nursemaid. But Lavercam was a poet, bard, and athlete reputed to be able to run the entire length of Ireland in a single day and report back to the Ulster king all she had seen and heard. Taillte is largely viewed today as a harvest Goddess, but myths tell us that she made her home at Tara and was also revered as a patron deity of competition. She ordered the once-wooded Plain of Oenach Taillten cleared to create a playing field. Annual games festivals were held at this site (now called Teltown) untill 1169. These formal, organized games were considered to be an Irish version of the Olympics. Taillte’s games were revived in the late nineteenth century when the Celtic Renaissance began.
Women warriors not only enjoyed the high status of the warrior elite, but its obligations as well. One of these was the teaching of new warriors, usually young men.53 It is an old Anglo-Celtic magickal belief that teachings flow best from female to male and from male to female. This polarity mirrored their beliefs in the unified nature of their world; God and Goddess, upperworld and underworld, male and female—all merely two halves of one whole that had to be connected to function properly. Legends portraying women battle teachers have been preserved in the myths. In Irish mythology, the famous fraternal warriors of Ulster known as the Red Branch, one of whom was the highly-honored Cuchulain, were taught by the warrior Goddess Scathach.
The etymology of Scathach’s name is open for debate; it may mean “victorious” or “shadowed” or “one who strikes fear.” Her mysterious and hard-to-reach Isle of Shadow in the Hebrides was the home of her famous school, where she taught those men who could prove themselves worthy of her invincible battle teachings. The most famous of these were her leaps and her battle yells, the latter of which were reputed to paralyze enemies with fear. More Goddess than woman, Scathach was Amazonian in size and was said to have lived for many centuries. She is one of the many examples of a myth so clouded by divine overtones that it is hard to know where the historical woman ends and the mythic one begins. This dichotomy is a feature of myths worldwide and is one of the reasons why religions are founded on mythology rather than firm history; mythology presents a much more intriguing picture for serving as a cultural rallying point.
All Celtic warriors, male and female, were bound by certain codes of honor that arguably may have mutated into the chivalric code of the Middle Ages. Among the most strictly enforced of these were the laws of hospitality. So important were these that any warrior who broke them was risking divine retribution, as can be seen in many of the myths, including the “Attack of the Hostel of Da Derga” that resulted in the death of a king.54
The rules of hospitality were simple but unbreachable, and primarily designed to prevent warriors from being tempted to wage war in undefended communities. The concept of a fair fight was important to the Celts, and there was no honor in a battle not won by evenly matched forces.55 If one accepted the “protection of bread and salt” offered by the host, the guest was honor bound to respect the host’s household as her own. This included not raiding the host’s stock or making war on her clan. In return, the host was not permitted to ask the guest’s intentions, nor could she ask her to leave until she was ready. This could go on for up to a year and a day. So ingrained was this code of hospitality that vestiges of it persisted in rural Scotland and Ireland until the early twentieth century.
The Initiation of the Warrior
The official dedication or initiation of the young male warriors consisted of three parts: arming, naming, and sexual initiation.56
Women warriors had the distinction of being not only the battle teachers of young men but the sexual initiators as well as mentioned in Chapter 1, the unprecedented sexual freedom of Celtic women was one of the reasons they held a higher status in Celtic society than did their contemporaries in other parts of Europe. This initiation had nothing to do with whether or not the young man had already become sexually active. In Celtic society, it was almost a given that he would be long before his warrior’s initiation. This initiation was a sacred act, similar to the sacred sexual acts that are still an integral part of modern Pagan practice (see Chapter 9). In this respect the women functioned similarly to the sacred prostitutes well documented in Roman culture as priestesses of the Goddess Vesta. In Celtic society, they also functioned as personifications of mythic imagery of the Goddess as mother and lover, and were the ones who hallowed the sacred kings and granted them their power and right to rule (see Chapter 12). Goddesses who serve as deities of both battle and love (or “earthly pleasure”) are well documented in Europe. This linkage of divine imagery and function may have been a way of ritually impressing on both teacher and student the oneness of life and death as they prepared for battle.57
The aforementioned battle teacher Scathach had a sister named Aife who also had an encampment on the Isle of Shadow where she trained warriors, though her reputation was less renowned. The difference is that Aife’s myths show her as the sexual initiator of the new warriors, while Scathach gives them their armaments. Aife commanded a legion of fierce horsewomen, horses being a symbol of sexual prowess for the Celts, while Scathach taught them how to fight. The myths of the war hero Cuchulain, who was trained on the Isle of Shadow, shows all three elements of the warrior’s initiation. First, he was given a special naming due to his keeping of an honor debt (called a geis in Irish); second, he was armed by Scathach as a reward for his skills; and third, he was given a sexual initiation by Aife, who bore him a son. Only after all three of these elements were in place did Cuchulain return to Ireland as a virtually invincible warrior.
Probably the most famous instance of woman arming man is found in the Arthurian legends, in which the Lady of the Lake bestows upon young King Arthur the sword known as Excalibur. Not only is this an instance of arming, but one of hallowing him as the sacred king to represent the physical aspects of the land, an important Celtic practice that will be discussed at length in Chapter 9.
The importance of names to the Celts is well known, and warriors often earned special ones due to their prowess. A Celt may have possessed many names: a spiritual name, an earned name, a clan name, a warrior’s name, a rank name, a childhood name, a coming of age name, and so on. Some were held secret, either by the Celt alone or by a few trusted others. One’s name reflected the true self, and to know it was to have power over that person. The naming aspect of a warrior’s initiation, in conjunction with his/her arming, is reflected in extant myths.
The major myth of the Welsh Goddess Arianrhod, whose archetype represents reincarnation, fertility, and feminine authority, involves naming and arming. More importantly, it may be that her myth marks the shift from woman-centered clans to patriarchal authority, when her power to name and arm her child were taken from her by trickery. Arianrhod’s body was her own to do with as she chose. She mated freely with whomever she wished, as was her right under the law. This right was not questioned until a male magician named Math claimed she had conceived two children to whom she had not given birth. When he forced the issue upon her, she gave birth to two sons. One swam away immediately to the sea, the other remained with his father and wished to become a warrior. But Arianrhod refused to bestow a name or arms on her unwanted son, as was her right under Welsh law. Math tricked her into providing both by disguising the son and allowing his warrior’s skills to provoke her interest.
It is also significant that arms had to be bestowed by the mother. In this myth we see Arianrhod cast as a sovereign Goddess, one who gives the warrior or king his power and legitimizes his rank. The sovereign Goddess represented the land itself, and only she could choose who would rule and defend her. Logically she would choose the most powerful and fertile warrior to be magickally linked to her; therefore, this honor of naming and arming went to women—to a mother, a Goddess, or a priestess. We see this theme repeated many times in Celtic myth; by the Lady of the Lake bestowing the sword Excalibur on the young Arthur, the warrior teacher Scathach giving Cuchulain the invincible sword called the Gae Bolg, and a variety of other warriors and rulers attaining their power through cauldron or chalice images that are symbols of the Goddess.
No known Celtic precedent exists to show us that a woman’s warriorhood or rulership must be given to her through another source. Nonetheless, one popular argument is that because women taught male warriors their art and men taught females, it should be surmised that men initiated the women. This argument falls apart because the art of teaching (a social act) and the art of initiation (a spiritual act) shared no common authority in Celtic society. A more sound argument is that, because the arming and naming of young people was a woman’s right, and because warriors fought to defend the land that was personified by the sovereign Goddess (a female), women were the initiators of all warriors, both male and female.
This argument has some basis in Celtic mythology as well. Not only do we have the aforementioned Arianrhod as an example, but we also have the myth of the Goddess Cerridwen who is often depicted as a sow, an animal ar, chetypally linked to the land and its abundance like the Goddesses of sover, eignty. Cerridwen is famous for her cauldron of knowledge, known as Amen, in which she brewed a potion of wisdom known as greal, a word whose etymology many people have tried to link to the word “grail.” This brew was required to simmer for a year and a day, a common period of magickal time passage in Celtic myths. Cerridwen’s servant and student, a young man named Gwion, was entrusted with caring for the brew. When some of the bubbling mixture spilled out onto his finger he instinctively put them in his mouth and instantly gained all wisdom of past, present, and future. Knowing the brew was meant for Cerridwen’s son, he decided he had to flee.
Cerridwen pursued Gwion relentlessly as they each shapeshifted through many forms. In each, Cerridwen was able to become the predator that could conceivably catch and kill the prey that Gwion had become. Cerridwen was able to apprehend Gwion when he became a speck of grain and she the hen who consumed him. The grain took root inside her womb, and she gave him rebirth as the great bard Taliesin. Some Pagans believe this magickal chase relates to various levels of initiation rites within the Celtic priestesshood, and the ultimate shapeshifting into rebirth to represent the new self that emerges after initiation.
Unfortunately, this story is often interpreted as one of anger, of Cerridwen pursuing Gwion to punish him simply because he stole something that be, longed to her. In any myth where issues of spiritual wisdom are at stake, it is important to look at the deeper meanings. In this case, we must look at how the story represents an initiation, in which Cerridwen functions as the teacher and Gwion as the student. While it may be hard for a teacher to watch a student exceed her, the chase does not appear to be fueled by anger or jealousy. It is the job of a teacher to challenge the student when she feels she is ready. Without challenges, the student cannot grow or hope to realize her full potentiaL Once Gwion the student had acquired wisdom, Cerridwen the teacher forced him to use it.
Cerridwen’s rebirthing of Gwion as Taliesin has been seen by some as just another story about a devouring Goddess who consumes men’s life forces indis, criminately (see Chapter 2). Even those who understand the mythic importance of a devouring Goddess, in terms of reincarnation beliefs, often miss the point that the devouring was also part of the initiation, the tangible evidence of Gwion’s achievement. After he was able to meet Cerridwen’s challenge, she bestowed upon him a new identity. In other words, she initiated him into the deeper mysteries and he emerged changed for the better. This is what spiritual rebirth is all about.
The Warrior Queens
Celtic clan chieftains and rulers were not always chosen on the basis of heredity, but were traditionally selected on the basis of their battle skills, with the top-ranking warrior becoming the leader. This practice left the competition open to women, and several managed to attain this high status.
Easily the most famous of the warrior queens was Ireland’s Queen Maeve of Connacht,58 whose myths tell of a strong, uncompromising woman who could command troops with the confidence of a lioness. Like many figures from ancient mythology, Celtic and otherwise, Maeve is an interesting blend of heroine, historical figure, and Goddess. Since most of her myths were not committed to paper until the eleventh century C.E.,59 it is virtually impossible to find her precise roots or to disentangle these threads from one another. One of her origins may have been in a patron Goddess of Tara, the longtime stronghold of Irish High Kings. As the reigning Queen of Connacht in the Red Branch cycle of myths, she personifies the epitome of feminine power: warrior, seductress, and sovereign. Known for her fiery temperament and iron will, Maeve boasted she could easily sexually exhaust thirty men in any night. Her personal power is best bespoken of by the fact that battles would be put on hold while she menstruated, ancient peoples believing this “moon time” to mark the peak of a woman’s personal power.
Another semi-historical figure was Nessa, mother of King Conor MacNessa, a ruler often placed on the throne around the third century C.E. Originally named Assa, meaning “gentle,” she was a great scholar whose tutors were murdered by a jealous Druid, after which she became a skilled warrior and took the name Nessa, meaning “ungentle.” She combined her formidable mental and physical skills to secure the throne for her son.
Among the continental Celts, a tribe known as the Bructeri was ruled by a superb horsewoman and warrior queen named Veleda. During her reign, her people were at war with Rome. Her military prowess and skillful leadership inspired her army to steal a Roman ship and tow it up the River Lippe to her stronghold, winning the battle for the Celts.
There are also a number of warrior queens whose lives we know to be firmly in the historical period. Several written references have survived about their lives and accomplishments. The most famous of these is Boudicca, a ruler of the Celtic tribe known as the Iceni during the first century C.E. She led a revolt against the Roman government in southern England, and credited her patron deity, the war Goddess Andraste, with much of her success. Boudicca routinely offered sacrifices to Andraste, usually in the form of captured enemies.
Boudicca was buried secretly after she chose to take poison rather than be captured. Legends say she was buried in the sacred oak grove where her royal ancestors were lain to rest. She was buried standing up, her sword raised in her arm, her face turned south toward the enemy Rome. This makes her a powerful feminine image in a culture that has largely portrayed their spectral warriors as male. The head of the Welsh warrior God Bran was similarly employed, and most students of Celtic myth are familiar with the warrior kings, such as Arthur and Owen, who lie sleeping, waiting for the call of their country to awaken them to fight again.
Another woman whose exploits are part of historical record is Cartimandua, a warrior queen of the Brigantes tribe who also fought against the Roman invaders. Her legends have sometimes merged with both those of the sovereign Goddess Brigantia and with the horse Goddess Epona.
Following in this noble tradition are many Celtic women who took up the sword to become warriors and outlaws when given no other choice by the society in which they lived. It is readily apparent that these “modem” warrior women knew the importance of their femininity in relation to their warrior power. Though the use of the matronymic ni, meaning “daughter of,” was falling from favor by the medieval period in favor of the nearly universal adoption of the patronymic mac, meaning “son of,” women used all three of these and were known by this surname label. Yet these fighting women proudly kept their matronymics even though to do so was to brand themselves as illegitimate, as having no father who would claim them. No such social distinction existed among the old Celts, but by the early Middle Ages it was common to place this burden upon those one wished to strip of status and economic power.
In Ireland the names Ebha Ruagh ni Murchu and Marie ni Ciaragain belong to the warrior ranks of the early medieval period. In the Elizabethan period (1558—1603), Ireland’s Grainne ni Malley was a famous pirate who preyed on English ships. Grainne’s legends have assumed epic proportions, and it is hard to know today what is true, what is merely told to make a good story, and what is overlap between the two. So successful were her attacks on English vessels that Queen Elizabeth invited Grainne to her court and offered valuable bribes in exchange for her promise to cease preying on English ships. Grainne turned down the offerings and returned to Ireland, where she held an English noblewoman hostage until the British admiralty acknowledged her sovereignty over the Irish seas.
Celtic Religion in the Waging of War
Celtic warfare had religious aspects that are difficult for modern people to understand. In today’s societies, partisans may go to war, each claiming that “God” is on their side, each offering prayers for victory and for the safety of the soldiers. Then the young men (and now some young women as well) are sent off to fight, and the only time the young soldier is likely to encounter religious influences again is if she lands in a hospital and gets a visit from a government approved chaplain.
Because the religion of each Celtic tribe was an integral part of the entire tribe’s life and not factionalized like the religious life of modem societies, it was possible to bring into war—and into all its preparations, spoils, and out comes-spiritual focus that modern people can barely imagine.
The blessings of the Druids and priestesses were essential to beginning a well-planned war campaign, and divination rites to determine the best possible course of action and its probable outcome were necessary to ensure that blessing. A variety of divination tactics might be employed, depending upon the skills of the Druid or priestess. They might cloud-gaze, crystal-gaze, do an inner-world journey, read entrails, or use any one of several other methods.
In Cornwall and Wales, a Goddess of fate named Aerfen presided over the outcome of battle. Clans would offer sacrifices every three years at her shrine, in the present-day town of Glyndyfrdwy, to ensure her benevolence in future wars.
Boudicca of the lceni offered her sacrifices to Andraste, and used a hare—her totem animal—both as a means of divination and to signal her armies to attack. Boudicca had worked out a system of learning the outcome of battle depending upon the pattern and direction in which the hare ran.
One of the more chilling portents of battle gone wrong was the appearance of the Luideag, or the Washer at the Ford. Related to the better-known Celtic faery known as the banshee (beansidhe in Gaelic), the Washer appeared as a spectral old woman washing burial shrouds in a stream that ran red with blood. Any warrior who saw this apparition knew she was destined to perish in the upcoming conflict. Like the banshee who wails her lament the night before a death in a specific family, the Washer might also be heard keening (caoine in Irish). Keening is a uniquely Celtic form of a mourning wail still used today by the women of Ireland. Mythology tells us that the Goddess Brighid was the first woman to keen when she discovered her son Ruadan, her child by her husband Bres, dead on a battlefield.
Also on the night before a battle a cath would be told in one of the clan’s communal areas. The word “cath” refers to a type of epic story concerning war that was told as an act of sympathetic magick on the eve of battle. In keeping with the high placement of the art of storytelling in Celtic society, such sessions were referred to until well into the early twentieth century as “the blessing of the story,” and they constituted what modem Pagans would call a “story spell,” a spell encanted in the form of a cohesive story.
All these blessings—stories, Druidic, and other—are often thought of today as being offered solely by the high-ranking males of the tribe. Perhaps in later times this was true, but the Irish word for blessing is an ancient one that still contains a telling aspect of its connection with feminine power. The Irish word for blessing is beannacht, which contains the root word for woman, bean.
Warriors often consulted priestesses, searching for the magickal spells and charms that would render them impervious to harm in battle or that could enchant their weapons to score a perfect kill every time. Celtic myths reinforce this belief with tales such as that of the famous Gae Bolg sword given to Cuchulain by Scathach. Once such magick was possessed, the rule of “keep silent” was best followed. In modern Pagan magick, keeping silent is one of the often-taught basic requirements for keeping the magick strong. Many Celtic tales tell us how the act of making a misguided confidence destroyed a warrior. An example of such a story is that of Niamh, daughter of Celtchair, chief Druid at the court of King Conchobar. Niamh married a warrior who possessed the magickal secret of not being killed in battle, then persuaded him to reveal it to her. After he confessed to her, she took the information to her father, who was able to have him slain. As a reward she was wed to the man of her choice, a son of the King.
Other battle preparations included body adornment, a war ritual of tribal peoples the world over. The Celts favored either a yellow dye made from saffron or a blue dye made from the woad plant. The blue was by far the more popular of the dyes, and was recently brought to public consciousness through the Oscar-winning film Braveheart. The body painting had both spiritual and physical significance. In spiritual terms, it was designed to help connect the warrior with the other fighters, to help them move as one unit, and to align them with the powers of the divine. On the physical level, it marked one clansperson as different from another so that partisans could be identified through the dust of the battle.
That certain Celtic warriors went into battle nude, sporting only weapons and ritual paint and adornments, is also documented by Greek and Roman writers. The warriors known as the Gaesetae, whose name means “spearmen,” were famous for going into battle unclothed.60 Presumably this helped their essences or auras merge, allowing them to move as one during the fighting.
Another aspect of Celtic warfare that has caused controversy is the taking of the heads of the enemy. The head was of supreme importance in Celtic mythology and religion. It was the seat of knowledge, the home of the eternal spirit-where something of the life-essence might remain even after death. One of the most famous “head stories” in Celtic myth concerns Bran, leader of a battalion of Welsh warriors. When he was killed his head was severed, feasted over for eighty years, and then mounted at the present site of the Tower of London so that it would ward and warn of impending invasions.
When battle ended, the victorious warriors would gather their slain enemies’ heads, sometimes referred to as “the Morrigan’s acorn crop.” These would be mounted on the gateposts of the tribal encampment as protective amulets. The custom of taking heads in battle continued in Celtic lands until at least the fourteenth century, though both the idea of the head as a symbol of power and that of honoring the fighting spirit of the slain warrior had been forgotten.
The greatest honor a warrior could gain was to be honored by the bards with songs of praise (called being bard sung), clan chief or regional monarch, and receive the “warrior’s portion,” the largest and finest cut of meat from that night’s victory feast.
Women warriors participated in all these battle events, though their numbers waned considerably from 800 to 100 B.C.E., and if any women were seated at the right of the king and offered the warrior’s portion for their battle feats, these records were either not made or did not survive. What has survived is the writing of GrecoRoman war leaders of the first century C.E., who spoke of women’s role in battle as one of a supporting force.61 They brought fresh horses, removed wounded warriors, and pronounced curses in the manner of priestesses casting spells against the enemy.
War Goddesses and Battle Furies
Though men are the warriors most often celebrated in Celtic myth-the entire Fianna cycle and most of the Ulster center on male figures-it remains a fact that Celtic war, battle, and battlefield deities (or “furies”) are predominantly feminine, and contain mother or crone qualities as well. This might seem odd at first, especially the mother aspect (which we think of as a nurturing, life af firming archetype), until we think in terms of the cauldron archetype.62
Among other things, the cauldron represents a source of status, inspiration, wisdom, and transformation (recall the story of Cerridwen). Though no Celtic creation myth has survived, the link between the liquids within the cauldron and the blood of the mother Goddess is made clear. In instances where no cauldron exists, rivers, lakes, and wells often fulfill this archetype of regenera tion powers.63 Because the Celts envisioned their Land of the Dead as existing across or under the water, water archetypally represented one of the powerful places “in between” that the Celts felt held great power. In this case it was the point at which the physical world and the Otherworld met and melded. 64
The cauldron’s fertile powers extend to the physical world when it serves as a pot in which life sustaining whom the Celts looked for guidance and inspiration in battle was the Irish Goddess Sin who, in later folklore, was reduced to being a minor faery queen who feeds greedily on the blood of warriors. Older legends, probably from an oral tradition, portray her as a Goddess who could make wine from water and swine from leaves in order to feed her warrior legion. Many cauldrons in Celtic myth were thought to provide unlimited sustenance for warriors, in eluding those of some Gods, such as Bran and Dagda. Interestingly, in both cases the deities who possess this power are male, but the ultimate facilitator of regeneration is the cauldron, the primal Goddess symbol.
Without a doubt, the most pervasive image of the Celtic battle furies, the Goddesses of war and destruction, is the Triple Goddess known as the Morrigan, whose name means “great queen.”65 Sometimes she is portrayed as three crones, other times as the more traditional Triple Goddess: one virgin, one mother, and one crone, though all three are in truth aspects of one deity (see Chapter 6). The three Goddesses of the Morrigan are Badb, Macha, and Nemain.
The Celts believed that when they engaged in battle, the Morrigan flew shrieking overhead in the form of a raven or carrion crow. Sometimes she came disguised as a wolf, and would move unharmed through the furor of the battle. When a battle ended, the soldiers would leave the field until dawn so the Morrigan could claim her souls. At this point the battlefield was sacred ground. The Scots even had a Goddess of the war ground known as Bellona, whose name may be a form of Badb.
They also believed the Morrigan could reanimate a regiment of slain soldiers to a macabre spectral dance in which their lifeless bodies could continue to engage in the fight. This ability of the Morrigan to call upon legions of slain bodies is connected to many myths surrounding the Goddess’s ability to take and give life. The image of a cauldron is involved in many of these myths. One such myth surrounds a Welsh war Goddess called Cymidei Cymeinfoll, whose name means “big belly of battle.” The big belly may be another reference to the powers of regeneration in terms of pregnancy, since she was also reputed to give birth to a warrior every six weeks. Cymidei and her husband, Llasar Llaesyfnewid, possessed a magickal cauldron into which they could immerse warriors felled on the battlefield. They would emerge from the cauldron fully alive and able to continue the battle, but would be minus their powers of speech. This loss is viewed archetypally as being both a sacrifice on behalf of one’s clan, and as a symbol of change as the result of being “reborn.” A host of minor and lesser-known war Goddesses fill the pages of Celtic myths and folklore. In Wales and Celtic England, the Goddess Agrona was often equated with the Morrigan. Though her name contains the same root word as is found in the modem English word “agronomy,” meaning the study of land cultivation, no evidence of her as a harvest Goddess can be found. Possibly she was a blending of the sacred mother of the land and the crone who takes life.
The Celtic war Goddesses are usually portrayed as pleasing to look upon, though sometimes fierce of countenance. One who was characterized by her hideousness was Lot, an Irish Goddess of the pre-Dannan race known as the Formorians. This myth may simply be another byproduct of the inevitable fact that it is the victors who write the official chronicles of history. The Formorians were defeated and exiled by the Tuatha De Dannan, the former becoming ugly sea monsters and the latter becoming the beautiful Gods and Goddesses of the Celts.
These war Goddesses have been memorialized not only in myth, but in bronze and stone figurines and coinage dating from Europe’s early Iron Age (1500—1200 B.C.E.). As previously mentioned, while it may be argued that these representations are of Celtic women and not deities, a few of the figures bear inscriptions that name them as Goddesses known to be associated with war. Others bear the images of geese, an aggressive bird who symbolizes guardianship and defensiveness.66 Other icons hearken back to the horse images that seem to surround the warrior queens and depict Celtic women/Goddesses charging into battle on horseback.
The horse images seen in many of the myths of warrior queens and war Goddesses provide links to the Otherworld or divine realm.67 Horses in Celtic myth were symbols of sexual prowess and personal power, and they provided a link between the Otherworld and the physical world. Many a Goddess in her horse form provided transportation between the worlds, as is seen in the myths of Rhiannon. It is possible that some of the ancient hill cuttings and chalk marking figures in England that depict many-breasted horses, such as those found at Uffington and Cambridge, may be related to these warrior queen/Goddess figures and were originally intended to confer both her protection and her blessing of fertility upon the land.
Battle Scars and Rites of Passage
Throughout history, war has been considered an activity that belongs to men. In spite of the successes of the warrior queens, among the Celts men still dominated the war arena. The excitement with which many young men greet the prospect of war, even in recent times, often frightens and disturbs women. Since ancient times, battles have been rites of passage for young men that helped mark them as adults within their communities. Scars were once displayed among the Celts with the same pride that a modem soldier shows off his medals. It is unlikely that battle scars served to mark women as adults.
Women have always had the advantage of having a physical point at which they are known to “come of age,” to be women and not girls. Our rite of passage comes to us at menarche, the onset of menstruation. We don’t have to seek it out. Nearly all ancient cultures saw the menstrual period as the time of woman’s greatest personal power. Often women were required to be separate from the rest of their clan or tribe during these days. It was considered a sacred act to spend this time in communion with the Goddess, or to work on spells and rituals that would be boosted greatly.
Women can arm themselves and name themselves as warriors, and they can learn to reach deep inside themselves and pull out this warrior-self whenever it is needed. The ritual in the next chapter will show you how.
Questions For the Potential Celtic Warrior Woman
The following questions are designed to help you assess your desire and ability to be a warrior woman. Their purpose is to help you evaluate yourself; there are no right or wrong answers.
How do I define “warrior?”
What do I understand to be the role of the warrior in Celtic society? How about women warriors?
What is my perception of a warrior woman?
How does the warrior aspect of myself fit in with other expressions of my Celtic Paganism?
Do I feel it is necessary to be a warrior to be involved in Celtic women’s spirituality? Why or why not?
Have I ever felt like a warrior in my life? When?
Have I ever felt that using my warrior self was not the feminine thing to do? When and why?
Do I allow others to control me too often? Or do I seek too often to control others? How would my warrior self affect these aspects, both positively and negatively?
Do I use common sense in my daily life, or do I rely too often on only magickal protections?
Are there others who depend on my protection and good judgment?
Do I feel that being a warrior could interfere with my other Celtic spiritual tasks, such as being a priestess, participating in a coven, or making personal journeys into the Otherworld? Or do I feel these would be enhanced by my warrior status? Why or why not?
Do I want to be a dedicated warrior at this time? Why or why not?
47. Green, Miranda J. Celtic Goddesses: Warriors, Virgins and Mothers (London: British Museum Press, 1995), 28.
48. J oyce, P. W. A Social History of Ancient Ireland (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1903).
49. O’Hogain, Dr. Daithi. Myth, Legend and Romance: An Encyclopedia of the Irish Folk Tradition (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1991), 18.
50. I refer here to the patent medicines popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of which were created to curb women’s “unfeminine” traits, such as intelligence and ambition.
51. Markale, Jean.Women of the Celts (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions International, Ltd., 1972), 38.
52. Caesar, Julius. The Battle For Gaul (Boston, Mass.: David R. Godine, 1980), 63.
53. Matthews, Caitlin. The Elements of the Celtic Tradition (Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1989), 76.
54. The complete text of this myth can found in Ancient Irish Tales (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1996). Originally published in 1936, this new version with commentary is edited by Tom P. Cross and Clark Harris Slover.
55. Exceptions to this were the “unofficial” battles such as the infamous cattle raids, always surprise events in which fairness and even matching of forces were not considered important.
56. Matthews, 75.
57. An entire chapter on this connection, called “Goddesses of Love and Battle,” is found in D. J. Conway’s Falcon Feather and Valkryie Sword: Feminine Shamanism, Witchcraft and Magick (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1995).
58. For an in-depth look at the lives and myths surrounding the famous warrior queens, see Rosalind Clark’s The Great Queens: Irish Goddesses from the Morrigan to Cathleen ni Houlihan (Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire: Smythe, 1991).
59. Power, Patrick C. Sex and Marriage in Ancient Ireland (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1976), 10.
60. Ellis, Peter Berresford. Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1992), 166.
61. Green (1995), 29.
62. Green, Miranda J. Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1992), 37.
63. Matthews, John and Caitlin. The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom (Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element Books, 1994), 218-219.
64. Green (1995), 41.
65. The Book oflnvasions (Lebar Gabala Erenn), compiled in the twelfth century, chronicles many stories of the war Goddesses.
66. Green, Celtic Goddesses, 34.
67. Green, 32.