Classic 4 Gallon Pot Pic: OLX Classifieds

Cast iron cookware has been around us ever since the dark ages of course. They used it back then because they didn’t have anything else. These days, when people have great choices in all kinds of modern kitchen ware however, when you see people choosing cookware, cast iron still comes up near the top of the list often. With cookware, cast iron is just something that cannot be improved upon for variety of reasons. To begin with, it’s a heavy enough surface that it will heat evenly, even if a tiny gas burner is all that’s heating up the dish.

Certainly it’s a little slow, and it takes a little more energy than thinner and more modern cookware to heat; but once it’s ready, there’s quite nothing like cast iron for certain kinds of foods that we’ve all really come to love – fried hamburgers, omelets cooked with flavor, and seared and browned steak. With cast iron ware, you find it everywhere. You’ll find it at every kitchen ware department, and you also find it at a few camping stores. Taking care of cast iron though is a different matter – it’s the product of a different age, and it needs a certain amount of user care. And that’s something that might be in short supply to someone in today’s world of intelligently designed minimal-care equipment.

A particular problem with the kind of cooking you would prefer to do with cast iron cookware is that it tends to build up grease on the surface. The great thing with iron though is that you can subject it to almost any kind of punishment – all manner of cleaning. Use fine-grained sandpaper attached to a power tool to sand the surface to perfection. If you don’t want anything quite so crude, try soaking your cookware in water mixed with a bit of vinegar overnight. You’d be surprised how well it loosens up grease buildup.

Here is a cool trick to try with cookware. Cast iron takes any kind of beating. You could leave it in your oven, and turn on the self-cleaning cycle. Your oven will certainly clean itself, and it will clean the iron pan inside too.

Each time you put your cast iron pan through anything that rough though, you will strip it of its smooth oiled surface that gives it its non-stick qualities. Every time you give your pan a thorough cleaning like that, you’ll need to build the non-stick surface up from scratch, in a process that’s called seasoning. To season your iron pan, coat it with bacon grease all over, inside and out, and heat it up in your oven for a short time. Once you wipe it off, you should have a nicely seasoned article of kitchen ware that will do great with any kind of deliciously fried foods.

Information and reviews on the hottest new home appliances in your kitchen

Author: Olga Fogleman
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
News of Solar Power and Alternative Engery

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s als found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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Back in August, 2011 the Guardian reported that King Arthur Pendragon appeared at the high court in London to argue that the “royal” remains should be returned to their age-old resting place in Wiltshire.

Pendragon, a 57-year-old former soldier and biker who changed his name by deed poll, wanted the high court to give permission for a judicial review of the government’s decision to allow the remains to be taken away for analysis.

But Mr Justice Wyn Williams refused King Arthur, ruling there was insufficient evidence to show the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) had acted unreasonably. Arthur said:

Even though on this occasion my appeal has been dismissed I am still very much hopeful that I can win in the future. I wasn’t asking for the bones to be put back straight away, I simply wanted confirmation that they will be returned to the site as soon as possible.

He said druids felt the remains were “guardians” of the site.

The judge heard that the cremated remains of more than 40 bodies – thought to be at least 5,000 years old – were removed from a burial site at Stonehenge in 2008 , with ministers giving researchers from Sheffield University permission to keep the bones until 2015. [source]

The Peaceful Protest Continues

Druid and eco-warrior King Arthur Pendragon has been leading a high-profile picket based at Stonehenge with the intention of getting the remains of the ancient dead returned to their resting place.

King Arthur said: “Let those we lay to rest, stay to rest.”

Button badges for King Arthur’s campaign proclaim “Bring back the ancient dead!”

Remains of the ancient dead that were buried at Stonehenge were removed by archaeologists and it was said that after carbon dating them they would be returned. However, this has not been done and the remains of the bones of the ancient dead have been held at Sheffield University.

King Arthur and other druids and pagans refer to these bones as those of ancient ancestors. Stonehenge is regarded as temple for druids and pagans. The ancestors who were buried there are believed to be the guardian spirits of Stonehenge and were meant to remain where they were buried.

Sign the Petition Below

King Arthur and fellow protesters organised a petition which has been signed by a large number of people. A question on the petition asks those who sign it to sate their religion and King Arthur was proud to be able to announce that the petition had signatures from over 60 people from different religious pathways and beliefs.

To Support King Arthur’s call for the reburial at Stonehenge of the Ancient cremated human remains (known as the Guardians) held by Sheffield University , please sign the following E Petition;
( http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/14696 )

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s als found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
If you come to the site and listen or listen from one of our players – have you considered subscribing? It’s easy and you automatically get the episodes on your computer when they come out. If you’re unsure about the whole RSS/Subscribing thing take a look at our Help page.

Wireframe model (enlarge to see it textured) Pic: Trinity3D.com

OK… Well one of my dreams has been the possibility of re-telling the Celtic Myths visually by using the medium of 3D Animation. In fact, Ruth and I started our whole concept of re-telling of the myths by beginning to create an animated film. Story-boards were produced, scripts were started and not being used to patience, I made a start on creating the terrain for the opening shots of the film and then plotted a camera track, recorded some voice over and with some accompanying music began to put together the opening scenes of the film.

 It rapidly became apparent that after three and a half months, we had produced just under 2 minutes of film!!!!

Not only that, but I discovered animating tumbling rocks required a knowledge of physics that escaped me and those unlucky few who were subjugated to my attempts fell about laughing at these balloon like boulders careering unrealistically down the hill-side! Scrap that idea then…

So, the podcast was born and the rest, they say, is history..

However, the knowledge, love and desire to produce using my 3D design skills has remained with me, which is why I guess, I have occasionally produced Wallpapers for screen or phone.

In the Windmills of my mind

The myths are still very visual in my mind, and maybe that is why when it comes to editing the final audio podcasts I make an attempt at re-creating in a sound-picture what I can ‘see’ inside my head. Technology proceeds faster than we can keep up with it though, and now my mind si whirling with new possibilities.

You see, not only do we have the incredible shading, light and built-in hardware possibilities of today’s top-of-the-range Graphics Cards (OK, I admit still well out of my reach financially), but we have several Game editors that are designed to utilise these technological advances and have pre-scripted sequences or cut-aways, that would be ideal for using to clip together the scenes of a movie! Now you see the Windmills whirring furiously

Not only that, but for the purposes of development the editors are free. Well, I think 3 out of the 4 are. There is something called Unity that mixes well with much Open Source software (Blender being used as a 3D modelling tool) and I love Open Source, and then there is the Source Engine developed by Valve and using Havok physics. You can see this in operation in the latest Half-Life games. Although it was one of the first editors to make use of Ragdoll physics and was/still is groundbreaking in many areas, in terms of creating believable outside areas it relies upon the skills of the artist and trickery to try to re-create the outside world.

Unreal Development Kit (UDK)

Now, however, there are two very real contenders remaining for the title of King of the Hill when it comes to bringing you your mythological stories in movie format! The first has evolved out of the very successful Unreal series of games – the Unreal Development Kit.

(https://plus.google.com/u/0/110838162887713508997/posts/gX3Etmk57SK)

As you can see, the terrain is quite simplistic but passable. There is a technical demo reel of an amazing scene showing jungle, rain, water trickling over rock surfaces and its all very exciting but I can imagine that it probably took a team of Unreal designers weeks to produce that demo, On the down-side, I have read frequently in forums, that the UDK is ideally suited to developing interiors (easy use of Phong shading) but you have to struggle to produce terrain, although it is well served by the community with documentation and tutorials.

The Tech Demo Reel looks pretty good though, especially the Realistic Foliage…

Search.flv Watch on Posterous

CryENGINE

Lastly, the choice that has really caught my eye in terms of terrain development is the latest incarnation of the Design Environment behind the Crysis series of games developed by the Crytek company. I remember playing the original FarCry and being blown away by the water, trees and shadows and things have come on so far since then!

(http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=31543)

The disadvantages are that the Engine is purportedly buggy, with many crashes, and has a very steep learning curve with only a growing developer community.

Last words?

Yes, I think the only option is to try both pieces of software. I’m still going to have to use traditional 3D design s/w to produce models and objects, still going to have to use serious art software for textures and still have the import/export pipeline to consider in the workflow. In addition, whilst productions made by the latter, and possibly the former, and free for non-commercial use – if we reach the stage where we wish to make something in addition for sale, then there are licensing considerations to be taken into account. If every single frame has been hand-crafted by myself – that ceases to become a financial problem. But then 3 months for 2 minutes of film?? Get serious, Gary!

Mind you, those rocks and trees, soft ambient shadows and diffuse glows are very tempting… (sigh..)

Lastly, the very impressive CryEngine 2012 demo reel, including DX11 features not yet implemented.. :{

CryEngine_3_GDC_2012_Tech_Trailer_(Cam).mp4 Watch on Posterous

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s als found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
If you come to the site and listen or listen from one of our players – have you considered subscribing? It’s easy and you automatically get the episodes on your computer when they come out. If you’re unsure about the whole RSS/Subscribing thing take a look at our Help page.

Pic Wikipedia

The triple spiral or triskele is a Celtic and pre-Celtic symbol found on a number of Irish Megalithic and Neolithic sites, most notably inside the Newgrange passage tomb, on the entrance stone, and on some of the curbstones surrounding the mound.

Believed by many to be an ancient symbol of pre-Celtic and Celtic beliefs, the triple spiral appears in various forms in pre-Celtic and Celtic art, with the earliest examples having been carved on pre-Celtic stone monuments, and later examples found in the Celtic Christian illuminated manuscripts of Insular art. The triple spiral was possibly the precursor to the later triskele design found in the manuscripts.

The triple spiral is one of the main symbols of Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism, often standing for the "three realms" – Land, Sea and Sky, or for one of a number of deities who are described in the lore as "threefold" or triadic.^[1] The god Manannán is probably most often the one symbolized by the triskele, though some also use it for the goddess Brighid. Some Celtic-inspired Wiccans also use the triple spiral symbol, most often to represent the concept of the triple goddess.

According to Uriel’s Machine by Knight and Lomas (2003) the triple spiral may represent the nine month period of human pregnancy, since the sun takes a fourth of a year to go from the celestial equator (an equinox) to extreme north or south declination (a solstice), and vice versa. During each three-month period, the sun’s path across the sky appears to form a closely-wound quasi-helical shape, which can be likened to a spiral, so that three spirals could represent nine months, providing an explanation for a link between fertility and the triple-spiral symbol.

Source

Originally posted 2009-10-14 11:20:42. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Mermaid, The Book of Kells Pic:Live Internet

One of the illustrations in the Book of Kells depicts a mermaid (more precisely a merhermaphrodite) swimming up the centre of a genealogy.This lovely figure may refer to Iona and to Columba himself by means of a complex linguistic pun.The word, Iona, includes the Greek word for dove;Columba is Latin for dove and the mer-creature makes the island link. Although strange it is a relatively secure reference, since St Columba’s biographer makes the same pun and the Kells manuscript was probably made to celebratan anniversary of Columba’s death. If nothing else the illustration is testament to the popularity of the mermaid image.Sea dwelling creatures, half human and half fish, are common in European and Near Eastern folktales. As these people have immigrated throughout the world, traditions about these mysterious beings have travelled with them.

Mer-folk are rather like fairies in that they are supernatural, but not completely divine or immortal unlike, say angels.  As such they live in an ‘in between’ world. Their lives and actions under the sea, an environment alien to humans, parallel the human world, and they often interact with their human counterparts.

Mermaids are more popular in European folklore than mermen (the males are very popular in Eastern tales however). Marriages between a mer-creature and a human are the most common form of interaction in folktales.

In Irish stories a fisherman will steal the mermaid’s salmon skin cap and the ‘merrow’ i.e. mermaid, will then marry the human. They have children and are happy together, but one day she findsher salmon skin cap and returns to her own world. Usually the children of these marriages have a special characteristic inherited from their non-human mother.

Sometimes they are good fisherman, but other times they have red hair which marks them off as temperamental or fey. This may be where the Disney animators got Ariel’s red hair or it may be coincidence. Sometimes the offspring of these human mermaid marriagesare haunted by the sound of the sea and cannot sleep at night or are unable to speak

The most famous mermaid tale is that of Mélusine, a French Mer-creature and the ancestress of the Counts de Lusignon. Mélusine appears to the young Count as a beautiful woman (with legs).

Mer-creatures usually are able to walk on land and only have fins while in the sea. (Rather a convenient trait in these marriage tales). Mélusine promises to marry the count, as long as he attempts to see her bathing on a Saturday. Of course eventually he does just this, and realises that she is human from the waist upwards but a sea serpent from the waist down. She then disappears through the window with a screech and is never seen again. But she is heard crying on the battlements before a death in the family.

The merman story is much the same. A human woman marries a merman and lives with him in his beautiful underwater world. After a while she wants to return home to visit her family. She is warned not to overstay her visit and not to attend church services. Naturally she forgets and cannot go back to the sea. Coleridge’s poem, The Forsaken Merman is based on this story.

To read more of the facsinating article By Dr Juliette Wood  visit Here

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Wizzard-Media-Celtic-Myth-Podshow/dp/B004W8QR58 or by using the QR code opposite.
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Kilkenny Castle Pic: Wikipedia

Margery Brady of the Irishtimes.com reports that : This spring offers the first opportunity see a copy of a number of pages of the Book of Pottlerath, an illuminated manuscript which dates back to the 15th century, in its native Kilkenny. Although the book does not contain as many ornate illustrations as the Book of Kells, many of the letters are highly decorated. The original is now housed in the Bodleian library in Oxford, but it arrived there by a long, circuitous route.

James, 4th Earl of Ormond, known as the White Earl, had a great interest in archaeology and history, and it was he who initiated work on the manuscript. When he died of the plague in 1452 he left it to his nephew Edmund Butler, who was building a castle at Pottlerath, Kilmanagh, Co Kilkenny.

In 1453 Edmund decided to enlarge the manuscript, incorporating the earlier work, and he commissioned his scribe Sean Buidhe O’Cleirigh, with his fellow scribes, to continue work on it. It was completed a year later, in 1454 and was called The Book of Pottlerath. It is interesting to note that the earlier part of the manuscript is today in better condition than the subsequent part.

During the War of the Roses, in 1461 James, 5th Earl of Ormond was beheaded and his head was displayed on Tower Bridge. His brother and heir returned to Ireland and summoned to arms Edmund of Pottlerath, with the local Butlers in Kilkenny and Clonmel. Thomas, Earl of Desmond, united with the Earl of Kildare to oppose the Butler insurrection. A battle took place in Pilltown, south Kilkenny, and the Butlers were defeated, with a loss of 410 men. Edmund was among the prisoners. Part of the ransom demanded for his release was The Book of Pottlerath. It was to take some years for the book to return to the Butlers.

It is thought that The Book of Pottlerath came back to the family as part of the dowry of Joan FitzGerald (daughter of 10th Earl of Desmond) when she married James the Lame, 9th Earl of Ormond and eldest son of Piers, in 1532.

From there, the manuscript went into the hands of Sir George Carew, president of Munster, who had the book bound in leather. He died in 1624, bequeathing his collection to Sir Thomas Stafford. Stafford either sold or gave it to William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of the University of Oxford, who in turn gave it to the University for the Bodleian Library in 1636, with the condition that it would not leave Oxford; so it cannot be loaned to any Irish museum. A copy could be made for display in Ireland.

To read more about the journey of this fascinating manuscript click here

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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Wizzard-Media-Celtic-Myth-Podshow/dp/B004W8QR58 or by using the QR code opposite.
If you come to the site and listen or listen from one of our players – have you considered subscribing? It’s easy and you automatically get the episodes on your computer when they come out. If you’re unsure about the whole RSS/Subscribing thing take a look at our Help page.

Babes in the wood Pic: Wikipeadia

English medieval history and legend are sometimes so intricately interwoven that it can be exceedingly difficult to delineate with any degree of certainty the facts from the fantasy. The fascinating story of the green children of Woolpit is a particular case in point.The date was the 12th century a.d., but has been variously placed by chroniclers within the reign of King Stephen (1135-54) or King Henry II (1154-1189). The setting was the small Suffolk village of Woolpit, named after the deep trenches in which wolves were formerly captured.

One day, the villagers were amazed to see two very unusual children crawling out of one of these trenches. A girl and a slightly younger boy, they were both dressed in strange clothing and spoke an unintelligible language. But by far the most striking characteristic of these children was their skin–it was green.

Unable to communicate with them, and thoroughly perplexed as to what should be done, the villagers took the girl and boy, who were weeping and very forlorn, to the home of Sir Richard de Calne, a local landowner. Here they remained, treated with great care and kindness by Sir Richard and his servants. But the boy fell ill, and in less than a year he had died. Happily, however, the girl survived, and as she grew older her skin’s green hue gradually disappeared. She eventually married a man from King’s Lynn in Norfolk, a senior ambassador of Henry II according to some sources, and became known as Agnes Barre.

During her years in Sir Richard’s household, Agnes learned English and was eventually able to reveal something about where she and her brother had come from and the manner in which they had reached Woolpit. She claimed that they were from a Christian place called St Martin’s Land, where it was always twilight (and also where, according to one medieval chronicler of this story, everything was green), and which was separated from a much sunnier place by a wide river. One day, while tending their father’s flocks in a field, Agnes and her brother had been led away by the sound of church bells into an underground realm, and then somehow found themselves in Woolpit.

This peculiar account has lent itself to many different interpretations. Eminent British folklorist Dr. Katharine Briggs noted in A Dictionary of Fairies (1976) that it contained a number of themes prevalent in Faerie lore-the color green, a twilit land, subterranean worlds. Could this entire story thus be nothing more than another legend of elves or fairies visiting mankind? Continue Reading »

Pic: Rennes-le-Chateau

Ever since the Da Vinci Code was published, and probably long before, the towns of Rennes-les-Bains and Rennes-le-Chateau have been at the centre of conspiratorial quests for the Holy Grail, the Templars and other matters. How many of us know that the area is also rich in Celtic history and geography? I didn’t. However, on the Rennes-le-Chateau Research & Resource site, they tell us of a book published in 1880 by L’Abbé Henriu Boudet called La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains which means The True Celtic Language and the Cromleck of Rennes-les-Bains.They say:

Continue Reading »

Originally posted 2008-09-17 09:43:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Explore Books Pic: Heart of Albion

‘Is some riddle solved by my surviving forever? Is not eternal life itself as much of a riddle as our present life?’ Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, 1922

Given the extent to which modern-day pagans take as a truism that many of our folk customs have, unconsciously, retained relics of their heathen origins is traceable to the success of one man’s major opus – Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, a multi-volume work published in the 1890s.

‘It is difficult to overrate the influence of The Golden Bough. It offered a pattern which was immediately and attractively available; and it proceeded to dominate attitudes and thinking to a remarkable extent. The vegetation drama, ritual death and resurrection, the sacred tree, became accepted elements . . .’ So observed Roy Judge in his study of the Jack-in-the-Green [1], also noting that the Frazerian influence was complex.

While modern day researchers find little of Frazer’s work holds up to scrutiny, his opinions were accepted almost without question for about 60 years. In the introduction to the abridged one volume edition of The Golden Bough, prepared some thirty years after the original research [2], Frazer wrote: ‘I have neither added new material nor altered the views expressed in the last edition; for the evidence which has come to my knowledge in the meantime has on the whole served either to confirm my former conclusions or to furnish fresh illustrations of old principles.’

Frazer’s objectives were straightforward: to demonstrate that Christianity derived from the same principles as so-called ‘primitive’ religions. Within the constraints of the then-active blasphemy laws Frazer strove to treat the Bible as another rich mythology – to be studied objectively, and with the same contempt for the beliefs as academics showed for non-christian faiths.

A group of men with bells on their legs, dancing frenetically’

Frazer’s views were based on the work of Sir Lawrence Gomme, Sir Edward Tylor and Wilhelm Mannhardt although Frazer proved to be the better known of these researchers. Frazer in his turn influenced Sir Edmund Chambers and Cecil Sharp. Sharp, almost single-handedly, inspired the English folk dance revival and, in the process, drew attention to the then-dying remnants of other folk customs. Sharp’s Frazerian-influenced opinions were contested at the time but between 1914 and the early 1970s his views were unopposed – folklorists ‘were not concened with evidence (or the lack of it) of historical continuity, and . . . relied entirely upon similarities and parallels in form to construct grand hypotheses.’ [3]

Part of these ‘grand hypotheses’ was that morris dancing was an ancient rite which had remained unaltered for centuries. When an historian, Barbara Lowe, published her studies of the earliest origins of morris dancing in 1957 [4] she was totally ignored. This is not in the least surprising, as what she discovered runs entirely counter to Sharp’s fantasy. Lowe found that morris dances first appeared about 1450 as a new craze in the courts of the nobility and royalty throughout western Europe. These courts were notoriously fashion-conscious and briefly-favoured novelty was as prevalent then as in our own times.

Courtly morris of the fifteenth century was a Christmas-tide entertainment involving a group of men with bells on their legs, dancing frenetically in an attempt to woo a lady. After this display of male vitality she, in fine fickle, gave her heart to a fool. Not only did this little scenario find favour in the palaces of England, soon it was spreading among the common people. First along the Thames to nearby towns and then, by the sixteenth century, throughout England. Along the way it became less a feature of Christmas than of the Maytime or summer games.

A few ‘traditions’ really are traditional

The history of morris dancing is similar to many other popular traditions. A number of historians have intensively studied specific aspects of ‘traditional’ customs – and repeatedly revealed that these traditions peter out before the eighteenth century. A few ‘traditions’ really are traditional – but there are few of them. When we decorate our homes with greenery and give each other presents at Christmas, we are following a custom which goes back ‘time out of mind’. Few of us light bonfires for Mayday or Midsummer but, up until the late nineteenth century, this was a common-place custom which, also, can be traced back beyond written records. Probably the erection of Maypoles is equally archaic. But written records ominously peter out for all other ‘traditional’ customs

Historians know well that events are best shown up in written sources when they contravene custom or legislation. The names of common people most frequently enter the annals of written history when they appear in court records for greater or lesser crimes; not infrequently, drunkenness on feast days. The once-heated debates of churchwardens and clergy are veiled beneath the dry records of parish registers. These same registers reveal year after year the amounts spent preparing for such festivities as ‘church ales’ – until, abruptly, these expenses are no longer part of the meticulous lists. No one at the time explicitly stated that church ales had been superseded by other (less bawdy) forms of fund-raising, but the evidence is clear enough. So the genealogy of popular customs can be pieced together.

‘How traditional was “traditional”?’

There is clear evidence that in the late medieval era ‘new devotional fads were enthusiastically explored by a laity eager for religious variety’ [5] The greatest of the feasts of the late medieval liturgy, Corpus Christi, apparently well-established since time immemorial, was comparatively new, dating only from the thirteenth century. Such were the religious practices of the populace. This was ‘traditional religion’ in Britain – although this simply begs the question, ‘How traditional was “traditional”?’ Running in parallel were the ascending aristocratic interests in astrology and the attempts to subdue ‘witchcraft’ and the various activities of ‘cunning’ men and women. The boundaries between religion and magic were less well-drawn than they are with the hindsight of modern mentalities [6].

Behind these terse paragraphs are entire academic careers picking over the ways in which social history is a patchwork of ever-evolving changes. We think of our own times as being subject to unique processes of change. Yet history records an ever-changing flow. The difference of the modern day is mostly that the processes of communication are more immediate and more detailed, giving a greater awareness of change. An additional and pertinent difference is that, until recently, the ‘meanings’ of popular customs were not fixed by written accounts. Why things were done was the least rooted aspect of these activities.

‘Customs quite out of fashion’

Peeling the layers of the onion away, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw the pro-Reformation and counter-Reformation sway back and forth with greater or lesser enthusiasm and enforcement. The reign of Elizabeth I provided an era of comparative tolerance, where the country was officially Protestant but the zeal of the senior clergy could be, and was, vetoed by the monarch.

During the Civil War and Restoration there is widespread written evidence of the way new religious and social ideals were being promulgated. The sometimes brutally aggressive Puritans stripped the churches of their images, rood lofts and altars – while a smaller, less-aggressive number, from time to time attempted to restore some of the ‘popish’ traditions [7].

Just how thoroughly the Reformation and Civil War swept away traditional customs is revealed by writers of the time. John Aubrey is a name well-known for his early antiquarian interests. He was a child before the Civil War and could see first-hand how many local customs, such as midsummer bonfires, had vanished during the Interregnum, ‘the civil wars coming on have put all these rites or customs quite out of fashion.’ [8] Aubrey also tells how the once-annual custom of decorating the salt-well at Droitwich on the patron saint’s festival was prohibited; the well promptly dried up. The ceremony was restored the following year, whereupon the water once again flowed.

Much has been made of the Restoration of Charles II and the establishment of Royal Oak or Oak Apple Day (29th May) as a ‘surrogate’ for the Mayday festivities prohibited by the Puritans. Yet closer inspection reveals that over thirty years of Puritan campaigning had wrought a severe dislocation and the popular pastimes which were ‘restored’ were different in nature and character. In essence, the post-Restoration festivities were not so much spontaneous customs of the common people as events which were organised by the ‘gentry’. It was the subtle transition from ‘participating’ to ‘attending’. [9]

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The Battersea bronze and enamel shield 350BC :British Museum, London Pic: Heritage Daily

A fabulous informative article written by Sue Carter appeared in Heritage Daily recently. We enjoyed it so much, we knew our readers would find it fascinating too.Here is a taster. Enjoy  :)

On whatever pretext you stir them up, you will have them ready to face danger, even if they have nothing on their side but their own strength and courage –Strabo, (64 BC – 24 AD).

Almost all of the Gauls are of tall stature, fair and ruddy, terrible for the fierceness of their eyes, fond of quarrelling and of overbearing insolence – Ammianus, (4th Century AD).

The two quotes were written by classical authors describing the Gauls of France as known at the time. Strabo would have been aware of Caesar’s excursion to Britain and possibly have read his account of the people he had been in contact with. Diodorus Siculus (V 21, 3-6) describes Britain as,

 ‘Inhabited by tribes that are aboriginal, and in their lifestyle preserve the old ways; for they make use of chariots in the wars….’

(Diodorus cited in Ireland 2003).

Due to Britain’s isolation it is possible that many of the ‘old ways’ were still being followed. There are very few eye-witness accounts of the inhabitants of Britain prior to the Roman invasions, and what we do have is from classical writers who believed them to be barbaric, not only in their fighting methods but in other aspects of their culture. Waite (2011) sums it up when he describes Celtic feasting and fighting to the death over the hero’s cut of meat

…. even if your opponent happened to be a blood relative. Whilst this sort of behaviour was deeply rooted in Celtic culture it would only have served to justify the Roman conviction that these people were no more than uncivilized barbarians who were prepared to fight like animals over a piece of meat (Waite 2011, 36).

Unfortunately, classical writing is our only written evidence of the Celtic culture, however, we do have the archaeological evidence to back some of it up.

The main area that is often picked up and portrayed of Celts is that of warfare. But how much do we know, and can understand, from the written and iconographic resources that we have?

Tacitus (cited in Work 1954) tells us that ‘the Britons had established a reputation for bravery and being good fighters’ (Work 1954, 258), and Allcock (cited in Harding 1974) informs that

Our knowledge of Celtic warfare, as derived from the literary records, very largely relates to engagements with the Roman Army, or to Roman attacks upon Iron Age strongholds (Harding 1974, 70).

Of inter-tribal warfare the European Iron Age is well known, but of Britain, little is known as it was ‘considered in isolation and assumed to be different from that of western mainland Europe’ (Hill 1995, 49). The archaeological evidence also suggests that, the once long perceived idea of hill-forts as centres of power, were actually places where older men, women and children could gather and take their cattle etc when trouble was imminent and thus used as places of refuge and not for defending or being defended by attacking neighbouring tribes, also that ‘their roles could differ through space and, on the same site, through time’ (Hill 1995, 68).

With the archaeological record showing marked increases between the middle pre-Roman Iron Age and the late pre-Roman Iron Age, raids and warfare appear to show signs of increasing with, ‘ample evidence of the accoutrements of war – swords, shields, spears, helmets and vehicle parts’ (Cunliffe 2004, 94). Evidence in the increase of inter-tribal warfare is given in the territory that once belonged to the Parisi, ‘Armed conflict was suggested by finds in late Arras Culture graves, and this presumably indicates that the Parisi were at odds with their neighbours’

(Dent 1983, 39).

The British Celt has been described as

 ‘taller than the Celts and not so yellow-haired, although their bodies were of looser build’

(Strabo cited in Work 1954, 257),

and their social structure was one of ‘actually or potentially hierarchically organized around the competitive relations between lineages or clan groups’ (Hill 1995, 73). Mainly living in acceptance of each other, tribes would fight over cattle or land,

The picture which emerges of the Celts and their society is of a restless exuberance loosely contained within a social system based on warrior prowess. Raiding and warfare were the essential mechanisms by which society maintained and reproduced itself

(Cunliffe 1997, 363).

The Iron Age was a time of oral histories, which were passed down through the generations and told over fires in feasting halls. The hero’s were held in high esteem and their victories shared by all, and kept alive

The end result of this teaching would be a warrior imbued not only with an ability to fight but also with a strong sense of himself and where he came from – a spiritual being who operated along a ritualized code of conduct (Waite 2011, 36)

He was loyal to his tribe, his leader and knew the code he had to follow into battle, should the need arise. As well as the physical and psychological aspects of the warrior, there were also the tools of his trade – his weapons.

The type to weaponry used by the Iron Age warrior has been discovered through archaeology and

….the majority are from hoards or votive deposits but a small group of burials provides valuable evidence about the way in which the warrior was equipped (Cunliffe 2004, 94).

The main item of weaponry was the sword. Changes have been recorded between the swords of the Bronze Age and those of the Iron Age, indicating a change in fighting methods,

The earlier varieties had tapering blades with long sharp points designed for both thrusting and slashing, whilst the later swords, with their long parallel sided blades, were better adapted for slashing …. the La Tène III slashing sward was designed for fighting on horseback ( Cunliffe 2010, 533).

With the use of chariots and mounted warriors, the need for a better designed slashing sword arose. The designs of which were expertly crafted by specialist smiths.

To read more of this fascinating article by Sue Carter Visit  Heritage Daily

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