Writing “The Wisdom of Rhiannon” was a test of my beliefs. I was trained as a physicist which fashioned me to see the physical world in which we live in a certain way. So I was challenged in trying to determine what “powers” did the Druids have; any, or was it trickery, or a good knowledge of the natural world, for example, in predicting eclipses? What was the nature of ancient knowledge? Certainly there is evidence of quite remarkable medical knowledge, for example, trepanation, a delicate surgical technique for making a hole in someone’s skull, with evidence that the technique dates back as far as 6500 BC, with plenty of people recovering from the operation.
And this was my difficulty. How did ancient peoples “know” what to do, let alone the Druids? Where did their knowledge come from? And what was the extent of it? My scientific training taught me that observation, experimentation, theory, and more experimentation were the only ways to classify and understand the world. But then there are people like Rupert Sheldrake, a scientist, who talks about morphic resonance, fields which reverberate and exchange information within a universal life force.
Could the Druids, amongst others, “know” when to trepan, could they “know” which herbs to collect, how to prepare medicines from them, see into the future, could they perform “magic”? But at that time I decided this was a step too far for my rational mind, so the Druids in my book are broadly simply clever people who are well read and educated.
And I think I was wrong!
If I had read Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer’s book, Extraordinary knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable, I would have changed my mind, just as she was forced to change hers, moving from a hard scientific paradigm to a much more open minded view. In a book full of challenging examples to the rational of conventional science, there was one example I really liked. The very successful brain surgeon who waited by the head of the patients he was scheduled to operate on until he “saw” a white light; it might take minutes, or hours, but when he saw the light, he knew his operation would be successful. His difficulty was, how to teach the technique to medical students and other surgeons, so he didn’t, because he would have been laughed at, ridiculed, after all, everyone knows that medical science doesn’t work like that!
Or can it?
Category: Celts
A traveller on the Silk Road
Spoiler alert! One of the mysteries not explained until the end of the second book of the Wisdom of Rhiannon series is Geraint’s origin.
Read no further if you would prefer to find out through the story in the book, otherwise, the answer follows below.
In fact in one of those mysteries that all authors seem to experience, even this author, is that often the story somehow tells itself. Nowhere in the author’s mind was the so-called “back-story” to the history of Geraint (one of the central characters). That is until the story decided to reveal it, through the device of a historical article concerning one of Caesar’s huge extravagances. His purchase of a large quantity of silk.
At the time of Caesar there was a huge controversy in Rome over the cost and use of silk, especially by Roman women.
In vain the Senate issued several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds. We are told that the importation of Chinese silk resulted in a huge outflow of gold, and silk clothes were considered to be decadent and immoral. To quote Seneca the Younger (c. 3 BCE- 65 CE, Declamations Vol. I):
I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one’s decency, can be called clothes… Wretched flocks of maids labour so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife’s body.
He was not alone, Pliny the Elder (23- 79, The Natural History), wrote:
The Seres (Chinese), are famous for the woolen substance obtained from their forests; after a soaking in water they comb off the white down of the leaves… So manifold is the labour employed, and so distant is the region of the globe drawn upon, to enable the Roman maiden to flaunt transparent clothing in public.
But in his way, Caesar was even more extravagant, purchasing a huge quantity of silk and using it to shade the spectating Romans as he was carried triumphantly through the City to celebrate one of his triumphs. Even his own soldiers were critical of his expenditure, complaining that it was money that could have been better spent on rewarding them.
And so the seed was planted. Who conveyed the silk from China to Rome? Who would have guarded it on its long journey? And so the back-story was born.
Celts on the Silk Road 3,000 years ago
The following is a partial summary of a longer article to be found in Celtic Life International (https://celticlife.com/the-chinese-celts/) and the Independent newspaper, (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/a-meeting-of-civilisations-the-mystery-of-chinas-celtic-mummies-5330366.html). Perhaps it should be of no surprise that the then nomadic Celts found their way to the far north part of the Silk Road in China. Today we see only vast distances, easy to fly over, difficult to walk across, but when walking was your only option, and it is part of your way of life, what is distance but time travelled?
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There is no doubt that he is a Celt. The man’s hair is reddish brown flecked with grey, framing high cheekbones, a long nose, full lips and a ginger beard. When he lived three thousand years ago, he stood six feet tall, and was buried wearing a red twill tunic and tartan leggings. His DNA confirms it.
What is extraordinary is that his body was discovered – with the mummies of three women and a baby – in a burial site in the sands of the Taklamakan Desert in the far-flung region of Xinjiang in western China, In the language spoken by the local Uighur people in Xinjiang, “Taklamakan” means: “You come in and never come out.”
DNA testing confirms that he and hundreds of other mummies found in Xinjiang’s Tarim Basin are of European origin. We don’t know how he got there, what brought him there, or how long he and his kind lived there for. But, as the desert’s name suggests, it is certain that he never came out.
One of the women who shared the tomb has light brown hair which looks as if it was brushed and braided for her funeral only yesterday. Her face is painted with curling designs, and her striking red burial gown has lost none of its lustre during the three millenniums that this tall, fine-featured woman has been lying beneath the sand of the Northern Silk Road.The bodies are far better preserved than the Egyptian mummies, and it is sad to see the infants on display; to see how the baby was wrapped in a beautiful brown cloth tied with red and blue cord, then a blue stone placed on each eye. Beside it was a baby’s milk bottle with a teat, made from a sheep’s udder. Analysis has shown that the weave of the cloth is the same as that of those found on the bodies of salt miners in Austria from 1300BC.
Celts, Silk and Druidic Knowledge
Even in the 6th century BCE there is evidence of silk being worn by the Celts in Europe. It has been found mongst the many rich grave goods discovered at Hallstatt in Germany. The silk cloth must have felt exquisite compared to the standard wool and linen usually worn. There were many other fine grave goods discovered often imported from sites across Europe including for example coral, amber and even black shale bracelets from Britain.
The interesting point though is how extensive the trading routes were, even in the 6th century BCE, and doubtless it was not only silk and other goods that made their way across many thousands of miles. Along with the exchange of good there would be the exchange of knowledge – tales of far distant places, the religions practised there, the latest fashions even – and no doubt the traders would have been accompanied by priests and others curious to explore the worlds around them.
Authors, especially Peter Berresford Ellis in his book The Druids, have pointed out many similarities between what is known about the religion practiced by the Druids and that of Hinduism. And with the evidence of trade with China as well it all paints an interesting backdrop to the religion of the Druids. Sadly, fascinating as these connections are, we can never know the reality, but given the evidence of how far goods – and therefore knowledge – travelled who knows?
Massacre of the Druids – as told in place names.
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In AD60 the Roman general Paullinus stood on the banks of the Menai with a Legion of the XIV Gemina. On the opposite bank were thousands of Celts including many Druids, for this was the island of Anglesey as it is now called. Mona as it was then known, was the home of the Druids, the centre of Druidic teaching.
The story of the battle that took place is told elsewhere, but suffice it to say that the Romans successfully crossed the Menai and defeated the opposition. Then the massacres began. The names of various places on the Island bear mute remembrance to the slaughter that took place, despite the passage of more than two thousand years.
Place names such as Bryn-y-Beddau, the Hill of Graves, Plas Goch, the Red Place, and most graphically, the two fields still known as the Field of the Long Battle and the Field of Bitter Lamentation. The power and teachings of the Druids were never to recover from the disaster that occurred on Mona, though Ireland, unconquered by the Romans, was to remain a haven for the Druids until the spread of Christianity.
Hillforts
An atlas listing and detailing 4,147 hillforts was released to the public for free on the 22nd June. The atlas gives an exhaustive list of all the known hillforts in Britain, and adds considerably to the previous list of 1,224 hillforts listed in the Wikipedia entry for June 2017. The press release states:
Mostly built during the Iron Age, the oldest hillforts date to around 1,000BC and the most recent to around 700AD. Hillforts were central to more than 1,500 years of ancient living: with numerous functions – some of which are yet to be fully uncovered – hillforts served as communal gathering spaces. The research also shows that, fascinatingly, not all hillforts are on hills; nor are they all forts.
And that is part of the mystery. There are some hillforts, for example, Maiden Castle in Dorset, the biggest hillfort in Europe, that are truly hillforts, not only atop significantly high hills, but with impressive defences, and in the case of Maiden Castle, with clear evidence of attack(s) by the Romans.
Yet there are others that look at first glance as “defended enclosures” to use the archeological term, but are indefensible. They have a bank and ditch, but arranged in such a way that they offer no impediment to attackers. Thornborough Henges is one of the most important examples, and is viewed as being part of a ritual landscape, whatever that means!
An example of one of the largest hill forts can be found at Stanwick. The iron age fortifications enclose an area of close to 750 acres (300ha). In places the from the base of the ditch to the top of the ramparts the earthworks stood to a height of 16 feet. It was occupied by the Brigantes, and may even have been the seat of their Queen, Carimandua. Archeological finds indicate a high degree of prosperity, with luxury goods imported from across the Roman world.
As the above photographs show, now sadly there is little to see of this once mighty hill-fort, just a number of semi-filled in ditches, a sign-post and an information board, are all that mark the site of this once mighty Brigante power base.
I am an Astrologer and not an Astronomer
I look to the heavens for meaning, not for science, although I find meaning in the science.
I feel the weight of all of humankind who have also gazed up on a starry night and wondered about the meaning of life, the Universe, and their own destiny.
Were their questions mine? I suspect so, and what answers did they find? What knowledge did the Wise Seers amass. The Druids, for example, spent 30 years learning their craft, and were renowned in antiquity for their knowledge of the heavens, and before them, came the builders of the Stone Circles which predicted the movement of the Cosmos.
Stuff on Celts, Druids, Standing Stones and suchlike. 