Although it has long been acknowledged that early Irish literature contains both pre-Christian and Christian elements, there’s been no sustained study of the challenges involved in understanding the interrelation of these worldviews. Understanding Celtic Religion draws attention to the importance of reconsidering the relationship between religion and mythology, as well as the concept of “Celtic religion” itself. When scholars are attempting to construct the Celtic belief system, what counts as religion, and how does that differ from mythology? This volume, the first interdisciplinary collection of articles to critically re-evaluate the methodological challenges of the study of Celtic religion, will appeal to both scholars and lay readers of Celtic literature, as well as anyone interested in ancient and medieval cultures.
Author(s): Katja Ritari, Alexandra Bergholm
Series: New Approaches to Celtic Religion and Mythology
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Year: 2016
Language: English
Pages: 197
City: Cardiff
Front Cover
Understanding Celtic Religion
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
List of Contributors
Foreword by the Series Editor
1 Introduction: ‘Celtic Religion’: Is this a Valid Concept?
Notes
2 Celtic Spells and Counterspells
Introduction
Celtic conversion
Celtic opposition
Mirrors and layers
Conclusion
Notes
3 The Old Gods of Ireland in the Later Middle Ages
Notes
4 Staging the Otherworld in Medieval Irish Tradition
Notes
5 The Biblical Dimension of Early Medieval Latin Texts
The scope of the question
The fundamental assumptions
The milieu of scripture
‘The highest truth and true sublimity’
Notes
6 Ancient Irish Law Revisited: Rereading the Laws of Status and Franchise
Notes
7 A Dirty Window on the Iron Age? Recent Developments in the Archaeology of Pre‑Roman Celtic Religion
Introduction
Recent archaeological developments
Druid hunting
Funerary archaeology: underworlds and afterlives
Bounded ritual: sanctuaries and other ‘cult’ sites
From Romano-Celtic to Celtic: Looking back on the Iron Age gods
Interpretatio Romana: mutual accommodation or resisted strategy?
The reluctant synthesisers: the creole gods of the Roman west
From all change to no change: recent archaeological dialogues with medieval texts
Rosmerta/Hwicce: the undying goddess?
Interpreting the Forty Metre Structure, Navan Fort
Diachronic homologies: the Viennese approach to ‘Celtic’ comparison
Our ancestors, the Celts, again?
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Back Cover
