Afterlife and Celtic Concepts of the

Otherworld
 Pharsalia (1.450-1.458) by the Roman poet Lucan (39-65 A.D.):

To your barbarous rites and sinister ceremonies,

O Druids, you have returned since weapons now lie still.
To you alone it is given to know the gods
And spirits of the sky, or perhaps not to know at all.
You dwell in the distant, dark, and hidden groves.
You say that shades of the dead do not seek
The silent land of Erebus or the pallid kingdom of Dis,
But that the same spirit controls the limbs in another realm. [orbe alio]
Death, if what you say is true, is but the mid-point of a long life.
 Happy the peoples 'neath the Northern Star
In this their false belief; for them no fear
Of that which frights all others: they with hands
And hearts undaunted rush upon the foe
And scorn to spare the life that shall return

- supposedly, no punishment in a non-earthly place

- *unidos, Old Irish find, Welsh gwyn

- modern term:
- Pharsalia orbis alius 'another region' +
- analogy with the Christian dichotomy of 'this world' the 'other world'
 Societal Background
Early Celtic Christianity 400 - 800
- Goddess of healing and Brd St Brigit

Heroic Society 400 800 (1000)

- Prospects of punishment in the Otherworld would have contradicted
the basic functioning of heroic society

Anglo-Norman period (end of 11th c)

- Definite end of Celtic church
- New Latin orders with reformed Catholic belief, new value system
- New religious concepts, e.g. celibacy
- Advanced feudal structures (definite end of Heroic Age)
- End of Old Welsh law and transhumance society as a dominating
societal feature
- Destruction of non-Irish Celtic literature 'literature gap'
- Need to propagate new value system
- Re-writing of parts of Celtic literature, e.g. saints' lives (vitae - heroic)
 Selected names for Celtic Otherworlds

chthonic otherworld :
Irish Tr fo Thoinn the land under the wave

chthonic and terrestrial:

Welsh Annwfn (lit. very deep or not-world)
Irish sd (lit. dwelling place/seat -> fairy mound), Welsh kaer sidi (sedd)

horizontally placed otherworlds:

Irish Tr Tairngire the land of promise
Tr na mBe the land of the living
Tr na mBan the land of the women
Tr S(h)orcha the luminous land
Tr na mBua the land of virtues
Magh Mr the great plain
Magh Meall the pleasant realm
Tr na ng the land of youth
 Arthurian Otherworld denotations

Avalon (afterlife location), cf. Irish Eamhain Abhlach.

Welsh Caer Wydyr the fortress of glass
Caer Vedwit the castle of drunkeness

Other:

Welsh Gorsedd 'over-seat, throne'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Irish Magh d Cheo the plain of two mists
Dn Scaith the fort of shadow (dinsheanchas)

- immrama 'lit. rowing about' (voyages in search of the Otherworld, Continental

tradition)
- echtra 'adventures'
 Otherworld features
- Location, e.g. Tr fo Thoinn the land under the wave
- Functions, e.g. healing, e.g. Tr na mBe the land of the living, enjoying,e.g. Tr Tairngire
the land of promise, Caer Vedwit the castle of drunkeness, training, prophecy (Gorsedd)
- Entrances, e.g. difficult to recognise (Annwfn), trees, via the sea, e.g. Avalon, over-land travel,
following sow, ship voyage (immarama), dive deeply, on horse back, a tent, a cliff, a crack in
the ground, in the form of a bird, dreams, states of trance, by climbing
- Food, e.g. berries, apples
- Artefacts, e.g. cauldron (Dagda's cauldron)
- Creatures, e.g. birds, fish, oxen, pigs, the owl, horses, dogs, e.g. Irish: CChulainn 'Culann's
dog', Conchobar, CRoi 'hound of the (battle) field', Condla (= Connla) 'wolf one'; Conaire
'hound; warrior', Conall 'wolfish', Can/Conn/cian'little/young dog, whelp?', Conamlo
'doglike', Congal 'wolfish'; Welsh: Cian 'whelp', Cynan (Ir Conan); British Latin Magloconus
Frst der Hunde -> Welsh Maelgwn; Tartessos: Cunetes - Early Welsh Kynwydion (gang of
dogs/warriors)
=> occ linked to horses, Old Welsh Cnfarch, Middle Welsh Kynfarch 'horse-dog', Irish
Conmarc Dog-horse
- Colours: red and white
- Devoid of dimension of time
Gundestrup cauldron 200 BCE and 300 CE
Transition and decay of the Celtic Otherworlds
1. Groves, Woods => trees
Trystan ac Esyllt (post-Roman - forest)

Culhwch's mother (Y Mabinogion, forest)

(Peredur raised in the woods) => trees
Myrddin (Merlin, 537 Arfderydd)
Suibhne Gilt (Suibne mac Colmin 637)
Diarmait and Grinne
Lleu Llaw Gyffes (Y Mabinogi)
(Blodeuwedd - Y Mabinogi)
 2. Malfunctions

- Impairment: blindness, dumbness

- e.g. Scla muicce Meic Da Th, lit The story of the pig of
the two dumb (people) of Mac Dath's pig
- Cauldron of rebirth: produces impaired fighters (dumb, Y
Mabinogi)
- Finn Mac Cumhaill's wife changes into a corpse each night
- One of his fighters is dead every third night (no use in Heroic Age)
- Colour change: from red/white (still in function in some parts or
modern Ireland) green in later medieval time
- Night becomes anxiety-inducing
 Pagan function of night/darkness

Religious practice
Time of re-creation
Pythefnos '15 nights' (fortnight)
Wythnos '8 nights' (week)
Antronoz 'another night' (next day)
Conchobar born at night
The New Year starts on the 1st of Nov (Samhain)
 3. Punishment of otherwordly figures
- Punishment of dominating females:
- Rhiannon (horse goddess)
- Superiority over her husband Pwyll and later Manawydan
- Female perspective? = last goddess

- Punisment of Aranrhod
- Felt ashamed for (illegitimate) childbirth and loss of virginity
- Latest notion of medieaval love codes, e.g. like courtly love?
- Competing pagan and Christian ideas as one of her sons was baptised and the
other was not (Lleu)
- The non-baptised one (Lleu) got a non-earthly woman

- Last reflexes of pre-feudal female prominence in Celtic society

(cf. Medb/Mabh/Me8a)d(h)dh) and prominent goddesses; cf. also limited status
of saintesses in Norman Europe

- Punishment of Blodeuwedd goes further =>

 Blodeuwedd
Support from otherworld for human Lleu Llaw Gyffes
Flowerwomen (?, cf. blawd, blodau = flowers) <= Tr na mban?
Specifically created for a ruler who could not have a human wife (Lleu)
Send to serve in female function
--------------------------------------------
Second lover: Gronw Pebr
Values in times of courtly love
Murder plot acc. to Siegfried (Nibelungen?), Achill
Pagan Lleu escapes to (pagan) Otherworld (tree)
Punishment of otherworld figure after failure in earthly life
----------------------------------------------
Otherworld becomes afterlife with first features of hell
(darkness, suffering) neo-Christian moralising
Pagan characters have no surviving off-spring
Afterlife and Celtic Concepts of
the Otherworld