A Primer on Gallo-Irish Polytheism - Part 2 : Inside the Nemeton

This series of articles is adapted from reflexions I have shared on other platforms and collated here together for the first time.

I have long been wanting to write specifically about my faith, while being exceptionally timid at the idea of doing so. More so even than the extent of my magical pacts and other witchcraft compacts, the topic of my religious and devotional life is something I have kept quiet and private. In the spirit of honoring one of my spiritual resolutions for this year, which is to be more open and forward in the world about my religious beliefs, I wish to speak publicly about the gods who made me, and the trajectory that was mine. As my theurgy and practices shaped themselves more consistently over time, so too my beliefs refined, and with them my own piety.

Read A Primer on Gallo-Irish Polytheism – Part I : Coming into relationship
Read A Primer on Gallo-Irish Polytheism – Part III : The Gods My People Swear By

“No bird nested in the nemeton, nor did any animal lurk nearby; the leaves constantly shivered though no breeze stirred. Altars stood in its midst, and the images of the gods. Every tree was stained with sacrificial blood. The very earth groaned, dead yews revived; unconsumed trees were surrounded with flame, and huge serpents twined round the oaks. The people feared to approach the grove, and even the priest would not walk there at midday or midnight lest he should then meet its divine guardian.”
– Lucan, 61AD

Nemetâ or Gaulish temples have various designs, but we can infer a typology from the most common styles of such sanctuaries. The striking account from Lucan above might contain some truth to it, but it was also destined to a Roman audience who needed to be convinced of the barbaric nature of a people Rome intended to submit.

A nemeton would typically be a sacred place circled by the randon – a boundary (often a bank or a ditch). The duoricos, or entrance, was thus likely a bridge separating the sacred and the profane, coupled with a monumental gate or portico. At the sacred center of the nemeton were found two important elements : the tenos (fire), representing the goddess Brigantia and forming a point of communication between the Heavens / Upper World and this realm; and the andounnâ (a well or pit, literally, the « waters from below »), in which offerings would be placed or poured – making the andounnâ a point of communication with the Lower World. Then, we find the altar (liccâ), a flat stone onto which sacred objects or offerings could be displayed, including the deluâ (image or icon of the particular divinity of the temple) – which could also be placed in the andounnâ. The last element of a nemeton is the tegiâ, literally « the house », a build up to provide shelter for sacred supplies. 

While our temples are long gone, our faith remains.

A Fairy’s Faith in Celtic Countries

As I have travelled fairly extensively in the Celtic lands old and new, it has, of course, brought me closer to my gods – but it bears mentioning that it was also surprisingly non-instrumental in my overall shaping and understanding of Them. I know that my body is itself an altar, my heart a secret shrine, my soul Their fire blazing.

Who are the Celts is a difficult question to answer. Keltoi seems to have been the name by which Continental Celts reportedly described themselves, according to Greek and Roman scholars, and it has thus been kept as the main delineation. We find Continental Celts moving from a cradle in mainland Europe up to Eastern Europe and the borders of Turkey, going as far north as Germany. The Gauls (from Gallia) were thus found in much of central Europe, and particularly France, Belgium, and Switzerland, from which it is thought they spread to outer regions. And, because we find Insular Celts (the Britons, the Picts, and the Gaels), this also suggests that the Celts were, perhaps like their gods, at least partially immigrants.

Today, Celtic populations are generally understood to be found mainly in the Isles, as well as in Britanny, France (in the long-arm reaching out to the Sea) – which is, in that regard, some kind of an enigma still, Brittany being technically located in continental Europe, but with deep ties and roots to the lands of Alba and Eire, where the Breton population is thought to originate.

Due to the complex matter of most Celtic people having been mainly tribal populations, scholars do not necessarily agree on who or what the Celts were, and prefer to think in terms of a certain cultural continuum. Thus the best way to describe who the Celts were is probably to acknowledge local variances and differences amongst people who nonetheless shared distinctive cultural characteristics such as an established warrior culture, a refined artistic identity, and similar gods – but who were, mostly, brought together retrospectively by an important linguistic foundation suggesting common origin.

Within such a ramified context, we see that to be speaking of ‘Celtic mythology’ like a broad umbrella term is, of course, rather ludicrous: there exist fundamental differences between, say, Gaelic and Gaulish languages, between the lands of Brittany and Scotland, or between Welsh and Irish literatures. And though we know for a fact of the existence of some cognate gods, some of Them more intriguing and puzzling than others – Cathubodua / Badb-Catha, Lugus / Lugh, Brigantia / Brighid; to name but a few – there is simply too much of a wealth of disparities, and no sufficient proof in the archeological evidences recovered, to infer a single, common pantheon, or, for that matter, a single body of myths. Of course, it does not help also that the Celts as a whole did not typically commit their beliefs and practices to the written medium, even under extreme duress (the irony of this article starting to show…). For all these reasons and more, most of our knowledge today sadly comes from external sources, distant both in years and culture.

So, what is there to do ?

We can certainly trace back the gods travelling, make educated assumptions and guesses, and explore possibilities and hypothesis. Particularly as magical practitioners and/or devotees, it is important to understand that, what little evidences we have, we must study, but that our religion, our beliefs, our very core practices, will require, at a certain point, a blind leap of faith – what others would deem UPG, and that I would call, in its highest expression, spirit-inspired or spirit-induced reflections, visions, and knowledge.

Now, let me preface this article, like I did the previous one, by stating outright that the trouble with me is that despite being born and raised French, despite even my own Witch Father being a horned god of the Gauls and Saturnian King of the Underworld indeed, I am not, strictly speaking, a Gaulish polytheist – having, for a start, far too many allegiances and ties with the Irish dé ocus andé which make up the primary landscape of my practices, as well as its core foundations. Nor am I now intentionally drawing mostly from Briton sources, despite living on Briton land. More to the case: my real birth name is indeed a Breton one, but I am not from Brittany (save for potential ancestral considerations). And, while I do practice one form of traditional Irish folk magic / cunning craft called fairy doctoring (essentially a fairy seership lineage codified by initiation from individual to individual, or, on a « first generation » basis, from the Others themselves to the -sometimes involuntary- aspirant), I am afraid it cannot be taught by books, and that there exist little sources about it, for various reasons ranging from a duty of secrecy, to a general distrust of the written medium – making for a tradition relying on oral transmission only. Still, as a non-Irish native – and while, unlike some others, I certainly do not believe that “Irishness” is in any shape or form a safepass to converse with more ease to my lords above and those below – I do not qualify either as a staunch Gaelic Reconstructionist, even after having dipped in and out of such circles for a number of years now. I am not, for that matter, a “true” pagan (staying, as my mentor would put it – our curse and blessing: “too pagan for the witches, and too witch for the pagans”).

I fall nonetheless into Celtic Polytheism, as a whole, and fit my own bill.

Many members of our devotional and theurgical circles tend to frown upon UPG and folk wisdom, preferring to stick to hard won archeological, historical and scholarly evidences. That is all fair, good and well. Still… I believe and have witnessed that there is much fear in the venture, and a deeply rooted anxiety. But our religion is alive. Our gods speak to us constantly, walk with us, love us. Our beliefs are tangible things, shaping the very reality we live in, which we constantly reinterpret. And it is worth re-iterating again here that nobody is made special because gods and spirits talk to them – spirits, and gods in particular, are prone to talk to anybody. What is at stake then, truly at stake, is our capacity to listen.

Cosmology & Mythopoesis of the Sacred

I suppose I rarely think about the origins of the universe. I try to start at the beginning, and the beginnings elude me. Mythopoetically and theurgically, however, it is (surprisingly) enough for me to know that the gods are real. I accept that there are things I do not know, others that I can not know. But it may be worth asking me again in a few months : my theological ideas are in full bloom since the past four years, and I am fleshing them out more and more by the hour.

I do not have all the answers. I do not know how to reconcile the teachings of science with the origins of the gods – I lack details, of course, but mostly, I lack a comprehension beyond the simple human lense of apprehending the world, beyond human consciousness, beyond human dimension. I have small portions of knowledge or belief (for so is the word that I must use, belief, to stay polite, to seem grounded, to appear level-headed, when to me it is not belief but reality) – about such things as fate or magic, or what happens when we die and after; but I do not have a definitive, fully fledged and inflexible cosmology per se.

So, I keep to the little things I can understand. I believe my idea of cosmology is best reflected in my own devotional calendar.

As above, so below. Let us commence where the dawn rises.

• The turn of the Solar Wheel

In the Gaulish polytheism community in particular, unlike in the Gaelic one, a debate is on as to whether the new year ought to happen in the Spring or in the Autumn. When I started to study the Coligny calendar, it gave me a lot to think about as I realized that no matter which system we pick, some months will align quite nicely and others won’t, thus making a rational choice means making a rational choice for oneself. Given that I am inclined to think in a Pan-Celtic capacity, I fell into the second camp (Autumn start) quite naturally as my practice became more and more Gallo-Irish. Samonios / Samhain is thus the start of my calendar year, and if the parallel between the two may still be unsupported fully and rather enigmatic from a linguistic perspective (we don’t fully know that these two words are cognate, and there is no definitive proof that Samonios means either “start” or “end” of summer either way), it makes sense to me this way also because of the somewhat irresistible analogy of the days thought to be starting at sundown, of the feasts / holidays starting on the eve, of the months starting after the new moon, and so on and so forth in Gaelic cultures.

In my practice, the cosmological principles of Light / Dark, Summer / Winter, which we call Samos / Giamos, are best honored following the ritual year, each of them moving like tides with ebbs and flows. Samos is at its peak during the light half of the year, when Giamos finds its strength in the heart of the dark season. This means that they express themselves according to certain affinities – Samos drawing from ouranic qualities, Giamos from chtonic ones. Samos and Giamos are expressed through the Three Worlds or Realms of Land, Sea and Sky – Middle, Lower and Upper Worlds respectively (more on that below). I believe these worlds or realms to ultimately be a combination of each of the light and dark principles, the thaw of creation and destruction present in each – though some realms are naturally more attuned to certain energies due to the gods and spirits who inhabit it – typically, Samos is at home in the Sky due to the light, the heights, the celestial order, and consequently qualities such as truth, fairness, purity; while Giamos would be more apparent in the Sea due to the depths, darkness, and otherworldly, mysterious qualities associated with it. But that is not to say that these principles can only be thought of in terms of polar opposites: rather, it is better to think of them as a fluid spectrum upon which qualities are distributed. I find profound significance in the balance and nuances between these principles, just as night succeeds to day, and believe our mundane world, or earth, to reflect the sacredness of this alternation.

What matters is that the calendar is a thorough application of the Samos and Giamos principles to time, to honour and implement this balance into our life through the rhythms of the seasonal changes. I believe that the meaning of the holidays must be reconstructed from the holidays of the living “Celtic” people. As the cycle of the seasons mirrors the cycles of life and death, as what is above is like unto which is below… I harbor a blurry, unformed, unshaped belief of the world obeying the same ineffable laws of primordial sacrifice and rebirth – from stars collapsing, back to their genesis, to the iron in our blood, and from the fire of the Sun to the one that makes our soul. The more I learn about stars, precisely the more I am coming to see the secret language of their constellations mapping the secret book of the gods, where They both dwell and hold the structure of the universe. An abyss into which we peer, or scry, and which peers back. Depths like the ones of the Sea, the very Sea that is also the Sky, as Night succeeds to Day (for perhaps the night sky is a primordial sea – this is an idea I highly favor).

Cosmologically, there are two guiding foundations to my way of thinking :

• The concept of Fire-in-Water

The description of the typical structure of a nemeton, at the beginning of this article above, posited fire and water as the two complementary substances through which the divine can be accessed – with fire as the soul of Heaven in this world, a medium for the gods above, and water as an Otherworldly portal, a medium for the gods below. But the concept of Fire-in-Water, as a creator principle, is one that is profoundly near and dear to my heart: from the sacred combining of these two elements is magic born, is nectar poured.

Fire-in-Water is thus perhaps the most sacred of the mysteries of my tradition – the source of divine breath, the higher inspiration which creates and shapes or destroys and annihilates, that which animates the soul – literally, inspiration understood as « that which breathes life into », connected to imbas forosnai.

• The Three Realms of Land, Sea and Sky

Three is a sacred number – what is done sunwise and thrice makes things holy and whole.

The world as we know it is split between three realms, at the center of which is the first World Tree – Drus, the Oak. But there are many world trees, many wells of knowledge, many hazel nuts – and many salmons, snakes and primordial dragons to slay or tame.

The Land is the realm of men, shaped by the gods and governed by men – our world, as we understand it. It is the Middle World, that which bridges above and below (Bitus).

The Sea is the black realm « under », that of the Otherworld, of the Dead, of Spirits and Demons. It is the Lower World, and obeys a darker principle of chaos (Dubnos) and raw potential. Every source of water goes back to the Sea, lakes and rivers, ponds and pools, rain and dew, and thus every source of water is a portal, a doorway, an open threshold that can be crossed to access this realm. But this is metaphorically true as well of all thin places that are located « under » (underground) or « in » – such as the fae dwelling under / in their hollow hills. I know water as being the source of life, and as Gaelic beliefs are quite fond of dualities and polarities, it makes sense to me for it to be also the source of death.

The Sky is the Upper World, the heavens as the domain of higher beings, of the planets and stars, of the Exalted kings and queens of the Gods, of the Shining Ones. It obeys a larger principle of order and structure (Albios). But, at night, it is Dubnos, and here we drown again.

Each one is a kingdom in its own right. Manannán Mac Lir is the god who taught me how to see this truth, and how to understand it as a co-dependent trinity, each realm blending into the other, showing me where there is liminality, and where they interact and intersect.

* * *

There are no creation myth, that we know of, in any ‘Celtic’ mythology whatsoever – nor any which survived the passage of Time. Irish lore tells us the gods are of a divine race, skilled beyond what mankind can comprehend, and that They came to the land as invaders, from the Sky, through the Sea (or perhaps it was both ?), clothed in mists and shadows.

Such myths do not teach us how the gods are, nor why the gods are. They do not teach us about what « divinity » is, beyond this idea of unparalleled skill or art, a capacity for magic (which means a capacity for doing and undoing fate), and a capacity for moving and shaping and shaking the land, creating and destroying it.

Direct sources on Gaulish mythology are pretty much non-existent, and I have, at best, what can only be described as a complicated relationship with the written sources of Gaelic mythology. I think this is one of the reasons I do not fare well in Recon communities, where the argument of authority is often to « refer back to the lore », kissing the ground the monks who painstakingly recorded it walked on – that, and how little I care for endless philosophizing. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy debates on linguistical conundrums just as much as anyone else, but not if it prevents me from experiencing, and I have met many a person about whom I have been genuinely wondering whether or not they wished for a living, breathing tradition to begin with. I came to the religion though unorthodox means, and being taught directly, orally, about the Shining Ones, is definitely not the norm.

Gallo-Irish mythological records, be it literature or archeological evidences, are few and far between. We also know them to be incomplete, partial, biased, and, in the case of literature in particular, likely tweaked to serve a particular political agenda. These texts are not written by the people who believed in our gods or upheld Ttheir rituals, but by monks and priests of a different faith altogether, centuries later. And thus every time I immerse myself in the ancient texts, I feel deprived of the very thing I hold in my hands – lore, stories, lineages, myths. I am grateful, of course, for what we have, and am aware of the circumstances that allowed these stories to be passed down, preserved in the first place. It is a true treasure trove, and a lot can be harnessed from it, without needing to coldly dissect, examine and digest it with the tools of rational thinking : the language of the heart, of symbols, of songs, is where it’s truly at. I believe that what little lore we have, we must study of course – but that we cannot allow ourselves to be constrained or restricted by it. Ultimately, I am a folk witch; more interested in the lore and superstition than into endlessly peer-reviewing meager evidences.

We cannot worship the ashes while pretending to build fire, we cannot remove the stem from the root, we cannot have the water but never the fruit, when we know of this simple truth : the gods are real, and They are speaking.

The People’s Lore : Of the Tuath or Toutâ’s Virtue & Ethics

We can think of “the Celts”, just as we can think of « the Greeks » or « the Romans » as being one people tied to a land and unified by a common culture : here, we refer both to the Continental and Insular Celts. As we also outlined, ancient authors such as Caesar noted the way the Gauls, for instance, referred to themselves as Keltoi, and it is apparent that they used to think of them as one ethnicity. However, to speak categorically of « the Celts » would carry no meaning nor nuances in itself. Which Celts ? Where ? When ? Those are ever fundamentally important questions, for endless consideration. To that regard it is important to note again that though we observe common cultural and linguistical patterns, there existed no central authority or rulership, at any given point, in Celtic history, and thus the most accurate way to depict them is to acknowledge the profoundly tribal quality of their settlements, as well as the vast number of local variances. Consequently, we cannot think of the Celts as being one homogenous people, but we can certainly think of them as one people.

There are a lot of characteristics that seem to single out Celtic cultures from neighboring traditions. We know, for instance, of their warfare and strategies as being particularly fierce, with a strong infantry (especially the chariot), but we also know about some other startling aspects of their war tactics and behaviours that seem to really set them apart – such as fighting naked and / or with painted / tattooed body, or about the hunting and collection of severed heads to render a special cult to them (the head being perceived as the siege of the soul), or even the presence of women in position of power / leadership. These are all characteristics that, without any blanket statements, differ greatly from those of similar civilizations. 

The Gods my tribe, people, toutâ or tuath swear by are fond of moral virtues in which one must strive to excel. As an exercise in humility, I shall pick two in which I am deficient, describing how I may improve. Sacredness is a self-contained concept, outlining that which belong to (the realm of) the Gods. The concept of Noibos fits this description, while Slanos delineates what is good and holy. Slanos, is what we, as human beings, can make as close to the divine, as close to Noibos, as possible, without being effectively Gods ourselves. Because we retain a fraction of the divinity of our Gods just by virtue of being of the same tribe, Slanos is also linked to good health, rejuvenation, healing and wholeness, to what is life-giving – for such is the power we are deriving from the Gods.

• Inrextus

I pride myself for my ethics and convictions, which I rationalize, voice, and defend, following my beliefs and morals. Consequently I am known to set up such high standards of integrity, excellence and nobility for myself and for others, that there at times comes a point of inner rectitude and perhaps rigidity making me forget that we are all but too human. Making me forget emotions. For this reason, the second virtue I wish to reflect on and integrate better, is

• Trougocariâ

This is the virtue of the heart, of compassion and pity, as opposed to the firmness of the mind. I have a hard time accepting fallibility in myself and in others, and an even harder time voicing up my feelings. Under the armor of valor and purity, I need to cultivate the heart, to open and nurture it more, until it glows like gold. This means accepting to trust others in their failures and mistakes, to find it in themselves to do better, and to trust myself in listening to my feelings and emotions as a valid mean to understand and communicate.

Bessus means custom (as in tradition), when Rextos refers to the Law. A community needs both in order to build a tradition proper : the laws shape its purpose and, when done right, are an embodiment of the virtues each member of the community should strive to uphold. They maintain the rightfulness and the order by providing ground rules. On the other side of the same coin we find that the customs is what gives soul, body and breath to a living tradition : they become what fleshes out the lineage and cultural particularities, giving it its identity. In maintaining Bessus and Rextos in balance, we are focusing on tending the fire rather than worshipping the ashes. 

Uîros means Truth – as in a greater, cosmic principle to which we, both as a community and as individuals, aspire. The way I understand it, it is tied to the notion of Enech or Enequios (honor / face), itself connected to fate, because it rests on the individuals composing the community, and on their true colours. The faith, our faith, can strive to no greater.

The Toutâ is, always, the sum of its members.