What's funny about that is modern pagans trying to categorize these native belief systems and being like oh I follow the Irish deities therefore I cant follow the Brythonic or Norse ones, when the pagans themselves did not do this. A pagan in Ireland that heard about a deity they liked from Wales would not have said Oh I cant follow this deity cause I'm Irish not only did that label not exist yet it goes against the nature of polytheism. Its far more likely that the deity would have been changed just slightly so that it would fit in with local tradition and many gods of the old world are believed to be just that different interpretations of the same deities.
The Romans and Egyptians are the prime exemple of this They took many deities from surrounding nations and converted them into their culture to fit in It is still happening in modern pagan nations today like Thailand, Japan, China… in which you can see culturally fitting representations of Indian deities due to the influence of Buddhism
Given that Gaels Gauls Picts Welsh ect would of likely had a similar pantheon just by different names like the Romans Greeks and Egyptians god's practically being the same with different names and some having the same/different roles in each cuktures
Thats exactly how I view it, 😢some modern pagans like to separate it and look down on folks who pray or worship deities from different pantheons -eclectic pagan
Goddess, I love your wallpaper....thank you for the photos of Edinburgh, home of some of my ancestors. There are often dieties listed in medieval genealogies as well. At least mine mentions Bran and Branwen in Wales.
@@KrisHughes It's bonny and delightful. I like how the ducks on the shelf seem to fit in with it too. It's cool that it's blue - very Pict/Scottish, I think.
Thanks so much for this video! This time period is so confusing, and its difficult for us to understand a world that had flexible borders and true polytheism when we are so used to putting everything into little boxes and categories. I'm going to watch this a few times to help make it stick! ❤
As a Scottish person who has been living in the states for 20 years I can appreciate the small impacts living in Scotland has had on your accent (as I have had the same in reverse). When you say "perfect" for example - it is a perfect Scottish "perfect" :) Thanks for this interesting video!
I grew up in Peebles and wandered the hills and Glen's .Later as an adult and interested in archaeology , history and contact with place, I had a number of experiences at certain sites .One hill fort had what appeared to be its own energy in diety form at another it was a wall of energy .At a particular glen it was Epona.I experienced it as I found it. Others with me would on ocassion be taken up with 🐎 and have experiential changes,situations,and coincidental events of significance appear to link up , which were profound and life changing in a good way.Its hard to explain but I witnessed it my self . Enjoyed your talk and genuineness 😊
Yes. I think I have probably had more "feels" at hill forts than at so-called sacred sites. But also rivers and burns - especially if you walk the same stretch repeatedly.
@@KrisHughes for my friend it was a bit more than that ,long story short having changed her first name to the name of a certain hill fort she had decided was her spot the actual spirit of the place introduced it's self on her bus to work by saying your not @#£% I am and proceeded to heal a very old wound she had when she lost something years before .You literally couldn't make it up.
@@harrisonofthenorth not really sure what you mean but Scots is from old Saxon German and gaelic is from Dalriada and both reflect the political changes but the energies of place are still there what ever the language .The fact that place names have not been changed suggests a continuity.
I don't think we can be "too eclectic". To me that means choosing whatever works best for each person. Thank you for this video. I want to hear more from you. (LTB, age 78)
I've come to realise that the reason for purity (Gaels will never be Gauls yadda yadda), is probably a fear reaction to early Wicca (this is the Celtic old religion, blessed be the loving earth mother archetype Morrighan etc). The resulting reconstructionist model with pure lines, useful for starting a scholarly study of a culture, still ends up gatekeeping and rejecting ideas such as historical syncretism and cognates. One that's been circling in my brain lately is the Milesian origin story (Spain or Portugal), and how certain Gaulish gods made their way down there (Sucellus and Lug). Did they get transported to Ireland 🤔 I've often wondered about the similarities between the older Sucellos and the literature era Dagda, but there's a new idea floating around about possible similarities between Morrighan and Nantosuelta (raven iconography, etc). But what makes it particularly peculiar and a hell of a coincidence if they're not related is that Morrighan is paired with Dagda and Nantosuelta is paired with Sucellos. So it's not about finding two deities with similarities, but finding two pairs (FOUR individuals) with similarities. And the Recons I know would reject a connection on principle.
I honestly don't know what to make of it all. There seem to be so many new theories floating around based on (to my mind) very wobbly comparisons. Wobbly, often, because we lost Gaulish myth, and I don't believe we can magic it up through comparative mythology, myself. Yet, so many people are unwilling to look at comparisons between Welsh and Irish texts and folklore which are pretty well documented.
While Wicca does draw on some historical practices from ancient Irish and Scottish faiths, it was only invented in the 1950s. A good example is the idea of the wheel of the year - Imbolc, Bealtaine, Samhain, and Lughnasadh are actual ancient Celtic festivals, but others like Ostara/Easter never had anything to do with the Insular Celts. It is entirely a modern religion less than 100 years old.
My Husband is a Descendent of Daniel Robbins in Scotland his was Daniel Robertson of the Clan Robertson we did a DNA recently. We we're saw a video about how one of his Ancestors used a crystal ball?? For what reason we don't know ?
Thank you so much for this video. I have only just found your channel, but, very quickly, you put my mind at rest. As far as I am aware my family home is north eastern Scotland and I have been told that my name is Pictish, which came as a surprise as I thought it was Celtic. Whatever, I have always identified as a Celt, and perhaps have become a little ‘hung up’ on this. However I have fairly recently become a Pagan and feel a new freedom, almost as if I now have wings. In short my view of human spirituality is that it is, in its different ways, global and your talk spoke to me on that level.
I'm glad you found it helpful. Findlay is just an Anglicised version of Fionnlaigh. The name's roots are definitely in Irish and Gaelic, not Pictish/Brythonic. Of course, by the end of the Pictish era they were speaking Gaelic ... People from the northeast would be likely to have more Pictish heritage than those from the south, perhaps, but most people in Scotland are going to have a variety of ancestors. Celtic is an umbrella term - it really refers to a linguistic group, not a genetic one. That includes languages like Welsh, Irish, Gaelic, and almost certainly, Pictish (although there's not much record of the Pictish language to go on). The best take I've heard on having Scottish ancestry is this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SjIarezmmcM.html
@@KrisHughes it's written and pronounced gallic in scotland , no the mythical made up gaelic. findlay is a scottish name (you will find ireland is full of scottish names). the galls/gauls were always at war with the romans in the frankish regions of europe. they fled to england to escape the romans but when the romans invaded england they then fled to and settled in scotland. hence.....gallic.
How many fled England to what's now known as Scotland when the Romans advanced north and how many fled west to Wales before that? Scotland is definitely heavily influenced by the Irish....we all got mixed up in the British isles and the fighting that ensued after the Romans left seems ridiculous but it happened.
I was born and raised in Southern US. I have a lot of Scottish ancestry and so I have jus began tryin to learn Scottish gaelic. I also have alot of northern European ancestry as well. As an American pagan of those two totally different ancestral backgrounds I do my best to honor both. Thank you for talking about these topics!❤
Thank you for your video, this was very interesting!!!! It can be hard at times to know where one belongs when oneʼs ancestors are from Britain, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Germany, Ukraine, and Native American. I feel my ancestors from all these places but my Welsh ancestor came to America in 1634 and I am connected to the land in America.
I live in the northern US, but my spirit remains connected to my Pictish ancients in the trees of Scotland... The mountains are from the same range, torn apart and separated by time, distance and a vast expanse of water.... but the families who've been here forever sound the same to my ear as a light brogue
the god mogon stumps me,,, the map of tribes also needs the Gadeni tribe in and around Jedburgh,,,, river Jed = river Gad ,very interesting thank you ,also the river Tweed spawned the name Tweedie ,lore has it ,a funny tale but not for the husband
No - Hamish isn't in this painting, although he could belong in it. It's Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley MacLean, Norman MacCaig, and a number of other poets. The painting is called 'Poets' Pub'. It's by Alexander Moffat. It hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. The scene had mostly faded away by my time, but you would still sometimes see a few of these chaps about at a pub, or doing a reading somewhere.
I've just bought the book: Celtic Scotland by Ian Armit. Haven't read yet, but by snopse it may be well informative about the ancient Celtic gods who were worshiped there. I've heard Gruagach is said to be an early Pictish deity, that was adopted by the Celts later.
That's a really good survey or Scottish archaeology of the late bronze age and iron age, but you won't find much about deities. Some very tentative speculation about religion of the type fashionable in 1990s archaeology is about all.
But the deities of Gaul Breton Ireland are similar more likely the same the main groups so makes sense we know Dagda is Sucellas Lugh is Lughus there's more lol
There’s similar philosophical issues with how Religion should or should not be defined purely in terms of Ethnicity alone in the Ancient Near East/West Asia and elsewhere, including Egypt. I wish there were more videos like this because while I’m against eclecticism in the sense of being anti cultural imperialism, I do have many problems with the cultural purity views & modern nation state narratives used to define Ancient Religions in Neopagan & Polytheistic circles. ETA: Edited for clarity.
This was great, I think you did a wonderful job of highlighting the layering and complexity that exists in Scotland due to the way cultures/languages have waxed and waned throughout our cultures evolution. Not that I’ve experienced first hand, but as a first generation disporia from lutruwita (tasmania, australia). But that’s also the feeling I’ve gotten as I’ve begun to learn. To draw from one and only one, feels quite forced. To me it the gods/goddesses are experienced in relation, that they will meet you where ever your at, so long as you take the time to get to know them and learn as much of their surviving lore from those who do live on the lands they come from. As someone who has a Scottish mother and a English father, and being a transgender 7th child, I feel that I swim in a space very much full of liminalitay and that Scotlands future has space for all these expressions of deity, so long as one uphold our beliefs of hospitality. As a member of Clan Macdonald of Clanranald I’ve also found a profoundly healing story related to St Julian, though I don’t connect with the bible much at all ☺️ clandonald-heritage.com/the-legend-of-st-julian/
Another from lutruwita. Was looking at something on SBS last night about an individual taking trains across Scotland, and I noticed that a lot of it reminded me of Tas. Except we lack passenger trains. Need passenger trains.
Thank you. I felt you navigated your way really well through the anticipated online turbulence. It’s all thought-provoking and your contribution was authentic.
my son just got back his dna results. it was completely unexpected. i was always told i was french and italian with a smattering of irish...well my boy's results show he is 34% french and 16% scottish. apparently i have zero italian and not even a smattering of irish but a considerable amount of scottish. now i really need to get myself tested to see what's what.
May I ask which part of Ireland your ancestors were said to have come from? There was an attempt by the English government in the early 17th century, if I recall correctly, to make Ireland Protestant via colonization. I know Northern Ireland is reflective of that period in history with the heavy Protestant population so maybe technically you are of Irish descent, just not genetically.
@mirandagoldstine8548 , no mention was ever made of where in ireland. the family is predominantly french so nobody much cared about the rest. my grandmother was adopted into a french family. it seems she is where the scottish comes from. which makes sense for the % percent that my boys each have. i'm still not tested yet but would guess i'm close to 50/50 french/scottish. which does kind of make sense if my grandmother's heritage is from nova scotia. it's just a short sail from nova scotia to tres rivieres.
Ah. That would explain a good deal. I was asking because I was curious if your family perhaps had a connection to Ulster. @@jocr1971 Definitely do a genetic analysis. It will help fill in gaps but it might also raise more questions. That’s what happened when my family and I got our DNA analyzed. It confirmed what I was told and what my folks and I thought the results would be but also raised a huge question on my mom’s side.
the Scotti were Irish,so i would imagine that they kept to Irish panthion. The rest were brythonic celts and i'd have thought that THEY were following their own. Do you think that correct.? That being said, I agree with you,in your views.
I'm not sure that the "Dalriada zone" - by which I would include the northeast tip of Ireland - was clearly Irish or British in its culture. I'm not pushing any big, radical theory with that, just that there seems to have been a lot of contact and travel between there and Islay/Kintyre over many centuries, so things may have been a bit fuzzy.
John- have you forgotten that the very name Scotland comes from princess Scotta whom eloped from Egypt? That kind of adds a whole new foundation in my (autistic) mind and am new to this research but after studying symbols and words quite a while I do feel it’s worth not forgetting and making those connections to sun and set worship and of course the numerous ancient powers. Did you have any Scottish ones in mind- the god Py/e after 3.14 comes to mind for some reason also but possibly because I’m born in Dundee however hailing from Keiss these days 😂🧡🌈🏴🔥 just liking a decent conversation no offence nor prodding intended ✌🏻
@@KrisHughes the scotti is a mythical tales written by medieval irish monks to create an history for ireland.....it's written and pronounced gallic in scotland coming from the gauls/gall from the frankish region of europe. the would after a few generations crossed over to ireland here's the origins of the "gaels" in ireland. type in.....who was queen scotia princess scotias grave and other facts guide to life......cruithine were also scottish. dalriada most likely originated in scotland and spread to ireland.
Scotland and Ireland have several of the same basic characters and so does Wales.......... Where lots of modern get confused is many don't know Scotland's Otherworld name is Elphame not to get confused the the viking spelling Alfheim, while Ireland calls the otherworld Tir na Nog.
I am currently looking for information on a Goddess associated with a Hare and an apple. She has a tartan plaid over one shoulder and dark hair. Any info would be very appreciated.
I'm from england from my Dads side of the family name is Irish and from my mum's side her Dad is Scottish native from the macdonald clan and we have roots with somerland norse Gaelic Lord of the island and I'm a pagan
May I ask why you didn’t bring up the Ossian or fingal? Are they considered fraudulent in Scotland? I heard you mention Finn McCool but isn’t he Irish? It almost seems like the Irish want to claim anything Celtic, even if it originated in Scotland
Certainly James MacPherson's "Ossian" was a kind of forgery. I wouldn't see Fingal as a deity, myself - just a character of legend. (YMMV, of course!). I think we can safely say that Finn Mac Cumhaill's stories originate in Ireland, in spite of being very popular and well "naturalised" in Scotland.
I always saw Ossian as a "forgery" in the sense that it wasn't a translated old manuscript, but rather MacPherson taking the stories he'd grown up with and putting them into a collection of sorts. Regarding the Irish, it's important to remember that their mythology is more accurately Gaelic in nature, so the Scottish and the Manx can claim links to it as well. A big reason it's claimed as uniquely "Irish" is because Ireland had it's Gaelic revival a while back and the stories became a point of pride for Nationalists. Also it's important to remember that Gaelic Myth isn't the only folklore found in Scotland. A strong argument can be made that the heart of the countries cultural origins are in the West and the Northern Highlands, but local folklore is also important, even if it isn't as epic in scope.
Scottish witchcraft a complete guide to authentic folklore, spells and magickal tools by Barbara meiklejohn free - is a really good book the author is Scottish and has a lot of knowledge and tells stories from her own experiences as well as history ect. Hope this helps ! 🫶🏻
@@invadertifxiii A simple way to research this is if you know Brigid's scottish name, she's the primary one in Irish myths. These Mother Goddesses are numerous, in Europe's untold history they're countless.
