May be representative for Celtic cultures

[starbkjrus]

Congratulations Darrell. Good on ya!

[Pour1Malt]

aye- guid oan ya...

Slainte mhath...

[GlassMan]

With all due respect James.

I think that there hasn't really been a debate that the Celtic culture, holidays and festivals haven't evolved over years of cross cultures. There are as many stories of evolution from the Basques as the Nordic influences. It is what has made our culture. As an Irish Catholic I have come to understand the Pagan influences in our celebrations. I don't think there is any need to play down the influences when discussing our diverse culture. If Darrell has the chance to express some of that in educating his constituents then he should use all of it.

Darrell, I hope all goes well and you can especially get the youth in your area to understand that it's not just wearing a kilt but it's honoring a heritage in so many ways.

A a medieval historian I'd like to add that while there has been much printed recently in the popular press about the great Nordic influence on Scotland (and even Ireland) most of it has not been widely accepted by established academics.

There is hard and fast proof that genetically there is a larger Nordic influence on the blood lines of Scotland, especially along the northern coastline, than there is Celtic. The problem is that much of the popular explanations of this (and even some of the more radical published works) tend to conflate this genetic Nordic contribution with cultural contribution. Sadly, many are once again falling into a trap from the early 20th century in which there is the assumption that the genes of a people pass on the culture of a people. It's just not the case. And just because a TV series picks up on an idea and popularizes it (even if it's an education TV show made by PBS in the USA or the BBC) doesn't make it any more accepted by those with the most training in the field.

There are still far more similarities between Scots & other Celtic peoples from all over Europe than there are between Scots & Norseman.

So if you wish to talk about the Celtic cultural contributions, I say talk about it. The Nordic contribution is definitely worth mentioning, but it would be incredibly incorrect to imply that there's nothing Celtic about Scottish culture. Scottish culture & language has borrowed many good things from the Nordic invaders but they were not replaced by Nordic culture.

For example, kilt is derived from a norse word, but it was the word used by the Nordic invaders to describe the garment worn by the men they encountered upon arriving in Scotland. It was not a garment that they themselves imported and introduced to Scotland. So while we can easily ascertain some Nordic influence we can't claim the kilt as being anything other than a pre-existing celtic item of clothing.

[James]

I would thank CKelly 327 & Glassman for their comments: and would remind them that I endorsed the original aim to tell of our culture.

My purpose being to ask that any account be balanced, and that the old and now being questioned Celtic emphasis be tempered by the fact that our heritage is as has been stated an amalgam of various influences, be they cutural, and or of blood.

There is no doubt that the present very real debate will run and run, and no one today can say what the outcome will be. The positive aspect being that at last the 19thC Celtic romantic mythology is now being examined; and other influences being considered.

A romantic image which many who like myself who are clansmen by right rather than adoption or association would like to see dispelled: for we would prefer to live with the truth, rather than hide under some romantic shroud.

I'm sorry of this appears harsh, but we are a harsh race.

James

[Valencian Kilted]

I am just a history lover, and celt world has always interested me, over all from my spanish point of view.

Here we had, if we follow the roman writings of it, celts that came from Gaul many centuries before the roman conquer of Spain, but at the time they came here, the "pure" celtic peoples were settled on the north and north-west areas. If you can get a map of Spain nowadays, I can say that they were settled on Galicia and Asturias. At side of Asturias there were the Cantabrians, some kind of "local" people, as rough and brave as the celts, but they never considered themselves as celts. At side of Celts there were the baskians and Vaccei. The baskians NEVER mixed with other peoples, if we follow their traditional way of thinking and they remained almost undisturbed in their valleys and mountains until they became integrated in the Kingdom of Castille or in Navarre in the middle ages (at least, that's the base for their nowadays nationalism!), and the vaccei were some kind of mix of Cantabrians with the biggest peoples of all over ancient Iberia: The Celtiberians. They covered the area south of the celts, as if you could trace a diagonal line from the french border in Catalonia to southern Portugal.

As their name says, they were the mix of Celts with the mediterranean Iberians of the east and south areas... again the mixes.... :rolleyes:

No scandinavian influence can be found here until the middle ages, when some viking incursions attacked Galicia sometimes, so, no nordic influence at all, but in Galicia you find lots of "trísquels", celtic crosses, and the same legends and misteries that you can find in Ireland, Scotland and Brittany. Just for your info, the famous Lugh from Ireland was considered to come from Galicia, and that has always been an Irish legend, not known in Spain, but,... one of the four province capitals of galicia is called... Lugo. Maybe we have forgotten a lot of that celtic heritage here, but if we scratch a little deeper,... we notice that everything is mixed under our skin!

¡Salud!

T O N O

[mkmound]

This begs the question...

Do they want you to join to learn about your ancestry, or to see you in a kilt?

being a group of women, I'd say more of the latter...

KT, you don't see this as bad, do you?

Mark

[Kilted KT]

KT, you don't see this as bad, do you?

Mark

good lord no, I feel any chance to expand the kingdom of the kilt is a great thing, especially if at the request of the fairer sex.

[GlassMan]

I would thank CKelly 327 & Glassman for their comments: and would remind them that I endorsed the original aim to tell of our culture.

My purpose being to ask that any account be balanced, and that the old and now being questioned Celtic emphasis be tempered by the fact that our heritage is as has been stated an amalgam of various influences, be they cutural, and or of blood.

There is no doubt that the present very real debate will run and run, and no one today can say what the outcome will be. The positive aspect being that at last the 19thC Celtic romantic mythology is now being examined; and other influences being considered.

A romantic image which many who like myself who are clansmen by right rather than adoption or association would like to see dispelled: for we would prefer to live with the truth, rather than hide under some romantic shroud.

I'm sorry of this appears harsh, but we are a harsh race.

James

No offence was taken as none was intended. I agree that we need to see that there is an amalgam of traditions within our Scottish or Irish or Welsh cultural legacies.

And I applaud the aim of many historians of the Early Middle Ages or the pre-history of the Celtic peoples as they attempt to strip away all the romantic BS heaped upon us by the Victorians.

My worry (and my post) was aimed more at the work of several so-called "scholars" who have attempted to portray Scottish culture as more of Nordic origin not out of a desire for accuracy but because they find it difficult to believe that the red & blond hair of Northern Scotland was not accompanied by Nordic Aryan culture. Sadly, one article I read even used that horrible phrase with the intention of harkening back to its emotional and dreadful implications from the early 20th century. More for political reasons they feel the need to link themselves to a "pure" Aryan past rather than a Celtic past which their beliefs cause them to feel is inferior.

From your post it seems that you ARE NOT one of those deluded souls and that you simply want as full an examination of our past as possible while stripping off romantic nonsense.

So as for acknowledging and celebrating all of the ways that our common culture has both remained overwhelmingly Celtic while adopting and adapting much from newer arrivals, I am fully in support. But I cannot, based on the best of current scholarship, endorse the view that there was wholesale importation of Norse culture.

I think we should always be careful however whenever the revelation of genetic similarities creates an expectation of cultural similarities.

[Kilted KT]

I love how we have two completely different levels of conversation about the same topic in the same thread...and they both are very pertinent to the topic at hand....

the multi-tasking abilities of the kilt are astounding!

[GlassMan]

That really does say something about both the generally high level of intelligence on this board. And the extremely polite way we always handle ourselves is also a testament to the good character of those men who chose to wear kilts.