Trying to settle

[Toxikmynd]

After a lot of time, I've finally come to rest or at least trying to do so, and I've become a Celtic pagan, but haven't chosen any specific set of Celtic deities nor have I learned enough to consider myself practicing. I find it sort of difficult to find satisfactory material on Celtic forms of Paganism, but I will make do with what I have so far. If anyone knows anything more, I would appreciate info regarding it.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I hope you have gone through the Wikipedia pages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_mythology

 

[Toxikmynd]

I hope you have gone through the Wikipedia pages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_mythology

Why do you say it like that?

 

[Quintessence]

You're going to have trouble finding satisfactory materials because all that we know of Celtic society comes to us from second hand accounts and relics. It's not like studying Hellenic mythos where we have actual words written by actual Hellenes. What we have for the indigenous Paganisms of the British Isles are a bunch of tales recorded by Christian scribes, hearsay and observations by folks like Caesar, and physical archeological relics whose true purpose and meaning we can only speculate about. We have things like the Gundestrup cauldron, but nobody really knows what all those images meant to the people who crafted it. We have things like the Mabinogion, which we know was heavily Christianized, even though the tales have roots in indigenous Paganisms. Irish folklore came through a little bit better in that regard, but whenever oral traditions are put to writing, you're going to loose something.

Put simply, the list of things we don't (and can't) know through academic study is massive, because of the limited things that survived. Which means some of the stuff you run into on the market is personal gnosis of modern Pagans directly experiencing the Spirit of the Land in Ireland or Britain, and authors aren't always good about making a distinction between their gnosis and what is scholastically supported. So I guess a good piece of advice is if you're looking to go heavy-recon, good luck. I would not pick this pantheon if that is your intent, because you have to use "questionable" sources whether you want to or not given what survived. A saner approach IMHO is to be inspired by the things that did survive, understanding that traditions were oral, stuff wasn't written down by the actual Pagans who created them, etc.

One thing that's been recommended by people I trust is the Celtic Myth Podshow. I haven't listened to very many episodes of it, as I'm not really that into the old lore, but the way these stories are supposed to be told is by a proper bard in keeping with the oral traditions.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

Wat Quint said. If you're looking for a path with historical sources backing up or detailing its mythology then Celtic Paganism probably isn't for you.

 

[Aupmanyav]

My interest in it is because of a theory about original home of Aryans (Urheimat) and the diffusion of their mythology in far areas. If it interest you, you might go through Chapter XII of a book by BG Tilak, "Arctic Home in Vedas" available at https://archive.org/details/TheArcticHomeInTheVedas. It is about Compartive Mythology.

 

[Quintessence]

Oh, a couple other things to add - Ronald Hutton is probably the main authority on the indigenous Paganisms of the British Isles. His book "The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy" you might be able to find at your local public library (that's where I first found it, though it has been many years since I read it). He has a bunch of other books too, so I'm just going to link to the list from Goodreads here. Another good couple of authors to check out are Caitlin Matthews and John Matthews (who often coauthor books together). I can't promise historicity with their approach like you'd get with Hutton, but I've liked the stuff of theirs I've read. They're both fairly respected historians and folklorists, just not quite on the same level of academic tread as Hutton.

 

[Sees]

I like this website overall, particularly the section on values http://www.tairis.co.uk/

The introduction makes a good point that there is multiple strands of Celtic traditions.

Looking up anything and everything about Celtic cultures, not only stuff dealing with pre-Christian times, is the best thing to do. Specifically searching for material that is supposed to be directly about religion, mythology, spirituality won't give you nearly as much - think culture as a whole...and how the mindset and values are reflected.

 

[Aupmanyav]

@Toxikmynd , something which may interest you. My post in 'Dharmic Religions DIR;:

"This particular hymn is important because the last two verses mention that there were seven suns (sons of God Mother, Aditi), but the eighth was born unformed who was changed into human kind who would be born and die. There are views that this describes a continuous day for seven months in the Arctic homeland of Aryans where sun-light failed in the eighth month (counting from March, in October). That is when the a two or three month long night came and the specific 'night sacrifices' ('Ratri Kratu') were started. This is known as Samhain in Irish mythology and among the Welsh as Nos Galangaeaf, or the Night of the winter Calends. After all, January and February were added to the Roman calendar only in 700 BC by Emperor Numa, otherwise the old Roman calendar had only 10 months of 304 days."

If we calculate the beginning of the year as it was in the golden age (from the beginning of the night, spring became the beginning of the year later), then the Indian beginning comes to 10th of October while the Irish beginning comes to 20th of October.
The RigVeda hymn: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv10072.htm
http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/existence-arising-out-of-non-existence.190262/#post-4870949

 

[Toxikmynd]

I'm pretty happy with where I am, I just strive for more information with everything I get interested in. Mind you I still feel my occasional pulls towards Ibadi Islam or Orthodox Christianity, but that's only really because I want answers and they have easier paths to them.