The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts

AEDAN MAC GABRAIN

Aedan mac Gabrain was King of Dal Riada in south-western Scotland. He was probably born about 550 and became king in 574. He named his firstborn son Arthur (Artorius), probably after the great Arthur, the overking who had recently died.

According to the Life of Columba, Aedan was unsure which of his three sons—Arthur, Eochaid Find, or Domingart—would be his successor. St. Columba chillingly prophesied that “none of these three shall be king, for they shall fall in battle, slain by their enemies; if you have any younger sons let them come to me, and the one the Lord has chosen will at once rush into my lap.” Fortunately, Aedan did have more sons. It was Eochaid Buide who ran straight to Columba.

Arthur and Eochaid Find were killed shortly afterward in the Battle of the Miathi in about 575–80. Domingart was defeated and killed in battle in “Saxonia,” which was presumably what is now eastern England. Eochaid Buide did indeed become king, 608–29. Aedan himself lived on until 609.

AEDUI

A Gaulish tribe, with its main center at Bibracte. According to the Roman historian Livy, the Aedui joined the expedition of Bellovesus into Italy in the sixth century BC. Around 90 BC they became allies of Rome. When they were invaded and defeated by their neighbors the Sequani, they sent Diviciacus the Druid to Rome to appeal to the senate on their behalf.

When Julius Caesar arrived in Gaul in 58 BC, he restored their independence. Even so, the Aedui joined the coalition of Gaulish tribes against Caesar. After Vercingetorix surrendered at Alesia, however, they were glad to go back to supporting Rome. Augustus ordered Bibracte, their native capital on Mont Beuvray, destroyed; it was replaced by a new town, Augustodunum (Autun).

AGRICOLA

SeeAircol (#ulink_a3052a90-367a-5add-b559-312066bc8715).

AILLEL MOLT

The High King of Ireland in the late fifth century. There were several major kings in Ireland, of Leinster, Munster, Connacht, Ui Neill, and Uliad, with many petty kings and sub-kings beneath them. Aillel Molt was their overking. He was killed by an alliance of Irish kings in the Battle of Ocha in 482. Then the High Kingship fell to King Loegaire’s son Lugid.

AIRCOL

A Dark Age king of Demetia (south-west Wales), Aircol was also known by the Latin form of his name, Agricola. His father’s personal name was forgotten by the chroniclers, who referred to him only as “The Tribune.”

Dark Age Celtic leaders valued what was to them a precious Roman legacy; in their minds, using Latin gave them higher status, and they invariably used it on their memorial stones, sometimes alongside their native Celtic names. For example, a sixth-century memorial stone near Chesterholm is inscribed: “Brigomaglos, who is also Briocus, [lies] here.”

Aircol was one of the two Dark Age kings Gildas praised. He was also mentioned as an exemplary warrior hero by Taliesin. Cynan Garwyn of Powys was described in battle in Aircol’s own kingdom, as “like Aircol himself on the rampage.”

Aircol died in 515 and was succeeded by his son Gordebar, or Vortipor the Protector.

AMBIANI

A Celtic tribe in Gaul, with its main center at Samarobriva (later Amiens). In 57 BC, the year of Julius Caesar’s campaign against the Belgae, the Ambiani were said to be able to raise 10,000 armed men to fight. They joined the great Gaulish rebellion against Rome.

AMBIORIX

The chief of the Eburones tribe in Gaul at the time of the Battle of Alesia (see Places: Alesia (#litres_trial_promo)).

AMBROSIUS AURELIANUS

The battle leader, or dux bellorum, of the British in their struggle against the Anglo-Saxons. He was the leader who succeeded Vortigern (and may have been responsible for ousting him from power) and immediately preceded Arthur. It is odd that he is mentioned by the sixth-century historian Gildas, then in the eighth century by Nennius, but by no other historian until the Middle Ages. He nevertheless existed. Gildas describes him as a modest man, which is a surprising quality in a battle leader.

He appears to have been a Celtic nobleman and it has been suggested that the “Ambros” place-names may represent the stations of the units that he raised and led, styled Ambrosiaci. This is an attractive idea, but it is unclear how Amberley, deep in West Sussex and very close to the south Saxon heartland, could possibly have functioned as such a base for Celtic troops.

The Latinized form, Ambrosius, of the Celtic name Ambros or Emrys may have been given by a chronicler, or adopted by Emrys himself as a badge of formal respectability, something that many other British noblemen did (see Aircol (#ulink_a3052a90-367a-5add-b559-312066bc8715)). It does not prove, as some have proposed, that he was a member of a Roman family who stayed on after the Roman troops left. He represents a class of post-Roman native British aristocrats who clung to an older order of things and disapproved of Vortigern’s reckless politicking with the untrustworthy Germanic colonists.

It is likely that Ambrosius was a focus for dissent among the Britons over the way Vortigern was leading the confederation to disaster.

Gildas describes how Ambrosius’ leadership marked the beginning of a more successful phase for the British:

When the cruel plunderers [the Saxons attacking the British in about 460] had gone back to their settlements, God gave strength to the survivors [the British]. Wretched people flocked to them from all directions, as eagerly as bees when a storm threatens, begging burdening heaven with unnumbered prayers that they should not be destroyed. Their leader was Ambrosius Aurelianus, a gentleman who, perhaps alone of the Romanized Britons, had survived the shock of this great storm [the Saxon invasion of Britain]; certainly his parents, who may have worn the purple, were slain in it. Under him our people regained their strength and challenged the victors to battle.

After this the British started to win battles, and they were eventually rewarded with the overwhelming victory at Badon.

Another view of Ambrosius comes from Nennius’ Miscellany. There Ambrosius is “the great king among all the kings of the British nation.” This may mean only that his reputation grew steadily after his death, that he was promoted by history, rather as Arthur would be a little later. It may alternatively be a genuine reflection of Ambrosius’ status as dux bellorum.

Interestingly Cynan of Powys was later to be called Aurelianus, which may have been another title of the dux bellorum.

Although it is not known where Ambrosius came from or where he lived, Amesbury in Wiltshire is possible. Amesbury was spelt “Ambresbyrig” in a charter dated 880 and may derive its name directly from Ambrosius himself. If he held Salisbury Plain as his estate, or at any rate this part of it, he would have controlled the critical north-eastern corner of Dumnonia. The frontier of Dumnonia was marked by an earthwork called the Wansdyke, and it lies 7 miles (12km) north-east of Amesbury. Where Ambrosius’ stronghold was is not known, but it may have been the Iron Age hillfort known as Vespasian’s Camp, just 1 mile (1.6km) to the east of Stonehenge. This spacious fort would have made an excellent rallying-point for the forces Ambrosius gathered; it would also make sense of the otherwise inexplicable association that Geoffrey of Monmouth made between Ambrosius and Stonehenge.

From about 460 Ambrosius is said to have organized an island-wide resistance of the British to the Anglo-Saxon invasion. His campaign prospered. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is silent about this period, suggesting that the British were in the ascendancy; there is no boasting of a Saxon victory until 473. Gildas enthused about Ambrosius: “though brave on foot, he was braver still on horseback.” This implies a preference for cavalry action, which his successor, Arthur, would share. “The Britons fled to him like swarms of bees who fear a coming storm. They fought the war with Ambrosius as their leader.”

Fanciful legends were later embroidered round this heroic figure. It was said that in Ambrosius’ reign Merlin the magician brought the stones of Stonehenge over from Ireland and set them up in Wiltshire. This does not square with the geology or archeology of Stonehenge. The sarsen stones came from the chalk downs near Avebury; the bluestones came from Pembrokeshire. Both arrived on Salisbury Plain in the middle of the third millennium BC—and that was long, long before the time of Ambrosius Aurelianus.

AMMINIUS

One of three sons of Cunobelin. The Catuvellaunian kings enlarged their sphere of influence to include Kent, which became Amminius’s fiefdom, with Canterbury as his capital. There was some kind of family quarrel, as a result of which in AD 40 Amminius fled to Rome—the Rome of the emperor Caligula. His arrival with some sort of complaint about the way he had been treated gave Caligula a welcome pretext to reopen the question of Britain.

Julius Caesar had failed to annex Britain for the Roman Empire, but it was still on the wish list for conquest. The strength of Catuvellaunian control in south-eastern Britain was such that an invasion could not be undertaken lightly. If the divine Julius could not conquer Britain, could Caligula conquer it? In AD 40 he got as far as the Channel coast at Boulogne before losing his nerve and returning to Rome.

In AD 43, after the assassination of Caligula, his successor, Claudius, determined to invade, and he succeeded.

ANEIRIN

SeeThe Gododdin (#ulink_a2c762ed-d8e8-5e2d-9431-44902c123fbc).

ART

Celtic art has often been compared with classical art, the art of Iron Age Greece and Rome, and been found wanting. European and North American artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries tended to look to classical models.

Celtic art comes closer in spirit to some of the art movements of the twentieth century. The Celtic artist looked at a model, whether human or animal or part of the physical landscape, and tried to reduce it to its raw essentials. The aim was to simplify and so draw attention to certain raw qualities or characteristics. The carving might be done with care, without necessarily producing a “realistic” representation of the model. The same is true of the bronzes, many of which have survived in good condition. The Matisse-like figurine of a naked woman dancing is a superb piece of Celtic art: rhythmic, free, and uninhibited.

As for the images, reduced to their essentials, they could appear rough, crude, and massive. These works can be visually reminiscent of Henry Moore’s sculptures, and they have a similar presence.

Sometimes there was a desire to make images ambiguous. It is difficult to be sure whether the legs of Cernunnos have actually turned into writhing serpents or if he is simply standing behind the snakes. It is as if the artist was deliberately setting up a visual riddle. The pairing of Cernunnos, the antlered god, with his companion, the stag, in itself suggests a bond between them. But to give both stag and god identical antlers is taking the statement a step further, toward shapeshifting. Can the stag and the god actually transform into one another? Are they in fact two manifestations of the same being?

The weirdness of some images is intentional; this is the weirdness of the Otherworld—the dream world where people and gods can mingle, and where the living can meet the dead. It is the strange world we inhabit, or migrate to, when we fall asleep.

One of the finest pieces of artwork from Britain in the first century AD is the Battersea shield—if judged by classical standards. This piece of Romano-Celtic bronze parade armor was deposited in the Thames River at Battersea, and probably left there deliberately.

The bronze-covered iron helmet found at Agris in Charente must have been made for ceremonial use. It is covered in fine detail in low relief, with gold and coral inlays added: an astonishingly sophisticated piece of metalwork, more crown than helmet.

The distinctive art style that we generally recognize as Celtic is really the linear art that began with the La Tène culture. It consists of a decorative line that curves sinuously in an S-shape, often repeatedly and rhythmically, sometimes symmetrically, and sometimes not. The S-shape was often developed with eddies and circles to make very elaborate patterns. The style reached its peak long after the La Tène culture was over, indeed long after the Celts generally had lost their political and cultural dominance in Europe, when even their religious beliefs had been overwhelmed and supplanted. The peak was reached in the illuminated gospels drawn and painted by monks in the eighth and ninth centuries AD, works such as The Book of Kells and The Lindisfarne Gospels.

The minutely elaborate detailing of The Book of Kells was described by a visitor in 1185 as “the work of an angel,” and so it still seems. It is so ornate, so exuberant, so controlled, and so perfect that it can scarcely be the work of human hand. The intricate design was not a sudden late invention, but part of a long tradition that went back to the fourth century BC.

It is hard to single out specific artworks as representing the pinnacle of a culture, but there is general agreement that the illustrated manuscripts of the eighth and ninth centuries AD are the finest productions of Celtic art. There is a certain irony in this. The Celts of pre-Christian, pre-Roman Europe were reluctant writers; the miraculous fusion of elements in the early medieval The Book of Kells is really a masterpiece of calligraphy, the most elaborately decorated writing ever conceived.