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I recently read/watched up on Cu Chulainns exploits, including his wise-master tutelage (and saucy development) under the female martial artist Scáthach.
Later, I was playing Total War Attilla, and pondering/reading the bios for the all-female units. One, the Scatha's Teachers, suggested that martial arts in Celtic society were usually taught by women, not just once or twice in legend.
"It is notable that the Celtic martial arts were usually taught by women, some believing that the teachers were also priestesses, and that they conferred additional powers to their chosen students when in battle."
https://totalwar.fandom.com/wiki/Scatha%27s_Teachers_(Total_War:_Attila)
I'm wondering if this is true, and if so what documentation is there?
There's a degree of controversy nowadays when discussing historical female warriors; the truth that males get the big end of the stick in terms physical sexual dimorphism, and that this combined with the mechanics of population growth means that most soldiers in history were male as a matter of practicality, is often taken as offensive, or demeaning.
And fair enough, there are plenty of people who do say true things timed specifically to undermine or hurt people; and I wouldn't expect anyone with self-respect to swallow a truth served in that style. That's not what I'm getting at here. No boys vs. girls clubhouse nonsense.
I'm interested in the social, and societal implications; and how they would affect day-to-day life.
I've read of Norse cultures with defined gender roles, where females while not typically given to leadership roles were deferred to in the areas of prophesy and magic. And while the various Danish tribes had legends of warrior Goddesses, and Valkyries; they seemed to be more a shared flight of fancy than a reflection of day-to-day life. IOW, just because Freyja was a badass godess, didn't mean your average nordic woman was going out a-viking on the regular.
I have a question about the celts. According to the Langdon Museum of Learning Disabilities the celts treated people with disabilities with respect. However, another site called Druidry.org says that the celts did no such thing.
So, how exactly did the celts treat people that were disabled?
Sources:
Celtic Reconstructionism | Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids (druidry.org)
Idiots, Imbeciles and Intellectual Impairment – Langdon Down Museum
Dear Celtic friends,
I was reading a recent article that was saying that the origin of celts is not central Europe but Iberia.
It sounds very weird for me, but do you have more information about this subject? Or any other study that go in the same way or a debunk of this theory?
Here is the article : https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/mythsofbritishancestry?fbclid=IwAR0zxQEf1rXxthu8i47jDww-BI_dlw43WgIT92pZNJfkD5Sx0j9RXdI2VMo
This passage : Many archaeologists still hold this view of a grand iron-age Celtic culture in the centre of the continent, which shrank to a western rump after Roman times. It is also the basis of a strong sense of ethnic identity that millions of members of the so-called Celtic diaspora hold. But there is absolutely no evidence, linguistic, archaeological or genetic, that identifies the Hallstatt or La Tène regions or cultures as Celtic homelands. The notion derives from a mistake made by the historian Herodotus 2,500 years ago when, in a passing remark about the “Keltoi,” he placed them at the source of the Danube, which he thought was near the Pyrenees. Everything else about his description located the Keltoi in the region of Iberia.
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