Cats - Large and Small

Knights said: �I definitely think the lion was a symbol of majesty and power for the Celts, just as it was with other cultures. However, I don't believe it was worshiped as a god itself. Possibly symbolic -or even incarnate- of a god?�

Ah, but did the Celts have gods? How many Celtic statues of gods have you seen? You won�t for like the Moslem faith this particular religion banned human likenesses; they had the religion of Nature where man or woman was never placed above other living things. Each life form had the right to exist in their own natural way.

 Daoism, also a religion of Nature, is still alive and the state religion of South Korea, their faith gets by with no god or gods. Their major symbol of Daoism is the circular Yin and Yang to represent Nature, the united universal life force of male and female that permeates all living things in the endless cycles of life that take place throughout the seasons and the universe where nothing stands still and all is in motion.

 To the Celts there was no symbolism, (it was not allowed) a bird was a bird, a dog a dog, a lion a lion, what counted was the free spirit. In this case the feeling of bravery, of power and the majesty of the lion. I think William Blake summed up this never ending attraction for big cats brilliantly;

TIGER, tiger, burning bright 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?   

 In what distant deeps or skies   
Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 
On what wings dare he aspire? 
What the hand dare seize the fire?

Thanks for your reply Knights. How far did the Celtic supernatural go?  The word means going beyond the natural. What ancient civilizations meant by being natural went way beyond what we call natural now. Mighty cities may have been bursting with great gods and big busted goddesses but the general treatment of animals was barbaric. Breaking the wings off a live dove was considered a standard sacrifice to whatever god. Then city nobles �the descendants of the gods� stuffed themselves with the �dish of the gods� peacock tongues baked in honey and other excesses. To me that is just being unnatural not supernatural.

Civilizations justified their excesses by producing some holy book or other that said their god told them it was good for them to keep on acting the way they did. The dogma was those who had no books had no real gods, and who could deny that logic. The Celtic religion used no writing up until the time of the Romans. The Celts were �pagans� but the original meaning of the word has now been taken over by modern groups with hazy ideas of reinstating ancient gods that never were valid in the first place.

I�m off-topic here, but an early way of life that clearly included means of respect for animals has to demand my attention. The Celts (as proved by modern excavations from countless archeological sites) lived by what can be described a natural way of life rather than a supernatural. They lived as farming groups that never had cities. Their worship was of Nature, and that doesn�t mean living in an animistic way.

I would like to carry on this train of conversation, Knights, but not on this thread. Your contentions about use of hallucinogenic are interesting; but the Celts lived in far more advanced ways than the American Indians for instance. The Celts began the system of law that is still with us today and their care and treatment of animals was renowned throughout the Ancient World.  However, the big cats must remain a topic on their own.

Lion (heraldry)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The following table summarizes the positions of a heraldic beast.

The lion's head is normally seen in profile. If he faces the viewer he is gardant (or guardant), and if he looks back over his shoulder he is regardant. These adjectives follow any other adjectives of position.

The lions in the coat of arms of England are passant gardant. In French blazon this charge is called a l�opard; a lion rampant gardant is a l�opard lionn�; and a lion passant with his head in profile is a lion l�opard�. The position of the head thus determines his species. This practice leads some people to insist bitterly that the beasts in the royal arms of England are leopards, not lions. There is no right answer to this question; nevertheless they are officially depicted with a mane.

A lion (or other beast) coward has his tail between his legs. His tail may also be forked (queue fourch�e) or doubled (double-queued); in the arms of the kingdom of Bohemia, the forked tail was originally an artist's flourish, but later became a distinctive and essential detail.