Slaine and the Fomorians

Yes, indeed the Roman Navy in the early Republic was a copy of the Carthaginian Navy based on wrecks, albeit with some innovations.  

Originally posted by Nick1986 Originally posted by Don Quixote I read somewhere that the Fomorians had their own druids...now, if the Fomorians were Phoenician pirates, who were their druids? The Phoenicians worshipped the heathen god Baal. Perhaps one of their leaders was a renegade priest who combined elements of his religion (like human sacrifice) with the existing Celtic culture

This seems plausible to me, and worthy a research anyway.
Jaan Puhvel in his "Comparative Mythology", 1987, has a chapter about the Celtic mythology, and he is analyzing in in the sphere of the Indo-European cultural diffusion. According to him, Pg.172:
"...Esus-Lugus, Taranis and Teutates as a triad receiving sacrifices may thus roughly match the Scandinavian set of Odin, Thor and Freyr in pagan Sweden, who were giver human victims in Uppsala up to the Christianization in the 11 century. They, like Jupiter-Mars-Quirinus were a stylized Western-European embodiments of the erstwhile tripartite pantheon, thus a match for the Eastern structure first glimpsed at Mitanni /Mitra-Varuna, Indra, Nasaya/. Around their axis swarmed the rest of the pantheon..."

Also, pg. 166, Ibid "... Ceasar reports druidic teachings of metempsychosys, and India was of course the prime and expanding locus of transmigrational lore...". The very structure of the Celtic society is Indo-European acc0rding to him, with the Druids matching the Brahmans in India. The Celts were the first wave of a Indo-European migration traceable by historical and archeological means, and when later the Romanic and Germanic expansions pressed them toward the fringes of Europe the ancient Indo-European cultural remnants became incapsulated in the Celtic and later Irish culture, pg. 167 Ibid. The taboo on writing and literacy on everyone but the Druids in the Celtic society matches the same taboo in the ancient Indian one, in which the Brahmins were the only literate caste; so it's seen as another Indo-European trait in the Celtic culture:

"...This taboo against writing may be based on a dogma that lingered in the farthest east-west reaches of the Indo-European continuum, as did the archaic items of vocabulary ...Vedic "raj"; Gaulish "rig" - king, etc/...' pg, 166 Ibid.
So, in this view, the Celts didn't need any Mediterranean/Phoenician/Egyptian people to transmute to them the human sacrifice, the teaching of metempsychosys, and the tri-partite social system, they carried those from the Indo-European proto-culture they were the first offshoot of.



Edited by Don Quixote - 27-Aug-2011 at 19:08

Slaine's "warp spasm" is based on Cuchulain's special body-distorting powers. Before battle the Celts would psych themselves up, often with insults or encouragement from their women

It got me thinking of the Viking berserkers. Perhaps Cuchulain and his Red Branch warriors were given a potion by the druids to stimulate them before battle?

Originally posted by Michael Collins Originally posted by Nick1986 It got me thinking of the Viking berserkers. Perhaps Cuchulain and his Red Branch warriors were given a potion by the druids to stimulate them before battle? Quite possible. Have you ever read the Táin? All the warriors of Ulster fall asleep just as the Connacht invasion reaches Ulster, except Cú Chulainn. Could be a case of a bad brew.

Or too much to drink. According to one Roman source, when Celts got drunk they either fell into a deep sleep or a terrible rage