War, Women and Druids

[bram]

A little book I had trouble getting

War, Women and Druids - Eyewitness Reports and Early Accounts of the Ancient Celts by Philip Freeman University of Texas Press.

It contains some useful phrases if going to Romano-Gaul on Holiday.

Accede urbana = City girl give in
Geneta vis cana = Hello there sweet girl - are you willing?

the ever useful

Nata uimpi curmi da = Hey Beautiful give me a beer

The book contains a section on Britain and the Druids although it mainly focuses on Roman and Gaulish sources

[megli]

I wonder if 'geneta' is what gives N.W. 'geneth' 'girl'. Hmm. It would have, strictly speaking, to have been *genetta if so.
Sorry. On autowitter...

[Blackbird]

Sounds like an interesting book

Whose accounts are they? The usual suspects, or more obscure stuff? Is there good discussion of the sources?

[bram]

these may help

www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/frewar.html

and tis looks interesting

www.whiteoakdruids.org/news/item.cfm?NewsItemID=5

[bram]

For modest sake I did not include

Moni gnatha gabi buutton imon = Come on Girl take my kiss

The author points out that Kiss (buddutton) may be related to the Irish word bod which is an entirely male appendage.

to make amends for the ladies -

Geneta imi daga uimpi = I'm a girl who is good and beautiful

[littleraven]

bram said:

these may help

www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/frewar.html

and tis looks interesting

www.whiteoakdruids.org/news/item.cfm?NewsItemID=5

I have the (dubious?) honour of having been thrown off the WhiteOak forum a few years ago.

My crime? I argued with Alexei.

EDIT: Incidentally, I'm assuming that 'The Philosopher and the Druids' is mostly inferred material from other authors as Posidonius only exists in fragments. Many people believe that Posidonius may have been Caesars major source for the 'Gallic war'.

[littleraven]

I ordered 'The Philosopher and the Druids' off Bookfinder.com on Saturday for the grand total of 4 quid. Bargain. I'm quite looking forward to this now tbh.

[bram]

It arrived this weekend so I have been reading it and A Brief history of the Druids by Peter Berresford Ellis.

Both are fascinating books.

[arth_frown]

bram said:

It arrived this weekend so I have been reading it and A Brief history of the Druids by Peter Berresford Ellis.

Both are fascinating books.

I'm half way though A Brief history of the Druids you could of borrowed it from me, it's far better than Ronald Hutton's effort.

[littleraven]

arthfrown said:

bram said:

It arrived this weekend so I have been reading it and A Brief history of the Druids by Peter Berresford Ellis.

Both are fascinating books.

I'm half way though A Brief history of the Druids you could of borrowed it from me, it's far better than Ronald Hutton's effort.

But PBE has fallen from favour more recently, due in part to his tendency to use Roman sources to support his arguments yet denounce them when they don't.

[arth_frown]

littleraven said:

arthfrown said:

I'm half way though A Brief history of the Druids you could of borrowed it from me, it's far better than Ronald Hutton's effort.

But PBE has fallen from favour more recently, due in part to his tendency to use Roman sources to support his arguments yet denounce them when they don't.

Would that be his general method or a certain book?

[littleraven]

arthfrown said:

littleraven said:

But PBE has fallen from favour more recently, due in part to his tendency to use Roman sources to support his arguments yet denounce them when they don't.

Would that be his general method or a certain book?

It was specifcally his Druids book that first received that criticism, I can't speak about other books of his as I havn't got any.

[megli]

Poor old PBE. He wrote a section on celtic astrology in his druids book. on checking the refs for my doctorate, which in on astrlogy in med. celtic culture, EVERY SINGLE REFERENCE was wrong. (eg an anglo-saxon manuscript was desribed as Irish, a diagram from the 12th century was ascribed to the 8th, etc etc). He also makes fundamental errors all the time, like referring to 'Bran Bendigeidfran ' and translating it 'Bran the Blessed': what he's written is 'Bran Bran the Blessed', suggesting he didn't realise that the -fran of 'bendigeidfran' IS the bit of the name that means 'Bran'. This is the kind of thing you learn in your first wek of learning Welsh, and it alarms me that he didn't pick it up, nor, apparently, read any secondary sources. So I absolutely don't take him seriously.

[littleraven]

Actually I've just remembered a couple of articles of his on 'Celtic Astrology'Astronomy' which are around on the net. I know I copied them but I can't remmber what they were called. Might be worth digging them out for people to peruse.

There were a number of people who treated his 'Druids' book like the new gospel, much the same way many neo-Druidic people are treating Ronald Huttons new one.

[megli]

But Hutton's book is fundamentally a different kind of thing, isn't it? It's early modern and modern cultural history (and, to my eye, perfectly serviceable as such), not reconstruction of pre-Christian religious culture. It's peas and apples.

It would be interesting to have those articles up. I will take great pleasure in showing where he ran me a wild goose chase of fraudulent references and quarter-truths. [grr!!]

[arth_frown]

What authors would you recommend?

[megli]

Hmm...

Miranda Green. Will Parker's 'The four branches', though some parts are arguable. Proinsias Mac Cana's 'Writers of Wales; The Mabinogi'. David Stifter's 'The Celtic World' looks good but is probabaly massively pricy. Anything by John Koch or John Carey.

This list is good:

www.digitalmedievalist.com/bibs/celtkit.html

as is this, but note how she qualifies recommending Ellis:

www.digitalmedievalist.com/bibs/celthist.html


And as for people I wouldn't recommend, PBE and the Matthewses are the main offenders in the pseudo-scholarship stakes IMHO.

[littleraven]

megli said:

But Hutton's book is fundamentally a different kind of thing, isn't it? It's early modern and modern cultural history (and, to my eye, perfectly serviceable as such), not reconstruction of pre-Christian religious culture. It's peas and apples.

It would be interesting to have those articles up. I will take great pleasure in showing where he ran me a wild goose chase of fraudulent references and quarter-truths. [grr!!]

Yes, they are different, but I've found that the neo-Druid types pick up the bits from 'respected' authors ie PBE inparticular, that suit their argument rather than constructing an opinion based on the evidence. IIRC, their big thing with PBE was that he argued against Druids and human sacrifice, whereas with Hutton they are using it as academic validity of doing something called 'Druid' without using whats known about the historical Druids as a basis.

[littleraven]

I've put the links to the PBE astrology articles in a new thread in the 'Round Table'.

LR