Th e ancient Gauls were Celtic peoples. During the sev-
eral centuries before and aft er the birth of Christ, the free and
independent Celts who resisted conquest and incorporation
into the Roman Empire became isolated in the British Isles.
Julius Caesar (100–44 b.c.e.), the Roman conqueror of Gaul
(France) and fi rst Roman invader of England, wrote an ac-
count of his military conquests in the Commentarii de bello
Gallico. Caesar’s book focused mostly on military aff airs,
though he also provided scattered accounts of the culture
of the Gauls. Th e ancient Celts, he wrote, held the Druids in
the highest esteem. Th e Druids were religious leaders whose
authority extended to education, criminal proceedings,
and government. As the intellectual and cultural leaders of
the Celts, they attracted many students. “It is said,” Caesar
wrote, “that these pupils have to memorize a great number
of verses—so many, that some of them spend twenty years
at their studies. Th e druids believe that their religion forbids
them to commit their teachings to writing,” as they do “not
want their doctrine to become public property, and in order
to prevent their pupils from relying on the written word and
neglecting to train their memories.”
With the power of the spoken word at their disposal,
the Druids taught their disciples about the great mysteries of
life, such as the idea of reincarnation. During his attempted
conquest of Britain in 55–54 b.c.e., Caesar discovered the
commonalities of the Celtic culture of Gaul and Britain, that
Druidism was important in both places, that the Gauls con-
sidered Britain as the source of Druidism, and that the British
people had a long oral tradition of being the original inhabit-
ants of the island.
THE CELTS OF THE BRITISH ISLES
Th e Celtic peoples of Britain initially repulsed the Roman
invasion under Caesar, but fi nally succumbed to the larger,
more organized attack of the emperor Claudius in 43 c.e.
Under the Roman occupation of almost four centuries, the
Celts resisted political and cultural Romanization, and varied
Celtic kingdoms retained some independence in what is to-
day Scotland and Wales; the Romans never attacked Ireland,
which remained a Celtic stronghold. As Roman control less-
ened in the late fourth and early fi ft h centuries c.e., the Celts
were forced to contend with a new invasion by the Saxons
of Europe. Th e Celtic defense sparked heroic legends told for
centuries. One story involved a Celtic king, Arthur, identi-
fi ed by the later Celtic historian Gildas (d. 570 c.e.) as Au-
relius Ambrosianus, who made a heroic defense against the
Saxons on the Welsh border. Celtic Wales was dominated by
oral rather than literary tradition, and professional bards, the
cyfarwyddiaid, passed along prose stories based on ancient
tales into the European Middle Ages.
Celtic oral traditions in poetry and prose found a home
in ancient and medieval Ireland. Th e Irish bards, the fi lid, told
stories and poems with a strong emphasis on nature and the
supernatural, on heroic warriors and great battles. Bards were
attached to the court of a king or lord and nightly entertained
the feasting revelers at the lord’s hearth. Like the heroic lit-
erature of other cultures, such as the ancient Mediterranean,
Irish Celtic heroic verse and prose focused on kings and war-
riors of extraordinary strength and courage whose martial
abilities relied on a high degree of hubris and extreme indi-
vidualism in the pursuit of honor and glory. Warriors bragged
of their prowess on the fi eld of battle before taking to arms.
Warfare was a human’s highest calling, hence only members
of the aristocracy were warriors. Duration of life was less im-
portant than whether or not one acted according to a code of
valor. Gods who took human form (anthropomorphic gods),
spirits of nature, were capricious and jealous, and played an
oft en-disruptive role in human aff airs.
Early Irish heroic sagas include the Tá i n B ó C u a l ng e,
which is the account of warfare among Irish nobles over a
prize bull. Another, the Fled Bricrenn, is the story of warriors
at a feast fi ghting over the best portions of the meat. Diodorus
Siculus described such a competition among Gauls of the fi rst
century b.c.e.: “When they dine,... they have hearths with
big fi res and cauldrons, and spits loaded with big joints of
meat.... Some of the company oft en fall into an altercation
and challenge one another to single combat—they make noth-
ing of death.” An early Irish epic love story is the Longas mac
n-Usnig, the tragic story of lost love, in which Deirdre, raised
to marry Lord Conchobar, falls in love instead with Naisi, a
warrior serving under the lord. Th e two lovers fl ee north but
eventually come back under promise of safety. On returning,
however, Naisi and his men are attacked and killed, and De-
idre kills herself in despair.
Irish bards composed beautiful verse about nature and
the mysteries of the divine. One of the earliest examples is
Th e Mystery, composed (perhaps) before the Common Era by
the Druid Amergin. Th e Mystery is one of a series of poems
from Lebor Gabála, Th e Book of Invasions, which describes
the settlement of Ireland as a series of military invasions by
various groups of warriors. Th e theme of Th e Mystery is that
all of nature—its beauty, power, glory—can be summarized
by the “I,” the poet himself. “I am the wind which breathes
upon the sea, / I am the wave of the ocean, / I am the murmur
of the billows.”
Irish verse about the natural world is brief, descriptive,
and powerful in evoking the grandeur and wonder of nature.
Poetry about the supernatural involves heroic people, usually
princes and princesses, who fall in and out of love, and re-
peatedly suff er a range of emotions—sickness, despair, long-
ing, fulfi llment. Th e divine is shadowy and inexact in these
poems, oft en making its appearance by means of magic and
supernatural phenomena.ANGLO-SAXONS
By the end of the sixth century c.e. the Celts of Britain had
scattered to remote locations (Wales and Ireland) in the face
of t he onslaug ht of Germa nic i nvaders f rom Eu rope—t he A n-
gles, Saxons, and Jutes. Th e Anglo-Saxons who ruled Britain
during the subsequent four centuries brought their Germanic654 literature: Europe