What were the religions of the British Isles before Christianity arrived?

Question

Many Christians sing "Give me that old time religion." Obviously, very few of them have Jewish roots. Just what religion did their pagan ancestors have before they became Christians. Some of it has survived in the form of witchcraft, folktales, fairy tales, and secular holidays. Some of these reconstructed religions are not very authentic. What were they really like?

Answer 1

i could write for 3 days and not fully explain the culture of the Celtic people. they were the dominent Pre-christian Birtish and Scottish civilizations.

if you really want to know i would suggest that you read
Druids, Celtic priest's of Nature, by Jean Merkale.

most of what we are taught in folk tales and old stories has been tainted by a Christian viewpoint. most of the rituals and beliefs were only written about by the enemies of the Druids.
Julius Cesar being one of the most prominent, and St, Patric being another. many myths and lies were spread to make the people fear the Pagans. everything from Human sacrifice to sexual orgies involving children and animals. at one time the church even told people that Pagans stole un-baptized babies to use in sacrifices.

true Celtic law was very harsh. they did not put up with people that were a drain on society. and they would not keep them in society in any capacity other than as a slave.

In our society, if you rape or kill someone you are put in jail for a few years and then given a second chance to be free.
under Celtic law. you would either be expelled from society.
(which meant a slow death in the woods with no food/shelter and no community willing to take you in) or your life became forfiet to the families of the people that you hurt. this meant that for all intents and purposes they owned you. and if they chose to kill you or torture you, or just to work you to death, nobody would care. because you gave up your humanity when you hurt an innocent. thus you were little better than a draft animal.

however the idea of murder and rape was much different also. to murder was to kill a man for monetary gain, or out of jealous rage, and it stipulated that the man was un-armed or unable to fight back. if you met him in open challenge and killed him in honerable battle then it was pretty much ok.
these types of conflict seldom happened between neighbors
because a community could not survive like this. Rape on the other hand, was not only to take a woman against her will. but to have sex with a married woman (handfasted for the diehards) or with a woman who was outside of your social class.

as far as spirituality went the Druids were the head Priest's and every community likely had one. and every king had one as an advisor. the king would not act without the advise of the druid. Druids were also healers, and history keepers. they were educated beyone what most people ever would be and knew well the secrets of herbal medicine and nature.

for the most part religion is a bad way to describe the spiritual beliefs of these people. in fact when the druids started becomming organized is part of their downfall.
each community had it's own beliefs and customs. and the Druids traveled and learned the customs and beliefs of many other communities, without trying to place their own into them. this open form of belief is attributed to the spread of the Celtic beliefs over much of Europe.

i will not say that they were a peacful bunch of tree huggers. in fact they would go to war with each other over the simplist things. Fishing rights, hunting lands. water rights etc. were all valid reasons for war. even an insult to a village elder could start a bloody conflict.

but even with this they did respect life, and honor their dead. war was not a small thing to them. in fact it was a very big deal. a bad battle may not only kill the warriors that fought and lost, but may kill an entire village in the comming winter when there was not enough food to keep them through the cold months.

i could drone on for ever on this subject, if you have any specific questions please e-mail me.

Answer 2

Immediately prior, the tribal religion of the Celtic tribes, though there was also some Romanized Celts following a syncretization of the Celtic and Romanic beliefs. By the time Christianity started gaining a foothold, Nordic beliefs had started having an effect as well. Prior to the Celts invading, there were the pre-Celtic indigenous tribes, but, unfortunately, we don't know quite as much about them.

You're right about some of the recreations being of variable authenticity. Your best bet for accuracy is to look at Celtic Reconstructionism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Reconstructionism - CR focuses heavily on provable accuracy. Unfortunately, there's a drastic amount that we don't know, and only have educated guesses to fill those gaps.

At the top level, it was polytheistic and animistic. There was a high level of tribal differences - a tribe had its own deities and local spirits, though some deities showed up across most/all tribes (Lugh/Llew/Lugos, for example.) The triads that survived down through the ages shows a lot about the culture - showing what was important/cherished, and what things they scorned. Honor, wisdom, courage, and manners seemed to be common threads in many of the stories.

Answer 3

Ancient religions did not have distinct names. There was simply a number of gods your culture believed in and certain rituals commonly performed for them. The first we know much at all about are those who built Stonehenge and other circles, but they left no writings so our picture of them is sketchy. Next came a varity of Celtic tribes, each of which had its own beliefs. This is the culture that had "Druids," but "Druidism" or "Druidry" is a very modern term generally referring to modern beliefs. (To call historical Celtic beliefs Druidry is like calling Catholicism Popery.) Next came the Romans, which brought their religion as well as Christianity. When Rome retreated, Christianity largely vanished from Britain. The Celts were still around, and the Anglo-Saxons brought their version of Norse beliefs with them. Christianity was then reintriduced to Britain.

Answer 4

Well I know that druidism was prevalent in the British Isles before Christianity spread, also when the Roman Republic was around the Roman pantheon was establish there I believe. The Celts had their own religion, they worshiped the goddesses of the woods, trees, and the like. And when the Anglo-Saxons ran rampant, they brought their religion, and then finally Christianity got there, and all Hell broke loose, (If you don't believe me look at all the stuff that happen in England because of Christianity.) And King Author wasn't a Christian king...he was pagan...

Answer 5

the religion that was in England before Christianity was Anglo-Saxon, which is closely related to the Norse religions. In Ireland and Scotland were the Celts, which had their own pantheon. They were in England first, but were driven out by the Anglo-Saxons.

*edit*
Excuse me, I was slightly mistaken. The Christian Romans invaded England and coexisted with and converted the Celts. Around 400-500 CE, the Romans withdrew, and that's when the Pagan Anglo-Saxons took over England and drove out the Celts. The Anglo-Saxons were later Christianized.
*/edit*

Answer 6

A number of religions existed, including druidism and shamanism, although the majority of the population followed the Celtic Mythology of the Triple Goddess, both before the introduction of christianity and after the Romans withdrew, taking alot of the support for the Christian Church with them.

Answer 7

Most of the people were Celts, but all Celts did not have the same religious beliefs. Sorry that's all I know right now. Or, at least, what I can remember, just watched a History Channel show on this very subject about 3 months ago.

Answer 8

Celtic Druids

Answer 9

First, the people of that time before Christianity most likely would have never thought of their beliefs as a religion. One really can't say the modern reconstruction isn't authentic without knowing exactly what it was during those ancient times. Though, I would say that most modern Pagan religions are just that... modern. We certainly don't sacrifice animals to the Gods anymore, but we try to retain the idea that one should sacrifice oneself, if for nothing else than to better ourselves. And many Pagans I know would agree, but we do have bits and pieces that we work from to form an idea of what it would have been like. The Britons were Celtic, as we call it today, though they never used the word. (We get the word Celtic to identify those people mainly from Julius Ceasar's writings - The Gallic Wars - where he called them Keltoi) They went by their tribal names... like a lot of Mac names we hear from Scotland. MacDonald means Son of Donald... Donald would have been, at the least, a famous leader to that tribe, if to no one else. Druids were considered advisors to kings, local lords and magistrates... they delivered spiritual guidance whenever it was needed, especially to chieftans of tribes (who were considered kings). As to what exactly their religious ideas contained, we only know a little, but I doubt it has survived in its original state even in our secular holidays such as Halloween. I would say those in Briton itself were mostly village people, farmers, blacksmiths, etc just trying to survive while praying to whatever Gods or Goddess' they knew of to help them along the way. As for ritual, it is very doubtful that any of the common people did such things other than festivals like May Day, with the Maypole (the Maypole was only done in Briton... it was not done in Scotland or Ireland or Wales).

I'd have to say though, that some of the reconstruction religions follow history and archeology as much as possible, filling in the gaps with information from those areas in modern times which still hold certain parts of the ancient culture. It isn't complete, by far, because so much of what they knew was never written down. Druids, as it is written in more modern writings (around 600 CE) are claimed to have handed down everything in oral tradition as they deemed the Spiritual too important to place on parchment (or animal skins) that could fade with age or be destroyed. Many ancient cultures were like that... including the Jews. Folktales play a very important part in building our modern Pagan religions as they show the culture of the peole of that time... not that all Pagans take those folktales to be literal truth, but they certainly convey meaning in their stories... the morals shown within them relfect the morals of the people of that time. But as to exactly what they were like, you would need to watch re-inactments on Discovery or History channels to get a better idea of it as they also take the same information we use to try to piece together the lives of the people of those times.

Answer 10

Yes, good answers and info. but lets not forget if it weren't for pockets of Celtic and Irish Christianity, the books and culture of the Western world would have been completely lost during the Dark Ages.