| Celts or Germans?; What is the true heritage of Britain? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 12 Oct 2017, 12:03 AM (12 Views) | |
| welkyn | 12 Oct 2017, 12:03 AM Post #1 |
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https://atlanticreligion.com/2017/04/25/revisiting-the-celtic-vs-germanic-question/ This question has plagued me for my entire life, to greater or lesser degree, though I believe we're collectively coming to an ever more enlightened answer on the matter. Typically, people envisage ancient Europe as being divided between the civilised south and the barbarian north; and, in order to complete this axis, a further division is noted between east and west: Romans and Greeks on the one hand, Celts and Germanics on the other. Of course the perspective is elsewhere in Europe, but in Britain, in accordance with the material we tend to be taught in our schools, this is the prevailing mythos. This delineation stems from Greco-Roman times, and reflects their view on the matter. It's a heavily politicised, often watered down, frequently propagandic view, designed to inspire defence against a threatening alien. Nevertheless, there is some truth to the matter, else we wouldn't nowadays be able to distinguish between, say, Celtic and Germanic languages. Would we? Well, perhaps not. But perhaps, we might recognise that, far from being done-and-dusted, the Celtic-Germanic-Romance distinction is more of a matter of range, ratio and scale than it is one of outright delineation. Certainly over the past millennium, and perhaps for a long time before that, language has homogenised. This is seen even today in the ever lessening grip of regional accents on their areas of genesis: city-speak is becoming the norm everywhere. We would do well to reckon how many languages have disappeared, just as Welsh and Cornish might have done had they not been rescued by a combination of enthused nationalists and changing social climates. A great wealth of European diversity has been lost to the machine of commerce, for it is far more economical for everyone in a nation to speak one language than for the nation to be divided into distinct ethno-linguistic regions. The result of this is that many of the gaps between, say, German, Dutch and English may once have been filled by languages that were at least to some degree mutually intelligible between each other - in the way of Gaelic and Irish, for example. Just as Swedes, Danes and Norwegians can more or less understand one another, it seems very much the case - given the existence of languages such as Occitan, Catalan, Aragonese etc. - that there was much greater linguistic diversity in Europe in the past, but there was also a much greater degree of mutual understanding between localised regions. Thus, the "Englishes" of Anglo-Saxon English - Mercian, Wessexian, Northumbrian, Kentish and so on - occupy that healthy middle ground between accents and dialects, showing Old English to be a range of languages rather than any one fixed language. I assume that the same must have been true for the Celtic tongues - and that, earlier on, much earlier on, the same must have been true between Celtic and Germanic tongues. For in much the same way as it is time that has separated Scots from English - both having the same root and being as old as each other - it must be time that has separated all Indo-European languages. The question of language being settled, the question of culture comes into play. And then we begin to recognise that the Greco-Roman distinction between Germanics and Celts was always, always linguistic. Cultural differences are mentioned but are not greatly enumerated, nor was the great internal diversity of contemporary Celtic and Germanic cultures ever highlighted (to my knowledge). Archaeologically speaking, we have Germanic tribes that for all intents and purposes look Celtic, and Celtic tribes that profess distinctly Germanic traits. The Belgae are a great example: to this day people are unsure, when comparing Caesar's account to the typically Gallo-Brythonic nature of Belgic placenames, whether the Belgae were a Celtic or a Germanic people. We are beginning to accept that they were both and neither: they are an in between people, either a fusion of two distinct cultures or a natural bulwark between them that has, in time, been whitewashed. Personally, I'm of the opinion that Belgae are relatively indigenous to the lower Rhine area; that they correspond to the original Indo-European inhabitants of that land, and that they therefore account for the initial forays of Indo-European people into Britain (Bell Beaker culture). Belgae makes sense in both Celtic and Germanic: they are either the supporters of Belus (Beli, Belenos), an ancient King of the Daanavans (Children of Danu, see Rg Veda) who had migrated from India at some point in the Vedic period (up to 6,000 BC) and was deified in the process, or they're the swelling ones, the people who swell with anger (OE Belgan: to swell, to rage). I get the image of red-haired, bearded giants, pale of skin, very rowdy. I wouldn't be surprised if this buffer population, situated as they are between the Celtic Atlantic and the Germanic North Sea, once formed the bulk of the tapestry of cultures linking Celtiberia all the way up to Scandinavia. Perhaps, then, to use the later term "Belgae" is anachronistic, and we ought think merely in terms of a pre-Celtic, pre-Germanic - perhaps even proto-Celtic, proto-Germanic - but certainly Indo-European culture that, by and large, spread relatively uniform throughout most of Europe for much of the Bronze Age (~2,400 BC to ~1,200 BC). The predominance of Atlantic Celtic and North Sea Germanic can then be seen as a result of Roman juxtaposition, not a proof of it. Precisely because these peoples were distinguished between in such a way, and because those distinctions and those histories were inherited by the peoples in question, those who lay in the intermediary lands automatically tended one way or another, regardless of the degree of either admixture or innate commonality with the other overarching branch of Indo-European languages. Thus Belgae gradually became Frankophone or Germanic speaking, despite Caesar's earlier assertion that their language was somehow in between the two. The English tended towards Germanicisms, whereas the British tended towards Brythonicisms. This doesn't rule out the possibility that the majority of people in these places, if we go back early enough, spoke either hybrid languages, or indigenous languages which naturally bridged the gaps between different cultural horizons. Increasingly the distinction between Celtic and Germanic is being seen as one of degree: the most "Celtic" places are along the Atlantic, and the most "Germanic" places are along the eastern shores of the North Sea and up into the Baltic. But in between these areas is a vast melting pot, where not only the Celtic and Germanic cultures themselves, but the raw constituents of both - the original Indo-European stock of Europe - have mixed and matched for the best part of four thousand years. With this view, it becomes less sensible to speak in terms of "Celtic" and "Germanic" cultures - never mind that we can differentiate the languages very easily nowadays - and more sensible to speak in terms of a broad Indo-European culture that expresses itself differently according to geography (as indeed all cultures are want to do - it makes no sense e.g. to enforce Bedouin culture as found in the desert in the context of a tropical paradise). With that being said, and with the end goal of expressing an authentic British paganism rooted at once in the land and in the historical background of our ancestors, I suggest that it's better to conceive of Celtic and Germanic cultures as being sibling branches of Indo-European development, rather than competing ethnicities as so often the paradigm maintains. As far as that pertains to us as Britons, that means that we can draw on both sets of traditions, and perhaps begin to recognise where those traditions have blended within our own land's history (if "blended" is even the right term, given what's been discussed above). I personally feel that there's a pre-Celtic, pre-Germanic tradition in Britain that somehow transcends both. Those other cultures came to our isles and slotted in with what they found here: hence differences between "Celticism" in Britain and "Celticism" elsewhere - likewise between "Germanicism" in Britain and "Germanicism" elsewhere, indeed even with the modern culture, albeit barely (Grime and British Comedy, anyone?). Britain is Britain, and that ends up shining through more strongly than the particular traditions and trends that have been brought here - even despite them, often. Thus I'm happy to consider the Welsh, Cornish, Scots and so on as British even if I don't consider myself to be Welsh, Cornish, or even particularly Scottish - compared to how "British" I feel, with an emphasis on the land that's nowadays called England. But even though the other British peoples are different from me in their cultures, ethnicities, languages and so on, I still feel that common British feeling with them. I think that makes me more interested in them as people than wary of them as "foreigners" or something absurd. Overall I'd consider them countrymen, and the Irish too. There's something about the British Isles which makes them different from mainland Europe - much like Iberia and Scandinavia are different, Germany isn't France and so on, I guess. I suppose what I feel with all the people of Britain is the shared heritage of having grown in these lands - our ancestors were, by and large, inhabitants of Britain and Ireland, and that means something, somehow. I guess at this point we're erring into the realm of spirit. So I'll leave off for now, and hope that people enjoy this long spiel. Don't worry, I've got other angles to grind on the Celtic/Germanic issue! |
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| welkyn | 13 Oct 2017, 10:26 PM Post #2 |
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A follow up: having looked at the haplogroup associated with the Celtic, Iberian, Italic and western Germanic peoples (R1b), I have rediscovered that the R1b clade is further divided into sub-clades. Two of these are R1b-L21 and R1b-S21. Both of these sub-clades could be said to be "north/north west European," but there's an incredibly sharp distinction between the two. R1b-L21 accounts for by far the greater portion of members of the R1b population of Ireland, northern Scotland, Wales, and Brittany. Here's the map: ![]() To my mind, this represents the classic "Atlantic" culture that brought the Celtic language group to Britain and Ireland up from Iberia from about 1,200 BC onwards. R1b-S21, in contrast, is located exclusively in what we could easily call the "north sea region": Denmark and Norway, west Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, England (incl. Cornwall and Devon, astonishingly) and southern Scotland. Again, here's the map: ![]() This, to me, would be the "Germanic" contingent - distinct from the "Nordic" contingent, who seem to originate in Scandinavia: ![]() Here's another image showing the two northern R1b populations compared to areas of Bell Beaker habitation: ![]() All of this evidence taken together strongly suggests to me that the kind of "Germanic" person we find in England, Scotland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Cologne, and western Scandinavia is closely related to the kind of "Celtic" person we find along the Atlantic coast in Britain and Ireland (including Brittany). In contrast, the kind of "Germanic" person we find throughout much of eastern Scandinavia, eastern Germany, and elsewhere in eastern Europe carries the R1a haplogroup, which is associated with a different branch of the original Indo-European culture that left Ukraine between 3-4,000 BC. Thus we have, as expected, a continuum: R1b strains give way to R1a strains as one travels east/north east while the indigenous Nordic (I) Haplogroup colours the north to varying degrees. As far as Britain is concerned, given the almost overwhelming replacement of neolithic markers by early Indo-European markers (from c. 2,400 BC onwards), it seems clear that our Indo-European heritage is first and foremost lower Rhine in extraction. Our particular brand of "Indo-Europeanism" is the offshoot of the earlier meeting/settlement period between incoming R1b Indo-Europeans and established neolithic/hunter-gatherer communities along the Rhine river. What does that mean for the Celticness/Germanicness of the British? Well, it means that to make a distinction between "Celts" and "Germans" in the old fashioned way makes very little sense, but that we ought think rather in terms of a continuum of which the various (and rather varied) British and Irish groups make up examples. It's better to think of first and second-wave Indo-Europeans, hunter-gatherers and neolithic farmers in varying degrees of intermingling, indigenous Norse Europeans who have spread out across the Irish, North, and Baltic seas, and the degree to which all of these factors are interwoven into contemporary European populations. That being said, the English, Irish, Welsh and Scots are all different; and yes, it can certainly be seen that the English and lowland Scots, for example, have more in common with the Dutch, Frisians,and western Germans than the Irish or Welsh do. But those same Dutch, Frisians, and western Germans have more in common with the Irish and Welsh than they do with the Slavs, as another example. Even going beyond that, the Irish, Welsh, Germans and Slavs are all drastically more similar to each other than they are to any other population in the world, for the obvious reason that these are all Indo-European peoples. The spectrum of diversity that that entails is clear: but the unity under a common cultural horizon is also clear. This is why I argue against the "Celtic/Germanic" distinction and emphasise more the regional distinctions: Shropshire vs. East Anglia, Connacht vs. Ulster, North vs. South Wales, Cornwall vs. Devon and so on. Not in the sense of competing with each other of course, but for the purpose of developing in our own lands those versions of our mutual parent culture (Indo-Europeanism?) that work best in those lands. Thus the Cornish should be Cornish first, English second (if they even want to be English at all). Likewise the Kentish should be Kentish first and English second - again, if they even want to be. So too the Dutch must be Dutch, not merely "Germanic" as they're so often labelled (despite being *Belgae?), and the Danes must be Danes, not just "Scandinavians" as they are often assumed to be. Cultural diversity has been the norm in Europe, but it's a diversity of one overarching cultural type - a cultural type which, to greater or lesser degree, fits reasonably well in European geography. I would argue that Indo-Europeanism is something that we could stand to transcend in many ways (I'll save it for another thread), but I also recognise that there's a huge amount of goodness in the basic Indo-European cultural package. I think the more that we reckon our Indo-European roots as contemporary northern/western Europeans, the better we'll be able to feel the histories of our own lands, the messages and insights that remain to be witnessed. More deeply we'll come into contact with the original spirit of those peoples whose advent was the birth of what we think of today as "Europe." Of course we can cherish the hunter-gatherer and neolithic ancestors who also make up a sizeable bulk of our genetic and spiritual inheritance - and I urge all readers to visit their local mounds, henges, causeways and the like to really sink in to that ancient, ancestral feeling (the places themselves will do the job if you give them enough time) - but importantly for many of us, our Indo-European forebears constitute the beginning of what we now know as our culture and our way of life, even as distorted as it's become in the past 1,000 years plus. Getting to the bottom of who we are as a people is important when it comes to understanding what we're meant to do as a people. I think these notions of Celticism vs. Germanicism are needlsesly obfuscating and present conflicts and differences where really there were never any - equally well the idea obscures very real differences that did exist but have gone completely unrecorded. Hopefully further testing of our ancestors' genetics will reveal more about the patterns of migration that have seen our modern European populations arise as they are. I believe that there are a few left hooks coming in the not-too-distant future which will significantly change our self-appreciation in Britain and Ireland - and I hope this change will bring all of our peoples closer together, as north-west Europeans, rather than dividing us according to anachronistic politico-cultural distinctions. |
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12:44 AM Jul 11