ANST - About me - Rowan

[Tim McDaniel]

Long posting on Celtic and pagan matters -- sorry!  Please
skip out if you get bored, and pray pardon me if I offend!

On Thu, 15 Jan 1998, Rowan2u <Rowan2u at aol.com> wrote:
> I'm a little shy, though, so meeting new people is kind of
> a daunting task.

Hint: almost all of us are shy.  A lot of us were the
outcastes in school.  We don't bite [1].

[1] (Hey, can the smart remarks, bub!  This is a new person!)

> I have a little garb, but not much, and I don't know who I
> want to be yet, so I'm thinking I shouldn't just go out
> and buy what looks pretty.

Wise indeed!  No reason to sink lots of money into a hobby
before you're sure you're a "keeper" and know what's what.

> My religion is a Celtic Pagan religion so I want my
> persona (sp?) to be also.

Your choice of persona is up to you.  I'll just make a few
comments, if I may, and hopefully I'll avoid the landmines
and not bore you.


1.  "Celt" has a clear modern meaning, but please realize
that it's a modern concept and world view.  When developing
a persona, you may want to pin it down to a particular
Celtic region.

Arval Benicoeur wrote: "No one in our period would have
described herself as <a Celt>.  The idea of pan-Celtic
identity is modern, arising in the 19th century.  Even the
word <Celt> was not used in English until the mid-17th
century.  In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the several
Celtic nations had distinct cultures and languages [2] ... A
period woman might have called herself (or have been called
by others) Irish, Welsh, Cornish, or Breton, but not Celtic.
The ancient Romans described some of their neighbors as
<Celtae>, but the term lost any practical meaning long
before the Middle Ages."

[2] Gaelic in Scotland and Gaelic in Ireland were mutually
intelligible in period, I believe, so I suspect on no
evidence they would have seen themselves as more related
than, say, Gaelic speakers were to English.  Nevertheless,
Arval's basic point stands; there was no Celtic People's
Liberation Front, and Scotsmen had no problem killing each
other or allying with outsiders.


2.  Some people manage have a different religion in persona
than in real life.  For example, ash-Sheyk Da'ud ibn Auda is
Muslim; I dunno about the real David Appleton.  I was raised
Methodist, and now have pagan leanings, yet in persona I'd
instantly say I'm Christian (and in my time and area that
means Catholic, no question).

On the other hand, many people take religion Very Seriously,
and for many people doing persona play in a different faith
feels wrong to them.  In this case, do as thou wilt is the
whole of the Law.  Makes no diff to *us*.


3.  Paganism in period -- *major* landmine!  Lemme try this
way.  After the Reformation, the official religion in
England was the Anglican church.  Nevertheless, there's
plenty of evidence that Catholicism continued: there are
confessions of faith, trials, letters, fines, books,
burnings.  There's earlier evidence for Christian heresies
like Arians, Cathars, Albigensians, Lollards, Anabaptists,
Hussites, Jews, Muslims, Monophysites, Iconoclasts -- most
of those off the top of my head; there were dozens more that
I'd have to look up.

Yet I've heard of no evidence of major pagan activity in a
European area after a century or so after it converted to
Christianity.  Kay of Tria Asterium: "The firm and broadly
held belief in an underground continuation of the ancient
religions and practices of pre-Christian Europe seems to me
to have roots in religious and folk practices that survived
in villages, or families, or activites such as Morris
dancing."  -- like festivals being Christianized, or
god/esses becoming saints, or what have you.  But individual
practices and appropriation of symbols does not a religion
make -- it's still basically Christianity even with
Halloween and Saint Brigit.

The Celtic peoples were quite devout once they converted.
In particular, the Irish are still famous for their
devotion.  Irish monks preserved much of European culture in
the Dark Ages, and those going to the Continent helped the
Carolingian Revival a great deal and made a major impact on
Western monasticism (see _How the Irish Saved Western
Civilization_).  There are lots of period names of the form
"Gilla Patrick" and "Gilla Mary" ("servant of"; for most of
period they apparently felt it presumptuous to take the
plain name of a saint).  Robert the Bruce of Scotland asked
for his heart to be buried in the Christian Holy Land on
Crusade.  There were more Welsh saints than anyone could
possibly name.

All I'm saying is that, if you want to be an authentically
historical person of a Celtic race after 600 AD or so, you'd
say you were Christian.  Before that, it depends where,
when, and how.

                      *** HOWEVER ***

Realize that the SCA inherits the American attitude of "live
and let live" on religion.  (On a lot of other things too.
The SCA has been described as a feudal society founded by
anarchists!)  *You* have to live with your persona.  If you
want to say at events that you're pagan, nobody will look
askance at you -- in fact, a decent number of people will
share your faith.

My basic point: you have some free choices.  I ask you to
please think about historical authenticity versus your
modern beliefs, decide if there's a trade-off, and if so
where.  Whether you say "modern beliefs override history, no
question", or the reverse, it's your call.

Daniel "luckily, the BOOM! of me hitting a landmine woke up
the bored people" de Lindo Colonia
-- 
Tim McDaniel; Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com; if that fail, tmcd at austin.ibm.com
is work address.  tmcd at tmcd.austin.tx.us is wrong tool.  Never use this.

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