Page 10 - Celtic Beasts Sampler

INTRODUCTION

The Bible relates that Adam was given authority to name all the

animals. We are not told how the animals reacted to this; but. if they

understood at all what was going on. they should have felt threatened.

From the human perspective of that era. one who had the authority to
name could also presume a certain amount of power and control over

whatever had been identified. Such power was explicitly spelled out in

Genesis 1:28: "Rule over the fish in the ocean, the birds in the sky, and

every animal on earth." Calling by name of ten Implied not so much the

desire to be on intimate terms with an to exercise control over the one

invoked, even if the control went no further than catching the other's

attention. No wonder people eventually grew hesitant to call the God
of Israel by name. One would not want to appear presumptuous with

the Deity! In developing this aggressive, objectifying relationship with

non-human reality. people not only began to distance themselves from

divinity but to place themselves in an antagonistic relationship with

mother mature. Eventually most people could no longer hear the

animals speak.

Because the non-human inhabitants of this planet would probably

find bewildering the need some humans have to compartmentalise

creatures by boxing them into categories, the beasts treated in this book

might resent being labelled "Celtic''. So, it must be stated from the

beginning that this book in a reflection not so much on the beasts them-

selves as on what they meant to the Celts.

The Celts are the earliest identifiable Northern European

civilisation. writing around 550 BCE. the Greek historian Herodutos

mentioned in passing that at that timer the "Keltoi” lived along the Dan-

ube River. Around 400 BCE, they crossed south of the Alps into the Po

River Valley. By then, they inhabited an area which extended as far East
as Western India and included Asia Minor parts of the Balkans. present

day Austria, Germany, Switzerland. Northern Italy. France, Northern

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