The Bear - Symbology During the Middle-Ages

A video a little bit different than usual. The symbology of the bear during the Middle-Ages. How it turned from a pagan symbol to a christian symbol of evil and the representation of the victory of the divine forces over chaos, in the early European medieval times. Enjoy! :D

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The Boar in Celtic Culture

You can watch the video about this subject in here: [The Boar in Celtic Culture]


There are many mythological accounts concerning boars in a variety of cultures throughout the world. Boar hunt, and all its process – from tracking the animal, chasing it and delivering the final blow at the end – as always been a very ritualistic activity, greatly linked to initiation rites, tests of manhood, strength and an exercise to prepare for war. 
Hercules chased and captured a ferocious and gigantic boar; the goddess Artemis sent a boar to Calydon to ravage, lay waste, create chaos in that region because Oeneus, the king of the city, forgot about the yearly sacrificial rituals to the gods; in Norse mythology we have Gullinbursti – the god Freyr’s mount - a boar; In Hindu mythology, the boar Varaha is the third of the ten avatars of Vishnu and under that form Vishnu defeated the demon Hiranyaksha. Well, it’s not my intention to give you a list of mythological accounts about the boar, I just want you to understand that this was an animal of great importance in many cultures, but let’s focus on the Celtic culture. 

Through archaeology we know our ancestors started the process of domesticating animals during the beginning of the Neolithic period. Of course they domesticated animals before this period, but the Neolithic marks a time when Man’s actions greatly changed the behaviour and the physical appearances of animals. Changes in the animals eating habits, changings in the habitats, inter-breading to enhance certain features of an animal – the earliest genetic changes – well, a variety of factors which contributed to change the physical appearances of animals. Boars were domesticated and we have transformed them into pigs, and for millions of years, in general to us there as always been this idea that boars were just wild pigs and pigs were domesticated wild pigs. So there was no great difference between the two. However, to the Celts, a pig was a pig and a boar was a completely different creature. In the Celtic languages there are different words for a pig and for a boar, I mean, the Celts didn’t just refer to boars as wild pigs. The Celts did not identify the two animals as being from the same species. For instance, he word for Boar in ancient Irish and Gaelic-Scottish is “torc”, in Welsh is “baedd gwyllt” and in Cornish “bath”, this shows us the singularity of the boar in the Celtic cultures.  

Both the bear and the boar were considered to be the most fearsome creatures of the forests in pre-Christian times and throughout the early middle ages. The Celts highly respected and admired the capacity the boar had to defend itself when the creature felt threatened. So the boar became a symbol of courage and bravery, and also ferocity in battle. To the Celts and also among the Anglo-Saxons, the boar assumes the zoomorphic figuration of the Ideal Warrior, which is why the figure of the boar appears in decorations of weapons and in the equipment of warriors, most prominent in helmets and shields.  

When the Celts went to war, one of the most characteristic objects they would take with them was the Carnyx, those long bronze trumpets, with an animal head from where the sound would come, and most of the heads were representations of a boar’s head, of course there were other 
animal representations such as serpents, but the boar was the most used representation for these wind instruments. The boar being an animal linked to courage, bravery and ferocity in battle, it’s really interesting to see this very creature represented in these objects emitting a battle chant from the depths - frightening. 

The boar is also associated with certain Celtic deities, such as Vitiris, a Celtic god who was worshipped in the British Isles, a very popular deity amongst young warriors and even roman warriors who adopted this god. And the god Mogons also associated with the boar and Moccus a deity from Gaul, worshipped by boar-hunters. The goddess Arduinna, also from Gaul, a goddess from a specific forest in ancient Gaul, and she is associated with hunt and the boar, she even rides a boar. And in ancient Lusitania, the cult of the god Endovélico involved sacrificing boars, and also pigs. So the boar was one of the main animals used in the cult of a variety of Celtic deities. And we have other spiritual/religious references to the boar, such as some of the warriors from ancient Celtic Scotland wore wild boar skins, or even a Celtic tribe from northern Britain, whose name was Orci which means “tribe of the boars”. And then a wondrous variety of statuettes and figurines of boars, and boars represented in coins. The boar was one of the most represented animals, second only to the horse. 

In conclusion, the boar is one of the most representative animals of the Celtic culture, as a symbol associated with war, but above all, courage and bravery, ferocity in battle, and in a variety of folktales and Celtic legends, even the ones about King Arthur, the boar is also associated with magic and the other world, in Celtic mythology, especially in Welsh mythology, the boar can speak with humans and the creature is able to lead people into the world of the spirits, linking the animal to initiation rites; rites of passage. 

A Celtic Chieftain's Grave

To this day the celts are still a strong subject which awakens the interest of many. Although with each passing year we are coming to the conclusion that the celts were not a people but merely a culture withdly spread, and that in fact the "celts" are thousands of different peoples who have adopted "celtic" cultural, political and religious similarities, it's still a fascinating subject. The more we dig the past, the better we can understand how our ancestors lived, and when it comes to study a culture which left nothing writen behind, and the only records are from outsiders or from people who lived long after the culture they are trying to discribe was already the stuff of legend, it's always difficult to comprehend the true nature of bygone population who shared a certain traditional background. Fortunately, archaeology has given us new insights on how the "celts" conducted their lives, what were their traditions, political and religious consciousness and, of course, their daily activities.

At the end of the 70's of the last century, a celtic burial chamber was found near Hochdorf an der Enz, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. A richly furnished chieftain's burial mound dating back to, more or less, year 530 BC. The interred subject in this grave, laid out upon a lavishly decorated 9 ft (275 cm) bronze couch on wheels, was about 40 years old and unusually tall for a person of the Iron Age (being a bit over 6ft tall (182 cm)). Judging by the objects found in the grave, this man had probably been a chieftain.

I've said this before, and here it goes again, we archaeologists spend a lot of time with the dead, it's true. The dead (well, their resting places) provide us with a lot of information about the societies of the past especially the votive objects which are, most of the time, what people gave much importance to. The graves of people who were highly respected and revered by the community of their time, are always the ones with a lot of artefacts, and these give us a lot of clues in how the societies of the time functioned.

The well-preserved funerary objects of this grave provided a lot of knowledge into the world of the rulers of these societies during the late Iron Age. This chieftain had been buried with a gold-plated torc on his neck which is clearly a symbol of power and strength; amber jewelry which have always been a "must-have" material, due to its rarety, since the Paleolithic; a gold-plated dagger made of bronze and iron, that we must not forget that this was the age of metals and such weapons had no use in war but were merely symbols of power and prestige; a bracelet on his right arm, a nail clipper, a comb, fishing hooks, a flat cone-shaped hat made of birch bark adorned with circle patterns and punched decorations, arrows, a razor knife, and thin embossed gold plaques were on his now-disintegrated shoes. At this man's feet was a large bronze cauldron, filled with honeyed-mead. The entrance to the burial mound was facing north, and the mound itself was surrounded by a stone ring and oak posts. The east side of the tomb contained an iron-plated, wooden, four-wheeled wagon holding a set of bronze dishes – along with the drinking horns found on the walls, enough to serve nine people. The one reserved for the host was delicately decorated with gold, the tip being adorned with beads made of bones. 

Nearby the burial mound, a museum dedicated to the grave was built, and fortunately enough during the construction of museum the foundations of an ancient Celtic village were found - probably the one to which the chieftain belonged to.

The Home of the Celts

Even nowadays with the turning of the century, the Celts do not cease to amaze us, and we are still digging up the truth about these European peoples who shared a similar culture, beliefs and traditions. For the last century, historians believed that the homeland of the Celtic-speaking peoples lay in central Europe, thus, from there they spread across the European continent in several waves of migration. Spreading their language, culture, traditions and way of living to almost every corner of ancient European landmass. It is told that the Celts originated during the late bronze and early iron ages, in communities of southern Germany and northern Austria, and such knowledge became the default reading of early Celtic and indeed early European history.

However, we often encounter problems in these so called historical facts. Amongst the professional academic cerclis, this theory is suspected to be wrong, and many state that it is wrong indeed, and for decades they know about it.

The homelands of the Celtic-speaking peoples were never in central Europe it seems. They were in the one place where Celtic-speakers have always been known to exist and where some still do exist, the north-western and western Europe. The modern nations and territories of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Cornwall, England, Brittany, western France, Spain and Portugal form the historic heartland of the Celts and their ancient place of origin. It was thought that the Celts came from Nowadays Germany and Austria into the western lands, but in truth they originated in the Atlantic regions, went to central Europe and then their migrations in mass started from there and came back (some never left) to the Atlantic regions, to their ancestral lands.

The BBC has news on a new three-year project to trace the origins of the Celtic peoples, including an interview with Professor John Koch, who points out the failure of the old theories to explain the origin of the Celtic-speaking nations. Even myself, I have been studying about European cultures for the past 8 years, not only the Norse as you might think when reading my blog, but also the Celts. Amongst my colleagues of History and Archaeology, we too have found a lot of evidence that strongly supports this theory.

The Lusitanian Language

The Lusitanians might be the most mysterious European people and culture of antiquity, but with time and the evolution of the social sciences working together, Archaeology, History, Anthropology, Genetics and so on, we are always a step closer to know the truth about these people.

Nowadays like most European countries, Portugal and the Portuguese people are a mixture of cultures and genes, it is the European country with the most invasions of different cultures through time, beginning at the end of the lower paleolithic and beginning of the middle paleolithic a 300.000 years ago with the homo sapiens till today with globalization increasing. The Portuguese people are a mixture of Middle eastern, North African, Iberian, Celtic, Germanic, Scandinavian, Hellenic, Latin genes and so on but to this day there are still people that have more genes of one single group than another, the Portuguese can go from the latin look, black haired, dark brown eyes and brunette skin to the blonde and redhead with pale skin and light eyes. However, Portugal started its history as a nation with the Lusitanians, a mysterious people that came into Portugal and settled, being one of the most powerful early nations of all Europe, starting from the North and Center of Portugal and quickly spreading even into modern Spain. What history, archaeology and genetics show us nowadays, is that these Lusitanians were in fact of Celtic origin and also Germanic, however, as they spread so much, some Lusitanian tribes had greek genes because of the central costal Hellenic colonies, also Iberian when they came into contact with the Eastern and Central natives of modern Spain and much later Northern African genes when they invaded Southern Portugal. The North of Portugal to this day remained very much Germanic and Celtic along with the people of Galicia from Northwestern modern Spain.
To this day when speaking of the first origins of the Portuguese, people will automatically speak of the Lusitanians, a great culture that started around 1500B.C. , people of Celtic and Germanic origins that created the first Nation of Portugal uniting as many tribes as they could. It is interesting to see that one of the latest genetic research shows that the Irish have more than 90% of DNA similarities with the Portuguese and northwestern Spanish people, and in some areas it goes to 100%, these similarities are also shown in France, Germany and the southern parts of Scandinavia.

When we hear about the Lusitanians, the name itself doesn't sound very much like a Celtic one or Germanic even, that's because that was the name given to them by the Romans when they invaded the Iberian Peninsula, and after they conquered the Lusitanians, after thousands of battles and very much trouble but at the end won by bribing, the Latin language replaced the Lusitanian one and all the other Celtic and Germanic languages spoken in the Iberian Peninsula. 
Language is the main theme of this post, the Lusitanian language, and by the end of this post you will see the differences between the Lusitanian language and the Latin one, and as much as I did, you will wonder how would Portugal look like today if the Romans never invaded it and Portugal remained a Celtic/Germanic country.

The Lusitanians are actually the Leukuire or Leukuir, the people of light and their language was the ancient Leukaeg to the modern Leukantu or Leukaeke and the form of writing was called Leukanturi. Their country Lusitânia, was called Leukitanea, the land of light.
Now let's see a few words in Lusitanian, such as "Trebopala" which means Protector of the Community, or the word "Uelgasaliant", which is a kind of greeting like "welcome" which today in Portuguese is "Bem-vindo" and in Spanish "Bienvenido".
For instance, "bänd aiwizas" which means "Forever", in Portuguese "Para Sempre" and Spanish "Para siempre".
The word "Tuouta" for "Homeland".

These are some examples of the language that doesn't sound anything like Latin.

There are also the names of the Lusitanian deities, more than 1000 gods and goddesses, which doesn't sound at all Latin, however with time some of them gained a Latin name because the Romans adopted some of the Lusitanian gods. For example we have Trebaruna, it comes from the celtic word "Trebo" meaning "home" and the word "runa" meaning mystery and/or secret, the goddess of magic, death, war and also a protectress of homes and families. Nantosuelta, Sucellos and Epona, exactly the same deities of the Celtic pantheon. Vabusoa or Borus, later Borvo a healing deity associated with bubbling spring water, which the Romans called Bormanicus, equated with Apollo. Durius, the god of the river with the same name which is today's river Douro. Laepo, Laho, Lucubo, Runesocesius (a name already romanized, there isn't any source yet of its name in Lusitanian but cleary comes from the celtic words runa and gaiso, the name of this deity means "The Mysterious One of the Spear".

Well the list goes on and honestly I would love to learn more about the Lusitanian language, or the Leukaeke/Leukantu. I wonder how would the language of the Portuguese people would be like today if the Romans had not brought their language, how would the country be if the Celtic and the Germanic peoples stood there, well some did to this day, there are still many living decendents of the Celts and the Germanic peoples and also Scandinavian ones, I am one of those, but there aren't enough to call this Nation a Celtic or Germanic one, of both.

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Irish and Portuguese - Genetic similarity

It might seem a little uncanny, but a recent genetic research shows that there are strong similirities between the Y chromosome  haplotypes from the males of northern-western Spain and of Portugal with the Irish men who often appear with Gaelic surnames, but not just that group.
The frequency of Y-DNA haplogroup R 1b which is the most common haplogroup in the continent of Europe, is in fact the highest in the populations of the Atlantic Europe, and also due to the mass European emigrations, it is also very common in North America, South America and Australia. Another example is Irland and the Basque country, this haplogroup's frequency exceeds 90% and approaches 100% in Western Irland.
The incidence of R1b is almost 70% or even more in the Celtic regions of Cumbria and Cornwall in England, also in the Celtic North region of Portugal (Douro, Minho, Trás-os-Montes e Beira Alta), Northern Spain (Celtic Galicia, Asturias, León, Cantabria and Basque Country), Western France (Béarn, Gascony, Guyenne, Saintonge, Augoumois, Aunis, Poiton, Touraine, Anjou and the Celtic Brittany) and of course the six Celtic countries which remained Celtic speaking throughout the Middle Ages ( Brittany, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Ireland and Scotland). 
The R1b's incidence declines gradually with distance of course, but it is still very common across the central areas of Europe. For example, the R1b is the most frequent haplogroup in Germany and in the low countries, and is common in Southern Scandinavia as well and in Norther Italy.
The majority of Irish people and all natives from the British Isles primarily descend from an "Iberian refugium" population dating back to the last ice age.

These connections got stronger when the Celts started their migrations during the late Bronze Ages (1200 BC) and spread all over Europe, thousands of Celtic tribes that settled in so many European regions forming the first nations of each individual country we have today. For example the Lusitanians (which probably had another name since they are of Celtic origins and the name was given to them by the Romans in the late Iron Ages) a Celtic tribe that settled in Central Portugal, its with them that the History of Portugal begins in terms of the very first portuguese nation to be formed in portuguese territories. This tribe of Celts had strong connections with the other Celtic tribes of North-Western Spain (Galicia) all the way to today's Austria via trade routes that linked the Celtic World. When the first Celts invaded Irland and settled there, one of the major Celtic tribes that went there were in fact the Lusitanians, almost a 1000 years before the Celts gradually infiltrated Britain.

The roads of the Celts

On an old post I have written, I believe it was in 2012, I talked about the possibility that the Celts might have been the first to make a network of roads for comercial purposes and to link important settlements all over Europe, before the Romans made their own roads on top of the already existing ones of the Celts. As you might know, when the Celts started to spread all over Europe, 1000 years before they came to Irland and the others countries of Great Britain, the first place they have settled was the Iberian Peninsula, today Portugal and Spain, and they have settled mostly in the Northern parts of the Iberian Peninsula, but mostly in Northern Portugal and Galicia and Central Portugal between two great rivers, Durius ( today's Douro ) and Tagus ( today's Tejo ), and that area was exactly where the tribe of Celts later called Lusitanians by the Romans, have settled and thus the history of Portugal and their national symbols were born. Because the Iberian Peninsula was so important for many cultures, not just the many tribes of Celts, but also to the Greek and the Phoenicians, so trading routes were needed that led to the main land and the eastern parts of Europe to pass through the many regions where the Celts had settlements, because during this time trading was mostly done by sea and little was taken to areas further inland. So the Celts made those road networks that linked the important Hellenic and Semitic Ports to their own settlements all the way from the Iberian Peninsula as far as the Swiss mountains* and beyond probably to nowadays Czech Republic.

By the time the Romans emerged and started their campaigns across Europe, they already knew where to go and which places where the most important for the Celts and especially to the Lusitanians ( the greatest power in the Iberian Peninsula at the time, the most likely to resist and drive the Romans back ) because of the already existing roads, they followed the paths and easily conquered the lands, after that, they built their own roads on top of the already existing ones, as we can see in the case of the the Via Heraklea, an ancient route that runs a thousand miles in a straight line from the tip of the Iberian Peninsula to the Alps, and this also happened in other countries, including the ones in Great Britain, or at least, the parts where the romans could get.

My theory wasn't far from the truth, because it seems that the straight Roman roads has been exposed by a new book which claims that these extraordinary engineering feats were in fact the work of the Celts. The findings of Graham Robb bring a new enlightenment to this subject and places into question two millennia of thinking about Iron Age Britain and Europe and the stereotyped image of Celts as barbarous, superstitious tribes.
In truth, Druids and other Celt’s scientific and spiritual leaders, have been some of the most intellectually advanced personalities of their time, it is said that they have developed the straight roads in the 4th Century BC, hundreds of years before the Italian armies marched across Europe.
The first theory was around the Via Heraklea, when it was realised that it was plotted along the solstice lines through several Celtic settlements, mapping the positioning of hundreds of other towns and cities in France, Britain and Ireland and found that the Celt’s had organised them to mirror the paths of their Sun God, created a network straight of tracks following the solstice lines across the continent. This suggests that the Druids possessed map-making skills that historians believed were discovered centuries later. Unfortunately as you may know, their scientific and mathematical achievements have been long forgotten as there is no written evidence and their history has been replaced the stereotypes of them as wood-dwelling wildmen, it is a real pity that in the Celtic society it was a rule not to write any document that contained any history of this people, and all kind of knowledge was passed through the teachings trough language, in order to keep all practices within the community and not reasing others, which leaves the entire history of the Celts, shrouded in mystery and that is why nowadays it is hard to believe that such people did amazing and extremely sophisticated things. 


*It is important to emphasize these routes between the Iberian Peninsula and in the Swiss Alps, as the Celtic tribe with more power in ancient Iberia, was the tribe of the Lusitanians who were the first European people to form a nation by uniting with other Celtic tribes, and it is thought that the origin of the Portuguese, in this case the Lusitanians, was in the Helvetic Alps in Switzerland, the site chosen by the Celts in their early migrations.

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Halloween and the Pagan origins

October is coming to an end, we are so near the day we have all been waiting for, Halloween! or All Saints Day, a very traditional Christian celebration for thousands of generations. But is it really a celebration from the Christian holidays calendar? Or an adaptation from a very ancient past before the christianization of Europe?

In truth, Halloween comes from the harvest festivals held by this time of the year by many European cultures, since immemorial times. We know about the Celtic Harvest festival given the recent Gaelic name of Samhain, a day that marks the end of Summer, connected to the harvest, also to the dead and the ancestors and the Celtic new year.

The medieval Christian churchmen and their Christian leaders often placed their holidays near popular pagan celebrations to wean the people that were recently converted, away from their pagan festivals and beliefs. Like so, Pope Gregory III moved All Saints Day from May the 13th to November the 1st. People wouldn't complain that much now, since they would still celebrate their old pagan holyday but in a different manner and turned to the new faith.
Even with such a new faith introduced, this day never lost it's former essence, and much of the popular imagination and superstition from the earlier period of this celebration is still associated to the fall pagan festival and came to our modern days because some people ( including chuchmen ) preserved some of the cults of the ancient era. Much of the superstitions were around the dead, but by this time, the harvest celebrations took place, bonfires, the coming of autumn and the natural world changing, metaphorically speaking, this was the beginning of the very death of nature, the magical passage to the winter, when the days grow darker and the skies at dusk are "painted" with the colors of fire and the very land takes this form. All of this was thought to be held most prominently during the evening before All Hallows, from where the modern name Halloween or “All Hallows Evening" comes from. The term itself originated in Scotland.
By the passing of time and with the coming of the christian faith and all the tales from the old pagan past that were told to people to scare them and never think about the pagan beliefs again, new customs evolved that had little to do with both the pagan celebrations and the christian All Saints Day or later called All Souls Day on November the 2nd. 
Some people burned candles or used lighted hollowed-out turnips (“jack-o-lanterns”) to drive away the malevolent spirits of the dead on the eve of All Hallows that would enter the world of the living at this very night. The custom of adults and children disguising themselves to trick the spirits or the living and beg for coins or food is the origin of "trick or treating". However, to the Celts, it was true that they believed that a gap between this world and the next, could be indeed opened, and the spirits of the dead, other beings and even the gods, would come to the mortal world. Some people held the celebrations for the dead, hoping that they could have any contact with their ancestors, others would disguise themselves with masks because they feared that in this day, the spirits or the gods would come and take them to the next world, since this was also the day that the deities and their helpers came to collect souls.
All over Europe, before the christianizations, people rejoiced at this day because they knew that this was the day that they would be so close to their ancestors. In northern Europe, there were many celebrations held during the month of October, such as the Dísir, honoring the female ancestors and the female deities. The Alfablót, to honor the spirits of the land to help in the harvest or to thank them for the harvesting time during the year. This was also the time were no stranger to the families living in each farm, could come near, because it was a time for very private celebrations for each family, when they could join with their deceased and feast with them near their buriel mounds at the farm. There was the myth, all over Europe, that this was also the time of the Wild Hunt, and each culture has its tales of the gods, the spirits of the ancestors and the spirits of animals, running across the sky searching for souls, to take away those who were dying, to take people at random if the gods thought that their time had come or to take brave heroes, worthy to be in the presence of the gods.

As Celtic immigrants from Scotland and Ireland came into the United States during the XIX century the spirit and essence of Halloween was rekindled. The American pumpkin replaced the turnip to make the jack-o-lanterns, and as such tit became the most prominent decoration of this holiday in the American culture.

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Endovélico - Lusitanian God

The main theme of my blog is the Northern-Tradition Paganism, working with the runes, with the gods, the kind of shamanism that was performed, the Norse language and culture and so on, but it is also a blog about European history and since i have recently talked about the Lusitanian people, it seems fit to talk about their pagan gods.
As i have written before in another post, the Lusitanians were the Celtic tribe who came to the Iberian Peninsula around 1500 B.C. (b.c.e. - before the common era ) however, the Celtic tribes from where today is Germany and Czech republic started their migrations in 3000 B.C. so it is possible that the Lusitanian tribes arrived to the Iberian Peninsula earlier, what we know for sure is that these Celts already had settled there way before they came to Great Britain in 1000 B.C.
The Lusitanian tribe ( possible had another name, more germanic-like, maybe Leukaeke, their language was the Leukantú, for the name Lusitan was the name given to them by the Romans ) settled in what today is Portugal, more then half of the country was theirs, and they also had lands in todays Spain in its center. It is interesting to know that all around the world people see Portuguese people as Latins with dark skin and black beards but their ancestors were very germanic, in truth, they have been germanic for almost 3000 years because even after the Romans came and brought their language ( the latin ) the people from Portugal were still germanic in most regions, after the Celts, the Swabians came and the Wandalns (Vandals) and the Vikings and so on, but the main language that stood there was the Latin and so many cultures settled in Portugal, including the Muslims, that you can find a wondrous variety of people, from dark skins, brown eyes and black tick hair to the most white and blue eyed blond hair almost as white as the snow.
The purpose of this introduction, resuming who the Lusitanian people were is to tell people what kind of pagan gods the Lusitanians had, very Celtic and Germanic like in their nature. One of the most famous gods was the god Endovélico, the god of medicine, magic, protection and he was also a solar god. This god was so famous that the romans adopted him and he was very much worshiped in Rome and also by the romans settled in Lusitânia ( Portugal ). This god was known by all the Lusitanian people, however he wasn't a god that could be called from any place all over Lusitânia, he was a god of place. The meaning of "a god of place" is when the a spiritual deity works in a specific region of the mortal realm and not on the spiritual world ( even if they can go to and fro between worlds and have dwellings in both places ). Endovélico was such a deity, the regions where he lived in the mortal realm was where today Alentejo is in Portugal, to be more accurate, it was the region between two great rivers, Tagus ( today Tejo ) and Anas ( today Guadiana ). This god looks very much like a Druid but with a more variety of clothing,  and a long hair and beard white as snow, walking with a staff. Legend tells that he was first discovered when a traveller was passing by in that region and he appeared to him showing where his dwellings were, high in a rocky hill. Right there in that place he as chosen the traveller to be the first person to build a temple for this god and from time to time people began to go to that region to worship the deity, trying to be healed, and in that region the first great cities appeared. There was only one priest in Endovélicos' temple, and before this one died, the god himself had already chosen a new priest and it wasn't a person from the region, it was always a foreign man from other regions of Lusitânia, chosen by the god when they slept in his temple or in the shrine or cave where people would sleep the night before they went to the temple. Before anyone could visit the temple of this god, they had to be cleansed, so they slept in a cave near the region where the temple was, closed by a wooden door or even a door made of stone, in complete darkness where they were bathed and prepared by the priest. The priest was the one who was going to get the people who wanted to speak with the god, at the first rays of light of the next day, all who entered in his temple, were forbidden to go inside with any metal object, even the the sacrificial knife was made of stone. Inside the temple the god would visit the people in their dreams, a very shamanic scenery, he would only visit people in their dreams outside the temple if it was on the cave where the people previously slept and if the person was to be next priest or a person of great importance in a manner of being directly tied to the fate of a tribe or a nation, or in the course of great events.
Archaeologists found  his temple in São Miguel da Mota, Alandroal in Alentejo in Portugal, a lot of human figures performing worshiping rituals, and also animal figures, Some offerings were still there, amphorae for exemple, the containers used for the transport and storage of various products, both liquid and dry, but mostly for wine. But it is hard to tell how the first temple really was, because when the Romans came, they re-built the temple in their own faction, in a very classic type of architecture and after Chrsitianity came and spread in the land, the Temple was brought down and a Christian chapel was build in its place, the cult of Endovélico was held till the V century of the common era. Today in the Archaeology Museum of Lisbon there are many inscriptions made by the romans to praise this deity, with all kinds of prayers, asking all sort of things ( under the domain of the god ), unfortunately there aren't inscriptions made by the Lusitanian, being a Celtic tribe, it wasn't something they would do, writing for other to read, for the Celtic culture wasn't to be told to anyone, only passed down in speech from tribe to tribe under the same ethnic group, however it is possible that some of the inscriptions may have been written by Lusitanians when they started to study the Latin language to suit their purpose when trading goods with the romans, for many Lusitanians went to Rome itself to study.
Today the neo-pagan people from Portugal still whorship him in the manner it seems the best, for the lore tells us too few about this god.

Note: The artwork to illustrate this post is a drawing of Endovélico made by me some years ago. If you have any questions for me or if you want to see my artistic works, check out my Facebook page and make a Like if you can by following this link --> http://www.facebook.com/ArithHarger

The Lusitanian people and Culture

Those who know me, are aware that i'm a practitioner of the Northern-Pagan Traditions, the spiritual paths of my ancestors from my mother side, both Germanic and Nordic, however, from my father side, there is a mixture of both Germanic and Celtic blood and also Lusitanian blood, so i feel the need to write in here who the Lusitanian people really were, in honor of those people who are my ancestors also. I am a walking cocktail of European bloodlines, with Nordic blood, Celtic blood, Lusitanian blood, some drops of Germanic blood and possibly some Latin blood. But enough about me, lets start our History lesson.

The Lusitanians were a group of people from a Celtic tribe which came to the Iberian Peninsula along with other Celtic tribes when the Celts started their migrations around 3000 B.C.
The Celts origins are where Czech Republic and Germany are today, and they started a huge migration in all directions in Europe, one of the first places they settled, was in the Iberian Peninsula where the countries of Portugal and Spain are today, many tribes of Celts came there, one of those were the Lusitanians, some Archaeologists and Historians think they where the Celtic tribes who came from the Helvetic mountains in modern Switzerland.
The Iberian Peninsula had its inhabitants along the coast of Spain from the east side, they were called Iberians, and the South of Portugal was inhabited by Phoenicians and people from northern Africa and from Carthage, along the coastline to the west by the Atlantic ocean to the modern capital of Portugal ( Lisbon ) it was inhabited by Greek colonies, so the center of Portugal all the way to the north and most parts in the north of spain, were in this time, almost empty. So it was easy for the Celts to settled in those parts, and they took the lands with no problems, what is today Galicia, northern Spain, all the way to its center and northern Portugal till Lisbon, was Celtic territory. The Iberian Peninsula had a very fertile soil, not only for agriculture but it was also rich in ore, all kinds of metals, and the Celts were very good in working those metals, this was the Bronze age, and now they had access to such a huge quantity of metals, they had everything they wished for, their wealth increased, and they prospered. Of all the Celtic tribes in the Iberian Peninsula, only one grew in such a way, that they formed the first nation in Europe ( The Romans did not existed yet ), they were called Lusitanians, and they had the largest Celtic territory of all, all Center of Portugal and parts of Spain was theirs, they had the best lands for agriculture and they worked the metals like no one, the tools, weapons and objects they made were so beautiful and well crafted, that it was coveted by all Europeans and people from all over the place in Europe, from North, East and South, came to Lusitânia, to exchange and buy the things the Lusitanians crafted. These Celts and the other Celtic tribes in the Iberian Peninsula, were the first people to literally make trade routes, the first to make roads, unlike it was said for so much time, that the Romans were the first to build roads, the Celts made them before, the Romans just re-built roads on top of the already existing ones. The Lusitanian people were the strongest and most powerful people in the Iberian Peninsula, they had the most fertile lands, thousands of cattle, the best weapons and the largest villages, towns and strongholds. The Romans gave them this name, Lusitans/Lusitanians, from the word Luso, which was a Roman god, thought to duel in those parts and the Lusitanians were his children. However, the Lusitanians were Celts and they worshiped Celtic deities obviously, their language was the Leukaeke, a Celtic dialect, unfortunately, like the Cornish language of Wales, the Leukaeke was completely lost, 1500 years earlier than the Cornish, the last words of Leukaeke were spoken in the V century A.D. although many people are trying to bring it back in a modern way, the neo-lusitanian language called Leukantú, notice that this language is not similar in any way to the Portuguese language. The Lusitanians called their land, Leukitanea, the land of light, so probably these names came from their celtic tribe name.
These Celts were much feared and also respected and time passed and they lived wealthy, happy, joyful and increasing their lands, they even went to Great Britain with other Celts, when they started their migrations to those lands, but most of the Lusitanians went to Irland, so many people in Irland are related with the Lusitanians. But the Romans were growing in numbers and in strength and they had a nation of their own and soon they started conquer other lands in Europe, increasing their empire. The wealth and power of the Lusitanians soon came to the Romans' ears, and their lands were so rich in everyway, that the Romans really wanted them, it would increase their wealth, because the Celtic Lusitanians had a lot of gold also, strategic lands to plan invasions into other countries, extremely fertile soils, because they were also a possible threat to the Empire and because the very lands of the Lusitanian people were thought to be divine, made by the gods, a place where the gods could rest.. and that turned to be true, because when the Romans took those lands, they add the Lusitanian gods to their list of gods, these Celtic-Lusitanian gods were much feared and respected and also too powerful and great.
The lands of the Lusitânia covered much of what Portugal is today and a part of Spain. Now you may be thinking, why the Portuguese and Spanish people share the same language base of the French and the Italian, ( the Latin ) if they were Celts, with a Celtic and Germanic language? Well that is simple, those were the first countries to be conquered by the Romans, and the people of those places stood too long, under the Roman influence, the Romans had time to build a lot of cities, impose their culture, building their temples, making their own trade routes, and the native people of those countries, were either slaughtered or became romans and adopted the latin as their main language as an easy way to exchange and trade products with the Romans and survive. So the latin became the main language, and when the christian faith came, latin was still the main language for many centuries.
In Portugal today, most of that Celtic anf Germanic heritage was lost, and the Lusitanian spirit and their gods are now hidden throughout the beautiful landscape, even knowing that other germanic tribes came and settled, the Wandalns the Swabians, the Visigoths, the Vikings and so on, but the christian faith was too powerful, and brought down all of them.. This is a pity, for Portugal was forged by great cultures and has an extremely rich cultural past. All those cultures fought to survive and to maintain their gods, their beliefs, their way of living, people often talk about what christians did in other countries of Europe, bringing down ancient pagan temples, forests, slaughtering everyone, trying to wipe out those ancient pagan European beliefs, but the Iberian Peninsula suffered greatly with that and amazing cultures almost disappeared. Today, some people are trying to bring all of that, back, awaking the old gods, its hard to pick anything to start, for the romans and christians did a great job in cleaning those beliefs, but i hope, with my contribution and the contribution of such others, we might bring it all back again. There are still some many Germanic and Celtic descendants in Portugal, who have no clue of their ancestry...

In other posts, i will talk about the daily lives of the Lusitanian people, heroes, their gods and their culture, from spiritual beliefs to rituals and sacrifices, to the language and form of writing.

 If you have any questions for me or if you want to see my artistic works, check out my Facebook page and make a Like if you can by following this link --> http://www.facebook.com/ArithHarger

Curiosity: In old Lusitania

For those of you who dont know where Lusitania is or was, i will help you with that:


Lusitania was the country where the Lusitanian people lived, in the Iberian peninsula in the continent of Europe, where today exists the modern countrys of Spain and Portugal.
The Portuguese people and some of the spanish people, are decendents from the Lusitans, often people think about the Lusitans, as Iberians or Celtiberians, but in truth, the Lusitanian people were Celts. The Celts start their expansion over the European territories something like 1200 B.C./B.C.E. and that was the year when they first arrived to the Iberian peninsula, 200 years before they went to Great Britain. There were a lot of Celtic tribes in Spain and Portugal, and each tribe settled in a place, one of those tribes of Celts, were the Lusitans, or the Lusitanian peoples. Probably their name wasn't that, because the Romans called them Lusus/Lusos, probably they had an other name, a Celtic one. These tribe had the biggest part of Central Portugal and they became the most powerful people in the Iberian peninsula. They were no longer a Celtic Tribe, now they were a nation. They conquered most of Portugal exept the North that belonged to their other Celtic brothers, and conquered a large territory of Spain. Today we know that their language was of germanic source, it was found in archaeological discoveries, that they wrote in the celtic language called Ogham and also in the Runic Alphabet, not with the runes we know today, but with the first symbols where the runes came from, called ur-runes.


We have all heard about the Druids, but before the Druid's time, the Lusitanian people had already a spiritual guide, elders in each Lusitanian tribe, called Endre, in plural, Endres. These men and probably women, were something between a shaman and a druid, they were teachers of philosophy, anatomy, spiritualism, science etc. and they knew how to work with the neolithic monuments such as Dolmens, henges, sacred mounds, menhirs etc.


So this is very important to know, because most people think that the Lusitanian people were just Iberians, but in fact they were Celts, and the Celtiberians were the mixture with other Celts from the Central Iberian peninsula, with the Iberian people that were the native folk from the Cost line of Spain to the East and Northeast.

Also a very curious thing, when the Celts arrived in Irland, they have not passed through england to get there, they came by sea from the Iberian peninsula, some Celts, some Iberians and many Lusitans. So many people in Irland, have the same ancestry as the Portuguese people.

If you need more information or if you want to check my works, take a look at my Facebook page and make a like at --> www.facebook.com/ArithHarger

About Culture

The thing that distinguishes and differentiates an ethnic group, it is not the colour of their skin, but their original culture. Culture encompasses a set of features that identify the humans beings from a specific region, those features are, religion, beliefs, spirituality, gastronomy, architecture, history, geographical factors, arts and language. Everything influences the humans, even the seasons of the year.A good example of a country rich in history and culture is, Portugal, where many diferent people and many diferent cultures had passed and left their permanent mark within each individual, just like the many tribes of the Lusitans. whose architecture differs greatly from north to south, for geographical and seasonal reasons.These tribes were strongly influenced, from the north to the center and into the coastline of Portugal, by the germanic people, such as the Celts, Vandals ( Wandalns ), Saxons, Vikings, Swabians and the Visigoths, that leaft their mark among the Lusitanian people, archaeological and  religious marks, and the Romans had a great influence on Portugal as well, particularly in the creation and expansion of the cities of Lisbon and OPorto, and the Romans in turn, have adopted the Lusitan Pagan Gods.
Portugal was also influenced by the Arabian people, that forever changed the concept of agriculture in Portugal, in the regions further south, and still today, their architecture is still visible in the regions of Algarve.

Every people, every tribe, has their own culture, that is evolving and changing and shapin over the course of history, but always influenced by others, with the help of trade, war and politics, but these influences are not natural, these influences occur due to forcing others to change. Many people have lost their cultures due to the implementation of values ​​and rules that were not theirs, and the biggest exemple of that in the human history is, the coming of Christianity, that forcibly opened the way to the regions of Europe, forcing everyone to adopt these religious beliefs, and this had strong effects on the loss of identity of every men and women in Europe, and this loss took place because freedom was plucked from each individual, was forgotten and was not respected.The essence of each individual, his own soul, his character and personality, are influenced by culture and what they have acquired from other cultures and coexistence and study of the same.
A culture only exists if freedom is maintained, for each people anywhere in the world, because taking away freedom of being what we have always been, is the biggest factor in the extinction of an ethnic group and the loss of cultures and customs.

Arith Härger

Birch Tree - 24th December to 20 January

The Birch Tree is a small tree that rarely exceeds 25 meters, and it can live to 50 years. In Europe it grows below 2,000 feet of altitude. It is a tree that remotes to an ancestral time, of more then 30 million years of existence.
This tree represents ( in druidic lore ) the renewal and rebirth. In the woods, this is the first tree to gain leaves, to rebirth and to renew its green appearance after the Winter. It is also the first tree to grow again in places where it has been a great burning or a place where the trees have all been chopped down.
It is belived that these were the first trees to grown after the great glacial age.
The origins of its name, birch , comes from the indo-european languages, linking to the words Brightness and shining.
However, it is a possibility that the name comes from the Anglo-Saxon term, beorgan, which means "to protect" or "shelter".
That is why it is said, in a dark forest, it is the birch tree that always show us the way out.

This tree is sacred to the Norse god Thor but especialy to the Welsh goddess Blodeuwedd, and to other goddesses such as Freya, Frigga and Ceridwen.

In the Druid Calendar, the first month, that goes from 24th of December till 20th of January, is called beth - the birch moon. In Portugal, this tree is called Betúla.

There is an ancient habit, to give to the newly married folk, small branches of birch tree in order to ensure the fertility.
In certain places in Europe, farmers used to plant these trees around the house, as a protection against lightning, and the juice extracted from leaves, prevents worms from appearing in the cheese.

The wood of the birch tree is one of the tradicional timber used in the Beltane fire festival.

How Christianity Came into Europe

Note: This post is about History, European History and how the Christian religion came into Europe, also the drawing to illustrate this, was made by me.

Note2: This was a scheduled Post.





How Christianity came into Europe

In 219 BCE the warrior and commander Hannibal of Carthage, a Roman Province in Northern Africa, after his fathers death, gathered the army in his yound age of 16 years old, and went to conquer Rome in revange of his father's death by Roman hands. He went by land into the Iberian Peninsula, Lusitans of Portugal and Spanish from Spain, helped Hannibal, joining his army, they went to the Pyrenees in northern Spain, the border between spain and mordern france, and there the roman troops were waiting for Hannibal's army, 10.000 romans and all slaughtered, Hannibel continue to go and was helped by the Gauls in ancient gaul todays france, after this many other battles were fought, Hannibel killed many romans, and more romans came to him, till he reached northern Italy, Hannibel won all the battles but he did not reach his goal, to burn down rome, which in that time was not yet an Empire, Hannibal turned back to Carthage, strategically he has lost the war. but with this event, the Romans in reprisal start to kill and conquer all those who could oppose their safety, politics, economy and wealth. So it began the wars of rome against the rest of Europe, and it became a vast empire, the first to go down of course, were the people in Northern Italy an ancient tribe of celts and of course the northern Africa where Carthage was, then the rest of Europe. Among the many people the Romans subjected to their will, came the people of Yahushua ( Jesus Christ ), after they have killed Jesus, many created the new Religion of Christianity, and so many more joined this new faith, and the romans and the Jews were the first ones, changing all the wishes of Jesus and turning this new faith into something that would give them power over all, now it would be easier to conquer all without battle, but through faith, a new religion made by lies, and those lies would convince too many to submit themselves to a new order of power, this was not a religion but politics to increase the roman economy, so this was how christianity started to spread, but a germanic tribe called the Wandalns ( Vandals ) invaded rome and brought it down, so the Roman Empire has fallen and as it was falling apart, so all the roman citys and provinces were falling too. The people that were used to live in a roman way, with all the tecnologhy they brought, were now living in a world were all of those works were falling too, such as the aqueducts that used to bring water to all, now that rome had fallen, no one cared about that, and people start to live in a poor way, with no conditions, nor hygiene, so people start to have many problems, and since Europe belonged to no one now, many tribes became countries and those were fighting to have more land and power, and the people now living in a evil world where food was scarce, battles everywhere, the people were in need of something to save them so badly, no one was there to protect them, and now they were being robbed and murdered.
Meanwhile the franks apeared, the Franks were a West Germanic confederation, uniting the peoples in Magna Germania north and east of the Lower Rhine River. The Frankish identity emerged in the first half of the 3rd century out of various Germanic groups, including the Salii, Sicambri, Chamavi, Bructeri, Chatti, Chattuarii, Ampsivarii, Tencteri, Ubii, Batavi and the Tungri, who inhabited the area between the Zuyder Zee and the river Lahn and extended eastwards as far as the Weser, but were most densely settled around the IJssel and between the Lippe and the Sieg. From the third to fifth centuries the Frankish armies raided Roman territory and expanded their influence among the Germanic peoples previously living under Roman rule on the left bank of the Rhine. In 358, the Salian Franks came to some form of agreement with the Romans that allowed them to settle in Toxandria (roughly Noord-Brabant, Antwerpen and Vlaams-Brabant). Each tribe within the Frankish confederation consisted of extended kinship groups centred around a particularly renowned and noble family. The importance of the family bond was made clear by the Salic Law, which ordained that an individual had no right to protection if not part of a family. One particular Salian family comes to light of Frankish history in the early fifth century, in time to become the Merovingians - Salian kings named after Childeric's mythical father Merovech, whose birth was thought to be divine. Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, became the absolute ruler of a united Frankish kingdom in 486. He consolidated his rule with victories over the Gallo-Romans and all the other Frankish tribes and established his capital in Paris. After he had beaten the Visigoths and the Alemanni, his sons drove the Visigoths to Spain and subdued the Burgundians, Alemanni and Thuringians. During the period of Merovingian rule, the Franks reluctantly began to adopt Christianity following the baptism of Clovis in 496 CE. Following Clovis' conversion, a number of Franks rallied around Ragnachar, a powerful figure who had played an important role in Clovis' initial rise to power, but their rebellion was crushed. The remaining pockets of resistance within the population were overcome region by region through a quickly expanding network of monasteries. The Frankish church had to come to terms with an established Gallo-Roman clergy that actively spread anti-Germanic propaganda, which has survived in their writings and works of history; it had to Christianise traditional Frankish sensibilities and effectively suppress them; it had to provide a new theological basis for Frankish kingship, which was deeply rooted in Germanic tradition. While the Goths or the Vandals had been at least partly Christianised since the mid-4th century, traditional Germanic beliefs are thought to have flourished among the Franks until well after the conversion of Clovis to Christianity. So as i've written before, King Clovis of the Franks was cristianized just to get power and lands and noble titles, to conquer them all, and that is how france was born, and for the pope in rome this was great, because clovis was spreading thie christian faith to all Europe, by force, by slaughter, by burning, pillaging and killing. And as i've written before, those peopel that were in a great need of help, now play a big role, they needed a miracle, and came a new faith, promising salvation, all they needed! And so easily those became christians too. The Northern countries of Europe were the last to be Christianized because it was hard to go into those places, and because the people there stand in theur old religions and fought to continue to be the people they have always been, to continue their pagan spirit. The Franks tired of getting sieged by the Germanic people, ofered them titles, lands and weath in gold and jewels if they were to be christianized too, in greed for power, they all accepted, but more people accepted to be christians, so they would not be killed, because those who would not convert, were brutaly tortured and killed.
So Europe was now living in a christianized world, but there were still many to conquer, there were still many pagans who needed taxation, people that had to be christianized, to pay to their Christian Kings and ofcourse to give money to the church, then the Black Death came, an horribel plague that was killing all, in every 10, only 2 survived, the church in its wisdom, used this as a propaganda, it was a sign of God, people had to be christians or would suffer and die of the plague of death! So the people in fear, the rest of the people... were fully christianized. This was a summary of what happened, almost 1500 years to christianized all the Europeans, people that used to be free.. have a free will, a free spirit and mind.