Katharine Kerr -- the Author as Celtic Scholar

"Even today, after more than a century of serious study, the popular conception of the Celts is crowded with erroneous stereotypes that span the entire range of their history ... at worst the concepts of 'Celtic' and 'Civilization" are never connected.So says Katherine Kerr, author of the popular `Deverry' series of Fantasy novels. Celtic culture, particularly that centered in the British isles, is a favorite of Fantasy writers. Possibly this is due to the ambiguity of the culture itself, of the fact that very little is known about the religious practices of the Celts and their strong beliefs in magic and an unseen world all around us. Ireland in particular, which remained a Celtic stronghold long after the rest of Britain and Europe fell prey to Roman civilization, is the home to much Fantasy literature of the 'Sword and Sorcery' school.

"But the Celts did indeed develop a civilization, and it flourished not just in Ireland or on the British isles, but first and most significantly in Continental Europe. In the period between 700 B.C. and 100 A.D. Celtic tribes thrived in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. During that span Celtic culture traversed the English Channel and the Irish Sea, and took root."1

In the first century B.C. the Greek historian Strabo described the central segment of the holdings of the Celts, beginning in Spain and ending in Eastern Europe. The center of this area he called Celtica, and it stretched from Spain through the Balkans to the peninsula of Asia Minor. The Romans called this area Gaul, and its' people eventually became known as Gaulish.

Of all the Fantasy writers who use a loosely interpreted version of Celtic culture and history in their works, only two Americans are genuine Celtic scholars -- Patricia Kenneally and Katharine Kerr. Kenneally's Celts are Irish Celts, long transplanted from their home (they left Ireland during the time of St. Patrick, as they were pagans, and immigrated to another planet with the help of some friendly aliens) and Kerr is quick to point out that her Celts are Gaulish.

"Anyone who has read my fantasy series, Daggerspell, Darkspell, The Bristling Wood, The Dragon Revenant, and the rest, knows that the history of the kingdom of Deverry is as important to the over-all story as the personal dramas of the characters are ... First of all, many readers and reviewers have assumed that the series is set in some sort of alternative Britain or that the people of Deverry came originally from Britain. In fact, they emigrated from northern Gaul, as a couple of obscure clues in the text tell the compulsively careful reader who also knows an awful lot about Celtic history."2Whether Kerr's Celts originated from Gaul or Britain, there is one thing most scholars agree upon -- the Celtic tribes all engaged in a form of pantheistic nature worship. More is known today about their religion than other aspects of their culture, because it came into strong conflict with the paternalistic pantheon of the Romans and the monotheism of the Christians. Two aspects of the Druidic religion, the worship of nature and the use of Sorcery or Magic for religious purposes, have been used by Kerr as a central theme in the Deverry series.

According to Caesar's Gallic Wars, the Druids lived as priests in a communal manner, devoting themselves to learning and existing much in the fashion of early colleges or universities, where young men went to study. As such, they could be termed seminaries of the Druid religion, where their learning was kept and passed on to novitiates. One of the most famous of these 'colleges' was the island of Anglesey off the coast of Wales -- the Druid High Priests were reported to have great powers of statesmanship, and they were often used as arbitrators between feuding warlords.

Joseph J. Thorndike Jr. refutes the Gallic Wars and states that "The Druids seem to have been shamans and necromancers. Their supratribal influence was apparently of the same type as that of the oracles of Greece, which was based on a claim to be able to foresee the future, and their long period of training consisted of memorizing the genealogies and epics which are the literature of a people without writing.Kerr uses the duality of the Druidic religion -- the worship of the various aspects of Nature and the use of Sorcery as a religious practice -- to great advantage in her work. This is greatly appreciated in England, where she is known as a literary star in the Fantasy realm and in the rest of Europe, where her books are being translated for local publication. Alex Voglino says, in the forward to the Italian translation of Daggerspell;

"The Druids and the sacred groves do perhaps bring some sort of unity into the plurality of Celtic religion ... the attested connection between the Druids of Gaul and the Druids of Wales does suggest that a consciousness of underlying unity, based on common language and common creeds, existed over large areas despite local wars and rivalries -- much as the city-states of Greece were always conscious, despite their wars with one another, that they were one people, possessing one religion and fundamentally one culture."3

"They (Druid priests) were identified, indeed, to some extent with religious spokesmen in the classic sense -- functioning as an intermediary between the people and the divine force -- to some extent, with seers and oracles, to some extent, with 'magi', makers of marvelous potions and weavers of sophisticated spells.Although Kerr's exploration of the religious customs of the Celts centers most in Nevyn (translating literally to mean 'no one', as Nevyn was originally Prince Galrion and took on the name of 'no one' when he was cast out by his family and became a Sorcerer), there are a number of other instances when she uses religious symbolism and the actual names of Celtic gods. The Deverrians worship Bel, and there are a number of minor and even major cults having to do with the worship of different gods and goddesses in the pantheon. Like all Nature worshippers, although Bel is the principal god, in an innate way, in their instinctive, everyday worship and feelings, they follow The Great Mother.

"So it is that Katharine Kerr shows that she's well aware of these various functions (and that this very ambiguity defines the druidical character), in the way that she delineates the figure of the protagonist of her splendid Deverry cycle, which begins with this powerful and disquieting The Druids Blade (Daggerspell). Nevyn, a little bit of a wandering bard, a little bit of a prophet, a bit of a mage and a healer, incarnates well the fluidity of the druids and, at the same time and in harmony with the other characters -- especially the king and the warriors -- confirms without hesitation the primacy of this (druidical) function that comes not from the imagination of the author but direct from the pages of various texts of religious history."4

In Darkspell, Kerr's heroine spends a reincarnation as a warrior maiden named Gweniver, during which she becomes a Priestess of The Moon, following the Goddess, fighting only for her, and remaining a virgin -- she is marked by a blue crescent moon, tattooed on her cheek and making her sacrosanct from the love of men.

"She towered through the stars, and her face was grim, blood-besotted as she shook her head and spread a vast mane of black hair over the sky. Gweniver could hardly breathe as the dark eyes looked her way. This was the Goddess of the Dark Time, whose own heart is pierced with swords and who demands no less from those who would worship her."5

"Nevyn felt sick at the thought of her being so bound up in battle lust.

`Good sir, you seem wise,' the prince went on. `I thought it impious for a woman to take up arms.'

`Now, that depends on which priest you choose to listen to. But it's an act of piety to Lady Gweniver's goddess. Every man she kills is a sacrifice to the dark of the moon ... Now, back in the Dawntime there were many battle maidens, all sworn to the Dark Moon. The cursed Rhwmanes thought it impious, but then, all their silly women did was sit and spin.'

`You mean back in the Homeland, then, before the great exile.'

`Just that, long before King Bran led his people to the Western Isles.'"6

The "cursed Rhwmanes" were, of course, the Romans, the scourge that apparently drove the Celts out of the Homeland and into the Western Isles. It is due, however, to the Romans and their predilection for conquering the barbarians around them that we owe much of the written information we have of the Celts. Thanks to their vast experience in conquering the people who threatened them, we benefit in the fact that they did not immediately set out to destroy the religious beliefs of the barbarians they ruled. It seems clear that although the word 'barbarian' was loosely translated to mean non-Roman, the leaders of the time were content merely to tack their own Gods and Goddesses onto the barbarian ones.

"The greatest body of continental evidence comes from inscriptions and monuments set up under Roman rule and encouragement, in the Celtic areas brought within the Empire. The inscriptions are in Latin, rarely in Greek, and are generally to some well-known Roman god coupled with the name of a local Celtic one, or paired with a Celtic goddess. The monuments, normally altars of purely Roman type, do provide, however, an iconography where none existed, or hardly so, in earlier days. To this information must be added the remarks of various classical writers, most explicit of whom is Caesar. On the Druids, and on various tenets reported of the Celts, such Greek and Roman sources are more useful than they are on the Gods. Information is also forthcoming from the comparative philological study of Celtic deity names, and words to do with cult, and there is finally the prehistoric archeological, material in burial rites, votive offerings and, all too slightly, on sacred sites and temples. With these should be mentioned the iconography of some Gaulish and British coins of the period immediately before the loss of independence."7

Celtic coinage depicts many items that must have been important to a culture that, in some ways, was reminiscent of the Greek city-states. It is clear that though there were many far-flung settlements of Celts or Gauls they recognized themselves as being one people. The horse is frequently represented on their coins; indeed, in all their art. It is small wonder that a special God should have existed to guard the horse, that all-important animal, who kept them in contact with one another. Without this contact their unique identity would have been quickly lost and they would, incidentally, have been unable to engage in the battles that seemed to have been a major source of excitement in their lives. In Uffington, Oxfordshire, England there is a hill figure of a white horse, "that marks the place as sacred to a Celtic horse deity (Epona), and probably was the site of regular ceremonial games and tribal gatherings. Its' stylized design and huge scale (365 feet from nose to tail) show the devotion and artistic appreciation of its' creators; probably the Belgae who moved into southern Britain and Ireland from the continent around 300 B.C."8

Kerr writes of a distinctly quirky figure, a horse thief, who once encountered and became dedicated to another animal god. One who constrains him to protect horses. Later, he sees the god when exhaustion and hunger have nearly overcome him. "When he woke, moonlight flooded the meadow. Nearby the chestnut stood, head down and asleep. The night was unnaturally silent; not the cry of an owl, not the song of a cricket, nothing. As he sat up, wondering at the silence, he saw something -- someone -- standing at the edge of the meadow. With a whispered oath he rose, wishing for the sword he'd left behind on the battlefield. The figure took one step forward, tall, towering in the moonlight -- or was it moonlight? He seemed to drip pale light as palpable as water, running down the strong naked arms, glittering on the gold torc around his neck, shimmering on the massive antlers that sprang from a head mostly cervine, though human eyes looked out of it.

Not such a bad blessing for a God to bestow, after all. The other blessings of the gods vary from explanations of the inexplicable to the reassuring familiarity of often practiced traditions. But, in the Celtic traditions there are other beings who are not as powerful as gods and not usually as beneficent. The tradition, underlying the different creatures, limits many but not all of them to a specific locale; temples and earthworks, or perhaps a sacred well. From these traditions are born many of the Celtic tales of myth and mystery.

"This poetic and comprehensive viewpoint, to which the prosaic, scientific approach of archeology is simply irrelevant, led the Celts to regard the earthworks, with their obvious aura of supernatural power, as the dwelling-place of the beings of the Otherworld which the Irish call the Sidhe. The Sidhe embodies the half-way state, between one world and the next, which is a vital theme of Celtic art and myth. The sacred places have retained their numinous quality down to the present. Their supernatural inhabitants, also known as the Sidhe, and said to be of two kinds -- the tall shining ones and the opalescents lit from within -- were rarely encountered because of the impurities of the world. With the coming of Christianity they dwindled in every sense, living on in the in-between state to become the fairies, leprechauns and banshees of folklore. Their psychic reality was never wholly lost, and the comic terrors of fairy-tales and ghost stories conceal a remnant of ancient religious awe."10

Whatever the dwindling of these creatures may have to say about the diminishing purity of the world under the auspices of Christianity, Kerr has seen fit to include them in her work. "The guardians in A Time of Exile are Sidhe in their purest form. Two tip-offs are the three road entryway to their kingdom, and the way time runs differently there. Also, 'a place where three streams meet' is traditionally a gateway to the kingdom of the Sidhe."11

In her world there are also playful little creatures that live in that 'in-between state' and are only occasionally apparent to those in Deverry -- unless the person in question has some psychic abilities.

"'You're daft,' he told himself sharply, 'there's naught here.' But he had performed too many times to believe himself. He knew the intangible difference between singing to empty air and playing to an attentive hall. When he sang two verses of a ballad he felt them, whoever they were, leaning forward to catch every word. When he stopped and set the harp down, he sensed their disappointment.

For most people they are revealed by a stray touch, an unplaced giggle, or just that feeling of invisible `presence'. The `Wildfolk', as she terms them, are nothing more than playful and mischievous sprites. The darker side of the `Otherworld' is shown by another tale, that of a Banshee. The Banshee is a particularly Celtic legend, and Kerr brings the legend of a 'half-way' state of existence to life with a pretty tale of one of the Wildfolk gone wrong. A lovely blue sprite who falls in love with a human man and loses him due to the limits of the human spirit.

"And for years the folk around Drwloc heard a Banshee, or so they called it, wailing in the lonely places whenever the moon was at her full. At length she came less often, and finally, after a long, long time she vanished, never to be heard again."13

This is one of the Fables that would likely be told at the great feasts which are part of the Celtic legend. The gatherings that decided the fates of the attendants and were, no doubt, the cause of many of the minor upsets between the clans.

"The feast was also an occasion when the community could reminisce about the past -- about its' history and the exploits of its' heroes -- and could plan its' future. It was no doubt on an occasion such as this that the professional bards would sing or recite the oral traditions of the tribe contained in the great sagas of the kind which survive in the Irish literature -- partisan works lavishing praise upon the ancestors of the audience. Dodorus Siculus tells us of the men. 'They have lyric poets', he says, 'whom they call Bards. They sing to the accompaniment of instruments resembling lyres, sometimes an eulogy and sometimes a satire.'"14

From the sublime to the ridiculous to the merely bad-tempered; Kerr represents all of these elements in her work. Her characters are, for the most part, generous and open-hearted, with tempers that are easily ignited. This is historically true of the Celtic character according to Greek and Roman writers of the time; the Gauls were highly admirable in matters of physical courage, if not in those of strategy.

"The whole race, which is now called Gallic or Galactic, is madly fond of war, high-spirited and quick to battle, but otherwise straightforward and not of evil character. And so when they are stirred up, they assemble in their bands for battle, quite openly and without forethought, so that they are easily handled by those who desire to outwit them; for at any time or place and on whatever pretext you stir them up, you will have them ready to face danger even if they have nothing on their side but their own strength and courage."15

The Celts and their conquerors had much in common, and Kerr illustrates this in the simplest and most casual of ways. In her curses, that throw-away element of conversation that lends humanity to the written dialogue. "Ye Gods', says one of her characters, and we are thereby given to understand that the heavens of Deverry are ruled by more than one exalted being: a veritable pantheon. My favorite of all the oaths she has created for her characters is 'By the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell'. It is one which serves to illustrate the almost excessive humanity shared by the Greco-Roman and Celtic gods.

One of the characters who uses that oath, 'By the black hairy ass ...' the most is a woman. But she only uses it in her last incarnation, as the warrior-maiden Jill. Kerr portrays the development of women throughout the various incarnations of the characters, and makes the most striking changes in Jill. She begins in Daggerspell, as a sheltered and spoiled princess named Brangwen, who doesn't yet have the insight to realize her true path in life -- that of a Mage, or `Dweomer Master'. As she slowly develops through the next four hundred years she becomes more intelligent, more independent ... and more warlike. During one lifetime she is Gweniver, a warrior-maiden who dedicates her life to the `dark' aspect of the Moon Goddess. Her life in that incarnation is necessarily a short one; the interesting thing about it is that while she leads a battalion of men and is, in effect, a Celtic chieftain, she is sacrosanct from the attentions of men -- she must remain a virgin. And she does so, dying in the service of her `dark' goddess.

The other woman of note in the Deverry series is Lovyan, mother of Rhodry who is the hero of the series and Jill's lover. Lovyan has become, through the death of all suitable male heirs, a `Gwerbret', or chieftain. "Just this last year, however, her only brother and his son had both been killed in an honor war. Since there was no other heir, their father's property had come to Lovyan under that twist in the laws designed to keep land holdings in a clan even if a woman had to inherit them... When she took over the demesne, some of her vassals grumbled about having a woman for overlord, even though it was right under the laws and, though rare, far from unknown."17

Although Kerr's Celts are meant to be of a Gaulish origination, the evidence for women rulers amongst Celtic tribes is found mostly in the British isles. The most famous of these are two English Chieftains -- Boudicca of the Iceni and Cartimandua of the Brigante. Boudicca in particular fits the `warrior-maiden' concept of the Celtic woman. Even though not much is known about the lives of women in early Celtic times, the eminent Celtic scholar Gerhard Herm offers the following description from the Roman Ammianus Marcellinus.

"Marcellinus says that a whole horde of enemy warriors could not withstand a single Gaul if he had his wife to help him: `As a rule she is blue-eyed and quite terrifying, particularly when her neck-muscles swell up, when she grinds her teeth and bares her huge arms. If she strikes out and kicks, it is as if a catapult had shot out four blows at the same time.'"18

The descriptions given of Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni tribe of Norfolk after the death of her husband, Prasutagus, concur with the above. This one is from Dio Cassius: "Boudicca was tall, terrible to look on and gifted with a powerful voice. A flood of bright red hair ran down to her knees; she wore a golden necklet made up of ornate pieces, a multicolored robe and over it a thick cloak held together by a brooch. She took up a long spear to cause dread in all who set eyes on her."

Gerhard Herm adds, "Prasutagus, Boudicca's husband, must have been the man with whom they concluded their first treaty, ostensibly between equal partners. When he died without male issue, the procurator, the civil counterpart of the governor, refused to bestow on his widow and the two girls the rights enjoyed by the dead man, as would have suited Celtic custom."19

This would bear out the inheritance of Lovyan, who rules her land by Celtic custom, despite the fact that some of her tenants are disgruntled by a female leader. And Boudicca is most certainly the model for any Warrior-Maiden. One finds it difficult to believe that she, or any of Katharine Kerr's women would tolerate the other observation Herm makes on the relationship between Celtic men and women. This was taken from Dodorus, whose observations must be suspect on two counts. Firstly, he is from a culture that embraced homosexual sex as a `higher good' than heterosexual mating and believed it instilled some sort of power into men. Secondly, he is part of a conquering people who delight in attributing actions to the `barbarians' they studied which make them not only more barbaric but more easily understandable to the conqueror.

"The Celtic women are not only as tall as the men, but as courageous ... But despite their charm, the men will have nothing to do with them. They long instead for the embrace of one of their own sex, lying on animal skins and tumbling around with a lover on either side. It is particularly surprising that they attach no value to either dignity or decency, offering their bodies to each other without further ado. This was not regarded as at all harmful; on the contrary, if they were rejected in their approaches they felt insulted."20

Herm explains this strange behavior as the result of a warrior society that placed young men in close friendship and approximation from an early age. While this is possible, there is no mention of this from other scholars, though Strabo and Athenaeus also wrote of the Celts homo-erotic tendencies. It is difficult to reconcile his description of Celtic women with this tendency of the men to ignore their wives, and Kerr has settled the question in her Deverry cycle by the division of religious magic (Dweomer) into two categories; the followers of the light and those of the dark path. Nevyn is the foremost of the sorcerers who follow the path of the light; this is revealed in the first volume of the series, Daggerspell. It takes a great deal longer to discover who the foremost leader of the dark Dweomer is, and throughout the volumes much is revealed regarding the practices of the followers of the dark path. There is a strong differentiation between the followers of the light and the dark. The ancient Druid in Kerr's work is more truly represented by the followers of the light. In trying to understand the Gauls, it is well to realize that these factors are not always so neatly separated. In a description of the Gauls by Diodorus, sacrifices such as those described below are mentioned, but are not necessarily performed by the Druids themselves. Indeed, the priests he mentions appear to have a strong prejudice for peace.

"They have also certain philosophers and theologians who are treated with special honor, whom they call druids. They further make use of seers, thinking them worthy of high praise. These latter by their augural observances and by the sacrifice of sacrificial animals can foretell the future and they hold all the people subject to them. In particular when enquiring into matters of great import they have a strange and incredible custom; they devote to death a human being and stab him with a dagger in the region above the diaphragm, and when he has fallen they foretell the future from his fall, and from the convulsions of his limbs, and moreover, from the spurting of the blood; placing their trust in some ancient and long-continued observation of these practices. Their custom is that no one should offer sacrifice without a philosopher; for they say that thanks should be offered to the gods by those skilled in the divine nature, as though they were people who can speak their language, and through them also they hold that benefits should be asked. And it is not only in the needs of peace but in war also that they carefully obey these men and their song-loving poets, and this is true not only of their friends but also of their enemies. For oftentimes as armies approach each other in line of battle with their swords drawn and their spears raised for the charge, these men come between them and stop the conflict, as though they had spellbound some kind of wild animals."21

Wild animals? In reading about the Celts it is best to remember that all the early accounts were written by their enemies. Kerr very wisely begins her accounts at a delicately balanced period, when the Celts, in particular the Gauls, had begun to accept the notion of the written word, and were not yet engulfed by Christian ideals. She recognizes throughout her work the inherent dignity of the Gauls, such as represented by an often-copied Roman statue, 'The Dying Gaul'. It was erected by "Attalos I of Pergamon in the third century B.C. after his triumph over the Galatians of Asia Minor. The warrior is naked but for a torc about his neck."22

Although her warriors do not fight naked (they come from a later period than that represented by the statue) Kerr has faithfully represented the honor and bravery inherent in this famous work. A dignity so obvious that even the conquering Romans could not ignore it entirely.

"'If ever I did you any favor, Your Grace, when you were in that stinking ship, I'll beg you to kill me quickly and easily. That's all.'

The answer would have been obvious to a Roman, but not to a Celt. They had come up with the curious notion that they possessed immortal souls. This explains much of the behavior that the Romans found so incomprehensible.

"The Celts claim to have no fear of earthquakes or floods; indeed, more than once they were seen advancing, fully armed, into the waves. Their faith in a future life was certainly the kind of attitude which exalts one's courage, and was probably also the cause of the religious suicides which were observed among them. It might also account for the human sacrifices which we referred to. The idea of replacing burial by cremation might also have something to do with their notion of the survival of souls after death."24

Kerr would almost certainly have won approval from the Celts she writes of -- her characters must endure incarnation after incarnation in search of their `Wyrd', or Fate. And if their belief in the `Wyrd' makes it easier for them to be courageous in life, it doesn't necessarily make that Fate any more palatable when it finally arrives...

He could force himself to smile, force himself to stand proudly, his head tossed back like a true warrior, but there was nothing he could do, apparently, that would make him stop shaking all over. It wasn't fear, Jill realized; his eyes were too dead already for him to be simply afraid to die. When Rhodry laid his sword blade alongside Gwin's throat in such a way as one flick of his wrist would kill the Hawk in an instant, Gwin merely looked him straight in the face -- yet he went on shaking. Although Jill had been ready to kill him herself only a few moments before, she found herself stepping forward.

'Tell me somewhat,' she said. 'Would you rather live, or die?'"23This is well-depicted in a scene from The Dragon Revenant, in which Rhodry, the hero, has one of the `dark ones' at his mercy."The Dagda's mating with the goddess Morrigan, or his straddling the river-goddess Boann for a nine-month-long night of pleasure, are crude and simple literary embellishments of a ritual marriage between two prime forms of the elemental godhead. One of the functions of popular myth and legend lies in reducing such beings from their terrifying psychic level to rude figures of fun; in Irish tales such memories are usually extrapolated into hilarious descriptions of godly attributes in terms of food and sex."'16

'Well, here now. You can't be such bad sorts if you like a good song.'" 12

'Kerun,' he whispered. 'My most holy lord.'

The great head swung his way. The liquid eyes considered him not unkindly, but merely distantly; the god raised his hands in blessing to the man who was perhaps his last true worshipper in all of Deverry. Then he vanished, leaving Perryn wrapped in a shuddering awe that wiped all his pain and exhaustion away."9 The story of Gweniver is one that traces the religion of the Druids back to what Kerr calls The Dawntime, the time before the people of Deverry came to their islands, when they were Gaulish Celts. There are clues that provide this knowledge, for the reader who knows where to find them. For example, Vercingetorix, a legendary Celtic hero, is also used by Kerr as a hero of the `Dawntime'.