The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts by Rodney Castleden

Author:Rodney Castleden
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

PEDRA-MOURA

Galician fairies living inside stones. It was once believed that anyone sitting on one of these inhabited stones would become enchanted. If an enchanted stone was removed and taken to a house, all the animals in the house might die. On the other hand, an enchanted stone might have treasure inside it.

A fairy might travel to fairyland while sitting on an enchanted stone that could float in air or on water.

PILGRIMAGE

An integral part of the Celtic belief system. The seemingly endless journeying described in some of the late romances is often a kind of pilgrimage. The Grail Quest in particular shows the medieval approach to pilgrimage: the long, difficult journey toward a climax of spiritual revelation. There were real international pilgrimages of this kind, notably to the shrines of St. James at Santiago de Compostela in Galicia and St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury in England.

This was in the Middle Ages. But there is increasing archeological evidence that religious pilgrimages, on a similar scale, went on as much as 3,000 years earlier. Some high-status graves near Stonehenge have yielded unexpected forensic results: one man was a visitor from Switzerland. Nor was this an isolated link with mainland Europe. At Stonehenge, a piece of lava was found that can only have come from the Rhineland. In a sense, even the stones were pilgrims. The very big sarsen stones at Stonehenge came from the Marlborough Downs, 20 miles (30km) away, and were probably dragged laboriously on sledges to get them to Stonehenge. More surprisingly, the smaller stones at Stonehenge, the bluestones, were ferried from south-west Wales, 135 miles (220km) away as the crow flies.

Pilgrims brought wealth with them, and left it in the form of gifts and offerings, and services purchased. Certainly by the Middle Ages, some saints’ relics had become valuable commodities, simply because of their commercial potential. Often, the relics were forgeries. The monks at Glastonbury developed an entire mythology surrounding their abbey, concocting elaborate stories about Joseph of Arimathea and the grave of King Arthur—all to generate revenue to pay for repairing the abbey.

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