1998 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

THE LOCUS OF THE SACRED IN THE CELTIC OTHERWORLD

Kim Selling

The Celtic Otherworld of medieval Irish, Welsh and French Arthurian

literature is popularly invoked as a fantastical setting for the supernatural
adventures of medieval heroes and bold knights-errant: a place of unearthly
beauty and enchanting music, fey and dangerous for the unwary traveller.
This is the fabulous realm of Faerie, the land under the hollow hills, of
disappearing islands like Ys or Lyonesse, populated by a host of magical
beings - fairies, elves and water spirits. According to descriptions in early
Irish literature, the Celtic Otherworld is a place of untold beauty and
pleasure, where there is no age, no sickness and no death. It seems in
general to be an idyllic extension or parallel to the everyday world of the
pagan Celts of the Iron Age, with all of the things they enjoyed in life:
feasting, music, colour, fighting; only better! However, the pre-Christian
Celtic Otherworld was once a holy place with a deeper religious significance
than the mythical land of Faerie. For the ancient Celts, the Otherworld was a
sacred spiritual realm to be feared, respected and revered as the dwelling
place of the gods, the supernatural and a place where spirits went after
death. 1
When, by means of a close comparative examination of the texts, we
peer through the layers of the folklore and legend that have accumulated
over the centuries, it may be possible to piece together a pre-Christian
understanding of the Otherworld. It would seem that the Otherworld stories
were originally remnants of an ancient cosmology or mythology concerning
the Afterlife and developed from concepts regarding the realm of the dead,
possibly stemming from a very ancient form of ancestor worship and burial
ritual. As we shall see, the spirit of Place was indeed the wellspring of the
sacred in the pagan Celtic world.
When attempting to reconstruct the religious beliefs of the Iron Age
Celts, the writings of the Celts themselves, particularly the medieval
vernacular manuscripts of Ireland, are of crucial importance. 2 These

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literatures are thought to preserve remnants of ancient mythologies, handed

down orally through the generations until written down by Christian scribes
in the Middle Ages. However, we cannot take the stories at face value. It is
now recognised as naive to imagine some sort of direct "human pipeline"
channelling unchanged the beliefs of the Iron Age Celts through two
thousand years of history until recorded in the Middle Ages, without taking
into account the influence of Christianity and literacy, or changes in the
pagan religion itself over time. 3 The tales contain recurring themes linking
motifs such as barrow mounds and royal fortresses with the Otherworld,
and with corroborative evidence from archaeology we can speculate as to the
original nature of these connections.
"Manuscript cultures" like Medieval Ireland and Wales were always
marginally oral, preserving "a feeling for a book as a kind of utterance."• It
seems likely that what we now have in the manuscripts are compositional
"set-pieces" and motifs which have lost their original context, but still
remain as reflexes or dim memories of pre-Christian religion and society. It
is to these motifs that we must now tum, bearing in mind, however, that
what is summarised here is perforce a generalisation of a complex picture of
Otherworld beliefs which may have varied widely within the pagan Celtic
world. Careful examination of early Irish and Welsh mythological
narratives reveals two main traditions regarding the location of the
Otherworld: the subterranean or antipodean Otherworld associated with
burial mounds and/or royal sites, and the controversial "overseas"
Otherworld located on magical islands, which seems to be more strongly
influenced by medieval Christian beliefs.

SeD MOUNDS AND ROYAL SITES

In both Welsh and Irish literature the Otherworld is most often associated
with "royal" hillforts or strongholds.5 The legendary royal fort of Tara is not
far from the sid dwelling Brug na Boinne, which in modem times we know
as the burial mounds of I.J"ew Grange, Knowth and Dowth. 6 Royal sites are
often the transition points between this and the Otherworld. According to

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the stories, not only can -humans step into Otherworld realms from royal
sites, but Otherworld beings can also access the "real" world there and are
most often sighted near royal halls and assembly places. For example, the
legendary Irish kings Conn and Cormac are said to be "on the ramparts of
Tara" when they see visions of the Otherworld, and in Immram Brain (The
Voyage of Bran) King Bran was "in the neighbourhood of his stronghold"
when he heard the sweet, sleep-inducing music of the Otherworld. 7
The four main sites considered in Christian times to be pagan Irish
royal capitals were Tara and Dun Ailinne in Leinster, Cruachain in
Connacht and Emain Macha in Ulster. Surprisingly, however,
archaeological excavations reveal that none of these royal strongholds
appear to have actually been permanent habitation sites. The evidence
suggests that they were ceremonial centres incorporating ancient cemeteries
and burial mounds, and were used mainly for tribal gatherings and
festivities, seasonal or occasional meeting places in the open air where
games and assemblies could be held.8 That these places were used primarily
for sacred or religious purposes in pre-Christian Ireland is borne out by the
fact that the buildings at Emain Macha (Navan Fort) and Dun Ailinne were
immolated, then buried in a cairn and coated with turf, essentially rendering
them into huge mounds. The massive labour that went into these projects
and the careful way they were carried out suggests that they were made
"ritually redundant" and were most likely ceremonial precincts.9
The ancient Celts buried their dead in a way which suggests
they had some sort of belief in a life after death. Burial ritual is a physical
manifestation of Otherworld beliefs, and Anne Ross believes that the
hollow hills of Fairie or sid mounds of literary fame may have originated in
beliefs associated with burial mounds. 10 During the Hallstatt period, the
bodies of chieftains were found laid out with great care in wagons and
surrounded by elaborate displays of weaponry, jewellery, drinking vessels
and foodstuffs. All this was contained within a wooden chamber, which was
then sealed and covered by a mound of earth.11 Even in the La Tene period,
though bodies were now burnt to ashes, they were still buried· with personal
possessions and feasting utensils. Evidently the dead person was thought to

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require these sorts of possessions when they arrived in the Otherworld, and
would carry on the business of living in much the same way, only better,
and for all eternity, as is suggested by the literature.
Mound, hill or barrow motifs abound in the literature, and are
strongly connected with visions of the Otherworld. For example, in the
Welsh story Pwyll Lord of Dyved, Pwyll climbs the mound of Arberth
because "it is the property of this hill that whenever a man of royal blood
sits on it, one of two things happens: he receives blows and wounds, or he
sees a wonder." 12 And indeed, Pwyll has a vision of his Otherworld bride,
Rhiannon, once he ascends the mound. The custom of "sitting on a howe"
or barrow-mound is also prevalent in Norse mythology, which has many
parallels to Celtic beliefs. Scandinavian kings are often depicted as sitting on
the burial mounds of their fathers, receiving the wisdom of the dead, which,
according to Ellis, is thought to allude to the "priestly origins of kingship in
Scandinavia"Y Seeresses or valva also sat on high platforms where they
experienced visions and gave prophecies, and both of these customs are
thought to be connected with Odin, Norse god of the dead and occult magic.
As related in the mythological tales, the Otherworld is also very dose
to this world during tribal gatherings and assemblies. Oenach or "tribal
assembly" is derived from the Irish word oen, "one', and "the fundamental
concept is one of unification. " 14 The "unifying" concept is one that operates
on several different planes. The oenach was a time for feasting and game
playing, where competitive sports and races were held, and one of the many
pleasurable aspects of the Otherworld described is the abundance of sporting
and gaming that the denizens enjoyed.15 The oenach was also regularly held
at the so-called "royal capitals" which we now know to be the great pagan
ceremonial centres and burial sites. Furthermore, these tribal assemblies
were apparently held at sacred times of the year, especially significant during
the feast of Samhain on November the first, the day signalling the end of
the old year and the beginning of the new, also thought to be the Festival of
the Dead. 16 In pagan Celtic religion, Samhain was a festival marking the
change in seasons between Summer and Winter, the "light" and "dark"
halves of the year respectively. It was considered the darkest and most

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dangerous day of the year, as on this day, the doors between this and the
Otherworld were wide open, the dead could again stalk the earth, and
unwary mortals (and immortals) were prey to magical or malign
influences.' 7
The following passage in the tale The Wasting Sickness of Cu
Chulaind amply illustrates the relationship between these sacred times and
activities:

Each year the illaid held an assembly: the three days before Samuin and the three
days after Samuin and Samuin itself. They would gather at Mag Muirthemni, and
during these seven days there would be nothing but meetings and games and
amusements nnd entertainments and eating and feasting.'•

Descriptions of similar amusements and abundance are typically found in

Otherworld narratives, making it possible to conceive of the Otherworld as a
metaphysical embodiment of the quintessential Celtic festival or feis . Thus
far a picture emerges where the Celtic Otherworld is intimately connected
with kings or chieftains having visions or encounters during tribal
gatherings in ceremonial centres which were sacred burial grounds. Ross
believes the evidence suggests that "here we have an example of a custom of
performing tribal rites about the graves of divine ancestors, the grave
mounds constituting the visible focus of belief." 19 Feasting and games were
events held in association with funeral ceremonies, and Raftery suggests
that the oenach may even have originated in funeral games held for kings
and heroes.20
John Carey also notes that there is "a direct symbolic equivalence
between the Otherworld and the tribal assembly or oenach" of which the
dead ancestors are a part: "society, affirmed and symbolised by the oenach ,
derives its legitimacy from the traditions received from ancestors who have
departed into the Otherworld". It was "the source from which values and
authority derived." 21 Hence, the descriptions of the Otherworld that we find
in the vernacular literature are strongly linked to the notion of sacral
kingship, where the locus of spiritual power was centred around the burial
mounds and ceremonial centres of the pagan Celts, where the chieftain,

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symbolic of the tribal consciousness, could act as a conduit between this and
the Other world of the gods and the dead ancestors.22

TiiE OVERSEAS OTiiERWORLD

The stories about the Otherworld located on islands over the sea are much
more subject to controversy than tales about the s{d mounds, as the Voyage
tales or immrama contain more overtly Christian matter. Much of the
confusion about overseas Otherworlds originates from Immram Brain, or
The Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal, which is one of the earliest surviving
pieces of Irish literature, and is the precursor of the famous medieval
Christian tale, The Voyage of Saint Brendan. Briefly, in The Voyage of Bran,
King Bran is on the ramparts of his stronghold when he is enticed by a
beautiful Otherworldly woman to sail across the sea in search of the
marvellous islands she describes, where there is "neither decay nor death."
He eventually finds the Island of Joy and the Land of Women where he is
welcomed by the Otherworld queen to live forever in eternal youth.23
There is good evidence now that there was an earlier Bran tradition
existing in a lost eighth century manuscript, Cin Dromma Snechta. 24 In this
manuscript there is a verse called Imbaccaldam, which is essentially a
dialogue between Bran's druid and a prophetess regarding the stealing of an
Otherworld treasure at the bottom of a well, and the subsequent inundation
of Bran's kingdom. It is well known that the Celts venerated wells, springs
and lakes, which were a focal point of cult practice and ritual. Archaeology
confirms the evidence for a Celtic cult of water and the ritual practice of
casting precious objects into pools, lakes, wells and rivers, as many hoards of
weapons, shields and gold ornaments have been found in bogs and lakes
such as at Flag Fen in Britain, and Llyn Cerrig Bach on the island of
Anglesey.25 Water was particularly connected with goddesses, who were
associated with the dual functions of fertility and death, given both the life-
giving and destructive powers of water. 26 It is conceivable that removing
these sacred objects from their watery graves would _violate some sort of
taboo, and retribution could be expected from the offended deities or spirits

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of the Otherworld. The Imbaccaldam dialogue certainly seems to link the

Otherworld treasure in the well with the flooding of Bran's kingdom,
hinting that Bran may have tried to steal this hoard, thus offending the
goddesses of the Otherworld. We can therefore conclude from this that the
earliest Bran material concerned the inundation of Bran's kingdom, and not
his journey to an overseas Otherworld.
The most striking thing about the immrama or voyage literature is
their relevance to Christian society in the Middle Ages. Not only did they
serve as wonder tales describing strange, far off lands, but they also
mythologised the Irish anchoritic pilgrims who played such an important
part in the development of the Christian church in Ireland. The voyage
narratives recounting journeys to paradisical islands such as Tir Nan Og, the
Land of Eternal Youth, can thus be seen as primarily Christian inventions,
fusing the pleasures of the old pagan Otherworld with allegorical tales of
journeys to the Christian paradise. Though the Celts venerated water, and
thought the Otherworld could be located in sacred places like lakes and
springs, the notion of the overseas Otherworld is quite distinct, no doubt
owing more to the influence of the Greek myth of Atlantis, and from the
actual voyages of discovery made by Christian monks on pilgrimage. Saint
Columba, for instance, founded a monastery on the island of Iona in the
sixth century, and Irish anchorites sailed even as far as Iceland by the eighth
century. Thus, though islands could well serve as sacred sites and
sanctuaries, there is no conclusive evidence proving that mystical overseas
islands were connected with a belief about the Otherworld of the dead in
pagan Celtic religion.27
To conclude, royal sites, wells and lakes, groves, hills and mounds,
were all sacred places for cult worship in ancient Celtic religion. True to the
theme of this conference, we have seen that the spirit of Place permeated the
pagan religious beliefs of the Iron Age Celts. It seems reasonable to say that
the pagan Celtic peoples of the British Isles understood that any sacred site
could serve as a gateway to the supernatural realms. 28 However, the
vernacular Celtic myths hint that the locus of the sacred between this and
the Otherworld intersected most strongly at the sites of the ancient burial

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mounds and barrows found throughout Britain and Ireland. This further
corroborates the view that the mythological origins of the Celtic Otherworld
- based largely on evidence from the insular Celtic literatures with the
backing of archaeology - stemmed from the notion of an existence after
death and was connected to ancient earthen burial rites and sacred places. It
seems likely that burial rituals and the veneration of divine ancestors in
tribal gatherings at these sacred sites were embodied in the notion of Festival
or assembly which was a unifying concept in the Celtic world-view. It was
the nexus of sacred place and sacred time, where life and death, the sacred
and profane, "this" world and the Otherworld were linked.

REFERENCES
1
See H. R. Patch, Tile Other World: According to Descriptions in Medieval Literature,
Octagon Books, New York, 1970.
1
For an introductory discussion of the uses of mythology in the re-construction of early Celtic
religion, see Morten Lund Warmind, "Irish Literature as Source-Material for Celtic Religion",
Temenos, 28, 1992, 209-222.
3
Kim Mc:Cone, Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature, Maynooth
Monographs 3, An Sagart, 1991, 20.
'On the hallmarks of oral-formulaic expression and manuscript cultures, see Wa.l ter J. Ong,
Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, New Accents, Routledge, Lvndon,
1982, 31-125.
5 John Carey, "Time, Space and the Otherworld", Proceedings of the Harvard Ctltic
Colloquium, Vol VIl, 1987, 1-27, S-7.
' R. A. Macalister, Tara: A P11gan Sanctuary of Ancient Ireland, Charles Scribner's Sons,
London, 1931, 86
7 Cc:rcn is the hero of Baile in S.cdil ("The Phantom's Frenzy"), and Cormac's Otherworldly

encounter is told in Echtrae Cormaic ("The Adventure of Cormac") - both stories in Myles
Dillon, Enrly Irislr Ulernlrtre, University of Chica·go Press, Chicago &: Lvndon. 1948, 107-112.
The standard translation of Bran's Voyage is by Kuno Meyer, lmram Brai11: Tlte Voyage of
Bran, Sou of Febal to tire Land of lite Living, including "Essay upon the Irish Vision of the
Happy Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth'', by Alfred Nutt, Grimm Library No.
4, David Nutt in the Strand, London, 1895.
1
Ronald Hutton, Tire Pagan Religions of lite Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy,
Basil Blackwell, Great Britain, 1991, 167-8, and Anne Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in
Iconography and Tradition, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1967, 39.
9
Hutton, ibid.
10
Ross, ibid.
11
Aedeen Cremin, Tile Celts in Europe, Centre for Celtic Studies, Sydney, Australia, 1992, 16-
27.
12
Jeffrey Gantz, (ed. & trans.) Tire Mabinogiau, Penguin, London, 1976,52.
13 Hilda Ellis, The Road to Hel: A Study of tlte Conception of tire Dead ill Old Norse

Literature, Greenwood Press, New York, 1968, 105-111. Nora Chadwkk also notes the
similarity between Norse and Celtic mourd or barrow motils in her article, HLiterary
Tradition in the Old Norse and Celtic World" , Saga Book XIV, 1953-57, 164-99.
" Carey, op. cit., 1987, 14.
ts This feature is particularly emphasised in lmmram Brain, where the Otherworld woman
speaks of Mag Flndargat, "the plain on which th.e hosts hold games: Coracle COI'\le\ds against
chariot •.. " and she mentions a host racing along Mag Mon. the NPJain of Sport'. Meyer, 1895,
op. cit., 4 &:12.

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•• Carey, op. cit., 13.

11 Countless examples abound in the literature of Otherworld encounlels occuning during
assemblies, festivals or at Samhain. For example, in Wooing of Etai11 it is during
Samhain that Oengus Mace Oc tricks King Elcmar into letting him be king in Bnrg 11a Boimre
for "a day and a night", after which he retains tl'' kingship, and in Tire Dream of Oe1rgns,
the Otherworld girl, Caer, effects her transfomra h' •ns from human to swan shape during
Samhain. Both stories in Jeffrey Gantz, (ed. & trans.) Early lrislr Myths aud Sagas, Penguin.
London, 1981 .
" Gantz, Early Irish Myths a11d Sagas, op.cit., 1981, 155.
19 Ross, op. cit., 39.
20 Barry Raftery, Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age, Thames & Hudson,

London, 1994, 81.

21 Carey, op. cit., 1987, 13-15.
22 On the religious/ otherworldly dimension of ancient Irish kingship, see Tomas 6
Cathasaigh, "The Semantics of Sid", £igse, XVll, 137-155. (particularly pp. 140-148).
:rJ See Kuno Meyer, op. cit., 1895.
24 James Carney, "The Earliest Bran Material", Latin Script and Letters AD 400-900, eds.

O'Meara & Naumann, Leiden, 1976, 174-193.

25 Hutton, op. cit., 1991, 184-7.
26 Ross, op. cit., 20.
27 John Carey, "The Location of the Otherworld in Irish Tradition", Eigse, Vol XIX, 1982-3, 36-

43.
28
Carey, "Time, Space and the Otherworld", 1987, 6.

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