Celts and War--

The Celts were people of war. They charged into battle naked, dyed themselves (all of themselves) blue, and screamed like Comanches. They cut off heads of their foes and stuck them on their walls or belts. It would make sense then that much of Celtic oral tradition follows the triumphs and falls on the fields on battle.

I stated in an earlier post that bards played a large role in the passing down of oral knowledge. Many of the oral traditions of the Celts are only known because they were passed down through the bards until a written language finally surfaced well into the Christian era, allowing the stories to be transferred from mouth to paper in books like the Ulster Cycle.

As stated earlier, these stories generally speak during war times. Of all the uses of language in the Celtic culture, the stories that we have record of talk of skirmishes between local kings and princes. They pass on the tales of their revered ancestors bravery. Each new generation of Celts grew up picturing the war zones and dreaming of the glory of battle. This function of language served to pass on  the Celtic culture and keep the small groups strongly united.

Communication during wartime is immensely important for any civilization that wants to succeed in battle. Unfortunately, the Celts tended to be horrid communicators between their small towns and found themselves fighting each other in times of need. For example, when the Celts would head to battle, families followed to watch and often got in the way of the actual battle. This added baggage ended up hurting the Celts in times like Boudicca's Revolt, where the unorganized battlegrounds caused the Celtic warriors to become caught in the middle of a large group and get massacred. I see this as a communication problem; language should have been able to function as war tactic but instead became a problem.

When the Romans invaded England to gain the land for themselves, the Celts barely were able to put up any resistance to the onslaught of legionaries. They were unable to stand united. It is interesting to look at how the Romans handled communications right after they took Ireland. During and after the war they had set up a series of supply roads that branched all around England, including a small bridge over the Thames River (this bridge was the beginning of London). This allowed for very simple communication throughout the whole mainland, as well as easy access back towards Rome. The sharp contrast in how communications during wartime was used was the difference between a surviving civilization and a decaying one.

Source: 1, 2, 3