Myths of the Modern Man by Jacqueline T Lynch Read Free Book Online Page B

in Judea, where the Israelites stubbornly believed in one God, and would not be swayed. The second was in Britannia, where the Celts believed in many gods of nature, in the mystical power of druid priests, and in their own immortality. The religions of both the druids and the Jews had a political quality as well, a force of social movement behind them quite beyond the spiritual. That was the real trouble. Later the Romans would have the Christians as a social movement and political force to worry about as well, until of course they became Christians themselves.
    The Romans, no matter how many rebellions they squelched in sword and crucifixion, could not destroy the Jews. The Celts, however, would have a different, straggling destiny. They existed by adapting, not by holding fast.
    There had been many Celtic rebellions, as there would be many Irish rebellions in a different world. When the great slave rebellion under the gladiator Spartacus found its birth on Mount Vesuvius in 73 BC two Celtic slaves led the fight with him. Many Celts joined the band. They failed, and for them it was back to bondage or crucifixion along the Apian Way. Men were draped on crude wooden crosses for over one hundred miles along the Apian Way as a finale to that rebellion.
    Julius Caesar himself put down the great rebellion of Vercingetorix in Gaul in 52 BC. Vercingetorix, a brilliant Celtic warrior with more heart and guts than luck made his last stand at the siege of Alesia, marked by heroic sacrifice and tragedy. First, his band under siege was starved out by the Romans, and part of their community of men, women, and children were slaughtered. To save the rest of his people, and since he was the one Caesar really wanted, Vercingetorix got on his horse, left the fortress, rode up to Caesar himself, gave up his horse, his weapons, and sat at Caesar’s feet in a gesture of supplication. He was brought back as a trophy to Rome, where they ceremoniously lopped off his head.
    Those long ago rebellions were all but forgotten by Celtic story tellers like Cailte who never wrote anything down and mainly because they happened in other parts of Europe, to Celts of other tribes. One did not look beyond his own clan. There was no unity among the Celtic people.
    Besides, their history and heritage was woven in folklore, like the fanciful embroidered pattern on a modern step dancer’s costume, not described on paper. The Celtic word for bard is Shanachie, which infers both storyteller and historian. They were always mingled. Fact and fiction dancing together in the moonlight. It was the loveliness that mattered. How tales were told was as important as what was said.
    I thought of my old friend, Billy O’Malley. We were in the Navy together, but obesity ended his career. He was in love with the idea of being Irish, which meant being in love with himself. He sang folk songs that he learned from his uncles or from old recordings that were popular a hundred years ago, played over and over again on nights when he couldn’t get a date. Songs about fighting the English, and leaving Ireland to go to America, of the Famine and the Troubles, and problems he’d never be able to face himself if he’d lived them. But, it was easy to borrow someone else’s tragedy and sing about it.
    If I could have taken Billy with me on this trip to see some real Celts…oh, boy. I wish I could have taken him with me. I’d pay a million denarius to see his red, sweaty face. Here, my friend, was true Rebellion about to happen. And you would be the first one to pee in your pants.
    However, Cailte’s education on the ancients was just as sparse as Billy’s. Cailte did not know who Spartacus was, nor Vercingetorix, just as Billy knew nothing of this rebellion. I looked at Cailte and wondered what he would have thought of Billy. Billy was no warrior, despite the hash marks on his sleeve. He chose the service as his career because his high school shop teacher told him to, believing in