The Celtic Druid Conception of Death
The fact is that
the Celtic conception of the realm of death differed altogether from
that of the Greeks and Romans, and, as I have already pointed out,
resembled that of Egyptian religion. The Other-world was not a place
of gloom and suffering, but of light and liberation. The Sun was as
much the god of that world as he was or this. Evil, pain, and gloom
there were, no doubt, and no doubt these principles were embodied by
the Irish Celts in their myths of Balor and the Fomorians, of which
we shall hear anon; but that they were particularly associated with
the idea of death is, I think, a false supposition founded on
misleading analogies drawn from the ideas of the classical nations.
Here the Celts followed North African or Asiatic conceptions rather
than those of the Aryans of Europe. It is only by realizing that the
Celts as we know them in history, from the break-up of the
Mid-European Celtic empire onwards, formed a singular blend of Aryan
with non-Aryan characteristics, that we shall arrive at a true
understanding of their contribution to European history and their
influence in European culture.
