#cymru

We're veering a little from the linguistic side of Celtic history yet again to tackle a part of mythos that is as fascinating as it is odd and ancient.

The lore of the Threefold Death.

Now, you might be asking, why? What's so important about this concept that it requires an entire post about it?

Well, it's because the Threefold Death has such a long, connected history in Celtic history.

So give me a chance to explain.

Where Does It Come From?

Threefold Death is a concept that was passed down from Proto-Indo-European culture into a variety of ancient civilisations' mythos, namely Indic, Celtic, Germanic, and Hellenic.

If you're a history buff like me, then you might have noticed that a lot of these cultures have a bit of an obsession with things that come in threes. Hellenic mythos has three Furies, three Fates, three Gorgons, and the three-bodied goddess Hekate. Germanic, and by extension Norse, has the Norns, a trio of giantesses who function as fates. Hinduism has the Trimurti, a triple deity consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, and the Tridevi, the goddess equivalent with Saraswati, Parvati, and Lakshmi. The Celts divide between the cultures. Gauls had the Matres and Matronae. The Welsh and Irish both have manuscripts aptly named 'the Triads', but Ireland takes it further with multiple sets of triple-aspect goddesses.

And what, might you say, is the common connection here?

They are all thought to descend from Proto-Indo-European. And through that, contribute to the Trifunctional Hypothesis put forward by Georges Dumezil, a comparative mythologist.

The theory suggests that prehistoric PIE society and religion existed through a tripartite ideology that existed through three cohabiting functions:

The Sacral

The Martial

The Productive

These functions could be associated with everything from law, religion, to social castes.

These traits were passed down as PIE expanded into newer, independent cultures. And whilst it may not have always remained the exact same in each one, they all carry aspects of Dumezil's initial theory that make it hard to disprove.

But for this blog, we'll be focusing on the Celtic fragments of this complicated history, though I might occasionally make reference to other cultures as a comparison. And we'll be sticking to the topic of the Threefold Death, because the triple-god/goddess aspect falls into religion to me and I'm waiting to tackle deities until a day I have time.

The Threefold Death: Explained

Before I launch into the different examples in Celtic texts and history, I should probably explain what the threefold death actually is. Silly me.

Threefold death is a literary theme and ritualistic practise that focuses around protagonists or main characters of stories. Its usually inflicted on gods, kings, and heroes as a kind of ritualistic punishment. Quite often, it comes from a place of irony; a lot of the deaths I will explain are caused by a geas or prophecy. Sometimes the one who dies the Threefold death is the same person who predicted it. No matter how they try to thwart their own fate, it ends the same way.

Historically, Threefold death appears in one of two ways:

Simultaneous Death - Where all three causes of death occur at the exact same time, in such a way that no specific cause is the ultimate killer of the victim.

Distinctive Death - Where the three causes are either split into three distinctive parts and all play a role in killing one person, or each of the trio is inflicted on three seperate victims. This is usually seen in cases of religious sacrifice to a trio of gods that perform one of three main societal functions.

And therein returns the Trifunctional Hypothesis!

Though the three causes of death often remain the same, you will sometimes see variations appear. Though there seems to be a pattern to these deaths as I will explain soon.

The known causes are:

Hanging

Strangulation

Falling

Drowning

Burning

Poison

Stabbing

Impaling

Piercing

(or any form of piercing wound of any kind to be honest)

I've split them for a reason here. It's because these are the three segments they seem to split into. You'll rarely see a drowning and a burning in the same trio. Same with a fall and hanging.

And the reason behind this sectioning, I think, falls within the three functions of Trifunctional Hypothesis. Each section of deaths falls within a function.

Stabbing, Piercing, and Impaling is the most obvious one. It fulfils the Martial aspect that connects society to military and war.

I think Drowning, Burning, and Poisoning is most likely an aspect of the Productivity function. Productivity was associated with fertility, farming, crafts and food. Fire, Water most definitely feel like a requirement for this.

Which leaves Hanging, Strangulation, and Falling as the Sacral aspect. Maybe a bit of a stretch, but then again, maybe not. I did some research and apparently hanging and strangulation are one of the largest recorded methods of human sacrifice in the world. It seemed to be considered symbolic, as the neck seemed to have bridged the gap between our earthly and spiritual selves. Strangling also left the physical body intact and ensured a clean and bloodless sacrifice to appease the gods.

So maybe not so much of a stretch after all.

Also, RIP my google history after looking all this up.

But these three forms of death fulfilled the requirements of one of the functions of the triad. And it would seem that despite differences in mythos and deities, Celtic culture retained that belief in some shape or form.

And now we can move into the examples.

Celtic Examples of Threefold Death

We're going to begin with the mythological examples, as those ones are a little easier to explain.

Also, because a few of them link back into one of my favourite aspects of British mythos as a whole: Arthurian.

Excited? I am.

Welsh Mythos

In Welsh mythology, the Threefold death is heavily associated with the character of Myrddin Wyllt. This Myrddin would go on to become one of the primary sources of Merlin from Arthurian legend. In early Welsh legend, Myrddin lives as a wild man in the Caledonian Forest.

There are many variations of Myrddin Wyllt written over time. In the chronicle from Elis Gruffydd, Myrddin predicts the Threefold death of a knight. Similarly, in the French Lestoire de Merlin, he predicts this of a baron, "he will break his neck, and hang, and drown".

In Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini, Merlinus is captured from the woods by his sister Ganieda and her husband, the King of Cumbria. They bring him to their castle and chain him up to prevent him from escaping.

He uses a leaf in Ganieda's hair as reasoning for her carrying out an affair. To discredit his abilities, she tries to trick him. She brings a boy out in three different disguises and asks Merlinus to tell her how the boy will die. The first time, he says the boy will fall from a rock. She changes the boys clothes and brings him again, and Merlinus predicts he will hang. FInally, Ganieda brings the boy disguised as a girl. Merlinus states "Woman or no, he will drown."

Years later, the boy falls from a rock. He hangs himself from a tree on the fall and drowns head-first in a lake.

Myrddin commits to the same prophecy in Scottish Literature under a different name. Here, he is named Lailoken by hagiographer Jocelyn of Furness (not a woman!).

Fun Fact: Jocelyn of Furness wrote Life of St Patrick. Historians believe he is likely responsible for the myth of St Patrick casting the snakes out of Ireland! You can thank old Jocelyn for St Paddy's Day mayhem!

Lailoken is a 6th Century AD madman and forest hermit. Like Vita Merlini, he is brought to court. This time, the Queen is not his sister, and the King is Meldred, who would later go on to inspire another Arthurian villain.

Lailoken makes the same accusation of the Queen's affair due to the leaf in her wimple. In this one, Lailoken has predicted he himself will die via falling, stabbing, and drowning.

It comes true. The Queen incites a gang of shepherds to attack Lailoken on the road as revenge. He is driven off the edge of a cliff and falls onto a spear left pointed upwards by fishermen. He dies with his head below the water.

Irish Mythos

Whilst I believe this story may not count as early Irish mythos, it's Threefold death inclusion certainly hints at retained fragments of Celtic and PIE themes.

The two stories are connected, and the first comes from Vita Columbae.

It tells a tale of Aedh the Black, an Irish king of Ulaid. He is described as bloodthirsty and has killed Diarmuid, who was King of Tara and High King of Ireland. He goes on to be ordained by a bishop from outside the church, as well as having a sexual relationship with another man, Findchan.

St Columba is horrified to hear this, and so predicts that Aedh shall be piercing with a spear, fall from a tree into water, and drown. Aedh the Black is indeed wounded with a spear, whereupon he falls from the prow of a boat (the tree) and drowns.

The same fate, ironically, is what befell Diarmuid when he is killed by Aedh.

He attempts to have Aedh arrested, only for St Ronan to offer Aedh sanctuary. So Diarmuid has Ronan tried and arrested instead. Ronan curses Diarmuid and Tara. Tara goes to ruin and Diarmuid's wife has an affair with a warrior named Flann.

Enraged, Diarmuid burns Flann's home with him inside. Flann attempts to crawl into a vat of water to escape the flames and drowns.

After, Diarmuid's druid counsellor predicts Flann's kinsmen shall kill Diarmuid as revenge. The kinsman in question: Aedh Dubh, also known as Aedh the Black. Diarmuid shall die by slaughter, burning, and drowning.

And of course, Diarmuid doesn't believe him. So he goes to a feast where Aedh is, and ends up being stabbed with a spear. Diarmuid flees home, only for Aedh and his men to set the house ablaze. He follows Flann's footsteps and climbs into a vat of ale, and a burning pole falls onto his head as he does so. Of course, Diarmuid dies.

In both, Dumezil notes that both Aedh and Diarmuid commit sins that go against one of the three functions.

Aedh is a murderer, which goes against the function of the warrior function. He is ordained outside the church and defies the sacral function, and he lays with a man, which Dumezil argues would have gone against the function of fertile nature.

Similarly, Diarmuid arrests a priest (sacral function) and commits murder against Flann (warrior function).

So it would seem that Irish mythos has the theme of the 'punishment fits the crime' in a sense. The crime of sinning against a function requires a death within the confines of said function.

And perhaps that has historical basis in sacrifice. There is a prevailing theme of Kings being sacrificed in Irish myth, usually when their kingdoms struggled or suffered from draught, famine, and disease. A King was usually blamed for these issues as rule and thus sacrificed to appease whatever forces caused the problem.

Lucan's Pharsalia

Lucan, also known as Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, was a famous Roman poet. He wrote Pharsalia about Julius Caesar, and we'll be examining the section that is about Caesar's Gallic conquests.

In this scholia, Commenta Bernesia, Lucan writes about three humans sacrificed to three Celtic gods. These gods were Teutates, Esus, and Taranis. We've mentioned Taranis a few times on this blog now. It's beginning to look like he was a pretty big deal in Celtic religion.

Each of the three men was killed in a different way that reflected the god they were sacrificed for.

For Teutates, who is a tribal deity, victims were dunked headfirst into a barrel of water and drowned.

For Taranis, the thunder god, victims were placed inside a hollow wooden container and it was set alight, burning them alive. This is often compared to Caesar's alleged witnessing of a Wicker Man sacrifice.

For Esus, we are a little unsure of what he was a god of. There is little to no information except a linking to a pictorial myth in Paris named the Pillar of the Boatmen. He is portrayed pruning or felling a tree, surrounded by a bull and three cranes. Another one in Trier seemingly confirms this.

I did some research in this. We can definitely say Esus was a god related to trees. However, it is the animal choices that interest me. A bull often symbolises masculinity, virility, and fertility. Cranes were associated with the Otherworld by the Celts, but also magic and parenthood.

Hence, I would theorise Esus was some sort of nature god. His victims were suspended by a tree and bloodily dismembered according to Lucan.

Now, its important to remember that Romans embellished or straight up made up all sorts of things about societies they deemed beneath them. Both them and the Greeks often tacked on details they associated with barbarism to these cultures. They saw themselves as culturally superior and the Romans needed valid reasons to 'civilise' these nations.

Bog Bodies and Lindow Man

And now we move on to our only potential real life Threefold example. And I say potential because we actually will never have any idea if this body really was a human sacrifice, or a victim to some other crime.

Bog bodies are a pretty gruesome and interesting find in archaeology. Whilst the extent of their preservation is often dramatized by the general media, it is indeed cool that we find corpses that are thousands of years old, preserved in peat marshes.

There are a large number of bog bodies found across the world, but most are discovered in the regions of Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the UK, and the Netherlands. All of these areas are either Germanic or Celtic during the times a lot of these bog bodies are found. Most are from the Iron Age, though a handful are from between the Mesolithic and Bronze Age.

The Iron Age ones interest me the most. Despite being from different areas around Northern Europe, the bodies bear striking similarities in the manner of their deaths.

We'll be focusing on Lindow Man for this article though.

Lindow Man was discovered in 1984 by peat-cutters in Lindow Moss, Cheshire, England. Another ancient bog body had been found in the bog a year earlier, named Lindow Woman, though I believe they only recovered her skull.

Lindow Man does not have an exact time of existence. Archaeologists believe he lived during 2 BC or 119 AD, making him either an Iron Age or Romano-British Celt. He's on display at the British Museum as far as I'm aware.

It's his cause of death that has critics coming up with all sorts of theories.

After cleaning up the corpse, it was discovered that Lindow Man had been subjected to a violent death. There was, in order:

A V-shaped cut on the top of his head.

A laceration to the back of his head.

Ligature marks around his neck, complete with a sinew cord tied around it.

Possible stab wounds to the right side of his neck and upper-right chest.

A broken neck.

A fracture rib.

Now, the body is decayed enough that we cannot know if any wounds were inflicted post-mortem. But swelling along the head wound suggests he lived after being struck. It was a blow that fractured his skull and sent fragments into his brain.

Once deceased, Lindow Man was buried face down in the peat bog.

We have no way of knowing why he was killed, only that they went to extremes to get to that point. But some have theories, and Anne Ross' one is the theory we'll talk about here.

Anne Ross was Celtic scholar and archaeologist who was considered an expert in Iron Age religion. She suggested that Lindow Man was a human sacrifice to Celtic gods, and his death (throat cut, strangled, and hit on the head) was an example of the triple death we have seen prevailing across Celtic mythology.

Obviously, people dispute this. If Lindow Man existed in Roman times, then it is a hard sell as the Romans had outlawed human sacrifice. Historian Ronald Hutton challenges the interpretation of sacrifical death in bog bodies, but we'll never really know the truth behind it.

My interpretation is thus; we'll never know for sure if Lindow Man and the bog bodies were human sacrifices. But we know a lot of societies that evolved from Proto-Indo-European culture did, to some extent, commit human sacrifice, so it's hard to believe that the Celts would not, at one point, have done so. However, its important to note that a lot of PIE descendant cultures did not practise human sacrifice often, and it seems to have only been during desperate times or done to slaves following their masters to the afterlife.

We finally get onto a wholly linguistic conversation that I find oddly fascinating. Truly, learning about language and how we believe it developed is such an interesting concept.

There are two main theories in Celtic language distribution and the ways it branched off.

The first is the Insular/Continental theory. Scholars suggest that the main distinction between the different Celtic languages derives from a massive difference between Continental Celtic language and Insular Celtic. To them, the Goidelic and Brittonic languages only developed once the Insular Celts had split off from the Continent and arrived in Great Britain. This forms a very rigid, structured tree that has a set linguistic evolution

PIE < Common Celtic < Continental Celtic < Insular Celtic < Brittonic and Goidelic

It's pretty straight forward. I don't think there is much I can add to that conversation as it favours a direct evolution of language that you can follow like a family tree.

But it is the second theory that we'll be talking about in detail today.

The P/Q Celtic Hypotheses

At some point in the study of Celtic linguistics and etymology, the theory was put forward of a new way of examining how and why the Celtic language branches off the way it does.

Scholars noted that the main, core difference revolved around the use of the specific sound in the languages.

In Proto-Celtic, the *kw is a hard sound found in a lot of their words. It is typically put down in written form as /C/ or /Q/.

Q-Celtic languages are the languages that kept this *kw format in their language. P-Celtic, on the other hand, moved away from *kw and developed a /P/ sound in their language.

Whilst not the only major difference in Celtic etymological evolution, it is the one we have used most to differentiate between the languages and where they might have evolved from.

P-Celtic Languages are:

Welsh

Cornish

Breton

Lepontic

Noric (?)

Gaulish

Q-Celtic Languages are:

Irish

Scottish Gaelic

Manx

Celtiberian

Gallaecian

It's insane how languages so far apart can remain so similar. In the P/Q Celtic theory, the first language to split off from Proto-Celtic was actually Gaelic. The idea has its upsides, but also its downsides.

There is of course, the question in hand. Why did the Gaelic languages have such a strong similarity to Hispano-Celtic? How did they evolve to be similar?

This is where some interesting information from Irish Mythology comes in handy. Because its genuinly astounding that we can find links so early in time.

According to Irish Mythos, the island itself was invaded by six different races over time. The mythos is largely Christianised now, but it is the second, third and final race that invade Ireland that interests me.

The races of the Parthalon, Nemed and Milesians invade Ireland centuries apart, but all have one thing in common. They were said to have arrived from the Iberian Peninsula. The Milesians specifically are representations of the Irish people, and are the Gaels that became the ancestors of all Irish living on earth.

This is attested to in two main texts. The 9th Century AD text Historia Brittonum is a seemingly anonymous work of texts that discuss the three Iberian settlers' groups. The Parthalon all die of plague in Ireland, the Nemed are driven from the island by the Fomorians and return to Iberia. But the Milesians overcome the Tuatha De Danann and maintain sovereignty over Ireland.

Fun Fact: Historia Brittonum is considered the earliest attestedd mention of King Arthur! Though some believe Aneirin's Y Gododdin, estimated at potentially the 9th Century AD, may actually be the real first mention.

The second text that mentions Iberians settling Ireland is Lebor Gabála Érenn. It is allegedly an ancient history of the founding of Ireland and was compiled in the 11th Century. This one is heavily rooted in Christian texts, as it stems from Adam and states a Scythian king is the forebearer of all Gaels. It includes the languages forming from the Tower of Babel, and that a man named Goidel Glas crafted the Goidelic language. The Goidels spend 440 years wandering the earth after leaving Egypt during the Exodus.

An exile called Mil and his followers reach Iberia and conquer it, building the city of Brigantia. He has a large tower built, from which his son Ith stands atop and glimpses Ireland in the distance. Ith sails to Ireland with his men and meets the three Kings of Ireland. At some point Ith is killed and his men return to Iberia and plot their revenge. They fight the Tuatha De Danann and eventually come to terms, with the Milesians taking the world above (Ireland) and the Tuatha De Danann taking the world below (Irish Otherworld).

I'm aware I've just went on a mythological rant there, but the fact that 9th and 11th Century writers believe the Irish stemmed from the Iberians is very fascinating when you look at P/Q Celtic theory. The Celtic languages in Iberia were Q-Celtic alongside Goidelic. Makes you wonder just how much our ancestors were able to understand about these similarities? Is it indeed possible that Iberians settled Ireland and gave rise to the Goidelic languages we see spoken today?

One of the best examples I can give you is the word used to denote 'son of' in Gaelic vs Brittonic.

In Scotland and Ireland, we know *mac means 'son'. Surnames like McCarthy or MacLeod are prevalent and denote a patronymic society.

In Welsh and Cornish, we have *map or *mab. It was often contracted to *ap, but carried the same meaning of 'son of'. So we get Owain ap Gruffydd and Dafydd ap Gwilym.

The P/Q difference is clear here. And it pops up the more you research into the etymology of Celtic words.

This was a fun, if slightly shorter article to write. And its always a bit of a thrill for me when Celtic mythos and Celtic linguistics combine to form plausible theories, even if some of them are a bit of a stretch.