Celtic Quotes

“Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a time when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter today? And who of Huitzilopochtli? In one year - and it is no more than five hundred years ago - 50,000 youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest. Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation that she carried out with the sun.

When he frowned, his father, the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with 10,000 gallons of human blood. But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Allen G. Thurman. Once the peer of Allah, Buddha and Wotan, he is now the peer of Richmond P. Hobson, Alton B. Parker, Adelina Patti, General Weyler and Tom Sharkey.

Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother Tezcatlipoca. Tezcatlipoca was almost as powerful; he consumed 25,000 virgins a year.

Lead me to his tomb: I would weep, and hang a couronne des perles. But who knows where it is? Or where the grave of Quetzalcoatl is? Or Xiuhtecuhtli? Or Centeotl, that sweet one? Or Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love? Of Mictlan? Or Xipe? Or all the host of Tzitzimitl? Where are their bones? Where is the willow on which they hung their harps? In what forlorn and unheard-of Hell do they await their resurrection morn? Who enjoys their residuary estates? Or that of Dis, whom Caesar found to be the chief god of the Celts? Of that of Tarves, the bull? Or that of Moccos, the pig? Or that of Epona, the mare? Or that of Mullo, the celestial jackass? There was a time when the Irish revered all these gods, but today even the drunkest Irishman laughs at them.

But they have company in oblivion: the Hell of dead gods is as crowded
as the Presbyterian Hell for babies. Damona is there, and Esus, and
Drunemeton, and Silvana, and Dervones, and Adsullata, and Deva, and
Bellisima, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty gods in their day, worshipped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able to bind and loose - all gods of the first class. Men labored for generations to build vast temples to them - temples with stones as large as hay-wagons.

The business of interpreting their whims occupied thousands of priests,
bishops, archbishops. To doubt them was to die, usually at the stake.
Armies took to the field to defend them against infidels; villages were burned, women and children butchered, cattle were driven off. Yet in the end they all withered and died, and today there is none so poor to do them reverence.

What has become of Sutekh, once the high god of the whole Nile Valley? What has become of:
Resheph
Anath
Ashtoreth
El
Nergal
Nebo
Ninib
Melek
Ahijah
Isis
Ptah
Anubis
Baal
Astarte
Hadad
Addu
Shalem
Dagon
Sharaab
Yau
Amon-Re
Osiris
Sebek
Molech?

All there were gods of the highest eminence. Many of them are mentioned with fear and trembling in the Old Testament. They ranked, five or six thousand years ago, with Yahweh Himself; the worst of them stood far higher than Thor. Yet they have all gone down the chute, and with them the following:
Bilé
Ler
Arianrhod
Morrigu
Govannon
Gunfled
Sokk-mimi
Nemetona
Dagda
Robigus
Pluto
Ops
Meditrina
Vesta

You may think I spoof. That I invent the names. I do not. Ask the rector to lend you any good treatise on comparative religion: You will find them all listed. They were gods of the highest standing and dignity-gods of civilized peoples-worshiped and believed in by millions. All were omnipotent, omniscient and immortal.

And all are dead.”
― H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

“The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much – indeed, it is doubtful if anybody at all changes at any time. In spite of hosts of deniers, and asserters, and wise-men, and professors, the majority still are adverse to sitting down to dine thirteen at a table, or being helped to salt, or walking under a ladder, of seeing a single magpie flirting his chequered tale. There are, of course, children of light who have set their faces against all this, although even a newspaperman, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for everyone is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt, unlike any other, is a visionary without scratching.”
― William Butler Yeats

“Trees are silent guards, they are the listeners and they hold knowledge mankind has long forgotten.” - The Wolf and The Druidess”
― Cornelia Amiri, The Wolf and the Druidess

“If we could love and hate with as good heart as the faeries do, we might grow to be long-lived like them. But until that day their untiring joys and sorrows must ever be one-half of their fascination. Love with them never grows weary, nor can the circles of the stars tire out their dancing feet.”
― W. B. Yeats

“Some people are destined to be a lighthouse for a lost comrade.”
― Erin Forbes, Fire & Ice: The Kindred Woods

“The elders versed in the mores of the Celtic culture instructed me in the meaning of a special word, buíochas. It means, as best I can render it, tender gratitude. The buíochas should be very high in each person, like a glass that is full. Buíochas is also a self-protection. You should carry gratitude in your heart for everything inside and outside your life and all the small things that impinge on your consciousness. The feeling of buíochas is like a medicine of the mind that holds your life together. The old saying buíochas le Dia, thanks be to God, reminded the human family that life itself is the greatest gift and should therefore be treasured in yourself and in all others.”
― Diana Beresford-Kroeger, To Speak for the Trees: My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest

“I am the Wind that blows across the Sea
I am the Wave of the Ocean
I am the Murmur of the Billows
I am the Bull of the Seven Combats
I am the Vulture on the Rock
I am a Ray of the Sun
I am the Fairest of Flowers
I am a Wild Boar in Valour
I am a Salmon in the Pool
I am a Lake on the Plain
I am the Skill of the Craftsman
I am a Word of Science
I am the Spear-point that gives Battle
I am the god who creates in the head of man the Fire of Thought.
Who is it that Enlightens the Assembly upon the mountain, if not I?
Who tells the ages of the moon, if not I?
Who shows the place where the sun goes to rest, if not I?
Who calls the cattle from the House of Tethra?
On whom do the cattle of Tethra smile?
Who is the god that fashions enchantments - the enchantment of battle and the wind of change?
― Amergin”
― Amergin

“Childhood does not last forever,' said Juniper. 'Although I believe the childish soul can endure for an eternity.”
― Erin Forbes, Fire & Ice: The Kindred Woods

“My breath catches in my lungs as exhilaration takes over my energized limbs. I no longer feel the stones underfoot. All I know is the air whooshing past my ears and the thud of my wild heart. I am light as air.”
― K.V. Wilson, Spiritborne

“This breakage within us is what makes us human and vulnerable. There is nothing more sinister than someone whose mind seems to be an absolute circle; there is a helpless coldness and a deadly certainty about such a presence.”
― John O'Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

“I anoint you with this sacred oil in the name of Brighid
Triple Goddess
Maiden, Mother, Crone”
― Wendy Wildcraft

“Flaws are beautiful differences that have been wrongly considered.”
― Erin Forbes, Fire & Ice: The Kindred Woods

“She ran. Deeper, deeper into the mysterious Broceliande forest...”
― Jennifer McKeithen, Atlantis: On the Shores of Forever

“A twinge of fear entered Gwenwhyfar’s heart. It was the first she had heard of the sea farms lying in the path of danger. She wondered what had befallen a different Norseman of her acquaintance. Had her poor bodyguard, Finn, perished in one of those raids?”
― Jennifer McKeithen, Atlantis: On the Shores of Forever

“A good life is never lived without a bit of risk, and this battle is well worth every one.”
― Erin Forbes, Fire & Ice: The Kindred Woods

“I groaned as me limbs grew to immense proportions an' me neck stretched. Moss-coloured scales emerged upon me slick skin. Me snout elongated and me teeth sharpened to the size o' small dirks.”
― K.V. Wilson, Guardian

“Who are you people, really?” Valkyrie demands.
I smirk, shrinking into my humanoid form. “Do you believe in gods?”
― K.V. Wilson, Incarnate

“As a worldling wishes, so the world is formed.”
― David Paul Kirkpatrick

“The earth is my altar, the moon my candle.”
― David Paul Kirkpatrick

“You will beg like a peasant, you will love like a queen, and you will hate like old Queen Mab on her throne of webs and bone. Rage will consume you until you crumble away, crumble and crumble and crumble to the day you are old and young with no one left but someone who betrays and hinders and lies.”
― Alexandra Nicholson, Crown of Lies

“At least I don't have to go through with my earlier plan.” Instead, it seemed she soon would meet her end. “I will make it such an end!” she vowed”
― Jennifer McKeithen, Atlantis: On the Tides of Destiny

“Take me deep into the woods, away from the others and make love to me, Killian, for I cannot bear to be parted from you any longer!” she whispered in his ear.”
― Leigh Ann Edwards, A Witch's Life

“Nothing is certain in this life; there is little sense in fear of the inevitable. We fight for the things that must change, and pray for matters beyond our control.”
― Erin Forbes, Fire & Ice: The Kindred Woods

“Ah, life… ’tis a difficult battle to fight,' said Willoughby, 'but the beautiful moments will always make up for the sorrow.”
― Erin Forbes, Fire & Ice: The Kindred Woods

“Time has healed the wound, but a scar will always remain. There is no shame in the vulnerable.”
― Erin Forbes, Fire & Ice: The Kindred Woods

“I grin. "What say ye to taking down the monster we call Saint Patty?"
The maiden of Loch Ness breaks into a wide smile, displaying beautiful ivory fangs. "I say aye, lad. That is if ye can keep up with me.”
― K.V. Wilson, Guardian

“I would be there, too, long after the armies had parted ways. I would pick up the pieces their senseless fighting had brought on.”
― K.V. Wilson, Incarnate

“My Éireann by Stewart Stafford

Éireann is my maiden,
Titian grace spun gold,
Fêted for her fairness,
A goddess sacrificed.

All-seeing eye of piety,
But mauled with scars,
In repose and melding,
With the ire of the land.

In perennial motion,
Rivers meet the sea,
Gaze upon a dark pool,
Soubrette for new suitors.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“She remembers that sphagnum moss is an antiseptic, that the Celts used it to pack their wounds after battle. Soldiers in World War One did the same. She likes to cling on to bits of information like that, the type that links the ancient past to the near-present. It makes the strangeness of the present less strange.”
― C J Cooke

“Within the Atlantic archipelago, there is a persistent idea that Ireland, Scotland and Wales are qualitatively different from England, that they are inherently and permanently 'Celtic' in spite of modern realities, and that nations of the 'Celtic Fringe' (a term which places England at the centre and places the 'Celtic nations' at the periphery) share some vague spiritual or racial bond.”
― Richard Alan Barlow, Modern Irish and Scottish Literature: Connections, Contrasts, Celticisms