Читать книгу 366 Celt: A Year and A Day of Celtic Wisdom and Lore - Carl McColman - Страница 54

In our modern efforts to understand the wisdom and lore of the ancient Celts, we have other resources besides just the stories of myth. A wonderful collection of “triads”—a literary form used as a tool for memorizing key information—provides glimpses into the lore of the ancients, as does a charming Irish anthology called the Dindshenchas (“the lore of prominent places”), which collects legends and poems that explain the names of natural features in the landscape. Many such names have mythical origins, and so the stories in the Dindshenchas provide as much of an insight into myth as into the history of names.

Finally, there is the vast body of folklore: oral (and more recently, written) traditions of tales, poems, and ballads, some of which have fascinating similarities to the old myths, all of which provide insights into how the Celtic mind works and how Celts, from ancient times to the present, have made sense out of the world in which they live.

Both Irish and Welsh myth come to us in fragmentary form, a frustrating matter for the modern seeker of wisdom. But remember what was said of the druids: “they speak in riddles … hinting of things and leaving a great deal to be understood.” In a way, the mythic tradition is the greatest riddle of all.