This post is a bit of a spin-off from Susanna’s. She notes that the Welsh eisteddfod is an ancient tradition, one which places bardic performance (and, thus, poetry) at the very center of Welsh tradition. This is true up to a point– we know that medieval rulers of Wales did sponsor bardic competitions often actually calling them eisteddfodau (that’s the plural). But the present day institution (you can find a link here– in Welsh and English) owes at least as much to romantic imagination as to any actual historical research. To quote Cunliffe in The Ancient Celts, “the ceremony of maen gorsedd was … held on the autumn equinox and involved Welsh bards in an extended performance of pompous ritual heavy with symbolism, requiring for its props an altar and a circle of stones. The entire pastiche of an ‘ancient tradition’ was the invention of Welsh stonemason Edward Williams, who preferred to be known by his bardic name Iolo Morganwy. By managing to have the Gorsedd attached to the more ancient and respectable ceremony of the Welsh Eisteddfod in 1819, Williams ensured the survival of his nonsensical Celtic creation’ (12).

The kilt, that other precious indicator of Celtic identity, has a similarly vexed history; certainly the Scots of the 16th and 17th centuries wore kilts– we have paintings to prove it. But as for all those clan tartans that are so ferociously associated with a single family that you sometimes hear of curses (or at least beatings) falling on people who wore them without right… well, that tradition only extends back about 200 years, and seems to be more strongly associated with the Victorian British enthusiasm for all things Scottish (Queen Victoria loved the highlands) than with anything ancient. I’m afraid I can’t provide a proper reference for that; I think it comes out of a book I read several years ago called The Highland Clearances. The kilt, however, is still an attractive form of apparel for men, in my opinion, especially combined with Doc Maartens (I have a friend who wore such an outfit out on New Year’s Eve 2 years ago– the temperature was way sub-zero, and I’m still impressed!).

The Bretons too have plenty of imaginary Celtic schtick. There is a forest mentioned in the romances of Chrétien de Troyes, where giants roam and knights have marvelous adventures. Chrétien says it’s in Brittany, and calls it Brocéliande. In the early 19th century, just as tourism was becoming a business in the aftermath of the Romantic enthusiasm for nature and wild places, some clever entrepreneur in Brittany (then one of the poorest parts of France) decided to discover Brocéliande. He rechristened a large part of the less romantically named Foret de Paimpont and sure enough, people started coming to look at “Merlin’s Tomb” (actually a dolmen) and the lake where the Lady of the Lake lived. I’ve managed to misplace my photos of a recent trip there, but here’s a link to a local tourist bureau site, and another to a series of workshops on “contemporary Celtic spirituality” organized by the Confederation of Fraternal Orders of Druids.  There’s nice hiking to be had, and wonderful savoury crèpes (they are the Breton food par excellence) but the amount of kitsch about the “little people” in the gift shops has to be seen to be believed.

There is, however, a funny story about the forest of Brocéliande which suggests that it may be at least a tiny bit magical after all. About twenty-five years ago, the International Arthurian Congress held its meetings in Rennes, the Breton city closest to the forest. A bus excursion was organized to take eminent Arthurian scholars from all over Europe, North America, Japan and even Australia to visit the forest. Something went terribly wrong. A fog rolled in, the party became separated, the bus driver got into a fight and went home with the bus and without the guide, the guide went to the local café and got drunk, all while some forty eminent scholars were wandering around in the fog, presumably bleating like sheep and getting very cranky. Eventually the rescue units of the sapeurs-pompiers had to be called and go find them. Some people spent nearly 24 hours lost in the woods. I wasn’t there (I’m not that old!) but I heard about it from someone who was. And I have to say… I rather wish I had been. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have been spooked at the prospect of a night in the woods.  When, at an IAC meeting only a few years ago (this one I was present at) Rennes bid for the 2008 Conference, a deadly hush fell in the room, and then people began muttering darkly.  But Rennes won out nonetheless, and nothing untoward at all happened at the second conference. More’s the pity.

The point of all this is really that the Celts, for whatever reason, form an irresistible screen upon we project images of things we want to believe in: a world in which poetry is central to culture, or one where heroic highland clans have clothing we can all adopt, or one where mystical forces animate the woods.  We make them what we want them to be.  And sometimes, their modern descendants are canny (nice Scots word, that!) enough to capitalize on our desires.