The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles
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www.RodnoVery.ru www.RodnoVery.ru The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles www.RodnoVery.ru Callanish Stone Circle Reproduced by kind permission of Fay Godwin www.RodnoVery.ru The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles Their Nature and Legacy RONALD HUTTON BLACKWELL Oxford UK & Cambridge USA www.RodnoVery.ru Copyright © R. B. Hutton, 1991, 1993 First published 1991 First published in paperback 1993 Reprinted 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 108 Cowley Road Oxford 0X4 1JF, UK Blackwell Publishers Inc. 350 Main Street Maiden, Massachusetts 02148, USA All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hutton, Ronald The pagan religions of the ancient British Isles: their nature and legacy / Ronald Hutton p. cm. ISBN 0-631-18946-7 (pbk) 1. Great Britain—Religion—To 449. I. Title. BL980.G7H87 1991 291'.09361— dc20 90-27166 CIP Typeset in 11 on 13pt Caslon by Hope Services (Abingdon) Ltd, Oxon Printed and bound in Great Britain by T. J. International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall This book is printed on acid-free paper www.RodnoVery.ru Contents Preface vi Preface to The Paperback Edition ix Acknowledgements xvi Guide to Pronunciation of Celtic Words in the Text xxi 1 The Mysteries Begin (c.30,000-c.5000 BC) 1 2 The Time of the Tombs (c.5000-c. 3200 BC) 16 3 The Coming of the Circles (c.3200—c. 2200 BC) 52 4 Into the Darkness (c.2200—c.1000 BC) 88 5 The People of the Mist (c.1000 BC-c.AD 500) 139 6 The Imperial Synthesis (AD 43—410) 201 7 The Clash of Faiths (AD c.300—c.1000) 247 8 Legacy of Shadows 284 Notes 342 Additional Source Material 374 Index 377 www.RodnoVery.ru Preface The purpose of this book is to set out what is at present known about the religious beliefs and practices of the inhabitants of the British Isles before their conversion to Christianity. The term 'pagan' is used as a convenient shorthand for those beliefs and practices, and is employed in the title merely to absolve the book from any need to discuss early Christianity itself. Throughout, I have used the same word, and others such as 'faith', 'cult' and 'religion' itself, in a manner which may seem unsatisfactory to theologians and philosophers who prefer stricter definition and more precise application of these terms. I hope nevertheless that my looser usage will be deemed sufficient for a work of history (and prehistory) such as this. My principal intention is to bring to a wider public the very large amount of new evidence and ideas relating to the subject that has been published in the past two decades, much of which seems to be known only to experts within narrow areas of study. Although some more general surveys (often of superb quality) have appeared covering particular periods and places — for example, celebrated prehistoric monuments, the Roman province, the 'Celts' and the Anglo-Saxons — there exists no more general treatment. Furthermore, some of these existing surveys are already out of date or seem to me to be overconfident in certain of their judgements. My own acknowledged expertise has hitherto lain only at the latter end of the stretch of time encompassed here. But much of the rest was already familiar territory to me before I started this book. During my adolescence I took part in a number of archaeological excavations, including some sites of relevance to the present subject, such as Ascott-under-Wychwood long barrow, the Pilsdon Pen Iron Age temple and the Harlow Romano- British temple. At university I specialized in history, but kept up with www.RodnoVery.ru Preface vii developments in archaeology by attending Glyn Daniel's seminars and by constant reading of reports, a habit I have since maintained. The substructure for another part of the work was formed by my long standing interest in early Irish and Welsh literature, which had already stood me in good stead in providing material for my lectures on Irish history at Bristol and in enabling me to fulfil an unexpected position as patron of the university's Welsh society. My mother, Elsa Hutton, was an old-fashioned antiquarian of the best kind: her intention to publish a guide to the prehistoric chambered tombs of England and Wales was thwarted by her tragically early death, but the data which she had collected rendered me thoroughly familiar with this class of monument. In addition, each chapter of the book has been read by a specialist in the period concerned. A work of this nature has obvious actual or potential defects. In covering such an enormous time-span, it is almost inevitable that I shall have neglected or under-emphasized items which some specialists feel to be important. I may well have failed to notice some relevant publications, and such is the pace of modern scholarship (especially in archaeology) that some of my information will probably be rendered redundant by announcements in the interval between my last revisions and publication. After the first couple of chapters I have paid little attention to comparable work in other European countries, and I draw relatively few ethnographic parallels. This is certainly a fault, but given the size of the task which I already had in hand, the addition of these other spheres of interest would have made the book unwieldy. I regret that when I was sketching objects and patterns in the field and in museum collections, I did not note down scales to be printed with them: an omission common to most authors who have included such material, but still an error. Some of my illustrations might have been better replaced by good photographs, but here financial constraints and complications of reproduction came into play. I have been concerned both to keep source-references to a minimum, and yet to ensure that no assertion should be left without one. As a result, I have sometimes provided a reference to a large modern work which contains within it precise details of ancient texts of which I make mention in my own pages, rather than citing the latter myself. Though some scholars may find this unsatisfactory, it was the best compromise I could make given the conflicting constraints of space and thoroughness. The same problem occurred on a larger scale when it became necessary to cut the text to keep the book within original unit costs. Only a few sections, such as that dealing with the claims of Glastonbury to be a pre-Saxon holy place, were www.RodnoVery.ru viii Preface excised completely: but many pieces of evidence which had been supplied to buttress assertions were struck out. The result may be a more streamlined work, and I hope that the remaining compilations of data are still sufficient to prove their points. My greatest anxiety is that there exists no colleague whose expertise covers the whole subject of the book, so that it must be evaluated by those who find what falls within their fields all too familiar and what falls outside them all too alien. But that, of course, is the principal reason for my feeling that somebody ought to write it. R.H. May 1990 www.RodnoVery.ru Preface to The Paperback Edition In the original preface to this book I predicted that parts of it would be overtaken by further discoveries even before it was through the press. This has proved correct, and, in addition, various constructive critics, of whom Leslie Grinsell has been the most indefatigable, have pointed out ways in which the original might be improved. Some of my responses to both will be obvious in the text, but most are best stated here. Recent excavation and source analysis has provided a lot of data which extends the information provided in the original; I only have space to consider that which significantly alters or reinforces the latter. There seem to have been no dramatic developments in the study of Palaeolithic religions. Instead, the same symbolism can be constantly reinterpreted; thus, the American writer Ceiswyr Serith points out to me that the so-called instrument in the hooves of the 'bison musician' at Trois Freres may simply be steam coming from the creature's nostrils. In the scholarship of British and Irish megalithic tombs the most significant discovery may be that made by Ian Armit at Loch Olabhat in the Hebrides, reported in Current Archaeology 127 (1991), pp. 284-7. It consisted of a mid-Neolithic settlement preserved by inundation, the houses of which exactly resembled local tombs. This powerfully supports the theory that the tomb-shrines were dwellings for the dead, their architecture copying those of the living, but built in durable materials, whereas villages and farms vanished unless preserved by accident as at Loch Olabhat.