Wicca 101: Ancient Myths & Modern Man (Part 2)

In part one, we looked at the necessity of establishing cultural context for a set of myths that we are going to be examining. We then proceeded to establish the history and rough cultural context of the ancient Celts (our sample culture). Now, we are going to look at the language of the myths and how this influences the interpretation.

Myths are a special subset of oral history. We have the usual understanding of oral history: that which is expressed by word of mouth. Myths takes this understanding to a new level. They incorporate the cosmology of the belief system in place when the myth was established. They incorporate the social mores and values from when the myth was established. And, they reflect the influence of the subsequent individuals who pass them on. As such, the oldest myths have many, many layers of meaning in addition to what the original meaning was.

Celtic myth is a fairly fragmented structure when compared to Greek or Egyptian. A few myth cycles stand out as relatively complete (such as the Ulster cycle or the Arthurian cycle) but there are others that have only a few myths that remain. The role of myth cycles is relatively simple. The collection of myths serve to communicate a larger message within the structure of the story that ties the myths in question together. Various cultures have myth cycles that communicate lessons about how man relates to the world at large and the Gods of that culture.

This is among the most common themes to be found in myth cycles. Second most common is the role of man within society. This theme illustrated what traits are upheld as virtuous and what traits are considered villainous in the culture that the myths hail from. Looking at the Celtic myth cycles we have to examine, it is difficult to choose which myth to examine because they are all so wonderfully multifaceted. For the sake of simplicity, let us look at the themes within the most popular myth of the Ulster cycle, the myth of Deirdre.

The myth of Deirdre has four main parts. The first describes the birth and childhood of Deirdre, including the prophecy of Cathbad the Druid. The second describes the elopement of Deirdre and Naoise and their life on the run from King Conchobar Mac Nessa (who planned to marry Deirdre when she was of age). The third part describes the capture of Deirdre and the deaths of Naoise and his brothers (who had gone into exile with them). The final part of the myth is the death of Deirdre.