On Furphies: what we really don't know about the 'Celts'

[la_marquise]

I have my professional hat on, today, over on the SF Novelists blog. I'm talking about the concept of 'Celts', the origin of myths about their history and the law around women. You can find the article here. You can comment here or there.

SKirt of the day: flippy blurred floral.

Comments

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

There's archaeological evidence of British chiefs selling other Brits to the Romans . I found my attitudes to this affected by the knowledge that once the English occupation of England was well established, the word that became "Welsh" changed meaning from "foreigner" to "slave" (this was the lower orders; the higher-ups rebranded themselves as English).

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

And of course there's St Patrick: born in Britain, captured by Irish raiders and sold in Ireland, and later wrote to a British chieftain criticising him for allowing his men to raid Ireland for slaves.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

The Celts were slave-owning peoples: the law codes make this completely clear. It's another thing that romantic Celtic fantasies of the sub-Mists of Avalon kind miss out. (There are writers who get it right, or right enough, given the demands of fiction -- Patricia Finney, Katherine Kerr, Evangeline Walton -- but most readers don't know how to tell the difference.)