** A History of the Celts ** WILDER Network **

(A preface to a less confused history yet to be written)
As a Celt myself with children married to Celts, I claim the privilege of making some fun at the expense of distorting or retorting (if there is such a word) the history of my tribe, or should I say tribes, thousands of them?

Fellow Celts read on at your peril.

Begin here if not a Celt. Should any scholar with much time and a modicum of inclination after a confused immersion into the art, history, and ancient rumors regarding the tribes of the Celts, decide he or she knew enough to add yet another tome to the extensive bibliography of those mysterious ancestors of mine, they should decline the almost irresistible urge to cram as many insupportable anecdotes, using multiple eponyms for the same personage, as can be squeezed onto a page.

The majority of the well-intentioned recorders of the history and cults of the Celts confuse themselves and their intended readers by interlacing fact with fiction to such an extent that the Celtic symbols (continuous symmetrical mirrored intertwining graphics) become representative of the author’s thinking processes. The judgment of whether an author, especially of history and art, has achieved some clarity and organization in his or her work, may be assumed by the alacrity with which he or she rereads his or her own literary effort. I wouldn't’t dare read my own. My inclination is to think that the majority of the books written on the history of the Celts have rarely been read in a published form by their authors.

Confusion and unintended repetition must be tamed in the main body of a work of authorship. Any preface must prepare the reader for the unavoidable mixture of fact and fiction and, more importantly, reduce confusion by identifying characters by only one name throughout the text.

Those names should preferably be in anglicized spelling unless the whole effort is to be written in Gaelic which would reduce the number of potential readers by a considerable extent, possibly limited to the author’s close relatives. You will notice this is being written in Anglish. To satisfy the author that his scholarship be recognized, an appendix could list the many names and spellings by which each character was variously known. There is a great chance such an appendix would require almost as many pages as the text.

So here I sit surrounded by books about the Celts and, having made an insincere promise to myself that I will author a book that will; shed a modicum of clarity on history, I am immediately confused by learning from one author and confuser of the Celts, whose literary effort is on top of a the pile near my feet, that there happened to be two St. Patricks at different times. This confuses both our history and our religion. This knowledge did clarify why a book I recently read about St. Patrick didn’t gibe with any of my previous conceptions, immaculate or not. I was obviously reading about the other St. Patrick.

Although both authors claimed their St. Patrick was captured in England and brought to Ireland as a slave, the names of the pirates and the slave owners didn’t fit with the ones I was familiar with, and the dates mentioned were donkey’s years apart.

A novel idea entered my head that a history of the Celts should be typed in two colors. Black would denote unconfirmed facts, anecdotes and obviously embellished folklore; red would denote firm, or reasonably firm, historical fact. By chance there is no red ribbon in my typewriter. Nevertheless, although what we read is in black type, we are at liberty to believe what we want to believe or rather what we feel in our historically connected consciences warrants believing. From the foregoing, a reason may be discerned why all histories are published in black print.

All histories are biased towards the author’s point of view by his or her own origins or personal involvement, if any. This must be especially noted when reading accounts of the Celts written by Romans or Greeks. Both the Romans and the Greeks had great opinions of themselves and were neither kind to, nor appreciative of the cultures they attempted to swamp. It served them right when the Celts gave them good-uppance and the Roman world decayed. While they were on top, they never admitted that Celtic culture influenced their own in obvious and subtle ways.

We must resort to reading between the lines to get anywhere near the truth. We should believe what we want to believe and rely on logic (often suspect) and racial intuition, the same intuition by which we inherit certain talents and habits, some good, some bad. Our history is implanted in our heads.

Considering the proposed publication of The History of the Celts, in works of scholarship, tiny numbers appearing hither and thither in the text are expected to guide a reader to a bibliography to another confusing piece of rhetoric. That bibliography might be either at the end of each chapter, at the end of each page, or somewhere in a multi-paged index to be searched for at the back end of the tome. Sometimes the footnotes indicated by those teeny numbers cover more of the page than the text. This is not fair to the reader. I believe an effort should be made to make reading easier, not disturbed by reference seeking, and certainly not by bouncing to the last pages every few lines or paragraphs and so losing one’s place in the text and one’s patience. It is also wearing on the substance of the book decreasing its value in a secondhand bookstore.

I would solve the problem of those awkward footnotes by quoting origins and references slap within the text at the point where they are relevant or might induce some interest (they rarely do except to bibliophilic thesis writers who chew footnotes for breakfast). An example of my suggested method follows: “The long, red hair of Queen Mavis reached her buttocks.” (I bet it was a wig. Aunt Bridget 1932).

It is more than confusing when there are so many kings and queens. This detracts from the regality of those deserving such titles on account of their importance or the size of their kingdoms. I will distinguish those deserving by capitalizing their titles when my book is written, the others will be just kings and queens and not Kings and Queens. This might include a large number of my readers, if any, and it may be fair to conclude they are only reading the book (if it is ever finished) to dig up royal skeletons in their closet.

How else can I make the book enjoyable as well as readable? Illustrations must appear at least every ten pages and they should be placed so that they have some relevance to the adjacent t text. This will prevent exasperation when, for no apparent reason, a picture of a witch being boiled in oil appears next to a delicate love poem, or a snorting bull glares out next to an account of a wreck at sea.

An author depends on his readers for a living and should be considerate of them unless he never intends to write another book, or he thinks his effort will only be on shelves of stuffy libraries.

I intend to sketch the illustrations myself and will attempt to make them as enticing as possible. After all, the Celtic warriors are supposed to have entered battle naked, either to prevent their raiments being bloodstained making for huge dry-cleaning bills, or to embarrass their enemies.

Dear potential readers, be prepared to sit back and enjoy naked fighters, as many beheadings as you couldn’t possibly imagine, an incredible divorce rate among the Kings and Queens and the kings and queens, royalty willing to give up kingdoms for a particular bull, and glorious confusing poetry that might point to rampant schizophrenia but, with my guidance will become clear and meaningful.

You may become jealous that noted characters within the text lived for more than two hundred years. Within that text you might find the secrets that will allow you to do the same without buying expensive exercise machines and leaving wholesome fat out of your diet. It is possible that you might have to live more than the usual lifespan before you will have the joy of reading the completed text and illustrations drawn, as I have a lot of gardening to do and have a motorcycle that needs a lot of attention. With that in mind and not wanting to deprive you of the expectancy I hope I have created, I hereby publish the foreword and crave your patience.

Orders for copies the completed book will be gratefully accepted with a promise that the down payment that should accompany the order will be wisely and enjoyably used whether or not the child is born or the bull is returned to its owner.

In no way should my prankly comments be interpreted as belittling true Irish history. The Dark Ages would have lasted longer, perhaps forever, if the thinkers and scribes of Ireland had not reintroduced learning and writing back into Europe halfway through the first millennium. As serious as the project was, they managed to slip some humor into their writing and art. Humor often depends on exaggerations and those exaggerations should be appreciated and enjoyed.

A History of the Celts by, Edward L. McNeil

A History of the Celts
by, Edward L. McNeil