Celtic Myths and Legends Quotes

“Only the heads of those already slain in battle, friend or foe, were taken as trophies: and always people worthy of respect.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“Thus birth was greeted with mourning and death with exaltation and celebration. These customs were regarded with some surprise by the Greeks and Latins.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“Thus it was that the words of wisdom spoken by the Druids were found to be true – that vengeance, though sweet at first, becomes a bitter cup and proves to be its own executioner. Therefore no vengeance is more estimable than one which is not taken.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“Cú Chulainn, the greatest of the champions of Conchobhar Mac Nessa, King of Ulaidh, sat with other members of the Craobh Ríoga, the warriors of the Royal Branch, bodyguards to the king. It should be explained that the Craobh Ríoga, because of the tired eyesight of an ancient scribe, was mis-transcribed long ago as the Craobh Ruadha, or Red Branch warriors. We, however, shall forgive the scribe’s mistake and return those ancient warriors to their real appellation”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“Of the greatest of the gods, the victor of the battle on the Plain of Towers, Lugh Lámhfada, god of all knowledge, patron of all arts and crafts, his name is still known today. But as memory of the mighty warrior, the invincible god, has faded, he is known only as Lugh-chromain, little stooping Lugh of the sídhe, relegated to the role of a fairy craftsman. And, as even the language in which he was venerated has disappeared, all that is left of the supreme god of the Children of Danu is the distorted form of that name Lugh-chromain . . . leprechaun.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“Even your children are not immortal, my sister. The time will come when they will be defeated. The time will come when no one will want gods and goddesses to nurture them, when they will be driven into the darkness, like my children have been this day. “The time approaches when the summers of Inisfáil will be flowerless, when the cows shall be without milk, and the men will be weak and the women shall be shameless; the seas will be without fish, the trees without fruit and old men will give false judgments; the judges will make unjust laws and honour will count for little and warriors will betray each other and resort to thievery. There will come a time when there will be no more virtue left in this world.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“It was then that Lugh Lámhfada, Lugh of the Long Arm, approached the battlefield. Now Lugh was the son of Cian, which means “Enduring One”, who was in turn son of Cainte, the god of speech. Now the council of the Children of Danu had forbidden him to come to the battle, for Lugh was all-wise and all-knowledgeable and it was thought that his life was too valuable to risk in battle, for his was the wisdom needed to serve humankind.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“Those who gathered such knowledge also paid deference to Bíle, the sacred oak. Because they were not allowed to speak his holy name, they called the oak draoi and those learned in such knowledge were said to possess oak (dru) knowledge (vid) and thus were known as Druids.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“Scholars have argued whether Tacitus, who first records the Latin form of the name Londinium was recording this from the Celtic Lugdunum (fortress of Lug) or from another Celtic word, a word still surviving in the Irish root, londo – the wild place. London, as a Celtic trading town of the Trinovantes, stood on the north bank of the Thames, or Tamesis, as it was recorded. Tamesis means “the dark river”, cognate with the Sanskrit Tamesa, meaning exactly the same. Now the River Tamesa is a tributary of the Ganges, a sacred river of the Hindus, in which votive offerings were placed.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“Most easily recognisable is the word raj (king) which is cognate with the Irish rí and this word is demonstrated also in the Continental Celtic rix and the Latin rex. Most Indo-European languages, at one time, used this concept. However, the Germanic group developed another word, i.e. cyning, koenig and king.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“The Vedas, four books of learning composed in North India, in the period 1000–500 BC, are named from the Sanskrit root vid, meaning “knowledge”. This same root occurs in Old Irish as uid, meaning “observation, perception and knowledge”. Most people will immediately recognise it as one of the two roots of the compound Celtic word Druid – dru-vid, arguably meaning “thorough knowledge”.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“Lugh Lámhfada, Lugh of the Long Hand, the senior of the gods and patron of all arts and crafts, was eventually demoted into Lugh-chromain, “stooping Lugh”, and from there Anglicized into “leprechaun”.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“The basic change was the famous substitution of “Q”, the sound now represented by a hard “C”, into “P”. To give a simple example, the word for “son” in Irish is mac, in Welsh this became map and in modern Welsh is shortened to ap. “Everyone”, or cách, in Old Irish, is paup in Old Welsh. The word for a “feather” in Old Irish, clúmh, became pluf in Old Welsh. Thus the “Q” is substituted for the “P” and hence the identification of “P” and “Q” Celtic and perhaps the origin of the phrase about “minding your ‘p’s’ and ‘q’s’ ”.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“The Danube, first recorded as the Danuvius, was named after the Celtic goddess Danu, whose name means “divine waters”. The Rhône, first recorded as Rhodanus, also incorporates the name of the goddess prefixed by the Celtic ro, or “great”. The Rhine, originally recorded as Rhenus, is a Celtic word for “sea way”.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

“Where was the Indo-European parent originally spoken and when did it begin to break up? It is probable, and only probable, that the speakers of the parent tongue originated somewhere between the Baltic and the Black Sea. It also seems probable that the parent tongue was already breaking into dialects before waves of migrants carried them westward into Europe and eastward into Asia. The first Indo-European literature that we have records of is Hittite, a language spoken in what is now eastern Turkey. The Hittites formed an empire which eventually incorporated Babylonia and even briefly exerted authority over Egypt. Hittite writing emerged from 1900 BC and vanished around 1400 BC. Hittite literature survives on tablets written in cuneiform syllabics which were not deciphered until 1916. Scholars argue that the Celtic dialect of Indo-European, which became the parent of all Celtic languages, emerged at about 2000 BC. The Celtic peoples began to appear as a distinctive culture in the area of the headwaters of the Danube, the Rhine and the Rhône. In other words, in what is now Switzerland and South-West Germany.”
― Peter Berresford Ellis, The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends