I woke up
this morning, turned on the television, and remembered that today is the summer
solstice when I saw a story about the crowds celebrating the height of summer
at Stonehenge. There were fewer arrests
than usual.
This time
last year I was on a whirlwind trip of a lifetime to Ireland, Wales, and
England. My biggest regret is that I
didn’t get to see Stonehenge. I have
been fascinated with Celtic Britain for almost my whole life. Although I haven’t followed any ancestors
across the ocean to the homeland, I’m quite sure I have Scots, Irish, and Welsh
blood flowing through my veins.
It began to
be a joke among the travelers last year that I was the only one who had come on
the trip to see Wales. Hardly anyone
else knew anything about Wales, but I have always loved the high fantasy books
based on its mythology: The Crystal Cave and its sequels by Mary
Stewart; the Prydain Chronicles, a series for young people by Lloyd Alexander;
and of course, anything about King Arthur.
Then as I began to do genealogy, I began to see over and over again:
“They came from Wales,” when reading about the origins of my ancestors.
Wales was
everything I expected. Ireland was
beautifully green and pastoral. Wales
was all rocky mountains, misty and wild.
I can see why it would be easy to invent stories of magic about the
place. The highlight of the whole trip
for me came the night we spent in the wonderfully Welsh town of Llangollen,
where the International Eisteddfod music competition is held every year. At dinner I looked out the window of the
hotel dining room to the top of a tall hill across the river that ran through
Llangollen. It almost looked like a
menagerie made out of vines, but when we asked the waitress, we found that we
were looking at the ruins of Dinas Bran.
I knew that name! In one of my
favorite fantasy series, The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper, major
events in the story take place at Dinas Bran.
 |
| Dinas Bran |
 |
| Llangollen |
I have been
reading a book called The Sea Kingdoms: The History of Celtic Britain and
Ireland by Alistair Moffatt. While
not specifically a book about genealogy, I nevertheless have found so much in
it that lends background to my genealogical search. I always thought that the thing my ancestors
had in common was Southern in nature. I
hardly have a Yankee in my family tree.
I’m thinking now that what the Wheats and Mings and Powells and Bells,
and even the Smiths, have in common is a background in Celtic Britain. Another great book I have read makes an
argument for why.
Albion’s
Seed by David Hackett
Fischer, one of America’s premier historians, explains that four major regions
of colonial America were established by four distinct groups from Britain, who
brought their ways of building, speaking, naming, marrying, burying, and
worshipping from their original homes in Britain. It should be required reading for every
genealogist with origins in Britain. In
Fischer’s view, the backcountry of America (frontier Virginia, North Carolina,
Kentucky, Tennessee, etc.) became the new home of the border peoples of
Britain: our Celtic ancestors pushed into the highlands of Scotland, and the
edges of the British Isles—Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and finally to America.
Back to The
Sea Kingdoms: Here are some things I
have learned.
·
History was
an oral tradition in Celtic Britain.
Time was reckoned not by dates but by genealogy. Faced with the loyalist army at the Battle of
Culloden, the Highland Scots in the Jacobite army screamed their genealogies at
their foes.
·
Because the
Celts could recite long lists of their ancestors, using only their Christian
names, nicknames were added to “bring life to the long lists.” Hence, the three generations of William
Pharris in Jackson County, Tennessee: “Old Man,” “Big Bill,” and Billy.
·
One of my
grandfather’s favorite expressions was, “He’s too poor to buy a mosquito a
wrestling jacket.” I always assumed it
was a Southern expression and understood the part about it being a little bitty
jacket. But why a “wrestling
jacket”? In traditional Cornish
wrestling, the opponents wear canvas jackets tied at the front with rope.
·
The origin
of the Primitive Baptist hymn singing without accompaniment may have its roots
in Gaelic psalmody.
·
Long before
Christianity, the Celts believed in a life after death. “The absolute certainty of an afterlife passed
unchanging from the Celtic past to the Christian future….To some sects who
believe themselves elect” (Primitive Baptists—my interpretation) “life on earth
is little more than a prior inconvenience to be born with fortitude and managed
with dignity and little fuss.”
I’m only
about halfway through with The Sea Kingdoms. I’m sure I’ll learn even more.
