Will the Real Cynesians Please Step Forward? (History)

[Mick Harper]

You know those TV Police Procedurals that none of us watch because of our busy social lives, well, they always feature a scene where the DCI stands in front of a big white-board with photos of the victims and the supects with arrows and question marks all over the place. And they ALWAYS solve the crime.

We need something similar. A huge cut-out-'n'-keep wallchart in which Cynesians are linked to Gynetes with an arrow and Herodotus has a question mark and there's a picture of Julius Caesar and Detective Chief Inspector Crisp stands in front saying, "We need to crack this one, lads, so let's keep no stone unturned in case there's a slimeball underneath."

[DPCrisp]

[Ishmael]

[Oakey Dokey]

Wal and Gal are the same word.
They mean foreigner or outsider or even 'next to'

I seriously think that the whole Celtic region was referred to as the "outsiders" or Galatia.

I'll repeat a few earlier posts I made in another thread as they seem to be very on topic here:

Barb -Female- Latin The foreigner or stranger. From the name Barbara.

Barbara- Female Latin- The foreigner or stranger.

WALE (British). "Foreign" (Germanic); or, "choice, excellent, noble" (Middle English); or, "ridge, bank".

GERMAN (British). "German." The term 'German' is a Celtic word meaning either "neighbour" or "battle-cry."

And MOST interestingly with W = G

Gaul in Latin is Gallia

the Welsh noun plural - les Gallois - The Welsh.

So Wales was known as the foreigners before the English coined the word Wal for them!!! WOW now that is odd.

OMG I think I have the answer:

The whole of Britain at the end of the last Ice Age was becoming detached from mainland Europe, there was little distinction between the tribes until the English Channel filled.

Gal- Britain (post Ice age)
Wal- Britain (pre Celtic? ie Picts, Vikings, etc.)

Portugal, Galicia, Gaul (France), Cornwall (Cornugales - Cornu=horn), Gales (Wales)

British lands end Fingal? End of Britain?

Galloway etc.

How about an Ancient Egyptian general called 'Gaedhal'?

Did he start this wandering 'foreigner' tribe of Celts (not the original Picts).
I would say that there is good evidence now to suggest the Biblical Galatians!

Now it's just a matter of chronologically putting the order of naming and arrival of the Picts, Celts, Gauls in the land named Gal (Western Europe as a whole).

&

Gallipoli - Greek 'Beautiful City' from 'Kallipolis'

It's a peninsula in northern Turkey (Troy link?)
It's also a place in southern Italy.

What if this whole western region from North Africa to the ice sheets had been a super-nation of Galatians at the retreat of the last glaciation max?

Would the Med, Azores and Canaries (Gaunchies-Guanac) all have been part of this empire? Yes, I would tend to think so.

Also

Gall
nm. g. Goill; pl. Goill, foreigner, a Scottish Lowlander
The Irish Scots also saw Lowland Scots as foreigners.

& finally

Gal was not a country.
It was an idea.

Gal also means hill/wood (gallt). The Druids of the ancient west practised a dualistic approach to monotheism. It's hard to describe but most Gnostic traditions saw the scenario as such:

One source or head god, He gave rise to two other gods. Male/female, Good/evil etc. Basically balancing forces or whatever.

They believed that the two lesser gods fought over your soul for reincarnation or enlightenment and your subsequent release from earthly bondage.

The Druidic faith is no different. The interesting point is that their places of worship were hills and tree groves (gallt). Are these western Galatians hill/wood worshippers? The people who worship on hills and in woods? It explains why witches were so badly persecuted by the Church as were the Cathars and Bogomils. They ARE the same idea.

The main pointer is that the Druids were around before the Celts and adopted by the Celts, the Druids were not just priests, they were wealthy administrators. To break the Celtic and Gaulish nations, Rome knew the Druids were the only way of eliminating the unity of the 'barbarians'.

Now I really need some help here.

The sacred number of the Druids and most northern and western religions is 3. This is the Trinity which the Church takes as F,S & HG. But the center of Druidic learning and its origins are placed in Britain. The whole of the Gal nation sent their Druid priests to Britain for education (taking around 20 years to complete).

http://www.tylwythteg.com/Entrance/druids-1.html

What I can't figure out is, was Britain just an academy for learning and a bastion for the Druidic faith? Or was the faith based in the supposed origins of the Celtic peoples - the Caucasus mountains, known as the Strobilus to the ancients (later Turkey/Troy from which the Greeks learned their writing and religion)?

Oh and the Masons often refer to the Druids as the most religious of Masons! The Druids could very well be the master masons referred to (henges and such). It's all starting to blur but the feeling is that some of the ideas and rituals go way back.

What's most interesting is if you overlay these people's locations with the maps you provided earlier.

[Mick Harper]

That's it, Oakey, start the hare off in twenty-eight different directions!

[Ishmael]

[Mick Harper]

Coupla macro-points:

1. The Celts' presumed isolation in the far west may have been the source of their Europe-wide strength. It's a bit like Asiatic horse-nomads in the east: if you can't get to where they live, it means they can descend on you anytime they are particularly strong or you are particularly weak. And they can always bugger off again when things go 'ooky.

2. Watching a prog on Greeks living all along the coast of Asia Minor, it occurred to me that only a maritime trading culture lives this way. Maritime people particularly prize the sea, non-maritime people just regard it as a so-so place to live. So where you have competition (economic or military) between the two, you will get the one on the coast everywhere, and the other inland everywhere.

That is the Celtic pattern in Britain (Cornwall, West Wales, Cumbria, Islands and Highlands of Scotland) and Ireland (west coast) and--a bit less so--in France (Brittany) and Iberia (Finisterre).

But if this is the case, then who were these western coast maritime traders trading with? Not one another--what have they got to trade?--but presumably with someone, somewhere.

[Oakey Dokey]

Oh you are so going to love this.

Mick, I've found a very straightforward link between many threads we have already made and explored that have taken us here.

I found the link by hearing about Oak Galls. They are small balls found on many northern oaks in Europe. They are intentionally made tumours of the Oak plant by a wasp. They are collectively known as 'Oak gall apples'

Remembering you questioned the word apfel in Welsh in another thread, I looked up the Old English meaning for gall. It turns out it's apple in Welsh. More than that, it's an ancient word for many subjects from bitter poisons (Jesus refused it to ease his pain on the cross. Also note that it was supposedly oak he was crucified upon and some religious sects refuse to have oak in their homes). It's also known in many northern European languages as none other than SALT.

I can't find the translation online but my daughter (a fluent Welsh speaker) says that Gall in Welsh also means 'clever' or 'bright'

(adj.) wise, sensible, rational, prudent, astute, discreet, judicious, politic
gallu [gall-; 3.s. gall, geill; 2.s.imp. gall]

[Oakey Dokey]

I found the coincidence quite ironic. Anyway the Romans also referred to the additives they put in their 'vinegar' wine (their daily allowance) as Gall. So this Gall term is very old, it's even used to describe chaffing or rubbing and sores associated with the action (certain English kings have used the term and the Oak represents the royalty against the Roundheads, hence the numerous pubs named 'The Royal Oak'). The origin of the description is again Oaks or rather Oak saps, the rubbing of the bark is known as Gall.

And Anglesea or the isle of Mona was my starting place for this discovery, the Romans regarded it as a stronghold and last bastion of the Druidic faith and spared no-one when they finally managed to subdue the populous there. They also went to great lengths to install a garrison and destroy all and any sacred groves. There were 3 invasions I could find referenced to Anglesea: the first mentions Druidic practices and their abolition, the rest make no further mention, which is odd in itself. The island itself has a few smaller islands associated with it (Holy Island etc.) but I'm trying to get an idea of exactly what was there before the church placed monasteries on the island.

The island itself is devoted to the moon and feminine wellbeing, at least among the menia of north Wales. Mona also means 'aristocratic' in Irish Gaelic and 'advisor' in Latin. Knowing the Romans actually used some Druids as advisors I wonder if this is a link?

[Lily]

As far as I'm aware the word druid comes from the same root as the words true and tree. I'm wondering if the words three/tri/drei (welsh for 3 is pronounced "tree") and even the Greek dryad could also be related? Druids and dryads are both closely asociated with trees after all.

[Mick Harper]

Steady on, old chap, we can't go down too many roads all at once. Oh, what the hell, 'course we can.

Just one bit that jumped out and hit me over the back of the head:

[Oakey Dokey]

Lily wrote:

As far as I'm aware the word druid comes from the same root as the words true and tree. In reading this thread, I'm wondering if the words three/tri/drei (welsh for 3 is pronounced "tree") and even the Greek dryad could also be related? Druids and dryads are both closely asociated with trees after all.

3 is a sacred number in the druidic faith, as it is in many north European pagan religions.

[Komorikid]

Oakey wrote

[Hatty]

Komorikid wrote

[DPCrisp]

Propositions
Roman-Britain.org looks to be jam packed with info, but, for now, just look at the map of the 'Celtic' tribes here.

Notice how the Belgae cut a swathe across the south-west between what we know to be truly Celtic West Country and truly English All-the-rest Country, from the Isle of Wight to the Bristol Channel.

Caesar said Britain had undergone a long period of civil war and the chief villains of the peace were held to be the Catuvellauni, from around these parts, north of the Thames. It didn't take the "civilised" South East very long to double-cross them.

This period of unrest surely corresponds more or less with the so-called Celtic invasion, which we know was nothing of the sort (although I don't know much about what it was).

Proposition #1:
This 'civil war' was when the English wrested control back from the Celts. The Belgae, looking only for booty, took advantage of the situation and took a slice for themselves between the English and the Celts.

The 'Celtic Invasion' might be the time of widespread uprising against the Celts (starting in the region of La Tène, perhaps). (An indigenous uprising... Saxons... new horsemen...? I don't know.) This instability might even have been the spur to the expansion of the Roman Empire in this direction?

Proposition #2:
The Catuvellauni didn't get on with any of their neighbours because they retained Celtic allegiances (or were the last of the Celtic ruling class).

Notice that the Icknield Way/Ridgeway/Michael Line runs through here and might have something to do with enduring Celticness.