Ancient Gaelic Women – A Legacy Full of Independence and Strength. "Knives in the thighs"

Gaming

Get a new insight into ancient women and how modern women reflect and project old strengths and virtues

Because most people learn their story at the end of a sociology class, or a poisonous comment at a political seminar, many people understand the world like this:

“The Greeks were hostile men, who loved the company of others more than their wives. Roman Catholics were ‘whores’ who despised women. And before that, women were submissive all the time. Of the history of humanity so that we girls at this moment can feel brave, angry and free? “

The Gaelic Woman

First of all, the story of the woman is much more fascinating than the previous characterization. But the point of this article is that ancient European Gaelic culture has been found to be much more interesting. In the first place, it has been customary to “barbarize” Gaelic culture. This is the habit of the victor in history: the victor is Romanism and Hellenistic superiority. A study of art, weaponry and tradition and archeology is revealing a very sophisticated and interconnected advanced culture that simply had an emphasis on ORAL rather than WRITTEN tradition.

The Gaelic woman could:

Sue for divorce

Own land,

Buying and selling of real estate lots.

The Gaelic woman could be:

Priestesses, seers, healers and prophetesses.

And if they wanted to, and had the ability and leadership, they could qualify to be WARRIORS.

Boudicca

Boudicca was the wife of Prasutagus, who was head of the Iceni tribe in eastern England, in what is now Norfolk and Suffolk.

In 43 CE, the Romans invaded Britain and most of the Celtic (Gaelic) tribes were forced to submit. However, the Romans allowed two Celtic kings to retain some of their traditional power; one was Prasutagus.

The Roman occupation brought with it an increase in Roman settlements, military presence, and attempts to suppress Celtic religious culture. There were major economic changes, including heavy taxes and money lending.

In 47 CE, the Romans forced the Ireni to disarm, creating resentment. Prasutagus had received a grant from the Romans, but the Romans later redefined it as a loan. When Prasutagus died in 60 CE, he left half of his kingdom to Emperor Nero to pay off this debt.

The Romans came to collect, but instead of settling for half the kingdom, they took control of it. To humiliate the former rulers, the Romans publicly beat Boudicca, raped her two daughters, seized the wealth of many Iceni, and sold much of the royal family as slaves. The Celtic tribes gathered in that region planned to rebel and drive out the Romans.

Led by Boudicca, around 100,000 British attacked Camulodunum (now Colchester), where the Romans had their main center of government. Boudicca’s army burned Camulodunum to the ground; only the Roman temple remained. Boudicca’s army immediately headed for the largest city in the British Isles, Londinium (London). Suetonius strategically abandoned the city, and Boudicca’s army burned Londinium and massacred the 25,000 inhabitants who had not fled. Archaeological evidence of a layer of burned ash shows the extent of the destruction.

Boudicca and his army then marched on Verulamium (St. Albans), a city largely populated by British who had cooperated with the Romans, and were killed when the city was destroyed. Boudicca fought one more battle, although its precise location is not known with certainty. Boudicca’s army attacked uphill and, exhausted, hungry, it was easy for the Romans to defeat him. Roman troops of 1,200 defeated Boudicca’s army of 100,000, killing 80,000 for their own loss of 400.

What happened to Boudicca is uncertain. It is said that he returned to his native territory and took poison to avoid Roman capture.

Boudicca’s story was all but forgotten until Tacitus’s Annals was rediscovered in 1360. Her story became popular during the reign of another English queen who led an army against foreign invasion, Queen Elizabeth I.

A sharp dagger tied to her inner thigh

The classically educated grandmother spoke on a cool spring morning with her 3 granddaughters. “Darlings, I want you to see how the girls protected themselves from the Old Irish.” She propped her leg up on a chair and pulled her dress up above her knee. He took a sharp knife from the kitchen drawer. “To protect their virtue, the ancient Irish maidens would place a knife like this on their inner thigh.”

One of the “right” moms corrected crusty old granny. Her daughter stood up to protect her grandmother. “Mother, we know we can’t do that today, but you know what, this makes me feel different about my former Irish cousins. They were well prepared to face all the challenges that life offered.”

Equal position enjoyed by their women

When the ancient Romans encountered the Celtic tribes that inhabited northern Europe, in an area north of the Alps, and that stretched from Turkey in the east to Ireland in the west, they were impressed with the same position that their people enjoyed. women.

Celtic women enjoyed an unusual degree of freedom by standards known in the ancient and medieval worlds.

They were recognized for their individuality and courage, and were especially praised for their qualities of self-esteem and independence.

Celtic women could inherit land and titles, no less than their male siblings.

A woman could serve as the head of the clan and go into battle, just as men did in time of war.

The ferocity of Celtic warriors is the subject of legend.

The Romans were shocked by the sexual freedom enjoyed by Celtic women, who extended what the Celts euphemistically called “thigh friendship.”

The proper Roman matrons, with the false standards of “respectability” imposed on them by their men, found lovers among whom they were willing to fall into secret ties.

Matrilineal

Perhaps due to the sexual freedom of the Celts, the succession within their tribes and clans was matrilineal because, in the midst of such general promiscuity, it could be difficult to determine who had been the father of a particular child.

A Celtic woman could divorce her husband if he did not support her, or treat her with respect, if he was powerless, homosexual, sterile, or gossiped about her sex life.

She could quit if he was fat, snoring, or just plain gross. “From A Toast to the Lassie, by Carson C. Smith.
When you reflect on the challenges that modern women face, there is a similarity to the wide and challenging world of Gaelic or Celtic women (labels vary depending on historical and cultural nomenclature and the point of view of historians) in their world in their epoch. Their villages were often seasonal, and they had to be very flexible, as well as having the ability to function in society, in love, in leadership, in hunting, and in war.

The limiting way in which women have been studied for the examples from the Roman and Greek worlds tells women that those societies may or may not represent women’s roles fairly, but it is definitely advisable to work to understand those. old worlds with a new breadth and a new dimension. new desire to look back at previous models. There are cases to be made about the path that women have followed and how great cultural and religious influences have deterred the development of women. However, if we allow this most recent “politically infused” comment to cause us to lose thousands of years of history in the nature of Europe, we are all missing something. When women do the heroic things they have done, perhaps we should look further back to the hills of Europe, where brave women forged lives for hundreds of generations.

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