A few additional thoughts on human sacrifice with respect to Druids and Samhain……these come from various sources.
(1)
Human sacrifice has occurred in many if not most ancient cultures. The Romans put an end to it in Europe, but had practiced it themselves earlier, and, amusingly, seemed to think it was worse to die for your god (even if voluntarily, as some sacrifices probably were) than to be forced into bloody combat to the death in the arena or to 'decimate' (kill one in ten) of the people in lands you were conquering.
The Celts left no written records so no one can say for sure. Bodies such as those found in bogs do point to some kind of ritual killing, and also there are 'unnatural' burials found in storage pit and under ramparts at hillforts. These are always adults, and virtually all male. One was found by the evidence of pollens in his gut to have died in the spring--so not Halloween.
The websites that talk of the Celtic Lord of the dead are amusing, because Samhain just means end of summer/beginning of winter. There is no real Irish death god, just two shadowy figures Donn (dark) and Bile, who play no real part in Irish legend. The Welsh Arawn, an underworld god, and Gwyn (a psychopomp who guides the souls of the dead) are a bit more prominent in legend, but still no talk of sacrifices to them.
One Irish legend, that of Cromm Cruach, does talk of a tithe of children, on Samhain eve, to Cromm, the bowed one of the mound. This legend was written down late, however, and may be again, a Christian gory fantasy. That said, it is interesting that the legend involves a stone circle (these circles were out of use a good thousand years before the Iron age era of druids) and certainly at some stone circles, especially the recumbents in Scotland, deposits of children's crania and ear bones are found. I am suspecting Samhain is probably very much older than 'druids' and was probably some kind of 'day of the dead' back as long as 5000 years ago. The Neolithic era had a strong 'cult of the dead/ancestors.' The bones/ashes found in stone circles may have immediately suggested 'sacrifice' to later comers, and although on occasion, some of them may have in fact been sacrifices, it is just as likely they were the remains of prominent tribal members and their families.
(2)
Most stories of human sacrifice come to us, not from the ancient Irish or Celts themselves, but from those who observed them, most notably the Greeks, the Romans and later, the Christians. These cultures had long since put aside their own human sacrifice practices by the time they came into contact with early Celtic peoples.
There can be no doubt that tales of barbaric Celtic savages running into battle against well-disciplined Roman legions, screaming under the influence of battle frenzy, and naked but for body paint, or the violent, cruel deaths they inflicted on their Roman captives as they offered them up to their heathen Gods, served many purposes.
Knowing human nature, it can be assumed that much of what was written then by invaders and conquerors fueled an insatiable demand back home for titillation and political propaganda.
Caesar described how giant wicker effigies were filled with human victims, usually but not always criminals, and then burned alive. Cassius described how Boudica impaled her Roman captives. Strabo talked of druids stabbing their victims and then forming prophecies based on the victim’s death throes.
Despite all this, recent scholars claim there is little evidence to prove it.
(3)
By the time Tacitus wrote about the wild women of Mona, and the vengeful horde that marched under the Queen of the Iceni, Roman audiences were expecting to hear scandalous tales of what the Celtic barbari were doing with their captives - just as they were expecting to hear of how the Celts had charged into battle, naked and screaming like madmen, and had fallen under the sword strokes of Rome's all-conquering legionaries like wheat before a farmer's scythe. It was all part of a "noble savage" legend that was relished by the people of the Empire.
But how much evidence for human sacrifice have the Celts themselves left us? The Gundestrup Cauldron and three or four Pictish stones depicting apparent ritual drownings are the only artistic portrayals of such rituals to be found in all of the ancient Celtic world. And even the true meaning behind these depictions is debatable. The "Cauldron of Rebirth" - a magical means by which souls were transported from this world to the Otherworld, and back again - appears in Welsh literature. Perhaps the Cauldron and these stones in fact depict a reincarnation ritual, a sort of pre-Christian baptism?
(4)
Pre-Christian and early Christian Gaelic literature is one our best, and arguably purest, glimpses into the culture and worldview of Iron Age Celtic tribes. In all of Ireland's rich and ancient mythical tradition - there is only one reference to human sacrifice. The High King of Teamhair, Tigernmas, set up an idol called Cromm Cruach, and ordered that children be killed as offerings to it. It was, ironically, the druids of Ireland that brought an end to this bloody cult, murdering Tigernmas during a frenzied ceremony around the idol.
We have little more than Graeco-Roman propaganda writings - and a few shabby pieces of native evidence that can be interpreted in many different ways - as proof that the ancient Celts did indeed kill their fellow men as offerings for the gods. It is one of the thousands of ancient mysteries that, at this late hour in human history, we will probably never be able to satisfactorily solve.
(5)
Concerning the Crom Cruach
Jacqueline Borsje has recently revisited these texts, and all those which make apparent reference to human sacrifice in pre-Christian Ireland. She has suggested, plausibly, that the Maigh Slecht tradition was assembled out of a number of ideas and themes in earlier works. These include Old Testament references to idols of brass or Old, to child sacrifice, and to idols in Patrick's own, genuine writings, and to the saint smashing the head of a dragon, meaning paganism in general, in Muirchu's earlier life of him. She has linked the full development of the story to a new interest in human sacrifice as a pagan custom, shown by Irish writers around the year 1100. This included a translation of Lucan's Pharsalia, reminding us that the authors concerned could imbibe such ideas from Greek and Roman texts as well as the Bible. Dr Borsje concludes that the stories about Maigh Slecht seem 'to be more a key towards understanding in what way the pre-Christian past was viewed in the Middle Irish period than a key to disclose knowledge about the historical veneration of Cenn Cruiach'.166 It seems hard to disagree with that interpretation.
(6)
By Nimue Brown
“One of the historical accusations made against the Celts and Druids was that they burned sacrificial victims in giant wicker men. Victims would be live, and both human and animal. The imagery is powerful, and many people reading this will be familiar with iconic images of wicker men and the fact that they don’t look even slightly like they’ve been made out of wicker. Especially not in the film.
I spent a number of years in Redditch involved with building and burning a wicker man for a council run Halloween event. We did everything from harvesting to erecting him. The tallest we ever managed was about 14 feet high.
“Wicker” is basically another way of saying ‘basket’. Now, baskets are quite strong, but once you set fire to them, they spring apart, or can be kicked apart. The structural integrity of a figure made out of wicker does not last long when on fire, and as the raw material to space inside ratio is relevant, there’s not a lot of smoke to contend with. Wicker does burn hot mind. Now, imagine a live animal, in a wicker basket which is on fire. Think about the inevitable struggle to escape. Based on experience, there is no way you could burn a live animal to death in a wicker man. They’d get out.
The human form as sculpture is not stable, it is very hard to make people-shaped things stand up. The taller they are, the stronger the legs and supports have to be. The more propping up you have to do. The taller they are, the harder it is to get them upright and the more likely it is that the strain of lifting will cause the structure to fail. If you put anything in the wicker man before you lift it, the weight makes it very hard to even get a twelve footer to stand. Animals and humans have to go in after the wicker man is up. If you’ve made a solid structure capable of bearing its own weight, this presents an interesting technical challenge. Where are you going to insert them, exactly? Bearing in mind that the animals would be wholly unco-operative every way.
Based on years of experience, the conclusion I have come to is that you could realistically get one person in the body of a wicker man if you left a hole in the stomach and they crawled in once it was up. Total co-operation would be essential. You might at a pinch get a couple of people or creatures in the legs, but they’d have to get in during the lifting and stay put for the lifting, possibly even help with it. That counts the chickens out straight off.
Other options are that everything goes into the wicker man unconscious, but that’s not without challenges, or is dead already, which is probably the easiest solution. But then you aren’t sacrificing them by burning them to death in a wicker man, you’ve instead got an unusual cremation method under way. Or a barbeque. Large numbers are out, because the bigger the structure is, the harder it is to make it stand. I’m not aware of any huge Celtic constructions in terms of height. Some building in stone, but not much. The mechanics around getting tall things to stand up are challenging. The properties of the wicker itself limit the available size of a loaded structure. I can’t tell you what optimally built basketry will take in this context, but I’m pretty certain that its own weight plus multiple people, with the effects of fire in the midst does not lead to something that will work.
I am personally convinced that the only way an individual could be sacrificed in a wicker man is if they went of their own free will, which is a very different sort of arrangement, when you get down to it.
Knowing about the time, creativity and energy that are required to build a wicker man, it is a huge thing to do. Simply burning that much valuable resource, that much effort and time, is a sacrifice, one a whole community would share. That, I can believe might have happened.”
The point is not trying to disprove human sacrifice in the Celtic world – by all accounts, it certainly existed, but not to the extent that many would like to think and, it seems, if it occurred at Samhain, most contemporary writers do not seem to offer much in the way of evidence; most accounts come centuries later with a clear agenda intended.
