Misplaced Pages

#163836

50-469: Revenants are part of the legend of various cultures, including Celtic and Norse mythology , and stories of supposed revenant visitations were documented by English historians in the Middle Ages . Archaeologists have found revenant graves throughout Europe, characterized by bodies that had precautions taken to prevent them from rising up and causing mischief for the living, such as stones placed over

100-729: A legendary history of Ireland, and the Aided Chlainne Lir (" Children of Lir "). The Ulster Cycle consists of heroic legends about the Ulaid . It focuses on the mythical Ulster king Conchobar mac Nessa and his court at Emain Macha , the hero Cú Chulainn , and their conflict with the Connachta and queen Medb . The longest and most important tale is the epic Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley). The Fianna Cycle

150-429: A college for a dean (who had been the last abbot) and four prebendaries . It was again dissolved in 1545 and granted to Sir William Paget . Parts of the abbey church were retained for parish use, however these were demolished and replaced by a new church, St Modwen's in 1719-28. Some fragments remain of the chapter house nearby but little of the rest remains either. Two buildings were converted to residential use -

200-536: A common image stock. The classic entry about the Celtic gods of Gaul is by Julius Caesar 's history of his war in Gaul. In this he names the five principal gods worshiped in Gaul (according to the practice of his time , he gives the names of the closest equivalent Roman gods) and describes their roles: Mercury was the most venerated of all the deities, and numerous representations of him were to be discovered. Mercury

250-437: A corporeal body). Modern scholarship and readily accessible references on the web tend to use the terms interchangeably, with a seeming preference for draugr (see Draugr#Terminology ). Stories involving these creatures often involve direct confrontations, including slayings as part of a hero's land-cleansing. Those in burial mounds resist intruders and are sometimes immune to conventional weapons, which renders their destruction

300-781: A dangerous affair only to be undertaken by heroes. To ensure thorough destruction the creature's head is often removed, sometimes placed by the corpse's buttocks, or sometimes the corpse is burned instead (see Vampire#Methods_of_destruction ). In the folklore and ghost stories of Eastern Scandinavia, Finnish "dead-child beings" are described as revenants animated by restless spirits that could be laid to rest by performing baptism or other religious rites. Revenant-like beings in Caribbean lore are often referred to as "the soucouyant" or "soucriant" in Dominica, Trinidadian and Guadeloupean folklore, also known as Ole-Higue or Loup-garou elsewhere in

350-679: A part known as the Manor House, and the former infirmary. The infirmary became known as The Abbey, and is now an Inn. In around 1712 George Hayne opened the River Trent Navigation and leased the grounds of Burton Abbey to construct a wharf and other buildings in the precinct. This led to the development of Burton as the major town for brewing and exporting beer. In 1967, contractors working on extensions to Burton Technical College uncovered two underground vaults which were thought to have been used as wine cellars. The larger of

400-702: A symbol of the strength of his eloquence. The first-century Roman poet Lucan mentions the gods Taranis , Teutates and Esus , but there is little Celtic evidence that these were important deities. A number of objets d'art , coins, and altars may depict scenes from lost myths, such as the representations of Tarvos Trigaranus or of an equestrian ‘ Jupiter ’ surmounting the Anguiped (a snake-legged human-like figure). The Gundestrup cauldron has also been interpreted mythically. Along with dedications giving us god names, there are also deity representations to which no name has yet been attached. Among these are images of

450-536: A three-headed or three-faced god, a squatting god, a god with a snake, a god with a wheel, and a horseman with a kneeling giant. Some of these images can be found in Late Bronze Age peat bogs in Britain, indicating the symbols were both pre-Roman and widely spread across Celtic culture. The distribution of some of the images has been mapped and shows a pattern of central concentration of an image along with

500-683: A triple goddess associated with war, fate and sovereignty; Lugh ; Nuada ; Aengus ; Brigid ; Manannán ; Dian Cecht the healer; and Goibniu the smith, one of the Trí Dé Dána ("three gods of craft"). Their traditional rivals are the monstrous Fomorians (Fomoire), whom the Tuath Dé defeated in the Cath Maige Tuired ("Battle of Moytura"). Other important works in the cycle are the Lebor Gabála Érenn ("Book of Invasions"),

550-601: A wide scatter, indicating these images were most likely attached to specific tribes and were distributed from some central point of tribal concentration outward along the lines of trade. The image of the three-headed god is centrally concentrated among the Belgae, between the Oise, Marne, and Moselle rivers. The horseman with the kneeling giant is centered on either side of the Rhine. These examples seem to indicate regional preferences for

SECTION 10

#1732791526164

600-526: Is a generic term for the undead. Augustin Calmet conducted extensive research on the topic in his work titled Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires ou les revenans de Hongrie, de Moravie, &c. (1751) in which he relates the rumors of men at the time: Calmet compares the ideas of the Greek and Egyptian ancients and notes an old belief that magic could not only cause death but also evoke

650-531: Is about the exploits of the mythical hero Finn and his warrior band the Fianna , including the lengthy Acallam na Senórach ("Tales of the Elders"). The Kings' Cycle comprises legends about historical and semi-historical kings of Ireland (such as Buile Shuibhne , "The Madness of King Sweeny"), and tales about the origins of dynasties and peoples. There are also mythical texts that do not fit into any of

700-592: Is believed to be based on the main Celtic gods of Ireland, while many Welsh characters belong either to the Plant Dôn ("Children of Dôn ") and the Plant Llŷr ("Children of Llŷr "). Some figures in Insular Celtic myth have ancient continental parallels: Irish Lugh and Welsh Lleu are cognate with Lugus , Goibniu and Gofannon with Gobannos , Macán and Mabon with Maponos , and so on. One common figure

750-478: Is possible to discern commonalities that hint at a more unified pantheon than is often given credit. The nature and functions of these ancient gods can be deduced from their names, the location of their inscriptions, their iconography , the Roman gods they are equated with, and similar figures from later bodies of Celtic mythology. Celtic mythology is found in distinct if related, subgroups, largely corresponding to

800-400: Is the sovereignty goddess , who represents the land and bestows sovereignty on a king by marrying him. The Otherworld is also a common motif, a parallel realm of the supernatural races, which is visited by some mythical heroes. Celtic myth influenced later Arthurian legend . Though the Celtic world at its height covered much of western and central Europe, it was not politically unified, nor

850-699: The Celtic peoples . Like other Iron Age Europeans, Celtic peoples followed a polytheistic religion , having many gods and goddesses. The mythologies of continental Celtic peoples, such as the Gauls and Celtiberians , did not survive their conquest by the Roman Empire , the loss of their Celtic languages and their subsequent conversion to Christianity . Only remnants are found in Greco-Roman sources and archaeology. Most surviving Celtic mythology belongs to

900-701: The Insular Celtic peoples (the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland ; the Celtic Britons of western Britain and Brittany ). They preserved some of their myths in oral lore , which were eventually written down by Christian scribes in the Middle Ages . Irish mythology has the largest written body of myths, followed by Welsh mythology . The supernatural race called the Tuatha Dé Danann

950-473: The 1520s. Despite this, the monastery was nevertheless the most important in Staffordshire and by the 1530s had the highest revenue. The abbot was both a secular lord and, "exercised an independent spiritual jurisdiction. He was a figure of some standing, regularly serving on papal and royal commissions and acting as a collector of clerical taxes within the diocese." At various times between 1295 and 1322,

1000-575: The Blessed ( Bendigeidfran , "Bran [Crow] the Blessed"). Other characters, in all likelihood, derive from mythological sources, and various episodes, such as the appearance of Arawn , a king of the Otherworld seeking the aid of a mortal in his own feuds, and the tale of the hero who cannot be killed except under seemingly contradictory circumstances, can be traced throughout Proto-Indo-European mythology . The children of Llŷr ("Sea" = Irish Ler ) in

1050-446: The Caribbean. Belief in souls returning from the dead was common in the 12th century, and Historia by William of Newburgh (1136–1198) briefly recounts stories he heard about revenants, as do works by his contemporary, Walter Map. William wrote that stories of supposed revenants were a "warning to posterity" and so common that, "were I to write down all the instances of this kind which I have ascertained to have befallen in our times,

SECTION 20

#1732791526164

1100-533: The Divine Mother"), and in the collected Welsh Triads , not enough is known of the British mythological background to reconstruct either a narrative of creation or a coherent pantheon of British deities. Indeed, though there is much in common with Irish myth, there may have been no unified British mythological tradition per se . Whatever its ultimate origins, the surviving material has been put to good use in

1150-612: The Elms , Caldwell and Ticknall . The abbey itself was neither large nor wealthy and in 1310 its monks claimed it to be the smallest and poorest Benedictine monastery in England. It suffered frequent financial troubles throughout its existence, often due to mismanagement and outright criminal behaviour, although the situation seems to have been resolved by the 16th century. In the 13th to 14th centuries there were around thirty monks in residence. This had fallen to almost half that number by

1200-510: The Gods, consists of tales and poems about the god-like Túatha Dé Danann and other mythical races. Many of the Tuath Dé are thought to represent Irish deities. They are often depicted as kings, queens, druids, bards, warriors, heroes, healers and craftsmen who have supernatural powers. Prominent members of the Tuath Dé include The Dagda ("the great god"), who seems to have been the chief god; The Morrígan ("the great queen" or "phantom queen"),

1250-707: The Rings , and L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter 's " The Thing in the Crypt " is essentially a retelling of Grettir 's encounter with Kar the Old . Revenants feature prominently in tabletop games and video games as either resurrected beings, as forms of the undead or as general character class archetypes . Most notable games include Doom , Dungeons and Dragons , Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare , Phasmophobia , Pathfinder Roleplaying Game , Guild Wars 2 and

1300-634: The Second and Third Branches, and the children of Dôn ( Danu in Irish and earlier Indo-European tradition) in the Fourth Branch are major figures, but the tales themselves are not primary mythology. While further mythological names and references appear elsewhere in Welsh narrative and tradition, especially in the tale of Culhwch and Olwen , where we find, for example, Mabon ap Modron ("Divine Son of

1350-516: The abbot was summoned to attend the Parliament of England , and again in 1532. It is also known that there were frequent Royal visits to the abbey, including those by William I , Henry II and Edward I . The Abbey's annals are an important source for thirteenth century political history, and the Abbey's major intellectual achievement. The abbey was dissolved in 1539, to be refounded in 1541 as

1400-523: The advent of Christianity . Indeed, many Gaelic myths were first recorded by Christian monks, albeit without most of their original religious meanings. Irish mythology is the largest surviving branch of Celtic mythology. It was originally passed down orally in the prehistoric era . Many myths were later written down in the early medieval era by Christian scribes, who modified and Christianized them to some extent. The myths are conventionally grouped into ' cycles '. The Mythological Cycle , or Cycle of

1450-610: The areas it conquered; in fact, most inscriptions to deities discovered in Gaul (modern France and Northern Italy ), Britain and other formerly (or presently) Celtic-speaking areas post-date the Roman conquest. Though early Gaels in Ireland and parts of Wales used Ogham script to record short inscriptions (largely personal names), more sophisticated literacy was not introduced to Celtic areas that had not been conquered by Rome until

1500-570: The branches of the Celtic languages : As a result of the scarcity of surviving materials bearing written Gaulish , it is surmised that most of the Celtic writings were destroyed by the Romans, though a written form of Gaulish using Greek , Latin and Old Italic alphabets was used (as evidenced by votive items bearing inscriptions in Gaulish and the Coligny calendar ). Julius Caesar attests to

1550-604: The cycles; these include the echtrai tales of journeys to the Otherworld (such as The Voyage of Bran ), and the Dindsenchas ("lore of places"). Some written material has not survived, and many more myths were probably never written down. Important reflexes of British mythology appear in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi , especially in the names of several characters, such as Rhiannon , Teyrnon , and Brân

Revenant - Misplaced Pages Continue

1600-525: The eponymous Revenant . The title of the 2015 film The Revenant alludes to the ordeal that Hugh Glass had to endure in order to return to civilization after being left for dead following a grizzly bear mauling. In the song "Ghost From The Barrow" by Paddy and the Rats the Ghost from the barrow is a revenant Celtic mythology Celtic mythology is the body of myths belonging to

1650-422: The handiwork of Satan, from his grave at night-time, and pursued by a pack of dogs with horrible barkings, he wandered through the courts and around the houses while all men made fast their doors, and did not dare to go abroad on any errand whatever from the beginning of the night until the sunrise, for fear of meeting and being beaten black and blue by this vagrant monster. A number of the townspeople were killed by

1700-400: The insupportable weight of his body." This happens for three nights, and the revenant then repeats these nocturnal visits with other nearby family and neighbours and "...thus become a like serious nuisance," eventually extending his walks in the broad daylight around the village. Eventually the problem was solved by the bishop of Lincoln who wrote a letter of absolution, upon which the man's tomb

1750-647: The legs, stones placed in the jaw so it could not speak, bodies lodged with bricks, or body parts removed. The oldest known graves are as old as 4,000 years BP from the Bronze Age. Roman literature contained writings about revenants, they were common throughout the Middle Ages, and 17th century Poland was reportedly a hot-bed of revenant superstition. The term "revenant" has been used interchangeably with "ghost" by folklorists. While some maintain that vampires derive from Eastern European folklore and revenants derive from Western European folklore, many assert that revenant

1800-508: The literacy of the Gauls, but also wrote that their priests, the druids , were forbidden to use writing to record certain verses of religious significance (Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 6.14) while also noting that the Helvetii had a written census (Caesar, De Bello Gallico 1.29). Rome introduced a more widespread habit of public inscriptions and broke the power of the druids in

1850-407: The monster and so: Thereupon snatching up a spade of but indifferent sharpness of edge, and hastening to the cemetery, they began to dig; and whilst they were thinking that they would have to dig to a greater depth, they suddenly, before much of the earth had been removed, laid bare the corpse, swollen to an enormous corpulence, with its countenance beyond measure turgid and suffused with blood; while

1900-430: The napkin in which it had been wrapped appeared nearly torn to pieces. The young men, however, spurred on by wrath, feared not, and inflicted a wound upon the senseless carcass, out of which incontinently flowed such a stream of blood, that it might have been taken for a leech filled with the blood of many persons. Then, dragging it beyond the village, they speedily constructed a funeral pile; and upon one of them saying that

1950-445: The paths and fields of the village, now in the shape of men carrying wooden coffins on their shoulders, now in the likeness of bears or dogs or other animals. They spoke to the other peasants, banging on the walls of their houses and shouting "Move quickly, move! Get going! Come!" The villagers became sick and started dying, but eventually the bodies of the revenants were exhumed, their heads cut off, and their hearts removed, which ended

2000-498: The pestilential body would not burn unless its heart were torn out, the other laid open its side by repeated blows of the blunted spade, and, thrusting in his hand, dragged out the accursed heart. This being torn piecemeal, and the body now consigned to the flames... In another story Newburgh tells of a woman whose husband recently died. The husband revives from the dead and comes to visit her at night in her bedchamber and he "...not only terrified her on awaking, but nearly crushed her by

2050-492: The service of literary masterpieces that address the cultural concerns of Wales in the early and later Middle Ages. The Celts also worshiped a number of deities of which little more is known than their names . Classical writers preserve a few fragments of legends or myths that may possibly be Celtic. According to the Syrian rhetorician Lucian , Ogmios was supposed to lead a band of men chained by their ears to his tongue as

Revenant - Misplaced Pages Continue

2100-525: The skies, and Mars influences warfare. MacBain argues that Apollo corresponds to Irish Lugh , Mercury to Manannan mac Lir , Jupiter to the Dagda , Mars to Neit , and Minerva to Brigit . In addition to these five, Caesar mentions that the Gauls traced their ancestry to Dīs Pater (possibly Irish Donn ). Burton Abbey Burton Abbey at Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire , England ,

2150-717: The souls of the deceased. Calmet ascribed revenants to sorcerers who sucked the blood of victims and compares instances of revenants mentioned in the twelfth century in England and Denmark as similar to those of Hungary, but "in no history do we read anything so usual or so pronounced, as what is related to us of the vampires of Poland, Hungary, and Moravia." Revenants appear in Nordic literature , mythology , and folklore , variously called aptrgangr (pl. aptrgǫngur , "again-walker(s)"), haugbui (pl. haugbúar , "howe-dweller(s)", i.e. barrow wight(s)), or draugr (pl. draugar , "phantom(s)" or "ghost(s)", though usually conceived as having

2200-621: The spread of the sickness. The chronicler Walter Map , a Welshman writing during the 12th century, tells of a "wicked man" in Hereford who revived from the dead and wandered the streets of his village at night calling out the names of those who would die of sickness within three days. The response by bishop Gilbert Foliot was "Dig up the body and cut off the head with a spade, sprinkle it with holy water and re-inter it." Nordic-style revenants appear as barrow wights in Tolkien 's Lord of

2250-546: The truth of which there is abundant testimony." One story involves a man of "evil conduct" absconding from justice, who fled from York and made the ill-fated choice to get married. Becoming jealous of his wife, he hid in the rafters of his bedroom and caught her in an act of infidelity with a local young man, but then accidentally fell to the floor mortally wounding himself, and died a few days later. As Newburgh describes: A Christian burial, indeed, he received, though unworthy of it; but it did not much benefit him: for issuing, by

2300-461: The undertaking would be beyond measure laborious and troublesome." According to William, "It would not be easy to believe that the corpses of the dead should sally (I know not by what agency) from their graves, and should wander about to the terror or destruction of the living, and again return to the tomb, which of its own accord spontaneously opened to receive them, did not frequent examples, occurring in our own times, suffice to establish this fact, to

2350-615: Was founded in the 7th or 9th century by St Modwen or Modwenna. It was refounded in 1003 as a Benedictine abbey by the thegn Wulfric Spott . He was known to have been buried in the abbey cloister in 1010, alongside the grave of his wife. Burton Abbey was mentioned in the Domesday book when it was said to control lands in Mickleover , Appleby Magna in Leicestershire, Winshill and Stapenhill in Staffordshire, Coton in

2400-485: Was opened wherein it was seen his body was still there, the letter was placed on his chest, and the tomb sealed. The English Abbot of Burton tells the story of two runaway peasants from about 1090 who died suddenly of unknown causes and were buried, but: the very same day in which they were interred they appeared at evening, while the sun was still up, carrying on their shoulders the wooden coffins in which they had been buried. The whole following night they walked through

2450-439: Was seen as the originator of all the arts (and is often taken to refer to Lugus for this reason), the supporter of adventurers and of traders, and the mightiest power concerning trade and profit. Next the Gauls revered Apollo , Mars , Jupiter , and Minerva . Among these divinities, Caesar described the Gauls as holding roughly equal views as other populations: Apollo dispels sickness, Minerva encourages skills, Jupiter governs

2500-551: Was there any substantial central source of cultural influence or homogeneity; as a result, there was a great deal of variation in local practices of Celtic religion (although certain motifs, for example, the god Lugh , appear to have diffused throughout the Celtic world). Inscriptions of more than three hundred deities, often equated with their Roman counterparts, have survived, but of these most appear to have been genii locorum , local or tribal gods, and few were widely worshiped. However, from what has survived of Celtic mythology, it

#163836