Thurkill has a boatload of these. He also has crosses for the slaves.

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Its not “amazing”, because most would expect one in sweden. I am not amazed. Quite sure theyre not either. Interesting though.

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That’s cool about the other celtic nations, I figured there would be over lap culturally. I have to add that the Romans never invaded Ireland, there were some trade links but that’s about it.

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I thought I was in r/Norse

the 'worthy' thing is a marvel-ism! To be true to mythology, to lift it they probably wore the magic irongrippers and girdle to increase their strength many fold!

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The Romans never fully colonised / Romanised Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Brittany and large parts of Iberia hence the survival of those Celtic languages through to modern times.

Samhain or Sauin was observed by Gaelic Celts throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. But Brittonic Celts from Brittany, Cornwall and Wales also held similar festivals - called Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Kalan Gwav in Cornwall and Kalan Goañv in Brittany.

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Right? It just fully changes the meaning.

This kind of thing is actually quite common. Not as common as hammer heads buried in the ground but like, one of the more common trinkets.

only is the operative word they dropped

Thank you for the response, I appreciate it!

What do you mean? They’re mostly talking about that it’s amazing they found it in Halland (Part of Sweden) because they haven’t found one there before.

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>But we have been discussing how the Christian celebrations of halloween are a lot younger than Christianity itself,

Halloween wasn't a foundational observance of Christianity, so in that sense it's "younger." But we do have strong records of its origins, where it fell on the calendar, what basic liturgical observances there were, and how these customs evolved over time, step by step. The Celts really didn't have a say in it.

>and we don’t really know how old Samhain is, right? We only have a record of it from the 9th century but that’s because we don’t have really have a written record of Gaelic Ireland before then.

It's the perfect thing to project upon – which is what happened in the 19th century: The era of romanticized history that gave us the tall tales about pagans and figures like Christopher Columbus. And we can see how accurate those were (i.e. not).

And we know through a large number of anthropological studies the idea that "it was always this way" is always flawed without an historical record to compare it to. Customs change over time, and many of the customs that we associate with Samhain today were not even mentioned until well after the genuine pagan Celts had all died out. There is only so far one can honestly extrapolate back.

But we have been discussing how the Christian celebrations of halloween are a lot younger than Christianity itself, and we don’t really know how old Samhain is, right? We only have a record of it from the 9th century but that’s because we don’t have really have a written record of Gaelic Ireland before then.

I didnt read the post but I was under the impression that what we call Samhain today was one of 8 points in the year used by Irish Neolithic farmers thousands of years ago. There are cairns with passageways aligned with the rising sun on each of these. On the morning of Samhain when the sun shone through the passageway to the innermost part of the cairn the people knew it was that time of year to xyz. Beacon fires were apparently lit on at least some of these cairns so others could light their beacons and so on, spreading the news that it was time to harvest this or sow that. What they did is hard to determine exactly.