Celtic People

The Celtic peoples appeared very distinctive to the classical writers of the period. Here is the contempory writer, Diodurus Siculus describing them in vivid detail:

"The Gauls are tall of body, with rippling muscles, and white of skin, and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so, but they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which mature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in lime-water, and they pull it back from the forehead to the top of the head and back to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans, since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses. Some of them shave the beard, but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks, but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth. Consequently, when they are eating, their moustaches become entangled in the food, and when they are drinking, the beverage passes, as it were, through a kind of strainer."

I think that is a wonderful description of the Celts, you can really picture them. In the Irish myths this description is echoed. They describe Medb`s hair as "flowing hair, fair-yellow golden streaming manes". The Celts blonde hair was described as long and striking. In fact hair is often described in the ancient Irish myths. Cu Chulainn`s hair is described as "Fifty tresses of hair between one ear and the other, bright yellow like the top of a birch tree or like brooches of pale gold shining in the sun. He had a high crest of hair, bright, fair, as if a cow had licked it." Again his hair is described as "Three kinds of hair he had, dark next to the skin, blood-red in the middle, and hair like a crown of red-gold covering them. Fair was the arrangement of that hair with three coils in the hollow at the back of his head, and like the gold thread was every fine hair, loose-flowing, golden and excellent, long-dresses, distinguished and of beautiful colour, as it fell back over his shoulders." Men as well as women plaited their hair. The hair styles were often very elaborate. Women would curl or plait their hair in complicated styles often held in combs or sometimes they would wear their hair in pigtails with gold and silver ornaments entwined in them. Here is a description of Queen Medb, given in an Irish myth, "She had long , fair-yellow, golden hair; three tresses of her hair wound round her head, another tress falling behind, which touched the carves of her legs".

I find it interesting that most of the ancient description of the Celts describe them as tall and fair. This strange as todays Celts, the Scots, Welsh, Irish and Britons are often small and dark.

Here is another description of the Celts by the Roman writer Marcellinus:

"Almost all the Gauls are of tall stature, fair and ruddy, and terrible for the fierceness of their eyes, fond of quarrelling, and of overbearing insolence. In fact a whole band of foreigners will be unable to cope with one of them in a fight, if he calls in his wife, stronger than he by far and with flashing eyes; least of all when she swells her neck and gnashes her teeth, and poising her huge white arms, begins to rain blows mingled with kicks like shots discharged by the twisted cords of a catapult." The voices of most of them are formidable and threatening. alike when they are good-natured and angry. But all of them with equal care keep clean and neat, and in those districts, particularly in Aquitania, no man or woman can be seen, be she never so poor, in soiled or ragged clothing, as elsewhere".

Obviously the Celtic women were also to be feared. They also appear to be fastidious about their appearance. Of course the most famous Celtic woman was the great Icenian Queen, Boudica. She was described by the Roman, Dio Cassius as:

"In stature she was very tall, in appearance most terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce, and her voice was harsh; a great mass of the tawniest hair fell to her hips; around her neck was a large golden necklace; and she wore a tunic of diverse colours over which a thick mantle was fastened with a brooch. This was her invariable attire. She now grasped a spear to aid her in terrifying all beholders and spoke..."