By Keri O’Shea
Strange Aeons: Celtic Magic and Rational Response
(For the first part of this feature, click here).
It was not just during Samhain that the Celts believed they could communicate with the forces which lay beyond the fringes of the real. Druidic belief asserted that man could commune with the gods; the underworld itself was frequently believed as being physically accessible through pools, caves or hills, and its supernatural denizens often journeyed between the two places. The idea that these parallel domains are still there, sometimes literally below or around our rational, urbane towns and cities, and sometimes within the grasp of individuals properly-versed in the appropriate rituals – or even sometimes accidentally encountered – has long been used in horror, both in literature, from novellas such as Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan (1890), and in cinema.
A lesser-known modern film which references a number of Celtic beliefs and derives its horror directly from the proximity of old religious sites and beliefs to modernity is Broceliande (2002). The film is set in Rennes, capital of Brittany, where a young university student named Chloe is about to join an archaeological dig in the Broceliande forest, legendary location of Merlin’s tomb. The scholarly soon meets the magical here: as Chloe’s seminars cover lessons in Samhain traditions and ritual magic, the student becomes prey to mysterious phenomena, especially after she discovers a druidic tomb during the dig. In order to suppress the age-old forces which are threatening to envelop her, Chloe has to become well-versed in druidic practice or secure the assistance of those academics who possess the right knowledge, in order to prevent the resurgence of druidic magic which will otherwise rather forcefully close the gap between old world and new.
In many ways, this is a flawed piece of cinema – it squanders its initial promise by launching into action sequences, some of which are reminiscent of Tomb Raider – but it is still an interesting film which makes abundant use of Celtic lore. Firstly, it self-consciously forges a link between Brittany and other Celtic nations: one of the professors at Rennes studied history in Dublin, as did one of the students; the druid stone which figures in the film’s plot (here a small magical artefact, rather than the more usual standing stone) has been brought to Brittany from Ireland; during lectures, ancient events in Wales are also mentioned (including the Roman campaigns against the druids, as mentioned by Tacitus in the first part of this feature). This suggests an idea of shared practices and thus heritage: Celtic magic here derives from a broad-based ‘Other’, a history which had a widespread influence in Northern Europe and therefore could mean there is more at stake should there be a resurgence of these old shared beliefs. There is a fear here of the repercussions of any new wave of hitherto lost, arcane or restricted information: through students gaining access to an understanding of druidic practice which they are able to enact, they are able to cause great upheaval to order.
The fear is, then, that there could be a long and widespread legacy of efficacious, arcane knowledge just waiting to rise again: tellingly, the film is set on the eve of Halloween – or of course, Samhain – where, as we have seen, the idea that ritual and magic could influence supernatural forces is ripe to be used as a basis for horror. The fact that the film takes place in Brittany in itself points to the powerful nature of heritage, where these modern students in the region feel such a vested and personal interest in recreating a shared past. This determination to bring back such a pagan past in itself can be a source of anxiety, regardless of how successfully this is done. It so happens that the most macabre elements of ancient Celtic practise are resurrected at the hands of the students in Broceliande: human sacrifice, ritual and spellcraft literally transforms one of the students into a monstrous being; although, even if the magic had not generated a literal monster, the treachery at the heart of the plot and a rejection of modern beliefs by a strident group would have been enough. The consequences of resurrecting the old gods and myths are manifold, but ultimately, those who do so are creating a rift in modern society and rejecting its values, and this can be monstrous indeed.
Wilfully participating in a Celtic otherworld is one thing, but worse still could be to stumble upon this proximal terrain accidentally, and to have no easy means of equipping oneself with the knowledge you need to escape. Another film which takes place in the forests of Arthurian legend – albeit taking a completely different approach stylistically – is Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay (Morgane et ses Nymphes) (1971). In this film, two young women names Anna and Françoise are travelling through an isolated region in France when they are forced to stop. They have to spend the night in a disused barn after getting (tellingly) lost in the forest, but when Françoise awakes, Anna is gone. Her friend looks for her in a nearby chateau, where she encounters the Morgane (Morgana Le Fay) of legend: Morgane is surrounded by beautiful women and she offers the bewildered Françoise a choice. Either she undergoes a ritual which will attach her to the chateau forever as one of her slaves, granting her eternal youth like them, or – she will rot into old age in the chateau’s dungeons.
Like Broceliande, The Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay uses the idea of Arthurian legend and the repercussions of magic ritual, but plays out much more after the fashion of Arthurian romance. Here, rather than a world of magic erupting into the real, Morgane’s realm is co-existent and seeks to remain at a remove from the real world entirely: Françoise wants to escape, but at first she’s not privy to the ritual knowledge which will permit her to leave this strange place. In this, the film does a pleasing job of developing a heady, fantastical atmosphere. Françoise frequently describes herself as feeling as though she is in a dream or a “fourth dimension”; this is not real-time with real characters, and our heroine rebels against that, desperately trying to leave the chateau. “I follow logic,” she protests to her glamorous captor. “That is the worst sickness,” she responds. “Here you can be cured of it. You’re already on the road to recovery.”
Eventually, Françoise cribs enough information from the other women to understand that she must seize some ritual artefacts if she is to escape. This is all complicated by her real-world concerns; not only does she baulk at the irrational prospect of magic, but she has discovered her friend is also an inmate at the chateau, and has rather more happily accepted her new lot. Anna encourages her friend to remain: “We are in the kingdom of the fairies…a place only children can find.” Françoise persists in trying to leave and escapes, but the first thing she sees – an elderly woman following a coffin – causes her to repent her decision. This horror now overshadows the horror of being a slave in Morgane’s castle: Françoise finally rejects the “cold light of reality” and willingly retreats from it back into the fantasy. Here, magic with all of its ambiguities has dominated the ordered – but ultimately finite – world without.
Fairy Folk and Wicked Tales
In both of the examples of cinema mentioned above, the consequences of revitalising – wittingly or otherwise – Celtic folklore are explored: both films play on the fear that a supernaturally-charged history is adjacent, contiguous and dangerous, whether you wish to re-energise its domains or not. Celtic lore also told that certain entities could move between the two states without the concern for protocols which are experienced by humans. The belief in faerie folk, a “multiplicity of beings” with a liminal existence, inhabiting regions of spiritual significance or moving between these and human domains, is one of the most persistent areas of Celtic folklore: “Fairies in the hills and pixies from subterranean haunts were creatures that had to be taken into account” (8). Every area of the ancient Celtic world seemed to be populated by a robust band of mischievous – sometimes murderous – sprites, beings that persisted and were adopted by later cultures. Cornwall had its piskies and its buccas – malevolent sea-dwellers who could be placated with offerings of fish; the Cornish bucca is echoed, etymologically and otherwise in the Welsh pwca and the Irish púca, and also in shape-shifters and pranksters like brownies, bogles, leprechauns and hobs, though these creatures are not as reputedly wicked as the murderous kelpies or the fearsome bugganes. These beings seem to urge a respect for nature and for important locations, meting out punishments for offenders – or sometimes simply enjoying themselves at human expense. Little wonder that the Celts and their successors were deferential to them, and the reputation of these wee folk as being “at best capricious, and at worst downright malevolent” (9) has survived modern romanticisation and entered them into the fringes of the horror lexicon. Their traits – and ambivalent attitudes to ignorant humans – lends themselves well to cautionary tale-telling, or on occasion, just lend themselves well to the sort of gleefully unpleasant treatment you might expect from beings “more likely to harm than help” (10).
In Cry of the Banshee (1970), an Elizabethan family pays the price for disbelieving in the power of the ‘old religion’ when it is visited by a vengeful sidhe, a supernatural faerie entity of Celtic descent believed to inhabit the otherworld. When magistrate Whitman (Vincent Price) imposes his conventional and rational – though bloody – judgement upon a coven of witches, he makes the mistake of sparing their leader, Oona. Oona swears revenge, conjuring the shape-shifting sidhe to dispatch the Whitman family one by one. Whitman scoffs at the superstitious villagers who recoil from the howls of what they insist is a ‘banshee’, but as his relatives begin to die in mysterious circumstances, he too becomes infected by their terror. Although the title is misleading – the banshee (or bean sidhe) was typically believed to be a female entity – the film demonstrates some pertinent fears; here is an example of effective witchcraft, and order, however brutally it is imposed, cannot repress either the power of the witch or the knowing fear of the villagers. As his world view is demolished, Whitman becomes more and more afraid, and the sidhe here manifests itself as a powerful agent of revenge.
In a neat short film, The Faeries of Blackheath Woods (2006), a child who makes the mistake of perceiving faerie-folk as being akin to their cutesy modern incarnation is punished for her transgressions in a decidedly nasty way. Little Melissa – out on a picnic with her parents – starts to chase after some ephemeral winged creatures she recognises as fairies, killing one when she puts it into a jar. Undeterred, she gives chase to others, but she’s then lured into a remote corner of the woods and reminded that these flimsy beings can defend themselves in a bloody fashion. These fairies are traditionalists, and there are certain codes of conduct to be observed. Similarly in another short film, Pwca (2009), a young girl undertaking community service in rural Wales is incredulous at her elderly employer’s descriptions of the resident ‘pwca’, who demands a meal a day – not to mention people’s respect. A lack of these gets them both into trouble, and it falls to young Hafwen to take over the burden of care when the pwca shows his nasty side. When handling these entities, it pays to be cautious…
As so many amongst these bands of faerie-folk garnered a reputation for mischief-making, it’s no surprise that there are a number of movies which treat the folklore with a sense of fun – or not, depending on your viewpoint! Out of the eighties came a horde of mystical little people in films, at least some of which delved into the idea of a fairy kingdom, and following on from Troll, the non-sequel Troll 2 (first titled Goblins) gave another mention to Stonehenge as the source of these ugly little beings’ power. The Leprechaun franchise – which starts with a demonic leprechaun who kills and maims in the pursuit of his bag of gold – has spawned five sequels, but order is usually restored when the leprechaun has his own magic turned against him. When these wicked tricksters turn up in films, there are usually magical means of banishing their influence; as with escaping from Celtic-styled otherworlds, the source of the horror lies in not knowing how, and in being terrorised by creatures that delight in this human folly. Ambiguous beings which are by turn punitive, mischievous and charged with supernatural abilities, ready to harm on a whim; it’s little wonder that faerie-folk provide a rich source for storytelling and have the potential to frighten. Little wonder, either, that nascent monotheism had its own methods and reasons for trying to dissipate these persistent old legends.
The Horror of the Old Gods
Much within horror refers to a pre- or extra-Christian world (or the equivalent predominant set of beliefs): the supernatural is a stubborn thing, and an array of vampires, ghosts, demons and monsters have never been entirely shaken by the recognised order. “Myths, like modern fiction or art in general, can be seen as a way of attempting to describe what may otherwise be inexplicable” (11) and some of the oldest myths, as we have seen, retain the strongest hold. Early Christianity was faced with a dilemma: merely supplanting the old festivals may have had an effect, but that was never going to be completely efficient on its own. Folklorist Ralph Whitlock makes an interesting point when he suggests that many old stories which take the form of ‘vs.’ stories – good against bad – show some evidence of being allegorical, telling of the “struggle which really occurred between the new religion – Christianity – and the old” (12). So, when we have tales of noble Christian knights defeating giants, dragons or the Devil himself on British soil, this could be a personification of the old religion – something fearful, monstrous, and in need of suppression. This approach was also taken with regards otherwise inexplicable natural phenomena, and also prehistoric structures which were otherwise mysterious: so for instance, the standing stones at Callanish in the Outer Hebrides are transformed by mythology into a row of giants, turned to stone by St Kieran when they refused to convert to Christianity.
These folk stories are in their own way pervasive and fun, but the thwarted devils of the stories never quite uprooted the old gods: as W. B. Yeats suggests in his Celtic Revivalist collection of writings The Celtic Twilight, “It may be that this, like the others, was not the devil at all, but some poor wood spirit whose cloven feet had got him into trouble.” In another part of the novel, an old Irish woman dismisses Hell as “an invention got up by the priest” but is a firm believer in “faeries and little leprechauns” (13). That the Celtic Revival could take place at all, restoring a folklore which was meant to have been sidelined by orthodoxy, is testament to its resilience. What then if people were to reject this orthodoxy altogether, and return to their old gods?
This fear is at the nub of British horror classic The Wicker Man (1973), where an agent of mainstream Christianity encounters an isolated Scottish island community which has wholeheartedly abandoned Christianity. “Here the old gods aren’t dead,” explains Lord Summerisle to the appalled investigating police officer, Sergeant Howie. Howie, a devout – and celibate – Christian finds himself repeatedly challenged by the licentiousness of the behaviour he observes, as well as battling against the insular secrecy of the Summerisle islanders in a classic example of the horror of secret societies. But this is not all: the rejection of Christianity has been so complete that the islanders have also resurrected the Celtic tradition of human sacrifice. The film plays nicely on the paranoia of what could happen were paganism – those ostensibly harmless folk beliefs – allowed to flourish again, showing us nonetheless a functional community which certainly boasts no more of a bloody tendency than Christianity has throughout its lifespan; the film’s ultimate message seems to be, though, that religious belief of any antiquity can be misused, or can at least do little to stem the incorrigible nature of human cruelty. In-group mentality is dangerous, and Howie’s attempt to reason with his captors (“Sometimes crops fail: if they fail again then, who next?”) falls on deaf ears. Inflexible, intractable belief is truly horrific here.
Another, similar film which plays on similar anxieties is Darklands (1996) albeit with a more Nationalistic subtext, a tale of the resurrection of druidic practises in Wales by those who feel that mainstream belief and culture has failed them, both spiritually and economically (extending a similar idea found in The Wicker Man – that the dependence on the island’s apple crop encouraged the islanders to turn to gods who might respond to their needs). In the case of Darklands, we actually see the new wave of druidic practitioners attempting to lean on a Christian community which is still around, seeking to reclaim the land on which the local church is built – a process which is already complete on Summerisle. Otherwise, and like their Scottish counterparts, the Welsh order is determined to boost their corner of the world by embracing a particularly nasty heritage…without an overarching moral order such as you might find in Christianity, it seems that the Celtic nations might reserve a tendency to revert to atavistic, Pagan savagery.
Conclusion
Celtic lore has persisted, despite the predominance of an urbane, modern culture; it has even become interwoven with all of the prevalent cultures which overlapped or displaced its tribes. People have long used stories and folklore to feel their way around accepted versions of events, and the easy relationship of fantasy and reality in the Celtic traditions has meant they are always rife for a good yarn, a creepy tale. Our Celtic ancestors used their lore to make sense of their world; they used personification, such as with faerie folk, to explain otherwise inexplicable phenomena and they devised ritual, magic and superstition in order to try and influence things beyond their control. The continued sense of proximity to this lore provides a sense of exoticism at home – we now use Celtic lore to make sense of our world through the medium of horror, privy as we are to a wealth of mysterious, often lurid glimpses of a shared past, not to mention a, co-existent supernatural which lends itself entertainingly to the horror genre.
There is a common thread which runs throughout the films discussed above, and is apparent in any study of Celtic mythology: Celtic lore is resistant to our straightforward interpretations of good and evil. A clear-cut division between the two is largely a Judeo-Christian phenomenon; this is a distinction which would have little troubled the Celtic mindset. Its festivals – like Samhain – were based around the precariousness of the natural world and the seasons, and so accommodated dualities like light and dark, birth and death, because the Celts’ daily existence contained both. In horror, the fun of Halloween is tempered again and again with reminders of the origins of the festivities: Conal Cochran perceives a ‘good joke’ in wholesale Halloween murder; the characters in Trick’r Treat are reminded again and again that the roots of the festival are bloody. Celtic mythology’s resident spirits too were, after all, neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’: sometimes benign, often a hindrance, and sometimes murderous, in our horror films they are curtailed only by age-old formulae which properly understands what they are – and any illusions about their true natures are properly punished. Likewise, access to the supernatural world by humans could mean opulence and power, or equally it could mean slavery and harm; all of these are possible in the faerie castles of Morgana Le Fay or in the mythical depths of the Broceliande forest.
All good horror has a grain of uncertainty, and where notions of good and evil are rendered problematic through Celtic folklore, the ensuing disorientation has much potential for the horror genre. However, we shouldn’t forget that part of this potential for Celtic lore to influence horror also comes from the inherent anxiety inspired by its potential for resurgence. In The Wicker Man and Darklands, those countries which now claim a Celtic heritage once again elect to follow the old, ambiguous – and bloody – religious path of their ancestors. What greater uncertainty is there than a suspicion of your nearest neighbours? To quote Anglo-Irish author E. M. Forster – who was a contemporary of Yeats, and other important Celtic revivalists – “Paganism is infectious, more infectious than diphtheria or piety.”
References:
Opening quote: Denis Meikle, Vincent Price: the Art of Fear (Reynolds & Hearn: London, 2003), p.213.
1) Jenna Robertson, Christians and Halloween: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art13725.asp (accessed 28th September 2010); Richard Ames, Christians and Halloween: http://www.cogwriter.com/news/doctrine/richard-ames-christians-and-halloween/ (accessed 28th September 2010)
2) Ralph Whitlock, In Search of Lost Gods: a Guide to British Folklore (Phaidon: Oxford, 1979), introduction.
3) See for example: Gaius Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico.
4) Tacitus, Annals XIV, xxx
5) Bill Price, Celtic Myths (Pocket Essentials: Herts, 2008), p.1.
6) See for example: Strabo, Geography.
7) Whitlock, p.149.
8 ) Whitlock, introduction.
9) Daniel Farson, Vampires, Zombies and Monster Men (Aldus Books: London, 1975), p.88.
10) Ibid.
11) Price, p.13.
12) Whitlock, p.10.
13) W. B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight (1902): http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/yeats/twi/twi04.htm (accessed 28th September 2010)
Select Filmography:
Mischievous Puck (1911)
The Witch of the Welsh Mountains (1912)
The Banshee (1913)
Cry of the Banshee (1970)
The Night the Banshee Cried (1957)
Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay (1972)
The Wicker Man (1973)
Alison’s Birthday (1981)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Troll (1986)
Leprechaun (1993)
Darklands (1996)
Broceliande (2002)
Evil Breed: the Legend of Samhain (2003)
Bloodmyth (2006)
The Fairies of Blackheath Woods (2006)
Trick’r Treat (2008)
Pwca (2009)
Outcast (2010)