[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Raen:
I don't know who CJ Cherryh is,

CJ Cherryh is a history lecturer turned fantasy sci fi writer who produces, IMO, the best Sidhe inspired fantasy I have read.

but her view is incorrect.,

You may well be right but I'm cautious of your certainty as I'm not sure the pronunciation of Daoine Sidhe is something a modern person can be sure of. This might account for the fact that you and CJ have different pronunciation despite both being knowledgeable about your subject.

I've just been reading up on the Celts after having been told the Picts were Celts - they were probably the amalgamen of a previous people with a small Celtic conquering overlay later reinforced by the merging of the Scots (ie Celts from Ireland) and the Picts. The thing that came through out of my reading is that the Celts were a dynamic sub-group of the peoples occupying central Europe around ~1000 BC who split off and went a conquering establishing themselves as a warrior aristocracy dominating other peoples. As such their myths and legends have influenced and been influenced by many different cultures as has the language which evolved many sub branches.

Although I am of primarily Celtic origin I have a caution about the Celtic thing as its a bit of fashion to applaud the Celtic achievements and accredit them with the achievements of others. According to many Celt enthusiastic authors the Celts were the inspiration for everybody at the time. However the Celts were a peripheral group to the then center of civilisation (the near east/eastern mediterrainen) so this is unlikely. If you study the Bronze Age mediterrain you will read that supposidly Celtic designs were in fact slight modifications of earlier imports from Crete as the trade for Tin (crucial in making bronze and very rare in the Near East) meant large amounts of goods produced in the mediterrain found there way north and west into Celtic and other hands. If you look at the armour and weapons of Anatolia around the time of the Trojan War and the subsequent Sea Peoples conquests some of them could be Celtic warriors. Hardly suprising since many of these Sea Peoples ended up going west and amongst other things were possibly responsible for founding Rome and bringing a higher level of culture to much of the western mediterrainian basin and in turn influencing the emerging Celts. Its not impossible that the impetuos that created the Sea Peoples had its reflection in the emergence of the Celts or even that descendents of a branch of the Sea Peoples played a role in the emergence of the Celts as a dynamic force.

As an example of how this can work it is postulated that Mycaenean Greek culture emerged after a Greek prince/mercenery fled the defeat of the Hyksos occupation of Egypt with his Hysos princess wife, many retainers, craftsmen and much wealth. The most impressive Mycaenean grave finds are at the very start of the first dynasty of rulers and reminsicent of Egyptian and Hyksos work. So just as bands of Celts came to dominate many other cultures and inject a new dynamism in them it is likely that the begining of Celtic dynamism had an external ingredient.

It is a fascinating period of history in which great progress is being made due to the ongoing translation of Hititte writings and the recent finds such as that of the Royal Library of the original ruling House of Carchemesh. This survived the sack by the Hittites as the Palace feel on top of it.

I really have wandered off the topic - but I am fascinated by this period as it feeds into so much.

Cheers

Keir