Celtic Myths & Symbols
The inter-woven nature of all life, the inner weave of body and spirit. This design is one of the Celtic ‘Zoomorphic’ decorations from Manuscript art between 500 A.D. and 900 A.D. |
 For the Celts, the boar symbolized military courage and strength, and images of boars decorated helmets and shields just as boars illustrated heraldic shields later on in the Middle Ages. They were also associated with magic because of their ability to eat unleached acorns (poisonous to humans). |
A Christian cross with a circle over the crux. This symbol evolved in the British Isles, and the earliest forms date from the seventh to ninth centuries in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. They were used as memorials and to mark outdoor places of Christian worship. |
 The horse was one of the most critical animal allies of the Celts. Epona was the Celtic horse goddess whose authority extended beyond death, assisting the soul on its final journey. She was the only Celtic Goddess to be honored by the Romans with a temple in their capital city. |
While Celtic knots were created pre-Christian times, they are most known for their use in the ornamentation of Christian monuments and manuscripts like the 8th-century Book of Kells. Only a little history of the knots is available before the Christian influence on the Celts began in about A.D. 450. |
 Much evidence exists for using geometrical patterns as ornamentation, particularly in jewelry before that time. While analysis of the knots seems to point to 8 basic types, there is no evidence to indicate that a knot had any specific philosophical or religious significance beyond perhaps the most obvious: |
The intricacy of God’s creation and man’s circuitous path through life. Modern Wiccans have taken up the design of Celtic knots, attributing to their ideas and magical properties. |
 The Pentagram has magical associations, and many people who practice pagan faiths wear them. Its original meaning was “health” or well-being, and its five points are often associated with the five elements or the five “points” of the human body. |
A labyrinth, unlike a maze, has only one winding path, but without divisions or branches, which moves to the center of the labyrinth and then outwards again. Christians used the labyrinth as a penance and meditation device to find Christ within. Chartres Cathedral, France. |
 Legend suggests that St. Patrick used the Shamrock in the fifth century to demonstrate the meaning of the Trinity. It is known as St. Patrick's money, found on Irish medieval tombs and old coins. The word is from the Irish ‘seamrog’ (summer plant). It is Ireland’s most famous symbol. |
This widely recognized knot has been used for centuries as a sign of unique things and persons that are threefold, such as The Triple Goddess, Past, Present, and Future; Body, Mind, and Spirit; and the Holy Trinity. |
 Three-part designs are found throughout all Celtic art, mythology, and sacred symbolism, and they are identified with the sacred number three. The Celts believed that wherever two forces appeared in opposition (duality), a third existed to balance and join them. |
We are born of the waters, and water is identified with emotions, intuition, feminine mysteries, and deep places of the psyche. This design is one of the Celtic ‘Zoomorphic’ decorations from Manuscript art between 500 A.D. and 900 A.D. |
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