The Scottish Thistle Meaning

The Scottish thistle is the national emblem of Scotland for more than 500 years.

Legend of the Scottish thistle tells us that long ago when the Danes invaded Scotland by surprise, wearing no shoes and in the dark, one of them stepped on a thistle, cried out and alerted the Scots and prevented a terrible slaughter. The grateful Scots adopted the thistle as a symbol of their nation, and it became known as “The Guardian Thistle”. Sadly, there is no historical evidence to back up the tale.

Whatever its origins, the thistle is one of the most important Scottish symbols.

 

The Symbolism Of Cats

Being stoic, silent and mysterious cat represented the guardian of the Underworld (Otherworld) keeping their secrets to themselves. They were considered the guardian of souls, their eyes the windows to the other world. The cat teaches us that the physical and spiritual worlds are not separate, but one.The Ancient Celts believed that the cat will brings us to wholeness and acts as a spiritual link between humans and the universe.  In the Celtic world black cats were considered evil, and were sacrificed. However, the Celtic cat received much respect. Other mythic reference to cats is, that they are able to shapeshift into a ball of fire. Cats have been linked with mystery, spirituality and seduction since the days of the ancient Egypt.

Meaning Of A Celtic Cat

From the Egyptians to Romans, and from Romans to Celts came the transference of the symbolism of cats. Unanimously, the cat represents the guardian of the Otherworld (or Underworld, depending which texts you apprehend from assorted regions). Stoic, bashful and mysterious, cats fit the bill of Otherworld guardians absolutely well. They keep the secrets of the Otherworld always to themselves, as the gaze with guile upon a world that does not see or accept the depth of their knowledge.

Astute and clever, not only that they accomplish great Otherworld guardians, they are aswell liaisons to mystical realism. When invoked, they can grant the caller a variety of insights regardinng more esoteric, aerial knowledge. No admiration the cat is a prize among of Celtic animals.

Celtic Shield Knot

Celtic shield knots can be articular as any of the Celtic knots with distinct corner areas. They usually resemble a square but sometimes they are a aboveboard shaped square emblem in a circle. As in all Celtic knots there is no beginning or end. The Celtic shield knot idea comes from civilizations older than the Celts. Anciently, it was a universally accepted attribute for protection from crisis and warding off angry spirits. The symbol is alwaiys fourfold based, but within a greater unity.

The Green Man

The Green Man is repeatedly perceived as an antique Celtic symbol. In Celtic mythology, he is a god of movement and summer. He disappears and returns day gone year, century subsequent to century, enacting themes of bereavement and resurrection, the ebb and stream of verve and creativity. The Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain, The Green Knight, is a notable likeness of the Green Man from the middle Ages. Gawain had a green helmet, green armor, grreen shield... uniform a green horse. As he was decapitated, he continued to live.

The Maze Pattern Symbolism

Otherwise renowned as key and stepp patterns, they symboliz the journey we all rent on the elongated and winding highway of life. No count who we are or everyplace we live, we all accept the consistent challenging way comprehensive of open doors as highly as obstacles.

The Celtic Tree of Life

The representation of the Celtic tree acutely comes to verve in this model by Celtic artist, Jen Delyth...

Their twigs stretch to anticyclone hooked on the heavens. Their roots dig deep into to the Earth.

Yet all are woven together, suggesting the tie between all tings in the Heavens and the Earth.

In fact, the Irish Druids understood the Sacred trree had the influence to bare messages from the gods.

Mermaid

The mermaid, half-woman, half-fish, is a evocative archetypal figure comon to the mythologies and folk myths of lots of parts of the world. While the many sacred internal springs and wells were whispered to be ruled and inhabited by dampen deities, water sprites and nymphs, the Celtic sea-faring and fishing populations related the mermaid with the sea. scoutmaster's
The mermaid may be said to symbolise the wraithlike female element, whose habitat is the unknown and dangerously evocative realm of the unconscious.

The additional spontaneous double-tailed mermaid, which decorates infinite churches and cathedrals right through Western Europe, is an awfully archaic adaptation of the mermaid that is often connected with Sheela-Na-Gig, one of the nearly all powerful Celtic symbols of the female or deity

The Celtic Bird

here are countless meanings for birds and every bird has its own matchless symbolism:
swagger = loss Eagle =
landed gentry Herons = Fidelity (because it mated for life, was a lot second-hand on Celtic wedding rings.
Peacock = Immortality and Purity (the colourful tail = the energy of the sun)

Celtic Symbols: the Holy Grail and Cerridwen’s Cauldron

The Holy Grail, at the same time as not automatically a Celtic image per se, has slow been linked along with the British Isles. It is top known now as of the myths of emperor Arthur. It is designed to be the cup as of which Jesus drank at the persist Supper. In a 12th Century word by Robert de Boron, the Grail is brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea. Medieval myths kneecapped tell knights such as Percival on quests for the Grail.

nearby are moreover links involving the Grail legend and Welsh literature, remarkably the Mabinogion, in which the hero cellulose has a life-giving cauldron.
several authors and researchers, notably Lewis Spence The Mysteries of Britain (Senate Paperbacks) Celtic Symbols: the Holy Grail and Cerridwens Cauldron
tie the Holy Grail to prior Celtic beliefs, such as Cerridwen’s Cauldron, commencing which the mythic poet Taliesin drank, generous him the gift of prophecy.

little the Holy Grail has extensive been a sacred figure of Christianity, chiefly in Western Europe, the cauldrons of fiber and Cerridwen come up with additional in recent times been resurrected by neo-pagans. It is complex to prove one way or the extra whether these two traditions are candidly allied –that is, if the Holy Grail residential out of prior tales of cauldrons on or after the Celtic lands.

what time it comes to symbolism, however, it isn’t essential to acquire put on the right track chronological associations in demand to bargain meanings and similarities. The Grail, and its connection to Jesus, relates to the Christian sacrement of Communion, in which worshippers touch of Christ’s carcass and blood, symbolizing eternal life. This seems to tie by way of the cauldron of Bran.

Celtic Symbols: the Holy Grail and Cerridwens elates Cauldron
connects the cauldron by way of earlier fruitfulness gods and goddesses, such as Dagda and Cerridwen, and spar of softener's the “three properties of the cauldron –inexhaustibility, inspiration and regeneration. as of this we can see with the purpose of equally the Holy Grail and the cauldrons of Celtic tradition were associated in loads of ways.