Many years ago I set out to find the origin of Christianity in Britain. The hard evidence is found in Roman remains with the repeated use of what is referred to as a “Chi Rho” symbol. But then later we get the “Celtic Church” and to understand how those two were related I knew I had to understand the “Celtic Church”. Eventually I realised I had no idea what the “Celtic Church” was, because there was no clear definition of what was “Celtic” and what was “Roman”. So, after a lot of confusing research, I decided that I might make progress if I understood who the “Celts” were, because surely the Celtic church was simply the Christianity adopted by the Celts.

That led me to try to find these “Celts” of Britain. I put “Celt” in quotation marks, because after years of research, looking at every ancient text and translating what it actually said, I found not a single reference to the “Celts” in Britain.

The real Celts did exist. They were one part of the Gauls, and for a time they were so dominant that the Romans referred to all the Gauls as “Celts”. But at the time of the first detailed account of this people, the real Celts were just one of three nations within the overall Gallic peoples. A group that almost exactly matches the French speaking areas. So for all reasonably purposes they are the French.

The only evidence for “Celts” in Britain, is that about 150BC a group called the Belgae invaded the SE of England. (Hence the name “Belgium” … which if we take the French part, is a good clue to where they lived). These Belgae use coinage from Gaul and brought in some other “continental” customs like burials, but they weren’t the Celts, so anything they brought in is either “Belgic” or perhaps “Gallic”. It isn’t “Celtic”.

The only actual invasion of “Celts” occurred when the Normans and Bretons … which included much of the Celtic area invaded in 1066. So the Normans might be described as “Celts”, although you won’t hear that.

Every other mention of “Celt” in Britain, is a non Celtic group which has been falsely translated to be “Celt” in some way. So, although you might find an English translation implying some “Celtic” connection to Britain, that is something added into the translation.

The faking of the British Celts

It turns out the first serious mention of the “Celts” of Britain was when that a Welsh man … I think an academic at Oxford … about 1707 falsely translated a French work book about the megalithic antiquities of France and Britain and added the word “Celts” into the title.

Then, despite the absence of evidence this fake “history” spread, so that today anyone who points out the fact that there is no evidence for the Celts in Britain is treated as mad. Indeed, you might think they have a point, because isn’t all the “Celtic” things found in Britain “proof” that they were Celts. Well, it might be, if it were true that if you go to the area of Normandy-Brittany where we know there were Celts at the time of Caesar, that we found the highest concentration anywhere of the “Celtic” artefacts that are now used to “prove” there were “Celts”. But, the converse is true. There are almost “Celtic” finds in the area known to be inhabited by the real Celts. Thus everything that is now called “Celtic” has nothing to do with the real historical Celts.

Who would invent this myth

For a long time I suspected the French were behind the myth of the British Celts, because the French have a law making it illegal to carry out such research in France so they clearly understand the danger of creating “separatist identities”. So, with the Jacobite revolutions, I strongly suspect they were encouraging the development of “anti-English” identities in Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

However, it doesn’t fit. Because I have found not a whiff of pushback from the English. For example, 3 out of the 5 early lives of St.Patrick point to him being born in Strathclyde, and Gildas came from Strathclyde … where we had the Antonine wall and Dumbarton Rock … aka Barton or perhaps Badon … the location of I think Arthur’s last battle. So Strathclyde has a lot of early history and was a early centre of learning which strong connections to the Roman empire … and that is the REAL history of Scotland.

Yet there is no interest in Scotland … or anywhere … of this real history of Scotland. Why?

And that was the clue. 1707, when the Celtic myth starts, is also the start of the “tartan tat” version of Scottish history. A history that was Romanticised or perhaps “satirised” by (w)alter Scot and all the other Cronies of the court of Queen Victoria. That’s when Scotland gets Irish “whisky”, Northumberland “Haggis”, European “Bagpipes”, when we start seeing the “tartan” identity, the “skirt” based kilt replacing the “Roman toga” based Kilt of history. That’s when the OS starts giving every Scots place (Scots is a close relative of Old English) a fake Gaelic name. That’s when we start seeing all the fake Gaelic etymologies like “Skye” (easily translated using the Norse word meaning cloudy). Indeed most early names of the Islands of Scotland are Norse in origin.

Tartan tat … isn’t just what is sold in the tourist shops … it is the whole “history” of Scotland, which was fabricated at the time, or at least by the time, of Queen Victoria.

What I am (now) saying: is that the Celtic myth wasn’t invented by someone trying to destroy the Union, it was invented by those trying to destroy the real identity of Scotland and replace it with a mythical non-serious “identity”. In other words to devalue the real Scottish history and replace it with a fairytale history that lacked all credibility.

That is why the English academics don’t push back on the fake identity of Scotland invented from 1707 onward. Because being a fake fairytale rather than serious scholarly study, it makes the Scottish identity seem like a fairytale and lacking all serious credibility. That lack of rigour in the romanticised version of Scotland’s “history” undermines its credibility and that undermines the credibility of a distinct Scottish identity.

It also hides the real identity … one that was probably stolen as huge boxes of ancient texts were removed from Scotland to “safekeeping”** in England when James was taken by the English in exchange for increased power … now only hinted at by the odd strange fact like the life of St.Patrick or the Scottishness of the battles of Arthur.

So, rather than being encouraged to create division, the Celtic myth is being encouraged in order to undermine the credibility of Scottish history and thus a Scottish identity.

Finally!!! I understand why the crap persists … it’s encouraged by the English!

**I am speculating. This is why:

After the first crusade in 1066 when William the Bastard led the Roman pope’s army to squash the British church, he then burnt down all the libraries that used to contain all the texts about the early British church … a church that predates that of Rome. My hunch is that the texts were removed first and it is quite possible that they remain somewhere. Perhaps they were kept by William in case he ever needed to “prove” the authority of the English church over that of Rome. Or, perhaps they were moved to Rome and are now in some secret vault.

The same seemed to have happened about the Old Pictish Kingdom of Strathclyde. It only now exists in the most obscure references. A king list, a very few place names that are “Pictish” and some odd facts, like Strathclyde being the birthplace of St.Patrick and Gildas. Then along came the Irish and they obliterated that history … or does it still exist in some vault somewhere?

So, was the real history of Scotland stolen by the English? Were all the key historical texts removed from the libraries and transported to England and now lie in some vault?

The problem with the “Vault” theory, is that ancient texts deteriorate even in the best of conditions, and the ones that survive are the ones that someone copies, thus rejuvenating the text and extending the life another century or more. But then that too deteriorates and eventually, if no one copies then, they are thrown away. That life can be very long in a dry climate, but in Britain, unless the room is actively heated, then the texts will be gone in a few centuries. So, ancient texts need money and resources to preserve them. And, it only needs one person to say: “we need the money/space” for something else, and the text is thrown out and the chain of preservation and copying is broken and the text is lost.

So, yes I do think it is very likely important texts were stolen, but I’m very dubious that those texts will still be around.