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Ancient Fire: An Introduction to Gaulish Celtic Polytheism
Ancient Fires is a seminal text by one of the foremost figures in Gaulish Polytheism today. The book is one of the most complete attempts to explore Gaulish devotion practices and extends effectively our current understanding of the spiritual underpinnings of the Gaulish polytheistic revival movement. The book explores not only the hearth culture prevalent in Gaul but also introduces the reader to Gaulish deities and modern devotional practice. Segomâros Widugeni is one of the best known figures in Gaulish Polytheism, having been practicing for almost two decades, and in other related communities for more than 30 years.
145 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 10, 2018
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March 29, 2022
Honestly, I didn't feel like knowing what tattoos he has and where they are on his body was a necessary piece of information, but he includes it with the first several deities you're introduced to.
A review on the Amazon listing for this book puts it nicely:
I was really leery of all the links he included, particularly to other people's blogs. Things like that tend to disappear after a while. (And they aren't great to try and get to - many of his footnotes are hyperlinked, meaning they have a nice thick line underneath them that eats underscores and period marks, or are links to Facebook groups, which are strings of numbers to type in - it's not the most accessible way to share resources is all I'm saying.) Though this book was published two years ago, the links are already starting to go bad - a footnote on page 31 to a website called Druid Circle directs you to a page that does not exist, & he himself notes that the link in footnote 58 is no longer extant! The Wayback Machine probably should have been included in the further reading section for those who may come upon this book a decade from now.
He says at the end of this very short book that you now have everything you need to begin practicing Gaulish Polytheism. That definitely feels like an overstatement:
• There is a single ritual outline given, but nothing on what daily or weekly devotions could/should be like, or whether you should have daily devotions in the first place.
• There is nothing about which Gods play nicely together - do any of the Gods not like another God, and wouldn't enjoy being on the same shrine as the other? Do some Gods work really well together and would prefer being set up together? Do we mix and match what we view as complementary? Are there historical preferences where certain deities were invoked together? Or should shrines/altars be entirely constrained to one deity/deity pair?
• It is mentioned that many gods are in divine couples, God & Goddess together; my question is, would you necessarily work with both as a pair, since their functions were often similar or at least complementary? Or would people have worshipped only one of a duo? Why?
• Considering the demarcation between Underworld/Upperworld deities, I assume altars/shrines should not include deities from both sides, but should have separate altars. But what of those that crossed those boundaries - would they be welcome on shrines to either, or would they be better placed on one particular side? Should we have altars for Underworld deities at all?
• There are a few scripted prayers toward the end of the book, all exactly the same but for the insertion of different deities' names. It would have been fantastic to have a bit of a grammar lesson in this section to help new devotees develop their own prayers, and to have gone over whether or not he feels it is important to pray in Gaulish rather than in English.
His UPG feels very influenced by his research: in the entry for the Goddess Sulis, for example, it is noted that the Romans 'famously' associated Sulis with Minerva, seeing in them a commonality; he goes on to describe Sulis as the Sun-Maiden - but then in his 'My Own Experiences' section says that Sulis never appears to him to be a maiden, "but instead as a fully grown woman of great dignity, with a Minerva-like aspect, sometimes wearing a helmet". (pgs 65-66)
In another entry, this time on the God Nodens, he notes that Kodratiev, one of the most-used sources throughout this book, sees Nodens "as a name of the 'Celtic Mars'" but that Kodratiev's interpretation has "little in the other scholarly literature or in Nodens' iconography to bear [this interpretation] out." His My Own Experiences section, however, says that because the author saw Nodens manifest as a mist in the fence on the author's property, it "thereby suggest[ed] the Irish deity Nuada, as well as Kodratiev's identification of Him with the Celtic Mars." (pgs 67-68)
(Perhaps I missed the section where the Celtic Mars is associated with fences? If he is somehow connected to barriers, that's not explained in the text.)
And his personal experiences with the Goddess Sirona sounds more Minoan than Gaulish, what with the snakes wrapped around her forearms. Statuary for Sirona seems more to show a snake draped/wrapped around her entire body, with just the head and upper body of the snake coiling around a single arm; though this imagery in itself is directly influenced by syncretism with Roman deities, particularly Hygeia, who was the daughter of Asclepius - the guy who wielded the serpent-rod that became a symbol in modern-day medicine. But there is no explanation of this in the text at all.
I really wanted to read this book after I saw the end of page 74 in a preview of the book on Amazon. He describes an experience he and his wife had with spirits of the underworld like this:
I've had this happen in the past, though I don't recall if it stopped at a Solstice or not, and was intrigued enough to get this book and read the rest of it. I only wish it had had more things of this nature included, because that was all there was. I could have sworn there was something about the Solstices being gates of some kind, that closed or opened access to things like spirits of the underworld, or that they ended spells, but I don't know where I got that idea from, because it wasn't in this book.
On a final note, I thought it interesting that he was so adamant about the types of offerings that could be given, and types that absolutely could not. Alcohol is the preferred offering - juice and soft drinks are never acceptable, as it would be seen "as trying to cheat the Gods" (pg 82). Whole milk is the only alternative, "though not as good as alcohol" - skim or reduced fat milk is just as much a cheat as offering fruit juice. But - according to him, there are no footnotes in this section to back him up - it is acceptable to substitute bread baked in the shape of animals and use them in place of the traditional animal sacrifices. I've heard of this being done in Greek recon circles, where a group actually filled the bread with another substance and ritually 'killed' it, subsequently divining from the 'entrails', so it's likely where the author got this method.
If animal sacrifices can be swapped out, and bread used instead in this modern day and age, alcohol and milk certainly can be. This often plays into accessibility - people who cannot buy wine for whatever reason often use things like grape juice as a replacement, as it is made of the same materials minus the fermentation. They can be the type who don't drink alcohol, or can't have it in the house because they or others are recovering alcoholics, or they can simply afford to buy a jug of grape juice kept solely for offerings where they cannot afford wine. They can also be the type to never buy milk - whole milk regularly gets quite expensive for those on a budget - and what the author thinks of alternative milks such as those made from soy or oats is not included. Would a grain milk such as oat milk be acceptable? Again, there are no footnotes on this page to show sources indicating the Gauls absolutely never offered anything but mead or milk (or wine if they could afford it); and, as with the animal sacrifices, there is no leeway given to account for the fact that all of his readers are modern day people with access to things like tea, coffee, various juices that the Gauls likely would never have heard of, and milk made from various and sundry plants (would the Gods drink horchata?).
All in all, this feels like an introduction to an introduction. It would have been better as a website, that could update links as they were changed or pages were removed. If he could have committed to just writing more, going properly into depth about things like Gaulish grammar and word order, about the questions I raised concerning the Gods and more everyday worship, just - spent more time on every single subject in here, it would have been a worthy introduction. It honestly could stand to be three times the length - it would at least then be worthy of its price tag.
A review on the Amazon listing for this book puts it nicely:
I wanted to learn more about the ancient religious practices of the very diverse Gauls and ways in which modern devotees work with that information. Instead I got a history of the online Gaulish Reconstruction polytheist clique, links to other people's blogs to learn more about almost everything mentioned, no background on the Gaulish cultures through history, and an ADF ritual outline.
I was really leery of all the links he included, particularly to other people's blogs. Things like that tend to disappear after a while. (And they aren't great to try and get to - many of his footnotes are hyperlinked, meaning they have a nice thick line underneath them that eats underscores and period marks, or are links to Facebook groups, which are strings of numbers to type in - it's not the most accessible way to share resources is all I'm saying.) Though this book was published two years ago, the links are already starting to go bad - a footnote on page 31 to a website called Druid Circle directs you to a page that does not exist, & he himself notes that the link in footnote 58 is no longer extant! The Wayback Machine probably should have been included in the further reading section for those who may come upon this book a decade from now.
He says at the end of this very short book that you now have everything you need to begin practicing Gaulish Polytheism. That definitely feels like an overstatement:
• There is a single ritual outline given, but nothing on what daily or weekly devotions could/should be like, or whether you should have daily devotions in the first place.
• There is nothing about which Gods play nicely together - do any of the Gods not like another God, and wouldn't enjoy being on the same shrine as the other? Do some Gods work really well together and would prefer being set up together? Do we mix and match what we view as complementary? Are there historical preferences where certain deities were invoked together? Or should shrines/altars be entirely constrained to one deity/deity pair?
• It is mentioned that many gods are in divine couples, God & Goddess together; my question is, would you necessarily work with both as a pair, since their functions were often similar or at least complementary? Or would people have worshipped only one of a duo? Why?
• Considering the demarcation between Underworld/Upperworld deities, I assume altars/shrines should not include deities from both sides, but should have separate altars. But what of those that crossed those boundaries - would they be welcome on shrines to either, or would they be better placed on one particular side? Should we have altars for Underworld deities at all?
• There are a few scripted prayers toward the end of the book, all exactly the same but for the insertion of different deities' names. It would have been fantastic to have a bit of a grammar lesson in this section to help new devotees develop their own prayers, and to have gone over whether or not he feels it is important to pray in Gaulish rather than in English.
His UPG feels very influenced by his research: in the entry for the Goddess Sulis, for example, it is noted that the Romans 'famously' associated Sulis with Minerva, seeing in them a commonality; he goes on to describe Sulis as the Sun-Maiden - but then in his 'My Own Experiences' section says that Sulis never appears to him to be a maiden, "but instead as a fully grown woman of great dignity, with a Minerva-like aspect, sometimes wearing a helmet". (pgs 65-66)
In another entry, this time on the God Nodens, he notes that Kodratiev, one of the most-used sources throughout this book, sees Nodens "as a name of the 'Celtic Mars'" but that Kodratiev's interpretation has "little in the other scholarly literature or in Nodens' iconography to bear [this interpretation] out." His My Own Experiences section, however, says that because the author saw Nodens manifest as a mist in the fence on the author's property, it "thereby suggest[ed] the Irish deity Nuada, as well as Kodratiev's identification of Him with the Celtic Mars." (pgs 67-68)
(Perhaps I missed the section where the Celtic Mars is associated with fences? If he is somehow connected to barriers, that's not explained in the text.)
And his personal experiences with the Goddess Sirona sounds more Minoan than Gaulish, what with the snakes wrapped around her forearms. Statuary for Sirona seems more to show a snake draped/wrapped around her entire body, with just the head and upper body of the snake coiling around a single arm; though this imagery in itself is directly influenced by syncretism with Roman deities, particularly Hygeia, who was the daughter of Asclepius - the guy who wielded the serpent-rod that became a symbol in modern-day medicine. But there is no explanation of this in the text at all.
I really wanted to read this book after I saw the end of page 74 in a preview of the book on Amazon. He describes an experience he and his wife had with spirits of the underworld like this:
Anderoi: A term meaning "Those Below", this is an attested term for the spirits of the Underworld. Exactly what they are is unclear. From the Chamaliers [sic] Inscription, we know that their magic was well known in some way. That they included the spirits of the dead is likely. My own experience of them suggests they are unpleasant, including a variety of other "faerie"-like spirits, of mischievous or malevolent nature, dwelling in the Underworld.
In modern Celtic folklore, the line between the spirits of the dead and the mound-dwelling "faeries" was often very blurred to say the least. I made the mistake of making Them an offering one year at Samhain. My wife and I had paranormal phenomena coming out of our ears for months. Objects disappeared. We heard voices whispering unintelligably [sic] in empty rooms. We heard loud footsteps in the house and on the roof.
Although we cleansed with salt, water, incantations, and other means, the phenomena continued until the Winter Solstice, when they stopped mysteriously. Given this, I caution you against calling on them.
I've had this happen in the past, though I don't recall if it stopped at a Solstice or not, and was intrigued enough to get this book and read the rest of it. I only wish it had had more things of this nature included, because that was all there was. I could have sworn there was something about the Solstices being gates of some kind, that closed or opened access to things like spirits of the underworld, or that they ended spells, but I don't know where I got that idea from, because it wasn't in this book.
On a final note, I thought it interesting that he was so adamant about the types of offerings that could be given, and types that absolutely could not. Alcohol is the preferred offering - juice and soft drinks are never acceptable, as it would be seen "as trying to cheat the Gods" (pg 82). Whole milk is the only alternative, "though not as good as alcohol" - skim or reduced fat milk is just as much a cheat as offering fruit juice. But - according to him, there are no footnotes in this section to back him up - it is acceptable to substitute bread baked in the shape of animals and use them in place of the traditional animal sacrifices. I've heard of this being done in Greek recon circles, where a group actually filled the bread with another substance and ritually 'killed' it, subsequently divining from the 'entrails', so it's likely where the author got this method.
If animal sacrifices can be swapped out, and bread used instead in this modern day and age, alcohol and milk certainly can be. This often plays into accessibility - people who cannot buy wine for whatever reason often use things like grape juice as a replacement, as it is made of the same materials minus the fermentation. They can be the type who don't drink alcohol, or can't have it in the house because they or others are recovering alcoholics, or they can simply afford to buy a jug of grape juice kept solely for offerings where they cannot afford wine. They can also be the type to never buy milk - whole milk regularly gets quite expensive for those on a budget - and what the author thinks of alternative milks such as those made from soy or oats is not included. Would a grain milk such as oat milk be acceptable? Again, there are no footnotes on this page to show sources indicating the Gauls absolutely never offered anything but mead or milk (or wine if they could afford it); and, as with the animal sacrifices, there is no leeway given to account for the fact that all of his readers are modern day people with access to things like tea, coffee, various juices that the Gauls likely would never have heard of, and milk made from various and sundry plants (would the Gods drink horchata?).
All in all, this feels like an introduction to an introduction. It would have been better as a website, that could update links as they were changed or pages were removed. If he could have committed to just writing more, going properly into depth about things like Gaulish grammar and word order, about the questions I raised concerning the Gods and more everyday worship, just - spent more time on every single subject in here, it would have been a worthy introduction. It honestly could stand to be three times the length - it would at least then be worthy of its price tag.
August 7, 2021
I know some Gaulish Polytheists, so I was curious to learn more about the religion. I had heard of Segomâros Widugeni from the now-defunct website Polytheist.com, and engaging with a book seemed better than being tied to my computer or phone reading a series of blog posts.
First, this book wasn't what I thought it would be. It focused so much on being in dialogue with modern Celtic identities (especially in discussing appropriation) that it missed a lot — I found myself wondering if the author had completely written off the fact that many regional cultic frameworks had probably survived into early folk saint reverence, similar to other Christianized peoples. There is also scholarship on ancient continental Celtic cultures in French, either in French or translation. I found myself wondering why the author didn't engage with any of it, especially since many people living today in those regions are likely curious (both academically and hobby-wise) about what life and society was like before the major conquest upheavals of the past two thousand years.
The discussion of ritual worship and offerings seemed like an afterthought. The prohibition that the author made against juices, sodas, and skim/low-fat milk (no mention of plant milks), as another reviewer here wrote, is odd. Juice isn't trying to be alcohol, and neither is soda. Unless one is at a formal ritual in a long-standing traditional context where offerings are proscribed and there is a specific ritual reason that wine and whole milk are the It Things, one is doing household or small group cultus. In household cultus, what matters is the link between the Gods and one's daily life. If one drinks coconut milk and seltzer, it's more meaningful to the household relationship to give that than to sequester a set of drinks just for ritual offerings, especially in ritual settings where the offering is shared.
Some sections felt like pages of recited facts, like the one about ancient Gaulish social structures, where there was little analysis of or engagement with how they apply to modern Gaulish polytheists or the issues at stake in doing anything but household and small-group cultus in modern society. The calendar chapter was very interesting and could have been expanded.
The formatting and proofreading were hit or miss, with a few typos, headings at the bottom of pages orphaned from text, and other features that require some work to fix in a print-on-demand pipeline, which it seems like ADF publishing would be using given its small size (at least, at the time). The large-format text made the book a very fast read, and many people who need large-print books would find this easy to handle.
Despite my criticisms above, the book was useful and interesting. I appreciated the information about each of the Gods in list format.
First, this book wasn't what I thought it would be. It focused so much on being in dialogue with modern Celtic identities (especially in discussing appropriation) that it missed a lot — I found myself wondering if the author had completely written off the fact that many regional cultic frameworks had probably survived into early folk saint reverence, similar to other Christianized peoples. There is also scholarship on ancient continental Celtic cultures in French, either in French or translation. I found myself wondering why the author didn't engage with any of it, especially since many people living today in those regions are likely curious (both academically and hobby-wise) about what life and society was like before the major conquest upheavals of the past two thousand years.
The discussion of ritual worship and offerings seemed like an afterthought. The prohibition that the author made against juices, sodas, and skim/low-fat milk (no mention of plant milks), as another reviewer here wrote, is odd. Juice isn't trying to be alcohol, and neither is soda. Unless one is at a formal ritual in a long-standing traditional context where offerings are proscribed and there is a specific ritual reason that wine and whole milk are the It Things, one is doing household or small group cultus. In household cultus, what matters is the link between the Gods and one's daily life. If one drinks coconut milk and seltzer, it's more meaningful to the household relationship to give that than to sequester a set of drinks just for ritual offerings, especially in ritual settings where the offering is shared.
Some sections felt like pages of recited facts, like the one about ancient Gaulish social structures, where there was little analysis of or engagement with how they apply to modern Gaulish polytheists or the issues at stake in doing anything but household and small-group cultus in modern society. The calendar chapter was very interesting and could have been expanded.
The formatting and proofreading were hit or miss, with a few typos, headings at the bottom of pages orphaned from text, and other features that require some work to fix in a print-on-demand pipeline, which it seems like ADF publishing would be using given its small size (at least, at the time). The large-format text made the book a very fast read, and many people who need large-print books would find this easy to handle.
Despite my criticisms above, the book was useful and interesting. I appreciated the information about each of the Gods in list format.
September 30, 2023
I am torn between one or two stars on this book. It’s written like a a host of Wikipedia pages and references other scholars over the actual original source material. The writing is also very repetitive and is formatted as more of a list in much of the book. There was some use in the personal gnosis realm and in the chapter on ritual, but otherwise it would be far better to just find translations of the original work and direct commentary on. This author also believes he brought much more to the table than he realistically did. I don’t believe anyone could make a personal practice of Gaulish polytheism from this book despite the author thinking as much. The author does seem to be well versed in his own practice, but did not have the skills to put it into a book for others. I’d give this a pass.
May 13, 2024
clear overview
As someone with a long background in heathenry but no background in Celtic studies, this book was fabulous. Clear parallels were drawn and sources labeled. Nicely researched. Hope to see more on some of the themes.
As someone with a long background in heathenry but no background in Celtic studies, this book was fabulous. Clear parallels were drawn and sources labeled. Nicely researched. Hope to see more on some of the themes.
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