The Celts were a technologically advanced and barbarous people who occupied vast areas of western and central Europe during the last half of the first millenium b.c. Although the early Celts were composed of a number of different races and tribes, and at the height of their power they spread across wide tracts of Europe, they did have a uniformity of religious idiom that enables historians to speak of a Celtic religion. They were linked by common origins and language (P-Celtic spoken in Gaul and Britain, and Q-Celtic spoken in Ireland), common religious traditions, and a close similarity of laws.
The Celts were highly ritualistic and religious. Their elaborate burials, under a mound, in a wooden chamber usually made of oak, furnished with highly decorated weapons, food, drink, and personal ornaments point to powerful beliefs about the nature of life after death. The bodies of the wealthy dead were laid out, burnt or unburnt, on four-wheeled wagons in the earliest of Celtic peoples, and later in lighter, two wheeled wagons.
Our knowledge of the religion and mythologies of the Celtic people comes from three different areas in Europe. From Gaul, which is modern day France, Britain (most specifically Wales), and Ireland. Both Gaul and Britain were influenced by Greco Roman tradition before the advent of Christianity. The Celts themselves did not commit their traditions to writings, regarding their laws, genealogies and spiritual disciplines as sacred, required to be handed down orally. The Druids, the high priests of the Celts, would spend twenty years learning the traditions and oral lessons. The Celts of Ireland maintained their cultural integrity until close to 500 AD, and it is there where the pagan Celtic mythology has been best preserved.
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