Ancient Celtic Clothing

Above is a reconstruction of a Celtic warrior's garments in the museum Kelten-Keller, Rodheim-Bieber, Germany.  Please remember that all tribes were unique and wore their own style and had their own Gods.

Celtic art has survived even to modern day and is a popular choice when it comes to choosing Celtic clothing.  Many today wear Celtic Clothing in order to honour their ancestors.  The ancient Celts were superior at making woven textiles for their Celtic clothing, turning the heads of other cultures.  Weaving was considered advanced knowledge in its time and one item could take over a month to make.  Celtic clothing was well cared for.

Celtic clothing for both women and men was wrap around skirts, tunics, or long one piece dresses or robes and wool was the material most often used.   Other popular materials for Celtic Clothing were linen, silk, hemp, leather and fur.  They also used feathers in both clothes and hair.   Besides the birched coned hats found, hats are not mentioned often, but headbands of cloth or gold are  spoken about.  Charioteers, for example are described as wearing gold ones.  Wealthy indeed was the Charioteer.  The Celts loved to wear bright colours and used dyes made from natural items like berries, plants, stale urine and copper to make their often plaid or striped cloths left frequently with fringed edges.  There were also rules about which days of the month or week was okay for dyeing as were with many other tasks they did. 

Celtic clothing wasn't the same for all tribes, it varied depending on each tribe's influence. One tribe may favour baggy Celtic clothing, while another liked them form fitting.  The oldest depictions  of Celtic Clothing I've found come from around 500 BCE from the area of modern Austria.  Examples below;  

Celtic clothing on Scythian borders - From the drawings it looks like they wore tight fitting pants or tights, and a tunic that actually looks like a suit jacket.  It's a long shirt with the front bottom that curved back to the tails.  Their shoes had upturned toes.   The women seem to be wearing highly decorated skirts or long tunics, hard to tell.  Celtic Clothing from grave sites tell us a Chieftain, found at Hochdorf, shows the same style as above but with it an unusual preserved conical hat with fine punched patterns, made of birch-bark. Salt miners wore the same type of Celtic clothing with lower quality cloth and less colour with the same conical hats made of animal fur.

Celt-Iberic Celtic Clothing  - men wore tunics of mid-thigh length with a wide decorated belt at the waist. Women are wearing elaborate Celtic headdresses and tunics with checkered trim, and sometimes a very wide ruffle at the bottom of a hem or skirt called a flounce about 4 - 5" wide.  Belts worn by the Celt-Iberians of early Christian period were wide and decorated with metal plaques.

 

Medieval belt

  

I could not find any depictions of dress in Ireland before the Christian period, so the following is from Spanish mythology "the Book of Leinster" written out by the Spanish monks in 9th century, is the major source of Irish descriptions.   Celts said they came from the Spain before spreading out to the isles. There are documents and songs to state this fact.  So Irish Celtic clothing is the following;



Irish Celtic clothing -  Irish Celts of any ages or sex wore usually, a white linen leine (tunic).  Other tunics were dark gray, gold, yellow and brown in the stories.  The word 'leine' actually means linen.  Some tunics had sleeves, and some actually had hoods, like our pull over hoodies today!  (SOLD OUT) Some were knee-length, and some calf-length but the most common of course was mid-thigh for men.  We also read that some had red/gold embroidery, lace or fringes as trim.  One is described with a gold hem, some had gold seams or red embroidery.  The interlace was very simple twist.  Don't make the mistake of put intricate interlace on an early Celtic clothing, for this was not done until the 5th century possibly later. 

Medieval tunic

British, French = (Gauls), Germananic, mixed French and German = (Franks) Celtic clothing - On mainland European continent wore the same Celtic clothing.  The Romans could tell them apart by their language only.  Celtic Cloaks of course.  The men wore three forms of trousers, described below under warriors, tight fitting that extended just over the knee, loose fitting trousers with feet in them, or pants secured at the ankles by the straps from their shoes. The trousers either had a tie at the waist or were furnished with belt loops.  No evidence exists that the Irish tribes ever used cross-gartering on their hose as did the Germanic tribes.  Shirts were mostly sleeveless tunics here with fringed hems.   The tight fitting above the knee style was adopted by the Roman legions, not the other way around as most persons assume.  More and more evidence  is surfacing shows this.  Romans even adopted "chainmaille" from the Celts. Some Roman depictions show Celtic men wearing caps and hats similar to a Shriner's fez but rounded on top instead of flat.

Chainmail

Celtic Clothing and Status

Tunics - In Celtic clothing, most tunics are known to have been made of linen, unless one was of noble birth, which then it was silk.  

Celtic Cloaks - A Mantle, or fur cape, was an essential necessity and not a luxury as today.  It was the color and length of the Celtic cloak that showed the status of the individual.  Celtic Cloaks were rectangular or ovoid; the oval ones being shaped on the loom.  A Celtic cloak, called a Brat, was the rectangular type was pinned with a brooch.  For the brat - the longer the brat, the higher the status. The brat of kings and heroes was often referred to as being 'five-folded'.  This means that only the Chieftains, honoured warriors, Royalty and Druid were allowed over 5 colors.  We know of a mantle which  some of the colors were purple, green, reddish-gray, black, and gray streaked, yellow, red, dun, or purple edged, patchworked and one re-brown. This important piece of Celtic clothing was usually the four-cornered or oval brat, pinned at the breast with a pin or brooch.  Irish Celtic cloaks resembled bear skins or fur or curly wool.  A piece of a cloak from around 200CE period with inserted tuftings of wool has been found in an Irish bog.

Shoes, Sandals, and Belts

Celtic Clothing shoes were  made of leather, straw or linen.  It seems that shoes were  worn only by women and male Druids, definitely not warriors unless they wore linen shoes that rotted away.  Interesting one piece shoes have been found in the Irish bogs and they are of the same type worn by figures in the Book of Kells.  Remember since the Celts loved bright colours, and some of these shoes have even been described in the literature as purple and yellow.  The shoe was a sandal type usually but was sometimes a full boot  shoe with fur wrapped around the leg, held together with strings of leather.  The boot shoes varied but for the most part were made with one piece of leather. Gaulish sandals and shoes constructed of straw have been found. 

Celtic boots

Celtic Clothing Belts - Celts loved to wear belt buckles and belts which we have here in the store. A belt of leather or wool called the oriss was sometimes worn over the leine, although the Tain only mentions belts in connections with swords or armor. Belts were made by card weaving so that complex patterns could be made. Card weaving was also used to make fringes for Celtic clothing.

Viking buckle

Women

Druidess Celtic Clothing - wore green speckled cloak with a round, heavy headed brooch above the breast is described.

Prophetesses Celtic Clothing - wore snug long tunics with long hoods that covered her head, stiff and glossy with green silk beneath red layer, with gold embroidery and is clasped over her breasts with a brooch of silver and gold.  They wore a purple cloak with this. The hood mentioned may not have been a true hood but rather a fold of material at the top of the tunic as seen on early Greek chitons.

Free women Celtic Clothing - Celtic clothing worn by women was the narrow tunic or chiton., some Tribes are described as wearing white ones with purple embroidery.  Others wore the short tunic tucked into a long skirt.  Seems to have been the costume of the Ostrogothic women.  The dresses are described as being "tight-fitting" which the early Greek chitons were.  Interestingly, ancient authors mention the wearing of bells on the hems and skirts of the dresses which is linked to the bells dance of the the 1st Nations women of today. Scottish woman & sometimes men wore the Arisaidh, which was like a skirt shawl.  

Warriors

Warriors of a certain Celtic cults went naked into battle covered only with designs drawn on their bodies in blue dye made from woad and Celtic jewelry.

Medieval Celtic Clothing

By the 800 CE, soldiers and lower class males wore a jacket and pants, or hose.   The tunics, in the Book of Kells, are all ankle length except for those worn by warriors.  Upper class warriors and younger men stuck to their traditional older dress forms.  The upper classes, beyond the English Celts influence, (Scottish-Picts) continued to wear the linen leine until well past 1485 - 1700's. The leine became much fuller and developed long full sleeves in these times.  Other period sources show knee length chitons with long sleeved tunics or ankle length chitons underneath. The Mater figures in northern Germany show over-dresses fastened at the breast with a pin.

medieval pants

 

Who are the Vikings?

The first thing I would like to say is that the word 'Vikings' is used incorrectly.  To go 'Viking' meant to go raiding and is a Nordic term - Vikingr.  So Vikings refers really to the ones that went raiding not the people entire.......  for example one whose occupation was a blacksmith or housekeeper would not be referred to as a Vikingr. However, later when the English attached it to the whole populations from there. 

The proper term, to refer to these Northern tribes, is Norsemen.  Norsemen are people who speak or are descendants of people who speak the Old Norse languages - Scandinavians.  Scandinavians in ancient times also referred to areas of - Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, the Farce Islands, and Greenland. but today are more distinct.  Now split as Danes, German, Anglo-Saxon and so on., all referred to as their place of establishment but to simplify this, keep reading.  

VERY IMPORTANT - The fact that there was a rise of exploration and general unpleasantness by the Northern European tribes around 793-1066 CE, does not always mean that the entire population were viscious, it is the act of raiding that somehow became synonymous with the 'people' and sadly ever since been stuck with the name Vikings.   There were in fact very few 'Viking' tribes who formed but this should not reflect attitude of all this areas people.   You cannot let the few bad eggs, in any  culture, reflect the attitudes of the whole of that people.

In studying the Scandinavian people, I came to the understanding many things that most modern day pagans miss, at one time the Celts, Scandinavians  and other Europeans were all one people originally.  Now before you all bark an uproar, forget about outdated theory.  Since the late 2005 there is DNA evidence that no one can dispute.  This shows us how we all spread out to different areas, before and after the ice age and became our own style of people.

Genetic studies of Icelanders also show that 60 to 80% of their genes are of the what we call 'Celtic' origin today.   We know now that the Irish landed there prior to Norse peoples and when they came they brought with them spouses from these tribes as well.   Iceland excavations also show the mix of Nordic and Celtic stock from the British Isles.   Once established we read that some Norsemen imported their wives directly from Ireland and Scotland.

By the end of the first millennium they were settling lands as far west as Iceland and Greenland and eventually reached the shores of Newfoundland.  BUT - this 'Celtic / Norse DNA is now found  in some of the North American Indian tribes showing they were here long before this.  They drifted across in the ice age period.   It has now been proven that there was solid ice connecting Europe with Newfoundland during this time and the tribes most likely got caught traveling along it in search of food.

Another outdated claim is that Stonehenge was built before the time of the Celtic period so they couldn't have build it.  Because the DNA of the pre-iceage bodies (Cheddar man in particular) and those of modern day, it is now proven they were already there.  When they spread out, they of course lost track of each other and each group developed their own distinct culture, languages and rituals but all were similar  seen even in the mythologies.  

Another thing we must accept is that way before the so called "viking era" , a lot of the Scandinavian tribes had already come over to what is called the Celtic tribal areas as early as the 400's CE and were living quite peacefully, some intermarried.   In fact many bragged about having an Irish wife for they were thought very intelligent, soft of voice and beautiful. Norwegians joined others and settled in Normandy, Iceland, Greenland, ireland but never got a strong hold there, Scotland, Wales, Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides, the Faroe islands and Mann.  In some Historical records we see East Norse , which referred to the Danes and Swedes so... it gets confusing for sure for Norse were also in England (and took over the throne) Finland, Russia, Belgium, France (mix of Germand and Gauls became Franks), the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, southern Italy and Canada.  And the Celts too were spread far a wide.  In fact DNA states the Objiwe tribe is both Celts and Asian - from Ice Age people.

It never ceases to amaze me that Caucasian people do not know their own history and lost beautiful rituals and beliefs.  And how people can fight to maintain our differences (which every tribe was) but we are the same peoples.

Why Are Scandinavian Gods so Warlike?

To understand their Gods, you must understand the people.  To understand the people, you must view them not with a modern mind but of the view of them or through their eyes, in their time.   Lets start from the most important thing.  The land they lived on;

Their ancient lands were at the far fringes of Europe, a difficult land, yet these people were able to call it home.   It was the same for those who traveled to Iceland and Greenland, land of freezing cold and fiery underworld geysers.  

Scandinavians were a sea fairing people and loved to find natural harbors as they made excellent places to hide their ships and fan them out.

Thus from the brutal land and the sometimes treacherous sea, the Norse world came from warriors view, a pure survival instinct.  They had to be tough and led a brutal existence, punctuated by warfare and periods of difficult sustenance during the cold winter months. They believed, if they died brave warriors in battle, they would be quickly whisked away to eternal happiness in Valhalla, the sacred hall of warriors.  The Celtic areas also speak of the soul being immortal and had no fear in battle.

All the tribes of this time believed the world was a magical place  and every single inanimate object was populated by a nature spirit.  This was weather, tree, sea and rock or mountain, animal and memory of  ancient beast passed down orally.  Incredibly thousands of years this was the way of keeping knowledge.  Their priests were called the Godi.

In looking at all this evidence, the ancient Scandinavians had a polytheistic religion, which means more than one God but by the end of the tenth century, the Scandinavians became Christianized by the traveling Irish monks.  The process went quite easy.  


Ancient Scandinavians honoured each God, in their tribe's pantheon, at a sacrifice time called a Blot.   Each God had a different date throughout the year.  A Blot, for example, could be at Yuletide.  The Vikings called this winter solstice date Jul.  Jul is the darkest time of the year when the sun died for 3 days then was reborn.  This blot was for the new year promises.   Other Gods blots were held in the different seasons.  The Celts, had different times of year for their sacrifices and dates for different gods or goddesses to be honoured as well.  The sacrifice at one of these consisted usually of animals. There is however a mention, in a saga, of the king of the Swedes being sacrificed to Odin after a few years of the tribes starvation which meant he was an un-fertile King.  We do have some references to the Celts doing this as well.

The sacrifice for the blot was made on an altar of piled up stones, called a Hörg. The blood of the animal was held in a Hlautbolli (bowl for blood).   After reciting songs in the honor of the god or gods chosen to worship, the priest passed the bowl with blood around as well as the meat.  A flame was involved and of course incantation songs. No doubt there was something done with the blood in the ceremony.   The Coligney Calendar shows that the Celts had both people celebrations and Holy days for the Druids only.
 
The Vikings, like the Celts, usually worshiped their gods in different areas outdoors as the Gods  were what they saw around them - hills, trees, rivers, constellations and so on.  There Gods were also their 'hero' ancestors, as they too believed they were descendants of the Gods.  The eldest Gods  resided in a special place and were considered a different level of Gods.  The Gods being those who birthed human nature  from them also had its rivalry.   The Celtic Gods had a hierarchy and 3 worlds.


Some rituals were held inside temples called hov. The hov wasn't necessarily a special building, it could be a hall or a part of a farm. These sacred places were also where trials were held. Scandinavians believed that justice was made by the gods.   Religion went hand in hand with law and still does in today's world.  For the Celts, both the Irish and Welsh laws still exist. 


Scandinavian Armour and Weapons:  Our knowledge, at this time, about arms and armour of the Viking age is from the eighth to eleventh centuries in Europe but we will try and keep you up to date as more surfaces.  We are always keeping up on new discoveries on documentaries and books.    Right now our knowledge is based on the sparse archaeological finds, pictorial representation, and a little on the accounts in the Norse sagas and laws recorded finally in the 1200's.  I would strongly like to point out that NEVER to date has their any been found any Viking helmet with horns.  This was only made popular through opera.   The Celts, however, had horn like cone helmets.

 

According to custom, all free Norse men were required to own weapons and permitted to carry them at all times if they could afford them.  These arms were an indication of the individuals social status.  A wealthy Viking would have complete gear, such as a metal helmet, wooden shield, chainmail shirt, and animal-skin coat, among various other weapons and so on.  The average landowner was likely limited to a spear, shield, and perhaps a seax (large knife), which gave the name to the Saxons  (an English Celts and Scandinavian mix tribe).  Some had hunting bows.  The Scot-Norse or Gaelic-Norse tribes in Highlands of Scotland might have had bows as well but bows were not popular for the Scottish tribes.  The Other Celts certainly had them though.

So Hence our name The Celts and Viking Mythology Shop is geared to Celtic and "Pirate" style peoples.




Germanic roots or language come from - (Britain,Germany, Iceland, Luxemburg, Belgium, Austria, Norway)

Ancient Celtic & Viking Hygiene and Hair Care

We always see in many depictions of Celts, and especially the Vikings, showing they were filthy and uneducated.  This is far from the truth.  In fact, we have much proof from archaeology grave sites and many ancient writings from persons, not at war with the Celtic tribes, that shows otherwise.

Lets consider more evidence if we can;

The Celtic tribes of England were written about by Ceasar but these negative things we must take with a grain of salt, as he is a conqueror who wanted their land and in order to justify his wishes to his people, he had to make the Celts sound uneducated and barbaric.  The same way the Elite who control the Government today, does through media.  If you want people to have a certain race controlled to take their resources or country, set up lies about them in the media.  But I digress.

Celts had particular written laws written in their Brehon laws about when they were to bathe and about personal grooming.  The Viking Danes we know took baths on Saturdays and combed their hair and changed their clothes often. An English cleric complained of this because they might also entice their own women.  Another Arabian scribe writes that the people of the Norway have a serving girl bring a basin of water every morning where they wash their face and hair then clear their nose in it and split.  The writer shows disgust in this practice.  This author is disgusted is because in their culture they did not bath as often as they could only bathe in running water. 

And lastly on their hygiene, it was the Celts themselves who introduced soap to the Romans.  The Celtic warriors had to bath prior to the evening meal along with clothing washing laws are detailed from nobles to common foster children.  They even discuss brushing ones hair daily, fingernails and makeup.  Some reports say they invented soap.

The Vikings too, had to wash their hands prior to meals.  In some of the stanzas written, the book also speaks of bathing.

Many bone combs have been found or ones of ivory.  Also other grooming tools such as ear spoons, tweezers ad razors.

They even took the time to create elaborate hairstyles that could include braiding.  Hairdressers or Barbers were wonderful and hired by Chieftains and Royalty.  Neither the Celts nor the Vikings had one specific hairstyle.  This too was based on the tribe itself mostly.  In Vikings the salves had their hair short and the others had medium to long hair.  The tribe that Pliny speaks of apparently the men bleach their hair more than the women.

The Gaulish tribes reddened their hair and of course the Germans close to this area.  One carving, in a Norman grave, shows an almost goatee style of beard with a really short bowl cut on top of head.  Some statue carvings show bangs, others not.  Some with waxed look pointed mustache ends curved upwards.  A bronze head of Odin also shows this.  Many vikings in fact have full mustaches and clean shaven chins.  For Viking women, they seemed to favour the blonde hair.  The women servants also wore short hair.  Some say the married women wore a cap over their locks and had to wear their hair up in a knot.

There was a burial site found where a Celt wore a Mohawk.  others have been described as having scary white cones that stood up, much like the kids today with their gel.  We also know they wore elaborate braiding styles especially on good occasions.  There have been numerous styles of hair ornaments were used;

1) Hollow golden balls worn worn at the ends of a tress of hair just like we have beads today in the famous Bo Derek look.

2) The mythologies write about gold, silver, or bronze hair circlets or fillets, some with gold plates that charioteers wore on their forehead.

3) Hair combs, ribbons, feathers and Hair pins were also used.  They were made of metal, bone, glass beads, stone gems, or horn.  Metalwork adorned most all.

4)  Women carried a comb bag with these cherished items.  Some included razors and mirrors.  

Now lets look at the myth they were uneducated.  Celtic people show they were well educated by claiming the strength of their oral tradition makes them stay connected as a tribal people.  Immigrants of Belgic tribes and most of these people even retained their original tribal names - lineage is power they believed.  Higher-Educated Celts were called Druids, and these included the healers, bards which were trained as musicians and poets with magical ways to change a mood, lawmakers and so on.  These schools so advanced that even other countries would send people there to be educated.  The Druid caste lasted until aprox 1200 years ago until it was slowly converted to Christianity.

Now lets look at wealth.  We see they made their own stamped bronze and gold coins, iron ingots of fixed weights, imported copper and used tin.  Not uneducated barbaric savages here either.

We now turn to livestock.  According to their law books, some tribal areas thought it unlawful to eat geese, hares and fowl if their clan totem was of the same.  In this case these animals were to be raised for pleasure and amusement.  We have foreign writers describing how a certain tribe wore skins, dyed their bodies with woad, and have long hair but shave their entire bodies except head and upper lip.  Long hair we now know was worn by the freemen or commoners who owned land shared by the Chieftain of the tribe. There is also the myth the myth that they didn't write anything down.... obviously false.  It was only certain things that they couldn't for they believed words could manifest reality thus only left to bards etc.

By Laurie-Lee Mills

Copyright Notice:
The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material. Permission is granted to use this material to distribute for non-commercial educational purposes provided the copyright notice is and my permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Ancient Celtic & Viking Hygiene and Hair Care - Copyright 2010, Laurie-Lee Mills August 4th, 2010.  Please ask for permission from Author.

Bibliography
Ancient England - Nigel Blundell and Kate Farrington.