You lucky thing seeing the cauldron! That must have been something indeed. I can see you walking round and round and round.

I'd forgotten the bog butter in my bleary morning state. You're right that was pretty cool. I'd definitely like to know more about examples of that. Mr I-wear-my-hat-indoors pointed out that people were still stashing butter in bogs into the 20th century. But this rather cast his Ritual Butter Deposition theory into question I thought. Because maybe modern people were sticking it there in lieu of a fridge, he didn't mention why they did it or whether they went to retrieve it. So maybe prehistoric people were sticking it there in lieu of a fridge too and then forgetting where they'd stashed it. Who knows. Or maybe the bog deities liked a bit of butter, I certainly do.

And another thing, about the barbarians - it was good to hear someone explain that the romans were writing down scurillous xenophobic stuff about their neighbours (hah criticising the unpleasing to the eye settlements, cheeky beggars, just because they weren't all square I suppose).

It's great that there's such a large body of early literature for Ireland. But it was written down so long after the iron age, hundreds and hundreds of years, so can we really be sure that the stories have any bearing on what people believed at that time. It's so tempting to want to believe it's so. There's that thrice-killed kings thing. But it could be just coincidence. Or a garbled version of what was really going on. I also wonder what prompted those monks to write down those stories and who they heard them from. (and the mabinogion, that's used very much by people wanting to talk about the celts. But that's even more removed in time. And parts of it are certainly very muddly).

anyway I must stop thinking about interesting things and turn my brain to dull friday work subjects regrettably. have a lovely day