Iolo Morganwg and the Great Celtic Paganism Hoax

Pop quiz: 

What do the Awen symbol, the Druid’s Prayer, the Bardic Alphabet, and the practice of performing ceremonies inside of stone circles while wearing robes of different colors based on one’s role/rank (blue for bards, green for ovates, and white for druids) all have in common? 

Turns out these were all inventions of the Welsh stonemason/antiquarian/poet/literary forger, Iolo Morganwg (born in 1747 as Edward Williams), who tried to pass them off as having an ancient Celtic origin.

Follow-up question:

What do these modern(ish) inventions have in common with the Wheel of the Year, a cycle of eight sabbats or seasonal festivals observed by many modern-day druids, witches, Wiccans, heathens, and other neopagans? 

Welp, this seemingly ancient calendar wouldn’t be popularized until the mid-20th century, thanks in part to the influence of the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids, a neo-druidic organization founded in 1964.

An organization that drew heavily from the Welsh Gorsedd of the Bards, a society of Welsh-language writers, musicians, and others founded in 1792 that allegedly had its roots in the practices of ancient Celtic druids. 

And do you want to take a wild guess at who the founder of the Welsh Gorsedd of the Bards was?

Ding, ding, ding:

Iolo Morganwg.

Now, a quick clarification is in order:

The purpose of this essay isn’t to disparage the legacy of Iolo Morganwg. The dude did more for the preservation of the Welsh language and Welsh culture than probably anyone.

What’s more, his forgeries were still rooted in extensive research. He composed poems in the specific styles of specific Welsh bards using language from specific eras. And by all accounts he did this while consuming massive quantities of Laudanum, an opium tincture. There’s no denying that he was a genius—if a troubled one.

That being said, I’m also not here to sugarcoat history. So while there is a camp of Iolo Morganwg apologists out there who refuse to refer to his forgeries as “forgeries,” instead preferring the more sanitized term “historical creations,” I prefer to put data over dogma.

FYI: You can watch a video adaptation of this essay right here. (Text continues below.)

The Many Forgeries of Iolo Morganwg

The data tell us Iolo Morganwg forged several texts, including a book he attributed to the 6th-century Welsh abbot Saint Cadoc; a chronicle he purported was part of the Brut y Brenhinedd (or Chronicle of the Kings), which were Middle Welsh retellings of stories from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (a text we learned about in my video/essay on Stonehenge’s Irish origins); and he forged an entire collection of Welsh Triads, which were wise statements rooted in Welsh history and folklore that grouped things together in threes. 

For example, here is an authentic triad from the 15th-century Red Book of Hergest:

“Three Men Who Received the Wisdom of Adam: Cato the Old, and Bede, and Siblo the Wise. They were, all three, as wise as Adam himself.”

And here’s one that Iolo made up and tried to pass off as authentic:

“Three men who live on the property of others: a king, a priest and a thief.”

I mean…good one, Iolo.

But as author Gareth Thomas pointed out in an interview with AmeriCymru, while written in the same style, this more modern triad expresses “republican and progressive values which owed more to Rousseau than the ancient bards of Wales.”

Indeed, the consensus seems to be that Iolo, who hailed from the Vale of Glamorgan in the south-east of Wales, had an idealized vision of what the ancient Welsh bards/druids from his home turf believed, and what rituals they practiced, and even how they communicated with one another. Unfortunately, there was a large gap between this ideal and what he could substantiate with historical evidence.

To quote Welsh book reviewer and former history teacher Ceri Shaw:

“[Iolo] was convinced that the culture in which he was raised by his mother and other exemplars and tutors was the heir to a great south Walian Bardic and Druidic tradition. The fact that this tradition lacked any foundation texts was a deficiency which he marshaled his considerable literary talents to correct.”

Barddas: A Blueprint for (Modern) Celtic Paganism

Iolo’s literary talents would culminate in his masterwork, Barddas: A Collection of Original Documents, Illustrative of the Theology Wisdom, and Usages of the Bardo-Druidic Systems of the Isle of Britain, which was published posthumously in two volumes, the first in 1862, the second in 1874.

Many of the “original documents” found within Barddas, however, were only original to Iolo himself. 

For example, there are six different versions of the Druids’ Prayer, also known as the Gorsedd Prayer, included in Barddas, and they’re all attributed to different sources. And yet, as best as anyone can tell, Iolo composed all of them.

And that includes this first iteration of the prayer, which he attributed to the Great Book of Margam:

God, impart Thy strength;
And in strength, power to suffer;
And to suffer for the truth;
And in the truth, all light;
And in light, all gwynvyd;
And in gwynvyd, love;
And in love, God;
And in God, all goodness.

In case you were curious, “Gwynvyd” refers to the highest state of being in Iolo’s spiritual system as outlined in Barddas. It’s sort of like nirvana, or heaven. Whereas Abred is akin to the material world and Annwn is akin to the Celtic Otherworld or fairy world, particularly the underworld/Land of the Dead iterations of the Otherworld. 

Related to Gwynvyd, this highest, enlightened state of being, is the concept of Awen, which can be translated literally from the Welsh as “muse” or “poetic gift,” but in Iolo’s teachings it can more accurately be defined as “divine inspiration” or “bardic spirit.”

Iolo chose to represent Awen with a symbol consisting of three rays. In modern renderings there are often three dots positioned at the tops of these rays.

And while many different interpretations of the symbol now prevail, it’s likely Iolo intended them to represent the “three foundations of Awen from God: to understand the truth; to love the truth; and to [maintain] the truth, so that nothing may prevail against it.”

Granted, Iolo also suggested a giant by the name of Einigan created the symbol after observing “three pillars of light, having in them all demonstrable sciences that ever were, or ever will be.” 

The Bardic Alphabet Is Born

According to Iolo, the giant then took three rods from a tree and carved that knowledge into them and in the process he effectively became the first person to understand letters. 

And that is the mythical origin of the Coelbren y Beirdd or “Bards’ lot,” which is a script Iolo created in the late eighteenth century. It’s often referred to as the Bardic Alphabet or a Druidic Alphabet. At a glance, the symbols look a lot like runes but Iolo would typically carve them into pieces of wood, just as the Early Medieval Ogham alphabet used to be carved into wood, in addition to stone.

And while most existing Ogham inscriptions can be found in Ireland, the biggest Ogham hotspot outside of Ireland is in Pembrokeshire, a county in the south-west of Wales.

But to clarify, Iolo’s alphabet didn’t have a basis in history or archaeology. And as early as 1893, scholars were calling him out on it.

As J. Romilly Allen, an archaeologist and historian of early British medieval iconography, noted at the time:

“I think the so-called Bardic Alphabet a gigantic fraud … I don’t believe you will find it repay you to look at these bogus alphabets and pseudo-Druidic antiquities as anything but the most bare faced impostures.”

If You Build a Stone Circle, the Druids Will Come

As for Iolo’s interest in stone circles and his incorporation of them into his bardic/druidic playbook, we have the antiquarian John Aubrey to thank (or blame) for that one, as he was the first to suggest, back in 1659, that the stone circles at Stonehenge and Avebury were constructed by ancient Celts and used for druidic ceremonies.

Then in 1723, the antiquarian Henry Rowlands argued that the cromlechs a.k.a. dolmens on the Welsh island of Anglesey had also been built by Celts and used for druidic rituals. Intrigued, Iolo visited Anglesey to observe these megalithic structures but would ultimately depart dissatisfied, on account of the “exceedingly pitiful monuments of the Island.”

Clearly, Iolo could do better. And he did!

Remember, Iolo was a stonemason by trade. So in 1792, he built his own stone circle at Primrose Hill in London and it was there he hosted the very first meeting of Gorsedd.

Iolo was actually following in the footsteps of an earlier neo-druidic entrepreneur, if you will, the Irish author and founder of The Ancient Druid Order, J. J. Toland, who had organized a meetup for modern druids at Primrose Hill back in 1717.

Now, a few points of clarification are in order:

The first being: the Celts didn’t build Stonehenge, or the cromlechs/dolmens on Anglesey, or the majority of other megalithic structures (including cairns and tumuli) that have come to be associated with the so-called Celtic world. Those are mostly Neolithic in origin, i.e. they were built in the New Stone Age, but as I explored in an earlier video, those structures would come to feature prominently in Celtic mythologies, Irish mythology in particular. 

As to whether druids used those structures for ceremonial purposes: we really don’t know one way or the other. 

Celtic Revivalism vs. Celtic Reconstructionism

In general, the ancient Celtic religion, i.e., the form of paganism practiced by the ancient Celts, remains a mystery to us.

Because apart from a few references in Classical texts and in the mythologies that were penned by Christian scribes, there just isn’t much to go on. And both of those aforementioned sources have their respective problems (re: cultural and religious biases).

Which gives you some insight into Iolo Morganwg’s motivations for doing what he did.

Iolo was a Celtic revivalist, focused on reviving the spirit of the ancient Celtic religion. His flavor of neo-paganism/neo-druidism eschewed historical accuracy in favor of creating a system that would bring people together and get them energized in pursuit of not only bettering themselves but building a better society—and in his case that meant a society that celebrated Welsh language and culture. 

This differs from the Celtic reconstructionist approach, which attempts to reconstruct the ancient Celtic religion exactly as it was thousands of years ago using those scant sources we have available.

Of course, there is overlap to be found between these two approaches. Because while Iolo may have taken a lot of liberties, he was still extremely knowledgeable on the subject of ancient Celtic history and incorporated much of that knowledge into his teachings.

What We Know for Certain(ish) About Ancient Celtic Paganism

The three-tiered classification system of bards, ovates, and druids is straight out of Strabo’s Geographica, first published in 7 BCE. And I quote: 

“Among all the Gallic peoples, generally speaking, there are three sets of men who are held in exceptional honour; the Bards, the Vates and the Druids.​ The Bards are singers and poets; the Vates, diviners and natural philosophers; while the Druids, in addition to natural philosophy, study also moral philosophy.”

Strabo mentioned nothing about color-coded robes, or about rituals taking place inside of stone circles. In reference to the Galatians, however, a different group of Celts, he did mention an assembly of three hundred wise men coming together to pass judgments, but this took place in a sacred grove.

The importance of sacred groves would be echoed in the first century CE by Pliny the Elder, who has the distinction of being the only person (as far as we know) to provide an account of an ancient druidic ceremony.

The ceremony, which took place in a grove in Gaul, involved a white-robed druid (hey, there’s your white robe!) climbing an oak tree and cutting mistletoe from its boughs with a golden sickle and then a couple of white bulls got sacrificed.

Also writing in the first century CE, Tacitus referenced Celtic groves on the aforementioned Welsh island of Anglesey that were “devoted to inhuman superstitions.”

Yeah, you can see a bit of that bias creeping in.

But speaking of Celtic Britain, Julius Caesar noted the following in the first century BCE:

“It is thought that the doctrine of the Druids was invented in Britain and was brought from there to Gaul; even today those who want to study the doctrine in greater detail usually go to Britain to learn there.”

Based on this testimony, druidism a.k.a. druidry may have been invented or at least codified by the Brythonic/Brittonic Celts.

And it’s possible the sixth-century Brittonic bard, Tailiesin, was a standard-bearer of this ancient tradition. Some scholars theorize that the Middle Welsh Book of Taliesin contains poems penned by the historical bard, including several that ruminate on the concept of Awen.

Putting the Brythonic/Brittonic Celts aside, it’s unlikely the pagan Wheel of the Year would have ever come into existence if not for the contributions of the Gaelic/Goidelic Celts, who settled primarily in Ireland as well as Scotland and the Isle of Man.

It is from Irish folklore and mythology—although technically Gaelic mythology might be the better term—that we learn about the four Celtic cross-quarter days of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh.

These were the four major festivals of the Gaels, which fell at the midway points between the equinoxes and solstices. Celebrated with feasts and fires, these holy days often correspond with famous battles, invasions, and other significant mythological events. 

For example, the Second Battle of Moytura, which sees the Tuatha Dé Danann face off against the Fomorians, begins on Samhain, as does Queen Medb’s invasion of Ulster, as detailed in the Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley). FYI: Those stories come from the Mythological Cycle and Ulster Cycle of Irish Mythology respectively.

And while the Celtic Britons of Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany seemed to have celebrated festivals similar to those of the Gaels, it’s unclear if members of the other ancient Celtic language groups—namely, the Boii, the Celtiberians, the Gallaeci, the Galatians, the Gauls, and the Lepontii—did the same.

The strongest piece of evidence we have is the Coligny calendar, constructed in Roman Gaul in the second century CE, which establishes that the first month of the Gaulish new year was called “Samonios,” with the root samo- meaning summer. This has led some scholars to draw a connection to Samhain, which marks the Gaelic new year, as one possible etymology of Samhain is “summer’s end.”

We also know from archaeological discoveries made across the Celtic world, as well as from Classical texts and Celtic mythologies, that the ancient Celts worshiped a variety of different gods and goddesses, several of which appear to have cognates that were shared across the different Celtic language groups. For example, it’s possible the Gaulish Lugus, the Irish Lugh, and the Welsh Lleu are all representations of the same deity.

Finally, we know from the aforementioned sources that the ancient Celts believed in the immortality of the soul, and may have even passed that concept on to the ancient Greeks. Irish mythology in particular gives us in-depth descriptions of the various Celtic Otherworlds people could travel to after death.

Final Thought: There Was Never a Single, Universal Ancient Celtic Religion

But to be sure, even with all of this ancient Celtic religious connective tissue, pagan practices and beliefs no doubt varied from place to place. 

And part of the problem here for anyone trying to reconstruct Celtic paganism exactly as it was in ancient times is that the ancient Celtic world stretched from what is now Ireland in the West to what is now Turkey in the East. 

Putting Iolo Morganwg’s forgeries aside, it could be said that the real Celtic Paganism hoax is the notion that there was ever a single, universal Celtic paganism being practiced across the ancient world.

Which is why many Celtic reconstructionists today opt for a narrow view, picking one Celtic group from a specific geographic region and going deep on their specific practices and beliefs.

This isn’t to suggest that one type of paganism is inherently superior to another. In my book, it all comes down to what you get out of it—and how it affects others.

So as long as your religion isn’t hurting anyone, and as long as you’re not trying to force your beliefs on people, it doesn’t matter if those beliefs were invented thousands of years ago by a dude in a white robe climbing a tree or if they were invented a couple hundred years ago by a dude at a desk slugging laudanum.

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Want to learn about the darker side of Irish and Celtic mythology? Check out…

Samhain in Your Pocket

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Irish Monsters in Your Pocket

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Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy

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More the listenin’ type?

I recommend the audiobook Celtic Mythology: Tales of Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes by Philip Freeman (narrated by Gerard Doyle). Use my link to get 3 free months of Audible Premium Plus and you can listen to the full 7.5-hour audiobook for free.