Celts and Comets
Celts and Comets
5,000 years ago, Celtic people of Ireland, Great Britain, and northern Europe were farmers and hunters, worshiping the Earth as a divine entity. All Neolithic gods of the time lived in or upon the Earth. Sometime after 2,500 BCE Neolithic peoples began to change their worship practices: they seem to have shifted from only Earth worship to sky spirituality. These Neolithic people began building stone circles, circular mounds, and henges of wood and stone modeled on motions of the Moon and planets and aligned with solstices and equinoxes. These structures celebrate the sky, not the Earth. People do not change their spiritual beliefs and sacred places without reasons.
Between 2,500 and 2,200 BCE there was a period of intense comet activity in the inner Solar System and the Comet Enke came very close to Earth and had a near collision. This event would have been seen as unworldly. Such an event would seem cataclysmic in the night sky, especially if any of the debris hit Earth. Without an understanding of comets, any change in the sky that close might be interpreted as powerful new gods overhead and people would look to the sky in wonder and fear. About this time Celtic beliefs shifted exclusively to the sky and this change in beliefs is reflected in Celtic mythology.