I'm curious about this "Celtic speaking people did not use zodiac"...have anymore information to share other than your word?
Firstly, I assume you’re talking about this post I made back in January in response to a huge amount of “The True Celtic Zodiac!” posts being spread around by a bunch of celtaboos with access to weheartit. The only time you will find media talking about “Celtic Zodiacs” being real are in wicca/new age books and websites. No scholarly works ever talk about them and the idea would be laughed at in the academic world. Like how Graves and Peter Berresford Ellis are completely mocked by Celticists, more on that later.
Secondly I don’t know if this was your intent, but the way you wrote your question came off as very insulting. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt of and just assume that it was poor phrasing on your part and that you were just asking for more information. If not, all I have to say is you do not want to go down that road with me. Just don’t.
Now that we got that out of the way, lets carry on. Asking for historical sources is kind of moot, there can’t be sources for something that didn’t exist. There is nothing existing like that in any historical source or archaeological evidence what so ever. Something like a zodiac might have maybe kinda existed and we just lost all evidence. And if so, I highly doubt it would have been based off of high medieval ideas, used animals only from North America, and stereotypes of Native American’s views on animals.
There are a couple of things that did have some sort of astrological/religious stuff, but “Celtic Zodiacs” don’t even reference them. The Coligny Calendar had one date for a holiday and had a couple of things about what days are best for divination. A little bit like those modern fortune calenders you see in an office. “Sept. 20th, 52 bce. Today is your lucky day, go out and shine!” “Yasssssss!”-Vercingetorix (probably).
There was a form of Early Irish astrology that was recorded (by recorded I mean have a couple of pages) in the Early Christian era by monks (same people who invented Ogham btw), it could be older but probably not. Also, no one has successfully translated it.
Remember that dig at Ol’ Ellis up there? He tried and failed spectacularly. He used ideas and words form Vedic/Sanskrit cultures to try to make recreate it. He saw the fact of Celtic languages evolving from Proto-Indo-European roots and took it to the eleventh degree of crazy. To sum up his thesis would be “Look guys! These two words look similar even though they have completely different meanings and connotations. But they both have English vowels!” He used bad translations of both Vedic/Sandscrit and Irish words and cultural ideas.
The main problem with these zodiacs is that they come from the wrong ideas in the first place. They assume a Pan-Celtic ideology, which is completely false There was no one Celtic culture. The only thing “Celtic” means is a title ascribed to a bunch of cultures that spoke a common rooted language in Iron Age Europe. These cultures might have had similar ideas, but were not a homogeneous mass society. Thus why we or at least I use “Celtic speaking peoples”.
So “Celtic Zodiacs” are already wrong, not counting the fact they never existed in the first place. Like I pointed out above about the use of some pretty shitty Native American stereotypes of animal lore in some if not most of them. Specifically ones circulating Tumblr at the time. There are some “historical” sources for your question. Historical in air quotes because this is the best you’re going to get for sources on a thing that never existed. To be honest, the Loch Ness Monster has more sources then the “Celtic Zodiacs” existing and the photographers even admitted it was a bad joke.
Lets not going to stop there, lets see who’s behind this mask of idiocy. Wait, it was nice Old Man Jenkins, the gardener Robert Graves the entire time! And he would have gotten away with it if not for those pesky historians and their dog too! Ok, so it wasn’t really Graves’s own idea. The ideas of “Celtic Zodiacs” do come from his writings, but were works of his rabid fans using his “Magikal Keltic Tree Alphabet/Calendar” ogham bullshit and other ideas. I’ve also written a take down on that here. In closing These zodiacs are fabrications of a fantasy Celtic ideal that never existed historically and never will exist.
Again using basic sources because this shit should be common knowledge when studying the Celtic cultures or modern paganism by now. The only exemption being that you are new to Celtic history and or religion. In which case, always ask questions.
Those are two very basic sources. You can probably find better ones with a Google search.
origamiaround
titsay
yousharknotpass
stormborns
kaledo-art
snowghoul
