• Liminality in Celtic Symbols and Culture

  Filed under Celtic myth, Faeries, Otherworlds
  Jan 16

  Liminal refers to things, events or situations that are either emerging or on the boundary or borderline. Many aspects of Celtic myth, symbols and culture have liminal characteristics. A good example are the many tales of faeries and Otherworlds. These are the very essence of liminal worlds, where people can be taken to worlds where time passes at different speeds.

  There are many stories of people entering a faery ring and losing track of many hours or days. A more extreme example is the tale of Oisin, who fell in love with Niav, a faery woman and followed her to TIr Na Nog, the Otherworld, also called the land of eternal youth. When he finally became homesick and arrived back in his birthplace, he found everyone he had known long dead.

  To look at other aspects of this issue, we can see that symbols like Celtic knots and crosses involve the themes of boundaries and connectedness. The interconnected knots can be seen as a symbol for time or eternity. While this may not be a very scientific statement, I would say that a great deal of Celtic art, music and folklore has a very liminal kind of atmosphere -a sense of being on the borders between worlds.

  For more about liminality, see:

  Liminal Worlds

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  Tagged as: Liminal, liminality
  
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