“The Story of Deidre” is an Irish-Celtic story that included many Celtic traditions. The Celts were very religious and superstitious, if you will, and had many odd traditions to follow in everyday life. “The Story of Deidre” was probably believed to be true and offered as a lesson to teach Celtic ways, and it was probably used wisely and succeeded in teaching the Celtic ways. The Celts believed in following traditions and every way of everyday life. “The Story of Deidre” included many Celtic traditions, including probably the two most important customs, the superstitions among the geis and freeing one's soul when they die.
“The Story of Deidre” begins at the King's court, when he sends Deidre off to be raised without any communication with society, only to be his sex slave one day when she grows up to be an adult. The King is sick for picturing a child as his sex slave later, but wants to keep her and reserve her for himself. After growing up and realizing what love is, Deidre believes she will fall in love with a man with hair like a raven, cheeks likes blood and a body like snow. Deidre meets Noisiu one day, and they do not really talk at first. Eventually, the two talk and fall in love. The King gets wind of the situation and uses Celtic tradition amongst Noisiu and other men. The King puts a geis one man to get home as quick as possible and puts a second geis on his brothers to take as much time to get back to his Courthouse, to stop and eat, etc. These orders are given in the form of geises, which a Celt hardly ever broke. If a Celt was to break a geis, they were said to have bad luck occur, at some extent, death was expected. On their trip home so Noisiu can be with Deidre, his geis conflicts with his two brothers' geis, and they eventually all die. This leaves Deidre to be had by the King as his sex slave forever.
Celtic tradition was very held as very strong and nobody was to believe anything other than they were told. The Celtic people had many traditions that we would think as odd, to be understated, today. One of the many crazy traditions would be human sacrifice. Many tribes did this, and human sacrifice is taken as crazy today, because we know it is wrong and there is many other ways of tradition now. But, the Celts thought that sacrificing a human for many things, such as good crops for the year, was necessary. I guess the most “un-cruel”, if that is possible, thing that the Celts did in human sacrifice was cutting the human head off, to free the sacrifice's soul. This was held as a very strong tradition, to free the soul, so the soul would not be trapped on earth forever.
As Deidre approached what the King had in store for her, she began thinking of the pain and misery she was going to suffer for the rest of her life. The thought of the agonizing pain and suffering she was to endure the rest of her life depressed her and on the way to the King's court, she killed herself. She did not just hang herself or do anything that any other tribal person may have done, but she jumped off of a cliff. Not only did she jump off of the cliff, but she jumped off head first, landing on the rocks below, killing herself, freeing her soul. Many people today would think that this is the worst possible way to die, but to Deidre, it was the best; quick to die and freeing her soul. She did not want to stay on the earth any longer without her lover, and knew she would be punished everyday for loving him. “The Story of Deidre” was also a sad and twisted love story, along with a lesson of many Celtic traditions.
Tradition by definition is a long established action or pattern of behavior in a community or group of people, often one that has been handed down from generation to generation. Today, our society has many traditions, but our traditions are not as strong as many of the older tribes and societies. We do not have traditions for ways of dying, and many religions do not believe that we need to free our souls to get into Heaven, or the place of after life. Traditions today consist of barbequing on the Fourth of July, or celebrating Christmas with family, celebrating birthdays, etc. We hold nothing really strong and we are not as dedicated as the Celts seem to have been. Not only with freeing their souls at the time of death, but also with not wanting to break a promise, or a geis.
