by Robin Herne
Sacrifice is for me now (as no doubt it was for people in the distant past) the act of making something sacred by giving it as a gift to someone else, be that a deity, land-spirit, parent, sibling, friend, pet dog etc.)
The gift can be of time, possessions, arts and crafts, food, drink, labour, money or pretty much anything else.
The gift must be ones own to give ~ an “offering” of stolen goods is unacceptable. Likewise giving away another’s possessions, time etc. The legend of the young Saint Brigit giving away her father’s sword to feed the poor strikes as an example of the clash of two cultures ~ the Church praised her charity, whilst her father (and people such as myself now) was struck by the arrogance of it.
Perhaps the biggest change in perceptions of sacrifice from ancient to modern times is that of blood offerings. The tarbh-feis and other rituals involve the killing of animals, who were then eaten. The gift being the distribution of food to the many attending the ritual. People back then saw (as do many now) farm animals as possessions, whilst quite a lot of modern Druids perceive animals as free creatures whose lives cannot be owned or given away by another.
Romans sources describe Druids officiating at human sacrifices, with the implication that the humans in question were unwilling. We do not currently know how widespread human sacrifice was, nor the extent to which the people were either willing or forced into such a fate.
It may be that chieftains back then saw prisoners of war as possession who could be given away to the gods. It may be that it was a great honour and that some people willingly went to join their ancestors. It may even be that the Romans witnessed the executions of criminals and misunderstood the role of the Druids at such events (that vicars used to accompany prisoners to the hangman’s noose obviously did not make such events “Christian blood sacrifice”).
The Roman descriptions of sacrifices of enemy weaponry (backed up by archaeological evidence of offerings) suggests that, once offered, the goods were removed from the public sphere. To take an item left at a sacred place would, back then, constitute a heinous act. Perhaps not so different from robbing someone’s house.
I know quite a few modern Druids who have offered items of jewellery to pools and rivers, where it is unlikely that anyone else will attempt to retrieve them. I’ve yet to come across offerings of larger items, or decisions to place sacrificial items in a place where a stranger might wander past and take them away.
Offerings of time, labour, poetry, etc, leave less tangible remains for historians to comment on, but are no less valuable to the person receiving them. Nor is the act of giving any less valuable to the sacrificer.
We live in a very frenetic, materialist age where the act of simple giving can be as much benefit to the giver as to the person on the receiving end ~ not least because it requires us to stop, pause and genuinely think about what someone else wants. For a few minutes we stop thinking about ourselves.
What makes the gift valuable is arguable ~ but I’d suggest that material worth is the least of it. The effort, love and concern going into it is of greatest importance. What the Greeks call meraki ~ a gift made with passion, love and spirit. A lovingly made meal is of greater worth than a flashy sword.