Stony Gaze: Investigating Celtic and Other Stone Heads

Folklore, April, 2002 by David Clarke

By John Billingsley. Freshfields, Chieveley, Berks: Capall Bann Publishing, 1998. 205 pp. 38 B/W illus. 10.95 [pounds sterling]. ISBN 1-8983-0771-7

It is more than a quarter of a century since Bradford Museum curator, Sidney Jackson, published a booklet listing more than sixty mysterious and crudely carved stone human heads he had recorded in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Since that time, hundreds, if not thousands, of similar carvings have been discovered not only in Yorkshire, but in the Peak District and other areas of the old Celtic kingdom of Brigantia. Jackson himself had recorded more than seven hundred examples before his sudden death in 1974, and a parallel survey initiated by the Manchester University Museum has noted almost one thousand carvings in the north-west which follow a "Celtic tradition" of some antiquity. Although few of these sculptures can be dated accurately, they became known in the popular literature as "Celtic heads" as a result of their similarity to other Celtic artefacts from Ireland and continental Europe described by Anne Ross in her study published in 1967.

However, as John Billingsley demonstrates in this fascinating book, a large number of heads claimed to be "Celtic" were probably carved in the last three centuries, particularly during the English Revolution when the symbol underwent a major revival in the popular consciousness and folk art. For the first time, the carved heads are discussed as examples of an ageless and evolving tradition, rather than as objects created as part of the rites associated with a pagan Celtic cult. The author shows how the importance of the head as a sacred symbol originated in archaic beliefs identifying the cranium as the seat of the soul and the channel for communication with the world of spirits, hence their use as a protection against evil in many contexts. Rather than being exclusively a "Celtic" idea, this category of belief can be identified across the globe in cultures widely separated by time and space. The use of the head as a multifaceted focus of belief and ritual can be traced in the archaeological record of Europe and the British Isles from the earliest period. It appears these beliefs became part of an evolving folk tradition rather than a religious cult, and were enthusiastically embraced by the "Celtic" tribes who used the head as a sacred symbol, as the cross was adopted by Christianity.

Belief about the evil-averting and luck-bringing power of the severed human head remained so strong and deep-seated that, long after the end of Celtic Britain, it survived as an enduring symbol in folklore and tradition almost within living memory. This book is the first accessible and the most complete investigation of the head symbol yet published. It places these enigmatic artefacts firmly in a context which extends from the earliest prehistoric evidence to the folk traditions of modern Britain.

David Clarke, National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, University of Sheffield, UK