Sacrificial Weapons

Welcome to Day 25 of my blog posts to do with the writing of Before Beltane.

Today’s post is a short one about ancient druid sacrificial weapons. I didn’t find a huge amount of archaeological evidence when I was writing the scene where Lorcan is in the Sacred Groves with the Druid Maran, but found just enough to inspire me to imagine what was used in addition to what I'd term a more regular sacrificial blade.

Lorcan is somewhat relieved to find that the wicked looking sacrificial knife that he sees poised and ready in a crack, on the flat surface of the natural elm table in the Sacred Groves, is used to slice the throat of a young goat rather than him. After some incantations he has never heard before, Maran uses the sacrificial blade to open up the insides of the animal. 

The Chief Druid, Irala, then proceeds to use a pair of special flat spoons to remove and sift the innards before presenting them for Lorcan to view. Lorcan has no idea of what Chief Druid Irala is speaking about as vital organs are dissected and pointed out to him, as Irala divines his future, but he is entirely impressed with the leaf shaped flat spoons used for the process.

Wikimedia Commons

The idea for the flat sacrificial spoons came from some research I did in 2021. I can’t remember my original source, but on renewing a search today I found the same items in a Wikipedia article. If the article is correct, eleven pairs of these flat decorative blades have been found. It's possible that the tiny hole in one spoon was used to 'drip' liquid (blood?) down onto the other blade and the pattern interpreted. 

A read of Before Beltane will decide if I describe my spoons well enough.

Happy Reading.

Slàinte!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid#/media/File:ThingDSCF6599.jpg