In Braveheart the film, were William Wallace and his men as rest of Scotland the Celts or Celtic people?

Posted by admin on July 31st, 2009 and filed under william wallace braveheart |

In Braveheart the film, were William Wallace and his men as rest of Scotland the Celts or Celtic people?
I mean since they marked themselves with Blue paints or whatver they were does that mean they were the native Scottish Celts, or were they more of Germanis as English people were, i assumed they were Celts considering the Passion they the Scottish had and how much they were against the English being in their land, i dont belive they were the same people as English, what ya all think

The Scottish, at that point in history, were a combination of 4 major groups: Indigenous tribes (often called Picts), the Irish Celts of Dal Riada, Germanic raiders/settlers (ie, "vikings"), and some Norman (French).

As language and culture define a Celt, yes, Wallace and his men were Scottish Celts. In fact, one of the primary themes of the stories told about him (true or not) was that he felt many of the Scottish nobles were acting too much like the English (who had become more Germanic than Celtic by that time - in part due to the influence from the old Roman invasion that downplayed some of the Celtic elements in English culture).

The body paint is "commonly known" to be called woad - but there’s actually a reasonable amount of study that shows that woad, quite simply, wouldn’t be able to make the correct color as recorded in the Roman chronicles. There’s a possibility that it was copper, but that’s still speculation.

12 Responses

  1. diamond_doll Says:

    They werent English, your right about that.
    References :

  2. spanky Says:

    study the history of the true william wallace and you will find that he was a Celtic Scotsman.
    References :

  3. Nora Explora Says:

    Yes they were Celts for the most part.
    References :

  4. tammidee10 Says:

    Same as the Irish Celtic.
    Tammi Dee
    References :

  5. A_Geologist Says:

    Being Scottish myself I can honestly say we were Celts; just like the Irish and the Welsh. Historically though we are a mix of Picts, Vikings and Saxons.
    References :

  6. injesu Says:

    they were celts and all Catholics. Protestantism did not exist then.
    References :

  7. Nathan R Says:

    Celtics, although the nobility of Scotland and England probably intermarried acourding to my understanding.

    God Bless
    References :

  8. chris j Says:

    they were scottsmen that by that time were mostly christian. but
    steeped in the culture of their past.

    the blue paint (Woad) was traditionaly worn by celtic warriors and was a known painkiller and aphrodisiac. the tradition survived the christianisation of scotland.

    but no william wallace was not a Celt in that he was not of the religion assiciated with the druids. he was a Christian man and
    patriotic scottsman who wanted his country back from the english (especially after they murdered his wife.)
    References :

  9. altruist Says:

    Yes I believe they were indeed Celts.
    References :

  10. peteophile Says:

    i think that both wallace and the "original" braveheart -robert the bruce- were both actually descended from french invaders but the men they led were staunch catholic christians who fell to their knees and preyed for gods mercy even though they had a celtic set of customs-.I have never heard of anyone but ancient britons painting themselves with wode- that was something that was probably too cold to do in scotland!The language of the scots and customs which wallace and the other invading noblemen adopted including the clan system can be traced back to pre-christian scotland and were significantly different from the imported saxon customs of england.
    In fact all the gaelic languages, scots and irish gaelic, welsh, pictish manx and cornish all have the term saxon "sassenach" as a term of abuse
    References :
    i

  11. Rann Says: