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Though the Celts had no written language their stories and legends have been passed down through time - first by the Druids and Druidesses of their day and later written about by historians. The Celts were spread over a wide area of what is now Europe; Wales, Ireland, Britain and even down into Spain and Turkey. Among the Celts, women were valued not only for their feminine intuition, spiritual wisdom, and beauty but also for their bravery . They often wielded as much power as there male counterparts as priestesses, judges, doctors, rulers and even warriors. An unknown Roman soldier once wrote of Celtic women, " She is as brave as she is beautiful." As a people, the Celts valued both cleanliness and fitness and the women were not without their vanity. They loved their baubles. Celtic burial sites have yielded up oak-lined chests filled with mirrors and jewelry - armlets, anklets, hairpins, waist chains and necklaces - gold, bronze or enameled metal with beads of glass, quartz and coral.

Celtic woman could be considered to be one of the earliest feminist role models. They were able to own and inherit property and were allowed to choose their marriage partners. Few were made to marry against their will, though families did influence the choice of a mate - many times for practical or material reasons. Unlike the marriage of the Romans, where the wife was viewed as chattel, the marriage of a Celtic couple was truly a partnership, an agreement to be together. Both of the partners brought a "dowry" of sorts to the marriage and either could seek a divorce and leave the marriage with the property they entered it with. Children were raised by both parents and both males and females were trained to fight with swords and other weapons at an early age. Roman historian Marcus Borealis left us a glimpse of the Celtic woman when he wrote "The women of the Celts are bigger and stronger than our Roman women. The flaxen-haired maidens of the north are trained in sports and war..."

Celtic women were more sexually liberated that the women of other cultures of the time. Polygamy, though not widely practiced, was not unheard of, with a woman sometimes having more than one husband or sharing her husband with other women. This led to the Romans and Greeks viewing them as uncivilized and seeing their women as flamboyant and uninhibited. The Celts, of course, viewed their behavior quite differently. When the Roman Empress Julia Augusta accused a Celtic princess of promiscuity, the outspoken

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