The Celts and the Appalachians
A Cultural Guide to the Mountain South
The mountains of Appalachia and the mountains of Great Britain were once joined together. The Appalachian chain, which extends from Alabama to eastern Canada, was originally connected to the mountains of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The mountains' family connection to Britain reinforced what I had felt about the migration patterns of the early settlers. People forced to leave a land they loved come to America. Hating the crowded, flat eastern seaboard, they get in covered wagons, and keep going west until they reach the mountains. They follow the valleys south-southwest down through Pennsylvania, and finally find a place where the ridges rise, where it looks right, and it feels right. Like home. Like the place they left. And they were right back in the same mountains they had left behind in Britain. If you study the cultural connections between Celtic Britain and the Appalachian culture, as I have, you will find many connections between the two - quilt patterns, folk tales, fiddle tunes - as well as the explanation for many mountain folk traditions whose roots lie in mountains on the other side of the Atlantic.
Lecture given at:
- Society of North Carolina Archivists, Raleigh, NC
- Morris County Library, Morristown, NJ
- Herbert Wescott Memorial Library, McArthur, OH
- Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, TN
- Keene School, Keene, NH