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Did you know that the basic symbolism of the cross is that of the worldaxis, or the link between Heaven and Earth? Or that the main feature of the ornamented Celtic Cross, the wheel cross, is not derived from the crucifixion, but from a more ancient symbolthe Chi-Rho monogram, which is the name of Christ in the Greek alphabet? In Symbolism of the Celtic Cross, Derek Bryce traces the pagan-Christian link of the essential symbolism of the axismundi from standing stones and market crosses (at crossroads and not always "crosses" in form) to the inscribed slabs and freestanding crosses of the Celtic-Christian era. He includes rare illustrations of ornamental Celtic Crosses from such places as Brittany, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Cumbria, Ireland, and Cornwall. Bryce explores esoteric aspects of the symbolism, alchemy, and the wisdom of Hermes.… (more)
User reviews
This book is small but packed full of information and lovely, clear illustrations; I had to keep reminding myself I wasn't reading a quaintly readable Victorian treatise rather than a modern New Age book. In fact, he repeatedly assures the reader that the wild theorizing about the meaning of symbols will be kept to a minimum; unfortunately, the result is that the occasional (reasonable) theories that do get mentioned end up entirely unsupported. The only other difficulty I had with this book was wishing that the figures would be referenced by number in the text, as sometimes I found myself unsure as to whether a cross being described had an illustration or not. But the book's worth it just for the illustrations themselves, with a variety of examples of early Christian and pagan symbols, as well as plaitwork, knotwork, key, chain, and spiral patterns, and many figures of the historic monumental crosses themselves.