Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
The Gundestrup Cauldron (200 BC – 300 AD)
National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen
“Celtic myth is scattered with cauldron magic, Kate. Cauldrons of plenty and prophecy, mostly. But the goddess Cerridwen’s cauldron is also, quite specifically, about poetry. Shorthand for inspiration of all kinds. For genius. The charismatic ability to conjure up shared dreams so bright and so strong that they move people to action. No amount of hard work or study or card-counting can buy you that. Nothing can buy it. It’s a flash of fire from the gods that you are given, or you are not.”
—Haunt Me Still
In Haunt Me Still, the cauldron is a real object, as well. Lady Nairn’s cauldron is Iron-Age Celtic, dug up out of a Highlands bog in the eighteenth century. It was inspired by the Gundestrup Cauldron, an Iron-Age silver vessel found in a bog in Denmark, and decorated inside and out with scenes of myth and ritual.
Interior Panel A shows a horned man, usually thought to be the Celtic god Cernunnos:
Interior Panel E shows a large man immersing a smaller person head-first into a cauldron; it’s often said to be a scene of human sacrifice — though in Celtic mythology, immersion in a cauldron is part of a cycle of death and rebirth: