Individual Prowess

I just finished reading this excellent article about Celtic Warfare. In Ceanag's last post, she mentioned that Celtic "military" organization was almost non-existent, and I wanted to explore that a little bit.

It is speculated that one of the reasons that the Celts, though they came from a society in which small-scale warfare was commonplace and their noble class was a warrior-class, had trouble organizing for large-scale success is because they valued individual prowess and skill over military prowess and skill.

Often, when raiding a neighboring clanne or tribe, instead of openly attacking the enemy on the large scale, they would instead engage in a sort of ritualistic combat, sending out only the best fighters to fight for the honor of their clanne or tribe. Often, these contests of champions ended the skirmish with the winner taking all. Other times, tensions would boil over and a full scale skirmish between the disagreeing clannes would ensue.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of information available about these ritualistic combats, but you can be sure I'll keep looking!