The Unusual and Fascinating Religious Customs and Beliefs of Pre-Christian Britain. Christianity took its time establishing itself in Britain. The Romans might have conquered the island just over a decade after Christ’s death, but until the sixth century AD, the new religion maintained only a tentative hold over certain sectors of British society. Then, in 597 AD, Pope Gregory the Great sent St Augustine on a mission to convert the pagan Saxons at the court of Aethelberht of Kent. Augustine triumphed- and Aethelberht set about Christianising Saxon Britain. Britain, however, had several millennia worth of accumulated pre Christian religious beliefs and practices behind it. Barbaric, surprising or curiously familiar, many of these beliefs survive today, as folk memories, archaeological relics – or within Christianity itself. Pre-Christian Britain Ancient British Religions Celtic Beliefs Druidic Practices Pagan Rituals Sacred Sites Folk Traditions Mythology and Folklore Celtic Mytho
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