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Lovers of all things Celtic might have been a little surprised had they entered Iona Abbey last Wednesday evening. They would have immediately noticed a long red cloth draped from the altar to a bed placed in front of it. They would have seen grapes, pomegranates and quinces all around the church, and might have heard a girl announcing that her beloved had thighs of alabaster while he proclaimed that she had a navel like a rounded goblet.

... not exactly what you would expect in such an ancient Celtic site, especially if your understanding of 'Celtic' is all tied up with doves, rainbows, Irish harp music and ornate knot work.

Such misty-eyed romantics might be equally dismayed should they visit an exhibition which has just opened at the British Museum.

It's called Celtic Art and Identity, and corrects the popular assumption that the Celts were ancient peoples found only on the outskirts of the British Isles.

The Celts are not native to these islands. They originated over 5000 years ago in north Germany as a tribe with a distinct cultural and artistic expression. Like other tribes they were uprooted from their homeland and wandered all over Europe. Galicia in Spain hosted some of these wanderers as did Galatia in what we now call Turkey. And some made it to the British Isles

They were not believers when they arrived on our shores, but when they adopted the Christian faith, they celebrated it in art forms seen in the carvings on high standing crosses and the intricate illuminated pages of the Book of Kells, now housed in Dublin's Trinity College.

Being geographically remote from Rome, they developed a faith which was more world affirming than world denying. Daily work, the beauty and wildness of nature, domestic activities were all – in their eyes – the stuff of blessing and fit subjects for prayer. Central to them was the affirmation in St. John's gospel that the word had become flesh... and therefore the stuff of the world was blessed by God.

...which is why last Wednesday night in Iona Abbey, visitors and residents were invited to participate in a celebration of an erotic poem in the Hebrew Scriptures called the Song of Songs – a text which ancient Celtic monks had hand inscribed so that it could be read to others.

And beside the bed in front of the altar, people lit candles perhaps for the first time thanking God that love, passion, intimacy, and tender affection are gifts to be cherished.

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