26.
The Gods of Gaul and the Continental Celts.
The Gods of Gaul and the Continental Celts.
Gaul (roughly present day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most
of Switzerland, and parts of Northern Italy, Netherlands, and Germany) had the
bad luck to be invaded and conquered by the Roman Empire. Bad luck for them, for us, it means we have
(thanks to the Interpretatio Romana) knowledge of some of the Celtic gods which
were worshipped by the Celtic tribes.
And there were many Gods. The passage in which Cæsar sums up
the Gaulish pantheon runs: "They worship chiefly the god Mercury; of him
there are many symbols, and they regard him as the inventor of all the arts, as
the guide of travellers, and as possessing great influence over bargains and
commerce. After him they worship Apollo and Mars, Jupiter and Minerva. About
these they hold much the same beliefs as other nations. Apollo heals diseases,
Minerva teaches the elements of industry and the arts, Jupiter rules over the
heavens, Mars directs war. . . . All the Gauls assert that they are descended
from Dispater, their progenitor."
The Roman gods, by whose names Cæsar calls the Celtic
divinities, probably only approximately corresponded to them in functions. The
identification was seldom complete, and often extended only to one particular
function or attribute. But, as in Gaul, it was often part of a state policy, and
there the fusion of cults was intended to break the power of the Druids. The
Gauls seem to have adopted Roman civilisation easily, and to have acquiesced in
the process of assimilation of their divinities to those of their conquerors.
Hence we have thousands of inscriptions in which a god is called by the name of
the Roman deity to whom he was assimilated and by his own Celtic name--Jupiter
Taranis, Apollo Grannus, etc. Or sometimes to the name of the Roman god is
added a descriptive Celtic epithet or a word derived from a Celtic place-name.
There were probably in Gaul many local gods, tribal or
otherwise, of roads and commerce, of the arts, of healing, etc., who, bearing
different names, might easily be identified with each other or with Roman gods.
Cæsar's Mercury, Mars, Minerva, etc., probably include many local Minervas,
Mars, and Mercuries. There may, however, have been a few great gods common to
all Gaul, universally worshipped, besides the numerous local gods, some of whom
may have been adopted from the aborigines. It is estimated that 270 gods are
mentioned once on inscriptions, 24 twice, 11 thrice, 10 four times, 3 five
times, 2 seven times, 4 fifteen times, 1 nineteen times (Grannos), and 1
thirty-nine times (Belenos).
The god or gods identified with Mercury were very popular in
Gaul, as Cæsar's words and the witness of place-names derived from the Roman
name of the god show. These had probably supplanted earlier names derived from
those of the corresponding native gods. Many temples of the god existed,
especially in the region of the Allobrogi, and bronze statuettes of him have
been found in abundance. Pliny also describes a colossal statue designed for
the Arverni who had a great temple of the god on the Puy de Dôme. Mercury was
not necessarily the chief god, and at times, e.g. in war, the native war-gods
would be prominent. The native names of the gods assimilated to Mercury are
many in number; in some cases they are epithets, derived from the names of
places where a local "Mercury" was worshipped, in others they are
derived from some function of the gods. One of these titles is Artaios, perhaps
cognate with Irish art, "god," or connected with artos,
"bear." However, its cognate in Welsh is âr, "ploughed
land," as if one of the god's functions connected him with
agriculture. This is supported by
another inscription to Mercurius Cultor at Wurtemberg. Local gods of
agriculture must thus have been assimilated to Mercury. A god Moccus,
"swine," was also identified with Mercury, and the swine was a frequent
representative of the corn-spirit or of vegetation divinities in Europe. The
flesh of the animal was often mixed with the seed corn or buried in the fields
to promote fertility. The swine had been a sacred animal among the Celts, but
had apparently become an anthropomorphic god of fertility, Moccus, assimilated
to Mercury, perhaps because the Greek Hermes caused fertility in flocks and
herds. Such a god was one of a class whose importance was great among the Celts
as an agricultural people.
Commerce, much developed among the settled Gauls, gave rise
to a god or gods who guarded roads over which merchants travelled, and
boundaries where their transactions took place. Hence we have an inscription
from Yorkshire, "To the god who invented roads and paths," while
another local god of roads, equated with Mercury, was Cimiacinus.
Another god, Ogmios, a native god of speech, who draws men
by chains fastened to the tip of his tongue, is identified in Lucian with
Heracles, and is identical with the Goidelic Ogma. Eloquence and speech are important matters
among primitive peoples, and this god has more likeness to Mercury as a
culture-god than to Heracles, Greek writers speaking of eloquence as binding
men with the chains of Hermes.
Several local gods, of agriculture, commerce, and culture,
were thus identified with Mercury, and the Celtic Mercury was sometimes
worshipped on hilltops, one of the epithets of the god, Dumias, being connected
with the Celtic word for hill or mound. Irish gods were also associated with mounds.
Many local gods were identified with Apollo both in his capacity of god of healing and also that of god of light. The two functions are not incompatible, and this is suggested by the name Grannos, god of thermal springs both in Britain and on the Continent. The name is connected with a root which gives words meaning "burning," "shining," etc., and from which comes also Irish grian, "sun." The god is still remembered in a chant sung round bonfires in Auvergne. A sheaf of corn is set on fire, and called "Granno mio," while the people sing, "Granno, my friend; Granno, my father; Granno, my mother." Another god of thermal springs was Borvo, Bormo, or Bormanus, whose name is derived from borvo, whence Welsh berw, "boiling," and is evidently connected with the bubbling of the springs. Votive tablets inscribed Grannos or Borvo show that the offerers desired healing for themselves or others.
The name Belenos found over a wide area, but mainly in
Aquileia, comes from belo-s, bright, and probably means "the shining
one." It is thus the name of a Celtic sun-god, equated with Apollo in that
character. If he is the Belinus referred to by Geoffrey of Monmouth, his cult
must have extended into Britain from the Continent, and he is often mentioned
by classical writers, while much later Ausonius speaks of his priest in Gaul.
Many place and personal names point to the popularity of his cult, and
inscriptions show that he, too, was a god of health and of healing-springs. The
plant Belinuntia was called after him and venerated for its healing
powers. The sun-god's functions of light
and fertility easily passed over into those of health-giving, as our study of
Celtic festivals show.
A god with the name Maponos, connected with words denoting
" youthfulness," is found in England and Gaul, equated with Apollo,
who himself is called Bonus Puer in a Dacian inscription. Another god Mogons or
Mogounos, whose name is derived from Mayo, "to increase," and
suggests the idea of youthful strength, may be a form of the sun-god, though
some evidence points to his having been a sky-god.
The Celtic Apollo is referred to by classical writers.
Diodorus speaks of his circular temple in an island of the Hyperboreans,
adorned with votive offerings. The kings of the city where the temple stood,
and its overseers, were called "Boreads," and every nineteenth year
the god appeared dancing in the sky at the spring equinox. The identifications of the temple with
Stonehenge and of the Boreads with the Bards are quite hypothetical. Apollonius
says that the Celts regarded the waters of Eridanus as due to the tears of
Apollo--probably a native myth attributing the creation of springs and rivers
to the tears of a god, equated by the Greeks with Apollo. The Celtic sun-god was
a god of healing springs.
Some sixty names or titles of Celtic war-gods are known,
generally equated with Mars. These were
probably local tribal divinities regarded as leading their worshippers to
battle. Some of the names show that these gods were thought of as mighty
warriors, e.g. Caturix, " battle-king," Belatu-Cadros--a common name
in Britain--perhaps meaning "comely in slaughter," and Albiorix, "world-king." Another name, Rigisamus, from rix and samus,
"like to," gives the idea of "king-like."
Toutatis, Totatis, and Tutatis are found in inscriptions
from Seckau, York, and Old Carlisle, and may be identified with Lucan's
Teutates, who with Taranis and Esus mentioned by him, is regarded as one of
three pan-Celtic gods. Had this been the
case we should have expected to find many more inscriptions to them. The
scholiast on Lucan identifies Teutates now with Mars, now with Mercury. His
name is connected with teuta, "tribe," and he is thus a tribal
war-god, regarded as the embodiment of the tribe in its warlike capacity.
Neton, a war-god of the Accetani, has a name connected with
Irish nia, "warrior," and may be equated with the Irish war-god Net.
Another god, Camulos, known from British and continental inscriptions, and
figured on British coins with warlike emblems, has perhaps some connection with
Cumal, father of Fionn, though it is uncertain whether Cumal was an Irish
divinity.
Another god equated with Mars is the Gaulish Braciaca, god
of malt. According to classical writers, the Celts were a drunken race, and
besides importing quantities of wine, they had their own native drinks, e.g. κοῦρμι,
the Irish cuirm, and braccat, both made from malt (braich). These words, with the Gaulish brace,
"spelt," are connected with
the name of this god, who was a divine personification of the substance from
which the drink was made which produced, according to primitive ideas, the
divine frenzy of intoxication. It is not clear why Mars should have been
equated with this god.
Cæsar says that the Celtic Jupiter governed heaven. A god
who carries a wheel, probably a sun-god, and another, a god of thunder, called
Taranis, seem to have been equated with Jupiter. The sun-god with the wheel was
not equated with Apollo, who seems to have represented Celtic sun-gods only in
so far as they were also gods of healing. In some cases the god with the wheel
carries also a thunderbolt, and on some altars, dedicated to Jupiter, both a
wheel and a thunderbolt are figured. Many races have symbolised the sun as a
circle or wheel, and an old Roman god, Summanus, probably a sun-god, later
assimilated to Jupiter, had as his emblem a wheel. The Celts had the same
symbolism, and used the wheel symbol as an amulet, while at the midsummer
festivals blazing wheels, symbolising the sun, were rolled down a slope.
Possibly the god carries a thunderbolt because the Celts, like other races,
believed that lightning was a spark from the sun.
Three divinities have claims to be the god whom Cæsar calls
Dispater--a god with a hammer, a crouching god called Cernunnos, and a god
called Esus or Silvanus. Possibly the native Dispater was differently envisaged
in different districts, so that these would be local forms of one god.
The god Taranis mentioned by Lucan is probably the Taranoos
and Taranucnos of inscriptions, sometimes equated with Jupiter. These names are
connected with Celtic words for "thunder"; hence Taranis is a
thunder-god. The scholiasts on Lucan identify him now with Jupiter, now with
Dispater. This latter identification is supported by many who regard the god
with the hammer as at once Taranis and Dispater, though it cannot be proved
that the god with the hammer is Taranis. On one inscription the hammer-god is
called Sucellos; hence we may regard Taranis as a distinct deity, a
thunder-god, equated with Jupiter, and possibly represented by the Taran of the
Welsh tale of Kulhwych.
The cult of axe or hammer may have been widespread, and to
the Celts, as to many other peoples, it was a divine symbol. Thus it does not
necessarily denote a thunderbolt, but rather power and might, and possibly, as
the tool which shaped things, creative might. The Celts made ex voto hammers of
lead, or used axe-heads as amulets, or figured them on altars and coins, and
they also placed the hammer in the hand of a god.
The god with the hammer is a gracious bearded figure, clad
in Gaulish dress, and he carries also a cup. His plastic type is derived from
that of the Alexandrian Serapis, ruler of the underworld, and that of
Hades-Pluto. His emblems, especially
that of the hammer, are also those of the Pluto of the Etruscans, with whom the
Celts had been in contact. He is thus a
Celtic Dispater, an underworld god, possibly at one time an Earth-god and certainly
a god of fertility, and ancestor of the Celtic folk. In some cases, like
Serapis, he carries a modius on his head, and this, like the cup, is an emblem
of chthonian gods, and a symbol of the fertility of the soil. The god being
benevolent, his hammer, like the tool with which man forms so many things,
could only be a symbol of creative force.
As an ancestor of the Celts, the god is naturally represented in Celtic
dress. In one bas-relief he is called Sucellos, and has a consort,
Nantosvelta. Various meanings have been
assigned to "Sucellos," but it probably denotes the god's power of
striking with the hammer. But though
this Celtic Dispater was a god of the dead who lived on in the underworld, he
was not necessarily a destructive god. The underworld god was the god from whom
or from whose kingdom men came forth, and he was also a god of fertility.
A bearded god, probably squatting, with horns from each of
which hangs a torque, is represented on an altar found at Paris. He is called
Cernunnos, perhaps "the horned," from cerna, "horn," and a
whole group of nameless gods, with similar or additional attributes, have
affinities with him.
A bronze statuette
from Autun represents a similar figure, probably horned, who presents a torque
to two ram's headed serpents. Fixed above his ears are two small heads. On a monument from Vandœuvres is a squatting
horned god, pressing a sack. Two genii stand beside him on a serpent, while one
of them holds a torque.
Another squatting
horned figure with a torque occurs on an altar from Reims. He presses a bag,
from which grain escapes, and on it an ox and stag are feeding. A rat is
represented on the pediment above, and on either side stand Apollo and
Mercury. On the altar of Saintes is a
squatting but headless god with torque and purse. Beside him is a goddess with
a cornucopia, and a smaller divinity with a cornucopia and an apple. A similar
squatting figure, supported by male and female deities, is represented on the
other side of the altar. On the altar of Beaune are three figures, one horned
with a cornucopia, another three-headed, holding a basket. Three figures, one
female and two male, are found on the Dennevy altar. One god is three-faced,
the other has a cornucopia, which he offers to a serpent.
Above a seated god and goddess on an altar from Malmaison is
a block carved to represent three faces. To be compared with these are seven
steles from Reims, each with a triple face but only one pair of eyes. Above
some of these is a ram's head. On an eighth stele the heads are separated.
Cernunnos may thus have been regarded as a three-headed,
horned, squatting god, with a torque and ram's-headed serpent. But a horned god
is sometimes a member of a triad, perhaps representing myths in which Cernunnos
was associated with other gods. The three-headed god may be the same as the
horned god, though on the Beaune altar they are distinct. The various
representations are linked together, but it is not certain that all are varying
types of one god. Horns, torque, horned snake, or even the triple head may have
been symbols pertaining to more than one god, though generally associated with
Cernunnos.
The squatting attitude of the god has been differently
explained, and its affinities regarded now as Buddhist, now as
Greco-Egyptian. But if the god is a
Dispater, and the ancestral god of the Celts, it is natural to represent him in
the typical attitude of the Gauls when sitting, since they did not use
seats. While the horns were probably
symbols of power and worn also by chiefs on their helmets, they may also show that the god was an
anthropomorphic form of an earlier animal god, like the wolf-skin of other
gods. Hence also horned animals would be regarded as symbols of the god, and
this may account for their presence on the Reims monument. Animals are
sometimes represented beside the divinities who were their anthropomorphic
forms. Similarly the ram's-headed serpent points to animal worship. But its
presence with three-headed and horned gods is enigmatic, though, as will be
seen later, it may have been connected with a cult of the dead, while the
serpent was a chthonian animal. These gods were gods of fertility and of the
underworld of the dead. While the bag or purse (interchangeable with the
cornucopia) was a symbol of Mercury, it was also a symbol of Pluto, and this
may point to the fact that the gods who bear it had the same character as
Pluto. The significance of the torque is also doubtful, but the Gauls offered
torques to the gods, and they may have been regarded as vehicles of the
warrior's strength which passed from him to the god to whom the victor
presented it.
The Celts had a cult of human heads, and fixed them up on
their houses in order to obtain the protection of the ghost. Bodies or heads of
dead warriors had a protective influence on their land or tribe, and myth told
how the head of the god Bran saved his country from invasion. In other myths
human heads speak after being cut off. It might thus easily have been believed
that the representation of a god's head had a still more powerful protective
influence, especially when it was triplicated, thus looking in all directions,
like Janus.
The significance of the triad on these monuments is
uncertain, but since the supporting divinities are now male, now female, now
male and female, it probably represents myths of which the horned or
three-headed god was the central figure. In certain cases figures of squatting
and horned goddesses with cornucopia occur.
These may be consorts of Cernunnos, and perhaps preceded him in origin.
We may also go further and see in this god of abundance and fertility at once
an Earth and an Under-earth god, since earth and under-earth are much the same
to primitive thought, and fertility springs from below the earth's surface.
Thus Cernunnos would be another form of the Celtic Dispater.
On a Paris altar and on certain steles a god attacks a
serpent with a club. The serpent is a chthonian animal, and the god, called
Smertullos, may be a Dispater. Gods who are anthropomorphic forms of earlier
animal divinities, sometimes have the animals as symbols or attendants, or are
regarded as hostile to them. In some cases Dispater may have outgrown the
serpent symbolism, the serpent being regarded locally as his foe; this assumes
that the god with the club is the same as the god with the hammer. But in the
case of Cernunnos the animal remained as his symbol.
Dispater was a god of growth and fertility, and besides
being lord of the underworld of the dead, not necessarily a dark region or the
abode of "dark" gods as is so often assumed by writers on Celtic
religion, he was ancestor of the living. This may merely have meant that, as in
other mythologies, men came to the surface of the earth from an underground
region, like all things whose roots struck deep down into the earth. The lord
of the underworld would then easily be regarded as their ancestor.
The hammer and the cup are also the symbols of a god called Silvanus,
identified with Esus, a god represented cutting down a tree with an axe. Axe
and hammer, however, are not necessarily identical, and the symbols are those
of Dispater. A purely superficial connection between the Roman Silvanus and the
Celtic Dispater may have been found by Gallo-Roman artists in the fact that
both wear a wolf-skin, while there may once have been a Celtic wolf totem-god
of the dead. The Roman god was also associated with the wolf. This might be
regarded as one out of many examples of a mere superficial assimilation of
Roman and Celtic divinities, but in this case they still kept certain symbols
of the native Dispater--the cup and hammer.
Of course, since the latter was also a god of fertility,
there was here another link with Silvanus, a god of woods and vegetation. The
cult of the god was widespread--in Spain, S. Gaul, the Rhine provinces,
Cisalpine Gaul, Central Europe and Britain. But one inscription gives the name
Selvanos, and it is not impossible that there was a native god Selvanus. If so,
his name may have been derived from selva, "possession," Irish
sealbh, "possession," "cattle," and he may have been a
chthonian god of riches, which in primitive communities consisted of
cattle. Domestic animals, in Celtic
mythology, were believed to have come from the god's land. Selvanus would thus
be easily identified with Silvanus, a god of flocks.
Thus the Celtic Dispater had various names and forms in
different regions, and could be assimilated to different foreign gods. Since
Earth and Under-earth are so nearly connected, this divinity may once have been
an Earth-god, and as such perhaps took the place of an earlier Earth-mother,
who now became his consort or his mother. On a monument from Salzbach, Dispater
is accompanied by a goddess called Aeracura, holding a basket of fruit, and on
another monument from Ober-Seebach, the companion of Dispater holds a
cornucopia. In the latter instance Dispater holds a hammer and cup, and the
goddess may be Aeracura. Aeracura is also associated with Dispater in several
inscriptions. It is not yet certain that she is a Celtic goddess, but her
presence with this evidently Celtic god is almost sufficient proof of the fact.
She may thus represent the old Earth-goddess, whose place the native Dispater
gradually usurped.
Lucan mentions a god Esus, who is represented on a Paris
altar as a woodman cutting down a tree, the branches of which are carried round
to the next side of the altar, on which is represented a bull with three
cranes--Tarvos Trigaranos. The same figure, unnamed, occurs on another altar at
Trèves, but in this case the bull's head appears in the branches, and on them
sit the birds. M. Reinach applies one formula to the subjects of these
altars--"The divine Woodman hews the Tree of the Bull with Three
Cranes." Bull and tree are perhaps both
divine, and if the animal, like the images of the divine bull, is three-horned,
then the three cranes (garanus, "crane") may be a rebus for
three-horned (trikeras), or more probably three-headed (trikarenos). In this case woodman, tree, and bull might
all be representatives of a god of vegetation. In early ritual, human, animal,
or arboreal representatives of the god were periodically destroyed to ensure
fertility, but when the god became separated from these representatives, the
destruction or slaying was regarded as a sacrifice to the god, and myths arose
telling how he had once slain the animal. In this case, tree and bull, really
identical, would be mythically regarded as destroyed by the god whom they had
once represented.
If Esus was a god of vegetation, once represented by a tree,
this would explain why, as the scholiast on Lucan relates, human sacrifices to
Esus were suspended from a tree. Esus was worshipped at Paris and at Trèves; a
coin with the name Æsus was found in England; and personal names like Esugenos,
"son of Esus," and Esunertus, "he who has the strength of
Esus," occur in England, France, and Switzerland. Thus the cult of this
god may have been comparatively widespread. But there is no evidence that he
was a Celtic Jehovah or a member, with Teutates and Taranis, of a pan-Celtic triad,
or that this triad, introduced by Gauls, was not accepted by the Druids. Had such a great triad existed, some instance
of the occurrence of the three names on one inscription would certainly have
been found. Lucan does not refer to the gods as a triad, nor as gods of all the
Celts, or even of one tribe. He lays stress merely on the fact that they were
worshipped with human sacrifice, and they were apparently more or less
well-known local gods.
The insular Celts believed that some of their gods lived on
or in hills. We do not know whether such a belief was entertained by the Gauls,
though some of their deities were worshipped on hills, like the Puy de Dome.
There is also evidence of mountain worship among them. One inscription runs,
"To the Mountains"; a god of the Pennine Alps, Pœninus, was equated
with Jupiter; and the god of the Vosges mountains was called Vosegus, perhaps
still surviving in the giant supposed to haunt them.
Certain grouped gods, Dii Casses, were worshipped by Celts
on the right bank of the Rhine, but nothing is known regarding their functions,
unless they were road gods. The name means "beautiful" or
"pleasant," and Cassi appears in personal and tribal names, and also
in Cassiterides, an early name of Britain, perhaps signifying that the new
lands were "more beautiful" than those the Celts had left. When tin
was discovered in Britain, the Mediterranean traders called it κασσίτερος after
the name of the place where it was found, as cupreus, "copper," was
so called from Cyprus.
Many local tutelar divinities were also worshipped. When a
new settlement was founded, it was placed under the protection of a tribal god,
or the name of some divinised river on whose banks the village was placed,
passed to the village itself, and the divinity became its protector. Thus Dea
Bibracte, Nemausus, and Vasio were tutelar divinities of Bibracte, Nimes, and
Vaison. Other places were called after Belenos, or a group of divinities,
usually the Matres with a local epithet, watched over a certain district. The
founding of a town was celebrated in an annual festival, with sacrifices and
libations to the protecting deity, a practice combated by S. Eloi in the eighth
century. But the custom of associating a divinity with a town or region was a
great help to patriotism. Those who fought for their homes felt that they were
fighting for their gods, who also fought on their side. Several inscriptions,
"To the genius of the place," occur in Britain, and there are a few
traces of tutelar gods in Irish texts, but generally local saints had taken
their place.
The Celtic cult of goddesses took two forms, that of
individual and that of grouped goddesses, the latter much more numerous than
the grouped gods. Individual goddesses were worshipped as consorts of gods, or
as separate personalities, and in the latter case the cult was sometimes far
extended.
Still more popular was the cult of grouped goddesses. Of
these the Matres, like some individual goddesses, were probably early
Earth-mothers, and since the primitive fertility-cults included all that might
then be summed up as "civilization," such goddesses had already many
functions, and might the more readily become divinities of special crafts or
even of war. Many individual goddesses are known only by their names, and were
of a purely local character. Some local goddesses with different names but
similar functions are equated with the same Roman goddess; others were never so
equated.
The Celtic Minerva, or the goddesses equated with her,
"taught the elements of industry and the arts," and is thus the
equivalent of the Irish Brigit. Her functions are in keeping with the position
of woman as the first civilizer--discovering agriculture, spinning, the art of
pottery, etc. During this period goddesses were chiefly worshipped, and though
the Celts had long outgrown this primitive stage, such culture-goddesses still
retained their importance. A goddess equated with Minerva in Southern France
and Britain is Belisama, perhaps from qval, "to burn" or
"shine." Hence she may have been associated with a cult of fire, like
Brigit and like another goddess Sul, equated with Minerva at Bath and in Hesse,
and in whose temple perpetual fires burned. She was also a goddess of hot
springs. Belisama gave her name to the Mersey,
and many goddesses in Celtic myth are associated with rivers.
Some war-goddesses are associated with Mars--Nemetona (in
Britain and Germany), perhaps the same as the Irish Nemon, and Cathubodua,
identical with the Irish war-goddess Badb-catha, "battle-crow," who
tore the bodies of the slain. Another goddess Andrasta, "invincible,"
perhaps the same as the Andarta of the Voconces, was worshipped by the people
of Boudicca with human sacrifices, like the native Bellona of the Scordisci.
A goddess of the chase was identified with Artemis in
Galatia, where she had a priestess Camma, and also in the west. At the feast of
the Galatian goddess dogs were crowned with flowers, her worshippers feasted
and a sacrifice was made to her, feast and sacrifice being provided out of
money laid aside for every animal taken in the chase. Other goddesses were
equated with Diana, and one of her statues was destroyed in Christian times at
Trèves. These goddesses may have been thought of as rushing through the forest
with an attendant train, since in later times Diana, with whom they were
completely assimilated, became, like Holda, the leader of the "furious
host" and also of witches' revels. The Life of Cæsarius of Arles speaks of
a "demon" called Diana by the rustics. A bronze statuette represents
the goddess riding a wild boar, her symbol and, like herself, a creature of the
forest, but at an earlier time itself a divinity of whom the goddess became the
anthropomorphic form.
Goddesses, the earlier spirits of the waters, protected
rivers and springs, or were associated with gods of healing wells. Dirona or
Sirona is associated with Grannos mainly in Eastern Gaul and the Rhine
provinces, and is sometimes represented carrying grapes and grain. Thus this goddess may once have been
connected with fertility, perhaps an Earth-mother, and if her name means
"the long-lived," this would
be an appropriate title for an Earth-goddess. Another goddess, Stanna,
mentioned in an inscription at Perigueux, is perhaps "the standing or
abiding one," and thus may also have been an Earth-goddess.
Grannos was also associated with the local goddesses Vesunna
and Aventia, who gave their names to Vesona and Avanche. His statue also stood
in the temple of the goddess of the Seine, Sequana. With Bormo were associated Bormana in
Southern Gaul, and Damona in Eastern Gaul--perhaps an animal goddess, since the
root of her name occurs in Irish dam, "ox," and Welsh dafad,
"sheep." Dea Brixia was the consort of Luxovius, god of the waters of
Luxeuil. Names of other goddesses of the waters are found on ex votos and
plaques which were placed in or near them. The Roman Nymphæ, sometimes
associated with Bormo, were the equivalents of the Celtic water-goddesses, who
survived in the water-fairies of later folk-belief. Some river-goddesses gave
their names to many rivers in the Celtic area--the numerous Avons being named
from Abnoba, goddess of the sources of the Danube, and the many Dees and Dives
from Divona. Clota was goddess of the Clyde, Sabrina had her throne
"beneath the translucent wave" of the Severn, Icauna was goddess of
the Yonne, Sequana of the Seine, and Sinnan of the Shannon.
In some cases forests were ruled by goddesses--that of the Ardennes by Dea Arduinna, and the Black Forest, perhaps because of the many waters in it, by Dea Abnoba. While some goddesses are known only by being associated with a god, e.g. Rosmerta with Mercury in Eastern Gaul, others have remained separate, like Epona, perhaps a river-goddess merged with an animal divinity, and known from inscriptions as a horse-goddess. But the most striking instance is found in the grouped goddesses.
Of these the Deæ Matres, whose name has taken a Latin form
and whose cult extended to the Teutons, are mentioned in many inscriptions all
over the Celtic area, save in East and North-West Gaul. In art they are usually
represented as three in number, holding fruit, flowers, a cornucopia, or an
infant. They were thus goddesses of fertility, and probably derived from a cult
of a great Mother-goddess, the Earth personified. She may have survived as a
goddess Berecynthia; worshipped at Autun, where her image was borne through the
fields to promote fertility, or as the goddesses equated with Demeter and Kore,
worshipped by women on an island near Britain. Such cults of a Mother-goddess lie behind many
religious, but gradually her place was taken by an Earth-god, the Celtic
Dispater or Dagda, whose consort the goddess became. She may therefore be the
goddess with the cornucopia, on monuments of the horned god, or Aeracura,
consort of Dispater, or a goddess on a monument at Epinal holding a basket of
fruit and a cornucopia, and accompanied by a ram's-headed serpent. These symbols show that this goddess was akin
to the Matres. But she sometimes preserved her individuality, as in the case of
Berecynthia and the Matres, though it is not quite clear why she should have
been thus triply multiplied. A similar phenomenon is found in the close
connection of Demeter and Persephone, while the Celts regarded three as a
sacred number. The primitive division of the year into three seasons--spring,
summer, and winter--may have had its effect in triplicating a goddess of fertility
with which the course of the seasons was connected. In other mythologies groups of three goddesses
are found, the Hathors in Egypt, the Moirai, Gorgons, and Graiæ of Greece, the
Roman Fates, and the Norse Nornæ, and it is noticeable that the Matres were
sometimes equated with the Parcæ and Fates.
In the Matres, primarily goddesses of fertility and plenty,
we have one of the most popular and also primitive aspects of Celtic religion.
They originated in an age when women cultivated the ground, and the Earth was a
goddess whose cult was performed by priestesses. But in course of time new
functions were bestowed on the Matres. Possibly river-goddesses and others are
merely mothers whose functions have become specialized. The Matres are found as
guardians of individuals, families, houses, of towns, a province, or a whole
nation, as their epithets in inscriptions show. The Matres Domesticæ are
household goddesses; the Matres Treveræ, or Gallaicæ, or Vediantæ, are the
mothers of Trèves, of the Gallaicæ, of the Vediantii; the Matres Nemetiales are
guardians of groves. Besides presiding over the fields as Matres Campestræ they
brought prosperity to towns and people. They guarded women, especially in childbirth,
as ex votos prove, and in this aspect they are akin to the Junones worshipped
also in Gaul and Britain. The name thus became generic for most goddesses, but
all alike were the lineal descendants of the primitive Earth-mother.
Popular superstition has preserved the memory of these
goddesses in the three bonnes dames, dames blanches, and White Women, met by
wayfarers in forests, or in the three fairies or wise women of folk-tales, who
appear at the birth of children. But sometimes they have become hateful hags.
The Matres and other goddesses probably survived in the beneficent fairies of
rocks and streams, in the fairy Abonde who brought riches to houses, or
Esterelle of Provence who made women fruitful, or Aril who watched over
meadows, or in beings like Melusine, Viviane, and others. In Gallo-Roman Britain the cult of the Matres
is found, but how far it was indigenous there is uncertain. A Welsh name for
fairies, Y Mamau, "the Mothers," and the phrase, "the blessing
of the Mothers" used of a fairy benediction, may be a reminiscence of such
goddesses. The presence of similar
goddesses in Ireland will be considered later. Images of the Matres bearing a
child have sometimes been taken for those of the Virgin, when found
accidentally, and as they are of wood blackened with age, they are known as
Vierges Noires, and occupy an honoured place in Christian sanctuaries. Many
churches of Nôtre Dame have been built on sites where an image of the Virgin is
said to have been miraculously found--the image probably being that of a pagan
Mother. Similarly, an altar to the Matres at Vaison is now dedicated to the
Virgin as the "good Mother."
In inscriptions from Eastern and Cisalpine Gaul, and from
the Rhine and Danube region, the Matronæ are mentioned, and this name is
probably indicative of goddesses like the Matres. It is akin to that of many rivers, e.g. the
Marne or Meyrone, and shows that the Mothers were associated with rivers. The
Mother river fertilised a large district, and thus exhibited the characteristic
of the whole group of goddesses.
Akin also to the Matres are the Suleviæ, guardian goddesses,
called Matres in a few inscriptions; the Comedovæ, whose name perhaps denotes
guardianship or power; the Dominæ, who watched over the home, perhaps the Dames
of mediæval folk-lore; and the Virgines, perhaps an appellative of the Matres,
and significant when we find that virgin priestesses existed in Gaul and
Ireland. The Proxumæ were worshipped in
Southern Gaul, and the Quadriviæ, goddesses of cross-roads, at Cherbourg.
Some Roman gods are found on inscriptions without being
equated with native deities. They may have been accepted by the Gauls as new
gods, or they had perhaps completely ousted similar native gods. Others, not
mentioned by Cæsar, are equated with native deities, Juno with Clivana, Saturn
with Arvalus, and to a native Vulcan the Celts vowed spoils of war. Again, many native gods are not equated with
Roman deities on inscriptions. Apart from the divinities of Pyrenæan
inscriptions, who may not be Celtic, the names of over 400 native deities,
whether equated with Roman gods or not, are known. Some of these names are mere
epithets, and most of the gods are of a local character, known here by one
name, there by another. Only in a very few cases can it be asserted that a god
was worshipped over the whole Celtic area by one name, though some gods in
Gaul, Britain, and Ireland with different names have certainly similar
functions.
The pantheon of the continental Celts was a varied one.
Traces of the primitive agricultural rites, and of the priority of goddesses to
gods, are found, and the vaguer aspects of primitive nature worship are seen
behind the cult of divinities of sky, sun, thunder, forests, rivers, or in
deities of animal origin. We come next to evidence of a higher stage, in
divinities of culture, healing, the chase, war, and the underworld. We see
divinities of Celtic groups--gods of individuals, the family, the tribe.
Sometimes war-gods assumed great prominence, in time of war, or among the
aristocracy, but with the development of commerce, gods associated with trade
and the arts of peace came to the front. At the same time the popular cults of
agricultural districts must have remained as of old. With the adoption of Roman
civilization, enlightened Celts separated themselves from the lower aspects of
their religion, but this would have occurred with growing civilization had no
Roman ever entered Gaul. In rural districts the more savage aspects of the cult
would still have remained, but that these were entirely due to an aboriginal
population is erroneous. The Celts must have brought such cults with them or
adopted cults similar to their own wherever they came. The persistence of these
cults is seen in the fact that though Christianity modified them, it could not
root them out, and in out-of-the-way corners, survivals of the old ritual may
still be found, for everywhere the old religion of the soil dies hard.
(The Religion of the Ancient Celts, J.A. MacCulloch)
An incomplete list of minor Celtic deities who live on in
present toponyms in France (and some other countries).
“(An) analysis leads us to distinguish between small and
large theonyms, the former being attested only by rare inscriptions and
remaining in only a few place names. However this definition sometimes suffers
from exceptions. In some cases the borderline may in some cases reveal an
arbitrary distinction between the names of great deities and the names of minor
gods and the discovery of new dedicatory inscriptions may lead to a complete
change in certain classifications.
The small appellations of deities inscribed in our place
names are by far the most numerous: they form about 75% of the total number of
Gallic theonyms which have remained with us. This would tend to show the
importance which the minor gods held in the campaigns of Gaul and the role of
intercessors of proximity which was given to them. The list makes it possible to
count more than fifty of them which could be found in about eighty place- and
island names spread over forty departments (but these figures once again are
given only as an indication and provisional, the data are fragile: the presence
of recognized theonyms in certain toponyms is open to discussion even to
questioning hence the (?) appearing on the table. Other place names could for
example be found in the names of the Gallic gods depending on the researchers'
new hypotheses). “
Name or epithet-
01 Alambrima
02 Alaunius
03 Albarinus
04 Albiork
05 Aramo
06 Arduinna
07 Artahé
08 Aventia
09 Aximus
10 Baesertis
11 Baginus
12 Boccus
13 Brigindona
14 Buxénus
15 Damona
16 Dumiatis
17 Éburniques
18 Garris
19 G1sacos
20 Glanis
21 Gra1us
22 Grasélos
23 Griséliques
24 Icauna
25 Idennica
26 Iva(V)Us
27 Léttnno
28 Loucétius
29 Lijxovius
30 Moccus
31 Mogontia
32 Némausus
33 Nérius
34 Olloud1us
35 Poéninus
36 Rhénus
37 Rudianus
38 Ségéta Sceaux
39 Séquana
40 Sinquatis
41 Soio
42 Souconna
43 Télo
44 Ubelnae
45 Ura
46 Urnia
47 Uxellus
48 Vésunna
49
Vicinnus
50 Vintius
51
Virotutis
52
Vorocius
53 Voségus
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Toponyme Dept/Country
Mont Ar Ambre 05
Aulun 04
Le Barroux 84
Plateau D’ Albion (?) 26
Aramon 30
Ardenne(S) 0
Lux./Belg. Saint-Pé-D’ardet (?) 31
Avenches Switzerland
Aime 73
Bazert 31
Mont Vanige 26
Boucou 31
Broindon 21
Camp-Buisson 84
Damoncourt À Polaincouit (?) 70
Puy De Dôme 63
Pic Du Gar 31
Gizy/Gisay/Gizay/Gisy (?) 02/27/86/89
Glanum 13
Alpes Graies 73
Notre-Dame-Du-Groseau 84
Gréoux 04
Yonne 89
Eyssène (?) 30
Év Aux-Les-Bains 23
Lédenon 30
Luzech 46
Luxeuil-Les-Bains 70
Mont-De-Moque (?) 52
Mayence Ail. (Rhén.-Pal.)
Nîmes 30
Néris/Neyrac Et Nérac (?) 03/07/47
Hulluch (?) 62
Pennines Front. It. -Swi
Rhin 67
Royans 8/26
Du-Gâtinais 45
Seine 21
Saincaize/Cinqueux 58/60
Soyons
Saône/Sagonne 71/18
Tholon (?)/Toulon (?) 13/24/71/83
Aune 83/13
Fontaine D’eure 30
Fontaine D’ourne 30
Oisseau/Oissel 53/72 27/76
Vésone/Vésonne (?) 24/74
Vilaine 35
Vens 74
Vertus/Saintevertu (?) 1/89
Vouroux 03
Vosges 88
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