Gaelic Folklore (36): Lug in France

Lug In France 

From Lug To Mercury

In the text of Gallic Wars, Caesar clearly tells us that the most honored god by the Gauls was regarded as the inventor of all the arts. The conqueror of the Gallic Empire calls this god "Mercury". His aspect as an inventor of all the arts - a trait totally foreign to the Latin Mercury – identify the god as Lug(h)

He was deemed enough important for his name to be given to a great feast celebrated in his honour: The Lugnasad by the ancient Irish people: "Feast of Lug". Modern Lughnasadh (or Lùnasa ), is the root from which derives the Gaelic name for the month of August (Lugnasd). The feast took place in early August and was attended by a large number of people. It lasted until the 19th century, and some localities still celebrate it.

Presence Of The Name Lug In Continental Celtia.

In Spain, an inscription discovered in Pénalba of Villastar is dedicated to Lugus. In the northeast of the same country, in Osma (Old Castile), the ancient city of Tarraconaise, the god is also invoked in the plural form Lugoves. Lugoves , is found also in Avenches, Switzerland, engraved on a limestone. Finally, an inscription to Lugovibus - although uncertain because mutilated – has to be considered, found in Bonn, Germany.

Another element has to be taken into account (which analysts almost ignore constantly): the duly attested existence of Gallo-Roman anthroponymes formed on a root Lug-.

One knows Lugus, in Aies, on a shard;

l.iigius, Narbonne.

Lugetus, name of a potter.

l.ugunx, in ( lentjtiilly, in the Cher, on the a sandstone stele (today exhibited in the Museum of Bourges.

At Bibracte, on a fragment of pottery, the same name is found in abbreviated form Lugur; in the inscriptions, similarly indexed summaries of the gods Gaulish names Albio-rix and CamuLo-rix.

The anthroponym Lugurix  can be compared with that of Lugotorix , name of a Breton chief from the country of Kent, captured by the Romans in 54 B.C., to whom Caesar alludes in The Gallic Wars.

The anthroponym Luguselva, a woman's name recorded in Périgueux; "The one who belongs to the Lug" or "the one who returns to the Lug".

It should be added that, according to Ernest Nègre, one could recognize some of these anthroponymes in today's place names: Ligueil, in Indre-et-Loire, France (Luggogalus , in 774), is said to be an ancient Lugu-oialo , "land of Lugus"; Lue, in Maine-et-Loire ( Lugiacus , in 1060-1082), would go back to a proper name Lugius; Lugon, in  Gironde, would have formed on a form of the proper name Luguni.

All in all, we have a good small contingent of theophoric anthroponymes that reinforce the existence on the territory of Gaul of a cult to the god Lug. They render the fact that place names may have been given by the Gauls as a tribute to this god.

The God Lug In French Place Names.

Lugudunum , "Fortress of the god-Lug", is found in the designation of communes, villages and localities. Among the more recognized - because the best attested to date - are Laon (Aisne), named Lugdunensis, in 549. There is also Lyon (Rhône), called by Strabon “Lougdounon” and by Pliny “Lugdunum”. In addition to these two illustrious toponyms, there is Mont-Laü, the locality of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, formerly Lougdounon, according to Ptolemy (and Lugditnum, in the first Itinerary of Antonin).

Laons (Eure-et-Loir), known in 1250 as Loon , and Louin (Deux-Sèvres), attested as Loono in 1131, could be assimilated to the case of Laon (Aisne), similarly Loon to the same period (XIIth century), and which is an assured Lugdunum. For this last city, we also know the intermediate form Lauduni (in 966); it is found designating other localities. These are:

Laudun (Gard), Laudanum, in 1088;

Loudun (Vienne), Lauduno, on a Merovingian coin, and in 799-800;

Montlauzun (Lot), Lauduno, in 1178; Moulon (Loiret), Lauduni, in 1152;

Monlogis (Cantal), Laudine, in 1206:

Lauzun (Lot-et-Garonne), Lauzuno in the XIIIth century:

 Lion-in-Beauce (Loiret), Lodonensi, in 886:

La Louasse (Cher), Lodun, in 1257; 

Leudon-en-Brie (Seine-et-Marne), Ludon, in 1369:

Lucduno, in 692, and Lodun, in 1237, former manor house on the commune of Parigné-l-Évêque (Sarthe), still attested today by the Bois and the Etangs de Loudon (which may also have given its name to the hamlet(s) of Loudonneau(x), territorium Ledunis, in the 11 th century, on the commune of Saint-Mars-la- Brière, a few kilometers to the north).

It should be noted that some etymologists, while they most often recognize for the second part of these compounds the link with the Gaulish dunum, deny all connection with the god Lug, relating it to anthroponymes. The personal name Laitdo would thus be at the origin of Laons (Eure-et-Loir) and Moulon (Loiret). The name of nobody Laucus would have given birth to Laudun (Gard), Lauzun (Lot-et-Garonne), Loudun (Vienne), Montlauzun (Lot), Monlezun and Monlezun- d' Armagnac (Gers). This is very unlikely.

The God Of Heights

In the various toponyms mentioned, the exclusive association of the name Lugu- with the Gallic - dunum is a characteristic that needs to be questioned. What does it denote?

We have seen, in the study of the vocabulary of the war ( La Gaule des combats, part III, 2 on "The fortresses"), which the appellative dunum, quite widespread in our place names, served to designate strongholds, usually on heights. Indeed, the vast majority of place names from the Lugudunum model correspond to established localities on high sites. These may be plateau’s, as in the case of Laons (Eure-et- Loir), Leudon ( Seine-et-Marne) or Lion-en-Beauce (Loiret). And there are isolated buttes, hillsides or hills: thus in Laudun (Gard), Lauzun (Lot-et-Garonne), Loudon (Sarthe), Loudun (Vienne) and Louin (Deux-Sèvres).

The ancient Irish text of the foundation  of the Domaine of Tara (Suidigud Tellaig Temra) describes Lug as a giant: "We were very surprised by the size of his form. The top of his shoulders was as high as a wood, the sky and the sun were visible between his legs, because of his size and beauty". He therefore had the the size of a mountain. And it is often on mountains or hills that the celebrations in the honour of Lug (Lugnasad) was celebrated in Ireland. We know that the god assimilated to Mercury was honored under the local nickname of DUMIAS at the summit of the Puy de Dome (inscription Mercurio Dumiatï), in a sanctuary where would have been a gigantic statue of him, more than 20 metres high, according to Pliny.

The study of the "Sacred Heights" has made us to know also a dedication to Mercury Voségos ( Mercurio Vos[ego]), proving the link between the god likened to the Roman Mercury and the sacred mountain of the Vosges. Lug (and the others names by which he could be designated) would thus have been a god in relation to predilection with high places. It is not surprising that its divine name is found at the origin of localities corresponding to this type of sites.

The god of fortresses

The Irish Lug is frequently portrayed in ancient mythological tales as a youthful combatant, large in stature - as the previous examples have noted - strong and brave, provided with an invincible spear that he strikes furiously at his opponents. He was thus perceived as a warrior god, a fighting hero. We can see another reason why the theonym Lug is found associated in Lugu- compounds with the term -dunum: the study of the Gauls at war showed that the appellative, if it was linked to heights, in the Celtic language first referred to a military citadel, a stronghold. Put under  the aegis of a fighting god, could these oppida fear the enemy's assault? The names seem to have represented for the Gallic peoples ostentatious witnesses of power, of the declared signs of invincibility against neighboring nations. It is quite remarkable - thing which does not seem to have been observed yet - that most of the Gallic Lugudunum (retained as the most likely by the analysts and as such listed on our map) have corresponded to settlements located near the territorial limits of peoples. Laons was on the border between Carnutes and Eburovices-, Laudun, at the Volcae Arecomici, was located at the very close to the Cavarer , Leudon was located at the dividing line between Senones and Meldi; Loudun, among the Pictavi, had settled not far from the border with the Turones and the Andecavi; Lyons-la-Forêt was on the border of the Veliocasses and Bellovaci; Monlezun,  was close to the territory of the Bigerriones: Monlezun-d'Armagnac is situated at the point of the division between Elusates and Tarbelli; Monlogis, among the Arverni , adjoined at the border of the Ruteni, Moulon was near the place where the Carnutes and the Senones had settlements, etc.

Two Lugudunum’s  may however seem to be the exception. Louin (Deux-Sèvres), is located in the heart of the city of the Pictavi territory. In fact, this civitas grouped together after the conquest, the territories that were hitherto separated (Rome rewarding the Pictons for their alliance gave them lands in the Armorican West), so that Louin had to be established formerly close to the border between Early Pictony and the state of another people located further west. Loudon, in the Sarthe, just east of Le Mans, seems - similarly - to have been located in the heart of the Cenomani Nation. In fact, there has been an ancient internal division of the land the course of the Sarthe River from north to south, before making a division between the two. elbow to the height of Le Mans. This primitive boundary is likely to be highlighted by hydronyms GUIRONDE and GIRONDE that marked it and whose toponymy has kept trace.

The Luminous God

As the deity of high places and strongholds, Lug was also perceived as a luminous god, related to solar radiation. In the Irish text of The Tragic Death of the Children of Tuireann ( Oidhe chloinne Tuireann ), it is said of Lug: "His face had the brightness of the sun". His hair was blonde; his helmet and breastplate shone brightly under the star of the day; his garments were embroidered with gold; his shoes themselves were golden.

Mythological and linguistic clues concur: the name Lug connects to a leukl, luk root found in many other Indo-European languages. European languages, such as the Greek leukos or the Latin lux (it gave birth to many months of in modern languages, such as German Licht, English light or French lumière, luire, lune, lucide, etc.). Lug thus represented for the Celts the "Brilliant", the "Luminous" (the Welsh hero Lleu has the same origin: in Welsh, Lleu means "light"). Places that we have quoted as having taken their name from the Celtic theonym correspond to sites well exposed to light, easily sunlit. Thus, Laudun (Gard) has developed in an amphitheatre on a hill of 122 m overlooking the Tave; Lauzun (Lot-et-Garonne), in the slope of a hill of 100 m; Louin (Deux-Sèvres), on the slope of a height bordering the Thouet. We must also talk about Laon (Aisne), again called Montlaon in medieval texts. The high town, camped on its clear mountain - steep hill over 100 meters – enjoys the light of the immense Champagne plain, from which it stands out strikingly.

We must mention the most famous of all the "Citadelles-de-Lug": Lyon, and its Fourvière hill which, also more than 100 m above the mists of the Saône and the Rhône, raises its rock towards the rising sun. There, one can think, "the Celts had since long accustomed to coming to worship the god that, every morning and almost within their reach, they saw the emergence of the alpine sierra". "Is there a better place for to adore the rising sun that this site where the view to the east is extraordinarily beautiful?, adds Amable Audin. Seneca (in Apocoloquintose, 7, 2, v. 9-10) was already doing tell one of his characters about the sire of Lyon: "I saw, overlooking two rivers, a hill that Phebus at his rising always looks into the sky". Nothing better justified, gifted, than the name of " Luminous Height of the god".

The god of religious centers and sacred assemblies

Several of the locality names from the Lugudunum compound correspond to sites that will remain in a major relationship with the sacred, as if the LUG guardianship had marked them with an divine seal.  The village of LOU1N (Deux -Sèvres), which we saw installed on the slope of a hill, revealed a Gallo-Roman hypogeum, a mausoleum (4th century), and a burial necropolis (5th century)  indications, perhaps, of a prolonged use of the site for religious purposes.

Mont-Laü (Haute-Garonne) has kept the name of the hill next to it from Lugdunum/Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges. In this simple village, archaeologists have revealed a large Gallo-Roman temple, a necropolis (V-VI centuries) and also an important Paleo-Christian basilica (4th century), which makes Saint-Bertrand the oldest Christianity of the Pyrenees. It will acquire very early the title - kept until the Revolution - of the bishopric of Comminges. Forsaking the name of the ancient LUG, it will take the sanctified name of the bishop having noted the importance of the religious capital and undertaken the construction of its large cathedral, which perpetuated the former sacralization of the site.

The destiny of the ancient Gallo-Roman citadel of the Rèmes, Laon, has also remained the same eminently connected with religion. Saint Remi founded a bishopric instead of the ancient Lugdunum as early as the V th - VI th centuries. Kings appropriate the sacred. They made of Laon a royal seat, capital Carolingian between the 8th and 10th centuries. A Gothic cathedral - one of the most important formerly built - will sit majestically on the rock; close to her we'll install the episcopal palace. Throughout the Middle Ages, the city was a religious and intellectual center.

The old Lugdunum of Lyon was and has remained a religious high place. For a long time, Fourvière's Gallic past has been ignored. Historians asserted that no protohistoric occupation had ever existed on this Lyon hill, and that the city dates back to the creation by Proconsul Munatius Plancus of a Roman colony in 43 BC.  Gallic etymology of the name of the town seemed almost incongruous. Recent research has established that the well was occupied in the Latin period, and even that sacred places existed in the heart of the of this hill: large quadrangular enclosures, where banquets took place at ritual character. In Lyon the first Christian church was built in Gaul. The basilica of Fourvière rises today on the site where once they had to pray to the Celtic god. The archbishop of the city still bears the honorary title of "Primate of the Gauls". The light of the pagan Lug has been the light of Christian law.

 It is in Lyon, city of the Gauls, political, administrative and religious center after the Conquest, that Augustus decided to institute an imperial cult and to build a monumental altar dedicated to Rome divinized and to Augustus perceived in his religious power. The sanctuary, installed on the rival height of Fourvière, the hill of the àoix-Roussc, near the amphitheatre, was inaugurated in the year 12 A.D. Tiberius, the successor of Augustus, reads there to revere the Mercurius Augustus, as several re-recorded inscriptions attest, the imperial cult took the succession of the devotion once given to the Celtic deity. It was decided to hold an "Assembly of the Gauls", Concilium Galliarum, near the site of the Gallo-Roman sanctuary; it was to be to bring together each year the delegates of the sixty Gallic cities, thus obliged to recognize the sacred power of Augustus. Skillfully, this solemn feast read placed August 1, which was the month of Augustus' birth, and from which it takes its name. But this date - strange coincidence! - coincided with the one set by the Celts to celebrate each year the Lug festival, which we mentioned: the Lugnasad, "Assembly of Lug", a popular festival well attested in Ireland, which celebrated the royal function, and during which all kinds of meetings were held: feasts, games, races, horses, spirit contests, fairs, and maybe political debates...

The god Lug was considered as god initiator and protector of the assemblies: "Lug, son of Ethliu; it is he who first invented the assembly in the beginning", specifies a version of Ethliu's from the Irish text of the Adventures of Tuirill Biccreo and his sons.  Didn't the Independent Gauls celebrate this feast in the past, especially in Lyon?  And wouldn't the Romans have resumed, by disguising it, the sacred commemoration?

The assimilation, or rather the absorption by the imperial cult of the Gallic feast and the divinity of the indigenous pantheon thus marked the first step in Romanization. 

Other Lugudunum than Lyon may have once played a federating role. One evoked the tradition as a political and intellectual centre attached to Laon. Jean-Marie Desbordes notes about Lion-en-Sullias (suspected to be an ancient "Citadelle-de-Lug") "At a certain time of the year, the druids hold their meetings in a place dedicated, in the land of Ranges, which is said to be at the centre of all Gaul." At the extreme south-eastern end of the territory the Carnutes , this Lion-en-Sullias would have been a federal sanctuary, by its position on the border of several Cities (border with the Bituriges , with the Senones and a time with the Aedui). The same author quotes also the site of Lion-devant-Dun, in the Meuse, "where a beautiful oppidum de la Tène has been recognized", and where "the three former dioceses of Rheims, Trier and Verdun met". (Formerly on the border of the Remi, Treveri and Mediomatricî), at the "crossroads of three regions".  Natural borders: the Argonne, the Jurassic plateau of Lorraine and the alluvial plain of the Meuse.

But this analysis must be applicable to many other former Lugudunum we pointed out that they were all located close to the border of several Gallic peoples; they were once able to play a religious and unifying role, and this was a common practice in the past, under the aegis of the god Lug.

Les Noms D'origine Gauloise, La Gaule Des Dieux ( Jacques Lacroix)

Gaelic Folklore (33): The Druids

 

The Druids. 

Pliny thought that the name "Druid" was a Greek appellation derived from the Druidic cult of the oak.  (Pliny, HN xvi. 249.)The word, however, is purely Celtic, and its meaning probably implies that, like the sorcerer and medicine-man everywhere, the Druid was regarded as "the knowing one." It is composed of two parts--dru-, regarded by M. D'Arbois as an intensive, and vids, from vid, "to know," or "see."  Hence the Druid was "the very knowing or wise one." It is possible, however, that dru- is connected with the root which gives the word "oak" in Celtic. speech--Gaulish deruo, Irish dair, Welsh derw--and that the oak, occupying a place in the cult, was thus brought into relation with the name of the priesthood. The Gaulish form of the name was probably druis, the Old Irish was drai. The modern forms in Irish and Scots Gaelic, drui and draoi, mean "sorcerer."

M. D'Arbois and others, accepting Cæsar's dictum that "the system (of Druidism) is thought to have been devised in Britain, and brought thence into Gaul," maintain that the Druids were priests of the Goidels in Britain, who imposed themselves upon the Gaulish conquerors of the Goidels, and that Druidism then passed over into Gaul about 200 B.C.  But it is hardly likely that, even if the Druids were accepted as priests by conquering Gauls in Britain, they should have affected the Gauls of Gaul who were outside the reflex influence of the conquered Goidels, and should have there obtained that power which they possessed.

Goidels and Gauls were allied by race and language and religion, and it would be strange if they did not both possess a similar priesthood. Moreover, the Goidels had been a continental people, and Druidism was presumably flourishing among them then. Why did it not influence kindred Celtic tribes without Druids, according to the hypothesis proposed, at that time? Further, if we accept Professor Meyer's theory that no Goidel set foot in Britain until the second century A.D., the Gauls could not have received the Druidic priesthood from the Goidels.

Cæsar merely says, "it is thought (existimatur) that Druidism came to Gaul from Britain." (Cæsar, vi. 13.) It was a pious opinion, perhaps his own, or one based on the fact that those who wished to perfect themselves in Druidic art went to Britain. This may have been because Britain had been less open to foreign influences than Gaul, and its Druids, un-affected by these, were thought to be more powerful than those of Gaul. Pliny, on the other hand, seems to think that Druidism passed over into Britain from Gaul. (Pliny, HN xxx.1)

Other writers--Sir John Rhŷs, Sir G. L. Gomme, and M. Reinach-support on different grounds the theory that the Druids were a pre-Celtic priesthood, accepted by the Celtic conquerors. Sir John Rhŷs thinks that the Druidism of the aborigines of Gaul and Britain made terms with the Celtic conquerors. It was accepted by the Goidels, but not by the Brythons. Hence in Britain there were Brythons without Druids, aborigines under the sway of Druidism, and Goidels who combined Aryan polytheism with Druidism. Druidism was also the religion of the aborigines from the Baltic to Gibraltar, and was accepted by the Gauls.

But if so, it is difficult to see why the Brythons, akin to them, did not accept it. Our knowledge of Brythonic religion is too scanty for us to prove that the Druids had or had not sway over them, but the presumption is that they had. Nor is there any historical evidence to show that the Druids were originally a non-Celtic priesthood. Everywhere they appear as the supreme and dominant priesthood of the Celts, and the priests of a conquered people could hardly have obtained such power over the conquerors. The relation of the Celts to the Druids is quite different from that of conquerors, who occasionally resort to the medicine-men of the conquered folk because they have stronger magic or greater influence with the autochthonous gods. The Celts did not resort to the Druids occasionally; according to the hypothesis proposed they accepted them completely, were dominated by them in every department of life, while their own priests, if they had any, accepted this order of things without a murmur. All this is incredible.

The picture drawn by Cæsar, Strabo, and others of the Druids and their position among the Celts as judges, choosers of tribal chiefs and kings, teachers, as well as ministers of religion, suggests rather that they were a native Celtic priesthood, long established among the people. Sir G. L. Gomme supports the theory that the Druids were a pre-Celtic priesthood, because, in his opinion, much of their belief in magic as well as their use of human sacrifice and the redemption of one life by another, is opposed to "Aryan sentiment." Equally opposed to this are their functions of settling controversies, judging, settling the succession to property, and arranging boundaries.

These views are supported by a comparison of the position of the Druids relatively to the Celts with that of non-Aryan persons in India who render occasional priestly services to Hindu village communities.  Whether this comparison of occasional Hindu custom with Celtic usage two thousand years ago is just, may be questioned. As already seen, it was no mere occasional service which the Druids rendered to the Celts, and it is this which makes it difficult to credit this theory. Had the Celtic house-father been priest and judge in his own clan, would he so readily have surren-dered his rights to a foreign and conquered priesthood?

On the other hand, kings and chiefs among the Celts probably retained some priestly functions, derived from the time when the offices of the priest-king had not been differentiated. Cæsar's evidence certainly does not support the idea that "it is only among the rudest of the so-called Celtic tribes that we find this superimposing of an apparently official priesthood." According to him, the power of the Druids was universal in Gaul, and had their position really corresponded to that of the pariah priests of India, occasional priests of Hindu villages, the determined hostility of the Roman power to them because they wielded such an enormous influence over Celtic thought and life, is unexplainable. If, further, Aryan sentiment was so opposed to Druidic customs, why did Aryan Celts so readily accept the Druids? In this case the receiver is as bad as the thief.

Sir G. L. Gomme clings to the belief that the Aryans were people of a comparatively high civilisation, who had discarded, if they ever possessed, a savage "past." But old beliefs and customs still survive through growing civilization, and if the views of Professor Sergi and others are correct, the Aryans were even less civilised than the peoples whom they conquered.  Shape-shifting, magic, human sacrifice, priestly domination, were as much Aryan as non-Aryan, and if the Celts had a comparatively pure religion, why did they so soon allow it to be defiled by the puerile superstitions of the Druids?

M. Reinach then argues that the Celts accepted Druidism en bloc, as the Romans accepted Oriental cults and the Greeks the native Pelasgic cults. But neither Romans nor Greeks abandoned their own faith. Were the Celts a people without priests and without religion? We know that they must have accepted many local cults, but that they adopted the whole aboriginal faith and its priests en bloc is not credible. M. Reinach also holds that when the Celts appear in history Druidism was in its decline; the Celt, or at least the military caste among the Celts, was reasserting itself. But the Druids do not appear as a declining body in the pages of Cæsar, and their power was still supreme, to judge by the hostility of the Roman Government to them. If the military caste rebelled against them, this does not prove that they were a foreign body. Such a strife is seen wherever priest and soldier form separate castes, each desiring to rule, as in Egypt.

Other writers argue that we do not find Druids existing in the Danube region, in Cisalpine territory, nor in Transalpine Gaul, "outside the limits of the region occupied by the Celtæ." This could only have weight if any of the classical writers had composed a formal treatise on the Druids, showing exactly the regions where they existed. They merely describe Druidism as a general Celtic institution, or as they knew it in Gaul or Britain, and few of them have any personal knowledge of it. There is no reason to believe that Druids did not exist wherever there were Celts. The Druids and Semnotheoi of the Celts and Galatæ, referred to c. 200 B.C. were apparently priests of other Celts than those of Gaul, and Celtic groups of Cisalpine Gaul had priests, though these are not formally styled Druids. (Diog. Laert. i. I; Livy xxiii. 24.) The argument based on lack of contrary evidence is here of little value, since the references to the Druids are so brief, and it tells equally against their non-Celtic origin, since we do not hear of Druids in Aquitania, a non-Celtic region.

The theory of the non-Celtic origin of the Druids assumes that the Celts had no priests, or that these were effaced by the Druids. The Celts had priests called gutuatri attached to certain temples, their name perhaps meaning "the speakers," those who spoke to the gods. Gutuatros is perhaps from gutu-, "voice" The existence of the gutuatri is known from a few inscriptions, and from Hirtius, de Bell. Gall.viii. 38, who mentions a gutuatros put to death by Cæsar. The functions of the Druids were much more general, according to this theory, hence M. D'Arbois supposes that, before their intrusion, the Celts had no other priests than the gutuatri.  But the probability is that they were a Druidic class, ministers of local sanctuaries, and related to the Druids as the Levites were to the priests of Israel, since the Druids were a composite priesthood with a variety of functions. If the priests and servants of Belenos, described by Ausonius and called by him ædituus Beleni, were gutuatri, then the latter must have been connected with the Druids, since he says they were of Druidic stock. (Ausonius, Professor. v. 7, xi. 24.)

Lucan's "priest of the grove" may have been a gutuatros, and the priests (sacerdotes) and other ministers (antistites) of the Boii may have been Druids properly so called and gutuatri. (Lucan, iii. 424; Livy, xxiii. 24.) Another class of temple servants may have existed. Names beginning with the name of a god and ending in gnatos, "accustomed to," "beloved of," occur in inscriptions, and may denote persons consecrated from their youth to the service of a grove or temple. On the other hand, the names may mean no more than that those bearing them were devoted to the cult of one particular god.

Our supposition that the gutuatri were a class of Druids is supported by classical evidence, which tends to show that the Druids were a great inclusive priesthood with different classes possessing different functions--priestly, prophetic, magical, medical, legal, and poetical. Cæsar attributes these to the Druids as a whole, but in other writers they are in part at least in the hands of different classes. Diodorus refers to the Celtic philosophers and theologians (Druids), diviners, and bards, as do also Strabo and Timagenes, Strabo giving the Greek form of the native name for the diviners, οὐάτεις, the Celtic form being probably vâtis (Irish, fáith). (Diod. Sic. v. 31; Strabo, iv. 4. 4; Timagenes apud Amm. Marc. xv. 9.) These may have been also poets, since vâtis means both singer and poet; but in all three writers the bards are a fairly distinct class, who sing the deeds of famous men (so Timagenes).

Druid and diviner were also closely connected, since the Druids studied nature and moral philosophy, and the diviners were also students of nature, according to Strabo and Timagenes. No sacrifice was complete without a Druid, say Diodorus and Strabo, but both speak of the diviners as concerned with sacrifice. Druids also prophesied as well as diviners, according to Cicero and Tacitus. (Cicero, de Div. i. 41. 90; Tac. Hist. iv. 54.) Finally, Lucan mentions only Druids and bards. (Phars. i. 449 f.) Diviners were thus probably a Druidic sub-class, standing midway between the Druids proper and the bards, and partaking of some of the functions of both.

Pliny speaks of "Druids and this race of prophets and doctors," (Pliny, HN xxx. i.) and this suggests that some were priests, some diviners, while some practised an empiric medical science. On the whole this agrees with what is met with in Ireland, where the Druids, though appearing in the texts mainly as magicians, were also priests and teachers. Side by side with them were the Filid, "learned poets," composing according to strict rules of art, and higher than the third class, the Bards. Filid, sing. File, is from velo, "I see".

The Filid, who may also have been known as Fáthi, "prophets," were also diviners according to strict rules of augury, while some of these auguries implied a sacrifice. Fáthi is cognate with Vates. The Druids were also diviners and prophets. When the Druids were overthrown at the coming of Christianity, the Filid remained as a learned class, probably because they had abandoned all pagan practices, while the Bards were reduced to a comparatively low status. M. D'Arbois supposes that there was rivalry between the Druids and the Filid, who made common cause with the Christian missionaries, but this is not supported by evidence.

The three classes in Gaul--Druids, Vates, and Bards--thus correspond to the three classes in Ireland-- Druids, Fáthi or Filid, and Bards. In Wales there had been Druids as there were Bards, but all trace of the second class is lost. Long after the Druids had passed away, the fiction of the derwydd-vardd or Druid-bard was created, and the later bards were held to be depositories of a supposititious Druidic theosophy, while they practised the old rites in secret. The late word derwydd was probably invented from derw, "oak," by someone who knew Pliny's derivation.

We may thus conclude that the Druids were a purely Celtic priesthood, belonging both to the Goidelic and Gaulish branches of the Celts. The idea that they were not Celtic is sometimes connected with the supposition that Druidism was something superadded to Celtic religion from without, or that Celtic polytheism was not part of the creed of the Druids, but sanctioned by them, while they had a definite theological system with only a few gods.

These are the ideas of writers who see in the Druids an occult and esoteric priesthood. The Druids had grown up side by side with the growth of the native religion and magic. Where they had become more civilised, as in the south of Gaul, they may have given up many magical practices, but as a class they were addicted to magic, and must have taken part in local cults as well as in those of the greater gods. That they were a philosophic priesthood advocating a pure religion among polytheists is a baseless theory. Druidism was not a formal system outside Celtic religion. It covered the whole ground of Celtic religion; in other words, it was that religion itself.

The Druids are first referred to by pseudo-Aristotle and Sotion in the second century B.C., the reference being preserved by Diogenes Laertius: "There are among the Celtæ and Galatæ those called Druids and Semnotheoi." (Diog. Laert. i. proem, Cæsar, vi. 13, 14; Strabo, iv. 4. 4; Amm. Marc. xv. 9; Diod, Sic, v. 28; Lucan, i. 460; Mela, iii. 2.) The two words may be synonymous, or they may describe two classes of priests, or, again, the Druids may have been Celtic, and the Semnotheoi Galatic (? Galatian) priests.

Cæsar's account comes next in time. Later writers gives the Druids a lofty place and speak vaguely of the Druidic philosophy and science. Cæsar also refers to their science, but both he and Strabo speak of their human sacrifices. Suetonius describes their religion as cruel and savage, and Mela, who speaks of their learning, regards their human sacrifices as savagery. (Suet. Claud. 25; Mela, iii.) Pliny says nothing of the Druids as philosophers, but hints at their priestly functions, and connects them with magico-medical rites. (Pliny, xxx. 1.)

These divergent opinions are difficult to account for. But as the Romans gained closer acquaintance with the Druids, they found less philosophy and more superstition among them. For their cruel rites and hostility to Rome, they sought to suppress them, but this they never would have done had the Druids been esoteric philosophers. It has been thought that Pliny's phrase, "Druids and that race of prophets and doctors," signifies that, through Roman persecution, the Druids were reduced to a kind of medicine-men.  But the phrase rather describes the varied functions of the Druids, as has been seen, nor does it refer to the state to which the repressive edict reduced them, but to that in which it found them. Pliny's information was also limited.

The vague idea that the Druids were philosophers was repeated parrot-like by writer after writer, who regarded barbaric races as Rousseau and his school looked upon the "noble savage." Roman writers, skeptical of a future life, were fascinated by the idea of a barbaric priesthood teaching the doctrine of immortality in the wilds of Gaul. For this teaching the poet Lucan sang their praises. The Druids probably first impressed Greek and Latin observers by their magic, their organization, and the fact that, like many barbaric priesthoods, but unlike those of Greece and Rome, they taught certain doctrines. Their knowledge was divinely conveyed to them; "they speak the language of the gods;" (Diod. Sic. v. 31. 4.) hence it was easy to read anything into this teaching. Thus the Druidic legend rapidly grew.

On the other hand, modern writers have perhaps exaggerated the force of the classical evidence. When we read of Druidic associations we need not regard these as higher than the organized priesthoods of barbarians. Their doctrine of metem-psychosis, if it was really taught, involved no ethical content as in Pythagoreanism. Their astronomy was probably astrological (See Cicero, de Div. i. 41.); their knowledge of nature a series of cosmogonic myths and speculations. If a true Druidic philosophy and science had existed, it is strange that it is always mentioned vaguely and that it exerted no influence upon the thought of the time.

Classical sentiment also found a connection between the Druidic and Pythagorean systems, the Druids being regarded as conforming to the doctrines and rules of the Greek philosopher. (Diod. Sic. v. 28; Amm. Marc. xv. 9; Hippolytus, Refut. Hær. i. 22.) It is not improbable that some Pythagorean doctrines may have reached Gaul, but when we examine the point at which the two systems were supposed to meet, namely, the doctrine of metempsychosis and immortality, upon which the whole idea of this relationship was founded, there is no real resemblance. There are Celtic myths regarding the rebirth of gods and heroes, but the eschatological teaching was apparently this, that the soul was clothed with a body in the other-world. There was no doctrine of a series of rebirths on this earth as a punishment for sin. The Druidic teaching of a bodily immortality was mistakenly assumed to be the same as the Pythagorean doctrine of the soul reincarnated in body after body.

Other points of resemblance were then discovered. The organisation of the Druids was assumed by Ammianus to be a kind of corporate life--sodaliciis adstricti consortiis--while the Druidic mind was always searching into lofty things, (Amm. Marc. xv. 9.) but those who wrote most fully of the Druids knew nothing of this.

The Druids, like the priests of all religions, doubtless sought after such knowledge as was open to them, but this does not imply that they possessed a recondite philosophy or a secret theology. They were governed by the ideas current among all barbaric communities, and they were at once priests, magicians, doctors, and teachers. They would not allow their sacred hymns to be written down, but taught them in secret, (Cæsar, vi. 14.) as is usual wherever the success of hymn or prayer depends upon the right use of the words and the secrecy observed in imparting them to others. Their ritual, as far as is known to us, differs but little from that of other barbarian folk, and it included human sacrifice and divination with the victim's body. They excluded the guilty from a share in the cult--the usual punishment meted out to the tabu-breaker in all primitive societies.

The idea that -the Druids taught a secret doctrine--monotheism, pantheism, or the like--is unsupported by evidence. Doubtless they communicated secrets to the initiated, as is done in barbaric mysteries everywhere, but these secrets consist of magic and mythic formulæ, the exhibition of Sacra, and some teaching about the gods or about moral duties. These are kept secret, not because they are abstract doctrines, but because they would lose their value and because the gods would be angry if they were made too common. If the Druids taught religious and moral matters secretly, these were probably no more than an extension of the threefold maxim inculcated by them according to Diogenes Laertius: "To worship the gods, to do no evil, and to exercise courage." (Diog. Laert. 6. Celtic enthusiasts see in this triple maxim something akin to the Welsh triads, which they claim to be Druidic!) To this would be added cosmogonic myths and speculations, and magic and religious formulæ. This will become more evident as we examine the position and power of the Druids.

In Gaul, and to some extent in Ireland, the Druids formed a priestly corporation--a fact which helped classical observers to suppose that they lived together like the Pythagorean communities. While the words of Ammianus--sodaliciis adstricti consortiis--may imply no more than some kind of priestly organization, M. Bertrand founds on them a theory that the Druids were a kind of monks living a community life, and that Irish monasticism was a transformation of this system.  This is purely imaginative. Irish Druids had wives and children, and the Druid Diviciacus was a family man, while Cæsar says not a word of community life among the Druids. The hostility of Christianity to the Druids would have prevented any copying of their system, and Irish monasticism was modelled on that of the Continent. Druidic organisation probably denoted no more than that the Druids were bound by certain ties, that they were graded in different ranks or according to their functions, and that they practised a series of common cults. In Gaul one chief Druid had authority over the others, the position being an elective one. (Cæsar, vi. 13.)

The insular Druids may have been similarly organised, since we hear of a chief Druid, primus magus, while the Filid had an Ard-file, or chief, elected to his office. (Trip. Life, ii. 325, i. 52, ii. 402; IT i. 373; RC xxvi. 33. The title rig-file, "king poet," sometimes occurs.) The priesthood was not a caste, but was open to those who showed aptitude for it. There was a long novitiate, extending even to twenty years, just as, in Ireland, the novitiate of the File lasted from seven to twelve years. (Cæsar, vi. 14.)

The Druids of Gaul assembled annually in a central spot, and there settled disputes, because they were regarded as the most just of men. (Cæsar, vi. 13; Strabo, iv. 4. 4.) Individual Druids also decided disputes or sat as judges in cases of murder. How far it was obligatory to bring causes before them is unknown, but those who did not submit to a decision were interdicted from the sacrifices, and all shunned them. In other words, they were tabued. A magico-religious sanction thus enforced the judgments of the Druids.

In Galatia the twelve tetrarchs had a council of three hundred men, and met in a place called Drunemeton to try cases of murder. (Strabo, xii. 5. 2.) Whether it is philologically permissible to connect Dru- with the corresponding syllable in "Druid" or not, the likeness to the Gaulish assembly at a "consecrated place," perhaps a grove (nemeton), is obvious. We do not know that Irish Druids were judges, but the Filid exercised judgments, and this may be a relic of their con-nection with the Druids. (Their judicial powers were taken from them because their speech had become obscure. Perhaps they gave their judgments in archaic language.)

Diodorus describes the Druids exhorting combatants to peace, and taming them like wild beasts by enchantment. (Diod. Sic. v. 31.) This suggests interference to prevent the devastating power of the blood-feud or of tribal wars. They also appear to have exercised authority in the election of rulers. Convictolitanis was elected to the magistracy by the priests in Gaul, "according to the custom of the State." (1 Cæsar, vii. 83.) In Ireland, after partaking of the flesh of a white bull, probably a sacrificial animal, a man lay down to sleep, while four Druids chanted over him "to render his witness truthful." He then saw in a vision the person who should be elected king, and what he was doing at the moment.  Possibly the Druids used hypnotic suggestion; the medium was apparently clairvoyant. Dio Chrysostom alleges that kings were ministers of the Druids, and could do nothing without them. (Dio, Orat. xlix.)

This agrees on the whole with the witness of Irish texts. Druids always accompany the king, and have great influence over him. According to a passage in the Táin, "the men of Ulster must not speak before the king, the king must not speak before his Druid," and even Conchobar was silent until the Druid Cathbad had spoken. This power, resembling that of many other priesthoods, must have helped to balance that of the warrior class, and it is the more credible when we recall the fact that the Druids claimed to have made the universe. 

The priest-kingship may have been an old Celtic institution, and this would explain why, once the offices were separated, priests had or claimed so much political power. That political power must have been enhanced by their position as teachers, and it is safe to say that submission to their powers was inculcated by them. Both in Gaul and in Ireland they taught others than those who intended to become Druids. (Cæsar, vi. 13, 14)

As has been seen, their teachings were not written down, but transmitted orally. They taught immortality, believing that thus men would be roused to valour, buttressing patriotism with dogma. They also imparted "many things regarding the stars and their motions, the extent of the universe and the earth, the nature of things, and the power and might of the immortal gods." Strabo also speaks of their teaching in moral science. (Cæsar, vi. 14; Strabo, iv. 4. 4.)

As has been seen, it is easy to exaggerate all this. Their astronomy was probably of a humble kind and mingled with astrology; their natural philosophy a mass of cosmogonic myths and speculations; their theology was rather mythology; their moral philosophy a series of maxims such as are found in all barbaric communities. Their medical lore, to judge from what Pliny says, was largely magical. Some Druids, e.g. in the south of Gaul, may have had access to classical learning, and Cæsar speaks of the use of Greek characters among them. This could hardly have been general, and in any case must have superseded the use of a native script, to which the use of ogams in Ireland, and perhaps also in Gaul,was supple-mentary. The Irish Druids may have had written books, for King Loegaire desired that S.Patrick's books and those of the Druids should be submitted to the ordeal by water as a test of their owners' claims. (Trip. Life, 284.)

In religious affairs the Druids were supreme, since they alone "knew the gods and divinities of heaven." (Lucan, i. 451.) They superintended and arranged all rites and attended to "public and private sacrifices," and " no sacrifice was complete without the intervention of a Druid." (Diod. v. 31. 4; cf. Cæsar, vi. 13, 16; Strabo, iv. 4. 5.) The dark and cruel rites of the Druids struck the Romans with horror, and they form a curious contrast to their alleged "philosophy."

They used divination and had regular formulæ of incantation as well as ritual acts by which they looked into the future.  Before all matters of importance, especially before warlike expeditions, their advice was sought because they could scan the future.

Name-giving and a species of baptism were performed by the Druids or on their initiative. Many examples of this occur in Irish texts, thus of Conall Cernach it is said, "Druids came to baptize the child into heathenism, and they sang the heathen baptism (baithis geintlídhe) over the little child," and of Ailill that he was "baptized in Druidic streams."  In a Welsh story we read that Gwri was "baptized with the baptism which was usual at that time." Similar illustrations are common at name-giving among many races, and it is probable that the custom in the Hebrides of the midwife dropping three drops of water on the child in Nomine and giving it a temporary name, is a survival of this practice. The regular baptism takes place later, but this preliminary rite keeps off fairies and ensures burial in consecrated ground, just as the pagan rite was protective and admitted to the tribal privileges.

In the burial rites, which in Ireland consisted of a lament, sacrifices, and raising a stone inscribed with ogams over the grave, Druids took part. The Druid Dergdamsa pronounced a discourse over the Ossianic hero Mag-neid, buried him with his arms, and chanted a rune. The ogam inscription would also be of Druidic composition, and as no sacrifice was complete without the intervention of Druids, they must also have assisted at the lavish sacrifices which occurred at Celtic funerals.

Pliny's words, "the Druids and that race of prophets and doctors," suggest that the medical art may have been in the hands of a special class of Druids, though all may have had a smattering of it. It was mainly concerned with the use of herbs, and was mixed up with magical rites, which may have been regarded as of more importance than the actual medicines used.  In Ireland Druids also practiced the healing art. Thus when Cúchulainn was ill, Emer said, "If it had been Fergus, Cúchulainn would have taken no rest till he had found a Druid able to discover the cause of that illness."  But other persons, not referred to as Druids, are mentioned as healers, one of them a woman, perhaps a reminiscence of the time when the art was practiced by women.  These healers may, however, have been attached to the Druidic corporation in much the same way as were the bards.

The Religion of the Ancient Celts, John Arnott MacCulloch, Chapter XX. [1911]

Thanks to Ellen Evert Hopman, for the pictures of the female druids, more on female druids: HERE

Gaelic Folklore (27): The Celtic Religion of Gaul During the Iron Age

 

The Celtic Religion of Gaul During the Iron Age

 Though the religion of the Celtic people existed across the continent of Europe it was far from being unified during the Iron Age. Like most ancient religious systems it was based on local cults rather than a universal doctrine, still, there are similarities that present clear connections to a single underlying structure. Being that the ancient Celts neglected to document their rituals and beliefs it is up to other disciplinary means to bring this religion back to life.

 The written material concerning the religion of Gaul is dominated by ancient Graeco-Roman literature and thereby subject to bias. Studying additional methods like archaeology, linguistics, insular Celtic literature, and place-name references can further unveil their beliefs, yet what is known still remains minimal at best. By compiling these various sources this paper seeks to offer a brief insight into the Gaulish religion during the Iron Age, roughly spanning from the ninth century to the end of the first century B.C. In an effort to understand the religion of these people it seems best to examine their beliefs, deities, and aspects of worship.

 1. Beliefs

Although there is not a recorded origin myth for the ancient Celts it is Julius Caesar who provided an insight worthy of note—he stated that the Gauls claimed to be descended from the god of the underworld. This implies that the Celts worshipped their distant ancestors as deities, being that they were descended rather than created. Examining insular literature such as The Book of the Invasions, (Irish, Lebor Gabála Érenn), further confirms that the Celtic tradition was to consider their gods as their ancestors. This could explain why many of the Gaulish deities are depicted as humans, typically with animalistic features, during the Iron Age.

 The Gauls entrusted much of their religious beliefs to the Druids. It is Caesar again who first mentioned them, though it is likely his source came from a Greek named Poseidonios who lived in the second century B.C. Caesar noted, “The druids are involved in matters of religion. They manage public and private sacrifices and interpret religious customs and ceremonies.” The Druids were involved in all religious affairs, however, they did not exclusively perform priestly functions. There is literary implication that other classes partook in religious practices, such as the gutuatri, (speakers to the gods), and the Vates, whom Pliny said were interpreters of sacrifice. It is certainly possible that all these distinct groups mentioned by classical sources could simply be sub-divisions of the Druidic class. Principally speaking, the Druids were the predominant authority within the Gaulish ideology/religion.

 Classical literature towards the end of the Iron Age indicates the Celts of Gaul held the belief that the soul was immortal. The Graeco-Roman writers also made it known that this was the doctrine taught by the Druids in Gaul. Diodorus Siculus, a Greek writer who lived during the first century B.C, commented: “We are told, at the funerals of their dead some cast letters upon the pyre which they have written to their deceased kinsman, as if the dead would be able to read these letters.” Again, this belief remained persistent in later insular literature, particularly throughout the recorded Irish myths.

 In addition to the belief in an immortal soul, there is strong evidence that the Celts considered the soul to reside in the head. There are multiple passages by classical writers, notably Diodorus and Livy, which illustrate Celtic warriors decapitating heads of their slain enemies so that they may “retain and control” their power. Once more there is indication in later Celtic literature reaffirming this concept, once such case being the Welsh myth Mabinogi. Collections of skulls have been found in rivers considered sacred to the Celtic people in various locations, presumably as votive offerings. Their belief of the soul lying in the head could explain why human skulls were presumably venerated with such a high degree and at times used as religious offerings.

 It seems evident that the Gauls, as well as the Celts at large, held the belief in life after death. When commenting on the Gaulish afterlife classical sources often refer to what is called the ‘Otherworld’—the world of the dead. The rhetoric seems to imply that when death occurred in one world, birth took place in the other. This makes sense of Caesar stating that Gallic funerals were “full of pomp and splendor,” because an exchange of souls between both worlds was being celebrated. It is interesting to note that insular Celtic literature maintained the existence of the Otherworld. It is traditionally depicted as a mirror-image of this world, though with pleasing exceptions like lack of sickness and aging. Iron Age Celtic graves in Gaul contained stockpiles of worldly goods which were seemingly used in the Otherworld. A burial site at Vix in westcentral France contained a heap of funerary goods for a Celtic woman who lived during the early fifth century B.C. In the grave was a large bronze vessel, gold neck ring, bronze bowls, and many other precious items which make it tempting to recognize a belief in life after death.

 Balance is an essential doctrine of the Celts. Caesar observes, “For they believe that unless one human life is offered for another the power and presence of the immortal gods cannot be propitiated.” This theme of balance is further justified in their belief of an Otherworld, in juxtaposition to this world. The sun and the moon potentially served as another cosmological example backing this ideology. It seems that the Celtic people believed in a mirror-like universe in almost every aspect, which produced divine balance.

 2. Deities

Through classical scholars, place-names references, and Iron Age religious inscriptions it is without doubt that the Iron Age Celts of Gaul were polytheistic. There are over 300 names of Celtic deities mentioned throughout the continent alone, the overwhelming majority being mentioned only once. This probably means that the Celtic pantheon was filled with local gods and goddesses specific to each tribe. However, it is also apparent that certain deities were universally worshipped throughout Gaul.

Often times the deities of the Celtic pantheon were represented accompanied by animals in their religious art. From inscriptions, it is commonly known that their divinities could also be identified with places or features—mountains, streams, rivers, lakes, and tribes. From their Iron Age symbols and images in art, it can be determined that animals were sacred, but not necessarily deities. This is potential evidence that their religion had roots in animism, hence the sanctity of nature and semi-zoomorphic depictions. 

 The deity which appears to have been the most renowned in Gaul was the god called Lugus, Lugh in later Irish myths. Caesar mentioned that the Gauls mostly worshipped the Roman god Mercury, who was thought to have been Lugus by several contemporary scholars. Caesar described him as being the inventor of all the arts, he additionally was the director of paths and journeys. In Irish mythology, he proclaimed himself a smith, warrior, poet, physician, and a sorcerer, (fundamentally, the perfect guy). He certainly was seen as being connected with the arts; amid a great feast he played the harp so eloquently everyone suddenly began to weep. Inscriptions, as well as monuments dedicated to Lugus during the Iron Age, are more abundant than any other Celtic deity. Numerous place-names also indicate the importance that this god once had throughout Gaul: Lyons, Léon, Loudan, and Laon are all cities which are etymologically connected to this deity.

 Another well-known deity of the Gaulish pantheon was Cernunnos, “the horned one.” He was typically represented as having deer antlers with a ram-headed serpent at his side, giving him the title “Lord of the Animals.” Some scholars equate this deity with The Dagda of Irish mythology, though this remains only a theory. His figure is portrayed on the Gundestrup Cauldron, dating back to the second century B.C.24 The manner in which Cernunnos is sitting on the cauldron, similar to that of the Buddha, is thought to represent how the people of Gaul typically sat during this period. Ultimately, the zoomorphic association of Cernunnos demonstrates that animals and nature played a pivotal role in the Gaulish religion, that much is understood.

 Epona, whose name means “divine horse”, was the Gaulish horse goddess. She was seen as both a fertility goddess as well as a war goddess, depending on the type of invocation. Like Cernunnos, this goddess was often given zoomorphic characteristics. There are inscriptions in Latin which date back to the first century B.C referring to animal sacrifices conducted in her honor. Epona’s influence even reached into the Italian peninsula at one point. Gaul’s superior cavalry eventually enticed Rome to adopt Epona into their pantheon.

 The whole of Gaul had various deities that could be identified with each other or performed similar functions. This is evident in recognizing divinities commonly associated with the sun. It seems that the people of Gaul linked the sun with the capacity to heal, this is evident in the names Grannos, Belenos, and Maponos. Grannos, a name that denotes the sun, was seen as the deity connected with thermal springs in both Britain and the continent. Belenos, whose name comes to mean “the shining one”, was a god of health, healing springs, and possibly fire. Both Belenos and Grannos were often names served as epithets with the Roman Apollo, god of the sun and healing, meaning the Romans saw direct resemblance between these deities.

Lastly, the god Maponos, whose name denotes “youth”, was worshipped in Gaul, Britain, and even Dacia. Youth correlated with strength to the ancient Gauls, indirectly connecting it to health and thus the sun.

 Deities that were commonly associated with war have shown to be more tribal than universal. Several examples are found throughout Gaul, including Teutates and Camulos. It was the Roman poet Lucan who first mentioned Teutates around the first century A.D. The root wood of the name, teuta, denoted a tribe or people. This is why he was thought to have been a wargod, or rather, the defender of the ribe/people. His name was also used with the Roman Mars, god of war, in later epithets.

 Another epithet used with Mars by the Romans was Camulos. This deity was well-known, his name is found in votive inscriptions and place-names across the sphere of the Celts. In later Irish mythology, he was thought to have been Cumal, whose name meant “warrior” or “champion”, hence supporting the likelihood of him being a war-divinity.

 The Iron Age deities affiliated with rivers and springs were female for the most part. Two such river goddesses celebrated by the Gauls were Sequana and Matrona. The river Seine in northern France derives its name from the ancient goddess Sequana. Graves and votive offerings found at the source of the river date back to as early as the sixth century B.C.35 The river goddess Matrona is thought to have been the ancient protector of the Marne River in eastern France. Caesar, in his campaigns against the Gauls during the first century B.C, even refered to this river as being called the Matrona. It is indicative from images found depicting these goddesses that they were connected to fertility, probably because these rivers helped to ensure survival for the people of Gaul.

 Deities related to fertility were also predominantly female and in many instances worshipped in triune form. Gaulish fertility goddesses known as the Matres, meaning “Divine Mothers”, were associated with the Earth. They were seen as protectors of women, houses, regions, or anything else in general. Images of the Matres were frequently depicted as a triad, carrying symbols of fertility such as flowers or an infant.  They appear later in recorded insular mythology in altered forms, including the Three Fairies and the Three White Ladies. The number three was an undeniably sacred number to the Celts all over Europe.

 There are, of course, many other notable deities recognized in Gaul which do not fit into these groupings. Ogmios, later Ogma in Ireland, may have been connected to speech and/or language during the Iron Age. Sucellos, whose name likely denotes “he who strikes with power”, was a deity often depicted with a hammer in his hand. Taranis, meaning “thunderer”, was equated with the Roman Jupiter and therefore a Celtic god of the sky/thunder. Finally, a goddess found in Gaul who was equated with Roman Minerva was Belisama, who was at times syndicated with healing springs.

 3. Aspects of Worship

—Places of Worship

The availability of classical sources and archaeology suggest that bodies of water, groves, and temples served as religious sanctuaries for the Iron Age Celts of Gaul. Bodies of water typically included lakes, wells, springs, and rivers, while groves presumably entailed tall trees.

 Classical sources hardly admitted that the Celts were capable of constructing temples, yet recent excavations in France prove they were not only capable but quite proficient. Lakes, wells, springs, and rivers were believed by the Celts to have healing powers, hence why they became sites of worship. Strabo’s comments regarding extensive treasures found in sacred lakes of the Celts are substantiated by archaeology. Excavations have uncovered masses of votive material which the Gauls placed in these bodies of water as sacrifice. One example involves Lake Neuchâtel, where over 3,000 metal objects have been uncovered dating between the third and first centuries. Another example is the source of the Seine River in eastern France, where the goddess Sequana was given an abundance of offerings during the latter half of the Iron Age. These votive offerings found at various bodies of water indicate that rituals were performed by a religious official, perhaps even a Druid.

 Pliny, Lucan, and Tacitus all made reference to oak-groves being places of worship for the Celts. The Gaulish place-name Nemeton denoted the site of a sacred grove, as is evident in words like Drunemeton (Oak Grove). Lucan described the groves of Gaul as possessing tree trunks which were carved to form the images of their gods, which meant that groves were potentially occupied by certain deities. Caesar noted during his conquest of Gaul, “At a certain time of the year they (the druids) sit in judgment in a sacred spot in the territory of the Carnutes, in an area right in the middle of Gaul.” There are theories that this religious hub of Gaul may have been located in a sacred grove, though it remains a supposition.

 Pre-Roman Celtic temples were discovered to exist in Gaul during the latter half of the 20th century. Two such sites, Gournay-sur-Aronde and Ribemont-sur-Ancre, date back to the 3rd century B.C. Both contained inner sanctuaries as well as scores of war trophies like helmets, shields, spears, and even human skulls. The two sites additionally presented evidence of ritualistic animal sacrifice. Presumably, these sacrifices were offerings for the tribal god of war, being that the shrines were within an Iron Age fort (oppidum). Caesar’s observation regarding the Gallic practice of pledging all spoils of battle to the war-god in one location attests to this thinking. Other Gallic temples are found in Mirebeau and Acy-Romace, further confirming that the Celts worshipped in enclosed sanctuaries during this period.

—Religious Ceremonies

Caesar made it known that Druids were given authority over the religious ceremonies for the people of Gaul. Pliny’s comment concerning a  ceremony conducted in Gaul supports this: “ The Druids - that is what they call their magicians - hold nothing more sacred than mistletoe and a tree on which it is growing, provided it is Valonia Oak….Mistletoe is rare and when found, it is gathered with great ceremony, and particularly on the sixth day of the moon….Hailing the moon in a native word that means “healing all things”, they prepare a ritual sacrifice and banquet beneath a tree and bring up two white bulls, whose horns are bound for the first time on this occasion. A priest arrayed in white vestments climbs the tree and with a golden sickle cuts down the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloak.” Here Pliny exhibited the importance of the lunar cycle to the Gauls. Caesar, too, touched on this aspect, saying the night came first and was followed by the day rather than the reverse.

 The importance of religious ceremonies and the lunar cycle was also found in the Coligny Calendar, found in eastern France. Though dated towards the end of the Iron Age, astronomers have calculated that the calendar must have originally been computed around 1100 B.C. The Gaulish inscription on the bronze tablet covered a duration of five lunar years, which included cosmological elements as well as periods appropriate for certain rituals and events. These religious ceremonies had to be accurate so that they may appease the gods, since matters like the harvest likely depended on it. This explains the precision of the lunar calculations found throughout the calendar.

 The Coligny Calendar additionally refers to bi-annual ceremonies that marked the end of summer and the end of winter. “Samon” is inscribed on the tablet to mean the end of summer and effectively the beginning of the year. There is strong evidence that this is the same seasonal festival as the Irish “Samhain”, indicating it may have been celebrated throughout the Celtic world. Both ceremonies were held at the start of November and show signs of being interconnected with the Otherworld. The end of winter was given the name “Giamon”, and presumably a ceremony heralding the onset of spring was administered for this occasion. The Gaulish Calendar also indicates a festival occurring at the beginning of August, potentially being associated with the harvest. During this period the Council of the Gauls were said to congregate at a certain location. The Roman Emperor Augustus relocated this site to Lyons in 12 B.C, then proceeded to declared himself as the god Lugus. This attempt by Augustus to unify Gaul and Rome signified that the August festival was traditionally presided over by Lugus during the Iron Age. This aggregate celebration was later sustained in Ireland and was also coupled with the god Lugh.

—Offerings

Caesar understood that the Gallic people were well-versed in religious practice. One practice they occasionally carried out was the dedication of offerings to the gods, essentially the sacrifice of wealth. A Gaulish torc found in northeastern France bears an inscription stating it was a gift to the gods. Another privately dedicated offering found in western Gaul comprised a gold torc alongside more than 500 Celtic coins. Individual acts of worship vindicate that the Gauls likely were religious people, as Caesar insinuated.

 The Gauls typically dedicated their spoils from war as offerings to the gods. Caesar remarks, “When they have decided to engage in battle it is to Mars that they will dedicate most of what they may take in the fight.” This statement is supported by the pre-Roman sanctuaries discussed earlier, which housed the scores of war and gifts committed to divinities. Additionally, part of the war trophies found at Gournay were human skulls, which were probably nailed to the entry gate. Skulls have been found belonging to other Gaulish sanctuaries, a few being Roquepartuse, Nages, and Entremont. This does not necessarily stipulate that they were “headhunters”, as classical sources sometimes postulated. More-likely they decapitated the head from the body after death then put it to use as a votive offering.

 The deposition of material goods in bodies of water was probably the most common form of offering to the ancient Gauls. Lakes, rivers, wells, and springs throughout Gaul contain a plethora of offerings dating to the Iron Age. These votive offerings typically comprised of carved wood, but plaques of metal are also found at times. The Gauls held the belief that water had curative powers. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude these offerings were given in the hopes that a physical or emotional sickness may be cured.

 —Sacrifices

The religion of pre-Roman Gaul irrefutably included sacrifice in its tenets. Animal sacrifice was repeatedly practiced all over religious sites of Gaul, as is attested by classical literature as well as archaeological finds. Human sacrifice is a different story, however. Classical authors, notably Caesar and Strabo, directly painted the Celts as practitioners of human sacrifice, yet archaeology is less resolute in endorsing this viewpoint. There is an ongoing debate between scholars whether human religious sacrifice persisted in Gaul. At the heart of the dialogue are bodies recovered from bogs in northern Europe during the Iron Age, or rather the interpretation of these bodies.

 Animal sacrifice was a familiar occurrence all over Gaul during the Iron Age. Caesar referenced this, saying they would vow to sacrifice animals captured during war-time. As previously discussed, animal remains were found in ditches at the Celtic temple in Gournay, France, which contained slash marks from metal weaponry. Animals commonly sacrificed included cows, sheep, pigs, horses, dogs, and oxen—virtually all domesticated species. These ceremonial sacrifices look to be ritual rather than habitual, occurring primarily during times involving trouble.

Classical authors tended to associate the practice of human sacrifice with the identity of the Gauls, (and the Celts in general). Caesar and Strabo, both likely using Poseidonios as their source, wrote that immolation was a form of sacrifice for both animals and humans in Gaul. Lucan, too, described the Gauls lighting humans on fire to please the god Taranis. However, if this practice of human sacrifice did exist in Gaul, it is likely it died out by the end of the Iron Age. Pomponius Mela, a Roman Geographer of the 1st century A.D, stated that this tradition had long ended before his time. Moreover, there was no mention of human sacrifice in the later Celtic literature of Ireland.

Bailey Pope, full article here 

Gaelic Folklore (26) The Gods of Gaul and the Continental Celts.

26. 
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

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 Yvours 69 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

(Les Noms d’origine Gauloise, La Gaule Des Dieux, Jacques Lacroix)