Celtic polytheism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Series on Celtic mythology

Celtic polytheism Celtic deities

Ancient Celtic religion

Druids · Bards · Vates British Iron Age religion Celtic religious patterns Gallo-Roman religion Romano-British religion

Brythonic mythology

Welsh mythology Breton mythology Mabinogion · Taliesin Cad Goddeu Trioedd Ynys Prydein Matter of Britain · King Arthur

Gaelic mythology

Irish mythology Scottish mythology Hebridean mythology Tuatha Dé Danann Mythological Cycle Ulster Cycle Fenian Cycle Immrama · Echtrae

See also

Celts · Gaul Galatia · Celtiberians Early history of Ireland Prehistoric Scotland Prehistoric Wales Index of related articles This box: view • talk • edit

The terms Celtic polytheism, Celtic paganism and Druidism refer to the religious beliefs and practices of ancient Celts, until the Christianization of Celtic-speaking lands. At various times those lands included Ireland, Britain, Celtiberia, Gaul, areas along the Danube river, and Galatia. Currently, the areas of Europe that retain Celtic culture are limited to the six Celtic nations.

Celtic religious practices bear the marks of Romanization following the Roman Empire's conquest of Gaul (58–51 BCE) and Britain (43 CE), although the depth and significance of Romanization is a subject of scholarly disagreement.

Contents 1 The nature of Celtic polytheism 1.1 Animal worship 1.2 Sanctity of hunting 1.3 Weather worship 1.4 Water worship 2 The hierarchy of the Celtic gods 3 The importance of local deities 4 The evidence for Celtic religion 5 Cosmology and eschatology 6 Worship 6.1 The ritual of the oak and the mistletoe 7 Religious vocations or castes 7.1 Druids 7.2 Bards and filid 8 Festivals 8.1 Beltane 8.2 Samhain 9 Syncretism with other polytheistic systems 10 Cults within Celtic polytheism 10.1 Antlered gods 10.2 Healing deities 10.3 Goddesses of sacred waters 10.4 Goddesses of horses 10.5 Mother goddesses 10.6 Divine couples 10.7 Cult of Lugh 10.8 Cult of Taranis 10.9 Cult of Toutatis 10.10 Cult of Esus 10.11 Gods with hammers 10.12 Gods of strength and eloquence 10.13 The divine bull 10.14 The ram-headed snake 11 Deities 12 The effect of Christianity 13 Revival 13.1 Celtic Reconstructionism 13.2 Neo-druidism and Wicca 14 See also 15 References 16 Further reading 17 External links

[edit] The nature of Celtic polytheism

According to classical era sources, the Celts worshipped the forces of nature and did not envisage deities in anthropomorphic terms. ^[1] Deities undoubtedly formed a background to everyday life. Both archaeology and the literary record indicate that ritual practice in Celtic societies lacked a clear distinction between the sacred and profane in which rituals, offerings and correct behaviour maintained a balance between gods and man, and harnessed supernatural forces for the benefit of the group. ^[2]

The pagan Celts perceived the presence of the supernatural as integral to their world. The sky, the sun, the dark places underground all had their spirits, life-forces and personalities. ^[3] Every mountain, river, spring, marsh, tree and rocky outcrop was endowed with divinity. ^[4] While Greek and Roman culture revolved around urban life, Celtic society was predominantly rural. The close link enjoyed with the natural world is reflected in what we know of the religious systems of Celtic Europe during the late first millennium BCE and early first millennium CE. As in many polytheistic systems, the spirits worshipped were those of both the wild and cultivated landscapes and their inhabitants. Cults focussed upon features of the landscape; mountains, forests and animals. Divine powers associated with the fertility of humans, of livestock and of crops were objects of veneration. Tribal territories were themselves held sacred and the ground and waters which received the dead were imbued with sanctity and revered by their living relatives. ^[5] Sanctuaries were sacred spaces separated from the ordinary world, often in natural locations such as springs, groves or lakes. Many topographical features were deified as gods: many divine names refer to specific locations or geographical features, a clear indication of how closely Celtic societies identified with place. Small thank offerings were placed in domestic storage pits while more elaborate deposits were left in specially dug ritual shafts and in lakes. These offerings linked the donor to the place in a concrete way, since complex and varied rituals involved the individual in personal contact with the sacred sites devoted to their gods. An image very different from the idea of druids administering a pan-Celtic religion. ^[6]

[edit] Animal worship

The character and vitality of certain animal species seems to have been considered numinous. Certain spirits were very close to the animals with which they were associated: the names of Artio the ursine goddess and Epona the equine goddess are based on Celtic words for ‘bear’ and ‘horse’ ^[7].

[edit] Sanctity of hunting

Hunting deities whose role acknowledges the economic importance of animals and the ritual of the hunt highlight a different relationship to nature. The animal elements in half-human, antlered deities suggest that the forest and its denizens possessed a numinous quality as well as an economic value. For this reason they were deified as gods. Some scholars explain shape-shifting and magical motifs in terms of Celtic beliefs about rebirth and the afterlife, but it is more likely that such deities had a regenerative function. Attributes like fruit and grain imply fecundity, while animals such as snake and deer (who shed their skins and antlers) suggest cycles of growth. ^[8].

Hunter-gods were venerated in Celtic Europe and they often seem to have had an ambivalent role as protector both of the hunter and the prey, not unlike the functions of Diana and Artemis in classical mythology ^[9]. From Gaul, the armed deer-hunter depicted on an image from the temple of Le Donon in the Vosges lays his hands in benediction on the antlers of his stag companion. The hunter-god from Le Touget in Gers carries a hare tenderly in his arms. Arduinna, the eponymous boar-goddess of the Ardennes, rides her ferocious quarry , knife in hand, whilst the boar-god of Euffigneix in the Haute-Marne is portrayed with the motif of a boar with bristles erect, striding along his torso, which implies conflation between the human animal perception of divinity^[10]. Arawn of Welsh mythology may represent the remnants of a similar hunter-god of the forests of Dyfed.

As with many traditional societies, the hunt was probably hedged about with prohibitions and rituals. TheGreek author Arrian, writing in the second century AD, said that the Celts never went hunting without the gods’ blessing and that they made payment of domestic animals to the supernatural powers in reparation for their theft of wild creatures from the landscape^[11]. Hunting itself may have been perceived as a symbolic, as well as practical, activity in which the spilling of blood led not only to the death of the beast but also to the earth’s nourishment and replenishment^[12].

[edit] Weather worship

Meteorological patterns and phenomena, especially the sun and thunder, were acknowledged as divine and propitiated. Inscribed dedications and iconography in the Roman period show that these spirits were personifications of natural forces. ^[13] Taranis’s name indicates not that he was the god of thunder but that he actually was thunder. ^[14] Archaeological evidence suggests that the sun and thunder were perceived as especially potent. Inscriptions to Taranis the ‘Thunderer’ have been found in Britain, Gaul, Germany and the former Yugoslavia and the Roman poet Lucan mentions him as a savage god who demanded human sacrifice.

From the early Bronze Age, people in much of temperate Europe used the spoked wheel to represent the sun and, by the late Iron Age and Roman periods, solar deities were represented with wheel-symbols (see sun cross). The Romans imported their own celestial god, Jupiter, to Celtic lands and his imagery was merged with that of the native sun-god to produce a hybrid sky-deity who resembled the Roman god but who had the additional native solar attribute of the wheel. ^[15] This Celtic sky-god had variations in the way he was perceived and his cult expressed. Yet the link between the Celtic Jupiter and the solar wheel is maintained over a wide area: altars decorated with the wheels were set up by Roman soldiers stationed at Hadrian's Wall, and also by supplicants in Cologne and Nîmes. ^[16]

[edit] Water worship

The spirits of watery places were invoked as givers of life and as links between the earthly and the other world. ^[17] Sequana, for example, seems to have embodied the River Seine at its spring source and Sulis appears to have been one and the same as the hot spring at Bath, not simply its guardian or possessor. ^[18]

There is abundant evidence for the veneration of water by the Celts and indeed by their Bronze Age forebears. In the Pre-Roman Iron Age, lakes, rivers, springs and bogs received special offerings of metalwork, wooden objects, animals and, occasionally, of human beings. By the Roman period, the names of some water-deities were recorded on inscriptions or were included in contemporary texts. The ancient name for the River Marne was Matrona ‘Great Mother;’ the Seine was Sequana; the Severn, Sabrina; the Wharfe, Verbeia; the Saône, Souconna, and there are countless others. Natural springs were foci for healing cults: Sulis was invoked as a healer at Aquae Sulis and the goddess Arnemetia was hailed as a healer at Aquae Arnemetiae ^[19]. Nemausus, for example, was not only the Gallic name for the town of Nîmes but also that of its presiding spring-god. He had a set of three female counterparts, the Nemausicae ^[20]. In the same region, the town of Glanum possessed a god called Glanis: an altar from a sacred spring is inscribed ‘to Glanis and the Glanicae’ ^[21].

[edit] The hierarchy of the Celtic gods

Evidence from the Roman period presents a bewildering array of gods and goddesses who are represented by images or inscribed dedications^[22]. Sorting these multifarious and divine beings into some kind of hierarchy is necessary, though not always easy, if one is to make any sense of the religious system in place in Celtic Europe. By examining the distribution of images and god-names, it is possible to make distinctions between deities who were venerated all over the Celtic world, those who were popular in more restricted regions - perhaps corresponding to tribal boundaries - and those who were linked to a specific locality, sometimes worshipped only at a single sanctuary ^[23]. The establishment of patterns of frequency and distribution may point to the relative popularity of certain gods, but not necessarily to any order of importance. For example, in east-central Gaul, the local Burgundian healing goddess Sequana was probably more influential in the minds of her local devotees than the Matres, who were worshipped all over Britain, Gaul and the Rhineland^[24].

Certain cults transcended tribal boundaries and were followed everywhere. Examples of universal divinities include the Matres, the sky-god and Epona, the horse-goddess, who was invoked by devotees living as far apart as Britain, Rome and Bulgaria. A distinctive feature of the mother-goddesses was their frequent appearance as a triad: they were perceived as a triple entity in many parts of Britain, in Gaul and on the Rhine. Although it is possible to identify strong regional differences between them^[25].

The Celtic sky-god too had variations in the way he was perceived and his cult expressed. Yet the link between the Celtic Jupiter and the solar wheel is maintained over wide areas, from Hadrian’s Wall to Cologne and Nîmes. ^[26].

[edit] The importance of local deities

Regional divinities can sometimes be identified, perhaps especially associated with tribal and sub-tribal territories. Specific to the Remi of northwest Gaul is a distinctive group of stone carvings depicting a triple-faced god with shared facial features and luxuriant beards. In the Iron Age, this same tribe issued coins with three faces, a motif found elsewhere is Gaul ^[27]. The inference is that a specific Remic divinity is represented. Another tribal god was Lenus, venerated by the Treveri. He was worshipped at a number of Treveran sanctuaries, the most splendid of which was at the tribal capital of Trier itself. Yet he was also exported to other areas: Lenus has altars set up to him in Chedworth in Gloucestershire and Caerwent in Wales^[28].

Many Celtic divinities were extremely localised, sometimes occurring in just one shrine, perhaps because the spirit concerned was a genius loci personifying the natural balance of a particular place^[29]. In Gaul, over four hundred different Celtic god-names are recorded, of which at least 300 occur just once. Sequana was confined to her spring shrine near Dijon, Sulis belonged to Bath. The divine couple Ucuetis and Bergusia were worshipped solely at Alesia in Burgundy. The British god Nodens is associated above all with the great sanctuary at Lydney. Yet he appears at one other site, at Cockersand Moss in Cumbria. Two other British deities, Cocidius and Belatucadrus were both Martial gods and were each worshipped in a clearly defined territories in the area of Hadrian’s Wall ^[30]. There are many other gods whose names betray their origins as topographical spirits. Vosegus presided over the mountains of the Vosges, Luxovius of the spa-settlement of Luxeuil and Vasio to whom belonged the town of Vaison in the Lower Rhône Valley^[31].

[edit] The evidence for Celtic religion

The evidence for the nature of Celtic religion comes partly from ancient literature (from the Classical commentators on the Celts, and from the vernacular mythic sources of Ireland and Wales) and partly from archaeological evidence, especially in the Roman period when inscribed dedications and religious images contribute significantly to our knowledge. What we lack because of the virtual non-literacy of Iron Age Celts is written testimony from the Celts themselves ^[32].

It is important to exercise some care in using all three of these sources for Celtic religion. The classical historians were inevitably subject to bias, distortion, ignorance, misunderstanding, literary convention and barbarian stereotyping, all of which combine to present a picture of Celtic religion which is somewhat skewed and, to a certain extent, unreal ^[33]. Because of their chronological separation from the pre-Christian world, the early Welsh and Irish vernacular sources, written in the Welsh and Irish languages, must be scrutinized with even more rigour than the classical sources in assessing their validity as evidence for pagan Celtic religion ^[34]. While it is possible to single out specific texts which - because of their pagan content - can be strongly argued to encapsulate genuine echoes or resonances of the pre-Christian past, the earliest mythic stories of Ireland and Wales were not compiled in written form until the mediaeval period^[35]. Opinion is divided as to whether these texts contain substantive material derived from oral tradition as preserved by bards or whether they were the creation of the mediaeval monastic tradition^[36].

The archaeological evidence does not contain the bias inherent in the literary sources. Nonetheless, our interpretation of this evidence is inevitably coloured by the twenty-first-century mindset^[37].

Four main types of source provide information on Celtic polytheism: the minted coins of Gaul, Raetia, Noricum and Britain; the sculptures, monuments and inscriptions associated with the Celts of continental Europe and of Roman Britain; Greek and Roman literature; and the insular literatures of Celtic mythology that have survived in writing from medieval times. All pose problems of interpretation. The pre-Roman coins of the 1st century BC and early 1st century AD bear few relevant inscriptions, and their iconography derives partly from standardized Hellenistic numismatic prototypes and partly presents highly local emblems. Most of the monuments, and their accompanying inscriptions, belong to the Roman period and reflect a considerable degree of syncretism between Celtic and Roman gods; even where figures and motifs appear to derive from pre-Roman tradition, they are difficult to interpret in the absence of a preserved literature on mythology.

Only after the lapse of many centuries – beginning in the 7th century in Ireland, even later in Wales – were Celtic mythological traditions consigned to writing, but by then Ireland and Wales had been Christianised and the scribes and redactors were monastic scholars. The resulting literature is abundant and varied, but it is much removed in both time and location from its epigraphic and iconographic correlatives on the Continent and inevitably reflects the redactors' selectivity and something of their Christian learning. There are nevertheless many points of agreement between the insular literatures and the continental evidence. This is particularly notable in the case of the Classical commentators from Posidonius (c. 135–c. 51 BC) onward who recorded their own or others' observations on the Celts.

[edit] Cosmology and eschatology

Though there are records of deity names, and archaeological remains including altars and temples, little is known about the specific religious beliefs of the Celts of Gaul. Their burial practices, which included burying food, weapons, and ornaments with the dead, suggest a belief in life after death.^[38] The druids, the early Celtic priesthood, were said by Caesar to have taught the doctrine of transmigration of the soul along with astronomy and the nature and power of the gods.^[39]

The Irish believed in an Otherworld, which they described sometimes as underground, such as in the Sídhe mounds, and sometimes located on islands in the Western Sea. The Otherworld was variously called Tír na mBeo ("the Land of the Living"), Mag Mell ("Delightful Plain"), and Tír na nÓg ("Land of the Young"), among other names. It was believed to be a country where there was no sickness, old age, or death, where happiness lasted forever, and a hundred years was as one day. It was probably similar to the Elysium of the Greek mythology and both may have a shared origin in ancient Proto-Indo-European religion. In Irish Immrama ("voyage") tales, a beautiful young woman often approaches the hero and sings to him of this happy land. Sometimes she offers him an apple, or the promise of her love in exchange for his assistance in battle. He follows her, and they journey over the sea together and are seen no more. Their journey may take place in a boat of glass, in a chariot or on horseback (usually upon a white horse, as in the case of the goddess Niamh of the Golden Hair). Sometimes the hero returns after what he believes is a short time, only to find that all his companions are dead and he has actually been away for hundreds of years. Sometimes the hero sets out on a quest, and a magic mist descends upon him. He may find himself before an unusual palace and enter to find a warrior or a beautiful woman who makes him welcome. The woman may be the goddess Fand, the warrior may be Manannán mac Lir or Lugh, and after strange adventures the hero may return successfully. However, even in cases where the mortal manages to return to his own time and place, he is forever changed by his contact with the Otherworld.^[40]

This conception of the Otherworld is also preserved in the Welsh story of Branwen, daughter of Llyr, which ends with the survivors of the great battle feasting in the presence of the severed head of Bran the Blessed, having forgotten all their suffering and sorrow, and having become unaware of the passage of time.^[41] In Irish lore, Donn, a god of the dead, reigned over Tech Duinn ('The House of Donn'), which was seen as existing on or under Bull Island, located off the Beare Peninsula in the southwest of Ireland. It was believed that the newly-dead journeyed to Tech Duinn, either to remain there forever, or perhaps as a starting-point on their journey to the Blessed Isles across the Western Sea.^[42] A Welsh corollary to Tech Duinn is Annwfn, ruled by the Otherworld kings Arawn and Gwyn ap Nudd.^[43]

Insular Celts swore their oaths by their personal or tribal gods, and the land, sea and sky; as in, "I swear by the gods by whom my people swear" and "If I break my oath, may the land open to swallow me, the sea rise to drown me, and the sky fall upon me."^[44] Or, in more detail, as sworn by the King of Ulster, Conchobar mac Nessa, in the Ulster Cycle tale, Táin Bó Cúailnge ("The Cattle Raid of Cooley"):

“

The sky is above us and the earth below and the sea all about us. Unless the firmament with its showers of stars falls down upon the earth, or the earth bursts asunder in an earthquake or the blue-bordered furrowy sea flows over the hair of the earth, I shall bring back every cow to her byre and yard and every woman to her home and dwelling, after victory in the battle.[45]

”

[edit] Worship

According to Poseidonius and later classical authors Gaulish religion and culture were the concern of three professional classes—the druids, the bards, and the vates. This threefold hierarchy had its reflection among the two main branches of Celts in Ireland and Wales, but is best represented in early Irish tradition with its draoithe (druids), filidh (visionary poets), and Faidh (seers). However these categories are not always fixed, and may be named or divided differently in different primary sources.

Classical sources claimed that the Celts had no temples (before the Gallo-Roman period) and that their ceremonies took place in forest sanctuaries. However, archaeologist have discovered a large number of temple sites excavated throughout the Celtic world, primarily in Gaul. In the Gallo-Roman period, more permanent stone temples were erected, and many of them have been discovered by archaeologists in Britain as well as in Gaul. Indeed, a distinct type of Celto-Roman temple called a fanum also was developed. This was distinguished from a common Roman shrine by having an ambulatory on all four sides of the central cella.

Celtic religious practice was probably sacrificial in its interactions with the gods. Roman writers stated that the Celts practiced human sacrifice in Gaul: Cicero, Julius Caesar, Suetonius, and Lucan all refer to it, and Pliny the Elder says that it occurred in Britain, too. It was forbidden under Tiberius and Claudius. However there is also the possibility that these claims may have been false, and used as a sort of propaganda to justify the Roman conquest of these territories. There are only very few recorded archaeological discoveries which preserve evidence of human sacrifice and thus most contemporary historians tend to regard human sacrifice as rare within Celtic cultures. There is some circumstantial evidence that human sacrifice was known in Ireland and was later forbidden by St. Patrick, a claim which has also been disputed.

The early Celts considered some trees to be sacred. The importance of trees in Celtic religion is shown by the fact that the very name of the Eburonian tribe contains a reference to the yew tree, and that names like Mac Cuilinn (son of holly) and Mac Ibar (son of yew) appear in Irish myths. In Ireland, wisdom was symbolized by the salmon who feed on the hazelnuts from the trees that surround the well of wisdom (Tobar Segais).

There was also a warrior cult that centered on the severed heads of their enemies. The Celts provided their dead with weapons and other accoutrements, which indicates that they most likely believed in some form of an afterlife.

[edit] The ritual of the oak and the mistletoe

Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century AD, describes a religious ceremony in Gaul in which white-clad druids climbed a sacred oak, cut down the mistletoe growing on it, sacrificed two white bulls and used the mistletoe to cure infertility^[46]:

“

The druids - that is what they call their magicians - hold nothing more sacred than the 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. Then finally they kill the victims, praying to a god to render his gift propitious to those on whom he has bestowed it. They believe that mistletoe given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren and that it is an antidote to all poisons[47]

”

Pliny was primarily interested in natural history and some scholars have dismissed the testimony in relation to the druids’ ceremony as largely fanciful, particularly as he is the only classical author to mention this ceremony. Yet Pliny specifically associates druids with oak trees. Oaks were held sacred by both druids and Celts alike. Drunemeton, the ‘oak sanctuary,’ is described by Strabo as a place where the Galatian Council met^[48] and oak was used to construct the great Iron Age multi-ring timber structure at Navan Fort in County Armagh ^[49]. The Poole Logboat and the Corlea Trackway were both made of oak in the Iron Age^[50].

Central to Pliny’s statement is the sanctity of the mistletoe, both as a healing agent and as an aid to fertility. Both these concerns are emphasised in Celtic religious expression. Interestingly, in modern pharmacopoeia, mistletoe is reputed to be beneficial to sufferers of insomnia, high blood pressure and certain malignant tumours ^[51]. Moreover, that mistletoe may have possessed important symbolism for the Celts is suggested by its presence as a motif in early Celtic art. Human heads bearing curious leaf-shaped crowns are common decorative themes on both jewellery and stone monuments ^[52]. The lobed shape of the leaves on these objects closely resembles the leaves of European mistletoe and, if such an identification be correct, it may be that the faces depicted in this pre-Roman art are those of priests or gods.

In Pliny’s comments, three other points of significance concern banqueting, the moon and bull-sacrifice. All three are familiar to the repertoire of Celtic religion. Ritual banquets are represented in some rich tombs of both the early and late Iron Age of Celtic Europe: the Hallstatt chieftain’s tomb at Hochdorf was furnished with a set of nine drinking horns and a nine-piece dinner service, for the otherworld Banquet, as well as a huge cauldron of mead. certain shrines exibit abundant evidence of ceremonial banquets: excavators of the sanctuary at Mirebeau, in northern France, found a veritable carpet of bones from butchered animals and broken pots, which appear to be the remains of feasting^[53].

Pliny makes allusions to the moon on its sixth day, a waxing crescent moon, as an instrument of healing: here again there is corroborative evidence in that Celtic goddesses associated with healing and regeneration are sometimes depicted wearing lunar amulets; and the great temple of the healer-goddess Sulis Minerva at Bath, Somerset bears a carving of the Roman moon-goddess Luna. Among the finds at Bath, Somerset was a lunar pendant, possibly once part of a priest’s sceptre^[54].

Lastly, bull-sacrifice is attested in other evidence. Cattle were commonly used as sacrificial animals: the shrine of Gournay in Picardy was the scene of repeated ox-sacrifice and cattle were ritually slaughtered in numerous Celtic sanctuaries^[55]. Bull-sacrifice is twice depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron and was probably made in the first century BC. In Irish mythology, the Tarbhfhess, the ‘bull-sleep,’ was a ritual closely associated with druids. : a selected individual was fed on bull flesh before being chanted to sleep by four druids; while he slept he dreamt of the next rightful High King of Ireland and when he awoke he gave this information to his druid attendants^[56].

[edit] Religious vocations or castes

[edit] Druids

Main article: Druid

A Druid was a member of the learned class among the ancient Celts. They acted as priests, teachers, and judges. The earliest known records of the Druids come from the 3rd century BC. Some scholars have suggested that the Druids were the Celtic counterparts of the Brahmans of India.

[edit] Bards and filid

Main articles: Fili and Bard

In Ireland the filid were visionary poets, associated with lorekeeping, versecraft, and the memorization of vast numbers of poems. They were also magicians, as Irish magic is intrinsically connected to poetry, and the satire of a gifted poet was a serious curse upon the one being satirized. To run afoul of a poet was a dangerous thing indeed to a people who valued reputation and honor more than life itself.

In Ireland a "bard" was considered a lesser grade of poet than a fili - more of a minstrel and rote reciter than an inspired artist with magical powers. However in Wales bardd was the word for their visionary poets, and used in the same manner fili was in Ireland and Scotland.

The Celtic poets, of whatever grade, were composers of eulogy and satire, and a chief duty was that of composing and reciting verses on heroes and their deeds, and memorizing the genealogies of their patrons. It was essential to their livelihood that they increase the fame of their patrons, via tales, poems and songs. As early as the 1st century AD, the Latin author Lucan referred to "bards" as the national poets or minstrels of Gaul and Britain. In Gaul the institution gradually disappeared, whereas in Ireland and Wales it survived. The Irish bard through chanting preserved a tradition of poetic eulogy. In Wales, where the word bardd has always been used for poet, the bardic order was codified into distinct grades in the 10th century. Despite a decline of the order toward the end of the European Middle Ages, the Welsh tradition has persisted and is celebrated in the annual eisteddfod, a national assembly of poets and musicians.

[edit] Festivals

Insular sources provide important information about Celtic religious festivals. In Ireland the year was divided into two periods of six months by the feasts of Beltane (May 1) and Samhain (Samain; November 1), and each of these periods was equally divided by the feasts of Imbolc (February 1), and Lughnasadh (August 1). Samhain seems originally to have meant "summer," but by the early Irish period it had come to mark summer's end. Beltine is also called Cetsamain ("First Samhain"). Imbolc has been compared by the French scholar Joseph Vendryes to the Roman lustrations and apparently was a feast of purification for the farmers. Beltane ("Bright Fire") was the festival of the beginning of summer, and there is a tradition that on that day the people drove their cattle between two fires as a protection against disease. Lughnasadh was the feast of the god Lugh and a celebration of the first fruits or early harvest.

The Coligny calendar has sometimes been looked to for information regarding the Gaulish year including holy days.

[edit] Beltane

Main article: Beltane

Beltane is a festival held on the first day of May in Ireland and Scotland, celebrating the beginning of summer and open pasturing. In early Irish lore a number of significant events took place on Beltane, which long remained the focus of folk traditions and tales in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. Like Samhain, Beltane was seen as a time when the spirit realm is especially close at hand.

[edit] Samhain

Main article: Samhain

The beginning of the month of Samhain (Old Irish samain), was one of the most important calendar festivals of the Celtic year. At "the three nights of Samhain", held around the beginning of November, the world of the gods and spirits was believed to be made visible to humans. The deities and spirits may play tricks on their mortal worshipers, and it was a time filled with supernatural episodes. Samhain was traditionally a time of sacrifice, whether in offering to the deities or due to the need to slaughter any livestock that it would be impossible to feed for the entire winter. Samhain was an important precursor to the later festival of Halloween, as it was a time for the Celts to honour the dead, the spirits and deities, and to face the realities and fears of the coming winter.

[edit] Syncretism with other polytheistic systems

The locus classicus for the Celtic gods of Gaul is the passage in Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (The Gallic War, 52–51 BC) in which he names six of them, together with their functions. He says that Mercury was the most honoured of all the gods and many images of him were to be found. Mercury was regarded as the inventor of all the arts, the patron of travellers and of merchants, and the most powerful god in matters of commerce and gain. After him the Gauls honoured Apollo, who drove away diseases, Mars, who controlled war, Jupiter, who ruled the heavens, and Minerva, who promoted handicrafts. He adds that the Gauls regarded Dis Pater as their ancestor.^[57]

In characteristic Roman fashion, Caesar does not refer to these figures by their native names but by the names of the Roman gods with which he equated them, a procedure that greatly complicates the task of identifying his Gaulish deities with their counterparts in the insular literatures. He also presents a neat schematic equation of god and function that is quite foreign to the vernacular literary testimony. Yet, given its limitations, his brief catalog is a valuable witness.

The gods named by Caesar are well-attested in the later epigraphic record of Gaul and Britain. Not infrequently, their names are coupled with native Celtic theonyms and epithets, such as Mercury Visucius, Lenus Mars, Jupiter Poeninus, or Sulis Minerva. Unsyncretised theonyms are also widespread, particularly among goddesses such as Sulevia, Sirona, Rosmerta, and Epona. In all, several hundred names containing a Celtic element are attested in Gaul. The majority occur only once, which has led some scholars to conclude that the Celtic gods and their cults were local and tribal rather than national. Supporters of this view cite Lucan's mention of a god called Teutates, which they interpret as "god of the tribe" (it is thought that teuta- meant "tribe" in Celtic).^[58] The multiplicity of deity names may also be explained otherwise – many, for example, may be simply epithets applied to major deities by widely extended cults.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cults within Celtic polytheism

[edit] Antlered gods

Main article: Cernunnos

A recurrent figure in Gaulish iconography is a cross-legged deity with antlers, sometimes surrounded by animals, often wearing or holding a torc. The name usually applied to him, Cernunnos, is attested only a few times, on a relief at Notre Dame de Paris (currently reading ERNUNNOS, but an early sketch shows it as having read CERNUNNOS in the 18th century), an inscription from Montagnac (αλλετ[ει]υος καρνονου αλ[ι]σο[ντ]εας, "Alleteinos [dedicated this] to Karnonos of Alisontia"^[59]), and a pair of identical inscriptions from Seinsel-Rëlent ("Deo Ceruninco"^[60]). Figured representations of this sort of deity, however, are widespread; the earliest known was found at Val Camonica in northern Italy,^{[citation needed]} while the most famous is plate A of the Gundestrup Cauldron, a 1st-century-BC vessel found in Denmark. On the Gundestrup Cauldron and sometimes elsewhere, Cernunnos, or similar figure, is accompanied by a ram-headed serpent. At Reims, the figure is depicted with a cornucopia overflowing with grains or coins.^[58]

[edit] Healing deities

Main articles: Airmed, Belenus, Borvo, Brighid, and Grannus

Healing deities are known from many parts of the Celtic world; they frequently have associations with thermal springs, healing wells, herbalism and light.

Brighid, the triple goddess of healing, poetry and smithcraft is perhaps the most well-known of the Insular Celtic deities of healing. She is associated with many healing springs and wells. A lesser-known Irish healing goddess is Airmed, also associated with a healing well and with the healing art of herbalism.

In Romano-Celtic tradition Belenus (possibly from Celtic: *belen- ‘bright’^{[citation needed]}, though other etymologies have been convincingly proposed^[61]) is found chiefly in southern France and northern Italy. Apollo Grannus, though concentrated in central and eastern Gaul, also “occurs associated with medicinal waters in Brittany [...] and far away in the Danube Basin”.^[62] Grannus's companion is frequently the goddess Sirona. Another important Celtic deity of healing is Bormo/Borvo, particularly associated with thermal springs such as Bourbonne-les-Bains and Bourbon-Lancy. Such hot springs were (and often still are) believed to have therapeutic value. Green interprets the name Borvo to mean “seething, bubbling or boiling spring water”.^[62]

[edit] Goddesses of sacred waters

Main articles: Sulis, Damona, and Sequana

In Ireland, there are numerous holy wells dedicated to the goddess Brighid. There are dedications to ‘Minerva’ in Britain and throughout the Celtic areas of the Continent. At Bath Minerva was identified with the goddess Sulis, whose cult there centred on the thermal springs.

Other goddesses were also associated with sacred springs, such as Icovellauna among the Treveri and Coventina at Carrawburgh. Damona and Bormana also serve this function in companionship with the spring-god Borvo (see above).

A number of goddesses were deified rivers, notably Boann (of the River Boyne), Sinann (the River Shannon), Sequana (the deified Seine), Matrona (the Marne), Souconna (the deified Saône) and perhaps Belisama (the Ribble).

While the most well-known deity of the sea is the god Manannán, possible early Irish sea goddesses include Fand, her sister Lí Ban, and the mother-goddess of the Fomorians, Domnu.

[edit] Goddesses of horses

Main articles: Epona, Macha, and Rhiannon

The horse, an instrument of Indo-European expansion, plays a part in all the mythologies of the various Celtic cultures. The cult of the Gaulish horse goddess Epona was widespread. Adopted by the Roman cavalry, it spread throughout much of Europe, even to Rome itself. She seems to be the embodiment of "horse power" or horsemanship, which was likely perceived as a power vital for the success and protection of the tribe. She has insular analogues in the Welsh Rhiannon and in the Irish Édaín Echraidhe (echraidhe, "horse riding") and Macha, who outran the fastest steeds.

The Welsh horse goddess Rhiannon is best known from The Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh tales, in which she makes her first appearance on a pale, mysterious steed and meets King Pwyll, whom she later marries. She was accused of killing and devouring her infant son, and in punishment she was forced to act as a horse and to carry visitors to the royal court. According to another story, she was made to wear the collars of asses about her neck in the manner of a beast.

The Irish horse goddess Macha, perhaps a threefold goddess herself, is associated with battle and sovereignty. Though a goddess in her own right, she is also considered to be part of the triple goddess of battle and slaughter, the Morrígan. Other faces of the Morrígan were Badhbh Catha and Nemain.

[edit] Mother goddesses

Main article: Matronae

Mother goddesses are a recurrent feature in Celtic religions. The epigraphic record reveals many dedications to the Matres or Matronae, which are particularly prolific around Cologne in the Rhineland.^[63] Iconographically, Celtic mothers may appear singly or, quite often, triply; they usually hold fruit or cornucopiae or paterae;^[58] they may also be full-breasted (or many-breasted) figures nursing infants.

Welsh and Irish tradition preserve a number of mother figures such as the Welsh Dôn, Rhiannon (‘great queen’) and Modron (from Matrona, ‘great mother’), and the Irish Danu, Boand, Macha and Ernmas. However, all of these goddesses fulfill many roles in the mythology and symbolism of the Celts, and cannot be limited only to motherhood. In many of their tales, their having children is only mentioned in passing, and is not a central facet of their identity. "Mother" Goddesses may also be Goddesses of warfare and slaughter, or of healing and smithcraft.

Mother goddesses were at times symbols of sovereignty, creativity, birth, fertility, sexual union and nurturing. At other times they could be seen as punishers and destroyers: their offspring may be helpful or dangerous to the community, and the circumstances of their birth may lead to curses, geasa or hardship, such as in the case of Macha's curse of the Ulstermen or Rhiannon's possible devouring of her child and subsequent punishment.

[edit] Divine couples

One notable feature of Gaulish and Romano-Celtic sculpture is the frequent appearance of male and female deities in pairs, such as Rosmerta and ‘Mercury’, Nantosuelta and Sucellos, Sirona and Apollo Grannus, Borvo and Damona, or Mars Loucetius and Nemetona.^[63]

[edit] Cult of Lugh

Main articles: Lugus, Lugh, and Lleu

According to Caesar the god most honoured by the Gauls was ‘Mercury’, and this is confirmed by numerous images and inscriptions. Mercury's name is often coupled with Celtic epithets, particularly in eastern and central Gaul; the commonest such names include Visucius, Cissonius, and Gebrinius.^[63] Another name, Lugus, is inferred from the recurrent place-name Lugdunon ('the fort of Lugus') from which the modern Lyon, Laon, and Loudun in France and Leiden in The Netherlands derive their names; a similar element can be found in Carlisle (formerly Castra Luguvallium) and Legnica in Poland. The Irish and Welsh cognates of Lugus are Lugh and Lleu, respectively, and certain traditions concerning these figures mesh neatly with those of the Gaulish god. Caesar's description of the latter as "the inventor of all the arts" might almost have been a paraphrase of Lugh's conventional epithet samildánach ("possessed of many talents"), while Lleu is addressed as "master of the twenty crafts" in the Mabinogi.^[41] An episode in the Irish tale of the Battle of Magh Tuiredh is a dramatic exposition of Lugh's claim to be master of all the arts and crafts.^[64] Inscriptions in Spain and Switzerland, one of them from a guild of shoemakers, are dedicated to Lugoves, widely interpreted as a plural of Lugus perhaps referring to the god conceived in triple form.^{[citation needed]}

The Gaulish Mercury often seems to function as a god of sovereignty. Gaulish depictions of Mercury sometimes show him bearded and/or with wings or horns emerging directly from his head, rather than from a winged hat. Both these characteristics are unusual for the classical god. More conventionally, the Gaulish Mercury is usually shown accompanied by a ram and/or a rooster, and carrying a caduceus; his depiction at times is very classical.^[58]

Lugh is said to have instituted the festival of Lughnasadh, celebrated on 1 August, in commemoration of his foster-mother Tailtiu.^[65]

In Gaulish monuments and inscriptions, Mercury is very often accompanied by Rosmerta, whom Miranda Green interprets to be a goddess of fertility and prosperity. Green also notices that the Celtic Mercury frequently accompanies the Deae Matres (see below).^[62]

[edit] Cult of Taranis

Main article: Taranis

The Gaulish Jupiter is often depicted with a thunderbolt in one hand and a distinctive wheel in the other. Scholars frequently identify this wheel/sky god with Taranis, who is mentioned by Lucan. The name Taranis may be cognate with those of Taran, a minor figure in Welsh mythology, and Turenn, the father of the 'three gods of Dana' in Irish mythology.

[edit] Cult of Toutatis

Teutates, also spelled Toutatis (Celtic: "god of the tribe"), was one of three Celtic gods mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan in the 1st century,^[66] the other two being Esus ("lord") and Taranis ("thunderer"). According to later commentators, victims sacrificed to Teutates were killed by being plunged headfirst into a vat filled with an unspecified liquid. Present-day scholars frequently speak of ‘the toutates’ as plural, referring respectively to the patrons of the several tribes.^[58] Of two later commentators on Lucan's text, one identifies Teutates with Mercury, the other with Mars. He is also known from dedications in Britain, where his name was written Toutatis.

Paul-Marie Duval, who considers the Gaulish Mars a syncretism with the Celtic toutates, notes that:

“

Les représentations de Mars, beaucoup plus rares [que celles de Mercure] (une trentaine de bas-reliefs), plus monotones dans leur académisme classique, et ses surnoms plus de deux fois plus nombreux (une cinquantaine) s'équilibrent pour mettre son importance à peu près sur le même plan que celle de Mercure mais sa domination n'est pas de même nature. (“Mars' representations, much rarer [than Mercury's] (thirty-odd bas reliefs) and more monotone in their studied classicism, and his epithets which are more than twice as numerous (about fifty), balance each other to place his importance roughly on the same level as Mercury, but his domination is not of the same kind.” Duval 1993:71)[58]

”

[edit] Cult of Esus

Main article: Esus

Esus appears in two monumental statues as an axeman cutting branches from trees.

[edit] Gods with hammers

Main article: Sucellus

Sucellos, the 'good striker' is usually portrayed as a middle-aged bearded man, with a long-handled hammer, or perhaps a beer barrel suspended from a pole. His companion, Nantosuelta, is sometimes depicted alongside him. When together, they are accompanied by symbols associated with prosperity and domesticity. This figure is often identified with Silvanus, worshipped in southern Gaul under similar attributes; Dis Pater, from whom, according to Caesar, all the Gauls believed themselves to be descended; and the Irish Dagda, the 'good god', who possessed a caldron that was never empty and a huge club.

[edit] Gods of strength and eloquence

Main article: Ogmios

A club-wielding god identified as Ogmios is readily observed in Gaulish iconography. In Gaul, he was identified with the Roman Hercules. He was portrayed as an old man with swarthy skin and armed with a bow and club. He was also a god of eloquence, and in that aspect he was represented as drawing along a company of men whose ears were chained to his tongue.

Ogmios' Irish equivalent was Ogma, who was impressively portrayed as a swarthy man whose battle ardour was so great that he had to be controlled by chains held by other warriors until the right moment.^{[citation needed]} Ogham script, an Irish writing system dating from the 4th century AD, was said to have been invented by him.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] The divine bull

Main article: Tarvos Trigaranus

Another prominent zoomorphic deity type is the divine bull. Tarvos Trigaranus ("bull with three cranes") is pictured on reliefs from the cathedral at Trier, Germany, and at Notre-Dame de Paris. In Irish literature, the Donn Cuailnge ("Brown Bull of Cooley") plays a central role in the epic Táin Bó Cuailnge ("The Cattle-Raid of Cooley").

[edit] The ram-headed snake

A distinctive ram-headed snake accompanies Gaulish gods in a number of representations, including the horned god from the Gundestrup cauldron, Mercury, and Mars.

[edit] Deities

This table shows some of the Celtic and Romano-Celtic gods and goddesses mentioned above, in Romanized form as well as ancient Gaulish or British names as well as those of the Tuatha Dé Danann and characters from the Mabinogion. They are arranged so as to suggest some linguistic or functional associations among the ancient gods and literary figures; needless to say, all such associations are subject to continual scholarly revision and disagreement. In particular, it has been noted by scholars such as Sjoestedt that it is inappropriate to try to fit Insular Celtic deities into a Roman format as such attempts seriously distort the Insular deities.

Interpretatio romana	Gaulish/British	Irish	Welsh
			Arianrhod
Apollo	Belenus Borvo Grannus
Victoria	Bodua
		Bran	Brân
Bacchus	Cernunnos
	Epona	Macha	Rhiannon
	Esus
Vulcan	Gobannos	Goibniu	Gofannon
Mercury Uiducus			Gwydion
Mercury	Lugus	Lug	Lleu
Neptune		Manannán	Manawydan
Apollo	Maponos	Maccan	Mabon
	Matronae		Modron
Lamiae		The Morrígan
Mars	Nodens	Nuadu	Lludd/Nudd
Hercules	Ogmios	Ogma
			Pryderi
			Pwyll
Maia	Rosmerta
Hygieia	Sirona
Silvanus	Sucellus	the Dagda
Minerva	Sulis Coventina Icovellauna Sequana
Junones	Suleviae
Jupiter	Taranis	Turenn	Taran
Mars	Toutatis
	Veteris

[edit] The effect of Christianity

The conversion to Christianity inevitably had a profound effect on this socio-religious system from the 5th century onward, though its character can only be extrapolated from documents of considerably later date. By the early 7th century the church had succeeded in relegating Irish druids to ignominious irrelevancy, while the filidh, masters of traditional learning, operated in easy harmony with their clerical counterparts, contriving at the same time to retain a considerable part of their pre-Christian tradition, social status, and privilege. But virtually all the vast corpus of early vernacular literature that has survived was written down in monastic scriptoria, and it is part of the task of modern scholarship to identify the relative roles of traditional continuity and ecclesiastical innovation as reflected in the written texts. Cormac's Glossary (c. 900) recounts that St. Patrick banished those mantic rites of the filidh that involved offerings to "demons", and it seems probable that the church took particular pains to stamp out animal sacrifice and other rituals repugnant to Christian teaching. What survived of ancient ritual practice tended to be related to filidhecht, the traditional repertoire of the filidh, or to the central institution of sacral kingship. A good example is the pervasive and persistent concept of the hierogamy (sacred marriage) of the king with the goddess of sovereignty: the sexual union, or banais ríghi ("wedding of kingship"), which constituted the core of the royal inauguration seems to have been purged from the ritual at an early date through ecclesiastical influence, but it remains at least implicit, and often quite explicit, for many centuries in the literary tradition.

Nagy has noted the Gaelic oral tradition has been remarkably conservative. The fact that we have tales in existence which were still being told in the 19th century in almost exactly the same form as they exist in ancient manuscripts leads to the strong probability that much of what the monks recorded was considerably older. Though the Christian interpolations in some of these tales are very obvious, many of them read like afterthoughts or footnotes to the main body of the tales, which most likely preserve traditions far older than the manuscripts themselves.

Mythology based on (though, not identical to) the pre-Christian religion is still common place knowledge in Celtic-speaking cultures. Various rituals involving acts of pilgrimage to sites such as hills and sacred wells which are believed to have curative or otherwise beneficial properties are still performed. Based on evidence from the European continent, various figures which are still known in folklore in the Celtic countries up to today, or who take part in post-Christian mythology, are known to have also been worshipped in those areas that did not have records before Christianity.

[edit] Revival

Various groups claim association with Celtic polytheism. These groups range from the Reconstructionists, who work to practice ancient Celtic religion with as much accuracy as possible; to new age, eclectic groups who take some of their inspiration from Celtic mythology but place little significance on any sort of historical precedent.

[edit] Celtic Reconstructionism

Main article: Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism

Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism is an effort to reconstruct, in a modern Celtic cultural context, Celtic polytheistic practices from surviving written, archaeological and cultural examples of Celtic polytheism.

[edit] Neo-druidism and Wicca

Modern eclectic religions such as Wicca and Neo-druidism place little emphasis on historical basis or reconstruction, instead blending many outside influences into a modern religion that draws little influence from, or resemblance to, historical Celtic polytheism outside of borrowed imagery or terminology.

[edit] See also

Animism Celtic mythology Celtic languages Germanic paganism Gundestrup cauldron Irish mythology

Horned helmet Paganism polytheism Proto-Indo-European religion Welsh mythology

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• de Vries, Jan (1961) Keltische Religion, a comprehensive survey
• Duval, Paul-Marie (1976) Les Dieux de la Gaule, new ed. updated and enlarged.
• Green, Miranda (1986, revised 2004) Gods of the Celts,
• Mac Cana, Proinsias (1970) Celtic Mythology, copious illustrations.
• Nagy, Joseph Falaky (1985) The Wisdom of the Outlaw: The Boyhood Deeds of Finn in Gaelic Narrative Tradition, tales and analysis in Gaelic and English.
• O'Rahilly, Thomas F. (1946, reissued 1971) Early Irish History and Mythology
• Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise (1949, reissued 1982; originally published in French, 1940) Gods and Heroes of the Celts comparisons between deities of the various Celtic cultures vs Classical models.
• Stercks, Claude (1986) Éléments de cosmogonie celtique, contains an interpretive essay on the goddess Epona and related deities.
• Vendryès, Joseph; Tonnelat, Ernest; Unbegaun, B.-O. (1948) Les Religions des Celtes, des Germains et des anciens Slaves.

[edit] External links

• The Sacred Grove

v • d • e Celts Ancient Celts and Celtic studies Peoples: Names of the Celts  · Gaels (Early Ireland  · Medieval Ireland  · Gaelic Ireland  · Scoti)  · Brythons (British Iron Age  · Roman Britain  · Picts)  · Gauls (Gallo-Roman)  · Celtiberians (Celtic Gallaecia)  · Galatians Religion: Celtic polytheism  · Celtic Christianity Mythology: Celtic mythology  · Irish mythology  · Scottish mythology  · Welsh mythology  · Breton mythology  · British legends Society: Celtic calendar  · Celtic law  · Gaelic clothing and fashion  · Celtic warfare  · Gaelic warfare Art: Celtic art  · Triple spiral  · Celtic knot  · Celtic cross  · Celtic maze Modern Celts and Celtic Revival Celtic music  · Celtic nations  · Celtic Neopaganism  · Pan-Celticism (Celtic Congress  · Celtic League)  · Pronunciation of Celtic Languages Proto-Celtic Insular Celtic (Brythonic  · Goidelic) Continental Celtic (Celtiberian  · Gaulish  · Galatian  · Lepontic  · Noric) Celtic Festivals Samhain  · Imbolc  · Beltane  · Lughnasadh Lists List of Celtic tribes · List of Celtic deities · List of Celts · List of English words of Celtic origin

v • d • e Topics in Celtic mythology   Creation Beira, Cailleach   Ancient Gaulish and Brythonic deities Abandinus, Abellio, Abnoba, Adsullata, Agrona, Alaunus, Alisanos, Ambisagrus, Ancamna, Andarta, Andraste, Anextiomarus, Arduinna, Artio, Arvernus, Aufaniae, Aveta, Belatu-Cadros, Belenus, Belisama, Borvo, Brigantia, Britannia, Buxenus, Camma, Camulus, Cernunnos, Cissonius, Clota, Cocidius, Condatis, Contrebis, Coventina, Damara, Damona, Dea Matrona, Dis Pater, Epona, Erecura, Esus, Fagus, Grannus, Hooded Spirits, Icaunus, Loucetios, Lugus, Luxovius, Maponos, Matres, Nantosuelta, Nemetona, Nemausus, Nodens, Ogmios, Robur, Rosmerta, Rudianos, Segomo, Senua, Sequana, Sirona, Smertrios, Sucellus, Suleviae, Sulis, Tamesis, Taranis, Toutatis, Verbeia, Vosegus   Irish mythological characters Abartach, Abhean, Aengus, Alastir, Ai, Aibell, Aimend, Áine, Airmed, Anann, Badb, Balor, Banba, Beag, Bébinn, Bé Chuille, Birog, Boann, Bodb Derg, Brea, Breg, Bres, Brigid, Bronach, Buarainech, Caer, Canola, Carman, Cenn Cruaich, Cessair, Cethlenn, Cian, Cliodhna, Corb, Creidhne, Crom Cruach, Cú Roí mac Daire, The Dagda, Danu, Dian Cecht, Elatha, Étaín, Ethniu, Ethne, Ériu, Fand, Fionnuala, Fódla, Goibniu, Lir, Luchtaine, Lugh, Macha, Manannán mac Lir, Miach, Midir, Mog Ruith, Morrígan, Neit, Nemain, Niamh, Nuada, Ogma, Plor na mBan, Sheela na Gig, Tailtiu, Tethra   Irish rulers and warriors Caílte, Conall Cernach, Conchobar, Conán mac Morna, Conn of the Hundred Battles, Cormac mac Airt, Cúchulainn, Cumhal, Deichtine, Deirdre, Diarmuid, Emer, Ferdiad, Fergus mac Róich, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Lugaid, Medb, Oisín, Oscar   Scottish mythological characters Bean Nighe, Beira, Cailleach, Crom Dubh, Deò-ghrèine, Glaistig, Inghean Bhuidhe, Lasair, Latiaran, Ossian, Scota, Seonaidh   Scottish rulers and warriors Aífe, Connla, Scáthach, Uathach   Welsh mythological characters Amaethon, Arawn, Arianrhod, King Arthur, Afallach, Beli Mawr, Blodeuwedd, Bran the Blessed, Branwen, Caswallawn, Ceridwen, Cigfa, Creiddylad, Culhwch, Cyhyraeth, Dewi, Dôn, Dwyn, Dylan Ail Don, Efnysien, Elen, Euroswydd, Gofannon, Gwydion, Gwyn ap Nudd, Hafgan, Lleu Llaw Gyffes, Llŷr, Lludd, Mabon, Manawydan, Math fab Mathonwy, Modron, Nisien, Ogyruan, Olwen, Penarddun, Pryderi, Pwyll, Rhiannon, Taliesin   Locations Annwn, Mag Mell, Sídhe, Tír na nÓg   Weapons Claíomh Solais, Fragarach, Gáe Bulg, Spear Lúin   Festivals Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh