Celtic polytheism
Encyclopedia
Celtic polytheism, commonly known as Celtic paganism, refers to the religious beliefs and practices adhered to by the Iron Age
peoples of Western Europe now known as the Celts, roughly between 500 BCE and 500 CE, spanning the La Tène period and the Roman era
, and in the case of the Insular Celts
the British
and Irish Iron Age.
Celtic polytheism was one of a larger group of Iron Age polytheistic religions of the Indo-European family. It comprised a large degree of variation both geographically and chronologically, although "behind this variety, broad structural similarities can be detected" allowing there to be "a basic religious homogeneity" amongst the Celtic peoples.
The Celtic pantheon
consists of numerous recorded theonyms, both from Greco-Roman ethnography and from epigraphy
. Among the most prominent ones are Teutatis, Taranis
and Lugus
.
Figures from medieval Irish mythology
have also been adduced by comparative mythology
, interpreted as euhemerized versions of pre-Christian Insular deities.
The most salient feature of Celtic religion as reflected in Roman historiography is their extensive practice of human sacrifice,
According to Greek and Roman accounts, in Gaul, Britain and Ireland, there was a priestly caste of "magico-religious specialists" known as the druids, although very little is definitely known about them.
Following the Roman Empire
's conquest of Gaul
(58–51 BCE) and southern Britannia
(43 CE), Celtic religious practices began to display elements of Romanisation, resulting in a syncretic Gallo-Roman culture
, with its own religious traditions
with its own large set of deities, such as Cernunnos
, Artio
, Telesphorus
, etc.
In the later 5th and the 6th centuries, Christianity
became the dominant faith in the Celtic area, supplanting earlier religious traditions. However, it left a legacy in many of the Celtic nations, influencing later mythology
, and served as the basis for a new religious movement, Celtic Neopaganism
, in the 20th century.
We know comparatively little about Celtic polytheism because the evidence for it is fragmentary, largely due to the fact that the Celts who practiced it wrote nothing down about their religion. Therefore all we have to study their religion from is the literature from the early Christian period, commentaries from classical Greek and Roman scholars, and archaeological evidence. The archaeologist Barry Cunliffe
summarised the sources for Celtic religion as "fertile chaos", borrowing the term from the Irish scholar Proinsias MacCana. Cunliffe went on to note that "there is more, varied, evidence for Celtic religion than for any other example of Celtic life. The only problem is to assemble it in a systematic form which does not too greatly oversimplify the intricate texture of its detail."
, when leading the conquering armies of the Roman Republic
against Celtic Gaul
, made various descriptions of the inhabitants, though some of his claims, such as that the Druids practiced human sacrifice
by burning people in wicker men
, have come under scrutiny by modern scholars.
However, the key problem with the use of these sources is that they were often biased against the Celts, whom the classical peoples viewed as "barbarian
s". In the case of the Romans who conquered several Celtic realms, they would have likely been biased in favour of making the Celts look uncivilised, thereby giving the "civilised" Romans more reason to conquer them.
and Wales
during the medieval, a period when these traditional religious practices had become extinct and had long been replaced by Christianity. The evidence from Ireland has been recognised as better than that from Wales, being viewed as "both older and less contaminated from foreign material." These sources, which are in the form of epic poems and tales, were written several centuries after Christianity became the dominant religion in these regions, and were written down by Christian monks, "who may not merely have been hostile to the earlier paganism but actually ignorant of it." Instead of treating the characters as deities, they are allocated the roles of being historical heroes who sometimes have supernatural
or superhuman powers, for instance, in the Irish sources the gods are claimed to be an ancient tribe of humans known as the Tuatha Dé Danann
. Because they were written in a very Christian context, these sources must be scrutinised with even more rigor than the classical sources in assessing their validity as evidence for Celtic religion.
While it is possible to single out specific texts which can be strongly argued to encapsulate genuine echoes or resonances of the pre-Christian past, opinion is divided as to whether these texts contain substantive material derived from oral tradition
as preserved by bard
s or whether they were the creation of the medieval monastic tradition
.
inherent in the literary sources
. Nonetheless, the interpretation of this evidence can sometimes be colored by the 21st century mindset.
Various archaeological discoveries have aided our understanding of the religion of the Celts. One is the minted coin
s of Gaul, Raetia, Noricum, and Britain, and another is the sculptures, monuments, and inscriptions associated with the Celts of continental Europe
and of Roman Britain
. 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. A notable example of this is the horned deity
that was called Cernunnos
; several depictions and inscriptions of him have been found, but very little is known about the myths that would have been associated with him or how he was worshiped.
Celtic religion was polytheistic
, believing in many deities, both god
s and goddess
es, some of which were venerated only in a small, local area, but others whose worship had a wider geographical distribution. The names of over two hundred of these deities have survived to us today, although it is possible that some of these names were different titles or epithets used for the same deity.
, whose name is cognate with Irish Lugh
and Welsh Lleu
.
Another example is Gaulish Brigantia
, cognate with Irish Brigid
. This latter theonym can even be reconstructed as a Proto-Indo-European
epithet of the dawn goddess, as *bhr̥g'hntī "the one on high".
noted the names of Teutates, Taranis
and Esus
, although Julius Caesar
instead conflated the Celtic Gaulish deities with those of Roman religion
, and did not mention their native Gaulish names. He declared that the most widely venerated god in Gaul was Mercury
, the Roman god of trade, but that they also worshipped Apollo
, Minerva
, Mars
and Jupiter
.
According to Classical era sources, the Celts worshiped the forces of nature and did not envisage deities in anthropomorphic
terms, as other "pagan" peoples such as the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians did. This appeared to change as the classical peoples grew in influence over the Celtic cultures, as the Celts did begin to give their deities human forms, and they moved from a more animistic-based faith to a more Romanised polytheistic view.
Several of these deities, including Lugus and Matrones, exhibited triplism, being found in a set of three.
however cautioned against automatically equating all Irish and Welsh mythological figures as former deities, noting that whilst some characters "who appear to be human, such as Medb
or St. Brighid, probably were indeed once regarded as divine… the warriors who are the main protagonists of the stories have the same status as those in the Greek myths, standing between the human and divine orders. To regard characters such as Cú Chulainn
, Fergus Mac Roich
or Conall Cernach
as former gods turned into humans by a later storyteller is to misunderstand their literary and religious function… Cú Chulainn is no more a former god than Superman
is."
Examining these Irish myths, Barry Cunliffe stated that he believed they displayed "a dualism between the male tribal god and the female deity of the land" whilst Anne Ross felt that they displayed that the gods were "on the whole intellectual, deeply versed in the native learning, poets and prophets, story-tellers and craftsmen, magicians, healers, warriors… in short, equipped with every quality admired and desired by the Celtic peoples themselves."
Insular Celts swore their oaths by their 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."
The Celts were animists
, believing that all aspects of the natural world
contained spirits, and that these spirits could be communicated with.
These animistic deities were often worshiped, so places such as rocks, streams, mountains, and trees may all have had shrines or offerings devoted to a deity residing there. A similar belief is found in modern Shinto
in Japan
, through the belief of kami
. These would have been local deities, known and worshiped by inhabitants living near to the shrine itself, and not pan-Celtic like some of the polytheistic gods. Among the most popular sites for the veneration of animistic deities were trees; the oak
, ash, and thorn
were considered to be the most sacred. 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 symbolised by the salmon who feed on the hazelnuts from the trees that surround the well of wisdom (Tobar Segais).
Celtic burial practices, which included burying food, weapons, and ornaments with the dead, suggest a belief in life after death
.
The druid
s, the Celtic learned class which included members of the clergy
, were said by Caesar
to have believed in reincarnation
and transmigration of the soul along with astronomy and the nature and power of the gods.
A common factor in later mythologies from Christianised Celtic nations was the otherworld
. This was the realm of the fairy
folk and other supernatural beings, who would entice humans into their realm. Sometimes this otherworld was claimed to exist underground, whilst at other times it was said to lie far to the west. Several scholars have suggested that the otherworld was the Celtic afterlife, though there is no direct evidence to prove this.
s of trees. Across Celtic Europe, many of the constructed temples, which were square in shape and constructed out of wood, were found in rectangular ditched enclosures known as viereckshanzen
, where in cases such as Holzhausen
in Bavaria
votive offerings were also buried in deep shafts. However, in the British Isles, temples were more commonly circular in design. According to Barry Cunliffe, "the monumentality of the Irish religious sites sets them apart from their British and continental European counterparts" with the most notable example being the Hill of Tara
.
However, according to Greco-Roman accounts of the druids and other Celts, worship was held in grove
s, with Tacitus
describing how his men cut down "groves sacred to savage rites." By their very nature, such groves would not survive in the archaeological record, and so we have no direct evidence for them today. Alongside groves, certain springs were also viewed as sacred and used as places of worship in the Celtic world. Notable Gaulish examples include the sanctuary of Sequana
at the source of the Seine
in Burgundy and Chamalieres
near to Clermont-Ferrand
. At both of these sites, a large array of votive offerings have been uncovered, most of which are wooden carvings, although some of which are embossed pieces of metal.
In many cases, when the Roman Empire took control of Celtic lands and Romanised their societies, earlier Iron Age sacred sites were reused, with Roman temples being built on the same sites. Examples include Uley
in Gloucestershire
, Worth
in Kent
, Hayling Island
in Hampshire
, Vendeuil-Caply
in Oise
, Saint-Germain-le-Rocheux
in Chatillon-sur-Seine
and Schleidweiler in Trier
.
In particular, there was a trend to offer items associated with warfare in watery areas, evidence for which is found not only in the Celtic regions, but also in Late Bronze Age (and therefore pre-Celtic) societies and those outside of the Celtic area, namely Denmark. One of the most notable examples is the river Thames in southern England, where a number of items had been deposited, only to be discovered by archaeologists millennia later. Some of these, like the Battersea Shield
, Wandsworth Shield
and the Waterloo Helmet
, would have been prestige goods that would have been labour-intensive to make and thereby probably expensive. Another example is at Llyn Cerrig Bach
in Anglesey
, Wales, where offerings, primarily those related to battle, were thrown into the lake from a rocky outcrop in the late firth century BC or early first century CE.
At times, jewellery and other high prestige items that were not related to warfare were also deposited in a ritual context. At Niederzier in the Rhineland for example, a post that excavators believed had religious significance had a bowl buried next to it in which was contained forty-five coins, two torc
s and an armlet, all of which made out of gold, and similar deposits have been uncovered elsewhere in Celtic Europe.
Celtic religious practice was probably sacrificial
in its interactions with the gods. Greco-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.
However, there is also archaeological evidence from western Europe that has been widely used to back up the idea that human sacrifice was performed by the Iron Age Celts. Mass graves found in a ritual context dating from this period have been unearthed in Gaul, at both Gournay-sur-Aronde
and Ribemont-sur-Ancre
in what was the region of the Belgae chiefdom. The excavator of these sites, Jean-Louis Brunaux, interpreted them as areas of human sacrifice in devotion to a war god, although this view was criticised by another archaeologist, Martin Brown, who believed that the corpses might be those of honoured warriors buried in the sanctuary rather than sacrifices. At a bog in Lindow
, Cheshire
, England was discovered a body, designated the "Lindow Man
", which may also have been the victim of a sacrificial ritual, but it is just as likely that he was an executed criminal or a victim of violent crime. The body is now on display at the British Museum
, London
. In Ireland
, similar discoveries in 2003 of two murdered individuals preserved in separate bogs, each subsequently dated to around 100 BCE, lends some credence to the ritual murder theory.
, writing in the 1st century BCE, described how Celtic warriors "cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses." Strabo
meanwhile commented in the same century that until the Roman authorities put a stop to it, amongst the Celts, "the heads of enemies held in high repute they used to embalm in cedar oil and exhibit to strangers." Archaeological evidence indicating that the Celts did indeed behead humans and then display their heads, possibly for religious purposes, has been unearthed at a number of excavations; one notable example of this was found at the Gaulish site of Entremont
near to Aix-en-Provence
, where a fragment of a pillar carved with images of skulls was found, within which were niches where actual human skulls were kept, nailed into position, fifteen examples of which were found.
The archaeologist Barry Cunliffe
believed that the Celts held "reverence for the power of the head" and that "to own and display a distinguished head was to retain and control the power of the dead person" whilst the archaeologist Anne Ross asserted that "the Celts venerated the head as a symbol of divinity and the powers of the otherworld, and regarded it as the most important bodily member, the very seat of the soul." The archaeologist Miranda Green
meanwhile stated that "I refute any suggestion that the head itself was worshipped but it was clearly venerated as the most significant element in a human or divine image representing the whole." The historian Ronald Hutton
however criticised the idea of the "cult of the human head", believing that both the literary and archaeological evidence did not warrant this conclusion, noting that "the frequency with which human heads appears upon Celtic metalwork proves nothing more than they were a favourite decorative motif, among several, and one just as popular among non-Celtic peoples."
, Cicero
, Tacitus
and Pliny the Elder
, Gaulish and British society held a group of magico-religious specialists known as the druids in high esteem. Their roles and responsibilities differed somewhat between the different accounts, but Caesar's, which was the "fullest" and "earliest original text" to describe the druids, described them as being concerned with "divine worship, the due performance of sacrifices, private or public, and the interpretation of ritual questions." He also claimed that they were responsible for officiating at human sacrifices, such as the wicker man
burnings. Nonetheless, a number of historians have criticised these such accounts, believing them to be biased or inaccurate. Vernacular Irish sources also referred to the druids, portraying them not only as priests but as sorcerers who had supernatural powers which they used for cursing and divination
and who opposed the coming of Christianity. Various historians and archaeologists have interpreted the druids in different ways; Peter Berresford Ellis
for instance believed them to be the equivalents of the India
n Brahmin
caste, whilst Anne Ross believed that they were essentially tribal priests, having more in common with the shamans of tribal societies than with the classical philosophers. Ronald Hutton
meanwhile held a particularly sceptical attitude to many claims made about them, and he purported the view that the evidence available was of such a suspicious nature that "we can know virtually nothing of certainty about the ancient Druids, so that – although they certainly existed – they function more or less as legendary figures."
In Ireland the filid were visionary poets, associated with lorekeeping, versecraft, and the memorisation 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 satirised. 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 memorising 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 CE
, 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.
, dated to the 2nd century and as such firmly within the Gallo-Roman period.
Some feast days of the medieval Irish calendar
have sometimes been speculated to descend from prehistoric festivals, especially by comparison to terms found in the Coligny calendar. This concerns Beltane
in particular, which is attributed ancient origin by medieval Irish writers.
The festivals of Samhain
and Imbolc
are not assciated with "paganism" or druidry in Irish legend, but there have nevertheless been suggestions of a prehistoric background since the 19th century, in the case of Samhain by John Rhys
and James Frazer
who assumed that this festival marked the "Celtic new year".
and Hispania
under Roman rule
fused
Roman
religious forms and modes of worship indigenous traditions.
In some cases, Gaulish deity names were used as epithets for Roman deities, as with Lenus Mars
or Jupiter Poeninus. In other cases, Roman gods were given Gaulish female partners – for example, Mercury
was paired with Rosmerta
and Sirona
was partnered with Apollo
. In at least one case – that of the equine goddess Epona
– a native Celtic goddess was also adopted by Romans.
Eastern mystery religion
s penetrated Gaul early on. These included the cults of Orpheus
, Mithras, Cybele
, and Isis
.
The imperial cult
, centred primarily on the numen
of Augustus
, came to play a prominent role in public religion in Gaul, most dramatically at the pan-Gaulish ceremony venerating Rome and Augustus at the Condate Altar near Lugdunum
on 1 August.
Generally Roman worship practices such as offerings of incense and animal sacrifice, dedicatory inscriptions, and naturalistic statuary depicting deities in anthropomorphic form were combined with specific Gaulish practices such as circumambulation around a temple. This gave rise to a characteristic Gallo-Roman fanum, identifiable in archaeology from its concentric shape.
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 CE
) recounts that St. Patrick banished those mantic rites of the filidh that involved offerings to "demons", and 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 worshiped in those areas that did not have records before Christianity.
, 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 and iconography, the most notable of which is Neo-druidry.
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
peoples of Western Europe now known as the Celts, roughly between 500 BCE and 500 CE, spanning the La Tène period and the Roman era
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, and in the case of the Insular Celts
Insular Celts
The Insular Celts are the speakers of Insular Celtic languages.-Pre-Celtic Britain:Little is known of the culture and language of pre-Celtic Britain, but remnants of the latter may remain in the names of some geographical features, such as the rivers Clyde, Tamar and Thames, whose etymology is...
the British
British Iron Age
The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron-Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland, and which had an independent Iron Age culture of...
and Irish Iron Age.
Celtic polytheism was one of a larger group of Iron Age polytheistic religions of the Indo-European family. It comprised a large degree of variation both geographically and chronologically, although "behind this variety, broad structural similarities can be detected" allowing there to be "a basic religious homogeneity" amongst the Celtic peoples.
The Celtic pantheon
Celtic pantheon
The gods and goddesses, or deities of the Celts are known from a variety of sources, including written Celtic mythology, ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects and place or personal names....
consists of numerous recorded theonyms, both from Greco-Roman ethnography and from epigraphy
Epigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
. Among the most prominent ones are Teutatis, Taranis
Taranis
In Celtic mythology Taranis was the god of thunder worshipped essentially in Gaul, the British Isles, but also in the Rhineland and Danube regions amongst others, and mentioned, along with Esus and Toutatis as part of a sacred triad, by the Roman poet Lucan in his epic poem Pharsalia as a Celtic...
and Lugus
Lugus
Lugus was a deity of the Celtic pantheon. His name is rarely directly attested in inscriptions, but his importance can be inferred from placenames and ethnonyms, and his nature and attributes are deduced from the distinctive iconography of Gallo-Roman inscriptions to Mercury, who is widely believed...
.
Figures from medieval Irish mythology
Irish mythology
The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branch and the Historical Cycle. There are...
have also been adduced by comparative mythology
Comparative mythology
Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes...
, interpreted as euhemerized versions of pre-Christian Insular deities.
The most salient feature of Celtic religion as reflected in Roman historiography is their extensive practice of human sacrifice,
According to Greek and Roman accounts, in Gaul, Britain and Ireland, there was a priestly caste of "magico-religious specialists" known as the druids, although very little is definitely known about them.
Following the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
's conquest of Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
(58–51 BCE) and southern Britannia
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
(43 CE), Celtic religious practices began to display elements of Romanisation, resulting in a syncretic Gallo-Roman culture
Gallo-Roman culture
The term Gallo-Roman describes the Romanized culture of Gaul under the rule of the Roman Empire. This was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman mores and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish context...
, with its own religious traditions
Gallo-Roman religion
Gallo-Roman religion was a fusion of the traditional religious practices of the Gauls, who were originally Celtic speakers, and the Roman and Hellenistic religions introduced to the region under Roman Imperial rule. It was the result of selective acculturation....
with its own large set of deities, such as Cernunnos
Cernunnos
Cernunnos is the conventional name given in Celtic studies to depictions of the horned god of Celtic polytheism. The name itself is only attested once, on the 1st-century Pillar of the Boatmen, but depictions of a horned or antlered figure, often seated in a "lotus position" and often associated...
, Artio
Artio
Artio was a Celtic bear goddess. Evidence of her worship has notably been found at Bern whose name according to legend is derived from the word Bär, "bear".-Representations and inscriptions:...
, Telesphorus
Telesphorus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Telesphorus was a son of Asclepius. He frequently accompanied his sister, Hygieia. He was a dwarf whose head was always covered with a hood or cap....
, etc.
In the later 5th and the 6th centuries, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
became the dominant faith in the Celtic area, supplanting earlier religious traditions. However, it left a legacy in many of the Celtic nations, influencing later mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, and served as the basis for a new religious movement, Celtic Neopaganism
Celtic Neopaganism
Celtic Neopaganism refers to Neopagan movements based on Celtic polytheism.-Types of Celtic Neopaganism:*Neo-druidism, grew out of the Celtic revival in 18th century Romanticism....
, in the 20th century.
Sources
Barry Cunliffe
Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe, CBE, known professionally as Barry Cunliffe is a former Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford, a position held from 1972 to 2007...
summarised the sources for Celtic religion as "fertile chaos", borrowing the term from the Irish scholar Proinsias MacCana. Cunliffe went on to note that "there is more, varied, evidence for Celtic religion than for any other example of Celtic life. The only problem is to assemble it in a systematic form which does not too greatly oversimplify the intricate texture of its detail."
Greek and Roman records
Various Greek and Roman writers of the ancient world commented on the Celts and their beliefs. Barry Cunliffe stated that "the Greek and Roman texts provide a number of pertinent observations, but these are at best anecdotal, offered largely as a colourful background by writers whose prime intention was to communicate other messages." The Roman general (and later dictator) Julius CaesarJulius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
, when leading the conquering armies of the Roman Republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
against Celtic Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
, made various descriptions of the inhabitants, though some of his claims, such as that the Druids practiced human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
by burning people in wicker men
Wicker Man
A wicker man was a large wicker statue of a human used by the ancient Druids for human sacrifice by burning it in effigy, according to Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico...
, have come under scrutiny by modern scholars.
However, the key problem with the use of these sources is that they were often biased against the Celts, whom the classical peoples viewed as "barbarian
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
s". In the case of the Romans who conquered several Celtic realms, they would have likely been biased in favour of making the Celts look uncivilised, thereby giving the "civilised" Romans more reason to conquer them.
Irish and Welsh records
Literary evidence for Celtic religion also comes from sources written in IrelandIreland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
during the medieval, a period when these traditional religious practices had become extinct and had long been replaced by Christianity. The evidence from Ireland has been recognised as better than that from Wales, being viewed as "both older and less contaminated from foreign material." These sources, which are in the form of epic poems and tales, were written several centuries after Christianity became the dominant religion in these regions, and were written down by Christian monks, "who may not merely have been hostile to the earlier paganism but actually ignorant of it." Instead of treating the characters as deities, they are allocated the roles of being historical heroes who sometimes have supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
or superhuman powers, for instance, in the Irish sources the gods are claimed to be an ancient tribe of humans known as the Tuatha Dé Danann
Tuatha Dé Danann
The Tuatha Dé Danann are a race of people in Irish mythology. In the invasions tradition which begins with the Lebor Gabála Érenn, they are the fifth group to settle Ireland, conquering the island from the Fir Bolg....
. Because they were written in a very Christian context, these sources must be scrutinised with even more rigor than the classical sources in assessing their validity as evidence for Celtic religion.
While it is possible to single out specific texts which can be strongly argued to encapsulate genuine echoes or resonances of the pre-Christian past, opinion is divided as to whether these texts contain substantive material derived from oral tradition
Oral tradition
Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
as preserved by bard
Bard
In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...
s or whether they were the creation of the medieval monastic tradition
Christian monasticism
Christian monasticism is a practice which began to develop early in the history of the Christian Church, modeled upon scriptural examples and ideals, including those in the Old Testament, but not mandated as an institution in the scriptures. It has come to be regulated by religious rules Christian...
.
Archaeological sources
The archaeological evidence does not contain the biasBias
Bias is an inclination to present or hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives. Bias can come in many forms.-In judgement and decision making:...
inherent in the literary sources
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
. Nonetheless, the interpretation of this evidence can sometimes be colored by the 21st century mindset.
Various archaeological discoveries have aided our understanding of the religion of the Celts. One is the minted coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
s of Gaul, Raetia, Noricum, and Britain, and another is the sculptures, monuments, and inscriptions associated with the Celts of continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
and of Roman Britain
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
. Most of the monuments, and their accompanying inscriptions, belong to the Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
period and reflect a considerable degree of syncretism
Syncretism
Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...
between Celtic and Roman gods
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
; 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. A notable example of this is the horned deity
Horned God
The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in some European pagan religions. He is often given various names and epithets, and represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the other part being the female Triple Goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is...
that was called Cernunnos
Cernunnos
Cernunnos is the conventional name given in Celtic studies to depictions of the horned god of Celtic polytheism. The name itself is only attested once, on the 1st-century Pillar of the Boatmen, but depictions of a horned or antlered figure, often seated in a "lotus position" and often associated...
; several depictions and inscriptions of him have been found, but very little is known about the myths that would have been associated with him or how he was worshiped.
Deities
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
, believing in many deities, both god
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
s and goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
es, some of which were venerated only in a small, local area, but others whose worship had a wider geographical distribution. The names of over two hundred of these deities have survived to us today, although it is possible that some of these names were different titles or epithets used for the same deity.
Common Celtic theonyms
Some Celtic theonyms can be established as Pan-Celtic (descending from the Common Celtic period) by comparing Continental with Insular Celtic evidence. An example of this is Gaulish LugusLugus
Lugus was a deity of the Celtic pantheon. His name is rarely directly attested in inscriptions, but his importance can be inferred from placenames and ethnonyms, and his nature and attributes are deduced from the distinctive iconography of Gallo-Roman inscriptions to Mercury, who is widely believed...
, whose name is cognate with Irish Lugh
Lugh
Lug or Lugh is an Irish deity represented in mythological texts as a hero and High King of the distant past. He is known by the epithets Lámhfhada , for his skill with a spear or sling, Ildánach , Samhildánach , Lonnbeimnech and Macnia , and by the...
and Welsh Lleu
Lleu Llaw Gyffes
Lleu Llaw Gyffes is a hero of Welsh mythology. He appears most prominently in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, the tale of Math fab Mathonwy, which tells the tale of his birth, his marriage, his death, his resurrection and his accession to the throne of Gwynedd...
.
Another example is Gaulish Brigantia
Brigantia (goddess)
Brigantia was a goddess in Celtic religion of Late Antiquity.In the interpretatio Romana, she was equated with Victoria...
, cognate with Irish Brigid
Brigid
In Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....
. This latter theonym can even be reconstructed as a Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European may refer to:*Proto-Indo-European language, the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages.*Proto-Indo-Europeans, the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language....
epithet of the dawn goddess, as *bhr̥g'hntī "the one on high".
Antiquity
Some of the Greek and Roman accounts mention various deities worshipped in Gaul, for instance LucanLucan
Lucan is the common English name of the Roman poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus.Lucan may also refer to:-People:*Arthur Lucan , English actor*Sir Lucan the Butler, Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend...
noted the names of Teutates, Taranis
Taranis
In Celtic mythology Taranis was the god of thunder worshipped essentially in Gaul, the British Isles, but also in the Rhineland and Danube regions amongst others, and mentioned, along with Esus and Toutatis as part of a sacred triad, by the Roman poet Lucan in his epic poem Pharsalia as a Celtic...
and Esus
Esus
Esus or Hesus was a Gaulish god known from two monumental statues and a line in Lucan's Bellum civile.-Imagery:The two statues on which his name appears are the Pillar of the Boatmen from among the Parisii and a pillar from Trier among the Treveri. In both of these, Esus is portrayed cutting...
, although Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
instead conflated the Celtic Gaulish deities with those of Roman religion
Religion in ancient Rome
Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...
, and did not mention their native Gaulish names. He declared that the most widely venerated god in Gaul was Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...
, the Roman god of trade, but that they also worshipped Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, Minerva
Minerva
Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...
, Mars
Mars (mythology)
Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions...
and Jupiter
Jupiter (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
.
According to Classical era sources, the Celts worshiped the forces of nature and did not envisage deities in anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
terms, as other "pagan" peoples such as the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians did. This appeared to change as the classical peoples grew in influence over the Celtic cultures, as the Celts did begin to give their deities human forms, and they moved from a more animistic-based faith to a more Romanised polytheistic view.
Several of these deities, including Lugus and Matrones, exhibited triplism, being found in a set of three.
Insular mythology
In the Irish and to a lesser extent Welsh vernacular sources from the Middle Ages, various human mythological figures were featured who have been thought of by many scholars as being based upon earlier gods. The historian Ronald HuttonRonald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
however cautioned against automatically equating all Irish and Welsh mythological figures as former deities, noting that whilst some characters "who appear to be human, such as Medb
Medb
Medb – Middle Irish: Meḋḃ, Meaḋḃ; early modern Irish: Meadhbh ; reformed modern Irish Méabh, Medbh; sometimes Anglicised Maeve, Maev or Maive – is queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology...
or St. Brighid, probably were indeed once regarded as divine… the warriors who are the main protagonists of the stories have the same status as those in the Greek myths, standing between the human and divine orders. To regard characters such as Cú Chulainn
Cú Chulainn
Cú Chulainn or Cúchulainn , and sometimes known in English as Cuhullin , is an Irish mythological hero who appears in the stories of the Ulster Cycle, as well as in Scottish and Manx folklore...
, Fergus Mac Roich
Fergus mac Róich
Fergus mac Róich is a character of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology...
or Conall Cernach
Conall Cernach
Conall Cernach is a hero of the Ulaidh in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. He is said to have always slept with the head of a Connachtman under his knee. His epithet is normally translated as "victorious" or "triumphant", although it is an obscure word, and some texts struggle to explain it...
as former gods turned into humans by a later storyteller is to misunderstand their literary and religious function… Cú Chulainn is no more a former god than Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
is."
Examining these Irish myths, Barry Cunliffe stated that he believed they displayed "a dualism between the male tribal god and the female deity of the land" whilst Anne Ross felt that they displayed that the gods were "on the whole intellectual, deeply versed in the native learning, poets and prophets, story-tellers and craftsmen, magicians, healers, warriors… in short, equipped with every quality admired and desired by the Celtic peoples themselves."
Insular Celts swore their oaths by their 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."
Animistic aspects
Some scholars, such as Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick, have speculated that the Celts venerated certain trees.The Celts were animists
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
, believing that all aspects of the natural world
Natural World
Natural World is the longest-running nature documentary series on British television. 2008 marked the series' 25th anniversary under its present title, though its origins can be traced back to its predecessor The World About Us which began over 40 years ago...
contained spirits, and that these spirits could be communicated with.
These animistic deities were often worshiped, so places such as rocks, streams, mountains, and trees may all have had shrines or offerings devoted to a deity residing there. A similar belief is found in modern Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...
in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, through the belief of kami
Kami
is the Japanese word for the spirits, natural forces, or essence in the Shinto faith. Although the word is sometimes translated as "god" or "deity", some Shinto scholars argue that such a translation can cause a misunderstanding of the term...
. These would have been local deities, known and worshiped by inhabitants living near to the shrine itself, and not pan-Celtic like some of the polytheistic gods. Among the most popular sites for the veneration of animistic deities were trees; the oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
, ash, and thorn
Thorn tree
Thorn tree may refer to:* The common name for several species of trees in tropical or temperate climates that have spiky, thorn-like leaves, e.g. the Acacia and the boxthorn...
were considered to be the most sacred. 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
Taxus
Taxus is a genus of yews, small coniferous trees or shrubs in the yew family Taxaceae. They are relatively slow-growing and can be very long-lived, and reach heights of 1-40 m, with trunk diameters of up to 4 m...
, and that names like Mac Cuilinn
Mac Cuilinn
MacCuillinn or Mac Cuillann is an Irish surname. The name is the patronymic form of a personal name derived from cuileann . The name has become Anglicised as MacCullen & McCullen, and MacQuillan & McQuillan. The name appears in Irish mythology. The family are thought to have been Celtic Kings...
(son of holly) and Mac Ibar (son of yew) appear in Irish myths. In Ireland, wisdom was symbolised by the salmon who feed on the hazelnuts from the trees that surround the well of wisdom (Tobar Segais).
Burial and afterlife
Afterlife
The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
.
The druid
Druid
A druid was a member of the priestly class in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul, and possibly other parts of Celtic western Europe, during the Iron Age....
s, the Celtic learned class which included members of the clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
, were said by Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
to have believed in reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
and transmigration of the soul along with astronomy and the nature and power of the gods.
A common factor in later mythologies from Christianised Celtic nations was the otherworld
Otherworld
Otherworld, or the Celtic Otherworld, is a concept in Celtic mythology that refers to the home of the deities or spirits, or a realm of the dead.Otherworld may also refer to:In film and television:...
. This was the realm of the fairy
Fairy
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...
folk and other supernatural beings, who would entice humans into their realm. Sometimes this otherworld was claimed to exist underground, whilst at other times it was said to lie far to the west. Several scholars have suggested that the otherworld was the Celtic afterlife, though there is no direct evidence to prove this.
Cultic practice
Evidence suggests that amongst the Celts, "offerings to the gods were made throughout the landscape – both the natural and the domestic." At times they worshipped in constructed temples and shrines, evidence for which have been unearthed across the Celtic world by archaeologists, although according to Greco-Roman accounts, they also worshipped in areas of the natural world that were held to be sacred, namely in groveGrove (nature)
A grove is a small group of trees with minimal or no undergrowth, such as a sequoia grove, or a small orchard planted for the cultivation of fruits or nuts...
s of trees. Across Celtic Europe, many of the constructed temples, which were square in shape and constructed out of wood, were found in rectangular ditched enclosures known as viereckshanzen
Viereckshanzen
Viereckschanzen are rectangular ditched enclosures that were constructed during the Iron Age in parts of Celtic Western Europe. They are widespread in Germany and parts of northern France....
, where in cases such as Holzhausen
Holzhausen
Holzhausen may refer to:Places*in Germany:**Holzhausen, Saxony-Anhalt, a municipality in the district of Stendal, Saxony-Anhalt**Holzhausen an der Haide, a municipality in the Rhein-Lahn district, Rhineland-Palatinate...
in Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
votive offerings were also buried in deep shafts. However, in the British Isles, temples were more commonly circular in design. According to Barry Cunliffe, "the monumentality of the Irish religious sites sets them apart from their British and continental European counterparts" with the most notable example being the Hill of Tara
Hill of Tara
The Hill of Tara , located near the River Boyne, is an archaeological complex that runs between Navan and Dunshaughlin in County Meath, Leinster, Ireland...
.
However, according to Greco-Roman accounts of the druids and other Celts, worship was held in grove
Sacred grove
A sacred grove is a grove of trees of special religious importance to a particular culture. Sacred groves were most prominent in the Ancient Near East and prehistoric Europe, but feature in various cultures throughout the world...
s, with Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
describing how his men cut down "groves sacred to savage rites." By their very nature, such groves would not survive in the archaeological record, and so we have no direct evidence for them today. Alongside groves, certain springs were also viewed as sacred and used as places of worship in the Celtic world. Notable Gaulish examples include the sanctuary of Sequana
Sequana
In Gallo-Roman religion, Sequana was the goddess of the river Seine, particularly the springs at the source of the Seine, and the Gaulish tribe the Sequani...
at the source of the Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
in Burgundy and Chamalieres
Chamalières
Chamalières is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France.Chamalières is the third-largest town in the department and lies about from Lyon.-History:...
near to Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand is a city and commune of France, in the Auvergne region, with a population of 140,700 . Its metropolitan area had 409,558 inhabitants at the 1999 census. It is the prefecture of the Puy-de-Dôme department...
. At both of these sites, a large array of votive offerings have been uncovered, most of which are wooden carvings, although some of which are embossed pieces of metal.
In many cases, when the Roman Empire took control of Celtic lands and Romanised their societies, earlier Iron Age sacred sites were reused, with Roman temples being built on the same sites. Examples include Uley
Uley
Uley is a village in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is situated in a wooded valley in the Cotswold escarpment, on the road between Dursley and Stroud. The population is around 1,100, but was much greater during the early years of the industrial revolution, when the village was...
in Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
, Worth
Worth, Kent
Worth is a small village situated near Sandwich, Kent, England. It has two public houses, a church, and a school.C.S. Forester's fictional naval hero Horatio Hornblower was born in the village of Worth, according to Hornblower's biographer Cyril Northcote Parkinson [see The Life and Times of...
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, Hayling Island
Hayling Island
-Leisure activities:Although largely residential, Hayling is also a holiday, windsurfing and sailing centre, the site where windsurfing was invented....
in Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, Vendeuil-Caply
Vendeuil-Caply
Vendeuil-Caply is a small village in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise....
in Oise
Oise
Oise is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise.-History:Oise is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
, Saint-Germain-le-Rocheux
Saint-Germain-le-Rocheux
Saint-Germain-le-Rocheux is a commune in the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France.-Population:-References:*...
in Chatillon-sur-Seine
Châtillon-sur-Seine
Châtillon-sur-Seine is a commune of the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France.-Population:-Personalities:Châtillon-sur-Seine was the birthplace of:* Auguste Marmont, duke of Ragusa , Marshal of France...
and Schleidweiler in Trier
Trier
Trier, historically called in English Treves is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC....
.
Votive offerings
The Celts produced votive offerings to their deities, which were buried in the earth or thrown into rivers or bogs. According to Barry Cunliffe, in most cases, deposits were placed in the same places on numerous occasions, indicating continual usage "over a period of time, perhaps on a seasonal basis or when a particular event, past or pending, demanded a propitiatory response."In particular, there was a trend to offer items associated with warfare in watery areas, evidence for which is found not only in the Celtic regions, but also in Late Bronze Age (and therefore pre-Celtic) societies and those outside of the Celtic area, namely Denmark. One of the most notable examples is the river Thames in southern England, where a number of items had been deposited, only to be discovered by archaeologists millennia later. Some of these, like the Battersea Shield
Battersea Shield
The Battersea Shield is one of the most significant pieces of ancient Celtic military equipment found in Britain. It is a sheet bronze covering of a wooden shield decorated in La Tène style...
, Wandsworth Shield
Wandsworth Shield
The Wandsworth Shield is a circular bronze Iron Age shield boss or mount that was found in the River Thames at Wandsworth in London sometime before 1849. Another incomplete bronze shield mount, sometimes called the Wandsworth Mask Shield was found at the same time. Both shield mounts are now held...
and the Waterloo Helmet
Waterloo Helmet
The Waterloo Helmet is a pre-Roman Celtic bronze ceremonial horned helmet with repoussé decoration in the La Tène style, dating to c.150–50 BC, that was found in 1868 in the River Thames by Waterloo Bridge in London, England...
, would have been prestige goods that would have been labour-intensive to make and thereby probably expensive. Another example is at Llyn Cerrig Bach
Llyn Cerrig Bach
Llyn Cerrig Bach is a small lake in the north-west of the island of Anglesey, Wales. Its main claim to fame is the large hoard of Iron Age materials discovered there in 1942, apparently placed in the lake as votive offerings...
in Anglesey
Anglesey
Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...
, Wales, where offerings, primarily those related to battle, were thrown into the lake from a rocky outcrop in the late firth century BC or early first century CE.
At times, jewellery and other high prestige items that were not related to warfare were also deposited in a ritual context. At Niederzier in the Rhineland for example, a post that excavators believed had religious significance had a bowl buried next to it in which was contained forty-five coins, two torc
Torc
A torc, also spelled torq or torque, is a large, usually rigid, neck ring typically made from strands of metal twisted together. The great majority are open-ended at the front, although many seem designed for near-permanent wear and would have been difficult to remove. Smaller torcs worn around...
s and an armlet, all of which made out of gold, and similar deposits have been uncovered elsewhere in Celtic Europe.
Human sacrifice
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...
in its interactions with the gods. Greco-Roman writers stated that the Celts practiced human sacrifice in Gaul: Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
, Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
, Suetonius
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
, and Lucan all refer to it, and Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
says that it occurred in Britain, too. It was forbidden under Tiberius
Tiberius
Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...
and Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
. However, there is also the possibility that these claims may have been false, and used as a sort of propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
to justify the Roman conquest of these territories. There are only very few recorded archaeological discoveries which preserve evidence of human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
and thus most contemporary historians tend to regard human sacrifice as rare within Celtic cultures. There is some circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence is evidence in which an inference is required to connect it to a conclusion of fact, like a fingerprint at the scene of a crime...
that human sacrifice was known in Ireland and was later forbidden by St. Patrick, a claim which has also been disputed.
However, there is also archaeological evidence from western Europe that has been widely used to back up the idea that human sacrifice was performed by the Iron Age Celts. Mass graves found in a ritual context dating from this period have been unearthed in Gaul, at both Gournay-sur-Aronde
Gournay-sur-Aronde
Gournay-sur-Aronde is a small village in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.Gournay-sur-Aronde is best known for a Late Iron Age sanctuary that dates back to the 4th century BCE, and was burned and levelled at the end of the 1st century BCE. ...
and Ribemont-sur-Ancre
Ribemont-sur-Ancre
Ribemont-sur-Ancre is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France.-Geography:The commune is situated northeast of Amiens, on the D119 road and by the banks of the river Ancre, a tributary of the Somme River.-Population:...
in what was the region of the Belgae chiefdom. The excavator of these sites, Jean-Louis Brunaux, interpreted them as areas of human sacrifice in devotion to a war god, although this view was criticised by another archaeologist, Martin Brown, who believed that the corpses might be those of honoured warriors buried in the sanctuary rather than sacrifices. At a bog in Lindow
Lindow Common
Lindow Common is a Site of Special Scientific Interest located on the western edge of the town of Wilmslow, Cheshire in the northwest of England...
, Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
, England was discovered a body, designated the "Lindow Man
Lindow man
Lindow Man, also known as Lindow II and as Pete Marsh, is the preserved bog body of a man discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow in Cheshire, North West England. The body was found on 1 August 1984 by commercial peat-cutters...
", which may also have been the victim of a sacrificial ritual, but it is just as likely that he was an executed criminal or a victim of violent crime. The body is now on display at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, similar discoveries in 2003 of two murdered individuals preserved in separate bogs, each subsequently dated to around 100 BCE, lends some credence to the ritual murder theory.
Head hunting
The iconography of the human head is believed by many archaeologists and historians to have played a significant part in Celtic religion. The Greek historian Diodorus SiculusDiodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
, writing in the 1st century BCE, described how Celtic warriors "cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses." Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
meanwhile commented in the same century that until the Roman authorities put a stop to it, amongst the Celts, "the heads of enemies held in high repute they used to embalm in cedar oil and exhibit to strangers." Archaeological evidence indicating that the Celts did indeed behead humans and then display their heads, possibly for religious purposes, has been unearthed at a number of excavations; one notable example of this was found at the Gaulish site of Entremont
Entremont
Entremont may refer to:*Entremont, Haute-Savoie, a municipality of the Haute-Savoie département in France*Entremont , a district of the canton of Valais in Switzerland and was a canton of the former Simplon département of the French Empire...
near to Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence
Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
, where a fragment of a pillar carved with images of skulls was found, within which were niches where actual human skulls were kept, nailed into position, fifteen examples of which were found.
The archaeologist Barry Cunliffe
Barry Cunliffe
Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe, CBE, known professionally as Barry Cunliffe is a former Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford, a position held from 1972 to 2007...
believed that the Celts held "reverence for the power of the head" and that "to own and display a distinguished head was to retain and control the power of the dead person" whilst the archaeologist Anne Ross asserted that "the Celts venerated the head as a symbol of divinity and the powers of the otherworld, and regarded it as the most important bodily member, the very seat of the soul." The archaeologist Miranda Green
Miranda Green
Miranda Jane Aldhouse-Green FSA is a British archaeologist, who is Professor of Archaeology at Cardiff University....
meanwhile stated that "I refute any suggestion that the head itself was worshipped but it was clearly venerated as the most significant element in a human or divine image representing the whole." The historian Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
however criticised the idea of the "cult of the human head", believing that both the literary and archaeological evidence did not warrant this conclusion, noting that "the frequency with which human heads appears upon Celtic metalwork proves nothing more than they were a favourite decorative motif, among several, and one just as popular among non-Celtic peoples."
Priesthood
According to a number of Greco-Roman writers such as Julius CaesarJulius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
, Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
, Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
and Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
, Gaulish and British society held a group of magico-religious specialists known as the druids in high esteem. Their roles and responsibilities differed somewhat between the different accounts, but Caesar's, which was the "fullest" and "earliest original text" to describe the druids, described them as being concerned with "divine worship, the due performance of sacrifices, private or public, and the interpretation of ritual questions." He also claimed that they were responsible for officiating at human sacrifices, such as the wicker man
Wicker Man
A wicker man was a large wicker statue of a human used by the ancient Druids for human sacrifice by burning it in effigy, according to Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico...
burnings. Nonetheless, a number of historians have criticised these such accounts, believing them to be biased or inaccurate. Vernacular Irish sources also referred to the druids, portraying them not only as priests but as sorcerers who had supernatural powers which they used for cursing and divination
Divination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
and who opposed the coming of Christianity. Various historians and archaeologists have interpreted the druids in different ways; Peter Berresford Ellis
Peter Berresford Ellis
Peter Berresford Ellis is an English historian, literary biographer, and novelist who has published over 90 books to date either under his own name or his pseudonyms Peter Tremayne and Peter MacAlan. He has also published 95 short stories...
for instance believed them to be the equivalents of the India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n Brahmin
Brahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
caste, whilst Anne Ross believed that they were essentially tribal priests, having more in common with the shamans of tribal societies than with the classical philosophers. Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
meanwhile held a particularly sceptical attitude to many claims made about them, and he purported the view that the evidence available was of such a suspicious nature that "we can know virtually nothing of certainty about the ancient Druids, so that – although they certainly existed – they function more or less as legendary figures."
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and the satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
of a gifted poet was a serious curse
Curse
A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...
upon the one being satirised. 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
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
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 memorising 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 CE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
, 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
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, the Welsh tradition has persisted and is celebrated in the annual eisteddfod, a national assembly of poets and musicians.
Calendar
The oldest attested Celtic calendar is the Coligny calendarColigny calendar
The Gaulish Coligny calendar was found in Coligny, Ain, France near Lyon in 1897, along with the head of a bronze statue of a youthful male figure. It is a lunisolar calendar...
, dated to the 2nd century and as such firmly within the Gallo-Roman period.
Some feast days of the medieval Irish calendar
Irish calendar
The Irish calendar is a pre-Christian Celtic system of timekeeping used during Ireland's Gaelic era and still in popular use today to define the beginning and length of the day, the week, the month, the seasons, quarter days, and festivals...
have sometimes been speculated to descend from prehistoric festivals, especially by comparison to terms found in the Coligny calendar. This concerns Beltane
Beltane
Beltane or Beltaine is the anglicised spelling of Old Irish Beltaine or Beltine , the Gaelic name for either the month of May or the festival that takes place on the first day of May.Bealtaine was historically a Gaelic festival celebrated in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.Bealtaine...
in particular, which is attributed ancient origin by medieval Irish writers.
The festivals of Samhain
Samhain
Samhain is a Gaelic harvest festival held on October 31–November 1. It was linked to festivals held around the same time in other Celtic cultures, and was popularised as the "Celtic New Year" from the late 19th century, following Sir John Rhys and Sir James Frazer...
and Imbolc
Imbolc
Imbolc , or St Brigid’s Day , is an Irish festival marking the beginning of spring. Most commonly it is celebrated on 1 or 2 February in the northern hemisphere and 1 August in the southern hemisphere...
are not assciated with "paganism" or druidry in Irish legend, but there have nevertheless been suggestions of a prehistoric background since the 19th century, in the case of Samhain by John Rhys
John Rhys
Sir John Rhys was a Welsh scholar, fellow of the British Academy, celticist and the first Professor of Celtic at Oxford University.-Early years and education:...
and James Frazer
James Frazer
Sir James George Frazer , was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion...
who assumed that this festival marked the "Celtic new year".
Gallo-Roman religion
The Celtic peoples of GaulGaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
and Hispania
Hispania
Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....
under Roman rule
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
fused
Roman
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
religious forms and modes of worship indigenous traditions.
In some cases, Gaulish deity names were used as epithets for Roman deities, as with Lenus Mars
Lenus
Lenus was a Celtic healing god worshipped mainly in eastern Gaul, where he was almost always identified with the Roman god Mars. He was an important god of the Treveri tribe, who had large sanctuaries at medicinal springs at Trier and the Martberg by Pommern in what is now Germany. Two dedications...
or Jupiter Poeninus. In other cases, Roman gods were given Gaulish female partners – for example, Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...
was paired with Rosmerta
Rosmerta
In Gallo-Roman religion, Rosmerta was a goddess of fertility and abundance, her attributes being those of plenty such as the cornucopia. Rosmerta is attested by statues, and by inscriptions...
and Sirona
Sirona
In Celtic mythology, Sirona was a goddess worshipped predominantly in East Central Gaul and along the Danubian limes. A healing deity, she was associated with healing springs; her attributes were snakes and eggs. She was sometimes depicted with Apollo Grannus or Apollo Borvo...
was partnered with Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
. In at least one case – that of the equine goddess Epona
Epona
In Gallo-Roman religion, Epona was a protector of horses, donkeys, and mules. She was particularly a goddess of fertility, as shown by her attributes of a patera, cornucopia, ears of grain and the presence of foals in some sculptures suggested that the goddess and her horses were leaders of the...
– a native Celtic goddess was also adopted by Romans.
Eastern mystery religion
Greco-Roman mysteries
Mystery religions, sacred Mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious cults of the Greco-Roman world, participation in which was reserved to initiates....
s penetrated Gaul early on. These included the cults of Orpheus
Orpheus
Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...
, Mithras, Cybele
Cybele
Cybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...
, and Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
.
The imperial cult
Imperial cult (ancient Rome)
The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State...
, centred primarily on the numen
Numen
Numen is a Latin term for a potential, guiding the course of events in a particular place or in the whole world, used in Roman philosophical and religious thought...
of Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
, came to play a prominent role in public religion in Gaul, most dramatically at the pan-Gaulish ceremony venerating Rome and Augustus at the Condate Altar near Lugdunum
Lugdunum
Colonia Copia Claudia Augusta Lugdunum was an important Roman city in Gaul. The city was founded in 43 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus. It served as the capital of the Roman province Gallia Lugdunensis. To 300 years after its foundation Lugdunum was the most important city to the west part of Roman...
on 1 August.
Generally Roman worship practices such as offerings of incense and animal sacrifice, dedicatory inscriptions, and naturalistic statuary depicting deities in anthropomorphic form were combined with specific Gaulish practices such as circumambulation around a temple. This gave rise to a characteristic Gallo-Roman fanum, identifiable in archaeology from its concentric shape.
Christianisation
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
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
Social status
In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....
, and privilege. But virtually all the vast corpus of early vernacular literature
Vernacular literature
Vernacular literature is literature written in the vernacular—the speech of the "common people".In the European tradition, this effectively means literature not written in Latin...
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.
Circa
Circa , usually abbreviated c. or ca. , means "approximately" in the English language, usually referring to a date...
900 CE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
) recounts that St. Patrick banished those mantic rites of the filidh that involved offerings to "demons", and that the church took particular pains to stamp out animal sacrifice
Animal sacrifice
Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing of an animal as part of a religion. It is practised by many religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of nature...
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
Oral tradition
Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
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
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
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
Clootie well
Clootie wells are places of pilgrimage in Celtic areas. They are wells or springs, almost always with a tree growing beside them, where strips of cloth or rags have been left, usually tied to the branches of the tree as part of a healing ritual...
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
Celtic nations
The Celtic nations are territories in North-West Europe in which that area's own Celtic languages and some cultural traits have survived.The term "nation" is used in its original sense to mean a people who share a common traditional identity and culture and are identified with a traditional...
up to today, or who take part in post-Christian mythology, are known to have also been worshiped in those areas that did not have records before Christianity.
Neopagan revival
Various Neopagan groups claim association with Celtic polytheism. These groups range from the ReconstructionistsPolytheistic reconstructionism
Polytheistic reconstructionism is an approach to Neopaganism first emerging in the late 1960s to early 1970s, and gathering momentum in the 1990s to 2000s...
, who work to practice ancient Celtic religion with as much accuracy as possible; to new age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
, eclectic groups who take some of their inspiration from Celtic mythology and iconography, the most notable of which is Neo-druidry.
Further reading
- Anwyl, EdwardEdward AnwylSir Edward Anwyl was a Welsh academic, specializing in the Celtic languages.Anwyl was born in Chester, England, and educated at the King's School, Chester. He went on to study at Oriel College, Oxford, and Mansfield College, Oxford...
(1906), Celtic Religion in Pre-Christian Times. - 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.
- Macbain, AlexanderAlexander MacbainAlexander Macbain was a Scottish philologist, best known today for An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language .-Early life and education:...
(1885), Celtic Mythology and Religion (Internet Archive online edition). - Mac Cana, Proinsias (1970) Celtic Mythology, copious illustrations.
- MacCulloch, J. A. (1911) The Religion of the Ancient Celts (Project Gutenberg online edition; 2009 reprint: ISBN 9781605061979).
- MacCulloch, J. A. (1948) The Celtic and Scandinavian Religions, Hutchinson's University Library (2005 reprint: Cosimo Classics, ISBN 978159605-4165).
- Maier, BernhardBernhard MaierBernhard Maier is a German professor of religious studies, who publishes mainly on Celtic culture and religion....
(1997); originally published in German in 1994) Dictionary of Celtic religion and culture, Boydell & Brewer, ISBN 9780851156606. - 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.
- Vendryes, JosephJoseph VendryesJoseph Vendryes was a French-Celtic linguist. After studying with Antoine Meillet, he was chairman of Celtic languages and literature at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He founded the journal Études Celtiques...
; Tonnelat, Ernest; Unbegaun, B.-O. (1948) Les Religions des Celtes, des Germains et des anciens Slaves.
External links
- Celtic folklore and mythology sacred-texts.com