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

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

The nature of Celtic polytheism

The Celts were animists: they believed that all aspects of the natural world contained spirits, divine entities with which humans could establish a rapport.^[1] According to classical era sources, the Celts worshipped the forces of nature and did not envisage deities in anthropomorphic terms.^[2] Deities undoubtedly formed a background to everyday life. Both archaeology and the literary record indicate that ritual practice in Celtic societies lacked a clear distinction between the sacred and profane in which rituals, offerings and correct behaviour maintained a balance between gods and man, and harnessed supernatural forces for the benefit of the group.^[2]

The pagan Celts perceived the presence of the supernatural as integral to their world. The sky, the sun, the dark places underground all had their spirits, life-forces and personalities.^[3] Every mountain, river, spring, marsh, tree and rocky outcrop was endowed with divinity.^[3] While Greek and Roman culture revolved around urban life, Celtic society was predominantly rural. The close link with the natural world is reflected in what we know of the religious systems of Celtic Europe during the late first millennium BC and early first millennium AD. As in many polytheistic systems, the spirits worshipped were those of both the wild and cultivated landscapes and their inhabitants. Celts focused upon features of the landscape; mountains, forests and animals. Divine powers associated with the fertility of humans, of livestock and of crops were objects of veneration. Tribal territories were themselves held sacred and the ground and waters which received the dead were imbued with sanctity and revered by their living relatives.^[4] Sanctuaries were sacred spaces separated from the ordinary world, often in natural locations such as springs, groves or lakes. Many topographical features were deified as gods: many divine names refer to specific locations or geographical features, a clear indication of how closely Celtic societies identified with place. Small thank offerings were placed in domestic storage pits while more elaborate deposits were left in specially dug ritual shafts and in lakes. These offerings linked the donor to the place in a concrete way, since complex and varied rituals involved the individual in personal contact with the sacred sites devoted to their gods. An image very different from the idea of druids administering a pan-Celtic religion.^[2]

Animal worship

The character and vitality of certain animal species seems to have been considered numinous. Certain spirits were very close to the animals with which they were associated: the names of Artio the ursine goddess and Epona the equine goddess are based on Celtic words for ‘bear’ and ‘horse’^[4] Animals were perceived at the same time similar to and very different from humans.^[1] Certain creatures were observed to have particular physical and mental qualities and characteristics, and distinctive patterns of behaviour. An animal like a stag or horse could be admired for its beauty, speed or virility. Dogs were seen to be keen-scented, good at hunting, guarding and healing themselves. Snakes were seen to be destructive, fertile and have a curious habit of seeming regenerating themselves by sloughing their skin. Birds were keen-sighted and able to fly and leave behind the confines of the earth. Beavers were seen to be skillful workers in wood. Thus admiration and acknowledgment for a beast’s essential nature led easily to reverence of those qualities and abilities which humans did not possess at all or possessed only partially.^[1]

Cult of trees

Almost all kinds of tree found in the Celtic countries have been thought to have special powers or to serve as the abode of the fairies, especially the magical trio of oak, ash, and thorn. Next in rank are the fruit-bearing trees apple and hazel, followed by the alder, elder, holly, and willow. The esteem given different trees varies in different parts of the Celtic world; on the Isle of Man, the phrase ‘fairy tree’ denotes the tramman elder ^[5].

The mighty deciduous hardwood of the oak has played a prominent role in the Celtic imagination from ancient to modern times. The English word ‘druid’ (from the Latin plural druidae) derives in part from the root dru- ‘oak;’ Celtic words for oak, e.g. Old Irish and Modern Irish. dair, Welsh derwen, share the same root. The ancient geographer Strabo (1st cent. AD) reported that the important sacred grove and meeting-place of the Galatian Celts of Asia Minor, Drunemeton, was filled with oaks. In an often-cited passage from Historia Naturalis (1st cent. AD), Pliny the Elder describes a festival on the sixth day of the moon where the druids climbed an oak tree, cut a bough of mistletoe, and sacrificed two white bulls as part of a fertility rite. Elsewhere druids made their wands from only three woods: yew, oak, and apple. In Mediterranean culture the oak was sacred to both Zeus and Jupiter (mythology), some aspects of which were no doubt transferred to the worship of Gaulish Jupiter. Britons under Roman occupation worshipped a goddess of the oak tree, Daron, whose name is commemorated in a rivulet in Gwynedd. According to the pseudo-history Lebor Gabála ‘Book of Invasions,’ the sacred oak of early Ireland was that of Mugna, probably located at or near Dunmanogoe, south Co. Kildare. Sacred associations of oaks survived Christianization, so that St Brigit's monastic foundation was at Cill Dara, ‘church of (the) oak,’ i.e. Kildare], and St Colum Cille favoured Doire Calgaich ‘Calgach's oak grove,’ i.e. Derry; see also [Durrow]], darú, from dair magh, ‘oak plain.’ In Welsh tradition Gwydion and Math use the flower of oak with broom to fashion the beautiful Blodeuwedd. When Lleu Llaw Gyffes is about to be killed by Gronw Pebyr, his wife's lover, he escapes in eagle form onto a magic oak tree. A sacred oak tree protects the Breton city of Ys until the feckless boy Kristof removes it, allowing Ys to be engulfed. The Arthurian figure Merlin is imprisoned in an oak tree in the Breton forest of Brocéliande by Viviane/Nimiane (the Lady of the Lake). In both British and Irish fairy lore, the oak is one of three magical woods, along with ash and thorn. Old Irish and Modern Irish is dair; Scots Gaelic, darach; Manx, daragh; Welsh, derwen, dâr; Cornish derowen; Breton, dervenn ^[6].

The ash tree was tree regarded with awe in Celtic countries, especially Ireland. The mountain ash, rowan, or quicken tree, a smaller tree of the variety Sorbus aucuparia, is usually considered separately in the Celtic imagination ^[7].

There are several recorded instances in Irish history in which people refused to cut an ash, even when wood was scarce, for fear of having their own cabins consumed with flame. The ash tree itself might be used in May Day ( Beltaine) rites. Under the Old Irish word nin, the ash also gives its name to the letter N in the ogham alphabet. Together with the oak and thorn, the ash is part of a magical trilogy in fairy lore. Ash seedpods may be used in divination, and the wood has the power to ward off fairies, especially on the Isle of Man. In Gaelic Scotland children were given the astringent sap of the tree as a medicine and as a protection against witch-craft. Some famous ash trees were the Tree of Uisnech, the Bough of Dathí, and the Tree of Tortu. The French poet who used Breton sources, Marie de France (late 12th cent.), wrote a lai about an ash tree. The Old Irish for ‘ash’ is nin; Irish, fuinseog; Scots Gaelic, fuinnseann; Manx, unjin; Welsh, onnen; Cornish, onnen; Breton, onnenn ^[8].

The pome fruit and tree of the apple is celebrated in numerous functions in Celtic mythology, legend, and folklore; it is an emblem of fruitfulness and sometimes a means to immortality. Wands of druids were made from wood either of the yew or of the apple. A name for the Avalon of Arthurian tradition in certain medieval narratives, attributing Welsh origin, is Insula Pomorum, ‘The Isle of Apples’. One gloss of the name for the magical Irish island Emain Ablach is ‘Emain of the Apples’. In the Ulster Cycle the soul of Cú Roí was confined in an apple that lay in the stomach of a salmon which appeared once every seven years. Cúchulainn once gained his escape by following the path of a rolled apple. An apple-tree grew from the grave of the tragic lover Ailinn. In the Irish tale Echtrae Conli (The Adventure of Connla), Connla the son of Conn is fed an apple by a fairy lover, which sustains him with food and drink for a month without diminishing; but it also makes him long for the woman and the beautiful country of women to which his lover is enticing him. In the Irish story from the Mythological Cycle, Oidheadh Chlainne Tuireann, the first task given the Children of Tuireann is to retrieve the Apples of the Hesperides (or Hisbernia). Afallennau (Welsh, ‘apple trees’) is a 12th-century Welsh narrative poem dealing with Myrddin Wyllt. The Breton pseudosaint Konorin was reborn by means of an apple. The Old Irish word is uball, ubull; Modern Irish. ubhal, úll; Scots Gaelic ubhall; Manx, ooyl; Welsh, afal; Corn. aval; Bret. Aval ^[9].

Both the wood and the edible nuts of the hazel have played important roles in Irish and Welsh traditions. Hazel leaves and nuts are found in early British burial mounds and shaft-wells, especially at Ashill, Norfolk. The place-name story for Fordruim, an early name for Tara, describes it as a pleasant hazel wood. In the ogham alphabet of early Ireland, the letter C was represented by hazel [OIr. coll]. It also represented the ninth month on the Old Irish calendar, 6 August to 2 September. Initiate members of the Fianna had to defend themselves armed only with a hazel stick and a shield; yet in the Fenian legends the hazel without leaves was thought evil, dripping poisonous milk, and the home of vultures. Thought a fairy tree in both Ireland and Wales, wood from the hazel was sacred to poets and was thus a taboo fuel on any hearth. Heralds carried hazel wands as badges of office. Witches' wands are often made of hazel, as are divining rods, used to find underground water. In Cornwall the hazel was used in the millpreve, the magical adder stones. In Wales a twig of hazel would be given to a rejected lover.

Even more esteemed than the hazel's wood were its nuts, often described as the ‘nuts of wisdom’, e.g. esoteric or occult knowledge. Hazels of wisdom grew at the heads of the seven chief rivers of Ireland, and nine grew over both Connla's Well and the Well of Segais, the legendary common source of the Boyne and the Shannon. The nuts would fall into the water, causing bubbles of mystic inspiration to form, or were eaten by salmon. The number of spots on a salmon's back were thought to indicate the number of nuts it had consumed. The salmon of wisdom caught by Fionn mac Cumhaill had eaten hazel nuts.

The name of the Irish hero Mac Cuill means ‘son of the hazel’. W. B. Yeats thought the hazel was the common Irish form of the tree of life. Old Irish and Modern Irish is coll; Scots Gselic, calltunn, calltuinn; Manx, coull; Welsh, collen; Cornish, collwedhen; Breton, kraoñklevezenn ^[10].

The alder, a shrub or tree of the birch family has special implications in Celtic tradition. The alder usually grows in wet ground, with small, pendulous catkins. Alders are especially associated with Bran; at Cad Goddeu, ‘The Battle of the Trees’, Gwydion guessed Bran's name from the alder twigs in his hand. The answer to an old Taliesin riddle ‘Why is the alder purple?’ is ‘Because Bran wore purple’. Bran's alder may be a symbol of resurrection. The name for the boy Gwern, son of Matholwch and Branwen, means ‘alder’. The place-name Fernmag (ang. Farney) means ‘plain of the alder’.

In Ireland the alder was regarded with awe apparently because when cut the wood turns from white to red. At one time the felling of an alder was punishable, and it is still avoided. The alder was thought to have power of divination, especially in the diagnosing of diseases. Alder or yew might be used in the fé, a rod for measuring corpses and graves in pre-Christian Ireland. The letter F, third consonant in the ogham alphabet, was named after the alder. The Old Irish is fern;. Modern Irish is fearnóg; Scots Gaelic, feàrna; Manx, farney; Welsh, gwernen; Cornish, gwernen; Breton, gwernenn ^[11].

The elder, having clusters of white flowers and red or blackish berry-like fruit, has many associations with the fairy world in oral traditions of recent centuries in Celtic countries. On the Isle of Man, where elder grows abundantly and is called tramman, it is commonly thought of as the ‘ fairy tree’. In Ireland many individual elder trees were thought haunted by fairies or demons. Old Irish is tromm; Modern Irish is trom; Scots Gaelic, troman, droman; Welsh, ysgawen; Cornish, scawen; Breton, skavenn ^[12].

The evergreen yew with dark green, needle-like leaves and red berries has commonly symbolized immortality in the Indo-European imagination as it is the longest-lived entity, often lasting more than 1,000 years, to be found in the European environment. It is still commonly planted in Christian churchyards and cemeteries. The druids preferred yew for wand-making over their other favourite woods, apple and oak. The name of the Eburones, a Gaulish people residing between the Main and Rhine, means ‘people of the yew’, while several Irish and Scottish place-names allude to the yew, notably Youghall [Eochaill, yew wood] in County Cork. The Irish personal name Eógan means ‘born of the yew’, so that the great Munster dynasty could be glossed as ‘people of the yew’. According to the foundation story of Cashel, the Eóganacht capital, Corc mac Luigthig has a vision of a yew bush, with angels dancing over it, before settling on the site. One of Conchobar mac Nessa's residences at Emain Macha, Cráebruad, has nine rooms lined with red yew. Suibne Geilt in Buile Shuibhne (The Frenzy of Suibne) rests on yew trees during his flight. When Eógan and Lugaid mac Con are disputing they hear the magical music of the yew tree over a waterfall; the musician is revealed to be Fer Í (man of yew), the son of Eogabal. Wielders of the spear Gáe Assail are sure to kill their victims if they utter the word “ibar” (yew) as they cast. The agnomen of Cáer, the swan maiden, is Ibormeith [yew berry]. In oral variants of the Deirdre story, King Conchobar mac Nessa drives yew stakes through the hearts of the dead lovers, which later grow and intertwine near a church. Yet not all stories of the yew imply power or vitality. A rod named fé, made of yew or alder, was used to measure corpses and graves. And Fergus, the hapless brother of Niall Noígiallach (of the Nine Hostages) in Echtra Mac nEchach Muigmedóin (The Adventure of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedón), signals his sterility when he rescues from a burning forge only the ‘withered wood’ of yew, which will not burn. Old Irish is ibar; Modern Irish, iúr; Scots Gaelic, iubhar; Manx, euar; Welsh, ywen; Cornish, ewen; Breton, ivinenn ^[13].

Sanctity of hunting

Hunting deities whose role acknowledges the economic importance of animals and the ritual of the hunt highlight a different relationship to nature. The animal elements in half-human, antlered deities suggest that the forest and its denizens possessed a numinous quality as well as an economic value. For this reason they were deified as gods. Some scholars explain shape-shifting and magical motifs in terms of Celtic beliefs about rebirth and the afterlife, but it is more likely that such deities had a regenerative function. Attributes like fruit and grain imply fecundity, while animals such as snake and deer (who shed their skins and antlers) suggest cycles of growth..^[2]

Hunter-gods were venerated in Celtic Europe and they often seem to have had an ambivalent role as protector both of the hunter and the prey, not unlike the functions of Diana and Artemis in classical mythology.^[3] From Gaul, the armed deer-hunter depicted on an image from the temple of Le Donon in the Vosges lays his hands in benediction on the antlers of his stag companion. The hunter-god from Le Touget in Gers carries a hare tenderly in his arms. Arduinna, the eponymous boar-goddess of the Ardennes, rides her ferocious quarry , knife in hand, whilst the boar-god of Euffigneix in the Haute-Marne is portrayed with the motif of a boar with bristles erect, striding along his torso, which implies conflation between the human animal perception of divinity.^[3] Arawn of Welsh mythology may represent the remnants of a similar hunter-god of the forests of Dyfed.

As with many traditional societies, the hunt was probably hedged about with prohibitions and rituals. The Greek author Arrian, writing in the second century AD, said that the Celts never went hunting without the gods’ blessing and that they made payment of domestic animals to the supernatural powers in reparation for their theft of wild creatures from the landscape. Hunting itself may have been perceived as a symbolic, as well as practical, activity in which the spilling of blood led not only to the death of the beast but also to the earth’s nourishment and replenishment.^[14]

Weather worship

Meteorological patterns and phenomena, especially the sun and thunder, were acknowledged as divine and propitiated. Inscribed dedications and iconography in the Roman period show that these spirits were personifications of natural forces. Taranis’s name indicates not that he was the god of thunder but that he actually was thunder.^[4] Archaeological evidence suggests that the sun and thunder were perceived as especially potent. Inscriptions to Taranis the ‘Thunderer’ have been found in Britain, Gaul, Germany and the former Yugoslavia and the Roman poet Lucan mentions him as a savage god who demanded human sacrifice.

From the early Bronze Age, people in much of temperate Europe used the spoked wheel to represent the sun and, by the late Iron Age and Roman periods, solar deities were represented with wheel-symbols (see sun cross). The Romans imported their own celestial god, Jupiter, to Celtic lands and his imagery was merged with that of the native sun-god to produce a hybrid sky-deity who resembled the Roman god but who had the additional native solar attribute of the wheel.^[15] This Celtic sky-god had variations in the way he was perceived and his cult expressed. Yet the link between the Celtic Jupiter and the solar wheel is maintained over a wide area: altars decorated with the wheels were set up by Roman soldiers stationed at Hadrian's Wall, and also by supplicants in Cologne and Nîmes.^[3]

Water worship

The spirits of watery places were invoked as givers of life and as links between the earthly and the other world. Sequana, for example, seems to have embodied the River Seine at its spring source and Sulis appears to have been one and the same as the hot spring at Bath, not simply its guardian or possessor.^[4]

There is abundant evidence for the veneration of water by the Celts and indeed by their Bronze Age forebears. In the Pre-Roman Iron Age, lakes, rivers, springs and bogs received special offerings of metalwork, wooden objects, animals and, occasionally, of human beings. By the Roman period, the names of some water-deities were recorded on inscriptions or were included in contemporary texts. The ancient name for the River Marne was Matrona ‘Great Mother;’ the Seine was Sequana; the Severn, Sabrina; the Wharfe, Verbeia; the Saône, Souconna, and there are countless others. Natural springs were foci for healing cults: Sulis was invoked as a healer at Aquae Sulis and the goddess Arnemetia was hailed as a healer at Aquae Arnemetiae.^[15] Nemausus, for example, was not only the Gallic name for the town of Nîmes but also that of its presiding spring-god. He had a set of three female counterparts, the Nemausicae. In the same region, the town of Glanum possessed a god called Glanis: an altar from a sacred spring is inscribed ‘to Glanis and the Glanicae’.^[3]

The hierarchy of the Celtic gods

Evidence from the Roman period presents a bewildering array of gods and goddesses who are represented by images or inscribed dedications.^[16] Sorting these multifarious and divine beings into some kind of hierarchy is necessary, though not always easy, if one is to make any sense of the religious system in place in Celtic Europe. By examining the distribution of images and god-names, it is possible to make distinctions between deities who were venerated all over the Celtic world, those who were popular in more restricted regions - perhaps corresponding to tribal boundaries - and those who were linked to a specific locality, sometimes worshipped only at a single sanctuary.^[16] The establishment of patterns of frequency and distribution may point to the relative popularity of certain gods, but not necessarily to any order of importance. For example, in east-central Gaul, the local Burgundian healing goddess Sequana was probably more influential in the minds of her local devotees than the Matres, who were worshipped all over Britain, Gaul and the Rhineland.^[17]

Certain cults transcended tribal boundaries and were followed everywhere. Examples of universal divinities include the Matres, the sky-god and Epona, the horse-goddess, who was invoked by devotees living as far apart as Britain, Rome and Bulgaria. A distinctive feature of the mother-goddesses was their frequent appearance as a triad: they were perceived as a triple entity in many parts of Britain, in Gaul and on the Rhine. Although it is possible to identify strong regional differences between them.^[18]

The Celtic sky-god too had variations in the way he was perceived and his cult expressed. Yet the link between the Celtic Jupiter and the solar wheel is maintained over wide areas, from Hadrian’s Wall to Cologne and Nîmes.^[19]

The importance of local deities

Regional divinities can sometimes be identified, perhaps especially associated with tribal and sub-tribal territories. Specific to the Remi of northwest Gaul is a distinctive group of stone carvings depicting a triple-faced god with shared facial features and luxuriant beards. In the Iron Age, this same tribe issued coins with three faces, a motif found elsewhere is Gaul.^[19] The inference is that a specific Remic divinity is represented. Another tribal god was Lenus, venerated by the Treveri. He was worshipped at a number of Treveran sanctuaries, the most splendid of which was at the tribal capital of Trier itself. Yet he was also exported to other areas: Lenus has altars set up to him in Chedworth in Gloucestershire and Caerwent in Wales.^[19]

Many Celtic divinities were extremely localised, sometimes occurring in just one shrine, perhaps because the spirit concerned was a genius loci personifying the natural balance of a particular place.^[19] In Gaul, over four hundred different Celtic god-names are recorded, of which at least 300 occur just once. Sequana was confined to her spring shrine near Dijon, Sulis belonged to Bath. The divine couple Ucuetis and Bergusia were worshipped solely at Alesia in Burgundy. The British god Nodens is associated above all with the great sanctuary at Lydney. Yet he appears at one other site, at Cockersand Moss in Cumbria. Two other British deities, Cocidius and Belatucadrus were both Martial gods and were each worshipped in a clearly defined territories in the area of Hadrian’s Wall.^[19] There are many other gods whose names betray their origins as topographical spirits. Vosegus presided over the mountains of the Vosges, Luxovius of the spa-settlement of Luxeuil and Vasio to whom belonged the town of Vaison in the Lower Rhône Valley.^[3]

The evidence for Celtic religion

The evidence for the nature of Celtic religion comes partly from ancient literature (from the Classical commentators on the Celts, and from the vernacular mythic sources of Ireland and Wales) and partly from archaeological evidence, especially in the Roman period when inscribed dedications and religious images contribute significantly to our knowledge. What we lack because of the virtual non-literacy of Iron Age Celts is written testimony from the Celts themselves.^[4]

It is important to exercise some care in using all three of these sources for Celtic religion. The classical historians were inevitably subject to bias, distortion, ignorance, misunderstanding, literary convention and barbarian stereotyping, all of which combine to present a picture of Celtic religion which is somewhat skewed and, to a certain extent, unreal.^[4] Because of their chronological separation from the pre-Christian world, the early Welsh and Irish vernacular sources, written in the Welsh and Irish languages, must be scrutinized with even more rigour than the classical sources in assessing their validity as evidence for pagan Celtic religion.^[4] While it is possible to single out specific texts which – because of their pagan content – can be strongly argued to encapsulate genuine echoes or resonances of the pre-Christian past, the earliest mythic stories of Ireland and Wales were not compiled in written form until the mediaeval period. Opinion is divided as to whether these texts contain substantive material derived from oral tradition as preserved by bards or whether they were the creation of the mediaeval monastic tradition.^[4]

The archaeological evidence does not contain the bias inherent in the literary sources. Nonetheless, our interpretation of this evidence is inevitably coloured by the twenty-first-century mindset.^[4]

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

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

Cosmology and eschatology

Though there are records of deity names, and archaeological remains including altars and temples, little is known about the specific religious beliefs of the Celts of Gaul. Their burial practices, which included burying food, weapons, and ornaments with the dead, suggest a belief in life after death.^[20] The druids, the early Celtic priesthood, were said by Caesar to have taught the doctrine of transmigration of the soul along with astronomy and the nature and power of the gods.^[21]

The Irish believed in an Otherworld, which they described sometimes as underground, such as in the Sídhe mounds, and sometimes located on islands in the Western Sea. The Otherworld was variously called Tír na mBeo ("the Land of the Living"), Mag Mell ("Delightful Plain"), and Tír na nÓg ("Land of the Young"), among other names. It was believed to be a country where there was no sickness, old age, or death, where happiness lasted forever, and a hundred years was as one day. It was probably similar to the Elysium of the Greek mythology and both may have a shared origin in ancient Proto-Indo-European religion. In Irish Immrama ("voyage") tales, a beautiful young woman often approaches the hero and sings to him of this happy land. Sometimes she offers him an apple, or the promise of her love in exchange for his assistance in battle. He follows her, and they journey over the sea together and are seen no more. Their journey may take place in a boat of glass, in a chariot or on horseback (usually upon a white horse, as in the case of the goddess Niamh of the Golden Hair). Sometimes the hero returns after what he believes is a short time, only to find that all his companions are dead and he has actually been away for hundreds of years. Sometimes the hero sets out on a quest, and a magic mist descends upon him. He may find himself before an unusual palace and enter to find a warrior or a beautiful woman who makes him welcome. The woman may be the goddess Fand, the warrior may be Manannán mac Lir or Lugh, and after strange adventures the hero may return successfully. However, even in cases where the mortal manages to return to his own time and place, he is forever changed by his contact with the Otherworld.^[22]

This conception of the Otherworld is also preserved in the Welsh story of Branwen, daughter of Llyr, which ends with the survivors of the great battle feasting in the presence of the severed head of Bran the Blessed, having forgotten all their suffering and sorrow, and having become unaware of the passage of time.^[23] In Irish lore, Donn, a god of the dead, reigned over Tech Duinn ('The House of Donn'), which was seen as existing on or under Bull Island, located off the Beare Peninsula in the southwest of Ireland. It was believed that the newly-dead journeyed to Tech Duinn, either to remain there forever, or perhaps as a starting-point on their journey to the Blessed Isles across the Western Sea.^[24] A Welsh corollary to Tech Duinn is Annwfn, ruled by the Otherworld kings Arawn and Gwyn ap Nudd.^[25]

Insular Celts swore their oaths by their personal or tribal gods, and the land, sea and sky; as in, "I swear by the gods by whom my people swear" and "If I break my oath, may the land open to swallow me, the sea rise to drown me, and the sky fall upon me."^[26] Or, in more detail, as sworn by the King of Ulster, Conchobar mac Nessa, in the Ulster Cycle tale, Táin Bó Cúailnge ("The Cattle Raid of Cooley"):

Worship

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

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

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

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

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

The ritual of the oak and the mistletoe

Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century AD, describes a religious ceremony in Gaul in which white-clad druids climbed a sacred oak, cut down the mistletoe growing on it, sacrificed two white bulls and used the mistletoe to cure infertility:^[28]

Pliny was primarily interested in natural history and some scholars have dismissed the testimony in relation to the druids’ ceremony as largely fanciful, particularly as he is the only classical author to mention this ceremony. Yet Pliny specifically associates druids with oak trees. Oaks were held sacred by both druids and Celts alike. Drunemeton, the ‘oak sanctuary,’ is described by Strabo as a place where the Galatian Council met and oak was used to construct the great Iron Age multi-ring timber structure at Navan Fort in County Armagh.^[30] The Poole Logboat and the Corlea Trackway were both made of oak in the Iron Age.^[28]

Central to Pliny’s statement is the sanctity of the mistletoe, both as a healing agent and as an aid to fertility. Both these concerns are emphasised in Celtic religious expression. Interestingly, in modern pharmacopoeia, mistletoe is reputed to be beneficial to sufferers of insomnia, high blood pressure and certain malignant tumours.^[31] Moreover, that mistletoe may have possessed important symbolism for the Celts is suggested by its presence as a motif in early Celtic art. Human heads bearing curious leaf-shaped crowns are common decorative themes on both jewellery and stone monuments.^[31] The lobed shape of the leaves on these objects closely resembles the leaves of European mistletoe and, if such an identification be correct, it may be that the faces depicted in this pre-Roman art are those of priests or gods.

In Pliny’s comments, three other points of significance concern banqueting, the moon and bull-sacrifice. All three are familiar to the repertoire of Celtic religion. Ritual banquets are represented in some rich tombs of both the early and late Iron Age of Celtic Europe: the Hallstatt chieftain’s tomb at Hochdorf was furnished with a set of nine drinking horns and a nine-piece dinner service, for the otherworld Banquet, as well as a huge cauldron of mead. certain shrines exibit abundant evidence of ceremonial banquets: excavators of the sanctuary at Mirebeau, in northern France, found a veritable carpet of bones from butchered animals and broken pots, which appear to be the remains of feasting.^[31]

Pliny makes allusions to the moon on its sixth day, a waxing crescent moon, as an instrument of healing: here again there is corroborative evidence in that Celtic goddesses associated with healing and regeneration are sometimes depicted wearing lunar amulets; and the great temple of the healer-goddess Sulis Minerva at Bath, Somerset bears a carving of the Roman moon-goddess Luna. Among the finds at Bath, Somerset was a lunar pendant, possibly once part of a priest’s sceptre.^[31]

Lastly, bull-sacrifice is attested in other evidence. Cattle were commonly used as sacrificial animals: the shrine of Gournay in Picardy was the scene of repeated ox-sacrifice and cattle were ritually slaughtered in numerous Celtic sanctuaries.^[31] Bull-sacrifice is twice depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron and was probably made in the first century BC. In Irish mythology, the Tarbhfhess, the ‘bull-sleep,’ was a ritual closely associated with druids. : a selected individual was fed on bull flesh before being chanted to sleep by four druids; while he slept he dreamt of the next rightful High King of Ireland and when he awoke he gave this information to his druid attendants.^[31]

Religious vocations or castes

Druids

Main article: Druid

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

Bards and filid

Main articles: Fili and Bard

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

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

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

Festivals

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

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

Beltane

Main article: Beltane

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

Samhain

Main article: Samhain

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

Syncretism with other polytheistic systems

The locus classicus for the Celtic gods of Gaul is the passage in Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (The Gallic War, 52–51 BC) in which he names six of them, together with their functions. He says that Mercury was the most honoured of all the gods and many images of him were to be found. Mercury was regarded as the inventor of all the arts, the patron of travellers and of merchants, and the most powerful god in matters of commerce and gain. After him the Gauls honoured Apollo, who drove away diseases, Mars, who controlled war, Jupiter, who ruled the heavens, and Minerva, who promoted handicrafts. He adds that the Gauls regarded Dis Pater as their ancestor.^[32]

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

The gods named by Caesar are well-attested in the later epigraphic record of Gaul and Britain. Not infrequently, their names are coupled with native Celtic theonyms and epithets, such as Mercury Visucius, Lenus Mars, Jupiter Poeninus, or Sulis Minerva. Unsyncretised theonyms are also widespread, particularly among goddesses such as Sulevia, Sirona, Rosmerta, and Epona. In all, several hundred names containing a Celtic element are attested in Gaul. The majority occur only once, which has led some scholars to conclude that the Celtic gods and their cults were local and tribal rather than national. Supporters of this view cite Lucan's mention of a god called Teutates, which they interpret as "god of the tribe" (it is thought that teuta- meant "tribe" in Celtic).^[33] The multiplicity of deity names may also be explained otherwise – many, for example, may be simply epithets applied to major deities by widely extended cults.^{citation needed}

Cults within Celtic polytheism

Antlered gods

Detail of the antlered figure holding a torc and a ram-headed snake depicted on the 1st to 2nd century BCE Gundestrup cauldron discovered in Jutland, Denmark.

Main article: Cernunnos

A recurrent figure in Gaulish iconography is a cross-legged deity with antlers, sometimes surrounded by animals, often wearing or holding a torc. The name usually applied to him, Cernunnos, is attested only a few times, on a relief at Notre Dame de Paris (currently reading ERNUNNOS, but an early sketch shows it as having read CERNUNNOS in the 18th century), an inscription from Montagnac (αλλετ[ει]υος καρνονου αλ[ι]σο[ντ]εας, "Alleteinos [dedicated this] to Karnonos of Alisontia"^[34]), and a pair of identical inscriptions from Seinsel-Rëlent ("Deo Ceruninco"^[35]). Figured representations of this sort of deity, however, are widespread; the earliest known was found at Val Camonica in northern Italy,^{citation needed} while the most famous is plate A of the Gundestrup Cauldron, a 1st-century-BC vessel found in Denmark. On the Gundestrup Cauldron and sometimes elsewhere, Cernunnos, or similar figure, is accompanied by a ram-headed serpent. At Reims, the figure is depicted with a cornucopia overflowing with grains or coins.^[33]

Healing deities

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

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

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

In Romano-Celtic tradition Belenus (possibly from Celtic: *belen- ‘bright’^{citation needed}, though other etymologies have been convincingly proposed^[36]) is found chiefly in southern France and northern Italy. Apollo Grannus, though concentrated in central and eastern Gaul, also “occurs associated with medicinal waters in Brittany [...] and far away in the Danube Basin”.^[37] Grannus's companion is frequently the goddess Sirona. Another important Celtic deity of healing is Bormo/Borvo, particularly associated with thermal springs such as Bourbonne-les-Bains and Bourbon-Lancy. Such hot springs were (and often still are) believed to have therapeutic value. Green interprets the name Borvo to mean “seething, bubbling or boiling spring water”.^[37]

Goddesses of sacred waters

Main articles: Sulis, Damona, and Sequana

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

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

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

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

Goddesses of horses

Main articles: Epona, Macha, and Rhiannon

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

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

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

Mother goddesses

Main article: Matronae

Mother goddesses are a recurrent feature in Celtic religions. The epigraphic record reveals many dedications to the Matres or Matronae, which are particularly prolific around Cologne in the Rhineland.^[38] Iconographically, Celtic mothers may appear singly or, quite often, triply; they usually hold fruit or cornucopiae or paterae;^[33] they may also be full-breasted (or many-breasted) figures nursing infants.

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

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

Divine couples

One notable feature of Gaulish and Romano-Celtic sculpture is the frequent appearance of male and female deities in pairs, such as Rosmerta and ‘Mercury’, Nantosuelta and Sucellos, Sirona and Apollo Grannus, Borvo and Damona, or Mars Loucetius and Nemetona.^[38]

Cult of Lugh

Main articles: Lugus, Lugh, and Lleu

According to Caesar the god most honoured by the Gauls was ‘Mercury’, and this is confirmed by numerous images and inscriptions. Mercury's name is often coupled with Celtic epithets, particularly in eastern and central Gaul; the commonest such names include Visucius, Cissonius, and Gebrinius.^[38] Another name, Lugus, is inferred from the recurrent place-name Lugdunon ('the fort of Lugus') from which the modern Lyon, Laon, and Loudun in France and Leiden in The Netherlands derive their names; a similar element can be found in Carlisle (formerly Castra Luguvallium) and Legnica in Poland. The Irish and Welsh cognates of Lugus are Lugh and Lleu, respectively, and certain traditions concerning these figures mesh neatly with those of the Gaulish god. Caesar's description of the latter as "the inventor of all the arts" might almost have been a paraphrase of Lugh's conventional epithet samildánach ("possessed of many talents"), while Lleu is addressed as "master of the twenty crafts" in the Mabinogi.^[23] An episode in the Irish tale of the Battle of Magh Tuiredh is a dramatic exposition of Lugh's claim to be master of all the arts and crafts.^[39] Inscriptions in Spain and Switzerland, one of them from a guild of shoemakers, are dedicated to Lugoves, widely interpreted as a plural of Lugus perhaps referring to the god conceived in triple form.^{citation needed}

The Gaulish Mercury often seems to function as a god of sovereignty. Gaulish depictions of Mercury sometimes show him bearded and/or with wings or horns emerging directly from his head, rather than from a winged hat. Both these characteristics are unusual for the classical god. More conventionally, the Gaulish Mercury is usually shown accompanied by a ram and/or a rooster, and carrying a caduceus; his depiction at times is very classical.^[33]

Lugh is said to have instituted the festival of Lughnasadh, celebrated on 1 August, in commemoration of his foster-mother Tailtiu.^[40]

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