Celtic religion in pre-Christian times — John Shaqi
Celtic religion in pre-Christian timesAnwyl, E. (Edward)
Religion
Celtic religion in pre-Christian times
Anwyl, E. (Edward)
Celts -- Religion; Mythology, Celtic
Like other religions, those of the Celtic lands of Europe supplemented
the earlier animism by a belief in spirits, who belonged to trees,
animals, rocks, mountains, springs, rivers, and other natural phenomena,
and in folk-lore there still survives abundant evidence that the Celt
regarded spirits as taking upon themselves a variety of forms, animal and
human. It was this idea of spirits in animal form that helped to
preserve the memory of the older totemism into historic times. It is
thus that we have names of the type of Brannogenos (son of the raven),
Artogenos (son of the bear), and the like, not to speak of simpler names
like Bran (raven), March (horse), surviving into historic times. Bronze
images, too, have been found at Neuvy-en-Sullias, of a horse and a stag
(now in the Orleans museum), provided with rings, which were, as M.
Salomon Reinach suggests, probably used for the purpose of carrying these
images in procession. The wild boar, too, was a favourite emblem of
Gaul, and there is extant a bronze figure of a Celtic Diana riding on a
boar's back. At Bolar, near Nuits, there was discovered a bronze mule.
In the museum at Mayence is a bas-relief of the goddess of horses, Epona
(from the Gaulish _Epos_=Lat. _equus_, horse), riding on horseback. One
of the most important monuments of this kind is a figure of Artio, the
bear-goddess (from Celtic _Artos_, a bear), found at Muri near Berne. In
front of her stood a figure of a bear, which was also found with her. The
bull of the Tarvos Trigaranos bas-relief of Notre Dame was also in all
likelihood originally a totem, and similarly the horned serpents of other
bas-reliefs, as well as the boar found on Gaulish ensigns and coins,
especially in Belgic territory. There is a representation, too, of a
raven on a bas-relief at Compiegne. The name 'Moccus,' which is
identified with Mercury, on inscriptions, and which is found inscribed at
Langres, Trobaso, the valley of the Ossola and the Borgo san Dalmazzo, is
undoubtedly the philological equivalent of the Welsh _moch_ (swine). In
Britain, too, the boar is frequently found on the coins of the Iceni and
other tribes. In Italy, according to Mr. Warde Fowler, the pig was an
appropriate offering to deities of the earth, so that in the widespread
use of the pig as a symbol in the Celtic world, there may be some ancient
echo of a connection between it and the earth-spirit. Its diet of
acorns, too, may have marked it out, in the early days of life in forest-
clearings, as the animal embodiment of the oak-spirit. In the legends of
the Celtic races, even in historic times, the pig, and especially the
boar, finds an honoured place. In addition to the animals
aforementioned, the ass, too, was probably at one time venerated in one
of the districts of Gaul, and it is not improbable that Mullo, the name
of a god identified with Mars and regarded as the patron of muleteers,
mentioned on inscriptions (at Nantes, Craon, and Les Provencheres near
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