The Religion of the Ancient CeltsMacCulloch, J. A. (John Arnott)
Religion
The Religion of the Ancient Celts
MacCulloch, J. A. (John Arnott)
Celts -- Religion; Mythology, Celtic
A cult of a swine-god Moccus has been referred to. The boar was a divine
symbol on standards, coins, and altars, and many bronze images of the
animal have been found. These were temple treasures, and in one case the
boar is three-horned.[702] But it was becoming the symbol of a goddess,
as is seen by the altars on which it accompanies a goddess, perhaps of
fertility, and by a bronze image of a goddess seated on a boar. The
altars occur in Britain, of which the animal may be the emblem--the
"Caledonian monster" of Claudian's poem.[703] The Galatian Celts
abstained from eating the swine, and there has always been a prejudice
against its flesh in the Highlands. This has a totemic appearance.[704]
But the swine is esteemed in Ireland, and in the texts monstrous swine
are the staple article of famous feasts.[705] These may have been
legendary forms of old swine-gods, the feasts recalling sacrificial
feasts on their flesh. Magic swine were also the immortal food of the
gods. But the boar was tabu to certain persons, e.g. Diarmaid, though
whether this is the attenuated memory of a clan totem restriction is
uncertain. In Welsh story the swine comes from Elysium--a myth
explaining the origin of its domestication, while domestication
certainly implies an earlier cult of the animal. When animals come to be
domesticated, the old cult restrictions, e.g. against eating them,
usually pass away. For this reason, perhaps, the Gauls, who worshipped
an anthropomorphic swine-god, trafficked in the animal and may have
eaten it.[706] Welsh story also tells of the magic boar, the _Twrch
Trwyth_, hunted by Arthur, possibly a folk-tale reminiscence of a boar
divinity.[707] Place-names also point to a cult of the swine, and a
recollection of its divinity may underlie the numerous Irish tales of
magical swine.[708] The magic swine which issued from the cave of
Cruachan and destroyed the young crops are suggestive of the
theriomorphic corn-spirit in its occasional destructive aspect.[709]
Bones of the swine, sometimes cremated, have been found in Celtic graves
in Britain and at Hallstadt, and in one case the animal was buried alone
in a tumulus at Hallstadt, just as sacred animals were buried in Egypt,
Greece, and elsewhere.[710] When the animal was buried with the dead, it
may have been as a sacrifice to the ghost or to the god of the
underworld.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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