[In the following excerpt, originally published in 1949, Sjoestedt recounts the events of the "mythological period" of Irish prehistory as outlined in the Lebor Gabála and describes the characteristics of the continental Celtic gods in ancient Gaul.]

A discussion of the mythological world of the Celts encounters at once a peculiar difficulty, namely, that when seeking to approach it you find that you are already within. We are accustomed to distinguish the supernatural from the natural. The barrier between the two domains is not, indeed, always impenetrable: the Homeric gods sometimes fight in the ranks of human armies, and a hero may force the gates of Hades and visit the empire of the dead. But the chasm is there nonetheless, and we are made aware of it by the feeling of wonder or horror aroused by this violation of established order. The Celts knew nothing of this, if we are entitled to judge their attitude from Irish tradition. Here there is continuity, in space and in time, between what we call our world and the other world—or worlds. Some peoples, such as the Romans, think of their myths historically; the Irish think of their history mythologically; and so, too, of their geography. Every strange feature of the soil of Ireland is the witness of a myth, and, as it were, its crystallization. The supernatural and the natural penetrate and continue each other, and constant communication between them ensures their organic unity. Hence it is easier to describe the mythological world of the Celts than to define it, for definition implies a contrast.

This omnipresence of the myth in Ireland is specially evident in two collections of stories, the Dindshenchas or "Tradition of Places," which is the mythological geography of the country, and the Lebor Gabála or "Book of Conquests," which is its mythological prehistory. The myths indeed involve both time and space, and the importance of remarkable places, the mystic virtues that belong to them, are closely bound up with events which happened during the period when other peoples, human or divine (one can hardly say exactly which), controlled the land now occupied by the Gaels, but which the Gaels possessed only in partnership with their mysterious forerunners.

This mythological period can be defined as "a period when beings lived or events happened such as one no longer sees in our days."¹ Christian texts sometimes betray this notion of a time when other laws than those we know governed the world. "In that fight," says the author of The Battle of Mag Tured, "Ogma the champion found Orna the sword of Tethra a king of the Fomorians. Ogma unsheathed the sword and cleansed it. Then the sword related whatsoever had been done by it; for it was the custom of swords at that time, when unsheathed, to set forth the deeds that had been done by them. And therefore swords are entitled to the tribute of cleansing them after they have been unsheathed. Hence also charms are preserved in swords thenceforward. Now the reason why demons used to speak from weapons at that time was because weapons were worshipped by human beings then; and the weapons were among the (legal) safeguards of that time."²

We see that the good cleric does not think of questioning the truth of a tradition of his time which must have seemed to him as fanciful as it does to us. At most he feels the need of explaining it by supposing the intervention of the power of demons. But how is it that weapons and demons have lost the power of speech? The scribe who copied the tale of Cú Chulainn and Fann gives the reason in these closing words: "That is the story of the disastrous vision shown to C(i Chulainn by the fairies. For the diabolical power was great before the faith, and it was so great that devils used to fight with men in bodily form, and used to show delights and mysteries to them. And people believed that they were immortal."³

In the same way the stone of Fal, a talisman brought to Ireland by the ancient gods, whose cry proclaimed the lawful king of Ireland, is silent today, "for it was a demon that possessed it, and the power of every idol ceased at the time of the birth of the Lord."⁴

We see that Christian Ireland preserved, as a legacy from paganism, the belief in a time when the supernatural was natural, when the marvellous was normal. This belief is indeed characteristic of a mentality common to folklore ("Once upon a time, when animals could speak …") and to various so-called 'primitive' peoples. So, in defining the mythological period, we have borrowed the words used by Levy-Bruhl to describe the epoch of the Dema, those ancestral creators who figure in the mythologies of the natives of New Guinea.

The Book of Conquests is the story of the Irish Dema, retouched, no doubt, by clerics anxious to fit the local traditions into the framework of Biblical history, while its pagan quality has not noticeably been altered. We shall therefore summarize it, according to the texts;⁵ and if we chance to include a secondary episode, it will not matter, from our present standpoint, provided that it be a product of the same mythical imagination and suppose the same type of notion as those elements that are most clearly native.

Tradition has little to say about the first race that inhabited Ireland, before the Deluge; and we may suspect it to be a late invention, intended to make up the number of six races corresponding to the six ages of the world. One of its leaders was Ladhra, who had sixteen wives and died "from excess of women." He was the first to die in Ireland. The whole race was destroyed by the Deluge.

Two hundred and sixty-eight years later (Irish annalists are never shy of exactitude), the race of Partholón landed. This name has been explained as a corruption of Bartholomeus,⁶ and the legend as a product of the imagination of Christian monks. But whatever be the origin of the name, the mythical character of this personage cannot be doubted, as Van Hamel has shown.⁷ He regards Partholón as a god of vegetation; but, apart from the fact that the activities of Partholón extend beyond the domain of agriculture, it is important to observe that here, as throughout the prehistoric tradition, we have to do not with a single god, one mythical individual, but with a whole race, of which Partholón is merely, as it were, a nickname. It is hard to define this race of Partholón in terms of Indo-European mythology. In the vocabulary of primitive mythology, we may identify it as the first race of those Dema, the ancestors (mythical, not human, according to Lévy-Brühl's useful distinction) who controlled the world, if they did not create it—the world of the Gael, of course, that is to say: Ireland.

When Partholón landed in Ireland, he found there only three lakes and nine rivers, but seven new lakes were formed in his lifetime. He cleared four plains and "he found no tiller of the soil before him." He brought with him the steward Accasbél who built the first "guest-house"; and Brea who built the first dwelling, made the first cauldron and fought the first duel; and Malaliach who was the first surety (guarantee is an essential part of the Celtic legal system), brewed the first beer from bracken, and ordained divination, sacrifice and ritual; Bachorbladhra, who was the first foster-father (fosterage was the basis of the Irish system of education); and finally the two merchants, Biobal, who introduced gold into Ireland, and Babal, who introduced cattle.

It was in Partholón's time that adultery was first committed in Ireland. Having left his wife alone with his servant, he found on his return that they had wronged him. He demanded his "honour-price," but his wife replied that it was she who was entitled to compensation, for it was the owner's responsibility to protect his property:

honey with a woman, milk with a cat,food with one generous, meat with a child,a wright within and an edged tool,one with one other, it is a great risk8

And this was the first "judgment" in Ireland. Hence the proverb "the right of Partholón's wife against her husband."

The race of Partholón fought the first battle of Ireland against the Fomorians. The name (Fomoire) is a compound of the preposition fo 'under' and a root which appears in the German Mahr, name of a female demon who lies on the breast of people while they sleep (cf. Eng. 'nightmare'), in the name Morrígan (queen of demons), and perhaps in the name of the formidable Marats of the Veda. The Irish form means "inferior" or "latent demons." The myth presents the Fomorians as native powers constantly driven back to the limits of the world controlled by civilizing races, and always about to invade it and devour its produce. In Partholón's time they had lived for two hundred years in the islands near the coast, "having no other food." They fight against Partholón and his people "with one foot, one hand and one eye," a monstrous form, or a ritual posture (either interpretation seems possible), which has a magic value and a demonic significance. After seven days they are defeated and driven off. But we shall soon see them return, for the Fomorians never lay down their arms. They are like the powers of Chaos, ever latent and hostile to cosmic order.

On the feast of Beltine, the First of May, the race of Partholón was destroyed by a mysterious plague; but, by this time, the crafts and institutions by which Celtic society was maintained had already been established. How did this established tradition survive the destruction of the race? How was it transmitted to later peoples? The mythology, naturally incoherent, does not explain.

The race of Nemed, whose name means "sacred" (cf. Gaul [nemēton] 'sacred place'), then occupied Ireland, after the country had lain desert for thirty years. In their time four lakes were formed, two forts were built and twelve plains were cleared. But they were unable to control the Fomorians and finally became their vassals. The land into which Partholón had brought the precious herds of cattle became "a land of sheep," and every year on the Feast of Samain, the First of November, the people of Nemed had to deliver to their masters two-thirds of their corn, their milk and their children. After vain resistance and ruinous victories, they resolved to abandon Ireland.

The race of Partholón was followed by a fourth race, that of the Fir Bolg, who arrived on the Feast of Lugnasad, the First of August, the third great feast of the Celtic year. Various tribes came with them, Gaileoin and Fir Domnann, but all were "only one race and one power." Unlike their predecessors, these people did not disappear, but left descendants after them. The heroic sagas often mention these elements of the population as distinct from the ruling Gaels.⁹ And here the mythology apparently preserves the memory of actual invasions of foreigners. Perhaps the Gaileoin are Gauls, the Fir Domnann the Dumnonii of Great Britain, the Fir Bolg the Belgac. Thus witnesses of a relatively recent past have come to be introduced between the fanciful Fomorians and the divine "Peoples of Dana": supernatural and human are blended in the crucible of the myth.

The races of Partholón and Nemed had been clearers of the plains. With the Fir Bolg we seem to emerge from the era of agrarian culture. No plains are said to have been cleared in their time, nor any lakes to have been formed. Their contribution is proper rather to a warlike aristocracy, for they introduced into Ireland the iron spearhead and the system of monarchy. It is said of their king Eochaid mac Eirc that "no rain fell during his reign, but only the dew; there was not a year without harvest." For (we add the connective on the evidence of several parallel passages), "falsehood was banished from Ireland in his time. He was the first to establish there the rule of justice." Thus there appears with the establishment of the first Celtic communities in Ireland the principle of association between the king and the earth—the king's justice being a condition of the fertility of the soil—which is the very formula of the magic of kingship.

The Fir Bolg were soon to be dispossessed by new invaders, the Tuatha Di Danann, "Peoples of the Goddess Dana," who landed on the Feast of Beltine, and defeated the Fir Bolg in the First Battle of Mag Tured. They won the battle by their "talent," and this talent consisted of the power of magic (draoidheacht). In distant islands (the "islands of Northern Greece") they had learned "magic and every sort of craft and liberal art, so that they were learned, wise, and well skilled in every branch of these arts." From these islands they brought four talismans: the Stone of Fal, which screamed when the lawful king of Ireland placed his foot upon it; the sword of Nuada, of which the wounds were fatal; the spear of Lug which gave victory, and the Cauldron of the Dagda "from which none parts without being satisfied." To these talismans and to their knowledge of magic, the Tuatha owe their supernatural power. They are "gods" because they are sorcerers. Moreover, among these Tuatha only the artisans, those who share this knowledge by which the divine race enjoys its power, are "gods." "They considered their artists to be gods (dee) and their labourers to be non-gods (andee)." And this distinction recurs in the epic formula: "the blessing of gods and non-gods upon you!" The divine race, like the human, includes, therefore, in addition to the privileged classes of warriors and initiated craftsmen, a common class which has no share in the magic hierarchy. It is characteristic that this profane element in society is the agricultural class. In this respect the race of the Tuatha Dé Danann differs from the preceding races, and in particular from that of Partholón, of which the agrarian character is so marked as to suggest a vegetation myth.

Having conquered the Fir Bolg, the Tuatha Dé Danann soon came into conflict with the Fomorians, to whom they were opposed in the Second Battle of Mag Tured. This battle, which is the subject of a long epic tale, is one of the dominant episodes of Irish mythology, and one of those most readily susceptible of varying interpretations. Some have found here a conflict between the forces of disorder and darkness and the forces of order and light, a sort of Celtic replica of the struggle of Chthónioi and Ouránioi. And this explanation does account for one aspect, and clearly the dominant aspect, of the rivalry which involved the two races. But we lose perspective by attributing this anarchical conflict of rival peoples to the essential antagonism of opposite cosmic principles; for the two parties were connected by a series of intermarriages so complex as to confuse even the native mythographers, and were forced into opposition by the same play of political events that governs the relations of human beings. In order to illustrate the conditions that govern this mythical world, we shall summarize the origins of the second Battle of Mag Tured.

In the course of a fight with the Fir Bolg, Nuada, king of the Tuatha, lost an arm. Any mutilation disqualifies a king, so another must be chosen. The chieftains select Bres (The Handsome), who is a son of the king of the Fomorians, but was reared by the Tuatha because his mother was one of them. But Bres lacks a sense of what is the first duty of a king, namely generosity. He does not grease the knives of the chieftains, and "however often they visited him their breath did not smell of beer." Worse still, he provides neither poets nor musicians nor acrobats nor jesters to entertain them. When their poet presents himself before Bres, he is offered neither bed nor fire, and receives only three dry biscuits on a small dish. Thereupon he pronounced the first satire (aer) ever to be pronounced in Ireland, the first of those rhythmic maledictions by means of which the poets, masters of the power of the word, can bring blotches on the face of a prince or sterility upon a whole province:

Without food upon his dish,without cow's milk upon which a calf grows,without a man's abode under the gloom of  night,without enough to reward poets, may that be  the fate of Bres!10

Enraged by his conduct, the chieftains demanded that Bres abdicate, and he invoked the aid of his father, who was king of the Fomorians. Thus the fight is joined, and above the battle of the warriors rages the struggle of wizards on either side who employ every resource of magic and countermagic. When the five chieftains who constitute the general staff of the Tuatha (Nuada, Dagda, Ogma, Goibniu and Dian Cecht) decide to declare war, their first care is to mobilize their artisans and make inventory of their magical resources. Their sorcerer promises to hurl against the enemy the twelve mountains of Ireland, their cup-bearer to drain the twelve lakes of Ireland, their druid to cause three showers of fire to rain upon the Fomorians, to deprive them of two-thirds of their valour and strength and to retain the urine of their men and of their horses. Throughout the battle Dian Cecht, "the leech," remains, chanting incantations with his three children, beside a well into which the bodies of slain warriors are thrown (for death by violence does not spare the race of the gods) and whence they emerge restored to life.

Thus a conflict, arising from the revolt of discontented chieftains, and spreading as a result of the appeal by the dispossessed king to his natural allies (circumstances which reflect in the myth political and domestic conditions familiar to Celtic society) ends in the victory of the divine invaders over the grim Fomorians, who are now finally expelled from the confines of what is to become the domain of the Gael.

The sixth and last race to invade Ireland is that of the "Sons of Mil," ancestors of the present inhabitants of the country. They landed on the Feast of Beltine, and the first three inhabitants that they met were the three eponymous goddesses of Ireland, Eire, Banba and Fódla. The circumstances of the meeting are remarkable. Eire, in welcoming the invaders, predicts that the island will belong to their descendants forever. The poet Amairgin thanks her, but Donn, the eldest of the Sons of Mil, says rudely: "It is not you that we must thank, but our gods and our magic powers." "What is that to you," said Eire, "for neither you nor your children will enjoy this island." Then she asked of Amairgin that the island should bear her name forever, and her sisters did likewise; and that is why the island has three names: Eire, Banba and Fódla. In accordance with the prophecy of the goddess, Donn was drowned before he had found a home in Ireland. He was buried on an island off the west coast, since known as "The House of Donn." The descendants of the Sons of Míl follow him there after death.¹¹

We see how Amairgin secured possession of the country for his race by conciliating its ancient goddesses, while Donn failed by his refusal to invoke other gods than his own. This episode illustrates the attitude of the Celts in religion, a willingness to adopt local cults and take advantage of the power that attached to them.

Nevertheless, the Sons of Míl demanded of the Tuatha "combat or sovereignty or agreement." The Tuatha gave them nine days' delay in which "to depart or to submit or to give battle." When they refused, the Tuatha appealed to the judgment of the poets of their adversaries: "for if they give an unjust judgment, our elements will kill them on the spot." We see that it is the poet, the sacred one, not the king or the warrior, who appears as arbiter. Amairgin decided that the Sons of Míl should re-embark and withdraw "as far as the ninth wave," that ninth wave which for the Celts had a magic power. When the invaders sought to return to shore they were prevented by a "druidic wind" raised by the Tuatha. (Druidic wind differs from natural wind in that it blows no higher than the ships' masts.) Then Amairgin sang an invocation to the great lady Éire:

I invoke the land of Ireland.Much coursed be the fertile sea,fertile be the fruit-strewn mountain,fruit-strewn be the showery wood, …12

The wind abated so that the Sons of Míl were able to land. As he set his right foot on shore, Amairgin sang again:

I am the wind on the sea.I am a wave of the ocean.I am the roar of the sea.I am a powerful ox.I am a hawk on a cliff.I am a dewdrop in sunshine.
I am the strength of art.I am a spear with spoils that wages battle.
Who clears the stony place of the mountain?
Who has sought peace (in death?)seven times without fear?
Who brings his cattle from the house of Tethra?
What man, what god forges weapons in a  fort? …Who chants a petition, divides the Ogam letters …?A wise chanter.13

It has been suggested that this poem, which is a tissue of obscure formulas that puzzled even the medieval commentators, echoes the druidic doctrine of metempsychosis; but it simply expressed the pride of the sorcerer, whose art has just brought him triumph over his enemies, and who now parades his talents and declares his power. For we know that one of the gifts which all primitive peoples attribute to their sorcerers is that of shape-shifting.

These two incantations of Amairgin mark with ritual pathos the solemnity of the moment when man proclaims his sovereignty over the earth, by virtue of the magic powers of the poets which have prevailed over the forces opposed to them. They illustrate too the dual attitude of man towards these forces: religion in the invocation, addressed to the eponymous goddess, the local "Mother," to obtain the fertility of the region of which she is still mistress; and magic in the explosion of pride on the part of the sorcerer who is the embodiment of the art which will enable him to prevail even against the gods. We shall find everywhere amongst the Celts the dialectic of these two attitudes, religion and magic. And if one of the two should be emphasized, it is the second. We have seen that the Irish regarded the gods as master magicians, so that the sacred and the magical are not distinct notions. Their relations with these gods are primarily relations of constraint, only secondarily of deference. We shall observe the same behaviour in the hero, always struggling against the supernatural and seeking to dominate it, to pursue it into its own territory and conquer it with mere weapons.

The Sons of Míl gave battle to the Tuatha, killed a great number of them, including the three eponymous goddesses, and put them to flight. The Book of Conquests declares that they were expelled from Ireland. But the common tradition, which is confirmed by modern folklore, contradicts this assertion. Like the Dema to whom we have compared them, the Tuatha "returned underground," where they continue to live, in those mounds where the peasant of today still believes them to dwell. We must now examine the status of the supernatural after the mythological period comes to an end, and the modus vivendi that was established between the two races destined to dwell together upon Irish soil.

While we depend on the witness of the insular Celts for the myths, we have for the images some documents concerning the Celts of the continent. These documents are of two sorts: texts of ancient writers, and Gaulish or Gallo-Roman inscriptions and monuments. The Latin and Greek texts are brief, categorical, and suggest conceptions analogous to those familiar in other mythologies; and therefore they are reassuring. The inscriptions (mere names or epithets of divinities) and the monuments (insofar as they are purely Celtic, for we must reckon with the possibility of Roman influence) give us only allusions which are not easy to interpret and which throw only a little light upon a world of obscure notions. One is tempted to use the texts as a starting point in order to explain the monuments, and so to fit the fragments of the puzzle into the ready framework that some paragraph of Caesar provides. But this temptation is to be avoided, for it is safer to wander without a guide in an unmapped country than to trust completely a map traced by men who came only as tourists and often with biased judgment. We shall proceed therefore as though no Greek or Roman had ever visited Celtic territory, and examine first the native documents. Then we shall be ready to compare our findings with what other writers have reported.

The first fact that strikes one is the multiplicity of the names of gods, and the fewness of the examples of each of them that occur. According to an early estimate, which is probably not subject to any notable correction, of the three hundred and seventy-four names attested in the inscriptions three hundred and five occur only once.¹⁴ The names most frequently mentioned are those of the gods Grannos (nineteen times) and Belenos (thirty-one times), and the goddesses Rosmerta (twenty-one times) and Epona (twenty-six times). Names of Gaulish gods are legion, and the number has not been explained by those parallel processes of syncretism and expansion which elsewhere have resulted in defining and establishing the features of the gods. In the Gallo-Roman period, when the native cults became integrated in the imperial religious system, a single Roman deity represents a multiplicity of local gods whose memory is preserved in the epithet of the imported foreigner. Thus fifty-nine different epithets are joined to the name of Mars:¹⁵ Mars Teutates is the Teutates that we know from Lucan; Mars Segomo is Segomo whose cult appears in Munster and whose name occurs in that of the Irish hero Nia Segamon (Champion of Segomo);¹⁶ Mars Camulus is the disguise of a god Camulus, identical, no doubt, with Cumall, father of the hero Finn (see chapter VII); Mars Rudianos (The Red) recalls the name of the horse-god Rudiobos,¹⁷ for the horse and the colour red are associated with the land of the dead and with gods of war throughout Celtic territory. This is evidenced by the red trappings of the Morrigan and by the three red horsemen from the kingdom of Donn, lord of the dead, whose appearance in The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel announces his approaching doom to king Conaire.¹⁸ Thus a multiplicity of local tribal gods whom he has supplanted, appears under the unity of the imperial cult of Mars.

The plurality of names over the whole territory suggests that these were tribal gods, the gods of communities or groups of communities, for their distribution seems to be political or geographic rather than functional. And this suggestion is confirmed by a useful observation made by Vendryes.¹⁹ It is well known that one of the gods most frequently represented on Gaulish monuments is Tricephalus, a three-headed or three-faced god. We have thirty-two effigies of him, most of them from Northern Gaul. Fifteen of the more archaic examples were found in the territory of the Remi. We may therefore consider Tricephalus to be a god of the Remi, at least in origin. Again, the cult of the Matres is widespread in the Rhineland and especially among the Treviri. But in one instance we find Tricephalus represented on a stele at Trier, and he appears surmounted by the three Matres of the Treviri who seem to trample him under foot. This monument may be compared with a stele discovered at Malmaison, on which Tricephalus is associated with another group, the pair consisting of Mercury and his companion Rosmerta. But here the positions are reversed and Tricephalus seems to dominate the divine pair. Thus each of the two peoples has symbolized the triumph of their own god over foreign or hostile gods. No doubt Vendryes is right in regarding such evidence as an indication of the national character that the Remi attributed to their Tricephalus and the Treviri to their Matres.

This tribal character of the god is directly expressed in the name of a Gaulish god Teutates mentioned by Lucan: "and those who propitiate with horrid victims ruthless Teutates, and Esus whose savage shrine makes men shudder, and Taranis whose altar is no more benign than that of Scythian Diana."²⁰ Teutates has been supposed to be one of the great Gaulish gods, but this hypothesis is invalidated by the fact that he is mentioned elsewhere only in a single inscription, and was adored probably only by some obscure tribe. The name indeed means simply "(the god) of the tribe" (G. touto-, teuto-, Ir. túath 'tribe'),²¹ a title which corresponds to a familiar formula of Irish sagas: "I swear by the god (or gods) by whom my people swear." Every Gaulish people had, then, its Teutates, and adored him each by a different name, or by one of the titles: Albiorix (King of the World); Rigisamus (Most Royal); Maponos (The Great Youth); Toutiorix (King of the Tribe); Caturix (King of Battle); Loucetius (The Brilliant One), which are perhaps no more than means of invoking the god without profaning his name, by a precaution analogous to that suggested by the Irish formula. How did these gods of peoples or tribes appear to the imagination of the Gauls? Without discussing the effigies in detail, we shall note some general features.²²

First of all, the triple figures are important, gods with three heads or three faces and groups of three goddesses. The number three plays a large part in Celtic tradition; the "triad," a formula which combines three facts or three precepts, is a genre which dominates the gnomic literature of both Wales and Ireland, and triple personages or trios are prominent in the epic tradition of the two peoples.

Another notable fact is the more or less marked zoomorphic character of the effigies, sometimes expressed in a more evolved form of the same mythological type by association of an animal with the god. An example is furnished by Cernunnos (The Horned One), the god whose cult is most widely attested. He is represented with the horns of a ram or a deer, squatting on the ground. The posture recalls that of the Buddha, but it must have been habitual to the Gauls, whose furniture did not include any sort of chair. He is often accompanied by one or two horned serpents, and the horned god with a serpent recurs on the famous Gundestrup vessel. Certain variants present a female deity, or a three-headed figure, of the same type.

This zoomorphic element appears more clearly in the female than in the male effigies: one of the most familiar goddesses is Epona, whose name means "The Great Mare" and who appears on horseback accompanied by a mare with her foal, or feeding some foals; the Welsh Rhiannon, "The Great Queen," has been recognized as a mare-goddess comparable to Epona.²³ We find also a bear-goddess, Artio, and there can be no doubt that the name Damona, formed like Epona, means "The Great Cow" (cf. Ir. dam 'ox').

These female deities fill a big place in the religious world of the Gauls. They can be divided into two classes. The first is that of the tutelary goddesses,²⁴ who are connected with the earth itself and with local features, wells or forests, or again with the animals that frequent them, and who control the fertility of the earth, as is shown by the horn of plenty which is one of their attributes. Such are the Matres and Epona and the goddesses of water (Sirona in eastern Gaul and Brixia, the companion of Luxovius, the watergod of Luxeuil) or of forests (Dea Arduina of the Ardennes). The second class, which is smaller, is that of the goddesses of war: for example, Andarta of the Vocontii, or Andrasta who was invoked by Boudicca before she went into battle, or Nemetona whose name resembles that of Nemain, one of the three Morrigna of Irish tradition. The two types of which the one represents the powers of fertility, the other the powers of destruction, appear separately on continental territory. We find them confused in the persons of the same divinities in insular tradition, which represents in this respect, as in others, a less analytical and more archaic conception than the Gaulish.

Many of the goddesses often appear as companions of a god. Brixia and Luxovius have been cited; and Sirona is usually associated with Grannos, sometimes with Apollo; Nemetona appears on the monuments beside Mars, who has, no doubt, been substituted in these cases for some Celtic war-god; Rosmerta is likewise the companion of Mercury. But the pair who appear most frequently are Sucellos and Nantosuelta.

Sucellos, "The God of the Mallet," whose name means "Good Striker," has been identified with Dispater, ancestor of the Gauls, of whom Caesar tells us. The appearance of this bearded god, dressed in the short tunic which was the national costume of the Gauls, and expressing strength and authority and, at the same time, a certain benevolence, accords well with one's idea of a father-god, and recalls in many respects the chief god of the Irish, the Dagda. His attributes are the mallet, weapon of the "Good Striker," and the cup or dish, symbol of abundance, and here there is a striking parallel with the two attributes of the Dagda, the club which fells his enemy and the inexhaustible cauldron which ensures abundance to his people. These divinities have, therefore, the two characteristics that define the function of a father-god, who is at the same time a warrior, and therefore protector and nurturer. The name of the companion, Nantosuelta, is obscure, but the first element is recognizable as meaning "river" (cf. W. nant 'stream'). We find, then, on Gaulish soil an association of a father-god with a local river-goddess which is confirmed by an episode of Irish mythology in which the Dagda is associated with the Boyne, the sacred river of Ireland. Other pairs might be added to this class. In the region of Salzbach a "god of the mallet" is associated with the goddess Aeracura who appears with a horn of plenty or a basket of fruit, attributes of the Matres. In the mythology of the insular Celts we shall find again these pairs, consisting of the chief god and one of the Matres, and there is no doubt that they present one of the fundamental notions of Celtic religion.

Tribal gods and mother-goddesses: is it possible to go beyond this general characterization of the Gaulish divinities? Can one find the trace of a separation of functions and activities? The attempt has been made on the strength of a paragraph of Caesar which has been often quoted and which must again be quoted here. We declined to begin with this testimony, but it must now be considered.

Caesar uses these words: "Among the gods they most worship Mercury. There are numerous images of him; they declare him the inventor of all arts, the guide for every road and journey, and they deem him to have the greatest influence for all money-making and traffic. After him they set Apollo, Mars, Jupiter and Minerva. Of these deities they have almost the same idea as other nations: Apollo drives away diseases, Minerva supplies the first principles of arts and crafts, Jupiter holds the empire of heaven, Mars controls wars."²⁵

Thus the great gods of the Celts would seem to correspond more or less exactly to the great gods of the Romans and would have divided among them, as these do, the various domains of human activity. Such a coincidence is a priori surprising. In view of the profound divergence in mentality and social structure which we observe as between Romans and Celts, one must wonder at such a similarity in their religious ideas; and a comparison of this text with the Gaulish documents confirms the suspicion.

If we consider the goddesses, we have noticed among the mother-goddesses divinities of water and forest, goddesses of fertility who protect certain animals, and goddesses of war, but nowhere a Minerva, patroness of the arts. This does not mean that some mother-goddess did not play this part. And indeed we shall find a patroness of the arts among the insular Celts in the triple Brigit. Caesar may have observed this quality in some Gaulish goddess unknown to us, or even in one of those we do know but not in this connection. The quality familiar to him, and therefore immediately intelligible, prompted a hasty identification calculated to satisfy him and to mislead us. Caesar's testimony is important inasmuch as it throws light on an aspect of the mother-goddesses which is confirmed by Irish tradition, and about which Gaulish tradition is silent. But by accepting it as it stands we should form a false notion of the complex goddesses of the Celts.

In the case of the gods we are in the same situation. We can well believe that Gaulish gods were warriors, artisans, healers, and that they presided over certain phenomena of the heavens. Which people has not attributed these various activities to its gods? But if we seek, for instance, the contrast between a god of war and a god of arts and crafts, then difficulties arise. This is illustrated by the contradictions of scholiasts who have tried to reconcile the independent evidence of Lucan with the system outlined by Caesar. In a passage cited above Lucan enumerates three gods adored by Gaulish tribes; Teutates, Esus and Taranis. There is nothing to suggest that these are three great Gaulish gods, still less that they are the three principal gods of the Gauls, a conception which, as we have seen, does not correspond to any reality. But in the light of Caesar's testimony, one is led to establish some equivalence between these gods and those that he has defined; and the scholiasts of Lucan have made the attempt.²⁶ The name Taranis, which means "Thunderer" (cf. Ir. torann 'thunder') indicates an identification with Jupiter. But, as between Esus and Teutates, which corresponds to Mars and which to Mercury? There is so little correspondence that the two scholiasts have answered the question in contradictory terms, so that we find both Esus and Teutates identified with each of the two Roman gods. We have seen that in fact Teutates is simply "the god of the tribe"; and he must have been regarded sometimes as a god of war and sometimes as a god of industry, according as he was invoked in times of war or peace. No doubt it was the same in the case of Esus, whose name may mean "master," if the comparison with Latin erus be correct.²⁷ Lucan describes him as the blood-thirsty master of warlike tribes, but on the altars of Trier and Paris he appears as the gracious patron of a peaceful corporation of builders.²⁸ Similarly the Irish Lug is an artisan of many talents, even a healer, but also a warrior whose spear never misses its mark. General and complete efficiency is the character of all the Celtic gods, and we see them fighting or giving help and counsel, according to the needs of their people.

However, there is one point in the testimony of Caesar which must be remembered, and it requires interpretation. It is the pre-eminence that he accords to the Gaulish Mercury over the other gods, including the lord of heaven. This conflicts so strongly with the notions that were familiar to him that we are bound to accept it; and, moreover, it is confirmed by insular tradition. But we must not rush to the conclusion that the Gauls distinguished a god of arts and crafts as opposed to a god of war, and preferred one to the other. The cult of Mars, who is adored under fifty-nine different titles, is no less widespread in Gallo-Roman Gaul than that of Mercury, who possesses only nineteen titles. We must rather suppose that the Gauls gave precedence in their divine world to the craftsperson over the warrior, and that both qualities could be combined, and were normally combined, in one divine person. This, at least, is how we should explain, in terms of Celtic mythology, the fact which impressed Caesar, and which he explained in Roman terms.

Some general characteristics have emerged from this rapid survey: the multiplicity of divine persons, sometimes in triple form, sometimes in animal form; tribal character, marked in the case of the gods; local character, especially in the case of the goddesses; the importance of female deities, goddesses of war or mother-goddesses; the frequent association of these females with tribal gods; the lack of differentiation of functions as among the gods; and the importance of the craftsperson in the celestial hierarchy. These characteristics appear only as shadows in our picture of the religious world of the Gauls, for our imperfect knowledge permits merely a sketch; but we shall observe them again, more clearly drawn, and emphasized by the rich colour of a living mythology, in the epic tradition of the insular Celts.

¹ Lévy-Brühl, La Mentalité Primitive, 3.

²Revue Celtique, 12, 107. 162.

³ R. I. Best and Osborn Bergin, Lebor na Huidre (Dublin, 1929) 4034.

⁴ R. A. S. Macalister and J. MacNeill, Leabhar Gabhala, 145.

⁵ R. A. S. Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn.

⁶ R. Thurneysen, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 13, 141; 20, 375.

⁷Revue Celtique 50, 217.

⁸Lebor Gabála, III, 69; ibid. 41.

⁹ MacNeill, Phases of Irish History, 76.

¹⁰Revue Celtique 12, 70.10 = Lebor na Huidre 561 [Tr.].

¹¹ Meyer, Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1919, 537.

¹²Leabhar Gabhala 257 [Tr.].

¹³Leabhar Gabhala 263 [Tr.].

¹⁴ Anwyl, Trans. Gael. Soc. Inverness, 26, 411.

¹⁵ Dottin, Manule pour servir a 1'etude de l'antiquite celtique, 226.

¹⁶ MacNeill, Phases of Irish History, 127.

¹⁷ J. Loth, Rev. Arch. 22, 5e Sér. 210; Eva Wunderlich, Rel.-Geschicht. Versuche, 20, 46.

¹⁸Revue Celtique 22, 36.

¹⁹Comptes rendus de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, 1935, 324.

²⁰Bellum Civile, i, 444-46 (tr. Duff).

²¹ Vendryes, Teutomatos, Comptes rendus de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, 1939, 466.

²² For the images, see W. Krause, Religion der Kelten (Bilderatlas zur Religionsgeschichte, 17); S. Reinach, Description raisonnee du musee de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Bronzes figures de la Gaule Romaine, 137.

²³ H. Hubert, 'Le Mythe d'Epona', Mélanges Vendryes, 187.

²⁴ Daremberg-Saglio, Dict. des Ant., s.v. Matres.

²⁵De Bell. Gall., vi, 17 (tr. Edwards).

²⁶Commenta Bernensia, ed. Usener, 32.

²⁷ Ernout and Meillet, Dict. Etym. de la langue latine (2nd ed.), 310.

²⁸ St. Czarnowski, RC 42, 1.