Celtic polytheism

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Celtic polytheism
Celtic deities (list)

Irish mythology
Scottish mythology
Hebridean mythology
Tuatha Dé Danann
Mythological Cycle
Ulster Cycle
Fenian Cycle

British Iron Age religion
British mythology
Welsh mythology
Breton mythology
Mabinogion
Book of Taliesin
Trioedd Ynys Prydein

Druids · Bards · Vates

Samhain
Imbolc
Beltane
Lughnasadh

Celtic polytheism, sometimes known as Celtic paganism, refers to the religious beliefs and practises of the ancient Celtic peoples of western Europe prior to Christianisation.

Celtic polytheism, as its name suggests, was polytheistic, believing in a number of different deities, and was also animistic, believing in spirits existing in natural objects such as trees and rocks. Religious beliefs and practises of the Celts varied throughout the different Celtic lands, which included Ireland, Britain, Celtiberia, Gaul, areas along the Danube river, and Galatia; however there were commonalities shared by all.

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

Celtic polytheism declined in the Roman Empire period, especially after the outlawing of one form of it, Druidism, by the emperor Claudius in 54 AD. It persisted somewhat longer in Britain and Ireland, where it gradually disappeared during Christianization, over the 5th to 6th centuries.

Terminology

Celtic polytheism, like most pre-literate folk beliefs, the practitioners probably did not have a name for their religion, until they came into contact with Christians. Therefore, the only titles bestowed upon Celtic religion are the ones which were used to describe the religion in a competitive manner, such as the latin word "paganism".

Sources

Three Celtic goddesses, as depicted at Coventina's well.

We know comparatively little about Celtic polytheism because the evidence for it is fragmentary, largely due to the fact that the pagan Celts themselves wrote nothing down about their religion. [1][2] Therefore all we have to study their religion from is the literature from the early Christian period, commentaries from classical Greek and Roman scholars, and archaeological evidence.[3]

Literary sources

The Iron Age Celts wrote nothing down about their religion not because they couldn't (many knew the Greek alphabet, and used it for other purposes[2] and the Celts of the British Isles also made used of their native Ogham script^{[citation needed]}), but because it was forbidden. The Druids, or priestly caste of the Celts, would only allow their knowledge to be passed orally, possibly so as to protect its secrets from outsiders.[2]

Greek and Roman sources

Various Greek and Roman writers of the ancient world commented on the Celts and their beliefs. The Roman general (and later dictator) Julius Caesar, when leading the conquering armies of the Roman Republic against Celtic Gaul, made various descriptions of the inhabitants, though some of his claims, such as that the Druids practised human sacrifice by burning people in wicker men, have come under scrutiny by modern scholars.

However, the key problem with the use of these sources is that they were often biased against the Celts, whom the classical peoples viewed as "barbarians".[1] In the case of the Romans who conquered several Celtic realms, they would have likely been biased in favour of making the Celts look uncivilised, thereby giving the "civilised" Romans more reason to conquer them. [4]

Irish and Welsh sources

A scene from the Táin Bó Cúailnge, an Irish epic that told of a great war, here depicting its hero, Cúchulainn. Whilst this story was originally Celtic pagan, it only survives to us in a Christianised written form.

The other literary sources come from the Celtic lands of Wales and Ireland, in the Christian mediaeval period, long after the decline of Celtic paganism. These sources are in the form of mythological stories, such as the Welsh Mabinogion and the Irish vernacular sources such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge. These were initially written in the Welsh and Irish language respectively.

They were written several centuries after Christianity became the dominant religion in these regions, and were written down by Christian monks (at the time, monks would have been some of the few people with the ability to write). Instead of treating the characters as deities, they are allocated the roles of being historical heroes, for instance, in the Irish sources the gods are claimed to be an ancient tribe of humans known as the Tuatha Dé Danann. Because they were written in a very Christian context, these sources must be scrutinized with even more rigour than the classical sources in assessing their validity as evidence for pagan Celtic religion.[1]

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, 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.[1]

Archaeological sources

The archaeological evidence does not contain the bias inherent in the literary sources. Nonetheless, our interpretation of this evidence can sometimes be coloured by the 21st century mindset.[1]

Various different archaeological discoveries have aided our understanding of the pagan religion of the Celts. One is the minted coins of Gaul, Raetia, Noricum, and Britain, and another is the sculptures, monuments, and inscriptions associated with the Celts of continental Europe and of Roman Britain. Most of the monuments, and their accompanying inscriptions, belong to the Roman period and reflect a considerable degree of syncretism between Celtic and Roman gods; even where figures and motifs appear to derive from pre-Roman tradition, they are difficult to interpret in the absence of a preserved literature on mythology. A notable example of this is the horned deity that was called Cernunnos; we have found several depictions and inscriptions of him, but know very little about the myths that would have been associated with him or how he was worshipped.

Beliefs

Deities

Image of a tricephalic god identified as Lugus, discovered in Paris, the old Celtic city of Lutetia.

Celtic religion was polytheistic, believing in many deities, both gods and goddesses. The most notable of these were pan-Celtic, being worshipped across much of the Celtic world, albeit under various regional names and with different associations. Despite the notability of these pan-Celtic deities, they make up only a tiny percentage of Celtic gods; out of the roughly 300 Celtic deities that we know about, only around 60 can be found in more than one region, and of those, only about 20–30 are pan-Celtic [5].

The Celts were also animists, believing in deities existing in most aspects of nature, such as in trees and streams, who were often venerated at local shrines.

According to classical era sources, the Celts worshipped the forces of nature and did not envisage deities in anthropomorphic terms,[6] as other pagan peoples such as the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians did. This appeared to change as the classical peoples grew in influence over the Celtic cultures, as the Celts did begin to give their deities human forms, and they moved from a more animistic-based faith to a more Romanized polytheistic view.

Several of these deities, including Lugus, exhibited triplism, being found in a set of three[7].

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."[8]

Pan-Celtic deities

Image of a horned figure on the Gundestrup cauldron

Some deities of the Celts were deities of major natural occurrences, such as the sun. These deities were generally worshipped across the Celtic lands, however, they often went under different names. An example of this was the god Lugus, who appeared in later Irish mythology as Lugh, and in later Welsh mythology, where he appeared as Lleu Llaw Gyffes.