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From: Raimund KARL (a8700035@unet.univie.ac.at)
To: CELTIC-L@DANANN.HEA.IE
Subject: Celtic Religion - what information do we really have - Part 1-7
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1996 10:54:40 - Tue, 10 Dec 1996 15:20:01
......Only two gods can be identified almost everywhere, being the god Lugos (Irish Lugh, Welsh Llew), whose name we find from Spain to Germany and probably even further east, and the mother godess (matrona), of which we know her functional name, i.e. mother, (old Gaulish matrona, Welsh Modron), and to which a number of the female names we have can be atrributed (Sequana, Noreia, Brigantia and probably as well Eriu and Boand, and additionally we have some "mothergodesses of places" like the Matronae Lugdunensis or the Matronae Treverorum).
This god is depicted as a bull. It is a twin god as far we can say, who has a white and a black form. The two twins seem to be fighting each other, starting out as humans and going through a series of shapechanges until finally, when both are bulls, the dark one rips the white one apart besides a sea. Its gaulish names are Tarvos Trigaranus "Bull with three cranes", Tarvos "Bull" or Donnotaurus "Black bull", the last one being a cognate of Donn Tarbh, another name for the Donn Cuailnge, who fights the Finnbenach "White horned one" in one of the preludes rto the Tain, also going through the shapechanges. In this, this figure fits with the Avestan Tistrya and Apaosa and, more perfectly even, with the Greek Zagre/ous-Dio/nysos.
The first kind of ritual in this group is described to us by Pliny the elder in his historia naturalis, where he is also speaking about curative plants used by the Druids and how they are aqquired. This is the source wherefrom the famous Mistletoe story stems, and from which is usually deducted that the Druids wore white clothing (which I personally very much doubt). Pliny discribes how the druid puts the right arm through the left sleeve of his clothing and cuts, with a golden sickle, the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloth. He describes rituals to collect some other plants as well, which include jumping on one leg around it in the lefthand direction.
What we know about calendrical beliefs is probably the
best documented part of the beliefs (in form of the calendar of Coligny).
We can be sure that in ancient Celtic Religion the year was divided in
two main parts, the Winter half (starting with Samhain) and the Summer
half (starting with Beltane) (although some theories want to set Samhain
in the middle of the summer half, but that is probably nonsense). The other
two great feasts (Imbolc and Lughnasad), if they at all existed in ancient
Celtic Religion, seem to mark the respective middle of the respective halves.
Seemingly, the Summer and Winter half fought with one another (in form
of a white and a black bull, probably, but possibly also in the form of
some gods, look for this in the first branch of the Mabinogi where the
enemy of Arawn of Annwn is called Hafgan [i.e. "Summer king"
more or less]).