The Religion of the Ancient Celts | Page 4

of the Celts. Though no historic Celtic group was
racially pure, the profound influence of the Celtic temperament soon
"Celticised" the religious contributions of the non-Celtic element which
may already have had many Celtic parallels. Because a given Celtic rite
or belief seems to be "un-Aryan," it need not necessarily be borrowed.
The Celts had a savage past, and, conservative as they were, they kept
much of it alive. Our business, therefore, lies with Celtic religion as a
whole. These primitive elements were there before the Celts migrated
from the old "Aryan" home; yet since they appear in Celtic religion to
the end, we speak of them as Celtic. The earliest aspect of that religion,
before the Celts became a separate people, was a cult of nature spirits,
or of the life manifested in nature. But men and women probably had
separate cults, and, of the two, perhaps that of the latter is more
important. As hunters, men worshipped the animals they slew,
apologising to them for the slaughter. This apologetic attitude, found
with all primitive hunters, is of the nature of a cult. Other animals, too
sacred to be slain, would be preserved and worshipped, the cult giving
rise to domestication and pastoral life, with totemism as a probable
factor. Earth, producing vegetation, was the fruitful mother; but since
the origin of agriculture is mainly due to women, the Earth cult would
be practised by them, as well as, later, that of vegetation and corn
spirits, all regarded as female. As men began to interest themselves in
agriculture, they would join in the female cults, probably with the result
of changing the sex of the spirits worshipped. An Earth-god would take
the place of the Earth-mother, or stand as her consort or son.
Vegetation and corn spirits would often become male, though many
spirits, even when they were exalted into divinities, remained female.
With the growth of religion the vaguer spirits tended to become gods
and goddesses, and worshipful animals to become anthropomorphic

divinities, with the animals as their symbols, attendants, or victims.
And as the cult of vegetation spirits centred in the ritual of planting and
sowing, so the cult of the divinities of growth centred in great seasonal
and agricultural festivals, in which the key to the growth of Celtic
religion is to be found. But the migrating Celts, conquering new lands,
evolved divinities of war; and here the old female influence is still at
work, since many of these are female. In spite of possessing so many
local war-gods, the Celts were not merely men of war. Even the equites
engaged in war only when occasion arose, and agriculture as well as
pastoral industry was constantly practised, both in Gaul and Britain,
before the conquest.[4] In Ireland, the belief in the dependence of
fruitfulness upon the king, shows to what extent agriculture flourished
there.[5] Music, poetry, crafts, and trade gave rise to culture divinities,
perhaps evolved from gods of growth, since later myths attributed to
them both the origin of arts and crafts, and the introduction of domestic
animals among men. Possibly some culture gods had been worshipful
animals, now worshipped as gods, who had given these animals to man.
Culture-goddesses still held their place among culture-gods, and were
regarded as their mothers. The prominence of these divinities shows
that the Celts were more than a race of warriors.
The pantheon was thus a large one, but on the whole the divinities of
growth were more generally important. The older nature spirits and
divine animals were never quite forgotten, especially by the folk, who
also preserved the old rituals of vegetation spirits, while the gods of
growth were worshipped at the great festivals. Yet in essence the lower
and the higher cults were one and the same, and, save where Roman
influence destroyed Celtic religion, the older primitive strands are
everywhere apparent. The temperament of the Celt kept him close to
nature, and he never quite dropped the primitive elements of his
religion. Moreover, the early influence of female cults of female spirits
and goddesses remained to the end as another predominant factor.
Most of the Celtic divinities were local in character, each tribe
possessing its own group, each god having functions similar to those of
other groups. Some, however, had or gained a more universal character,
absorbing divinities with similar functions. Still this local character

must be borne in mind. The numerous divinities of Gaul, with differing
names--but, judging by their assimilation to the same Roman divinity,
similar functions, are best understood as gods of local groups. This is
probably true also of Britain and Ireland. But those gods worshipped
far and wide over the Celtic area may be gods of the undivided Celts, or
gods of some dominant Celtic group extending their influence on all
sides,