Celtic Religion | Page 9

of acorns, too, may have marked it out, in the early days of life in
forest- clearings, as the animal embodiment of the oak-spirit. In the
legends of the Celtic races, even in historic times, the pig, and
especially the boar, finds an honoured place. In addition to the animals
aforementioned, the ass, too, was probably at one time venerated in one
of the districts of Gaul, and it is not improbable that Mullo, the name of
a god identified with Mars and regarded as the patron of muleteers,
mentioned on inscriptions (at Nantes, Craon, and Les Provencheres
near Craon), meant originally 'an ass.' The goddess Epona, also, whose
worship was widely spread, was probably at one time an animal
goddess in the form of a mare, and the name of another goddess,
Damona, either from the root dam=Ir. dam, (ox); or Welsh daf-ad
(sheep), may similarly be that of an ancient totem sheep or cow. Nor
was it in the animal world alone that the Celts saw indications of the
divine. While the chase and the pastoral life concentrated the mind's
attention on the life of animals, the growth of agriculture fixed man's
thoughts on the life of the earth, and all that grew upon it, while at the
same time he was led to think more and more of the mysterious world
beneath the earth, from which all things came and to which all things
returned. Nor could he forget the trees of the forest, especially those
which, like the oak, had provided him with their fruit as food in time of
need. The name Druid, as well as that of the centre of worship of the

Gauls of Asia Minor, Drunemeton (the oak-grove), the statement of
Maximus of Tyre that the representation of Zeus to the Celts was a high
oak, Pliny's account of Druidism (Nat. Hist., xvi. 95), the numerous
inscriptions to Silvanus and Silvana, the mention of Dervones or
Dervonnae on an inscription at Cavalzesio near Brescia, and the
abundant evidence of survivals in folk- lore as collected by Dr. J. G.
Frazer and others, all point to the fact that tree-worship, and especially
that of the oak, had contributed its full share to the development of
Celtic religion, at any rate in some districts and in some epochs. The
development of martial and commercial civilisation in later times
tended to restrict its typical and more primitive developments to the
more conservative parts of the Celtic world. The fact that in Caesar's
time its main centre in Gaul was in the territory of the Carnutes, the
tribe which has given its name to Chartres, suggests that its chief
votaries were mainly in that part of the country. This, too, was the
district of the god Esus (the eponymous god of the Essuvii), and in
some degree of Teutates, the cruelty of whose rites is mentioned by
Lucan. It had occurred to the present writer, before finding the same
view expressed by M. Salomon Reinach, that the worship of Esus in
Gaul was almost entirely local in character. With regard to the rites of
the Druids, Caesar tells us that it was customary to make huge images
of wickerwork, into which human beings, usually criminals, were
placed and burnt. The use of wickerwork, and the suggestion that the
rite was for purifying the land, indicates a combination of the ideas of
tree-worship with those of early agricultural life. When the Emperor
Claudius is said by Suetonius to have suppressed Druidism, what is
meant is, in all probability, that the more inhuman rites were
suppressed, leading, as the Scholiasts on Lucan seem to suggest, to a
substitution of animal victims for men. On the side of civil
administration and education, the functions of the Druids, as the
successors of the primitive medicine men and magicians, doubtless
varied greatly in different parts of Gaul and Britain according to the
progress that had been made in the differentiation of functions in social
life. The more we investigate the state of the Celtic world in ancient
times, the clearer it becomes, that in civilisation it was very far from
being homogeneous, and this heterogeneity of civilisation must have
had its influence on religion as well as on other social phenomena. The

natural conservatism of agricultural life, too, perpetuated many
practices even into comparatively late times, and of these we catch a
glimpse in Gregory of Tours, when he tells us that at Autun the goddess
Berecyntia was worshipped, her image being carried on a wagon for the
protection of the fields and the vines. It is not impossible that by
Berecyntia Gregory means the goddess Brigindu, whose name occurs
on an inscription at Volnay in the same district of Gaul. The belief in
corn-spirits, and other ideas connected with the central thought