ANIMAL WORSHIP.
Animal worship pure and simple had declined among the Celts of historic
times, and animals were now regarded mainly as symbols or attributes of
divinities. The older cult had been connected with the pastoral stage in
which the animals were divine, or with the agricultural stage in which
they represented the corn-spirit, and perhaps with totemism. We shall
study here (1) traces of the older animal cults; (2) the transformation
of animal gods into symbols; and (3) traces of totemism.
1.
The presence of a bull with three cranes (_Tarvos Trigaranos_) on the
Paris altar, along with the gods Esus, Juppiter, and Vulcan, suggests
that it was a divine animal, or the subject of a divine myth. As has
been seen, this bull may be the bull of the _Táin bó Cuailgne_. Both it
and its opponent were reincarnations of the swine-herds of two gods. In
the Irish sagas reincarnation is only attributed to gods or heroes, and
this may point to the divinity of the bulls. We have seen that this and
another altar may depict some myth in which the bull was the incarnation
of a tree or vegetation spirit. The divine nature of the bull is
attested by its presence on Gaulish coins as a religious symbol, and by
images of the animal with three horns--an obvious symbol of
divinity.[696] On such an image in bronze the Cimbri, Celticised
Germans, swore. The images are pre-Roman, since they are found at
Hallstadt and La Tène. Personal names like Donnotaurus (the equivalent
of the _Donn Taruos_ of the _Táin_) or Deiotaros ("divine bull"), show
that men were called after the divine animal.[697] Similarly many
place-names in which the word _taruos_ occurs, in Northern Italy, the
Pyrenees, Scotland, Ireland, and elsewhere, suggest that the places
bearing these names were sites of a bull cult or that some myth, like
that elaborated in the _Táin_, had been there localised.[698] But, as
possibly in the case of Cúchulainn and the bull, the animal tended to
become the symbol of a god, a tendency perhaps aided by the spread of
Mithraism with its symbolic bull. A god Medros leaning on a bull is
represented at Haguenau, possibly a form of Mider or of Meduris, a
surname of Toutatis, unless Medros is simply Mithras.[699] Echoes of the
cult of the bull or cow are heard in Irish tales of these animals
brought from the _síd_, or of magic bulls or of cows which produced
enormous supplies of milk, or in saintly legends of oxen leading a saint
to the site of his future church.[700] These legends are also told of
the swine,[701] and they perhaps arose when a Christian church took the
place of the site of a local animal cult, legend fusing the old and the
new cult by making the once divine animal point out the site of the
church. A late relic of a bull cult may be found in the carnival
procession of the _Boeuf Gras_ at Paris.
A cult of a swine-god Moccus has been referred to. The boar was a divine
symbol on standards, coins, and altars, and many bronze images of the
animal have been found. These were temple treasures, and in one case the
boar is three-horned.[702] But it was becoming the symbol of a goddess,
as is seen by the altars on which it accompanies a goddess, perhaps of
fertility, and by a bronze image of a goddess seated on a boar. The
altars occur in Britain, of which the animal may be the emblem--the
"Caledonian monster" of Claudian's poem.[703] The Galatian Celts
abstained from eating the swine, and there has always been a prejudice
against its flesh in the Highlands. This has a totemic appearance.[704]
But the swine is esteemed in Ireland, and in the texts monstrous swine
are the staple article of famous feasts.[705] These may have been
legendary forms of old swine-gods, the feasts recalling sacrificial
feasts on their flesh. Magic swine were also the immortal food of the
gods. But the boar was tabu to certain persons, e.g. Diarmaid, though
whether this is the attenuated memory of a clan totem restriction is
uncertain. In Welsh story the swine comes from Elysium--a myth
explaining the origin of its domestication, while domestication
certainly implies an earlier cult of the animal. When animals come to be
domesticated, the old cult restrictions, e.g. against eating them,
usually pass away. For this reason, perhaps, the Gauls, who worshipped
an anthropomorphic swine-god, trafficked in the animal and may have
eaten it.[706] Welsh story also tells of the magic boar, the _Twrch
Trwyth_, hunted by Arthur, possibly a folk-tale reminiscence of a boar
divinity.[707] Place-names also point to a cult of the swine, and a
recollection of its divinity may underlie the numerous Irish tales of
magical swine.[708] The magic swine which issued from the cave of
Cruachan and destroyed the young crops are suggestive of the
theriomorphic corn-spirit in its occasional destructive aspect.[709]
Bones of the swine, sometimes cremated, have been found in Celtic graves
in Britain and at Hallstadt, and in one case the animal was buried alone
in a tumulus at Hallstadt, just as sacred animals were buried in Egypt,
Greece, and elsewhere.[710] When the animal was buried with the dead, it
may have been as a sacrifice to the ghost or to the god of the
underworld.
The divinity of the serpent is proved by the occurrence of a horned
serpent with twelve Roman gods on a Gallo-Roman altar.[711] In other
cases a horned or ram's-headed serpent appears as the attribute of a
god, and we have seen that the ram's-headed serpent may be a fusion of
the serpent as a chthonian animal with the ram, sacrificed to the dead.
In Greece Dionysus had the form both of a bull and a horned serpent, the
horn being perhaps derived from the bull symbol. M. Reinach claims that
the primitive elements of the Orphic myth of the Thracian
Dionysos-Zagreus--divine serpents producing an egg whence came the
horned snake Zagreus, occur in dislocated form in Gaul. There enlacing
serpents were believed to produce a magic egg, and there a horned
serpent was worshipped, but was not connected with the egg. But they may
once have been connected, and if so, there may be a common foundation
both for the Greek and the Celtic conceptions in a Celtic element in
Thrace.[712] The resemblances, however, may be mere coincidences, and
horned serpents are known in other mythologies--the horn being perhaps a
symbol of divinity. The horned serpent sometimes accompanies a god who
has horns, possibly Cernunnos, the underworld god, in accordance with
the chthonian character of the serpent.[713] In the Cùchulainn cycle
Loeg on his visit to the Other-world saw two-headed serpents--perhaps a
further hint of this aspect of the animal.[714]
In all these instances of animal cults examples of the tendency to make
the divine animal anthropomorphic have been seen. We have now to
consider some instances of the complete anthropomorphic process.
2.
An old bear cult gave place to the cult of a bear goddess and probably
of a god. At Berne--an old Celtic place-name meaning "bear"--was found a
bronze group of a goddess holding a patera with fruit, and a bear
approaching her as if to be fed. The inscription runs, _Deae Artioni
Licinia Sabinilla_.[715] A local bear-cult had once existed at Berne,
and is still recalled in the presence of the famous bears there, but the
divine bear had given place to a goddess whose name and symbol were
ursine. From an old Celtic _Artos_, fem. _Arta_, "bear," were derived
various divine names. Of these _Dea Artio(n)_ means "bear goddess," and
_Artaios_, equated with Mercury, is perhaps a bear god.[716] Another
bear goddess, Andarta, was honoured at Die (Drôme), the word perhaps
meaning "strong bear"--_And_- being an augmentive.[717] Numerous
place-names derived from _Artos_ perhaps witness to a widespread cult of
the bear, and the word also occurs in Welsh, and Irish personal
names--Arthmael, Arthbiu, and possibly Arthur, and the numerous Arts of
Irish texts. Descent from the divine bear is also signified in names
like Welsh _Arthgen_, Irish _Artigan_, from _Artigenos_, "son of the
bear." Another Celtic name for "bear" was the Gaulish _matu_, Irish
_math_, found in _Matugenos_, "son of the bear," and in MacMahon, which
is a corrupt form of _Mac-math-ghamhain_, "son of the bear's son," or
"of the bear."[718]
Similarly a cult of the stag seems to have given place to that of a god
with stag's horns, represented on many bas-reliefs, and probably
connected with the underworld.[719] The stag, as a grain-eater, may have
been regarded as the embodiment of the corn-spirit, and then associated
with the under-earth region whence the corn sprang, by one of those
inversions of thought so common in the stage of transition from animal
gods to gods with animal symbols. The elk may have been worshipped in
Ireland, and a three antlered stag is the subject of a story in the
Fionn saga.[720] Its third antler, like the third horn of bull or boar,
may be a sign of divinity.
The horse had also been worshipped, but a goddess Epona (Gaul. _epo-s_,
"horse"), protectress of horses and asses, took its place, and had a
far-spread cult. She rides a horse or mare with its foal, or is seated
among horses, or feeds horses. A representation of a mare suckling a
foal--a design analogous to those in which Epona feeds foals--shows that
her primitive equine nature had not been forgotten.[721] The Gauls were
horse-rearers, and Epona was the goddess of the craft; but, as in other
cases, a cult of the horse must have preceded its domestication, and its
flesh may not have been eaten, or, if so, only sacramentally.[722]
Finally, the divine horse became the anthropomorphic horse-goddess. Her
images were placed in stables, and several inscriptions and statuettes
have been found in such buildings or in cavalry barracks.[723] The
remains of the cult have been found in the Danube and Rhine valleys, in
Eastern Gaul, and in Northern Italy, all Celtic regions, but it was
carried everywhere by Roman cavalry recruited from the Celtic
tribes.[724] Epona is associated with, and often has, the symbols of the
_Matres_, and one inscription reads _Eponabus_, as if there were a group
of goddesses called Epona.[725] A goddess who promoted the fertility of
mares would easily be associated with goddesses of fertility. Epona may
also have been confused with a river-goddess conceived of as a spirited
steed. Water-spirits took that shape, and the _Matres_ were also
river-goddesses.
A statuette of a horse, with a dedication to a god Rudiobus, otherwise
unknown, may have been carried processionally, while a mule has a
dedication to Segomo, equated elsewhere with Mars. A mule god Mullo,
also equated with Mars, is mentioned on several inscriptions.[726] The
connection with Mars may have been found in the fact that the October
horse was sacrificed to him for fertility, while the horse was probably
associated with fertility among the Celts. The horse was sacrificed both
by Celts and Teutons at the Midsummer festival, undoubtedly as a divine
animal. Traces of the Celtic custom survive in local legends, and may be
interpreted in the fuller light of the Teutonic accounts. In Ireland a
man wearing a horse's head rushed through the fire, and was supposed to
represent all cattle; in other words, he was a surrogate for them. The
legend of Each Labra, a horse which lived in a mound and issued from it
every Midsummer eve to give oracles for the coming year, is probably
connected with the Midsummer sacrifice of the horse.[727] Among the
Teutons the horse was a divine sacrificial animal, and was also sacred
to Freyr, the god of fertility, while in Teutonic survivals a horse's
head was placed in the Midsummer fire.[728] The horse was sporadically
the representative of the corn-spirit, and at Rome the October horse was
sacrificed in that capacity and for fertility.[729] Among the Celts, the
horse sacrificed at Midsummer may have represented the vegetation-spirit
and benefited all domestic animals--the old rite surviving in an
attenuated form, as described above.
Perhaps the goddess Damona was an animal divinity, if her name is
derived from _damatos_, "sheep," cognate to Welsh _dafad_, "sheep," and
Gaelic _damh_, "ox." Other divine animals, as has been seen, were
associated with the waters, and the use of beasts and birds in
divination doubtless points to their divine character. A cult of
bird-gods may lurk behind the divine name Bran, "raven," and the
reference to the magic birds of Rhiannon in the _Triads_.
3.
Animal worship is connected with totemism, and certain things point to
its existence among the Celts, or to the existence of conditions out of
which totemism was elsewhere developed. These are descent from animals,
animal tabus, the sacramental eating of an animal, and exogamy.
(1) _Descent from animals._--Celtic names implying descent from animals
or plants are of two classes, clan and personal names. If the latter are
totemistic, they must be derived from the former, since totemism is an
affair of the clan, while the so-called "personal totem," exemplified by
the American Indian _manitou_, is the guardian but never the ancestor of
a man. Some clan names have already been referred to. Others are the
Bibroci of south-east Britain, probably a beaver clan (_bebros_), and
the Eburones, a yew-tree clan (_eburos_).[730] Irish clans bore animal
names: some groups were called "calves," others "griffins," others "red
deer," and a plant name is seen in _Fir Bile_, "men of the tree."[731]
Such clan totemism perhaps underlies the stories of the "descendants of
the wolf" at Ossory, who became wolves for a time as the result of a
saintly curse. Other instances of lycanthropy were associated with
certain families.[732] The belief in lycanthropy might easily attach
itself to existing wolf-clans, the transformation being then explained
as the result of a curse. The stories of Cormac mac Art, suckled by a
she-wolf, of Lughaid mac Con, "son of a wolf-dog," suckled by that
animal, and of Oisin, whose mother was a fawn, and who would not eat
venison, are perhaps totemistic, while to totemism or to a cult of
animals may be ascribed what early travellers in Ireland say of the
people taking wolves as god-fathers and praying to them to do them no
ill.[733] In Wales bands of warriors at the battle of Cattraeth are
described in Oneurin's _Gododin_ as dogs, wolves, bears, and ravens,
while Owein's band of ravens which fought against Arthur, may have been
a raven clan, later misunderstood as actual ravens.[734] Certain groups
of Dalriad Scots bore animal names--Cinel Gabran, "Little goat clan,"
and Cinel Loarn, "Fox clan." Possibly the custom of denoting Highland
clans by animal or plant badges may be connected with a belief in
descent from plants or animals. On many coins an animal is represented
on horseback, perhaps leading a clan, as birds led the Celts to the
Danube area, and these may depict myths telling how the clan totem
animal led the clan to its present territory.[735] Such myths may
survive in legends relating how an animal led a saint to the site of his
church.[736] Celtic warriors wore helmets with horns, and Irish story
speaks of men with cat, dog, or goat heads.[737] These may have been men
wearing a head-gear formed of the skin or head of the clan totem, hence
remembered at a later time as monstrous beings, while the horned helmets
would be related to the same custom. Solinus describes the Britons as
wearing animal skins before going into battle.[738] Were these skins of
totem animals under whose protection they thus placed themselves? The
"forms of beasts, birds, and fishes" which the Cruithne or Picts
tattooed on their bodies may have been totem marks, while the painting
of their bodies with woad among the southern Britons may have been of
the same character, though Cæsar's words hardly denote this. Certain
marks on faces figured on Gaulish coins seem to be tattoo marks.[739]
It is not impossible that an early wolf-totem may have been associated,
because of the animal's nocturnal wanderings in forests, with the
underworld whence, according to Celtic belief, men sprang and whither
they returned, and whence all vegetation came forth. The Gallo-Roman
Silvanus, probably an underworld god, wears a wolf-skin, and may thus be
a wolf-god. There were various types of underworld gods, and this
wolf-type--perhaps a local wolf-totem ancestor assimilated to a local
"Dispater"--may have been the god of a clan who imposed its mythic wolf
origin on other clans. Some Celtic bronzes show a wolf swallowing a man
who offers no resistance, probably because he is dead. The wolf is much
bigger than the man, and hence may be a god.[740] These bronzes would
thus represent a belief setting forth the return of men to their totem
ancestor after death, or to the underworld god connected with the totem
ancestor, by saying that he devoured the dead, like certain Polynesian
divinities and the Greek Eurynomos.
In many individual names the first part is the name of an animal or
plant, the second is usually _genos_, "born from," or "son of," e.g.
Artigenos, Matugenos, "son of the bear" (_artos_, _matu_-); Urogenos,
occurring as Urogenertos, "he who has the strength of the son of the
urus"; Brannogenos, "son of the raven"; Cunogenos, "son of the
dog."[741] These names may be derived from clan totem names, but they
date back to a time when animals, trees, and men were on a common
footing, and the possibility of human descent from a tree or an animal
was believed in. Professor Rh[^y]s has argued from the frequency of
personal names in Ireland, like Cúrói, "Hound of Rói," Cú Corb, "Corb's
Hound," Mac Con, "Hound's Son," and Maelchon, "Hound's Slave," that
there existed a dog totem or god, not of the Celts, but of a pre-Celtic
race.[742] This assumes that totemism was non-Celtic, an assumption
based on preconceived notions of what Celtic institutions ought to have
been. The names, it should be observed, are personal, not clan names.
(2) _Animal tabus._--Besides the dislike of swine's flesh already noted
among certain Celtic groups, the killing and eating of the hare, hen,
and goose were forbidden among the Britons. Cæsar says they bred these
animals for amusement, but this reason assigned by him is drawn from his
knowledge of the breeding of rare animals by rich Romans as a pastime,
since he had no knowledge of the breeding of sacred animals which were
not eaten--a common totemic or animal cult custom.[743] The hare was
used for divination by Boudicca,[744] doubtless as a sacred animal, and
it has been found that a sacred character still attaches to these
animals in Wales. A cock or hen was ceremonially killed and eaten on
Shrove Tuesday, either as a former totemic animal, or, less likely, as a
representative of the corn-spirit. The hare is not killed in certain
districts, but occasionally it is ceremonially hunted and slain
annually, while at yearly fairs the goose is sold exclusively and
eaten.[745] Elsewhere, e.g. in Devon, a ram or lamb is ceremonially
slain and eaten, the eating being believed to confer luck.[746] The
ill-luck supposed to follow the killing of certain animals may also be
reminiscent of totemic tabus. Fish were not eaten by the Pictish Meatæ
and Caledonii, and a dislike of eating certain fresh-water fish was
observed among certain eighteenth century Highlanders.[747] It has been
already seen that certain fish living in sacred wells were tabu, and
were believed to give oracles. Heron's flesh was disliked in Ireland,
and it was considered unlucky to kill a swan in the Hebrides.[748] Fatal
results following upon the killing or eating of an animal with which the
eater was connected by name or descent are found in the Irish sagas.
Conaire was son of a woman and a bird which could take human shape, and
it was forbidden to him to hunt birds. On one occasion he did so, and
for this as well as the breaking of other tabus, he lost his life.[749]
It was tabu to Cúchulainn, "the hound of Culann," to eat dog's flesh,
and, having been persuaded to do this, his strength went from him, and
he perished. Diarmaid, having been forbidden to hunt a boar with which
his life was connected, was induced by Fionn to break this tabu, and in
consequence he lost his life by one of the boar's bristles entering his
foot, or (in a variant) by the boar's killing him. Another instance is
found in a tale of certain men transformed to badgers. They were slain
by Cormac, and brought to his father Tadg to eat. Tadg unaccountably
loathed them, because they were transformed men and his cousins.[750] In
this tale, which may contain the _débris_ of totemic usage, the loathing
arises from the fact that the badgers are men--a common form of myths
explanatory of misunderstood totemic customs, but the old idea of the
relation between a man and his totem is not lost sight of. The other
tales may also be reminiscent of a clan totem tabu, later centred in a
mythic hero. Perhaps the belief in lucky or unlucky animals, or in omens
drawn from their appearance, may be based on old totem beliefs or in
beliefs in the divinity of the animals.
(3) _Sacramental eating of an animal._--The custom of "hunting the
wren," found over the whole Celtic area, is connected with animal
worship and may be totemistic in origin. In spite of its small size, the
wren was known as the king of birds, and in the Isle of Man it was
hunted and killed on Christmas or S. Stephen's day. The bird was carried
in procession from door to door, to the accompaniment of a chant, and
was then solemnly buried, dirges being sung. In some cases a feather was
left at each house and carefully treasured, and there are traces of a
custom of boiling and eating the bird.[751] In Ireland, the hunt and
procession were followed by a feast, the materials of which were
collected from house to house, and a similar usage obtained in France,
where the youth who killed the bird was called "king."[752] In most of
these districts it was considered unlucky or dangerous to kill the bird
at any other time, yet it might be ceremonially killed once a year, the
dead animal conferred luck, and was solemnly eaten or buried with signs
of mourning. Similar customs with animals which are actually worshipped
are found elsewhere,[753] and they lend support to the idea that the
Celts regarded the wren as a divine animal, or perhaps a totem animal,
that it was necessary to slay it ritually, and to carry it round the
houses of the community to obtain its divine influence, to eat it
sacramentally or to bury it. Probably like customs were followed in the
case of other animals,[754] and these may have given rise to such
stories as that of the eating of MacDatho's wonderful boar, as well as
to myths which regarded certain animals, e.g. the swine, as the immortal
food of the gods. Other examples of ritual survivals of such sacramental
eating have already been noted, and it is not improbable that the eating
of a sacred pastoral animal occurred at Samhain.
(4) _Exogamy._--Exogamy and the counting of descent through the mother
are closely connected with totemism, and some traces of both are found
among the Celts. Among the Picts, who were, perhaps, a Celtic group of
the Brythonic stock, these customs survived in the royal house. The
kingship passed to a brother of the king by the same mother, or to a
sister's son, while the king's father was never king and was frequently
a "foreigner." Similar rules of succession prevailed in early Aryan
royal houses--Greek and Roman,--and may, as Dr. Stokes thought, have
existed at Tara in Ireland, while in a Fian tale of Oisin he marries the
daughter of the king of Tír na n-Og, and succeeds him as king partly for
that reason, and partly because he had beaten him in the annual race for
the kingship.[755] Such an athletic contest for the kingship was known
in early Greece, and this tale may support the theory of the Celtic
priest-kingship, the holder of the office retaining it as long as he was
not defeated or slain. Traces of succession through a sister's son are
found in the _Mabinogion_, and Livy describes how the mythic Celtic king
Ambicatus sent not his own but his sister's sons to found new
kingdoms.[756] Irish and Welsh divine and heroic groups are named after
the mother, not the father--the children of Danu and of Dôn, and the men
of Domnu. Anu is mother of the gods, Buanann of heroes. The eponymous
ancestor of the Scots is a woman, Scota, and the earliest colonisers of
Ireland are women, not men. In the sagas gods and heroes have frequently
a matronymic, and the father's name is omitted--Lug mac Ethnend,
Conchobar mac Nessa, Indech, son of De Domnann, Corpre, son of Etain,
and others. Perhaps parallel to this is the custom of calling men after
their wives--e.g. the son of Fergus is Fer Tlachtga, Tlachtga's
husband.[757] In the sagas, females (goddesses and heroines) have a high
place accorded to them, and frequently choose their own lovers or
husbands--customs suggestive of the matriarchate. Thus what was once a
general practice was later confined to the royal house or told of divine
or heroic personages. Possibly certain cases of incest may really be
exaggerated accounts of misunderstood unions once permissible by totemic
law. Cæsar speaks of British polyandry, brothers, sons, and fathers
sharing a wife in common.[758] Strabo speaks of Irish unions with
mothers and sisters, perhaps referring not to actual practice but to
reports of saga tales of incest.[759] Dio Cassius speaks of community of
wives among the Caledonians and Meatæ, and Jerome says much the same of
the Scoti and Atecotti.[760] These notices, with the exception of
Cæsar's, are vague, yet they refer to marriage customs different from
those known to their reporters. In Irish sagas incest legends circle
round the descendants of Etain--fathers unite with daughters, a son with
his mother, a woman has a son by her three brothers (just as Ecne was
son of Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba), and is also mother of Crimthan by
that son.[761] Brother and sister unions occur both in Irish and Welsh
story.[762]
In these cases incest with a mother cannot be explained by totemic
usage, but the cases may be distorted reminiscences of what might occur
under totemism, namely, a son taking the wives of his father other than
his own mother, when those were of a different totem from his own. Under
totemism, brothers and sisters by different mothers having different
totems, might possibly unite, and such unions are found in many
mythologies. Later, when totemism passed away, the unions, regarded with
horror, would be supposed to take place between children by the same
mother. According to totem law, a father might unite with his daughter,
since she was of her mother's totem, but in practice this was frowned
upon. Polygamy also may co-exist with totemism, and of course involves
the counting of descent through the mother as a rule. If, as is
suggested by the "debility" of the Ultonians, and by other evidence, the
couvade was a Celtic institution, this would also point to the existence
of the matriarchate with the Celts. To explain all this as pre-Aryan, or
to say that the classical notices refer to non-Aryan tribes and that the
evidence in the Irish sagas only shows that the Celts had been
influenced by the customs of aboriginal tribes among whom they
lived,[763] is to neglect the fact that the customs are closely bound up
with Celtic life, while it leaves unexplained the influence of such
customs upon a people whose own customs, according to this theory, were
so totally different. The evidence, taken as a whole, points to the
existence of totemism among the early Celts, or, at all events, of the
elements which elsewhere compose it.
* * * * *
Celtic animal worship dates back to the primitive hunting and pastoral
period, when men worshipped the animals which they hunted or reared.
They may have apologised to the animal hunted and slain--a form of
worship, or, where animals were not hunted or were reared and
worshipped, one of them may have been slain annually and eaten to obtain
its divine power. Care was taken to preserve certain sacred animals
which were not hunted, and this led to domestication, the abstinence of
earlier generations leading to an increased food supply at a later time,
when domesticated animals were freely slain. But the earlier sacramental
slaying of such animals survived in the religious aspect of their
slaughter at the beginning of winter.[764] The cult of animals was also
connected with totemic usage, though at a later stage this cult was
replaced by that of anthropomorphic divinities, with the older divine
animals as their symbols, sacrificial victims, and the like. This
evolution now led to the removal of restrictions upon slaying and eating
the animals. On the other hand, the more primitive animal cults may have
remained here and there. Animal cults were, perhaps, largely confined to
men. With the rise of agriculture mainly as an art in the hands of
women, and the consequent cult of the Earth-mother, of fertility and
corn-spirits probably regarded as female, the sacramental eating of the
divine animal may have led to the slaying and eating of a human or
animal victim supposed to embody such a spirit. Later the two cults were
bound to coalesce, and the divine animal and the animal embodiment of
the vegetation spirit would not be differentiated. On the other hand,
when men began to take part in women's fertility cults, the fact that
such spirits were female or were perhaps coming to be regarded as
goddesses, may have led men to envisage certain of the anthropomorphic
animal divinities as goddesses, since some of these, e.g. Epona and
Damona, are female. But with the increasing participation of men in
agriculture, the spirits or goddesses of fertility would tend to become
male, or the consorts or mothers of gods of fertility, though the
earlier aspect was never lost sight of, witness the Corn-Mother. The
evolution of divine priest-kings would cause them to take the place of
the earlier priestesses of these cults, one of whom may have been the
divine victim. Yet in local survivals certain cults were still confined
to women, and still had their priestesses.[765]
FOOTNOTES:
[696] Reinach, _BF_ 66, 244. The bull and three cranes may be a rebus on
the name of the bull, _Tarvos Trikarenos_, "the three-headed," or
perhaps _Trikeras_, "three-horned."
[697] Plutarch, _Marius_, 23; Cæsar, vii. 65; D'Arbois, _Les Celtes_,
49.
[698] Holder, _s.v._ _Tarba_, _Tarouanna_, _Tarvisium_, etc.; D'Arbois,
_Les Druides_, 155; S. Greg. _In Glor. Conf._ 48.
[699] _CIL_ xiii. 6017; _RC_ xxv. 47; Holder, ii. 528.
[700] Leahy, ii. 105 f.; Curtin, _MFI_ 264, 318; Joyce, _PN_ i. 174;
Rees, 453. Cf. Ailred, _Life of S. Ninian_, c. 8.
[701] Jocelyn, _Vita S. Kentig._ c. 24; Rees, 293, 323.
[702] Tacitus, _Germ._ xlv.; Blanchet, i. 162, 165; Reinach, _BF_ 255
f., _CMR_ i. 168; Bertrand, _Arch. Celt._ 419.
[703] Pennant, _Tour in Scotland_, 268; Reinach, _RC_ xxii. 158, _CMR_
i. 67.
[704] Pausan, vii. 17, 18; Johnson, _Journey_, 136.
[705] Joyce, _SH_ ii. 127; _IT_ i. 99, 256 (Bricriu's feast and the tale
of Macdatho's swine).
[706] Strabo, iv. 4. 3, says these swine attacked strangers. Varro, _de
Re Rustica_, ii. 4, admires their vast size. Cf. Polyb. ii. 4.
[707] The hunt is first mentioned in Nennius, c. 79, and then appears as
a full-blown folk-tale in _Kulhwych_, Loth, i. 185 f. Here the boar is a
transformed prince.
[708] I have already suggested, p. 106, _supra_, that the places where
Gwydion halted with the swine of Elysium were sites of a swine-cult.
[709] _RC_ xiii. 451. Cf. also _TOS_ vi. "The Enchanted Pigs of Oengus,"
and Campbell, _LF_ 53.
[710] _L'Anthropologie_, vi. 584; Greenwell, _British Barrows_, 274,
283, 454; _Arch. Rev._ ii. 120.
[711] _Rev. Arch._ 1897, 313.
[712] Reinach, "Zagreus le serpent cornu," _Rev. Arch_. xxxv. 210.
[713] Reinach, _BF_ 185; Bertrand, 316.
[714] "Cúchulainn's Sick-bed," D'Arbois, v. 202.
[715] See Reinach, _CMR_ i. 57.
[716] _CIL_ xiii. 5160, xii. 2199. Rh[^y]s, however, derives Artaios
from _ar_, "ploughed land," and equates the god with Mercurius Cultor.
[717] _CIL_ xii. 1556-1558; D'Arbois, _RC_ x. 165.
[718] For all these place and personal names, see Holder and D'Arbois,
_op. cit. Les Celtes_, 47 f., _Les Druides_, 157 f.
[719] See p. 32, _supra_; Reinach, _CMR_ i. 72, _Rev. Arch._ ii. 123.
[720] O'Grady, ii. 123.
[721] Epona is fully discussed by Reinach in his _Epona_, 1895, and in
articles (illustrated) in _Rev. Arch._ vols. 26, 33, 35, 40, etc. See
also ii. [1898], 190.
[722] Reinach suggests that this may explain why Vercingetorix, in view
of siege by the Romans, sent away his horses. They were too sacred to be
eaten. Cæsar, vii. 71; Reinach, _RC_ xxvii. 1 f.
[723] Juvenal, viii. 154; Apul. _Metam._ iii. 27; Min. Felix, _Octav._
xxvii. 7.
[724] For the inscriptions, see Holder, _s.v._ "Epona."
[725] _CIL_ iii. 7904.
[726] _CIL_ xiii. 3071; Reinach, _BF_ 253, _CMR_ i. 64, _Répert. de la
Stat._ ii. 745; Holder, ii. 651-652.
[727] Granger, _Worship of the Romans_, 113; Kennedy, 135.
[728] Grimm, _Teut. Myth._ 49, 619, 657, 661-664.
[729] Frazer, _Golden Bough_{2}, ii. 281, 315.
[730] Cæsar, v. 21, 27. Possibly the Dea Bibracte of the Aeduans was a
beaver goddess.
[731] O'Curry, _MC_ ii. 207; Elton, 298.
[732] Girald. Cambr. _Top. Hib._ ii. 19, _RC_ ii. 202; _Folk-Lore_, v.
310; _IT_ iii. 376.
[733] O'Grady, ii. 286, 538; Campbell, _The Fians_, 78; Thiers, _Traité
des Superstitions_, ii. 86.
[734] Lady Guest, ii. 409 f.
[735] Blanchet, i. 166, 295, 326, 390.
[736] See p. 209, _supra_.
[737] Diod. Sic. v. 30; _IT_ iii. 385; _RC_ xxvi. 139; Rh[^y]s, _HL_
593.
[738] _Man. Hist. Brit._ p. x.
[739] Herodian, iii. 14, 8; Duald MacFirbis in Irish _Nennius_, p. vii;
Cæsar, v. 10; _ZCP_ iii. 331.
[740] See Reinach, "Les Carnassiers androphages dans l'art
gallo-romain," _CMR_ i. 279.
[741] See Holder, _s.v._
[742] Rh[^y]s, _CB_{4} 267.
[743] Cæsar, v. 12.
[744] Dio Cassius, lxii. 2.
[745] See a valuable paper by N.W. Thomas, "Survivance du Culte des
Animaux dans le Pays de Galles," in _Rev. de l'Hist. des Religions_,
xxxviii. 295 f., and a similar paper by Gomme, _Arch. Rev._ 1889, 217 f.
Both writers seem to regard these cults as pre-Celtic.
[746] Gomme, _Ethnol. in Folklore_, 30, _Village Community_, 113.
[747] Dio Cass. lxxii. 21; Logan, _Scottish Gael_, ii. 12.
[748] Joyce, _SH_ ii. 529; Martin, 71.
[749] _RC_ xxii. 20, 24, 390-1.
[750] _IT_ iii. 385.
[751] Waldron, _Isle of Man_, 49; Train, _Account of the Isle of Man_,
ii. 124.
[752] Vallancey, _Coll. de Reb. Hib._ iv. No. 13; Clément, _Fétes_, 466.
For English customs, see Henderson, _Folklore of the Northern Counties_,
125.
[753] Frazer, _Golden Bough_{2}, ii. 380, 441, 446.
[754] For other Welsh instances of the danger of killing certain birds,
see Thomas, _op. cit._ xxxviii. 306.
[755] Frazer, _Kingship_, 261; Stokes, _RC_ xvi. 418; Larminie, _Myths
and Folk-tales_, 327.
[756] See Rh[^y]s, _Welsh People_, 44; Livy, v. 34.
[757] Cf. _IT_ iii. 407, 409.
[758] Cæsar, v. 14.
[759] Strabo, iv. 5. 4.
[760] Dio Cass. lxxvi. 12; Jerome, _Adv. Jovin._ ii. 7. Giraldus has
much to say of incest in Wales, probably actual breaches of moral law
among a barbarous people (_Descr. Wales_, ii. 6).
[761] _RC_ xii. 235, 238, xv. 291, xvi. 149; _LL_ 23_a_, 124_b_. In
various Irish texts a child is said to have three fathers--probably a
reminiscence of polyandry. See p. 74, _supra_, and _RC_ xxiii. 333.
[762] _IT_ i. 136; Loth, i. 134 f.; Rh[^y]s, _HL_ 308.
[763] Zimmer, "Matriarchy among the Picts," in Henderson, _Leabhar nan
Gleann_.
[764] See p. 259, _infra_.
[765] See p. 274, _infra_.