List of Celtic deities

Main article: Celtic pantheon

The Celtic pantheon is known from a variety of sources such as written Celtic mythology, ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects, and place or personal names.

Celtic deities can belong to two categories: general deities and local deities. "General deities" were known by Celts throughout large regions, and are the gods and goddesses invoked for protection, healing, luck, and honour. The "local deities" that embodied Celtic nature worship were the spirits of a particular feature of the landscape, such as mountains, trees, or rivers, and thus were generally only known by the locals in the surrounding areas.

After Celtic lands became Christianised, there were attempts by Christian writers to euhemerise or even demonise the pre-Christian deities. For example, the Tuatha Dé Danann of Irish mythological sources have commonly been interpreted to be a divine pantheon, despite certain redactors' interjecting that the Tuatha Dé Danann were merely mortals, or else that they were demons.

Gaulish and Brythonic deities

The Gaulish Celts inhabited the region corresponding to modern-day France, southern and western Germany, Belgium, Frisia, Netherlands, Holland, Luxembourg and northern Italy. The Brythonic Celts, or Britons, inhabited most of the island of Great Britain and later migrated to Brittany.

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Welsh deities/characters

The Welsh are the Britons that inhabit modern-day Wales (Welsh: Cymru). After the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain, much of the Brythonic territories came under Anglo-Saxon influence, but in Wales, however, Brythonic Celtic religion was largely retained. Many Welsh myths were later Christianized so it is sometimes difficult to determine if their characters were originally gods, mortals, or historical figures.

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Gaelic deities

Main article: Tuatha Dé Danann

Note: Modern spellings are shown in brackets.

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Celtiberian deities

The Celtiberians were the ancient peoples who inhabited modern-day Portugal and Spain. Note: Modern spellings are shown in brackets.

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References

  1. ↑ CIL XIII, 06572, CIL XIII, 04507, CIL XIII, 06455
  2. 1 2 August Dimitz, History of Carniola, vol. I, p.15
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