Celtic Pantheon

A modern label

'Celtic' is a linguistic term: it groups peoples who spoke Celtic languages, from Gaul and Britain to Ireland, Iberia, and Galatia in Anatolia. There was no single Celtic religion or pantheon. This site's entries draw on two very different bodies of evidence, and it is important to keep them apart.

Ancient Gaul and Britain

The first is the evidence from the ancient continental Celts and Roman Britain: inscriptions naming hundreds of gods, many of them local, often paired with Roman gods (Sulis Minerva at Bath, Lenus Mars); images such as the antlered god on the Gundestrup cauldron and the Pillar of the Boatmen from Paris, which names Cernunnos; and the reports of Greek and Roman writers. Julius Caesar's Gallic War (6.13-18) describes the druids and equates Gaulish gods with Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, but he was an enemy general writing for Romans. No myths survive from these peoples in their own words.

Medieval Ireland and Wales

The second is the literature written down by Christian scholars in Ireland from about the 7th century and in Wales later. Irish texts such as the Lebor Gabála Érenn (the 'Book of Invasions'), Cath Maige Tuired, and the tales of the Ulster Cycle, including the Táin Bó Cúailnge, present the Túatha Dé Danann (Dagda, Lug, Brigit, Nuadu, the Morrígan) as a race of ancient rulers who withdrew into the mounds (síde), not openly as gods. The Welsh Four Branches of the Mabinogi, preserved in 14th-century manuscripts, include figures such as Rhiannon, Manawydan, and Lleu, whose names echo older deities. How much of this literature preserves pre-Christian belief, and how much is medieval invention, is a long-running scholarly debate.

Dates

The period of 500 BCE to 400 CE given here covers the Iron Age and Roman evidence; the Irish and Welsh literature was written down centuries after it, and many sites connected with the stories, such as Tara, Newgrange, and Emain Macha, are far older than any text.