c. 350 Celtic tribes cross to Ireland.

272 Celtic invaders sack Delphi in Greece.

228 Celts settle Galatia in Asia Minor (modern Turkey).

c. 100 Fortified Celtic settlements are built in western Europe.

70 Rome's Golden Age: Cicero, Ovid, Virgil.

5850 Julius Caesar completes conquest of Gaul.

31 Octavian becomes Emperor Caesar Augustus.

Common Era 9 Three Roman legions are destroyed by German tribes on the Rhine.

47 Britain invaded by Romans.

100 Legendary Queen Medb (Maeve) of Connacht reigns in Ireland.

122 Emperor Hadrian builds defensive walls and towers to fortify the northern boundary of Roman Britain.

166 German tribes invade northern Italy.

253 Germanic invasion into Gaul cripples the prosperous northwestern provinces.

378 Mistreatment of the Visigoths by Roman officials causes uprising; the emperor Valens is killed and his army wiped out.

401 Patricius, a Briton, is taken into slavery in Ireland. He will later become known as St. Patrick.

406 German tribesmen invade the Roman Empire.

410 Final withdrawal of Roman Legions from Britain. Alaric the Goth sacks the city of Rome.

431 Council of Ephesus declares that the Virgin Mary is the Mother of God.

432 Bishop Patrick arrives in Ireland; converts Irish Celts to Christianity.

441 Anglo-Saxons start to colonize England.

451 Attila the Hun defeated at Troyes.

455 In sea attack launched from Africa, Vandals sack Rome.

476 The last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, is deposed; he is replaced by Odoacer, "king of Italy," which marks the end of the Roman Empire in the West.

c. 500 Brigid (later St. Brigid) founds an abbey at Kildare, Ireland.

597 St. Augustine converts Anglo-Saxons to Christianity.

636 Lindisfarne Monastery founded.

789 First recorded Viking raid on England at Weymouth.

793 Vikings plunder Lindisfarne Monastery off British coast.

866 Vikings occupy British city of York.

870 Vikings settle Iceland.

902 Vikings establish a permanent base at Dublin.

911 Vikings found Duchy of Normandy.

982 Vikings settle Greenland.

986 Vikings reach North America and establish settlements.

9991000 Christianity accepted in Iceland.

1016 Danish king Canute crowned king of England.

1066 Battle of Hastings: Normans-descendants of the Vikings-invade and conquer England.

c. 1220 Prose Edda, Norse myths compiled by Snorri Sturluson.

P.

icture this. It is about fifty years before the birth of Jesus, a typical day in the ancient world. In Greece, philosophers and their students stroll the streets of Athens, thinking Big Thoughts as they walk past centuries-old temples and statues gracefully carved from elegant marble. In Egypt-where the pyramids are already more than two thousand years old!-the Library of Alexandria is filled with scholars reading great works of classic literature, contemplating philosophy, drawing maps of the world, and studying higher mathematics and astronomy. In Rome, a Classic Age of poets and writers has begun to flourish and, before long, Imperial Rome will spread its language, law, martial order, and carefully constructed roads across the Mediterranean and European world. But on a remote battlefield somewhere in Europe, the Roman general Julius Caesar leads his well-ordered legions against a howling band of naked warriors. These barbarians rush into battle with weird musical instruments-shrieking pipes made out of animal skins and strange, curved trumpets. If they win the day, these "savages" will surely take their Roman enemies' heads as trophies and sacrifice hundreds of captives in ceremonies led by priestly magicians called Druids. These Druid priests don't worship gods in majestic temples in city centers. Their gods are everywhere around them, a host of mythical spirits that fill every forest, field, mountain, lake, and spring. Even in the strange and mysterious circles of stones that dot the European landscape.

Descended from an ancient people of Indo-European origins, these savage warriors are called Celtae or Galli by the Romans, and Keltoi and Galatatae by the Greeks. Today they are known by a catchall word as the Celts.*

While great and glorious civilizations rose and fell in the Mediterranean worlds of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, the rampaging Celts eked out a seminomadic existence in a world of savage cruelty and nearly constant warring that was far removed from their contemporaries in Alexandria, Babylon, Athens, or Rome. Migrating across Europe over a thousand years of history, the Celts had settled uneasily on the fringes of the Roman Empire-and of its eventual successor, the Church of Rome. By the start of the first century, their principal outposts were in Ireland and the British Isles, and Brittany, in northwest France.

What little we know of these wild people stretches much further back. According to hints from history and archaeological clues, the Celts first settled in northern Europe before occupying a wide swath of territory that spread across most of western Europe. Based on what we learned from digs in Austria and Germany, they are first known to have lived in Hallstatt, near Salzburg, where hundreds of Celtic graves have been unearthed, dating from about 700 BCE. At such sites as Hochdorf in Germany, other sets of Celtic graves revealed bodies buried with entire horse-drawn wagons filled with luxury goods-obviously meant for people who thought that they were going somewhere else in the next life. Unfortunately, they did not leave a "Swiss Alps" version of the Egyptian Book of the Dead to help succeeding generations discern just what it was they were thinking.

But around 500 BCE, something happens. Just as Athens entered its Golden Age and the Roman Republic was born, the Celts began to spread across western Europe. Around the same time, or possibly around 350 BCE, groups of them crossed the seas to the British Isles and Ireland, where they established their most enduring societies. The reasons for this mass migration are still unclear-climate changes, famine, and overpopulation are all likely suspects. But the Celts were on the move. And they were fierce, as the Romans and Greeks would learn. In 387 BCE, a group of Celts attacked and burned Rome in its early days. Another group of Celtic raiders ransacked the sacred Greek Temple at Delphi in 279 BCE.*

The Celts were also on a collision course with destiny. While terrifying and not easily subdued, they never achieved true "nation" status, remaining loose collections of tribes led by warlord kings. Plagued by constant warring among themselves, the Celts began falling to the onslaught of more "civilized" opponents between 300 BCE and about 100 BCE. During this time, the Romans conquered much of Celtic Europe, basically wiping out most vestiges of Celtic society on the continent, absorbing some bits and pieces of their myths into Roman worship or merging Roman beliefs and gods with the local deities. When the Celtic leader Vercingetorix managed to unite many of the Celtic tribes in Gaul, it was a last gasp. In 52 BCE, Caesar obliterated them after a hard-fought, eight-year-long campaign. Two thousand survivors of one battle were spared, but Caesar had all of the warriors' hands cut off. Their leader, Vercingetorix, was later executed in Rome. The only Celts who preserved their own culture for any length of time were those sheltered by the sea, on the British Isles and in Ireland-a Celtic stronghold that never succumbed to the Roman Empire but finally did submit to the Roman Church when St. Patrick converted the Irish Celts to Christianity. That is why so many elements of Celtic myth, belief, and worship are associated with the Irish, Welsh, Scottish, and British branches of the Celtic tree.

When we think of the Celts today, the image is one of a fraternity house gone really bad. Loud, boisterous, lots of feasting and drinking-especially before a battle. That impression would be largely correct. According to historian William K. Klingaman in The First Century, "Nothing terrified the common Roman soldier of this age more than the nightmarish prospect of capture, torture and mutilation by the Druidic priests.... Facing civilized Greeks or even the ferocious Parthians was one thing: battling barely human enemies, who according to rumor, drank human blood and roasted human flesh, was quite another."

But that is only part of the story. Free-spirited, clannish, and primitive, the Celts had a softer side. They could also be poetic, artistic, even romantic-and deeply religious. Although their ancient spiritual practices might leave much to be desired today, the Celts were powerfully connected to the gods of the natural world. Theirs was a religion of sacred groves and hilltops, pools and springs. They believed in the healing power of water; and sacred plants-like the evergreen mistletoe-were used to cure diseases, promote fertility in women, and celebrate life in the midst of winter.

From what little has survived of the earliest Celtic myths, we know they found their gods all around them-in earth, water, woods, and in the animals they prized, especially horses. While their sun god was important, he was not an overpowering deity, as in Egypt. Perhaps that made sense in a colder, often darker part of the world where the sun didn't shine as often or as brightly. But just as the myths of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome illuminated their cultures, so did the legends of the Celts shed light on a people who would find a unique place in Western civilization.

MYTHIC VOICES.

As a nation they are extremely superstitious. People suffering from diseases, as well as those who are exposed to danger in battle, offer human sacrifices at ceremonies conducted by the Druids. They believe that the only way of preserving one man's life is to let another man die in his place. Regular tribal sacrifices are held, at which colossal figures made of wickerwork are filled with living men, and then set alight so that the victims burn to death. They think that the gods prefer the sacrifice of thieves and bandits, but whenever there is a shortage of criminals, they do not hesitate to make up the number with innocent men.

-JULIUS CAESAR, The Battle for Gaul How do we know what the Celts believed?

In dealing with the Celts-and especially their myths and beliefs-we are a bit like the proverbial six blind men touching an elephant: each feels a different part of the animal and makes a very different assumption about the creature he is touching. When it comes to understanding the Celts, there are lots of disconnected parts, but it is hard to see the whole picture.

Unlike the great civilizations before them, the Celts left very few indelible marks. They were mostly a nonliterate people who produced no lasting writings in their earliest known periods-no Gilgamesh, no Book of the Dead, no Iliad, no Holy Bible. Although they went from being nomadic wanderers to settled farmers, the Celts never built large cities and left no records or bureaucracy to provide insights into their habits and customs. Some of their Druid priests did have a rudimentary form of writing, but if they recorded any religious writings, myths, poetry, or hymns, none survive. An identifiable Celtic Creation story has never been found.

That leaves us with a handful of other sources, including writers from the Classical Period in Rome, chief among them Julius Caesar-bane of generations of Latin students. Caesar and other Roman reporters often recount a Celtic fascination with rituals that the "civilized" Romans found barbaric, including human sacrifice, headhunting, strange forms of divination, and an attitude toward life after death that the Romans found curious. But because these writers were looking down their prominent noses at a people they considered well beneath them, Roman views of the Celts must be taken with a healthy grain of salt.

Archaeology also offers some clues to who the early Celts were and how they lived, but here, too, there are large gaps in the record. The Celts did not leave behind pyramids and temples, libraries filled with cuneiform tablets, and ancient cities waiting to be unearthed, such as Knossos, Troy, or Nineveh. Sacred spaces of Celtic worship often consisted of open-air enclosures, like a grove of sacred oaks, or holy lakes and springs. The Celts dug deep pits or shafts in order to communicate with the mysterious powers of the underworld. But the more enduring places that survive from Celtic settlements were often tainted by later conquerors. For instance, the Celts considered the famed mineral waters found at Bath, England, to be sacred healing waters associated with Sulis, an otherwise obscure local goddess of these thermal springs. After the Roman conquest of Britain, the site was transformed by the Romans into Aquae Sulis ("Waters of Sulis"), with a temple to a goddess the Romans called Sulis Minerva, simply attaching the name of one of their familiar deities to that of the existing local goddess. Later generations of British royalty turned the waters of Bath into a regal spa, and it finally became a Victorian-era resort where the English aristocracy could "take the waters."*

As for the early Celtic burial sites uncovered in Alpine Germany, these, too, have yielded some clues to their myths, religious practices, and beliefs. But even some of these recent finds date from the post-Roman era and are sometimes tainted by Roman influence. There are a few surviving images of Celtic gods from the pre-Roman period, which depict a god with the horns of a stag. And some stone figurines show three seated women, presumably representing a three-person mother goddess as a maiden, a mother, and an older woman. But museum shelves aren't exactly groaning with impressive collections of Celtic statuary and decorated pottery. Getting a visual impression of early Celtic culture is, ultimately, slippery business.

There is one shining bright spot in this otherwise dimly lit room of the Celtic past. One branch of the Celtic family tree deserves a laurel wreath for record-keeping. Fortunately, the rich oral traditions, foundation stories, and tales of gods and legendary heroes of the Celts who settled in Ireland, Wales, and southwest England were preserved. And several important collections of Irish and Welsh myths capture the voice and spirit of this pre-Christian Celtic world.

Granted, these sources come with a big red warning label attached. Most of the surviving tales were not written down until the eleventh and twelfth centuries, long after Ireland and the British Isles were Christianized in the fifth century. In Irish and British monasteries, the literate monks-the same ones who are largely responsible for preserving the Bible during Europe's Dark Ages-recorded many of the traditional Irish and Welsh Celtic stories, but probably laundered the Celtic originals, layering them with biblical or Christian sentiments. But beggars can't be choosers. These Irish and Welsh tales are the best we have-and they have made an enormous contribution to Irish and British literature.

Of these later sources, three from Ireland are most significant and entertaining. The Book of Invasions (Leabhar Gabhala); the Ulster Cycle-which includes a masterful Irish epic called the Tain Bo Cuailnge (pronounced toyn boe kool-ee), or The Cattle Raid of Cooley; and the Fionn (Fenian) Cycle were all written down in Irish monasteries that would be crucial to preserving the written word during the Middle Ages. A fourth collection, the Mabinogion, was written in Wales, although exactly how it found its way into print is a mystery. The oldest known fragments date to 1225, but the oldest complete Mabinogion is dated to around 1400.

The first of these collections-the Irish Book of Invasions (Leabhar Gabhala)-is a twelfth-century attempt to compile a "history" of Ireland. Certainly derived from a much older oral tradition-just as Gilgamesh or Hesiod's Theogony had been-it describes a series of five successive mythical occupations of Ireland, including a generation said to be descendants of the biblical Noah. Such a biblical flourish was typical of the medieval Christian attempt to add a touch of religious "legitimacy" to these old pagan myths. It concludes with the arrival of the ancestors of the Celts in Ireland.

At the center of this account is the story of the last race of gods in Ireland, the Tuatha ("tribe," or "people"), told in a foundation myth known as the Tuatha De Danaan. The Tuatha-the "people of the Goddess Danu"-were the fourth of five races that invaded Ireland and fought two battles for supremacy. In the first, they defeated the clumsy Firblogs. The second was against the Fomorians, a race of misshapen, violent, and evil beings who controlled the country. But after defeating the Fomorians, the Tuatha gave them the province of Connacht. Because this account provides a list of most of the divinities that the Irish Celts worshipped before they were Christianized after 400 CE, it is a valuable resource for piecing together the rudiments of late Celtic mythology. The Tuatha were ultimately replaced with the arrival of the Celts, who were said to come from Spain (perhaps Celtic Galicia, hence the derivation of the word "Gaels," for Irish). Following their defeat, the Tuatha retreated to the underground mounds called sidh, where they continued to play a major role in Irish legend as the "little people," aka leprechauns.

The second collection of tales is called the Ulster Cycle, and the most important of these is the Tain Bo Cuailnge, or The Cattle Raid of Cooley-and often referred to simply as the Tain. Combining ancient myth with legends of early Irish heroes, the Tain is Ireland's Iliad and Aeneid all wrapped into one, a story that describes the conflicts between two of Ireland's northern provinces, Ulster and Connacht. Steeped in the supernatural, the Tain features a goddess-queen Medb (Maeve), who may well be based on an actual historical figure, and Ireland's greatest national hero, Cuchulainn (koo-hool-n), an Irish version of Gilgamesh, Hercules, and Achilles.

The third group of significant Irish stories is found in the Fionn (Fenian) Cycle, also compiled in the twelfth century, which chronicles the adventures of another Irish folk hero, Finn MacCool, and his band of warriors, called the Fianna, who are famed for their great size and strength. Again, these characters are legendary figures, probably based on real people-just as the Iliad may have been-although they also interact with true mythic deities. The events in the Fionn Cycle are believed to hint at the actual political and social conditions in Ireland around the year 200 CE.

Finally, the Mabinogion is a collection of Welsh tales that was also compiled sometime in the twelfth century CE. These stories describe the mythical history of parts of Britain, though many of the gods who appear in Welsh mythology largely resemble the Tuatha De Danaan in Irish mythology, possibly because Irish Celts migrated to Britain and took their myths with them. These stories are significant not only because they offer a view of Welsh Celtic myths, but also because they introduce the first references and early tales of a figure who would evolve over centuries into the legendary King Arthur.

MYTHIC VOICES.

(Druids) concern themselves with questions of ethics in addition to their study of natural phenomena. And because they are considered the most just of all, they possess the power to decide judicial matters, both those dealing with individuals and those involving the common good. They have been known to control the course of wars, and to check armies about to join battle, and especially to judge cases of homicide.... And both they and others maintain that the soul and the cosmos are immortal, though at some time in the future fire and water will prevail over them.

-STRABO (63 BCE-24 CE?), Geography (translated by Timothy Gantz) Did the Druids practice human sacrifice?

When they weren't storming around on horseback, sacking villages, and plundering their enemies, the ancient Celts had time to gather for worship ceremonies in natural, outdoor settings, like forests, where the oak was considered especially sacred. But before you conjure up some pastoral image from a Walt Disney film in which the birds, rabbits, and other forest creatures join forces to gently drape daisy chains around the neck of some benevolent Merlin-like character, consider this-human sacrifice was clearly part of the deal for the Celts. Clubbing, a sliced jugular, garroting-being strangled with a knotted cord-and drowning were all among the usual methods. While the Romans were antagonistic toward the Druids, and some of their reports may be exaggerated, sacrificial victims may have also been burned in giant wicker baskets wrought in the shape of a human figure, as Julius Caesar reported. The first-century Roman writer Tacitus recorded that Druids analyzed the death throes and blood flows of sacrificial victims to divine the future. Then the body might be tossed in a bog.

In 1984, the mummified remains of a man were dug out of a peat bog in Lindow Moss, near Manchester, England. Peat is an excellent natural preservative and the fellow in the bog-since known as Lindow Man-was exceptionally well preserved. Hands uncalloused, indicating he was probably highborn and not a laborer, Lindow Man might have been an Irish Druid prince. We even know what Lindow Man ate before his ritual death-bits of a blackened hearth cake that included traces of mistletoe. Then his skull was flattened with three blows of an ax; he was strangled by a cord knotted three times; and his blood was emptied with a slice through his jugular. According to authorities on the Celtic world who studied his remains, Lindow Man may have offered himself as a sacrifice to the gods in order to aid in the defeat of the Romans then assaulting Britain, in about 60 CE. He was a willing victim-a sacrifice for the good of his people.*

But, to be fair, early Celtic worship was not just about human sacrifice. Archaeological evidence from burial sites suggests that the Celts believed in the afterlife as well as the immortality of the soul. They provided their dead with weapons and other necessities to carry along on their journey. Sometimes, with a buried body, they placed small wheels that were intended to be emblems of the sun, to provide light in the afterlife.

The Celts were also pantheists who revered a range of nature deities, including the gods of thunder, light, water, and sun, as well as stags and horses. Concerned about having a continuous food supply, they looked to gods like Sucellos-the "Good Striker"-who made sure the plants woke up in the spring. Sucellos did this by striking the winter-hardened earth with the long-handled hammer he always carried.

Perhaps the least understood-and, recently, most romanticized-aspect of Celtic belief was the class of hereditary priests called Druids. Skilled in magic and fortune-telling, they advised kings and chieftains, served as judges in trials, and oversaw religious ceremonies-including sacrifices-often in groves of oak trees. (Linguists suggest a connection between the words "druid" and "oak.") In Celtic Ireland, Druids were also "knowledge-keepers," who memorized the tribe's history-as opposed to the bards, who sang the legends, and seers called filidh, who kept the sacred traditions and managed, unlike Druids, to survive into the Christian era. Though few historical reports exist, one memorable and oft-cited passage by a Roman writer describes how the Druids dressed in white robes and used a golden sickle to cut down mistletoe. The sacred plant they called "all-heal," mistletoe was thought to possess the miraculous power to cure disease, promote fertility in women, make poisons harmless, protect against witchcraft, and generally bring blessings and good luck. It was also baked into the cake eaten by Lindow Man before his ritual death.

In fact, mistletoe was considered so sacred that even enemies who happened to meet beneath it in the forest would lay down their arms, exchange a friendly greeting, and keep a truce until the following day. From this old custom grew the practice of suspending mistletoe over a doorway or in a room as a token of peace. The use of this once-powerful Druidic plant in modern Christmas festivities is just one example of the crossover of Celtic and other pagan customs to Christian practices. But when Britain was converted to Christianity, the bishops did not allow the mistletoe to be used in churches, because it was considered the central symbol of a pagan religion.

What did Druids have to do with Stonehenge?

As one famous newspaper's slogan suggests, "Inquiring minds want to know." And inquiring minds have been wondering for centuries-did ancient Celtic religion have anything to do with the megalithic monument called Stonehenge?

Located in southwestern England-not too far from the waters of Bath-Stonehenge is one of the world's most recognizable sites and inspiration for many theories, both serious and pseudoscientific. It has attracted the curious, the superstitious, and the scientific for hundreds of years, yet remains shrouded in mystery. Were these huge stones-weighing tons and moved from hundreds of miles away-set in a circle on an open landscape as an ancient calendar or "clock" that helped primitive Britons measure the seasons? Or were they another landing pad for alien visitors who needed a terrestrial parking spot? Or was Merlin, the famed magician from the legend of Arthur, behind the Stonehenge mystery?

That last idea, introduced by the early "historian" Geoffrey of Monmouth, had Merlin magically construct the monument as the "Giant's Dance" to commemorate a battle victory. It is an idea that ties in with one popular theory in New Age circles-that Stonehenge was some sort of gigantic altar where the Druid priests made sacrifices, since Merlin had "Druid priest" written all over him. It is certainly conceivable that Druids found Stonehenge to be a prime spot for their own worship ceremonies-though what those ceremonies were remains a matter of conjecture. We don't have a neat set of hieroglyphics describing a Druid-led dawntime observance of the summer solstice with the first rays of the sun breaking through the gaps between these giant stone plinths. Or an etching of a ceremony on a midsummer day with the famed "Heel Stone" of Stonehenge casting a long phallic shadow into the center of the stone ring, in a symbolic "Midsummer Marriage" of Father Sky coupling with Mother Earth.

Lacking solid, authoritative evidence of Stonehenge's original purpose, people will keep speculating. As they do, it is important to keep one fact in mind: according to most authorities, Stonehenge existed long before the Celts arrived in Britain. Once arrived, Celtic Druids may have appropriated Stonehenge for their religious ceremonies. But they most likely didn't build it. According to recent archaeological findings, this ancient monument was erected in three main phases that may date back to around 3300 BCE and continued for nearly two thousand years, until about 1500 BCE. The monument's famous ring of large stones is thought to have been built between 1800 and 1700 BCE, but the Celts probably did not arrive in the British Isles until 350 BCE. And while some may argue for a much earlier date of around 700 BCE, that is still centuries removed from the construction of Stonehenge.

WHO'S WHO OF THE CELTIC GODS This list is divided into two parts. Part I comprises the chief gods as they would have been known to early Celts in Europe before they fell to the Romans and Druidism was suppressed. Part II focuses on the chief gods and mythical characters of the Irish Celts, as preserved in the later written collections.

Part I: Early Celtic Gods Worshipped Across Europe Belenus The Celtic god of agriculture, Belenus also represents the life-giving and healing power of the sun and was associated with Apollo by the Romans, who created their own "Apollo Belenus." The great festival of Belenus, called Beltane ("bright, or goodly, fire"), was celebrated on May 1 of the Roman calendar with bonfires lit to rekindle the earth's warmth. Animals were led past these fires to be purified and protected against disease, and some scholars believe that this practice may have been connected to the nursery rhyme line about "the cow jumping over the moon."

Cernunnos (pronounced Kur-noo-nohs) Called the "horned one," Cernunnos (his Latin name, given by the Romans) is among the most ancient of the Celtic gods and his origins are linked with the horned figures depicted in the Paleolithic or Stone Age European cave paintings found in northern and central France and Britain. With the antlers of a stag, Cernunnos was seen as lord of the beasts, a "shape shifter" who also took the form of a snake or wolf.

A pastoral and agricultural god of both fertility and abundance, Cernunnos is thought to dispense fruit, grain, and wealth. But he is also associated with the small "solar wheels" that the Celts placed in graves, presumably as emblems of the sun to provide light in the underworld.

Epona Known as the "horse goddess," Epona is also associated with the earth and fertility, and is one of the most popular Celtic goddesses. In a very ancient story, it was said that Epona was born when her father, who hated women, mated with a horse. Epona is one of the few deities to whom stone monuments were erected that still survive, most of them in France. Representations of Epona usually show her with a horse, revered in the Celtic world for its beauty, speed, bravery, and sexual vigor. Sometimes Epona was shown riding sidesaddle or standing between two ponies.

When Roman cavalry officers learned of Epona, they adopted her and held an official Roman festival in her honor each year on December 18. She is the only Celtic deity to be accorded the honor of a Roman festival.

Nantosuelta The goddess whose name meant "wandering river," Nantosuelta was once thought to be a water goddess, but is now more often viewed as a fertility goddess-water being seen as a powerful symbol of birth. The patron of hearth and home, she is the consort of Sucellus, an agricultural god, and she is usually depicted carrying a basket of apples.

Sucellus Sometimes described as the "king of the gods," Sucellus is a male fertility deity whose name meant the "good striker." Always depicted carrying a long-handled hammer, he uses this tool to wake up the plants and herald spring.

Taranis The thunder god, Taranis rides across the sky in his chariot, which emits thunder from its wheels and lightning from the sparks of his horses' hooves. A powerful Celtic war god, Taranis was equated by the Romans with Jupiter (like Zeus, the god of thunder) and sometimes with their war deity, Mars. (He is also connected to the Norse god Thor; see below.) The Roman writer Lucan singles Taranis out as the god to whom human sacrifices were made, although more recent scholarship shows sacrifices were made to several Celtic gods. Seven altars dedicated to Taranis are known to have existed in the Celtic world, all dating from Roman times.

Part II: The Celtic Gods of Ireland Brigid Known as the "exalted one," Brigid is an Irish fertility and war goddess. Supposedly raised by a Druid, she is a divine "multitasker," responsible for healing, fire, blacksmiths, poetry, wisdom, and protecting the flocks. As the saying goes, a woman's work is never done.

Her holy day, called Imbolc, is one of the four major Celtic religious festivals of the year, an important springtime event celebrating ewes coming into milk-a powerful symbol of rebirth and fertility for Irish Celts. It was also traditionally a time during which a wife or husband could legitimately walk out of their marriage.