Celtic polytheism
Sign in to saveAlso known as Celtic religion, Celtic paganism
religion practiced by ancient Celtic people
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- religion
- Part of
- Celtic mythology
- Has part
- Wren Day
Show 5 more facts
- OpenStreetMap tag
- denomination=celtic
- Commons category
- Celtic religion
- topic's main category
- Category:Ancient Celtic religion
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
Model reconstructing the Pillar of the Boatmen in the Musée de Cluny, Paris. After 14 AD. Ancient Celtic religion, commonly known as Celtic paganism, was the religion of the ancient Celtic peoples of Europe. Because there are no extant native records of their beliefs, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts (some of them hostile and probably not well-informed), and literature from the early Christian period. Celtic paganism was one of a larger group of polytheistic Indo-European religions of Iron Age Europe.
While the specific deities worshipped varied by region and over time, underlying this were broad similarities in both deities and "a basic religious homogeneity" among the Celtic peoples. Widely worshipped Celtic gods included Lugus, Toutatis, Taranis, Cernunnos, Epona, Maponos, Belenos, and Sucellos. Sacred springs were often associated with Celtic healing deities. Triplicity is a common theme, with a number of deities seen as threefold, for example the Three Mothers.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Celtic polytheism” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.