ODE FOR THE HIGH-KNOWERS.

Half of Mankind’s woe comes from the fact that, several thousand years ago, somewhere in the Middle East, peoples through their language conceived spirituality OR MYSTICISM….

-Not as a quest for meaning, hope or liberation with the concepts that go with it (distinction opposition or difference between matter and spirit, ethics, personal discipline, philanthropy, life after life, meditation, quest for the grail, practices...).

-But as a gigantic and protean law (DIN) that should govern the daily life of men with all that it implies.

Obligations or prohibitions that everyone must respect day and night.

Violations or contraventions of this multitude of prohibitions when they are not followed literally.

Judgments when one or more of these laws are violated.

Convictions for the guilty.

Dismissals or acquittals for the innocent. CALLED RIGHTEOUS PERSONS.

THIS CONFUSION BETWEEN THE NUMINOUS AND THE RELIGIOUS, THEN BETWEEN THE SACREDNESS AND THE SECULAR , MAKES OUR LIFE A MISERY FOR 4000 YEARS VIA ISRAEL AND ESPECIALLY THE NEW ISRAEL THAT CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM WANT TO BE.

The principle of our Ollotouta was given us, long time ago already, by our master to all in the domain; the great Gaelic bard, founder of the modern Free-thought, who is usually evoked under the anglicized name of John Toland. There cannot be, by definition, things contrary to Reason in Holy Scriptures really emanating from the divine one.

If there are, then it is, either error, or lies!

Either there is no mystery, or then it is in any way a divine revelation!

There is no happy medium...

We do not admit other orthodoxy that only the one of Truth because, wherever it can be in the world, must also stand, we are completely convinced of it, God's Church, and not that one of such or such a human faction … We are consequently for showing no mercy to the error on any pretext that can be, each time we will have the possibility or occasion to expound it in its true colors.

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1696. Christianity not mysterious.

1702. Vindicius Liberus. Response of John Toland to the detractors of his "Christianity not mysterious."

1704. Letters to Serena containing the origin of idolatry and reasons of heathenism, the history of the soul's immortality doctrine among the heathens, etc. (Version Baron d’Holbach, a German philosopher).

1705. The true Socinianism * as an example of fair debate on matters of theology *.To which is prefixed Indifference in disputes, recommended by a pantheist to an orthodox friend.

1709. Adeisdaemon or the man without superstition. Jewish origins.

1712. Letter against popery, and particularly against admitting the authority of the Fathers or Councils in religious controversies, by Sophia Charlotte of Prussia.

1714. Defense of the Jews, victims of the anti-Semite prejudices, and a plea for their naturalization.

1718. The destiny of Rome, of the popes, and the famous prophecy of St Malachy, archbishop of Armagh, in the thirteenth century.

Nazarenus or the Jewish, gentile, and Mahometan Christianity (version Baron d’Holbach), containing:

I. The history of the ancient gospel of Barnabas, and the modern apocryphal gospel of the Mahometans, attributed to the same apostle.

II. The original plan of Christianity occasionally explained in the history of the Nazarenes, solving at the same time various controversies about this divine (but so highly perverted) institution.

III. The relation of an Irish manuscript of the four gospels as likewise a summary of the ancient Irish Christianity and what the realty of the keldees (an order half-lay, half-religious) was, against the last two bishops of Worcester.

1720. Pantheisticon, sive formula celebrandae sodalitatis socraticae.

Tetradymus.

I. Hodegus. The pillar of cloud and fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness was not miraculous but, as faithfully related in Exodus, a practice equally known by other nations, and in those countries, not only useful, but even necessary.

Il. Clidophorus.

III. Hypatia or the history of the most beautiful, most virtuous, and most accomplished lady, who was stoned to death by the clergy of Alexandria, to gratify the pride, the emulation and even the cruelty, of Archbishop Cyril, commonly, but very undeservedly, styled Saint Cyril.

1726. Critical history of the Celtic religion, containing an account of the druids, or the priests and judges, of the vates, or the diviners and physicians, and finally of the bards, or the poets; of the ancient Britons, Irish or Scots. In plus with the story of Abaris the Hyperborean, priest of the sun.

A specimen of the Armorican language (Breton, Irish, Latin, dictionary).

1726. An account of Jordano Bruno's book, about the infinity of the universe and the innumerable worlds, translated from the Italian editing.

1751. The Pantheisticon or the form of celebrating the Socratic-society. London S. Paterson. Translation of the book published in 1720.

"Druidism" is an independent review (independent of any religious or political association) and which has only one purpose: theoretical or fundamental research about what is neo-paganism. The double question, to which this review of theoretical studies tries to answer, could be summarized as follows:

"What could be or what should be a current neo-druidism, modern and contemporary?”

"Druidism" is a neo-pagan review, strictly neo-pagan, and heir to all genuine (that is to say non-Christian) movements which have succeeded one another for 2000 years, the indirect heir, but the heir, nevertheless!

Regarding our reference tradition or our intellectual connection, let us underline that if the "poets" of Domnall mac Muirchertach Ua Néill still had imbas forosnai, teimn laegda and dichetal do chennaib 1) in their repertory (cf. the conclusion of the tale of the plunder of the castle of Maelmilscothach, of Urard Mac Coise, a poet who died in the 11th century), they may have been Christians for several generations. It is true that these practices (imbas forosnai, teimn ...) were formally forbidden by the Church, but who knows, there may have been accommodations similar to those of astrologers or alchemists in the Middle Ages.

Anyway our "Druidism" is also a will; the will to get closer, at the maximum, to ancient druidism, such as it was (scientifically speaking). The will also to modernize this druidism, a total return to ancient druidism being excluded (it would be anyway impossible).

Examples of modernization of this pagan druidism.

— Giving up to lay associations of the cultural side (medicine, poetry, mathematics, etc.). Principle of separation of Church and State.

— Specialization on the contrary, in Celtic, or pagan in general, spirituality history of religion, philosophy and metapsychics (known today as parapsychology).

— Use in some cases of the current vocabulary (Church, religion, baptism, and so on).

A golden mean, of course, is to be found between a total return to ancient druidism (fundamentalism) and a too revolutionary radical modernization (no longer sagum).

The Celtic PAA (pantheistic agnostic atheist) having agreed to be the defense lawyer of ancient Celtic paganism and to sign jointly this small library *, of which he is only the collector, druid Hesunertus (Peter DeLaCrau), does not consider himself as the author of this collective work. But as the spokesperson for the team which composed it. For other sources of this essay on druidism, see the thanks in the bibliography.

* Socinians, since that's how they were named later, wished more than all to restore the true Christianity that teaches the Bible. They considered that the Reformation had made disappear only a part of corruption and formalism, present in the Churches, while leaving intact the bad substance: non-biblical teachings (that is very questionable in fact).

** This little camminus is nevertheless important for young people ... from 7 to 77 years old! Mantalon siron esi.

1) Do ratath tra do Mael Milscothach iartain cech ni dobrethaigsid suide sin etir ecnaide 7 fileda 7 brithemna la taeb ogaisic a crech 7 is amlaidsin ro ordaigset do tabairt a cach ollamain ina einech 7 ina sa[ru]gad acht cotissad de imus forosnad [di]chetal do chollaib cend 7 tenm laida .i. comenclainn fri rig Temrach do acht co ti de intreide sin FINIT.

ON THE PREDISPOSITION TO SPIRITUALITY OF CELTIC OR CELTIC MINDED PEOPLES.

Celts are a community of nations intended to save the world, through the contamination of its example regarding ecology.

The innumerable quantity of gods of the Celtic pantheon could make some say that the Celts were really the chosen people of the gods but in reality all people are by definition chosen by their god (s) if we want to thereby specify the particular relation which unites generally a faithful to his divinity: a projection or reversal of drive well known to psychoanalysis (particularly to describe the sadomasochistic relationship) and called metonymy and even more precisely metalepsis when it is a figure of style.

What is certain in any case is that the Celt was really a language chosen by the gods since the druids were called homophonon compared to them (in the work of Diodorus of Sicily) that is to say speaking the very language of the gods, as if they were descended from common ancestors (case of the Celts Fir Bolg in the Lebor Gabala Erenn).

Contrary to what certain neo-druids of today affirm, turning towards the deities divinities virotutis, anextiomarus, iovantucarus, dunatis, toutatis contrebis mopatis etc. in short helping or soothing or even psychopompous, is well part of Druidism.

They are the personifications of all the positive altruistic, aesthetic and peaceful, human feelings contained in the heart. They can manifest in our dimension, which may surprise if we are not prepared for it.

Using one of their images as an aid to meditation or focusing is also part of Druidism and it can help you to die, therefore to live. This is popular druidism par excellence. The soldier's last refuge crushed in a trench.

The Callaic or "Lucanian" schools of Druidism [Lucan. Book I. 452.To you alone it is given the gods and celestial powers to know or not to know. Strabo. Book III Chapter IV, 16. Some say the Galicians have no god, but the Celtiberians and their neighbors on the north offer sacrifices to a nameless god at the seasons of the full moon, by night, in front of the doors of their houses, and whole households dance in chorus and keep it up all night] do not make them so much some deities external to human beings but rather some personifications of the intrinsic or pre-natural qualities of the human being favoring a happy reincarnation in the hereafter.

A Celtic equivalent of Buddhism must therefore, out of compassion, include worships of dulia or hyperdulia centered on different deities in the foundations of its philosophy. The opposite would be a useless iconoclasm.

Just as the original Buddhism was able to find in the local deities before him an acceptable place and a useful role in its practice at popular and daily level (the ancient god of death Mara symbolizes for example temptation and became there an evil spirit, the goddess Tara a she Bodhisattva, etc.). the important thing remains to reject philosophically speaking the myth of the personal god all powerful creator and supposed to be eternal, which is effectively incompatible with our philosophical triangle whose three extremes are atheism agnosticism and pantheism (AAP ).

REGARDING THE NATURE OF THE GODS OF DRUIDISM.

“ They likewise discuss and impart to the youth many elements respecting the stars and their motion, respecting the extent of the world and of our earth, respecting the nature of things, respecting the power and the majesty of the immortal gods “ (Caesar. B.G. Book VI, 14).

The nature of the immortal god-or-demons, the nature of the immortal god-or-demons… What else can we say today on the nature of the god-or-demons of druidism?

As we have just seen it, for the majority of the poor creatures we are, the supremacy of the impersonal Including is more theoretical than felt; and the multitude of the beings of the traditional Panth-eon or Pleroma, increased with that of the local deities, always in practice takes again the drop on the tendency to philosophical and reflected, monotheism, in any case it causes much more enthusiasm.

It is possible to reach the Divine one only through these manifestations , of which each one can result in the appearance of a particular god-or-demon. In polytheism, people always have a preferred god-or-demon (henotheism), which the venerates more than any other, because of what he arouses as feedback favorable to our personal comprehension of the Divine one. However, we don’t forget, however, contrary to Muslims *, that there exist other god-or-demons, about whom we know well that they are too, in spite of their foreign or unfamiliar nature , aspects of the Divinity , as legitimate as that you have chosen for yourself. It is starting from the god-or-demon that we are able to perceive that we can rise towards the non-dual Vastness of the Tawhid. And towards what you believe to be a “identification “ with the universal Including ; identification besides always approximate and itself also, in a strict sense of the word, illusory.

The slogan Allah Akhbar, many times repeated in lands of Islam, proves well that it is at the beginning on behalf of the really very first Muslims a simple henotheism, and in any way a philosophical and thought out monotheism. Philosophical Tawhid came only after, tolerance in less. Clearly, Allah, at the beginning, was perceived only as a god among others of the Meccan Pantheon, combined with the power of the moon, unlike Hubal (combined with the sun ?) But it was the god who focused the attention of the young Amine ( Muhammad).

But let us return to the natural and innate tolerance or agnosticism actually, of the philosophical and well-considered paganism.

It is not at all the same thing in the case of monolatries of course. Through the unique God-or-demon, that each one of these religions projects, it is in fact a universal domination which is pursued. Every monolatrous people become necessarily a “chosen people “ which must fight the false god-or-demons, and to bring his “good news “of a single revelation, apart from which it is no salvation; open doors to fanaticism and intolerance, to persecutions, to excommunications, and lastly to the religious wars.

For polytheism, on the other hand, there do not exist false god-or-demons. There are only true ones, because it is impossible to imagine that a way cannot lead to the Universal Including. At least it is there in this field, the theory or the logic of the system which encourages to the tolerance, as well to the respect of others (cantamantaloedism). The god-or-demons of druidism show no jealous exclusiveness. They feel no bitterness about the incredulity of the men on their subject.

This tolerance of druidism does not mean, of course, the abjuration of the truth that certain people perceive or believe to perceive, nor even a renunciation to the taste to express it in the most precise and most rigorous way. It is not a syncretism in the Roman way. The example of the various Schools of druidism we could detect in the ancient druidism is on this subject very edifying. Though some of these philosophical systems are more or less complementary, we found in them perfectly irreconcilable positions.

- What relationship indeed between the atheism of the Galician tribes evoked by Strabo, Geography III, 4,16.

“ Some say the Callaicans have no god, but the Celtiberians and their neighbors on the north offer sacrifices to a nameless god at the seasons of the full moon, by night, in front of the doors of their houses, and whole households dance in chorus and keep it up all night “.

- The iconoclasm of the famous Brennus in Delphi. Diodorus of Sicily XXII, 9. 4.

“Brennus, the king of the Galatians, on entering a temple found no dedications of gold or silver, and when he came only upon images of stone and wood he laughed at them, to think that men, believing that gods have human form, should set up their images in wood and stone “.

- And the well-known exclamation of Arrian in his treatise on hunting “I and my fellow hunters follow the Celtic custom, and I can state as a fact that nothing that happens without the gods turns out well

for men. Kai ego hama tois suntherois hepomai to Kelton nomo kai apophaino hos ouden aneu theon gignomenon anthropois es agathon apoteleuta“(Arrian. On Hunting. Chapter XXXV).

These positions are irreducible the ones to the others, but, if they all are recognized as Celtic, it is that none of them is conceived as expressing the absolute truth. They all are only “points of view “ on the world. However there does not exist a point of view making it possible to contemplate the world in its totality; or, more precisely, the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) think that there does not exist philosophy or of metaphysics which can be more than a point of view. But, once again, it is not a question to think that it is possible to superimpose a point of view on another, that it is possible in a way to exchange the points of view. Each point of view is true, absolutely.

If, from the top of the statue of Liberty built by Bartholdi in New York in 1886, I contemplate the east of the town, I get a real and indisputable view of New York, even if it is Brooklyn. If I turn towards South-east, I obtain another view of New York, equally real and indisputable. And so on. All these views are real and indisputable, but only from the adopted point of view. If I claim that one of these points of view corresponds to the whole city of New York, I am mistaken and I mislead others. If, admitting the equal truth of these various points of view , I imagine that it is possible to replace one by the other, to establish an equivalence between the point of view on the East and the point of view on the West; I am mistaken and I also deceive others. I cannot see New York at once in one moment of time. Nobody can see New York at once in one moment of time. I can therefore have on New York only a point of view or a succession of points of view. Each one of them is necessary and true, each one complementary to the other, but no one cannot replace the other.

Each “point of view “on the world, each philosophical system, is defined starting from its method. The method of observation of the phenomena, suitable for the scientific approach, never can for example, result in a theist conclusion. It is only a quantitative accumulation of facts. Here is the really druidic attitude.

Druidism is above all a philosophy of knowledge. Knowledge is an inherent, pure and luminous wisdom. But this knowledge is darkened by the ignorance which, through our fixations, is the cause of our perpetual dissatisfaction, even of our sufferings. It is this frame of mind, obscured by ignorance that medieval druidism symbolizes by Morgan Le Fay , and whose various illusions or universes (magic spells, apparitions, etc.) are only aspects.

Just like Buddhism (or Islam with its jinns) the true druidism does not deny the existence of the god-or-demons. But those, like men, are subjected to the Fate and to the Death or to the Reincarnation; and, like men, they will need one day to complete their purification before going back to the big UNIVERSAL WHOLE (Pariollon in Celtic language, Parinirvana in Buddhism).

These god-or-demons are not isolated individuals, because they are in fact immortal forces of human nature. These god-or-demons are only the links of huge chains as old as mankind. They can die, but to reappear at once in another shape and with another name (love, war, homeland, fidelity…)

These god-or-demons enjoy only a relative power and happiness. They are only emanations of the two primordial deities that are the Spirit (Taran/Toran/Tuireann) and the matter (Matrona) and subjected, like everyone,to their destiny (the obligation and to be born and to die, one day). What Hindus call vyuha and Muslims shirk (to condemn it).

The druidism of early time used as support of pious practices, many “idols “ but we should not take the word “idols “ in the sense become usual. It was a question at the beginning only of simulacra or of arcana (Sanskrit word to designate an offering or a support of meditation) capable of being seen by some people as symbolizing or representing deities. The Latin word simulacrum can in certain cases designate a standing stone or a menhir, according to the life of Saint Samson. In the Life of saint Samson, written at the beginning of the 7th century, it is a question indeed of a standing stone, simulacrum abominabile, on which the saint engraved the sign of the cross and which was erected on a mountain in the pagus Tricorius ( in the British Domnonea).

The divine presence in a place of worship was shown by these statues or these frescos (simulacra or arcana), because when the god-or-demons appear to men (theophany therefore); they are well forced to take a shape perceptible by human senses (often that of a person : last example one of the tutelae or water deities 1) in Lourdes in 1858).

Let us not forget nevertheless that the body of the druidic god-or-demons is actually very different from that from mere human beings, of which it has only appearance. Their body does not have the usual

contingencies or limitations of them. It can for example pass through walls or cover in some fractions of a second some incredible distances, as the neo-druid Allan Kardec said it very well.

God-or-demons of druidism “are not “ nevertheless, only this shape through which they are shown, they are not only this tangible representation. Their abstract essence exceeds it. 2)

God-or-demons of druidism are not either impersonal spirits floating in the air. When the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) call upon them while worshipping them, they speak to powers with precise characteristics. As for the Greek or Roman god-or-demons, the principal name indicates their general nature, of which a sphere of activity is dependent (Taran/Toran/Tuireann : sovereignty, Lug trade and craft industry, Belin/Belen health, balance and harmony, etc.). A name often follows this attribute known as epiclesis in Greek and specifies the function for which the supernatural, or preternatural, entity, is called upon at a certain point in a given context: Lugos vassocaletis (Lug the hard vassal) Belinos/Belenos moritasgus (of whom the chariot splits the sea), etc.

The god-or-demons, all together, form Panth-eon which is not fixed, and which can even widen when the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) discover the existence of up to that point unknown of them. god-or-demons This Panth-eon is designed on the basis of hierarchical structure similar to these of an human society. Taran/Toran/Tuireann, the sovereign god-or-demon, leads it and around him we find the other major god-or-demons: the Dodecahedron.

In lower part a crowd of less important deities, who help the major god-or-demons in the achievement of their function and with whom they share the honors. These deities , who act in a very limited field indicated by their name, are known as “functional divinities “(Indigitamenta or Sondergötter). Aveta for example is the goddess-or-demoness or good fairy, of the midwives and of the childbirth.

We find finally place god-or-demons representing forces of nature: springs, mountains, forests, animals… (some animal soul/minds or some elementals).

God-or-demons of druidism share with men the civic or political space and are always consulted before performing actions which relate to the whole community.

Editor’s note. This last point is characteristic of the former druidism besides. No one is morally obligated to follow it literally today.

Last precision finally which rather concerns the upper part of our Pleroma but that we make a point nevertheless of reminding here so that no one has a false idea of druidic spirituality!

Some great god-or-demons, goddess-or-demoness, or fairies if this word is preferred, rule over an empire, or a kingdom, which is a kind of universe parallel to ours. This notion is also found at the other end of the Aryan world, in Buddhism. Buddhakshetra, land of Buddha or field of Buddha, is a Buddhist word which designates a field of the universe in which a given Buddha has an activity or an influence.

Below some pure lands names.

The Land of Perfect Bliss (Sukhavati) of the Buddha Amitabha, the best known, described in the sutras of the Pure Land, it would be located in the west of our world.

The land of Joy (Abhirati) of the Buddha Akshobhya located in the east of our world.

Emerald land of the Bhaisajyaguru Buddha; described in the Sutra Bhaisajyaguru, it would be located in the east of our world.

Land of secret Solemnity of the Vairocana Buddha described in the Mitsugon kyo.

Pure Land of the Vulture Peak, where the teaching of the Shakyamuni Buddha reigns;

The Pure Land Potakala of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.

Then why not pure land (Celtic hereafter) of the Horrnunnos Buddha or of the Belenos Buddha?

1) The ruins of the temple of Lourdes devoted to the Tutelae were uncovered between 1904 and 1907 during the demolition of the old parish church Saint-Peter.

2) Such is besides also the point of view of Varro, a Roman philosopher of the first century before our era (- 116 -27) convinced of the existence of various levels of truth as regards religion. We find in this ancient theologist an original and innovative development about the function of the worship images and the highly enhancing intentions of those who instituted them. The juxtaposition in Varro of an iconoclastic temptation and of a positive exegesis of the portraits of god-or-demons, or of goddess-or-

demonesses, is explained by his design of a two-level religion. On the one hand, some effigies of the god-or-demons agreeing to popular sensitivity (as in the case of the saints of the Christian religion) on the other hand the more demanding spirituality of the philosophers who would prefer to release themselves from them.

THE FIVE-LEAF CLOVER OF GODS

or the five levels of any divine emanation (pempedulia).

On the upper level, the divinity appears in several forms in our world, and designates several things, which are bound, but relatively different, and that we must not confuse. What Hindus call vyuha and Muslims shirk (to condemn it).

Any divine entity can indeed take five different shapes.

- The first of these shapes is the higher form of the god-or-demon, his normal form if we can say, invisible, and inaccessible to the naked eye.

- The second of these levels is that of the hypostases constituting this higher form, linked to his being even (example the father the son and the Holy Spirit among Christians). Any deity has a number of attributes, divine by definition (power, science, kindness, ubiquity). Specialists call hypostasis the personification of one of these components. The notion of hypostasis does not forget nor does not ignore the unity of the god-or-demon which is the cause of it. It is simply the personification, non-ephemeral, of one of the attributes of the deity. In this sense , we can say besides that the god-or-demons of druidism are all, more or less, some hypostases of a higher entity including them all.

- The third level is that of the occasional incarnations (avatars), which are caused with a precise aim and can be total or partial. The fundamental diversity of the divine one is expressed quite naturally in the avatars like Jesus. The avatara is a descent on Earth intended to restore the cosmic order; the number of the avatars is variable according to the Schools, and they were often confused with great heroes or demi-god-or-demons. The two most outstanding god-or-demons belong to this category. For example, Cuchulainn in Ireland who is an avatar of Lug, Belenos Barinthus Manannan Mac Lir who is in reality an avatar of Taran/Toran/Tuireann (a taranucnus), appeared in the Isle of Man between Great Britain and Ireland, etc.

We can also attach to this level the theophanies. The theophany (from the Greek words theo- “god “ and phan- “appearance “) is, in the religious field, the manifestation of a god-or-demon, during which normally the revelation to men of a divine message or simply of a warning takes place. Abraham would have thus seen the Trinity close to the oak of Mamre (a triad of three angels who left then towards the town of Sodom… See Genesis 18,1). N.B. The apparition of the Burning Bush with Moses and the birth of Jesus Christ are also essential theophanies of the Old or New Testament history.

- The fourth level is that of the presence of the god-or-demon in the human heart. Then there, obviously, everything is possible.

- The fifth and last level of existence of the deity lastly is the shape in which we can pay homage to him (arcana or simulacra); i.e., the statue the painting or the symbol into which an artist put a reflection of his divinity. Like the fresco representing Ogmius, seen by Lucian of Samosata in a temple of the area of Marseilles.

Repetere = ars docendi. The Latin word simulacrum can in certain cases designate a standing stone or a menhir, according to the life of Samson Saint. In the Life of saint Samson, written at the beginning of the 7th century, it is a question indeed of a standing stone, simulacrum abominabile, on which the saint engraved the sign of the cross and which was placed on a mountain in the pagus Tricorius (in the British Domnonea).

Neo-Druidic conjectures thus designed a huge Panth-eon based on a complex system of references and connotations. Each deity refers to a color of the rainbow, a cardinal point, a season, a prayer, a rune of the Lepontic alphabet (the rune gebo is often found for example, at least in the statuary, on the coat of the mallet god-or-demon : Suqellus).

This pempedulia is not the least one of the difficulties in druidism; and this five-leaf clover, rarer than the four-leaf clover, even than the vulgar shamrock of noibo Patrick in Ireland, also partly explains the long lists of epithets or divine attributes we could establish.

When we study the god-or-demons of the druidic Panth-eon , we therefore should not forget to take into account that the same (higher) deity can be evoked or represented, in various forms, each one of them expressing certain basic and sacred principles.

- One of the specific attributes of the god-or-demon in question. Example the wheel of Taran/Toran/Tuireann, also known as labaron (Christian adaptation: the cross of saint Patrick or of

saint Andrew (saltire) in Scotland, symbolizing the voice or the word of the Fate), the spear of Lug, an animal (the cross among Christians).

- A human shape bearing these specific attributes or represented in the company of this animal. The human shape of the god-or-demons indeed, makes them closer to Men and more open to their daily worries (for example in Christianity, a man bearing a cross, a man carrying a sheep: the good shepherd, etc.).

- The animal representing the qualities of the god-or-demon. Their animal appearance being then a metaphor of their function (case of the continental god-or-demon Rudiobus, or of the crows of the Irish tradition).

The myriads of deities of the druidic Panth-eon or Pleroma are therefore a figuration of natural laws; some laws which preside over the cosmic Order (Tokad/Tocade), as we could see it with the notions of elementals or animal egregores; but are not only that. The druidic Panth-eon or Pleroma is consequently extremely rich.

The neo-druid Allan Kardec in his book (sections 573 to 541, section 668.) devoted to this subject, according to the lessons of the sisters Fox; admits very clearly that what he calls, himself, spirit, was called god-or-demon several centuries ago, and in particular during Antiquity.

To only see, we have therefore, in his book, systematically replaced the notion of spirit by that of god-or-demon, in the pagan meaning of the word, and the result is very surprising; but interesting to meditate nevertheless, in spite of the obviousness of the Judeo-Christian influence on these remarks.

76. What definition can be given of the god-or-demons?

God-or-demons may be defined as the intelligent beings of the creation. They constitute the population of the universe, in contradistinction to the forms of the material world.

79. Since there are two general elements in the universe, namely, the intelligent element and the material element, would it be correct to say that god-or-demons are formed from the intelligent element as bodies are formed from the material element?

It is evident that such is the case. God-or-demons are the individualization of the intelligent principle, as bodies are the individualization of the material principle. It is the epoch and mode of this formation that are unknown to us.

82. Is it correct to say that god-or-demons are immaterial?

We say that god-or-demons are immaterial, because their essence differs from everything that we know under the name of "matter." A nation of blind people would have no terms for expressing light and its effects. One who is born blind imagines that the only modes of perception are hearing, smell, taste, and touch: he does not comprehend the other ideas that would be given him by the sense of sight which he lacks. So, in regard to the essence of superhuman beings, we are really blind. We can only define them by means of comparisons that are necessarily imperfect or by an effort of our imagination.

83. Is there an end to the duration of god-or-demons?

We can understand that the principle from which they emanate should be eternal; but what we desire to know is, whether their individuality has a term, and whether, after a given lapse of time, longer or shorter, the element from which they are formed is not disseminated, does not return to the mass from which they were produced, as is the case with material bodies? It is difficult to understand that what has had a beginning should not also have an end.

There are many things that you do not understand, because your intelligence is limited but that is no reason for rejecting them. The child does not understand all that is understood by its father, nor does an ignorant man understand all that is understood by a learned one. We tell you that the existence of god-or-demons has no end; that is all we can say on the subject at present.

Editors note. In Hindu philosophy, the god-or-demons finish nevertheless with the cycle or long life they characterize.

86. Might the corporeal world never have existed, or cease to exist, without changing the essentiality of the god-or-demons world?

Yes; they are independent of each other, and yet their correlation is incessant, for they react incessantly upon each other.

87. Do god-or-demons occupy a determinate and circumscribed region in space?

God-or-demons are everywhere; the infinite space is populated with them in infinite numbers. Unperceived by you, they are incessantly beside you, observing and acting upon you; for god-or-demons are one of the powers of Nature, and are the instruments or secondary causations used by

the Tokad (the fate) for the accomplishment of its providential designs. But all god-or-demons do not go everywhere; there are regions of which the entrance is interdicted to those who are less advanced.

88. Have gods a determinate, circumscribed, and unvarying form?

Not for eyes such as yours; but, for us, they have a form though one only to be vaguely imagined by you as a flame a gleam or an ethereal spark.

-- Is this flame or spark of any color?

If you could see it, it would appear to you to vary from a dull gray to the brilliancy of the ruby, according to the degree of the god-or-demon's purity. Genies are usually represented with a flame or a star above their foreheads-a sort of allegorical allusion to the essential nature of god-or-demons. The flame or star is placed upon the head because the head is the seat of intelligence.

89. Do god-or-demons employ any time in transporting themselves through space?

Yes but their motion is as rapid as that of thought.

-- Is not thought the movement of the soul/mind itself, the transportation of the soul/mind itself to the place or the object thought of by it?

Wherever the thought is, there the soul is, since it is the soul/mind that thinks. Thought is an attribute.

90. When a god-or-demon travels from one place to another, is he conscious of the distance he traverses and of the extent of space through which he passes; or is he suddenly transported to the place to which he wishes to go?

A god-or-demon can travel in either way. He can, if he will, take cognizance of the distance he passes through, or he can rid himself entirely of the sense of distance. This depends on the god-or-demon's will, and also on his degree of purity.

91. Does matter constitute an obstacle to the movement of a god-or-demon?

No; god-or-demons pass through everything; the air, the earth, water, fire even, are equally accessible to them.

92. Have god-or-demons the gift of ubiquity? In other words, can a god-or-demon divide itself, or exist at several points of space at the same time?

There can be no division of any given god-or-demon; but every god-or-demon is a center which radiates in all directions, and it is thus that a god-or-demon may appear to be in several places at once. The sun is only one body, yet it radiates in all directions, and sends out its rays to great distances but it is not divided.

-- Have all god-or-demons the same power of radiation?

There is a great difference between them in this respect: it depends on the degree of their purity. Each god-or-demon is an indivisible unity, but each god-or-demon has the power of extending his thought on all sides without thereby dividing himself. It is only in this sense that the gift of ubiquity attributed to god-or-demons is to be understood. It is thus that a spark sends out its brightness far and wide, and may be perceived from every point of the horizon. It is thus, also, that a man, without changing his place, and without dividing himself, may transmit orders, signals, etc., to many distant points in many different directions.

96. Are all god-or-demons equal or does there exist among them a hierarchy of ranks?

They are of different degrees according to the degree of purification to which they have attained.

97. Is there a fixed number of orders or degrees of purification among god-or-demons?

The number of such orders is unlimited, because there is nothing like a barrier or line of demarcation between the different degrees of elevation; and, therefore, as there are no fixed or arbitrary divisions among god-or-demons, the number of orders may be increased or diminished according to the point of view from which they are considered. Nevertheless, if we consider the general characteristics of god-or-demons, we may reduce them to three principal orders or degrees.We may place in the first or highest rank those who have reached the degree of relative perfection which constitutes what may be called 'pure god-or-demons.' We may place in the second rank those who have reached the middle of the ascensional ladder, those who have achieved the degree of purification in which aspiration after perfection has become the ruling desire. We may place in the third or lowest rank all those imperfect god-or-demons who are still on the lower rungs of the ladder. They are characterized by ignorance, the love of evil, and all the low passions that retard their progress upwards.

98. Have god-or-demons of the second order only the aspiration after perfection; have they also the power to achieve it?

They have that power in degrees proportionate to the degree of purification at which they have severally arrived. Some of them are distinguished by their scientific knowledge, others by their wisdom and their kindness; but all of them still have to undergo the discipline of trial through temptation and suffering.

99. Are all god-or-demons of the third order essentially bad?

No. Some of them are inactive and neutral, not doing either good or evil; others, on the contrary, take pleasure in evil, and are delighted when they find an opportunity of doing wrong. Others, again, are frivolous, foolish, fantastic, mischievous rather than wicked, tricky rather than positively malicious; amusing themselves by mystifying the human beings on whom they are able to act, and causing them various petty annoyances for their own diversion.

This was therefore the point of view of the neo-druid Allan Kardec in his spirits’ book..

The mythology of the former high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) cannot therefore be approached as easily as Greek or Roman mythologies; and this, for several reasons (in addition to the fact that it does not appear in the school programs, we wonder well why besides?)

The first difficulty lies in the, rare, fragmented and sometimes contradictory written documents, which evoke it. Before the introduction of Christianity, the high-knowers of druidiaction did not write. It is therefore necessary to refer to the other authors, Greeks and Latin. But it is necessary to take these texts cautiously.

The other written sources appear more tardily. After the Christianization of Ireland, the monks transcribed the tales, the legends as well as the traditions of their country. But this work was undertaken from the 5th century, i.e., several hundred years after the facts. These accounts are sometimes proven reliable, although tinted with Christianity (the role played by goddess-or-demonesses or the fairies, was, of course, minimized). The Welsh texts of the Middle Ages, fewer and more influenced by Christianization, are less revealing.

With regard to the pictorial or sculptural representations of the deities , all that we can say is that there are not many traces of it before the coming of Romans, i.e., at the 1st century before our era. It is even told that, when the Celts came at Delphi in - 279, their chief Brennus was amazed to see that Greeks had as many representations of their god-or-demons, and in human shapes what is more.

A case at least is nevertheless witnessed: the fresco representing Ogmius and discovered by Lucian of Samosata on the walls of the cella of a sanctuary of the surroundings of Marseilles.

THE DRUIDIC PLEROMA

We will use here the word pleroma which means in Greek language “full, totality” Greek in order to show well that we are not satisfied with the only celestial superhuman entities but we also include in what we intend to signify…. The underground invisible or unconscious “superhuman” entities.

Until a relatively recent time, the oral literature was in a situation of concrete communication. The storyteller challenged his audience which could also answer him and take part. It was the case of the bards in Ireland down to recent times.

Our ancestors tended to sanctify all these accounts more or less. They came to canonize them and to give them an absolute value, to even make them Scriptures in certain cases (beginning of the Bible, Quran, Gospels). Over time nevertheless the level of trust, they granted to them, varied.

At the beginning therefore the myth was, we have said.

The grandmothers during the fireside evening said that… or the uncle of Muhammad told him that…. (cf. the story of the ababil birds which had bombed some elephants, for example: Holy Quran chapter 105).

Essential characteristics of myths.

From a linguistic point of view, it is in general a type of statement reporting facts presented as “past,” and marked by the effacement of the subject who speaks, the use of the third person, as that of the preterit and of the imperfect.

The myth is in the timeless one. Whereas the historical accounts are in a dated past, the tale belongs to an unspecified past, and in general distant. The tales start indeed with expressions such as “One upon a time… ”, “A long time ago… ”, or “In those days… ”. And well for the myth it is the same thing. In myth the story proceeds in an unspecified past. The Christians, of course, who have a linear and noncyclic design of the history will endeavor to date everything, while often doing the splits for that, of course.

The original myth is in a world without precise geographical frameworks. In general, the facts are in typical landscapes such as forest, mountain, savanna, etc. that individuals and peoples, of course, will be only too pleased to apply to their own case if necessary while resorting to much imagination in the etymologies. Or then in a highly improbable and concerning purest imagination place.

The supernatural lies in it mainly in the presence of supernatural characters and magic objects.

The myth is not absurd or unimportant, it has its raison d'être. The problem is that very often there remains to us nothing any more but difficult to decipher fragments. The myth is for a long time if it is not since always an enigma which remains, and it is perhaps there its first meaning: to give pause for thought , to give pause for dream.

Unlike modern or “Christian” fantastic, the myth does not maintain ambiguity between what really exists and what appears supernatural. The myth does not require justification and is often given for such: they are accounts concerning the gods.

In each case, there is supernatural and magic but the wonders are not identical, nor the miracles interchangeable; whereas the modern or “Christian” fantastic expresses a scandal, a tear, a strange irruption, almost unbearable in the real world, the mythical one at least for Celtic minds is a universe which is added to the real world without affecting it nor destroying the coherence of it. The definitions of the two genres are therefore in fact opposite.

The fantastic can worry only in a modern world regulated by science; the myth concerns a very old state of civilization where nothing still is explained.

On the other hand, in the fantastic, the reader should not feel from the start in the supernatural one, he must doubt. The fantastic achieved its goal when it causes a feeling of faintness in the reader who discovers a world worrying halfway between the real world and the next world.

The legend shares with the myth the fact of being above all an account with marvelous characteristics. In the Odyssey, the travel out of the world makes monsters emerge… In the Song of Roland the Franks are supported by angels and the Saracens by demons, at the time of the battle of Badr in 624, the Muslims are supported by thousands of angels.

Admittedly, myths are degraded in cock-and-bull tales and the mythographers gather them in collections where the big joke prevails over the serious one. But they survive and their force of illocution is not completely lost.

Vladimir Propp and the Grimm brothers made myths some fairy tales or reciprocally; we leave to specialists the care to decide . Propp, in his Morphology of the Folktale, even specifies: “The fairy tale, in its morphological bases, represents a myth.”

The legend like the myth is a subject of belief unlike the fairy tale. They are exemplary, they tell the life and the death of a hero * who shows us the path to be followed.

However, differentiation was done during time: legends are localized, attached to a historical fact whereas the myths at least in their initial state refer to no precise reality and therefore they are spread more easily. The myth is more general, vaster in his subjects whereas the legend is particularized; it is colored, more picturesque.

Once again what must make the difference it is the frame of mind pressing over these accounts: there exists a world parallel to ours filled with beings living one hundred cubits above us. There does not exist complete barrier between the two worlds.

Inhabitants of the other world can appear in ours and reciprocally the human ones can be found in the other.

The special moment for the manifestations of this phenomenon is around the festival of Samon (November 1st).

There also exist places more favorable than others to these contacts.

It is obvious that what we call we uns poor human beings parallel world, undoubtedly quite logically has to be put in the plural, on the best images in this case being that of the massive tome (the existing being-universe is like a massive tome of which we would inhabit only a very little sheet). Another of the best images to evoke this other world is also that of the hive with its multiple alveoli, each one of hem being inhabited by a god or a goddess constantly busy by taking part in the human businesses.

* Let us repeat it once again. It is obvious gods not more than angels or jinns could not die. If they die in our legends it is only following a literary convention emphasized by the Christianization which encouraged the populations to see in them only men, of course, being out of the ordinary, but only men nevertheless. Moreover we often see them reappearing at once in other legends. Gods by definition cannot die, except perhaps with this cycle. But they will reappear then under other names in the following cycle, because it is primarily forces of nature or of human soul.

Otherwise we are quite unable to say something more. It belongs to each one to see!

Our ancestors therefore told myths. Here are some of them, here some of their subjects, of their objects.

THE INTERPRETATIO CELTICA.

Specialists call interpretatio the fact of comparing a deity with his equivalent in the mythology which you endorsed, while being brought up in such culture rather than in such other. This mechanism therefore consists in working out identification between god-or-demons of different origin, on the basis of generally functional comparison.

“ Who could ever be so frantic and infatuated as to deny that there is one supreme God, without beginning, without natural offspring, who is, as it were, the great and mighty Father of all? The powers of this Deity, diffused throughout the universe which He has made, we worship under many names, as we are all ignorant of His true name, the name God being common to all kinds of religious belief. Thus it comes, that while in diverse supplications we approach separately, as it were, certain parts of the Divine Being, we are seen in reality to be the worshippers of Him in whom all these parts are one ” (Maximus of Madaura).

There is no homogeneous culture. All societies, throughout their history, have known various cultural influences, more or less numerous depending on the breadth and depth of the contacts they had with their neighbors. Religious syncretism is therefore an inevitable phenomenon and it has manifested itself in ancient societies where polytheistic religions were, by nature, particularly sensitive to borrowing and assimilation.

Interpretatio graeca and interpretatio romana are two Latin expressions which designate the propensity of the Greeks and Romans of Antiquity to assimilate the deities of the barbarians to their own deities. Interpretatio graeca / romana is best known for the "fusion" or even "confusion" of the Greek and Roman gods.

Those who had no equivalence in the Roman and / or Greek religion were often assimilated by the Romans. We can cite in this case for example Apollo, Greek god, directly assimilated to the Roman pantheon, or else the Celtic goddess Epona, goddess of horses, worshipped by the Roman soldiers. Among the Egyptians it is Isis, Osiris, Anubis and Horus (in his form of Harpocrates).

The movement was initiated by Herodotus in the fifth century before our era, who compared the Egyptian gods and the Greek gods. The term interpretatio romana was first used five centuries later by Tacitus in the first century. A good knowledge of the Roman gods makes us able to know a little more about the gods of other peoples, even if sometimes the comparison is risky.

The term interpretatio romana for the assimilation to the Roman gods, of the barbarians gods, is also used by the first Christians….

In a homily called De falsis deis, Wulfstan II, Archbishop of York, likened still in the 11th century Jupiter to Thor and Mercury to Odin.

“Now some of the Danish men said in their error that he was Jove, that he named Thor, that he was Mercury's son, and that Mercury named him, but they were not right, for we read in books, both among heathens and in Christendom , that the evil Jove is, in truth, Saturn's son.”

The unfortunate example of Thor shows the limits of the use of the Interpretatio Romana or Graeca to get from Christians precise information on "barbarian" gods.

We will take a quick look at the interest, and also the limits, of the interpretatio romana. But it will be necessary also before, to well take into account the opposite phenomenon, the interpretatio celtica, base of most of the analyzes of the French archeologist Jean-Jacques Hatt. Parallel to the Roman interpretation of the Celtic deities indeed, it occurred, in the native mind, a druidic interpretation (interpretatio celtica) of the Greco-Roman god-or-demons. So the bringing together to be made, between the two religions was carried out in the two directions, but in an approximate way, with differences according to the places. The Latin language and the Greco-Roman art brought to the native names and images of deities. They used them, at the option of their preferences, randomly of the resemblances… and such great Roman god-or-demon was compared, here with such druidic god-or-demon, there, on the other hand, with such other one. But don’t be mistaken, when a Romano-British refers to the god-or-demon Mercury, it is not the Roman Mercury, but of a Celtic deity nominally comparable with Mercury. On the somewhat 500 known deities , the 3/4 appear only once. Under

these conditions, it is very difficult to find one’s way there, because it is rare that two Celtic and Roman deities superimpose themselves completely. Everything happened like if the Celts had kept their own god-or-demons, but in giving to them names of Roman god-or-demons. It is indeed notable that some god-or-demons have a Roman name, but are represented in the native costume, that others have at the same time the Celtic and Roman name joined, or the Roman name to which is added again a Celtic epithet; that others still have to their consort (female equivalence called shakti by Hindus) in the other Panth-eon (a Celtic god-or-demon for example is combined with a Roman goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, or conversely). Art expresses this ambivalence, either the works which represent the god-or-demons are completely (Greco-Roman) classical, either they remain of native craftsmanship , or are composite.

Another of the characteristics of the druidic thought is its tendency not to duplicate, but to straightforwardly triplicate, the things. This way of seeing things is illustrated by the impressing number of three-headed statues we found here and there. On the Continent it seems that the area of Rheims in France holds the record of the discoveries. On the pillar known as the pillar of the Parisian boatmen the famous Termagant, the bull with three cranes is also reproduced, the tarvos trigaranos. We may think this bull was originally a three headed bull. And we may also think this stone pillar was originally a tree trunk.

The characters of these triads, according to the French Alexandre BERTRAND, are not fixed, the composition varies constantly. The three headed god-or-demon who appears under an aspect on a monument is illustrated in a different way in another locality. These differences are due to the fact that the three headed god-or-demon was not a particular god-or-demon, but well the god-or-demon by definiton, joining together all the other god-or-demons in his person and therefore being able to endorse all the existing divine shapes.

The monuments with three faces present sometimes three complete faces around the same block, sometimes a central face to which two halves of faces are juxtaposed; each of the two central eyes making a pair with another eye located on the side, what the case is for example of the monument found in Rheims.

The three headed monuments are subdivided in two series, the first: a three faced deity based on the same neck; and the second of which the central head is represented with two smaller heads stuck to the height of the ears, on an equal or different level.

It does not seem that there is a difference between the representations in their mythical conception, at most a different approach in the execution of the monument.

The majority are of septentrional sources, as we said it, and a good fifteen of these stone representations originate in the territory of the Remi. The study of these latter ones makes it possible to say that they are there antiquated representations.

It is impossible to say if the three headed figure represents the same deity, or if several different god-or-demons hide behind the same representation; because the figure is sometimes beardless, sometimes bearded. The three headed god-or-demon himself seems a reduced representation of the triad. But what to say when we see on the illustrated monuments, the three-headed one framed by two other god-or-demons? We can speak no longer here about triad, because tripleness is no longer respected.

All these elements ( we have just taken a quick look at ) make it possible nevertheless to believe, either it is through the illustrated representations, or through the Irish texts; in the existence, among the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), of a conception whereby the same divine being could join in his person three different persons. Case for example of three sons of Tuireann (Brian, Iuchar and Iucharba) known as also three gods of Dana, or Danu (bia) in Ireland).

Anecdotally , let us remind that the three headed god-or-demon is also found in Vedic India, as in Christian art. The collegiate church Notre-Dame-en-Vaux in Chalons-en-Champagne , has for example one of the most beautiful three headed figures which are, on the interior wall of the northern chapel, close to the choir. To see it, it is necessary, after having walked along the ambulatory, to go a small deprived of light passage, and before leading to the chapel, to look up towards the right. The triple face is there, four eyes, three noses, three mouths. The cathedral of Bayeux in Normandy too, has a very beautiful three headed representation, visible by all, provided that we look up towards the triforium.

INTERPRETATIO ROMANA.

As we have seen higher, specialists call interpretatio the fact of comparing a deity with his equivalent in the mythology which you endorsed, while being brought up in such culture rather than in such other. This mechanism therefore consists in working out identification between god-or-demons of different origin, on the basis of generally functional comparison.

The implications of such a mechanism for the comprehension of the religious conceptions of the Ancients are particularly interesting besides. The equity method between deities implies indeed that people conceive a certain universality of the divine one, beyond the ethnic differences. The god-or-demons are felt as being potentially present everywhere, and recognizable. What changes from one people to another, it is the number of the identified god-or-demons, as well as the linguistic form of their name. What possibly passes from one people to the other, on the other hand, it is the capacity to recognize a god-or-demon already potentially present. And in this case, the identification leads to ritual behaviors given, in conformity with the tradition, i.e., in Greek, with the nomos of those who perform them. It is besides in this reference to the nomos that the limit is of what could appear, among Greeks, as a large “religious tolerance “.

The same phenomenon of interpretatio also characterizes Roman civilization. Tacitus is the first to use the expression. But this phenomenon was already known before. When Caesar speaks about the Celtic god-or-demons, he has no difficulty to give them Roman names (Mercury, Mars, Apollo, Jupiter…). He therefore recognizes in the god-or-demons of the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), features which enable him to establish what are their “counterparts “in Rome. Romans were for a long time accustomed besides to translate into Latin words the foreign divinities who settled among them. At a certain point of their history, for example, the Greek goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Leucothea (“white sea foam “) was acclimatized in Italy in narrow partnership with several female local deities, of which Mater Matuta. And this “translation “was worked out on a base of features communal to both goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies if you prefer this word (maternal nature, relation with children, proximity with water, etc.).

It should, however, be stressed that all these “translations “are initially and above all intellectual operations. They are not imposed by the religious authorities, and do not modify the worship.

The most detailed example of this interpretatio romana of the druidic god-or-demons is therefore that the commentary of Julius Caesar provides us on the wars that he prosecuted beyond the Alps (from his point of view) , we have said.

“ They worship as their god-or-demon, in particular, Lug ( Mercury in the writings by Caesar) and have many images of him, and regard him as the inventor of all arts, they consider him the guide of their journeys and marches, and believe him to have great influence over the acquisition of gain and mercantile transactions. Next to him they worship Belin/Belen (Apollo in the writings by Caesar) , and Noadatus/Nuada/Lludd (Mars in the writings by Caesar) , and Taran/Toran/Tuireann (Jupiter in the writings by Caesar) , and the belisama Brigindo Brigantia Brigit (Minerva in the writings by Caesar); Belin/Belen (Apollo in the writings by Caesar ) averts diseases, noiba Brigit (Minerva in the writings by Caesar) imparts the invention of work and art, Taran/Toran/Tuireann ( Jupiter in the writings by Caesar) possesses the sovereignty of the heavenly powers; Noadatus/Nuada/Llud (Mars in the writings by Caesar) presides over wars. To him, when they have determined to engage in battle, they commonly vow those things which they shall take in war... All the Celts assert that they are descended from the god Dis Pater, and say that this tradition has been handed down by the druids. For that reason they compute the divisions of every season, not by the number of days, but of nights….. “(Caesar. B.G. Book VI, 17,18).

LIMITS AND PROBLEMS

OF THIS INTERPRETATIO ROMANA.

The big problem induced by these assimilations made by Romans is that they are very approximate. Some examples, some cases (but there are hundred others).

In the Iberian peninsula, the male Celtic deity Banda was compared with a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if this term is preferred, in the Roman statuary. By the way, we do not know any more very well if it is a goddess-or-demoness or a god-or-demon; the epigraphy uses the masculine systematically whereas the iconography presents him to us under female features. In one of these representations for example, this entity bears a crown and his attributes evoke the functions of the goddess Fortune.

We find the same phenomenon in Great Britain where the divine entity named “Latis “whose gender had never worried up until that point the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht); was regarded in turn as male (deo latis) or as female (dea latis), according to Latin inscriptions.

DEO LATI LVCIVS VRSEI : to the god Latis (on behalf of) Lucius Ursei. On an altar discovered at Burgh-by-Sands (Aballava).

DIE LATI: to the goddess Latis. Dedication found in the Roman camp of Birdoswald.

Another problem due to interpretatio romana.

The traditional name of Mars covers in reality three different types of Celtic deity.

A .Tribal local deities of the kind elementals.

B. The god-or-demon Noadatus. In Ireland Nuada Airgetlàm (“of the silver hand “), king of the children of goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you want, Dana, or Danu (bia). He does not fight personally , but “no battle is won without him “. The king represents, a little like a “motionless engine “ the regulating and calm aspect of the warlike function. His attribute is the “light Sword (cladibo) “ one of the four talismans brought back from the islands north of the World. He is “the Dispenser“ (meaning of the name Noadatus), and the guarantor of the prosperity of the country. The identification with Mars is confirmed by an inscription dedicated to Nodons Mars, found in Great Britain. The Welsh equivalent is Lludd (derivative of Nudd).

C. The god-or-demon called Ogmios. Champion of the tribe of the children of Goddess-or-demoness Dana or Danu (bia) in Ireland, under the name of Ogma, the god-or-demon of the moral laws , equivalent of the Vedic Varuna. Ogmius is the driver of the souls/minds the chief of the dead , the one of whom you could not pronounce the name. It is to him that the weapons and the armors of the enemies killed in action were dedicated. Ogmios is the dark part of the great sovereign deity, of whom Suqellus called Dagda in Ireland, or Gurgunt = Gargant on the Continent, is the clear part.

The name Mars therefore confuses, under the same name, these three different types of deities, however, distinguished well by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht).

The traces of these three kinds of quite different god-or-demons remain clearly perceptible besides in the epithets attributed to “Mars “during Roman occupation. With properly military nicknames: Belatucadrus “Fair when he kills “ Caturix “King of the Fights “ Budenicus “Victorious “ Segomo “Winning “ Mullo “ Of the heap of spoils “ Latobius “Hero “ Rudianus and Rudiobus “Red “; some typically royal names, like Albiorix “King of the World “ Nabelcus “ Master, Lord “(etymologically : “hub, center “); and purely local or regional names (see the teutates).

The triad composed by the category of the tribal god-or-demons of the kind teutates on the one hand, and by Noadatus or Ogmius on the other hand; was irreducible to any correct translation in Latin language because, for the Celts war was a set of singular combats; lastly, because their kings waged the wars, not by fighting themselves personally, but as a strategist then in charge of the distribution of the spoils.

In Spain, in the area of Cadiz, the interpretatio romana also betrayed the genuine druidic thought by making the eon (aiu) called by our ancestors Neto/Neith/Neit/Net, a common equivalent of the Roman god-or-demon of the war.

Macrobius. Saturnalia I, 19,5. “Since father Liber is the same as the sun, and Mars is the same god-or-demon as father Liber, who would doubt that Mars is the sun ?The Accitani, a people of Spain, worship with the greatest respect a representation (simulacrum) of Mars which is adorned with rays, calling it Neton.’

Whereas it was, however, much more than that for the Accitani in question. Unless , of course, it is still a local case of degeneration of druidic spirituality. This eon was indeed well known of the Celtiberians , since a whole city in the south-west of Spain was devoted to him (Netobriga).

Let us note on this subject that there exists the same kinds of problems with the interpretatio christiana or secular of Allah.

There exist other examples showing how the Roman interpretation of the druidic god-or-demons , is problematic.

Caesar mentions for example only one goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if this term is preferred, he renames Minerva. Only one goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, for at least four god-or-demons in his organization chart. It is a situation exactly similar to that of the 5 Pandavas in Hinduism who, jointly together , has only one wife, the beautiful Draupadi.

N.B. The Pandavas are the five sons of Pandu. Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva. They are in conflict with their cousins Kauravas. This episode is told in the Bhagavad Gita, one of the books of the Mahabharata. This very long text, written verses between the 5th century before our era and the 3rd century, recounts the fratricidal fights of two clans within the same family of deities. Its eighteen songs are besides the cause of the founding myths of the Indian culture and civilization. The first book (Adi parva) shows the including ambition of the poem and of its philosophical orientation . “ Whatever is spoken about virtue, wealth, pleasure, and salvation may be seen elsewhere but whatever is not contained in this is not to be found anywhere " (section LXII).

Among the multitude of stories the Mahabharata conceals, one of most original is that of the marriage of Draupadi. It is a very rare case of polyandry in mythology. At the time of one of his raids , Arjuna, one of the five brothers, conquests Draupadi, most beautiful woman in the world. She is the incarnation of Shri, goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the fortune and of the splendor of the kingdom. When Arjuna is back, Kunti, the mother of this one, convinced that is food that he brings back, invites him to divide his spoils with his brothers. The word of a mother being sacred, Draupadi must therefore become the wife of the five Pandava brothers. An extremely scandalous marriage settlement for the morals of the former Aryans, if not for ours.

Well, in any event, the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) were more logical, more concerned of harmony, since they reduced this number of god-or-demons to 4, which makes it possible to the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, to be in the center.

The trifunctionality being hardly in the Celtic mind, there does not exist either one god or demon of medicine. There are several ones unlike what the text by Caesar suggests.

According to Caesar indeed, it is Belin/Belen (called by him Apollo) who was supposed to avert diseases.

But the medical function was always in reality, in druidic land, also assumed by different other healing god-or-demons, and was never reserved for one divine entity, like in the Irish heresy on the other hand (by heresy, we want only to mean a a little too advanced deviation compared to the broad outlines of the ancient continental druidism) with the children of Diancecht: Armedia, Miacos and company.

Some elementals of rivers like Sequana. Elementals of sacred springs or wells. Some elementals combined with the thermal springs (Boruo/Bormo/Bormanus). Some elementals combined with the healing power of the sun (Grannos). And Taran/Toran/Tuireann, sometimes, was also evoked for the concrete cure of the diseases concerning the physical sight. The reasoning of the patients was the following one : they called upon quite naturally, for the safeguard of their sight, the god-or-demon who personified the light.

Another mistake due to the interpretatio romana (even the great French archeologist Jean-Jacques Hatt fell into the trap), the existence of a god-or-demon called Toutatis or Teutates.

Unlike the Greco-Roman Panth-eon, very structured, the Celtic Panth-eon or Pleroma appears indeed more chaotic; and according to the tribes, it is one or the other of the deities who is put in the

foreground. Some accounts (and in particular the Pharsalia by Lucan) indeed suggest that there exists, or existed, a divine entity called toutatis/Teutates. However that is completely erroneous! There does not exist and there never existed , a druidic god-or-demon called Toutatis/Teutates. This word is not a proper noun, but a common noun meaning only tribal or national, and designating local , or in the best regional,deities of whom we do not know the (proper) noun. It could even be an adjective used to avoid pronouncing the name of the god-or-demon in question. Many dedications which are ascribed to him, in fact, are therefore intended for local deities, and not for a single Panceltic god-or-demon. This god-or-demon was not obligatorily the same one from one tribe to another. Each tribe-State is characterized by a different Panth-eon or Pleroma, a different main god-or-demon: its guardian or “polias“ deity (to take over a Greek over), its toutatis or teutates god-or-demon.

What it is necessary to understand well, when we speak about the ancient Celtic world, it is its total lack of political unity, and its division in a multitude of cities, each one having its religion. But when we speak about a city in this case, we do not designate a town or an urban area necessarily, but a human, autonomous, community. A Celtic “city “could not have very well besides an urban center. For an observer of the time, the city, it was initially and especially the men who composed this tribe-State. The best of the evidence of that is that many cities, with the Romanization which followed, lost their original name to be designated only by the name of the tribe-State of which they were the capital. Thus the main town of the Cantii (formerly Durovernum Cantiacorum) became Canterbury (Cantwarebyrig, meaning the “fortress of the men in Kent “) just like Paris was the city of the Parisii. These State tribes were built slowly, by synecism, an association of several close villages around a common center: a place often overlooked by a hill, and which becomes their fortress. The autonomous nature of these cities was supported by the geographical relief, which limited the communications, thus reinforcing their autarky. Each State tribe therefore had its teutates god-or-demon, guarantor of its territorial integrity, and recognized in him its founding father. He was consequently the protective god-or-demon of the tribe, including in the warlike meaning of the word, and people devoted the skin spoils of the overcome enemies to him. This large number of independent tribe-States, was besides the leading cause of the wars and of the scarcity of every Panceltic action (notesworthy exception: Ambicatus or Athur). This personal nature of the Celtic god-or-demons, also explains in a very large part the later development of the druidiaction. The god-or-demons of druidism can stick to a place or a community.

The interpretatio romana did not produced always uniformly and everywhere the same result.

Let us take an example. The deity called “cocidius“ (Welsh coch) which means “the one “ within the meaning of “bloody, who has blood on his hands “. This adjective or this epithet can relate to a hunter god-or-demon as well as to a warrior god-or-demon, and even today, if we wanted to modernize the concept, also a serial killer. We therefore find this adjective as well ascribed to the Roman god of war or sovereign, than to the also Roman...... god-or-demon of hunting.

The principal inscription comes from Bewcastle in Cumberland, where two silver plates bearing the effigy of the god-or-demon, and dedicated in his honor, were discovered.

DEO SANCTO COCIDIO ANNIVS VICTOR CENTVR LEGIONIS.

To the holy god or demon Cocidius, Annius Victor, centurion of the legion.

DEO MARTI COCID SANCTO ALIVS VITALIANVS.

To the god or demon Mars Cocidius, Aelius Vitalianus.

DEO DO COCDIO AVNTINVS.

To the temple of the god-or-demon Cocidius, Auntinus.

An inscription found at Birdoswald in Cumbria compares him with Jupiter, another found at Risingham in Northumberland compares him with the Roman god-or-demon Sylvanus, by interpretatio romana.

The Fanocodi of the anonymous Ravenna Cosmography, located between MAIA (Bowness one Solway) and BROCAVVM (Brougham, Cumbria) is perhaps this Bewcastle of which six altars out of nine are devoted to Cocidius.

EXTENSION

(Gathering mistletoe of principles).

This mental process can also concern not only proper names but also COMMON NAMES. The intermediate beings between God and men may be considered for example WHAT THEIR NAMES ARE AS ROUGHLY EQUIVALENT angels jinns gods.

"The essential method," in the history of religions, is "the comparative method, in which one makes up for the insufficiency of information on the continuous history of a belief or an institution, in a race and a society, by facts borrowed from other milieus and other times. "(E. Goblet d'Alviella at the Third International Congress on the History of Religions, Oxford, 1908).

This definition emphasizes the nature and purpose of our all-over interpretations: it is a method for better understanding ancient Druidism by filling the gaps in the documentation of this religion with elements from other religions.

You can also trace the origins of such a comparison back to classical antiquity. When the Greeks and the Romans practiced the interpretatio Graeca or Romana reciprocally, when these same peoples designated as we have seen by the name of their own gods Egyptian or Phoenician, Celtic or Germanic deities, when the Etruscan mirror engravers represented Greek myths - such as the birth of Athena - by giving all the characters Etruscan names, all of them more or less consciously claimed that they recognized similarities between Zeus, Jupiter, Tinia, Amon, Baal, Thor . .. But, on occasion, local names could also appear. In this respect, particularly significant texts are due to Apuleius, who saw very well that the original Great Goddess of the Mediterranean, with universal powers, was represented, in historical times, by various deities in the different countries of the region. It is, first of all, an invocation of the hero Lucius to the "queen of heaven," which he refers to under various names (Met., 11, 2, 1-4)... It is then the answer of the said goddess, who takes up various names, before revealing her true name..." "Behold Lucius I am come, your weeping and prayers have moved me to succor you. I am she that is the natural mother of all things, mistress and governess of all the elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chief of powers divine, Queen of heaven, the principal of the Gods celestial, the light of the goddesses: at my will the planets of the air, the wholesome winds of the Seas, and the silences of hell be disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in divers manners, in variable customs and in many names, for the Phrygians call me Pessinuntica, the mother of the Gods: the Athenians call me...".

The reflection goes beyond the univocal correspondences admitted by everyone, by simultaneously highlighting the similarities between these goddesses - which make us able to link them to a unique archetype - and the particularities that they may present in various places in the ancient world. The observations of the moderns can only confirm the correctness of Apuleius' point of view.

The fruitfulness of comparative research on a linguistic basis and the dangers that we have pointed out above a "borderless" comparatism should not, however, dissuade us from exploring other forms of comparatism, in particular by bringing into play populations united not necessarily by a common origin (and possibly very distant from each other in time and space), but by geographical and chronological proximity. Comparing neighboring populations in time and space can be fruitful. When comparable conditions exist in terms of geography and climate, fauna and flora, we can expect to see similar lifestyles, and thus also similar elements in religious life. It is well known that religion is very much linked to the structure of its liturgical calendar to the cycle of the seasons, which controls the cycle of sowing and harvesting, the mowing and farrowing of livestock, the beginning and end of wars, and the possibilities of exchange and trade between neighboring peoples. And these contacts themselves, whether peaceful or warlike, with the population transfers to which they may give rise - be it the capture of prisoners or marriages - are also factors of reciprocal influence between neighboring populations. From this point of view, Rome can provide a good observation post. Bringing together inexplicable in Rome by the Indo-European heritage, elements, and better preserved rituals in other Mediterranean societies, thus enables a better understanding of what happened in the Latium.

A "linguistic" - and to some extent "genealogical" - comparatism based on geographical and chronological proximities is thus superimposed on a linguistic" - and to some extent "genealogical" – comparatism.

The example of Rome shows that these two forms of comparatism are not exclusive to each other, but on the contrary that they are equally legitimate and complementary (Gerard CAPDEVILLE University of Paris IV - Sorbonne).

COMPARISON IS NOT REASON, BUT MAKES US ABLE TO PUT REASON BACK ON TRACK.

Our somewhat crazy bet to us, high-knowers of today is that..... "It is only by using a broad system of equivalences that we can overcome the radical otherness of ancient Druidism.”

But this broadening makes an increased liberation of our current fetters possible through clearing Satanism or the various beliefs in the action of the Devil in this world and by putting reason back in the debate. Thus an integral anti-racism.

"The method of observation has a sure procedure: it gathers facts to compare them, and compares them to know them better. The natural sciences are, in a way no more than a series of comparisons. As each particular phenomenon is ordinarily the result of the combined action of several causes, it would be only a deep mystery for us if we considered it on its own: but if it is compared with analogous phenomena, they throw light each on the other" (Joseph-Marie De Gerando The observation of savage peoples, Paris, 1800).

From Herodotus, the father of comparative religion, to Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900), the founder of comparative mythology, the universalist method is the one that has produced the most results, George Dumezil having limited himself to the framework of Indo-European languages and Claude Levi-Strauss having proposed a vast and impressive mytho-logic animated by the continuous variation and change of narratives whose semantic matter would be organized in codes and binary oppositions referring ultimately to the universal structures of the human mind.

The extreme right-wing thinker who is fashionable in France today among kind and smart people, let's say among left-wing democratic republicans and all that, on a subject as fundamental as the nation, nevertheless remains Renan (understand who can) while his religious comparativeism assigns to the spirit of Indo-European languages a higher rank than that of Semitic languages (The general history and comparative system of the Semitic languages, Paris, 1855).

In accordance with the Romantic German theories of the time, according to which languages are closely bound to the spirit of each people (which is largely true), Renan transposed a series of linguistic considerations into an ethno-cultural issue. Under his pen, the Semites are recognized almost exclusively "in negative characters" given that they had no mythology, science, philosophy, curiosity, objectivity, sense of nuance, visual arts, epic, political life, organization, or variety. "The Semitic race - Renan wrote- compared to the Indo-European race, genuinely represents an inferior combination of human nature." In his later works, above all later 1870, Renan will specify and clarify his positions concerning the "sensitive" questions of race and anti-Semitism, while enriching his arguments with a depth that is missing from his History of the Semitic Languages. The conception that makes monotheism a sudden and immediate intuition of the Semitic peoples (a characteristic that Renan also considered to be of capital importance for the progress of mankind) will nevertheless still remain the driving force of his work, even though everything proves that there has been a historical evolution - from polytheism to monotheism - of the Semitic religions in question.

Since all human language being by definition limited, we cannot speak in Leibniz scientific terms of mystical states. The exercise is rather a matter of poetry.

The generalized all-round interpretation will therefore be one of the essential lines of work of this study, which will put hypostases and henads and avatars, awenyddion and illuminati and ishraqiun, God and Destiny, gods and angels, lon laith xvarnah and belissama etc. on the same level ........

Its essential purpose remains the understanding of a real religion, existing or having existed, in all its diversity.

But it is not forbidden to also ask the question of a system that would be valid for several of these religions.

THE (CHTHONIAN) LOWER (UNDERGROUND OR AIR)

GOD-OR-DEMONS.

THE OTHER MAGIC OF LIFE.

Inanimate objects do you have a soul??

As we have had the opportunity to see it, the general evolution movement of the druidic religion or spirituality was to go towards an increasing personalization of the elements or natural forces. But in this field former druids never went as quickly and as far as the Greek poets and their wild polytheism all around.

In the spirituality of the druids of the same time or in their view of the world, our German brothers in paganism call weltanschauung, there were still strong traces of animism and there existed still therefore some elements or natural forces not having been the subject of anthropomorphism as thorough as in Greece, just endowed with movements of reaction going in the direction with a kind of poetic justice before the expression is invented *.

Among Celts indeed, forces of nature are not changed , like already most of the time in Homeric Greece, into human shaped characters who have the ideas as well as the passions of men; for example : Zeus, the sky; Poseidon, the sea; Aidoneus, the underground, and all others.

Divine action of the Fate through the secondary causations which are elements.

Those who later, called “judicial duel” various legal duels believed in the justice of one higher being having created the world, etc., etc., and intended to find, in the result of these duels, a manifestation of this as infallible and almighty as indirect, justice.

The ancient druids were not unaware of this idea but they also believed that elements could contribute to this divine justice.

In druidic spirituality, each component of the material world that we see is still a mysterious being, an elemental which hears our invocations and which sees our acts, it is from them that as of this life, when we cause their intervention in the human businesses, we receive the punishment deserved by those who do not respect their commitments.

For example, the emperor (high king) of Ireland, contemporary of Saint Patrick, in the fifth century of our era, Lóegaire.

One day he made the commitment to no longer require the Boroma, the tax taken over the atectai (over the dhimmi Muslim theologists would say). He gave as guarantors of his word all the elements: sun and moon, water and air, day and night, sea and land. According to our ancient legends, he violated this oath and underwent the following disastrous consequences: the ground swallowed him, the sun burned him, the wind refused to him the respirable air; the perjury of King Lóegaire was thus punished with most atrocious of deaths.

N.B. The legendary text which reports to us these wonders does not explain it yet by the divine justice, of which the idea had not penetrated yet in the secular literature in Ireland when this story was written for the first time. It presents the punishment of Lóegaire as being the result of the direct action of the forces of nature to which the perjurer king had appealed by an oath solemnly sworn initially, then finally violated.

The sun, called to witness by Lóegaire , burns him when the oath is violated…. It is that the sun heard the oath and saw the violation of it. The sun “sees all and hears all.”

But the ground, the wind, the water, are neither deafer nor blinder than the sun. When the one who concludes a contract requests them to guarantee it, they hear his voice, and, if the contract is not fulfilled , they inflict the punishment which is in their attributions; for this reason the ground absorbed Lóegaire , for this reason the wind refused to him the air necessary to his breathing.

The Celtic oath indeed transports us back in a framework very different of the Christian framework and former even to that of epic Greece where, in the oath, people called upon the divine couple of anthropomorphic gods who, in hell, punished the perjurers.

At the primitive time,to which this formula of the Celtic oath makes us go back, there are three powers which still remained at the animist stage and which mankind therefore fears before all the others, they are: sky, land and water (water has the same powerful faculties, without distinction between, sea water river water and water contained in a cauldron. Cf. the ordeals).

Of that we have evidence in the ancient texts.

Agamemnon, in an old oath form, calls upon the rivers. The ancient spirituality, to which this form refers, appears to have been still alive among the Celts bordering the Rhine in the fourth century of our era.

When a husband doubted the fidelity of his wife, he put the newborn child on a shield and posed the shield on the river; when the river absorbed the fragile skiff, the child was convicted of illegitimacy and the mother of adultery; the Rhine, it was believed, had seen this adultery and he had heard the appeal lodged in his justice by the insulted husband.

Emperor Julian evokes this use in an epistle sent to the philosopher Maximus. In his second speech to the emperor Constantius, he comes back even to this habit. The Celtic use about which Julian speaks provided besides the subject of an anonymous piece of poetry collected in the Greek anthology.

These three texts agree to note that in the eyes of the Celts the Rhine was a judge in the last resort . The Rhine imposed the sentence by making the shield carrying the baby sinking, the acquittal by making them survive.

Among them therefore existed the notion of a higher power (Tocad, or Tocade, in the feminine ) of which river, through a kind of supernatural manifestation , expressed the decision.

In 336 before our era, Celtic ambassadors (therefore some druids at the time according to C.-J. Guyonvarc'h) came to find Alexander the Great, then at the beginning of his reign. They entered into an alliance with him and confirmed the treaty by an oath: “If we do not fulfill our commitments,” they said, “let the sky falling on our heads crush us ; the land half-opening engulf us; the sea by overflowing submerge us.”

From two texts of Greek authors contemporary of Alexander the Great, we must indeed conclude that such a form was used by the Celts and at the date we indicate.

After having made the ambassadors drink, Alexander undoubtedly asked them: “What do you fear more? ” but instead of answering him: “It is you,” as probably Alexander expected it, the Celts retorted indeed: “We fear nobody; we fear only a thing, it is that the sky falls on our head.”

Such an answer was preserved to us in the remaining fragments of a book written by one of the most famous generals of Alexander, Ptolemy, died king of Egypt in 283.

Alexander regarded the answer of the Celts as rudeness. His teacher , Aristotle, perhaps made a different observation of the thing according to his book heading Nicomachean Ethics . The Celts, he noticed, fear only a thing, it is that the sky falls on them if they do not fulfill their treaty of alliance; they therefore believe not to be concerned with the last two articles of their oath: Consequently, they are afraid neither of the earthquakes, nor of the waves; therefore they are madmen or insensible persons as regards pain. Such was the reasoning of Aristotle, died in 322, fourteen years after Alexander’s interview with the Celtic ambassadors.

Completely idiotic, of course!

* Let us note nevertheless that in reality nature is neither perfect nor imperfect, it is what it is and there is only it.

FROM NATURALNESS TO SUPERNATURALNESS

THROUGH PRETERNATURALNESS.

As we already have had the opportunity to say it on several occasions, the world is a closed universe or Pariollon (or Bitos), containing “God-or-Devil “and other spiritual beings in addition to ourselves, because there is no longer non-being. The One God-or-Devil Being, includes the multiple (its hypostases) and gives it a base it. Eternity ( Celtic aiu) supports time. The deities are as many Powers of the Divine one which is One essentially, a little as in a company, the president delegates his powers to collaborators.

To go from the multiple towards the single one, man can adopt a pantheist view and see the divine one that there is in each thing. Then, with the polytheist view, man can see the divine one in the image of man in the form of personal god-or-demons. As regards the shape or appearance, the god-or-demons of the druidism are often seen as

personal god-or-demons, following the example of the Christ or Messiah of the Jews; i.e., having a human shape, capable of human emotions, and achieving actions resembling these of the human beings. Even if they are immortal and have, of course, infinitely more powers. It is surely the most accessible way to comprehend the divine one, because these humanized god-or-demons are in our image, with each characteristics related to concrete human series of problems. Man generally cannot worship too abstract entities, and he therefore projects on them shapes which please to his heart. The multiplicity of the divine forms we find in the divine world, according to the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), expresses the multiplicity of the ways in which men love, wish, fear, hope and therefore live.

We can intercalate between polytheism and monism, a layer which is rather thin, that of bi-theism. Finally; in the vision monist view, we can comprehend the divine one as a Big Whole.

Of course all these points of view are compatible and it is even healthy to seek to comprehend them all. We meet too often some “neopagans “ persuaded that their thought is proven to be incompatible with the monotheism (we speak, of course, not of the institutional monolatry, but of the philosophical and reflected monotheism). Man, however, realizes, through experience, that the philosophical and reflected monotheism, but also the polytheism, as people could believe opposite, meet. Just like it is healthy in the experiment of the divine one to thus defined monotheist scale, to understand that it is a form of the divine impersonal; and that we should not give to it an image of bearded old man with a personality even gender (to make it a father for example this is why the former druids clearly preferred the image of the cauldron or parios to speak about it); it is healthy to understand that the polytheist deities have nothing absolute in themselves. Even if the gods or demons of polytheism are a great source of teaching, they should always be relativized, not to take them for absolute truths in themselves.

“ They likewise discuss and impart to the youth many elements respecting the power and the majesty of the immortal gods “

What can we say about the today nature of the god-or-demons according to high-knower of the druidiaction (druidecht)? What is a god-or-demon viewed by the druids? An invisible reality (it is perceived by an intuition of the mind); an immaterial and immortal essence; an archetype of reality, conceived as understandable Form, model of all things, a reality not perceived and nevertheless more real than the tangible beings?

By promoting to the condition of god-or-demon all human or cosmic conceivable energies, does the druidic polytheism idolize simple illusions as the Judeo-Islamic-Christians proclaim it? Sankara in his very philosophical and very considered commentary on the splendid Chandogya Upanishad explained well indeed that the gods answer or correspond to the inclinations of our senses confirmed by the experiment.

It is another great Indian philosopher, Karapatri, who found best answers to be made to this kind of criticism (Shri Bhagavati Tattva, Siddhanta, vol. V).

He explains indeed why an illusion is, of course, only an appearance, and a misleading appearance, but even an appearance nevertheless has always as a base a reality, because nothing illusory can

exist without a support, and the reality of the support fills up the illusion. While worshipping an illusion or its manifestations, in reality people always worship the truth which is behind it, i.e., the forever unknowable Vastness on which this “illusion” is based. That it is through knowledge or non-knowledge, all the things draw their reality from the one who perceives them.

What personally I am unable to bringing closer to the passage of the Bhagavad Gita founding in a final way I think the tolerance to be had with respect to the other worships (field in which the mass religions which are Judaism Christianity and Islam are definitely less credible or at least inspire less confidence).

Bhagavad Gita 9, 23-29. “Those who are devotees of other gods and who worship them with faith actually worship only me, O son of Kunti, but they do so in a wrong way because I am the only enjoyer and master of all sacrifices. If one offers me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I accept it. I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever renders service unto me in devotion is a friend, is in me, and I am also a friend to him.”

What personally I am unable to bringing closer to the passage of the History of the cemeteries where King Cormac defends intelligently the traditional view of Celtic paganism on the matter

“Ar ro ráidseom na aidérad clocha ná crunnu acht no adérad intí dosroni & ropo chomsid ar cul na uli dúla .i. in t-óenDia nertchomsid ro crutaig na dúli …“

“ For he [Cormac] said that he would not adore stones, or trees, but that he would adore him who had made them, and who had power over all the elements, i.e., the unique powerful God who created the elements…“( Senchas na relec. History of the cemeteries).

We are here consequently very close to Jung proclaiming the psychological reality of illusion and its therapeutic value. How much invaluable appears from this point of view the enumeration god-or-demons to which the Celtic Panth-eon or pleroma proceeds! The high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) always could direct the inclinations of each one towards a particular worship.

You wish a large descent? Worship your ancestors. You seek peace in your couple? Speak to the fairies of the Matres lubicae or nessamae (Latin proxumae) type. Do you want strength? Seek on the side of Camulos or Smertrios. A wife? See the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Brangaine, of the famous romance of Tristan and Iseult. Luck? Offer a sacrifice to Lug. You are fanatic of beauty? Belin/Belen will fulfill you. As regards the enlightenment of the knowledge, venerate the belisama Brigindo Brigantia Brigit. And for more a long life, regular visits to healing the god-or-demons are essential, of course. In short exactly the same thing as in the Catholic Christianity with its saints.

In the final analysis, the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) thinks his god-or-demons at the same time as realities and illusions, as a way of providing contact with the portion of universal reality to which the psychological or spiritual level of each one corresponds.

It is at the same time an illusory belief and a veracious illusion, similar to the nature even of Man whose existence cannot be more defined , proven, denied or affirmed, than that of God or Devil. Men and god-or-demons pose and affirm at the same time, and the god-or-demons, just like the men besides; can be considered, either like simple impersonal private processes deprived of any substantial existence, or like more or less homogeneous and durable entities.

Margot Adler noted that most of our progress in the knowledge of polytheism comes from Jungian psychologists; who stated a long time that the god-or-demons and the goddess-or-demonesses of the myths, legends, or fairy tales, represent archetypes , powers and potentialities rooted in our psyche.

The works of the Swiss Carl Gustav Jung indeed bring an unquestionable lighting on this form of spirituality. The archetypes represent motifs, myths, symbolic images , or dreams, of Mankind, or also models of instinctive behavior.

Jung studied the operating process and their role in psychic life. Let us quote among most fundamental: the persona (the self), the shadow (personal unconscious), the anima (the female streak in men), the animus (the male streak in women).

Besides various authors think today that some of the god-or-demons of ancient paganism, that many theological concepts or divine visions of ancient druidism, match what the Swiss great druid calls

archetypes; in other words, some organizers of personality (as well as the genetic program, contained in the DNA, constitutes the organizer of our cells), implanted in the human unconscious.

The archetype is a symbol we find in all human races and represents “an instinctive tendency “. He is like a common instinct, being perpetuated in time and space.

As Jung saw it very well, certain god-or-demons are undoubtedly personifications of these psychic forces… These deities indeed represent the (schematized) qualities or faults of Mankind. Examples the Archetype of the Warrior, the Archetype of the Wounded Healer.

These two Archetypes emphasize for example the following fundamental qualities:

- The senses of honor and the judicious use of the strength.

- Mutual help and compassion.

But there exists many other archetypes.

- The Archetype of the Wise Old man.

- The Archetype of the Trickster.

- The Archetype of the good ruler.

- Etc., etc.

Archetype is at the same time universal but also modeled by the culture. The Warrior for example, is symbolized by the samurai among Japanese, Bruce Lee in Hong Kong, Cuchulainn in Ireland. Either it is the Wise Old man, the Hero, the Great mother, the Ruler, the archetypes are not necessarily isolated from the others. They can be combined in the collective unconscious, to intermingle even to possibly merge. Thus, the Hero and the Wise Old man produce the philosopher and visionary king; whereas the Hero and the Devil lead to the satanic tyrant. We find this same observation in the ambivalence of certain god-or-demons or certain myths, like that of the bludgeon of the Suqellos Dagda Gurgunt, which kills on a side or ressuscite on the other (not forgetting the god of agriculture Bregsos/Bres).

According to our counterpart Jean Shinoda Bolen, these inner diagrams can explain the differences observed between men and women in the behaviors. Various archetypes are indeed working in the unconscious of each woman at a given period of her life. Scathache the she-warrior, the temptress, and so on.

Within the framework of her work, Jean Shinoda Bolen also met men identifying a portion of themselves with a goddess-or-demoness, or a fairy. Conversely, there are god-or-demons in each woman.

In short, god-or-demons and goddess-or-demonesses, represent the numerous qualities of the human psyche. In that case, of course, Mabon/Maponos/Oengus could be very well the god-or-demon of eternal youth and of its frenzy (many stars of the show business incarnated this archetype perfectly, sometimes even with a tragic end…)

We agree , on the principle, but let us admit nevertheless in this case that Jung was particularly badly inspired in the choice of the names of his archetypes!

The god-or-demons and goddess-or-demonesses of druidism, also differ from the deities of the Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism, in that druidism always thought that they are really forces acting in the mind of men; that these values are engines of any human action leaving the field of the pure reflex; but too that they are also forces outside the man, and depending on nature (a little as when we speak about the sense of place or of the alleviating effect of a walk in the forest).

The primitive religion is at the same time religion and science. It explains with the means at hand the natural phenomena like the sun, the stars, the trees, the storms. The myths tell how the world appeared, who are the god-or-demons, what phenomena they control, and how we can make them favorable to us.

The divine forces, the numina, preexist to every anthropomorphization, guarantee the upholding of the various times of the life of man and have their name from the action thus patronized. Thereafter, these numina having received a name, their function was to protect such or such human action. Example foundry, shoemaking, agriculture, war, poetry.

Every mythology is, basically, a classification, but which borrows its principles from religious beliefs, and not from scientific notions. The well-organized Panth-eons share nature out just like elsewhere clans share universe out.

To ascribe such or such natural things to a god-or-demon, is tantamount to group them under the same genetic heading, to arrange them under the same class; and the genealogies, the identifications made between the deities, imply coordination or subordination relationships, between the various classes of things these deities represent.

Primitive classifications seem to be attached without a break to the first scientific classifications. It is that indeed, so deeply that they differ from the latter in certain connections, they have, however, all the essential characteristics of them.

First of all, they are, just like classifications of the scientists, systems of ordered notions. The things are not simply laid out there in the form of groups isolated from each other, but these groups maintain the ones with the others the defined relations, and their set forms the same unit. The science and its system of values not existing yet at the time, natural phenomena (storm, lightning, wind…) therefore found explanation only in the deification of these cosmic forces. The god-or-demons were the only possible explanation in this time.

Also let us take advantage of the opportunity for definitively putting an end to the legend which is that the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) were idolatrous in the strictest sense of the word; i.e., worshipped really stones, trees or animals . As Francisco Marco Simon (of the University of Saragossa and for the Celtic priests of Hispania therefore) showed it very well, the people of this land by no means seem to have directly worshipped the trees, the mountains or certain animals. There is no bull-god-or-demon or horse-god-or-demon, or mountain-goddess, but simply theophanies, the fact that invisible deities appear or are distinguished in these elements of nature.

This remark of Francisco Marco Simon in connection with the Celts of the Iberian peninsula is nevertheless to moderate on two points.

Ancient druids thought that animals too, unlike the great French Philosopher that was Descartes, had a soul, an embryo of soul, we will say, that in any case there were kinds of animal soul/minds; and that these animal soul/minds could communicate between them to form a kind of collective animal soul/mind: the spirit of the species; what we call today an egregore when it is a question of the animal being called himself and not without much hubris or illusions, homo sapiens sapiens.

Egregore. From Latin gregs, gregis = herd, crowd, with prefix ex = outgoing from. The egregore is therefore the active result, or born from the action, of a crowd. It is a collective being.

An egregore is the presence of a powerful force, caused then kept alive by a psychological crowd, the desires and the emotions of many individuals brought together with a common aim. Example a hunting pack of wolves. This alive force, then has a certain form of autonomy and awareness.

With regard to the naked ape which baptized himself Homo sapiens, as saw it well Gustave Le Bon in his study on the crowd psychology, the egregore is related to the feeling of membership and of surpassing oneself whatever the cause and the goal are.

The blind faith of million people in the dogmas of a religion, channeled by inflamed sermons, gives one of the most powerful egregores known, very dreaded by democracies. See, for example, the expressions of hatred or the hateful crowds raised by blasphemies, generally attributed to Christians, in Pakistan: pure hatred, personified hatred. But it should be known that religion is not the one to create egregores! Another example: in America, and also now in Europe, flourish within hospitals some “groups of prayers “ which pray for the cure of the patients who asked it to them. Specialists realized that patients suffering from serious illness, and for whom these groups prayed, recovered much more quickly, and had chances of cure more increased, than patients who did not profit from these groups of prayers! Why? Quite simply because the “group of prayers “ by its devotion, will channel an energy we could describe as an energy of cure, and which will mix with energy of the concerned patient; making him thus much stronger! Here is an excellent example of egregore!

An egregore is therefore a thought form caused by the desires, aspirations,dreams, decisions, commitments, ideas,will, of one or several human beings. While focusing oneself on a goal and while acting to give it life, a person is able to create an egregore likely to develop during an unspecified time.

According to the intensity of the idea then put forward and to the number of people who will adhere to it, this time can last from a few millennia to several days, even only a few hours for Gustave Le Bon.

“Our preceding work was devoted to describe the genius of races. The following work is devoted to an account of the characteristics of crowds. The whole of the common characteristics with which heredity endows the individuals of a race constitute the genius of the race. When, however, a certain number of these individuals are gathered together in a crowd for purposes of action, observation proves that, from the mere fact of their being assembled, there result certain new psychological characteristics, which are added to the racial characteristics and differ from them at times to a very considerable degree“.

In short, an egregore is an aggregate of forces made up of vital, emotional, mental and spiritual, currents, according to the vibratory quality of the thought form. These vital currents, created by the group of individuals from which the egregore is resulting, infiltrate the awareness of the group in the form of desires, concepts and aspirations.

This definition, mutatis-mutandis, can also apply to the animals. It is then what it is called in other circumstances animal soul/minds.

The ancient druids also thought that there existed what we could call soul/sense of place (Chinese Tu Di Gong), a mysterious energy capable of being released from certain places, and that certain elements could deeply influence us, we uns, mere mortals. Because as my famous fellow countryman author of the inspired hill (Sion) has said it, it exists places where spirit breathes.

Light is for example a natural source of energy which influences our mood, and acts on the biological rhythms of our body. When we lack light, we often feel less energetic, we lose our optimism and we can even have sleep or appetite disorders. Did you never feel gloomier in winter than in summer? Moreover it is scientifically proven that the number of depressive people increases considerably with the approach of the winter.

A study of the University of Munich (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen) found an increase of 10% of the suicides and accidents at the time of foehn events. Popular mythology also combines various illnesses ranging from the migraine to the psychosis with winds of this type, of which the Santana or Santa Ana wind, in South California, which is called the murder wind (When the hills of Los Angeles are burning/Palm trees are candles in the murder wind). On the other hand, a walk in the forest can relax us and do good to us considerably (so much so that there exists even a forest therapy).

In short, there exists what we call elementals (a word my French-speaking pen-friends write invariably elementaux, as a matter of course!)

We bathe literally in an ocean of elementals. Their world and ours intersect and, consequently, the elemental world is eternally present in the human world.

The elementals are embryonic beings, in a latent state in the nature which surrounds us. But it would be a mistake to regard them as endowed with an awareness similar to ours even to that of an animal. They are only centers of forces. In themselves they have no moral characteristic. Their life is not sufficiently differentiated so that they have such properties or tendencies . On the other hand, an elemental is likely to be directed, in its movements, by the human thoughts which can, consciously or not, give it any shape and to a certain extent a human intelligence. This ceaseless sudden burst into us of rudimentary beings, whose awareness is galvanized by ours, has enormous consequences. Apart from the thought forms where they stay sometimes, elementals have obviously, a material cover which is specific to them, because no entity could really exist without being endowed with a body. There is not in the universe pure spirit, i.e., being made up of awareness only.

But it is true that the remark of Francisco Marco Simon is also true for Ireland.

“Ar ro ráidseom na aidérad clocha ná crunnu acht no adérad intí dosroni & ropo chomsid ar cul na uli dúla .i. in t-óenDia nertchomsid ro crutaig na dúli …“

In other words.

- There is no god but God, Patrick says. You carve a piece of wood, and you call it god. But it is still a piece of wood.

- Yes, Cormac answers, it is indeed still a piece of wood. But the tree of which it comes is emanated from what you call God, in the same way really as all lower gods (hypostases) . He procreated them so that we are able to see and to feel him through them.

Inanimate objects do you have a soul ?? For the high-knowers of druidiaction (druidecht), there is therefore no absolute difference between the world of the beings having a soul in the meaning where it is usually understood and the world of the inanimate objects. The world of beings having a soul as the world of the inanimate things are united in the same reality which is Existence. What is animated, by definition, IS, but it is the case also of the inanimate one. In such a design of the world, the being, either it is human, vegetable, animal, metal or stone, whether it lives or that it dies, is always animated by a force. Each force has its place in a hierarchy which range from the grain of sand to the higher Being, from the visible to the invisible one, from the audible to the inaudible one, from the tangible to the intangible one.

In other words, it is some monism. A monist religion basically centered on nature: rain, wind, water, animal, plant. The comrunos (the initiate) can communicate with the inanimate objects or conversely, especially if the bear is not only the king of the forest, but, for example, the totem of the Matugenus family.

All this made the world easier to understand than if it were governed by impersonal and capricious forces, completely indifferent to the lot of the men. What is, however, the case, in a way!

To have even cruel god-or-demons, is preferable to chaos. And personal god-or-demons like the Hesus Cuchulainn or the Christ or the Messiah of the Hebrews, make the world more bearable, by increasing the value of the human condition.

Like the Christ or the Messiah of the Judeo-Christians therefore, these forces of the environmental or human nature can take on a human appearance. The god-or-demons of the ANCIENT druidism, such as our myths describe them, are active beings, intervening in the human affairs.

They are protectors, defenders, providers, feeders, helpful; and so on. See the long list of their epithets or of their attributes which bequeathed us interpretatio romana: iovantucarus, virotutis, anextiomarus, dunatis, contrebis or contrebus (who dwells with us, who lives with us, a little like a neighbor, etc. Cf. Welsh cantref, a local community); but several of them are often rather ambivalent, even dangerous.

It was therefore essential at the time to maintain harmonious relationship with these powerful and mysterious beings, particularly through atebertas or offerings, put on the threshold of the residence of these divinities. Invaluable goods like cereals, antlers of animals, pieces of pottery, wheels, weapons and jewels… And even a small wine amphora, symbolizing blood, which believers give up in as is or from which they pour the contents in an adapted place, after having opened or having broken ritually its neck. Perhaps with a gesture similar to that which consists in “cracking open“ a bottle of champagne, nowadays.

In short, all that had value could be used as ateberta or offering.

The Celts, like the other protohistoric people, tried to control their destiny by means of these offerings of which deposits were carefully controlled by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht). It is the famous Sanskrit “dadami se dehi me “: I give you so that you give (the deity then is in a way obliged to give tit for tat ), formulation roughly translated by the Latin people with their “do ut des “.

The druidism is in reality monotheistic (monist) on the ontological level, and polytheistic on the liturgical level, because, abstractedly, philosophically, it seems well that, even of the level of the popular thought, man cannot think God-or-Devil differently than one. But when it is a question of connecting with the divinity through rituals, this image breaks up into a plurality of hypostases (like light in a rainbow) which makes easier the projection of the human desires and the contacts with the divinity.

Here another factor takes part: a religious system is never perceived or is never lived uniformly by everyone. In no latitude a “man of the common run “ views things in the same way than a philosopher. In connection with a worship or a ritual, it is therefore always necessary to specify the level of knowledge and of reflection on which those we question are. We will have an image different of the beliefs of a people according to whether the popular religion is studied, or that of the philosophers who manage to have a more precise view of ultimate realities.

DEFENSE AND REINSTATEMENT OF ANIMISM.

Animism is founded on a very simple principle : all that moves or acts (has an effect ) has a nonhuman soul, with variable force and intensity.

N.B. But be careful, no mistake! We want in no way by speaking here at this place about animism, to make it clear that Celtic civilization had only animism as only horizon. We want only to say that there was in druidic culture some remainders of a well-understood animistic thought.

The animism (from Latin animus, originally spirit, then soul) is the belief in a soul or at least a vital force, giving a soul to the living beings, the objects but also the natural elements, like the stones or the wind, as in the protective genies of the place ( earth deities in each village place or mountain a little similar to the Chinese Tu Di Gong).

These souls or these mystical spirits, manifestations of deceased persons or of animal deities, can act on the tangible world, in a beneficial way or not. It is therefore advisable to pay attention to them.

Thus defined, the animism can characterize extremely various societies, located on all the continents.

Introduced at the end of the 19th century by the British anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor to designate the religions of the societies which he describes as “primitive,” the concept was an undeniable success until in the first decades of the 20th century, becoming thus one of the major terms of reference of the history of the religious ethnology. This ambitious attempt at total explanation of the religious beliefs lost a large part of its validity today and contemporary works depart from it , particularly these of the French anthropologist Philippe Descola who does not see in animism a religion, but rather a way of designing the world, and of organizing it.

The word itself, often sullied with colonialist connotations, or at least perceived as pejorative, is sometimes replaced by expressions such as “popular beliefs,” “traditional religions” etc.

People traditionally oppose animism and shamanism, which have their source in the same principles of life, to the mass religions which Judaism Christianity and Islam are.

In reality all the religions admit the existence of these invisible forces that some people call, spirits, or demons, or jinns, or angels, etc., either these entities are considered beneficial or malefic. The three monolatrous religions have several theories on these beings endowed with various shapes.

Just like in animism, there is also a link between the elements perceived in nature and the religious practice of the Abrahamic monolatries. A festival like Christmas is related to a solstice, a festival like Easter is attached to the lunar calendar, and the Ramadan is similarly related to the lunar calendar besides.

In the animists, these notions are known as primitive in the sense that they relate to simple beings: stone, wind, rock, sand, water, leaves and elements like fire. We find again besides at the base of all the structured religions these transfigured elements. The veneration of rivers such Ganga in Hinduism or in former Egypt such the divinized Nile, the fire worship among Romans of antiquity with the Vestals, elsewhere the worship of the trees, are some examples.

In certain South American civilizations like in Peru, people offer to the earth products of the land like the tobacco. The offering of the bread and wine in Christianity is, of course, the evolution of a sacrifice carried out to thank nature, what a principle of animism is.

The animism is often strongly compared with shamanism; an earth deity is, of course, called upon in both cases. In reality, shamanism rather designates the belief in the possibility of communicating (mediation) with another world, and the existence of favored individuals (Shamans) or of techniques to reach this next world; which can, of course, be that of the souls or spirits but also that of dead , animals, higher beings….

Practically, however, animism implies a certain level of shamanism in this sense that to postulate the existence of a world of the souls without letting foresee a means of reaching it or of exchanging with it would be vain.

Monolatrous religions too, postulate besides also a means of communicating with their divine entities (for example through prayer).

The psychoanalyst Antoine Fratini drew the attention on the omnipresence of the references to the natural world in the great symbols of the collective unconscious: the sacred Mountain and the River, the cosmic or sacred Tree, the Sea, the Cave, the Snake, etc., which would prove the existence of an “animistic unconscious” reflection of original animism.

According to Xavier Delamarre, the word nerto would mean “ strength, vigor, power” and would come from an Indo-European stem * ner, from where old Irish nert, strength, vigor, power, virtue.

All in all, this word subsumes a crowd of ideas we would designate through the words of, sorcerer power, magic quality of a thing, magic thing, magic being, to have magic power, to be enchanted, act magically; it presents to us, joined together under a single term, a series of notions of which we foresaw the relationship, but which were to us, elsewhere, given separately. It carries out this confusion of the agent, of the ritual and of the things which appeared to us to be fundamental in all times in mankind (are not baptism and sign of the cross a kind of magic?)

In India, the mystical content of the notion only remained. In Greece, there remains hardly the scientific framework. But we are entitled to conclude that everywhere existed a notion which includes that of the magic power. It is that of a pure effectiveness, which is, however, a material and localizable, at the same time as spiritual, substance, which acts at a distance away and yet through direct connection, if not through contact, mobile and swaying without moving , impersonal and taking personal shapes, divisible and continuous. Our vague ideas of chance and quintessence are pale survivals of this much richer notion. It is also, as we saw, at the same time a force, a background, a separate world and, however, added to the other. We could still say, for better expressing how the world of the magic is superimposed on the other without being detached from it, that everything happens there as if it were built on a fourth dimension of the space, of which a notion as that of nertio would express, so to speak, the occult existence.

This notion can have existed very well without to be expressed: a people do not require more to formulate a similar idea than to state the rules of his grammar. In magic, as in religion, as in linguistics, they are the unconscious ideas which act. Either certain peoples did not realize this idea distinctly, or some others exceeded the intellectual stage where it can function normally. In any case, they could not give an adequate expression of it. The ones emptied their former notion of magic power with a part of its first mystical contents; it then became half scientific; it is the case of Greece. The others, after having formed a series of dogmas, a mythology, a complete demonology, managed to reduce so well all what was fluctuating and obscure in their magic representations to mythical terms that they replaced, at least seemingly, the magic power, everywhere where it had to be explained, by the devil, the demons or by metaphysical entities. Case of the mass religions which are Judaism Christianity and Islam.

The notion of nertio among Celts is in reality formed by a series of unstable ideas which merge the ones in the others. It is in turn and at the same time quality, substance and activity.

Initially, the nertio is a force and especially that of the spiritual beings, i.e., that of the soul of the ancestors and of the spirits of nature. It is it which makes them magic beings. Indeed, it does not belong to all the spirits indistinctly. The spirits of nature are essentially endowed with nertio but all the souls of dead are not so; are nertio, i.e., effective spirits, only the souls of the chiefs, at most the souls of the household heads, and even, more especially, of those of them of the nertio appeared, either during their life, or by miracles after their death. These only deserve to be called powerful spirit, the others are lost in the multitude of the vain shadows.

But the nertio is not necessarily the force attached to a spirit. It can be the force of a non-spiritual thing, like a stone kind Lia fail Stone of Scone Stone of destiny Perilous seat Cloch labhrais Lech

lavar… etc. But it is a conscious force, i.e., it does not act mechanically and it produces its effects at a distance.

If there is therefore an infinity of nertios, we are, however, led to think that the various nertios are the same force, not fixed, simply distributed between beings, men or spirits, things, events, etc.

We can even be able to still widen the meaning of this word, and to say that nertio is the archetypal force by definition, the effectiveness of the things, which corroborates their mechanical action without destroying it. It is it which makes that the net takes fish, that the house is solid, that the boat is well seaworthy . In the field, it is the fertility; in medicines, it is the salutary or mortal virtue. In the arrow, it is what kills.

There is not only in the Celtic paganism we find a similar notion . We can recognize it through certain clues , in many societies, where later research will not be able to fail in highlighting it.

Initially, we note its existence in Oceania under the name of mana..

In North America, it is announced to us on a certain number of points of the territory . Among the Hurons (Iroquois), it is designated under the name of orenda. Other Iroquois seem to have designated it by words of the same root. John-Napoleon Hewitt, a Huron by birth and eminent ethnographer, gave us an invaluable description of it, a description rather than an analysis, because orenda is not easier to analyze than nertio.

It is a too general and too vague idea, embracing too many obscure things and qualities so that we can without difficulty familiarize ourselves with it. The orenda, it is some power , some mystical power. It is nothing in nature, and, more especially, there is no being having a soul which does not have its orenda. Gods, spirits, men, animals , are endowed with orenda. The natural phenomena, like storms, are produced by the orenda of the spirits of these phenomena. The happy hunter is that whose orenda beats the orenda of the game. The orenda of the animals difficult to take is known as intelligent and smart. We see everywhere, among the Hurons, fights of orendas, as we see, in Melanesia, some fights of manas. The orenda too, is distinct from the things to which it is attached, so much so that man can spread it and cast it: the maker of storms spirit casts his orenda represented by the clouds. The orenda is the sound the things emit; the animals which shout, the birds which sing, the trees which rustle , the wind which blows , express their orenda. In the same way, the voice of an enchanter is some orenda. The orenda of the things is a kind of incantation. Precisely, the Huron name of the oral formulation is precisely orenda, and besides orenda means, literally, prayers and songs. This meaning of the word is confirmed to us by that of the corresponding words in the other Iroquois dialects. But if the incantation is the orenda par excellence, Hewitt says to us expressly that any rite is also orenda; by the way still, the orenda approaches the nertio. It is the orenda which is effective in magic. All that it uses is known as being orenda possessed , to act by it and not by virtue of physical properties. It is it which makes the force of spells , amulets, fetishes, mascots, lucky charms, talismans, and, if you want, medicines. But we especially see it acting in the evil spell.

In short, the orenda is neither the simply mechanical power , neither the soul, neither the individual spirit, nor strength and force; John-Napoleon Hewitt establishes, indeed, that there exist other words to designate these various ideas; he defines orenda as being a power or a hypothetical potentiality to produce effects in a mystical way.

The famous concept of Manitou, among the Algonquins, in particular among Ojibwe people, also matches fundamentally our Celtic nertio. The word Manitou designates indeed at the same time, according to Father Thavenet, not a spirit, but every species of beings, magic or religious forces and qualities.

A Manitou is an individual who makes extraordinary things, the Shaman is a Manitou; the plants have Manitou; and a sorcerer showing a tooth of rattlesnakes said that it was Manitou; when it was found that it did not kill, he exclaimed therefore it had no longer Manitou.

According to John Napoleon Hewitt, among the Sioux, the terms mahopa, Xube (Omaha), wakan (Dakota), also mean magical power and magical qualities. Among the Shoshone , the word pokunt generally has the same value, the same meaning as the word Manitou has among the Algonquins; and among the Pueblos in general, the same notion is at the basis of all the magic and religious rites.

Under the term of naual, in Mexico and Central America, we can recognize a corresponding notion. It is there so persistent and so widespread that some people wanted to make it the characteristic of all the religious and magic systems, called nagualism.The naual is a totem, usually an individual totem.

But it is more than that; it is a species of a much vaster genus The sorcerer is naual, he is a naualli; naual is especially his power to transform himself, his metamorphosis and his incarnation. We see thus that the individual totem, the animal specie associated with the individual during his birth appears to be only one of the shapes of the naual. Etymologically , the word means secret science; and all its various meanings and its derivatives are attached to the original meaning of thought and spirit. In Nahuatl texts, the word means what is hidden, wrapped, disguised. Thus, this notion seems to us being that of a spiritual power, mysterious and separate, which is well that magic supposes.

In Australia, we find a notion of the same kind but it is restricted to magic and even, more particularly, to the black magic. The Perth tribe gives it the name of boolya. In New South Wales, the Aboriginals use the word koochie in order to designate the evil spirit, the personal or impersonal evil influence, and which probably has the same extension. It is again the arungquiltha of the Arunta. This “evil power” which is released from the rites of bewitchment is at the same time a quality, a force and a thing existing in itself the myths describe and to which they ascribe an origin.

We also find traces of it in India. The basic notion of Hindu pantheism, that of brahman, is attached to it.

Ultimately we also find this idea in the mass religions that Judaism Christianity and Islam are, because what Quran as a book is, if not an object equipped with nertio, what the cross is, if not an object equipped with nertio, just like baptism is a magic ritual (personal adaptation translation of the 1902 study cosigned by Marcel Mauss and Henry Hubert)

Conclusion about the nertio among Celts.

It results from our analysis that the notion of nertio is of the same order as the notion of sacredness. In a certain number of cases, the two notions merge. But the notion of nertio is in reality more general than that of sacredness. The sacredness is a species of which nertio is the genus.

Secondly, nertio is a thing, a substance, a handy essence, but also independent. And this is why it can be handled only by individuals with nertio, in a nertio act, i.e., by skilled individuals using a quite precise ritual. It is by nature transmissible, contagious; specialists pass the nertio which is in a stone kind Lia fail Stone of Scone Stone of destiny Cloch labhrais Lech lavar…on other stones, by putting them in contact. It is represented as almost physical ; the nertio makes noise in the leaves, it escapes in the shape of clouds, in the shape of flames. It is likely to be specialized: there is a nertio to become rich and a nertio to kill.

Thirdly, nertio is a quality. It is something the “nerto” thing has; it is not the thing itself (there is not thus idolatry in the strict sense of the word). We could describe it by saying it is something somewhat similar the gaefa of Vikings.

NOTICE.

As we have had the opportunity to see it, the notion of nertio among Celts is one of these unclear ideas, characteristic of our poor mankind, that the paradoxes of the Greek School of the Eleatans had emphasized well in their times and that we find much in the fashionable political speeches, which are successions of hodgepodges and confusion. A French president has even one day in thirty seconds

and one sentence managed to link three completely different concepts he presented as logically dependent or synonymous.

We believe being rid from this kind of ideas or of associations of vague and unclear ideas (but it is enough to listen to our politician’s speech to realize that it is not the case) and we have therefore difficulty to clearly perceive them, to express them scientifically, mathematically. They are obscure and vague (what means “to be lucky” for example, or “his time had run out,” “these two persons there were meant for each other” etc. .etc. These ideas are terribly abstract and general and we need them nevertheless to speak about very precise and very concrete things. Primitive nature, i.e., complex and muddled , of this notion of nertio, prevents us from making of it a scientific and rational analysis so we will satisfy to enumerate some of the material objects (talismans) to which nertio can be applied.

TALISMANS

(inanimate objects do you have a soul?)

The “sunertio “(we would say “the fluence “ today ) is a higher force widespread in nature, inhabiting certain beings and certain things, to which this “nertio “confers the power to dominate the others through physical great power, their almost supernatural gifts, coming at the same time from the magic and from the sacred one. Sunertio is in a way a fluence, that the warriors particularly seek to have when they devoted themselves to the ritual of the cut heads.

There exist two types of pagan blessing.

The meaning more usual today is that of simple greetings and corresponds to a homage paid, even to some gratitude towards a benefactor.

But originally the blessing meant a true force of safety of health or of prosperity. To bless somebody, it was to endow him with a true additional force in nertio. The signs of the blessing are indeed a long life, fruitfulness, peace as well as prosperity. It makes fertile the works the human beings achieve. When you exclaim in front of a person he is blessed, you recognize his success and his happiness as the result of a marvelous action of the sunertio (of God Judeo-Islamic-Christians say).

In the Bible, the word blessing is used sixty-seven times. Thus, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, bless their sons in order to hand down to them the blessing they themselves received from God. The blessing is a kind of sunertio related to the transmission and the fulfillment of the life. It is thus in this sense it is necessary to understand the blessing a dying father grants to his children.

By the laying on of hands and an irrevocable word, the father hands down to them all the vital forces he bears . It is the same thing with the blessing granted to the young wife who leaves the family home to set home a home.

In the Christian religion, the word also designates the gesture performed by the celebrant at the time of ceremonies such as ordination, baptism, wedding or at the end of a service and which consists in calling upon the divine mana on a person or the assembly. In Catholicism and Orthodox Churches, the blessing can be pronounced at the time of the dedication of a monument (memorial, altar, church), of an object being used for the worship (bell) or other objects (field, house, flag).

Sunertis is known as shekinah or sakinah in Arabic.To have or not to have shekinah/sakinah, such is the question which also haunts all the cultural area of the Pacific. This mana can take various forms. In Polynesia, the mana is perceived as a manifestation of the power of the god-or-demons in the world of men. In Melanesia, the mana is compared to an invisible fluid of which can be impregnated the objects or the human beings. In the Marquesas Islands, on the bludgeons of the warriors, the pattern of the head - considered to be the seat of the mana - was often repeated, as if the multiplication of this image increased the strength of the fighter. The mana in the head? We understand better why these civilizations enhanced skulls as much. In the Solomon Islands, there are some generations still, people locked up the head of the deceased persons in a shark-shaped box . In the Vanuatu , people wrapped it with a painted layer of clay, and it was placed at the top of a bamboo structure in order to exhibit it to the eyes of all. In the special opportunities, and in the framework of the worship of ancestors, people came to put down food at the base of this kind of human sculpture.

In the Celtic world, this concept of “mana “was to be probably known as “nertis “or “sunertis “. The sunertis or magic forces of god-or-demons, a druidic equivalent of the mana, could haunt various objects; and particularly, of course, the skulls of the overcome enemies or of the ancestors, as in Oceania.

“ When their enemies fall they cut off their heads and fasten them about the necks of their horses; and turning over to their attendants the arms of their opponents, all covered with blood, they carry them off as booty, singing a paean over them and striking up a song of victory, and these first fruits of the battle they fasten by nails upon their houses, just as men do, in certain kinds of hunting, with the heads of wild beasts they have mastered. The heads of their most distinguished enemies they embalm in cedar oil and carefully preserve in a chest, and these they exhibit to strangers, gravely maintaining that in exchange for this head someone of their ancestors, or their father, or the man himself, refused the

offer of a large sum of money. And some men among them, we are told, boast that they have not accepted an equal weight of gold for the head they show, displaying a barbarous sort of greatness of soul; for not to sell that which constitutes a witness and proof of one's valor is a noble thing, but to continue to fight against one of our own race, after he is dead, is to descend to the level of beasts “(Diodorus of Sicily, Historical Library, V, 29).

The Hebraic Ark of the Covenant was undoubtedly a shekinah/sakinah, i.e., mana (Celtic sunertis) , container, as there were many in Egypt at the time.

The ark indeed is a common object of Pharaonic Egypt and in all probability the Hebraic Ark of the Covenant was copied from such models (we found in the treasure of Tutankhamun an object which resembles it; about same dimensions, a wooden chest plated with gold outside and inside, two statuettes of winged characters above); and the cherubim of the Arch, of course, have nothing to do with the cherubs we see on the modern representations: they are surely more inspired from the matching Sumerian supernatural entities.

From the exit out of Egypt to the entry of the Jews in the country of Canaan, the ark is carried by the Levites, who walk three days before the other tribes. In the dry atmosphere of the desert, the Ark was sometimes haloed with a fire crest, somewhat similar to Saint Elmo's fire, and if some imprudent person risked touching it, it gave frightening jolts, true electric shocks which terrified the laymen. The ark belongs to the procession which makes it possible the crossing of the Jordan River under the direction of Joshua then to that which makes it possible to make the walls of Jericho falling, at the time of its conquest, told in the book of Joshua.

After the installation of the Israelites in the country of Canaan, the ark remains in Gilgal, then Shiloh and Kirjat-Jearim (First book of Samuel 7,1), and finally is led to Jerusalem by King David (I Chronicles 13,5-8), in a tabernacle.

- The ark was accompanied by a cloud;

- its power was immense;

- its size was reduced (it held in a chest);

- its weight ranged from 70 to 90 kilograms approximately since four men were needed to carry it;

- its internal physical nature is unknown, but a passage of the Bible teaches us that a man by the name of Uzzah would have died struck down only in touching it. When David wanted to transport the Ark from the house of Abinadab to his palace. It was indeed put on a cart driven by Uzzah, son of Abinadab. When the convoy had arrived close to the threshing floor of Chidon, the oxen which puled it had a kind of hesitation. The cart, unbalanced, leant dangerously and Uzzah put out his hand on the Ark to catch it. Surprisingly, he fell struck down.

1 Chronicles, chapter XIII: “ They came to the threshing floor of Chidon, Uzzah put out his hand to take hold of the ark, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God“.

Electronics engineers of Springfield wanted to crack this mystery. They concluded from there that in fact of mana ( of shekinah/sakinah in Quranic Arabic, it was a kind of condenser of cosmic energy functioning as an enormous electrostatic device. But how Moses did he know it and how then he received the message from « the Lord» , i.e., the waves the Ark received ? By wearing not only a linen dress touching the ground, but also the ephod combined with the square breast-piece made up of twelve gems, all with different quartz which, we know it now, are waves receivers of an immeasurable force ?

Finally, the explanation by an energy of the sunertio or mana type is still less irrational...

The modern notion of fetishism implies an observer comparing the beliefs of others, considered to be primitive, with these he regards as superior (or not primitive). Thus are therefore described as superstition the beliefs he does not manage to understand in another way than through a deprecation of them compared to these of his usual background, or at least of the idea that he has of the normality of his environment.

The word fetish comes from the Portuguese fetisso (magic, fairy-like, object) noun given by the Portuguese to the worship objects of the populations of Africa during their colonization of this continent, word itself derived from Latin fatum (fate). Fetishism consists in the empirical use of natural objects, like the elements, especially fire, rivers,animals, trees, even stones; or invisible beings: good or evil genies created by superstition and fear; such as the charms in central Africa, the burkhans in Siberia… While dealing with relationship between religions and fetishism, Alfred Binet wrote one day: “It is certain that all [religions] border it [fetishism], and that some of them even, lead to it “.

Druidism too had therefore an obvious fetishistic component, if we understand by the way that, within the framework of its religion, and with its blessing in a way, people used and handled, at pertaining to worship ends, natural or artificial objects, sending back to powers which were therefore external to them. For the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) there existed indeed a whole category of elementals which, without being distinguished radically from the others, indeed had their starting point in concrete objects, visible for human beings and close to them, a little like the Ark of the Covenant in the Bible. They were more or less magic objects which it was sometimes necessary to bring back from the next world in ours.

As symbols and representation of the sacredness, these objects (the olla or cauldron of Suqellus, the Ark of the Covenant…) made it possible to point out the presence of Invisible concretely, to concentrate or to deploy the forces which emanate from it (shekinah/sakinah ) , thanks to the existence of a support (stone of Fal or Scone, the Ark of the Covenant and so on). But when a religion is subjected to degeneration phenomena, what the case of druidism was after the Roman conquest; we can arrive indeed at a kind of identification of the signified power with its sign, a lack of thought which becomes superstition by definition (men venerate the object for itself then).

Inanimate objects do you have a soul we asked?

The best means of defining these Celtic fetishes somewhat is still to produce examples of them.

Some Celtic talismans or fetishes now therefore (the Ark of the Covenant does not form nevertheless part of the list, with all due respect to the partisans of the equation Galileans = Gauls, Jesus the Nazarene = a druid).

We find in Ireland many remains of sacred stones. A stone called Cermand Celstach for example (stone of Hornunnos?) preserved in the cathedral of Clogher (County Tyrone) still kept the traces of the layouts which were used to fix at it various silver and gold ornaments.

"The Bishop's See of Clogher has its name from one of these stones, all covered with gold (Clogher meaning Golden Stone), on which stood Kermand Kelstach, the chief Idol of Ulster. The stone is still in being. Kermand Kelstach was not the only Mercury of rude stone, since the Mercury of the Greeks was not portrayed anciently in the shape of a youth, with wings to his heels and a caduceus in his hand, but without hands or feet, being a square stone, says Phurnutus, and I say without any sculpture" (John Toland. History of the druids).

The Lyons spiritistic center Allan Kardec notes rightly that among all these Celtic sacred stones, some played the same part that the nowadays turning tables and answered by movements or various noises certain questions.

The Handbook to be used in the study of Celtic antiquity by George Dottin, page 253, speaks about the speaking stone cloch labhrais which gave answers like the lech lavar of Welshmen.

N.B. A stone being used as a territorial terminal was called lia adrad (adoration stone).

The Stone of Scone. Also known under the names of tanist stone of coronation stone or quite simply stone of destiny. Lingam in India.

It is at the beginning and according to the legend of the famous stone of Phal or Lia Fail of which we have just spoken (when the legitimate king of Ireland put his foot above, the stone was supposed to let out an enthusiastic roar).

In the Irish legend of the Colloquy of the Ancients (Acallam na senorach), this lingam is evoked as follows.

“What had remarkable therefore this stone of Fal? Asked Diarmait the son of Cerball.

If somebody were accused of something, answered Ossian, and that one made him sit down on this stone, if he had said the truth, he became white and red, but if he had lied, a black and quite visible spot appeared on him.

When the true king of Tara sat down on it, the stone roared under his feet and the three waves of Ireland responded it as in echo: the wave of Cliodhna, the wave of Tuaide and the wave of Rudraige.

Whatever the enemy king of the province which sat down above, on the other hand, the stone howled or thundered under his feet.

Whatever the sterile woman who sat down above, she was covered with a fine mist of black blood; but when it was a fertile woman, she was covered with mist of all the colors “.

The Stone of Scone or Pierre of Destiny is supposed to be used as coronation stone for the first Scottish kings of Dal Riada when they lived in Ireland. When they invaded Caledonia, the tradition assures that they would have taken it along with them in order to perpetuate this antique use. The Scottish kings were crowned upright on the stone during the coronation ceremony , probably since that of Kenneth Mac Alpin, around 847. It was preserved for historical reasons in Scone Abbey, then fallen into ruin, located close to Perth. No king could reign over Scotland without being got up before on the Stone of Scone , and according to another tradition, the kingdom would belong to the Scots as long as the stone would remain in their country.

In 1296, the stone was taken by Edward I as spoils of war and was carried to Westminster abbey where it was placed under the throne on which the British sovereigns sat down (whereas the Scottish kings, themselves, stood upright on the aforementioned stone).

In the treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton signed by Edward III in 1328, this one was committed giving back among other things this stone, what he never did.

In 1996, the British government decided nevertheless to give back the Stone of Scone to Scotland and on November 15th of the same year, after a moving ad hoc ceremony, it was installed in a good place in the castle of Edinburgh.

The perilous seat.

The Round Table comprises an empty seat reserved for the one who will achieve the quest for the Grail: it is the “perilous Seat,” thus called because whoever would like to sit down there without being worthy of it risk to be absorbed under the ground or burned alive. For as much, the seat causes much covetousness. The perilous seat is, in the Arthurian legend the unoccupied seat on the right of King Arthur. This seat is reserved to the knight who has to put an end to the quest for the Grail. When this knight has risen above all the others, then God will lead him to the residence of the Fisher-King. And when he will have asked what the Grail is become, then the Fisher-King will be healed, and the stone, of this Round Table’s seat , will be repaired.

Whoever sits down in the perilous seat without being pure enough is absorbed in the depths of the ground. The most extraordinary adventure which can tempt the knights will be thus therefore that of the “Siege Perilous” and a hierarchy will be established between them when it is a question of occupying this place of the Round Table, left traditionally vacant.

The topic does not appear in Chretien de Troyes; it was inserted in certain romances of the 13th century. A prophecy of Merlin announces, indeed, that this place is reserved for the one who will put an end to the extraordinary adventures of the kingdom of Logres (i.e., of the kingdom of Arthur).

This seat therefore causes the covetousness of each one, particularly of Perceval who, having got from the king the permission to sit down there, causes by his gesture an upheaval of the elements: the ground was split under him and the sky was covered with darkness. A come from the sky voice explains then how another than Perceval is expected to occupy this exceptional place and the ordeal of the “Perilous Seat” will be consequently related to the existence of the Fisher-King, of his handicap and with the presence of the Grail. It is Galaat, son of Lancelot of the Lake, who will bring back the Grail and will be able to sit down above without problems.

The siege perilous of Arthurian legends is undoubtedly the throne which was placed on a stone similar to that of the destiny of which we come to speak because the part of such a seat was well to indicate (by contrast, by not absorbing him) the selected one.

We may, of course, suppose that it was made in the beginning to be itinerant (the Stone of Scone apparently being rather light to be easily transported from a place to another), which would bring it closer a little to the Ark of the Covenant. Round Table and Perilous seat would constitute a Celtic equivalent of the Ark of the Covenant among Hebrews.

The sword among Celts, just like at the German ones besides, appears to be regarded as the most important manifestation of the power of the terrible god the warriors called upon ( a scholiast of Lucan compares Hesus to Mars : ESUS id est Mars) during the fight.

The Quadi, Germanic people, having to conclude a treaty, draw their swords, Ammianus Marcellinus says, and swear on them, because they regard them as gods.

The Celts of the Continent joined together against Rome swear on their military standards brought together (Caesar. B.G. VII. 2).

The Englishmen after Culloden make the Scots swear on their dirk.

A description of Ireland, written in 1600 and published in 1887 by Father Hogan, notes that the habit of the oath by the sword was still used in Ireland at the end of the sixteenth century (1598), and that then men attributed to the sword stuck in the ground a kind of divine nature.

The antiquity of the oath by the sword, in Ireland, is proven by a passage of the epic text heading Serglige Conculain, where we see Cuchulainn kept in his bed by a disease. This disease took him at the assembly of warriors which took place in Muirthemne from October 29th to November 3rd. The warriors came to praise their successes in the war there, and, as supporting documents, brought there the tongues of the enemies they had killed. Some of these warriors were insincerely and presented tongues of animals instead of tongues of men. But to know the truth and to foil the liars, people had found a infallible system. The warriors, before speaking and showing their trophies, were to swear on their sword to be veracious , and if they failed to fulfill their oath, their sword, replaced on their thigh, spoke to confound them. The Christian author of the drafting which reached us, and who probably wrote in the eleventh century, adds a gloss to this ancient account. The reason of this was, because demons were accustomed to manifest themselves to them from their arms and it was hence that their arms were sacred (comarchi).

The sword of the warrior, in the eyes of the Celt as of the Germanic one, has therefore something divine; it is it which decides on the lot of the warriors in the judicial duel, as in the war; it was regarded as the image even of the god of war. It was to be the same thing for the standards representing the one a wild boar the other a lark the other a horse the other a cock the other a labarum….(Fetishism?)

Some famous swords now.

The magic sword of Noadatus/Nuada, SYMBOL OF JUSTICE EVERY REGALIAN POWER MUST MAKE REIGN… Besides various other swords have this same power of sunertis type, to start with the famous Excalibur of the British king Arthur.

Excalibur (or Escalibor): sword of Prince Arthur. The sword of the Irish god-or-demon Noadatus/Nuada, which slices iron and steel, can have inspired the legend of Excalibur. Excalibur or Escalibor would mean: “Hard Cut “. In the Celtic tradition, Arthur’s sword is called Caledfwlch in Welsh language and Kaledvoulc' h in Breton language, from where the name of Caliborn is derived, then Escalibor and Excalibur.

Caladbolg, the magic sword of Fergus Mac Roich, in the Irish mythology.

The sword of the strange hangings : sword of Galaat.

Curtana was , according to legend, the sword of Ogier the Dane; it bore the inscription "My name is Cortana, of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durendal." Curtana was supposed to have originally been Tristan's sword, and gained the name "Cortana" when it was "cut down" to fit Ogier.

Etc., etc.

The Gae bolga (spear) of Lug, of which people could control the warlike power only by soaking its end in a cauldron of human blood.

The mallet bludgeon and the magic cauldron or olla of the Suqellus Dagda Gurgunt.

The Grail (the cauldron or olla of the Suqellus Dagda Gurgunt).

A magic harp the Irish legend adds.

The torc. The torc is a necklace worn by the Celts then, on a purely honorary basis, by Roman soldiers. It is made of a round thick metal rod, generally ball finished at its two ends, more or less worked or decorated.

Human skulls.

Not forgetting the fossil sea urchins, the wild boar shaped medallions, the amber necklaces, the votive wheels, the triskelions or triquetras, etc.

THE MAGIC OF PLACES: THE ELEMENTALS.

Individual opinion of the druid Jean-Pierre MARTIN.

The former high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), like the majority of the pagan peoples, had naturalist worships.

Formerly the natural elements were called upon; maybe because they represented the important boundaries of the usual space (the mount, the oak, the crossroads, the water point); maybe because, more away, they had represented a danger, like a pass to be crossed during travels, for example. Specialists readily use in this case the word sunertis, some nertio being released from these objects we believe being without soul. However each one of these phenomena is in its own way a mode of revelations of nature. Nature is neither good nor bad, it is what it is, worse even there is only it; it is therefore necessary for us to determine what “Power “ man believed present in each taken separately natural elements.

These elementals (these “god-or-demons “) are the expression of the multiplicity of the divine forces in nature. Many are those who account for cosmic order : they are appointed to springs, heights, crossroads, etc. As we have had already the opportunity to underline it in connection with the jinns of the Arab-Muslim world, the naturist or animistic worship is not necessarily as it is often said, primitive, since it sees the world as an objectification of the divine thought. It relates to water, stones, trees and forests, vegetation in general. We know per tens terms which designate mountains (with sometimes the trees they bore), big rivers and little rivers, many springs also, or simply places without physical singularity for us today; and much were deified. Generally, historian often uses about them the expression “place deities “ to express the supernatural forces which were ascribed to these topographic forms, because frequently, on a dedication, the place name is preceded, indeed, of the Latin words DEUS or DEA.

This worship of the place or geographical god-or-demons, in druidism, represents the old collection of the naturist religion of the prehistoric populations. The worship of the stones which had been formerly expressed at Neolithic times in the shape of the standing stones, extended to the rocks as well to the mountains. In druidism, it also produced the sacred stones as the stone of Fal or Scone, cf. the lingam in India.

It is certain that at a remote time the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) worshipped their god-or-demons in the open air, on the tops of the mountains, around the springs , within the forests. They could get out of arranging a sanctuary for these god-or-demons they refrained of representing.

Their astonishment to discover in Delphi statues and temples is characteristic of this first period.

This kind of immaterial and nonhuman deities could be locked up indeed with difficulty in an enclosure, sheltered under a roof. They had nature for field: a river, a lake, the top of a mountain, was the place stay of a deity. The forests especially was considered as housing the god-or-demons.

The physical universe seemed a huge theophany ultimately, and within this immense theophany, Mankind recognized places where divine energy appears more than elsewhere, becomes immanent to the world, through a spiritual being, the elemental. The archeologists call place or earth god-or-demons these god-or-demons of the springs, heights , valleys…Gaelic Geniti glinne, Chinese Tu Di Gong.

The place god-or-demons are the soul/spirit of the natural forces and elements, the soul/spirit of the places, mountains or forests.

People believed to see their action in the flow of springs. Spring, river, mountain, was at one with the god-or-demon who lived it.

The Universe as a whole, and not only the stars, is therefore put under the dependence of the god-or-demons. There are god-or-demons of wind (the Galerna, the Cers…(today we would say the Foehn, the Santa Ana wind in California and so on) god-or-demons of thunder (the primitive Tanaros of the Celts), and so on.

The heritage of Prehistory in this field is, of course, considerable: sky and lightning, stars and planets; ground, mountains and rocks. The names of the rivers and of the relief being the oldest words of a language, it may be that the worship of a great river at the Romano-British time is former (especially if her name is pre-Celtic). But the word can be old and the worship recent.

With the difference of the great metaphysical, Panceltic, god-or-demons, more social, more human, in short more logically anthropomorphic (allegory of Wisdom, Justice, Love, Courtesy, etc.); the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) initially had to represent these god-or-demons (these elementals) as pure soul /spirits without a figure nor a human body.

But at the time of the Roman conquest, it is not less obvious than certain druids had been able from there to represent or depict their god-or-demons, and even to conceive them, in human shape. Gallo-Roman representations of the squatted god-or-demon [of the great wizard chief of clan called Nemet Hornunnos. Editor’s note] and of the ram-headed snake, of course, could not be borrowed from the Greco-Roman types. They proceed from a design previous to the conquest and probably of a figured art on wood.

N.B. The first representations of god-or-demons with human shapes are quite former to the Celts besides. The idol of the sepulchral caves of Champagne refers us to Neolithic times; then come the statue-standing stones in the French department of Aveyron.

The worship of phenomena and natural objects is considered as particularly primitive.

Specialists often arrange it among the most antiquated forms of religion. That may be, but it should be noted that worships of this kind exist still today. Mankind feels an instinctive respect with regard to the phenomena of nature.

In particular, when something of exceptional appears , people believe to find in it the sign of the supernatural one.

Happy time when nature was a magic temple full with enchantments and magic spells; and when forests, mountains, lakes and rivers, housed a whole world of invisible presences. In the clearings, people could see the fairies, the elves and the leprechauns… dance.

There were the water elementals (springs rivers). These matres or fairies were responsible for the fountains and the springs. Their powers were related to fruitfulness, seduction, erotism and passion (see the legend of the river Boinne or Damona Vinda in Ireland).

Air elementals (winds like Cers, Galerna, and others).

Earth elementals (mountains plains, and so on).

Vegetation elementals…

Elementals had as a role in this case to take care of the growth and of the flowering of the vegetable kingdom.

The role of all these elementals is therefore essential. Forming a unit with nature, they represent life and creativity in a rough state. This is why only those who attend the fields of the imagination or of the creativity are likely to see them. Formerly, in each small wood or grove, there were some of them.In each tree a fairy or a leprechaun hid. Close to each pond there was a fairy.

Thus now let us review briefly some of these god-or-demons, without a body in the beginning, but finally also represented in an anthropomorphic way like the others, under the influence of the Mediterranean designs.

BALAROS.

- Balaros/Balor. In the Irish deviation, Balor is the king of the people of the gigantic anguiped wyverns called Andernas on the Continent and Fomorians in Ireland, these god-or-demons of nature, and nature is neither good nor bad, it is what it is, who were demonized by the poets and the storytellers, before even Christianization. They are therefore inhuman, hideous and demonic, and personify chaos and destruction. They are in war against everybody, and particularly against the Tuatha De Danann, “ the people of the goddess Danu (bia) “ in other words, the gods. His consort is Catubellona/Cethlenn. And there we cannot help but think of the great goddess Catubodua who is in a way the Celtic Kali.

In Ireland, Balaros is a one-eyed or cyclopean giant of whom the eye paralyzes or strikes down whole armies. He dwells on the island of Tory, where he lives in the fear to see one day an ancient prophecy being achieved, according to which he will die by the hand of his own grandson. In spite of his efforts to delay this end by keeping Ethniu, his daughter, apart the men, this one will become pregnant and give rise to triplets. Balor then orders to throw them into the sea, but one of them will survive: it will be the god-or-demon Lug.

At the time of the second Battle of the Plain of the standing stones or tumulus, the god-or-demon Lug will face him and will use his whole rhetorical or verbal charm with regard him, so that Balor will ask himself to see him. He will thus order to four warriors to raise his eyelid with lances or hooks. But as soon as it is done, he will receive a sling stone which will tear off his eyeball and will make him fall flat on his face in the middle of his soldiers, killing thus involuntarily thousands of them. In the Welsh story of Kulhwch and Olwen, his name is perhaps Yspadadden Penkawr. He matches obviously the anguipedic monster of the continental statuary.

BALAROS OR TOUTADIS ATER?

There exists in the Irish legends some mysterious creatures, the Fomoire, whose chiefs had evocative names, Cicolluis (Cichol or Cíocal Gricenchos), Balaros (Balor) and so on. Our contemporaries lose themselves in conjectures on their subject.

In the Greek religion, people called them daimonen. In classical Greek daimonios, daimonikos means “inspired, vaticinating medium “ from where the usual meaning of daimon. Plato, in his Laws, defines them as “beings of a higher and more divine race “to whom he entrusts the management of his City to avoid the despotism inherent in the men of authority; and the results of this divine management are: “Peace, Justice, Abundance “.

The Greek Daimones , Giants and Titans, were creative forces in a rough state, positive or negative, chaotic, they were deities of the first generation in their theogony. For Plutarch, they were beings intermediate between god or demons and men. For the Gnostic people in the East (druids being in a way the Gnostic sages in the West), these beings were rather called arkhons. The word comes from the Greek “archai “or “elementary, as of the beginning,“ because these entities emerged as soon as the earth was formed. Their bodies consist of elementary matters being in a pre-organic state. Arkhons are inorganic species of beings, who emerge from beyond the heavenly world, in the limbos, or in the depths of the earth. The arkhons are inorganic forms equipped with intelligence.

Let us say that nature had also its “divinity“: various entities or ponderousnesses called angels (like that of the swimming pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem), even devils or demons, and even jinns, by the other religions. They are true individualities, gifted of a variable level of intelligence , but sometimes rival of the human understanding. These soul/minds rule hyper physically on the various states of the matter, or according to the traditional data, on the 3 elements which are the air, earth, and water.

Come to this point of our too short and too brief reminder about genuine druidism, the brevity of which is justified only considering the urgency of the situation (a recent multiplication of the groups or

charlatans misusing the “druidic” label); allow the modest researcher in druidism that I am; some remarks on most mysterious of the Celtic gods evoked by Caesar.

“ All the Celts assert that they are descended from Dis Pater, and say that this tradition has been handed down by the druids. For that reason they establish the divisions of every season, not by the number of days, but of nights and they compute birthdays and the beginnings of months and years in such an order that the day follows the night. Among the other usages of their life, they differ in this from almost all other nations, that they do not ....etc. ” (Caesar. B.G. Book VI. Chapter XVIII).

According to the French archeologist and researcher Jean-Louis Brunaux, the personality of the Celtic god who is thus compared to the god of Roman hell can be understood only if it is related to the belief according to which the soul of certain deceased persons ( the majority?) would settle in another human body after death.

For Jean-Louis Brunaux, it is in this underground kingdom that this change of the soul from one body to another would take place. From where remarks of the scholiast of Lucan in connection with the expression orbe alio.

“= On the other side of the world. Here what they thought in connection with the metempsychosis, and they said that one must be three times over purified before entering a (new) body. As for one’s ardor through combustion, one’s air through a moderated heat, as for one’s water through the cold. Or then they call another world the fact of going in bodies worthier or less worthy than those of ours here below.

This sentence means perhaps the souls rested then in stars of comparable nature that they. Then went down again through Cancer. While growing rich through these planets by various elements according to their needs and their nature. Finally, after having entered new bodies certain ones reached more quickly the heaven according to their merits while others continued to go from a body into a body until they reach they too, the firmament.”

Who would therefore have understood nothing in the field.

In short, the immortal souls would pass thus from a body into a body until they reach a state of purity making them completely divine: the souls of the bravest warriors being thus called out to escape the cycle of the endless reincarnations (samsara) and to join the place of stay of gods (still if we understand well Jean-Louis Brunaux, gods, rites and sanctuaries).

In the text by Caesar, it is this theory which would therefore be evoked, the human bodies being only the vehicles of the soul and the god in question would be therefore the father of all the souls: those would result from the underground world that they would leave in order to reach the life colonizing the surface of the earth.

According to Paul-Marie Duval, there exist parallelism between Dis Pater and Suqellus, Suqellus being a Celtic god represented with a mallet, who has the gift to strike and make people reappear.

First remark therefore. Considering his interpretatio romana made by Caesar, and considering all what we know of the druidic teaching about the lot of the soul after death, their many times repeated assertion that the souls of dead could not go into hell, IT SEEMS TO US EXCLUDED THEREFORE THAT THIS FILIATION OF THE CELTS FROM THE GOD IN QUESTION ..... RELATES TO THE SOULS.

Second remark. Roman Dispater being a god OF THE QUITE MATERIAL WEALTH ,the filiation in question, mentioned by the druids, CAN THEREFORE BE ONLY A FILIATION RELATING TO THE MATERIAL FIELD, THE PURELY PHYSICAL FIELD, THAT OF BODIES. SINCE FORMER DRUIDS HAD ON THE DESTINY OF THE SOULS AFTER DEATH ..... VERY DIFFERENT VIEWS.

La Rochelle on June 7, 2009.

The current specialists lose themselves in conjectures about the Celtic name that Caesar thus translated.

Toutadis Ater????

When Julius Caesar evokes the Celtic gods, he designates them under the name of Roman deities.

But , according to Julius Caesar the Celts are praised to result from Dis Pater, a tradition that they say to have been handed down by the druids. For this reason they measure time, not by the number of the days; but by that of the nights. They calculate the birth days, the beginning of the months and that of the years, so that the day follows the night in their computation, etc.

Among Romans, Dis Pater is a rather obscure god compared to Pluto. Literally Dis Pater could therefore mean Father of Wealth. We can therefore say about him that he reigns over the interior of the Earth, the basement, as his opposite Iu-piter, rules, as for him, over the skies. The word Dis has the same origin perhaps besides as Deus, i.e., divine in Latin language, through the proto-Indo-European root Dyeus designating the gods.

This assertion relative to Dis Pater resulted in several interpretations, historians and archeologists seeking to identify the Celtic god that Caesar presents under a Latin name.

It rather seems on this subject that it is advisable to distinguish the bodily level well from the spiritual level.

On the physical or material level, it is well the entity mentioned under the name of Dis Pater by Caesar and this Roman Dis Pater corresponds to the different elementals known over the Celtic territory. He is the god symbolizing bodily filiations and the appearances of all new body: TOUTADIS ATER

N.B. On the spiritual or intellectual level (souls), it seems it would be then the nemet Hornunnos of the statuary or of the Irish legends and he is not especially chthonian.

As regards physical health and body, Caesar makes him a single deity equivalent to the Roman Dispater but in reality it is a multitude of local even topical gods ( designated under the name of elementals by our modern occultists, called Tu Di Gong in China, etc.) all of the same family it is true, transcended under the name of TOUTADIS ATER.

* Aufhebt in Hegel.

La Rochelle on June 11, 2009.

Some authors also compared this very Caesarian Dispater to the gigantic anguipedic wyverns called andernas on the Continent, Fomorians in Ireland, but on the Continent these gigantic anguipedic wyverns are rather providers of wealth and abundance, and their celebration, as their function, are mainly focused on fertility, erotism or material wellbeing. Before Christianization they were indeed not especially demonic or evil entities, they were only, let us say, ambivalent. Manicheism was always unfamiliar to the spirituality of the former druids who worked on the principle that “nature is neither perfect nor imperfect it is what it is and there is only it.”

La Rochelle June 25, 2009.

Would the Caesarian Toutadispater be the Balor/Balaros king of Fomoire in Ireland??

The former continental druids believed in the existence of underground entities represented in their collective imagination in the shape of gigantic anguipedic wyverns , who are called Fomorians in Ireland and that our modern occultists call elementals. In the Irish legend entitled Tochmarc Ferb these frightening gigantic anguipedic wyverns are obviously under the command of the goddess or demoness of fights, Catubodua, at least in this story, but they will also form the near total of the troops of King Cunocavaros/Conchobar, what will therefore make this bloody a not very natural operation worthy of the worst manipulation of the public opinion intended to involve a country in a bloody war (part of the Celtic-druidic Kali who was Catubodua if we understand well).

ON THE CONTINENT, ON THE OTHER HAND, WE CAN SUPPOSE THAT TOUTADIS PATER WAS THE KING OF THE GIGANTIC ANGUIPEDIC WYVERNS THE IRISH DRUIDS CALLED FOMOIRE.

La Rochelle on May 23, 2009

Some pseudo druids of today (those who claim for example that the Nazarene high rabbi Jesus they call Christ or Messiah was a druid, or that Christianity was acclaimed by the druids in Lyonss)

proclaim left and right that the worship of the dead or of the great ancestors never existed among Celts. However the very evidence of the importance of the worship of the great dead among Celts (thank you to our brothers in paganism of Black Africa for reminding it to us) it is that, finally, gods and demons also went to live under their hills, called sidh in Ireland.

The sidhs (old Celtic “Sedos”) are front doors or exits of the next world. Each god-or-demon has one or more of these gates and lives there (lives behind). But there is not only in Ireland that there are sidhs, there is in the whole world. In Germany and Czechia in the United Kingdom, etc. and even Delphi in a way, which is a sidh belonging to the Belenos/Abellio called Apollo by the Greeks. And even Lourdes in France for Catholics. Lourdes is the sidh of a goddess or a superheroine called Mary.

And all these sidhs adjoin between them.

N.B. In spite of the mention of kings of the Sidhs varying according to times or texts, it would be righter in this respect considering it is a kind of republic, the United Sidhs , directed by a president elected and endowed with strong powers.

The Celtic Toutadis Ater is therefore the entity patronizing the worship of the dead ..... as regards the transmission of the physical or carnal life. In this respect he was therefore to be honored a little like a great primordial ancestor combined with mother earth since buried in the earth mother or one of her substitutes.

Or then it was a deity of the antechamber of the Heaven as there is so much in our legends,

BECAUSE IF THE CELTIC HEAVEN IS SINGLE

SINCE IT IS A STATE OF BEING (a result of the action of the process of being) ;

the points of return to earth of the souls too charged with bran to have been able to reach their escape speed in the skies (some cases a century), being, themselves, MULTIPLE BY DEFINITION ..... SINCE BEING SOME PLACES.

ARIOMANOS/ARAWN.

In the first of the four tales of the Mabinogion: Pwyll, prince of Dyved (it is the founding myth of the dynasty of the princes in Dyved). Arawn/Ariomanos traverses the forests, with a pack of red-eared hounds, chasing a stag. He has a rival named Hafgan, who has a nearby estate, and has the same powers as him. One morning, he meets Pwyll and proposes to him to exchange their kingdoms during one year and a day. Nevertheless, there is a condition: Pwyll will have to overcome (but without killing him) Hafgan, at the time of a duel. Pwyll succeeds in his search and, moreover, respects the wife of Arawn/Ariomanos.

It has to be the equivalent of the Hindu god-or-demon Aryaman. In the Rig-Veda, minor god-or-demons accompany Varuna and Mitra. They are the Aditya, the sons of the goddess-or-demoness Aditi. In variable number according to the sources, most frequently named are Aryaman and Bhaga, on the side of Mitra. The god-or-demon Aryaman protects the set of the men who recognize themselves as “Arya “as opposed to the barbarians. He protects them not so much as individuals, but as an element of the “Arya “ set. Bhaga, himself, deals basically with the distribution of the wealth.

And on this subject here a strange passage of Athenaeus which looks strongly to us myth disguised in history.

In his third book the same Phylarchus says that "Ariamnes the Galatian, being an exceedingly rich man, gave notice that he would give all the Galatians a banquet every year, and that he did so, managing in this manner: He divided the country, measuring it by convenient stages along the roads; and at these stages he erected tents of stakes and rushes and osiers, each containing about four hundred men, or somewhat more, according as the district required, and with reference to the number that might be expected to throng in from the villages and towns adjacent to the stage in question. And there he placed huge cauldrons, full of every sort of meat; and he had the cauldrons made in the preceding year before he was to give the feast, sending for artisans from other cities. And he caused many victims to be slain - a number of oxen, and pigs, and sheep and other animals - every day; and he caused casks of wine to be prepared, and a great quantity of ground corn. And not only," he continues, "did all the Galatians who came from the villages and cities enjoy themselves, but even all the strangers who happened to be passing by were not allowed to escape by the slaves who stood around, but were pressed to come in and partake of what had been prepared." (Athenaeus, the Deipnosophists IV, 34).

Arawn/Ariomanos is the chief or the driver of a wild hunt crossing the kingdom of the men, each day before of November 1st or May 1st; with a pack of phantom hounds, white-haired, but with the end of the ears blood red, called Cwn Annwn. The barking of these dogs resembles the hiss or the honk of wild geese, and the preys they hunt down are the soul/minds of the deceased persons having not been able to reach Heaven ; he wants to drive towards the underground labyrinths in Annwn.

Gwynn ap Nudd is also one of the sovereigns of this next world, according to certain legends.

He is the son of Nudd and the brother of Edern. His name comes from the Celtic vindos which means “white, beautiful, bright “. He is sometimes compared to the Irishman Finn Mac Cumaill.

In the Arthurian tale entitled Kulhwch and Olwen, Cordelia, also known according to the variants of the legends or of the tales: Creiddylad/Creidylad/Creudylad/Creuddylad/Crieddlad/Kreiddylat; daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint, the most beautiful girl of all Britains, flees with Gwythyr, son of Greidawl. But before they may consummate their union, Gwynn snatches the maiden. The lover raises an army, but the kidnapper is victorious and makes many warriors prisoners. These noble lords will be released only on the intervention of King Arthur, who decides that Creiddylad will remain in her father’s house. Since, every year, on the calends of May, Gwynn and Gwythyr fights for her, and according to Welsh storytellers, that will last until the last Judgment. The allegory is exemplary and well illustrates the part of purgatory or of fight between the good and the evil ascribed to this story. The soul/mind, personified by Creiddylad, is torn between the good and the evil, and cannot reach the other parallel world of heavenly nature directly.

Gwynn ap Nudd also takes part in the mythical hunt of Arthur intended to capture the wild boar called Trwyth. He has a psychopomp role matching the wrathful deities o the Buddhism since one of his functions is also to drive the soul/minds of the dead towards Anwyn, accompanied by his pack of

fantastic hounds: the Cwn Annwn. This wild hunt is known in the whole West , and belonged to the European antiquated memory. It is generally represented in the shape of an army of dead, or a procession of ghosts, led by various mythical characters like Arawn, Gwyn, Herne the hunter, Arthur (or Hellekin in France). And woe to the one who meets them!

People never saw again the rash person or he was found the following day, hanged near the place where his way had crossed that of this cursed troop.

In a manuscript of the 12th century, this frightening hunt is thus described: “A large number of people saw and heard the hunters. They were black, great and feeling reluctant, their hounds were dirty large eyed and very black. They rode black horses… reliable men saw them the night and maintained that there were well there twenty or thirty people blowing in hunting horns “.

Gwynn was quickly dispatched besides in hell by the Christian priests, and his name became synonymous with the demon. Dafydd ab Gwilym, instead of saying: “To hell with me! “writes: “to Gwynn, son of Nudd, with me! “ But the legend of Saint Collen , who gave his name to Llan-gollen, in the Denbigshire, shows that it is not easily they succeeded in demonizing this former god, in the mind of the Welsh people.

After a brilliant and valiant life abroad, Collen had become abbot of Glastonbury. He wanted to flee honors and withdrew himself in a cell on a mountain. One day, he heard two men celebrating the power and the wealth of Gwynn, son of Nudd, king of Annwn. Collen could not contain himself and left his head out of the cell while shouting at them: “Gwynn and his subjects are only devils! “Be quiet ! “the two men answered, “and fear his anger rather “. The following day indeed, he received from Gwynn an invitation to come to meet him. Collen declined it. The next day, same invitation, same result. But the third time, frightened by the threats of Gwynn, and prudently provided with a small bottle of holy water , Collen decided to go there. He was introduced into a splendid castle. Gwynn was sitting on a gold throne, surrounded by richly arrayed young boys and girls. The clothes of Gwynn’s people were red and blue. Gwynn welcomed Collen very correctly, and put everything at its disposal. After a short conversation, after having said to the king who asked him for his impression about the livery of his people, that red meant brilliant heat, and blue, cold; he sprayed him and his people with holy water, and all disappeared all at once.

There exist nevertheless many poems where Gwynn has not yet this devilish nature, and where he is only a hero like so many others (euhemerism in the wrong way).

In the black Book of Carmarthen, he appears as being the lover of Cordelia/Creiddylad, daughter of Lludd; having attended many battles, as well as the death of many heroes.

The Mabinogi reconciles Christian and pagan legend. Not being able to wrest him from the hell, into it Saint Collen and his friends irrevocably settled him, the author explains indeed it is only in order to subdue the demons and to prevent them from harming to the mortals, that he was sent there.

As we have had the opportunity to say it already, rather briefly, people call hounds of Annwn or Cwn Annwn in the Welsh folklore, the phantom dogs taking part in the wild hunt led by Gwynn (or Arawn?) and therefore considered by the Christians as being hounds of the master of the hell. They were associated with the migrations of the wild geese of which night honk was supposed being their barking. Certain stories describe them to us escorting the soul/minds of the deceased persons in their travel towards the hereafter.

These wild hunts took place only certain nights of the year. On the day before the feast of Saint John , Saint Martin, Saint Michael the archangel, of All Saints' day, of Christmas, of the New Year, of Saint Agnes, of saint David, and the Good Friday. Or only in Fall and Winter, and during the gourdeziou (twelve days going from Christmas to Epiphany). These hounds on the occasion were accompanied by a horrible witch called Malt-y-Nos (Mathilda of the Night).

Arawn is also known , in some variants, as king of Uffern, Welsh word generally translated by hell, particularly in the writings of Taliesin. What would therefore make it a Christian synonym of Annwn. It is nevertheless difficult to say if this equating of Annwn to a kind of hell is due to the Christian influence; or if the original pagan conception went already in this direction. A second-rate Mag Meld but also Tir na mBan, Tir na mBeo, Tir Tairngiri, Tir Na nOg, Magh Ionganaidh, Magh Ildathach, Magh

Imchiuin, Magh Argetnel, Magh Findargat, Magh Aircthech, Sen Magh, Caer Wydion, Caer Gwydion, Lly's Don, Caer Arianrod or Gwynfa (in Wales) or Vindomagos…!

DONNOS/DONN.

Donnos/Donn, belonging in no case to the most genuine Celtic tradition, but rather to legends coming under the fertile imagination of the Irish bards. The Milesian legend of the Lebor Gabala Erenn or Book of the taking of Ireland, for example. And we saw all that it was necessary to think of these odds and ends.

The Gaelic name of Donn goes back to a form * dhus-no, related with Latin fuscus, and means “black “or at the very least “dark “(traditional color for the kingdom of the dead). Some Irish texts say him able to change himself into a stag (according to Roger Sherman Loomis, Celtic myths, p. 134) what would therefore bring him closer even more to Hornunnos.

The nemet Hornunnos was in his time a kind of hyperborean Buddha in the Far West. A great shaman called anatiomaros by the Celts and semnotheos by the Greeks. A little like in the case of a king making for him a stronghold in hostile territory; the result of the innumerable praiseworthy actions achieved by this high shaman was the discovery of a better earth, and he swore to lead into it the soul/minds.

Each anatiomaros fully fulfilled has thus his land where he teaches. The characteristics proper to each one of these better lands depend on the vows each semnotheos stated at the beginning of his career. In the case of the Nemet Hornunnos, this better land is in fact only an anteroom of the heaven, a transitory state being used as passage towards the heavenly next world in a strict sense of the term. A world of saha would say in a way our Buddhist friends, only intended to make its inhabitants progress in their wakening to the truth.

An advanced anatiomaros indeed, can prove to be able to build another world on his own, a little like a magician, but what is the usefulness of it? He can cause a better land , he can give of it an outline to the soul/minds of the deceased persons, he can even keep them inside a small moment, but he cannot keep them there indefinitely.

According to the poet of the 9th century named Mael Muru of Othan, Donno Tegia (Tech Duinn) is the gathering place of the dead (Cu cum dom thig tissaid uili iar bir n-écail); and this, from the proper will of this god-or-demon.

A stone cairn was raised across the broad sea for his people.

A long-standing ancient house which is named the House of Donn after him.

And this was his testament for his hundredfold offspring :

“You will all come to me, to my house after your death“

(Kuno Meyer, der irische Totengott, und die Toteninsel page 538).

Metric Dindsenchas, volume IV, poem 113. Donn appears in this story as a king having freely sacrificed himself for his, but also as a primordial ancestor. His grave will be therefore, consequently, inevitably associated with shipwrecks and storms, in the Irish folklore.

Tech Duinn (Donno Tegia), whence the name? Not hard to say. When the sons of Mil came from the west to Ireland, their druid said to them, ‘If one of you climb the mast,’ said he, ‘and chants incantations against the god- or-demons of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Danu (against the Tuatha De Danan therefore) , before they can do so, the battle will be broken against them, and their land will be ours; and he that casts the spell will die.’

They cast lots among themselves, and the lot falls on Donn to climb the mast. So was it done: Donn climbed the mast, and chanted incantations against the god-or-demons of the goddess-or-demoness or fairy Danu (bia), and then came down. And he said: ‘I swear by the god-or-demons,’ said he, ‘that now you will not be granted right nor justice.’

The men of the clan of the goddess-or-demoness, of fairy if it is preferred, Danu (bia) also chanted incantations against the sons of Mil in answer from the land. Then after they had cursed Donn, there came forthwith an ague into the ship. Said Amairgen: ‘Donn will die,’ said he, ‘and it were not lucky for

us to keep his body, lest we catch the disease. For if Donn be brought ashore, the disease will remain in Ireland for ever.’

Said Donn: ‘Let my body be carried to one of the islands,’ said he, ‘and my people will lay a blessing on me for ever.’

Then through the incantations of the druids a storm came upon them, and the ship wherein Donn was foundered. ‘Let his body be carried to yonder high rock,’ says Amairgen: ‘His folk will come to this spot.’ So hence it is called Tech Duinn: and for this cause, according to the heathen, the souls of sinners visit Tech Duinn before they go to hell, and give their blessing, ere they go, to the soul of Donn. But as for the righteous soul of a penitent, it beholds the place from afar, and is not borne astray. Such, at least, is the belief of the heathen.

The doors of Donno Tegia or Tech Duinn were kept by two dogs of wildest ones: one black and the other white.

This account implicitly locates the kingdom of Donn under the sea, the cairn in question being only an entrance; that would therefore make Donnotegia (tech Duinn) a land under the waves a little similar to the town of Ys in France.

There exist nevertheless two other possible localizations of this mysterious Donnotegia or house of Donn.

In addition to the place where Donn fell overboard ; (the bull rock… why bull and not stag besides, unless bringing closer the character to Donn of the bull or dun termagant in Cooley staged by the Tain Bo Cualnge); two other places claim this honor: the small fort of Dunbeg on the west coast of Ireland, and Cnoc Firinne or Knockfierna in the County Limerick. A cavity not far from the top looks like one of the entrances of the underground palace of Donn, and the dead were formerly transported there “in order to be with Donn “.

Donn would be therefore a god-or-demon ruling over the dead in transit towards the druidic kingdom come, whatever its name: Mag Meld, Vindomagos, Tir na Nog and so on.

Strangely enough, he makes a pair with another of his brothers called, himself, Eber Finn (Eber the white). What seems to be the piece of evidence of a certain dualism on this level of the legend, unlike all that we can know of the genuine druidic thought.

Donn is also known in the county Fermanagh as the ancestor of the Maguire, being able to intervene on behalf of them in certain battles. His legend resembles much that of wild or cursed hunts: he is supposed to gallop on a white horse during the storm nights.

Dishonored dead pass by no means in the parallel next world of paradisiac type (Vindomagos, Mag Meld etc.) but come back on earth under the name of Sluagh. At least in the popular beliefs and the folklore. In Ireland and Scotland, sluagh was the name given to the soul/minds wandering and without rest. Under the influence of Christianity, these sluagh was regarded as sinners having their place neither in heaven nor in hell, and rejected by the god-or-demons, as well as by the earth itself. They were almost always described as dangerous or destroying and flying in the airs in bands, under the appearance of birds coming from the west, to creep into the houses of the dying people, in order to try to carry with them their soul/minds. But we are there more in folklore strongly influenced by the Christian under-culture that in pure druidic theology. The high-knowers called druids think all that there are various stages in the afterlife.

Donno Tegia or Tech Duinn was perhaps an underwater kingdom where the soul/minds of the dead met before passing to another stage of their travel. From there, the ordinary dead, we could say, undertook a voyage towards the west, towards Tir Na Nog, the Land of Youth; where they completed the rest of their existence with the god-or-demons like Belin/Belen/Belenos/Barinthus/Manannan, before passing at a higher stage and melting themselves in the Big Whole (Pariollon). Others were reincarnated in order to learn the lessons of another life. The reincarnation as a totem animal, or in a following line of descent, is a usual event in certain cultures, but much more exceptional in the druidic world. There too and once again, that makes us much thinking of the notion of possessed persons or

bacuceos on the Continent. For the record: “ Others we find affect the hearts of those whom they have seized with empty hubris (and these are commonly called bacuceos ) so that they stretch themselves up beyond their proper height and at one time puff themselves up with arrogance and pomposity [….] as they fancy that they are great people and the wonder of everybody, at one time show by bowing their body that they are worshipping higher powers (sublimiores), while at another time they think that they are worshipped by others“ (John Cassian. Conlationes, 7,32,2).

Some authors, because of this aspect somewhat “ wild hunt “surrounding the Irish myth of Donn the dark; wonder whether this character would not be in fact to bring closer to Herne the hunter, the ghost rider with having a head decorated with stag antlers, who leads the wild hunt through the English sky; and even of the entity called Hornunnos on the Continent.

THE ELEMENTALS (CALLED ANDERNAS ON THE CONTINENT, FOMOIRE IN IRELAND).

The Irish deviation comprises some not easily classifiable entities.

“ Then the Hesus Cuchulainn son of Sualtam mounted his chariot, the blow-dealing, feat-performing, battle-winning, red-sworded hero, and around him bánanaig & boccánaig & geniti glinni & demna aeóir, the bananach the bocanach the geniti glinni and demons of the air shrieked, for the gods (or demons therefore) of the goddess Danu (bia) used to raise a cry about him so that the fear and terror and horror and fright that he inspired might be all the greater in every battle and field of conflict and in every encounter to which he went….

He shook his shield brandished his spears and waved his sword, and he uttered a hero's shout from his throat. The bánanaig & boccánaig & geniti glinni & demna aeóir, the bananach the bocanach the geniti glinni and demons of the air gave answer for terror of the shout that he had uttered, and Nemania brought confusion on the host. The four provinces of Ireland made a clangor of arms around the points of their own spears and weapons, and a hundred warriors of them fell dead that night of terror and fright in the middle of the encampment…..

Then he put on his head his crested war helmet of battle and strife and conflict, from which was uttered the shout of a hundred warriors with a long-drawn-out cry from every corner and angle of it ; for there used to cry from it alike bánanaig & bocánaig & geiniti glinne & demna aeóir, the bananach the bocanach the geniti glinni and demons of the air (sic, see previous counter-lays) before him and above him and around him, wherever he went, announcing o the shedding of the blood of warriors and champions. There was cast over him his invisible protective caparison (tlachtdillat) from Tír Tairngire (Promised Land) brought to him from Belin/Belen/Barinthus/Manannan son of Lero , the King of the Luminous Land (Tír na Sorcha)" .

It is to our knowledge the only time that elementals appear openly, would be this only as recollection of the pre-Christian magic, in an episode of the Irish epic. They are too geniti glinne or “spirits of the valley “ who, evil this time, in an episode of the Fled Bricrend or “Feast of Bricriu “ will attack three of the most valorous heroes of Ulster, Loegaire, Conall Cernach and Cuchulainn. Only Cuchulainn will end up overcoming them and killing them (they are three times nine), without damage for him.

The Siabra or Siriti siabairti. The word siabraid is used for designating the contortions which distort the body or make the face unrecognizable (cia siabrad sin fil for do bil to uair dochiamne h' fiacla uile nochta? What is this rictus which twists your mouth, we see all your teeth which leave there become completely dislodged?)

Perhaps would it be advisable to bring closer to * se (I) bho- the Celtic words in seb, of which the seboddu of the inscription in the Vieil-Evreux (France). In Ireland in any case, they are the Siabra who, according to the Dindshenchas, were the last instrument of the druids against the king Cormac mac Art.

In Ireland, the gigantic anguipedic wyverns designated under the name of Andernas on the Continent, correspond to the name of Fomoires (or Fomores, Fomorii). Sometimes according to Lebor Gabála Erenn (Book of Conquests of Ireland), the Andernas or Fomoires landed in Ireland after the Flood, and are called “ Sea GianTs “; but they are beings in reality present throughout the mythical history of the country, the first of them being besides called Cicolluis on the Continent, called Cicholl Gri-Cenchos in Ireland.

Some authors make them the “normal “god-or-demons of the pre-Gaelic peoples having begun by living in this part of the world, before the “Sons of Mile” settle there. Particularly the Erainn or Iverni and the Fir Bolg.

Fir Bolg are Gallic invaders having occupied Ireland before the increase in power of Gaels and they are undoubtedly the cause of all these legends circulating in this country about the Andernas called Fomoire (who would therefore have been supernatural entities demonized by the Gaels).

According to some authors, the Andernas renamed Fomoire, these terrifying warriors described by Goidels on the basis of legend older than their own settlement, would be only an expression of naive fears of any people facing the unknown.

The snake-tailed god-or-demons and goddess-or-demonesses are indeed extremely numerous in all the civilizations, in all the traditions, in all the latitudes. But better still, we can also see intertwined couples, man and woman with the tail of a snake. We can thus compare a couple carved on the side porch of the church in Bodilis (French department of Finistere) with the couple that form Fu-Xi, the inventor of the eight primitive trigrams of the Yi King, Chinese culture hero; and his wife-sister Nuwa, creator of the men after the flood, and victorious of the black dragon Gong-Gong. We also find many couples of Nagas intertwined in the Indian statuary.

The Ancients thus often reveal to us, “the underground roots of the divinity “ according to the expression of A.K. Coomaraswamy. At Brennilis, the statue of the Virgin Mary, “Our Lady of Breac Ellis “ has under its feet, Mari Morgan the serpent. However, by moving the statue to remake its gilding, it was realized recently that the tail of the she-serpent joins the plait of the virgin in her back, without people being able to distinguish them. By attentively looking at the admirable painting of the tree of Jesse which is in the church of Saint-Thegonnec (still in the French department of Finistere), we can see that Jesse dreams, asleep, in the folds of the body of the fairy Melusine!

The mythology of Ireland , as for it, presents to us the Andernas called Fomoire (or Fomores or Fomorii) as nonhuman beings having left the underwater depths to invade the country, but an attentive reading of these texts shows us several things.

The Fomorians (Andernas on the Continent) are closely combined with the Fir Bolg Gauls. They are present throughout the history of the country. The word fomoire comes from old Irish fo muire (modern Irish faoi muire), which means “underwater “. Their symbolism, in Ireland at least, seems combined with that of the icebergs (the glass towers), but the last element of their name is perhaps to be related to the second component ,the word “nightmare “(terror??)

This titanic race is linked with Ireland and no text speaks about its arrival; apart from short Christian mentions in relation to the myth of the flood. Keating reports to us for example an Irish tradition according to which the god-or-demon Cicolluis (Cicholl Gri-Cenchos) would have come on the spot two hundred years before Partholon. But Cicolluis was overcome by Partholon at the time of the battle of Mag Itha. The Nemetians too would have also faced the gigantic anguipedic wyverns on several opportunities, and even would have killed Gann and Sengann, their chiefs. But Gann and Sengann also are the names given to two princes Fir Bolg Gauls, by the Irish legends.

Two new gigantic anguipedic wyvern chiefs then succeed to them. Conan son of Febar, who lived in a tower located on the island of Tory, and Morc son of Dela (but the first generation of Fir Bolg Gauls will also be regarded as being that of the sons of Dela by later Irish documentation, so ????).

After the death of the nemet Hornunnos, Conan and Morc reduce his people to slavery and hammer down it by the cost of heavy taxes. Led by one their chiefs named Fergus the Nemetians revolt, and destroy the tower of Conan. But their victory will be of short duration, because they will undergo heavy casualties facing the troops of Morc, and will have to give up the country.

Strangely enough, the following invasion, that of Fir Bolg Gauls, will not have to fight the gigantic anguipedic wyverns (Andernas on the Continent, Fomoire in Ireland).

Inhuman and devilish , Andernas or Fomoire are endowed with magic powers and represents chaos. They are described as being extremely dreadful, with one eye in the middle of the face, one arm, one leg, and the head of an animal (goat, horse or bull). But some of their more famous representatives can also be described as being beautiful for example Elatha, the father of Bregsos/Bres, and Bregsos himself, who was famous for his charm and his grace.

This ambivalence of the shapes of our archons or primary elementals is also found on the Continent. On the Continent, the Fomoire are called Andernas and they are anguipeds or wyverns. The Anguiped is a fantastic creature whose body ends in the snake’s tail. Equivalent of the Abrasax in Greek mythology, this character symbolizes the undifferentiated underground forces.

Wyvern is quite simply a word resulting from Latin vipera: viper, snake. But it is there only one of the multiple forms which produced, according to the dialects, the Latin etymon.

The word vaivre, comes itself from a Celtic word *vobero or *vabero, designating a more or less hidden small brook, the place where water seeps from ground. This is why we find it in various localities to designate a spring, a brook, but also a wet wood, meadow or field . Example: Meadow of Vaivre, wood of Vaivre, spring of Vaivre, Woëvre (when I was young, people said “the wavr ““of the wavr “for example), etc.

Wyverns being taken generally for haunting wet places, people quite naturally expected there were some of them in the localities “ of vivre “or “of voivre “ which owed their name to the dampness of the ground.

We may retain some permanent, characteristic features, which form like the core of her legend.

The wyvern, in accordance with the etymology of the word, is a snake. She spends most of her time under ground. Her den can be a hole which opens on the bare ground, a cave in the side of a cliff, or the underground passages of a castle fallen into ruin. But she also attends the water environments: quiet river gleaming under the foliage, peaceful pond in the middle of a wood, spring running under foam or being spread out in a stone basin, sometimes even fountain in full heart of a village. It is there that she goes to drink or to bathe. The wyvern likes the places little inhabited like marshes or caves.

As long as she is not provoked, the wyvern is not a dangerous animal. Obeying, as a fine piece of machinery, the impulses of her nature, she remains indifferent to the world of human beings. But if man tries to seize her carbuncle, the animal becomes furious then, swoops down on the imprudent one, and harasses him with such a ferocity that he is smashed to pieces .

Some traditions are much less pure, and the Wyvern is shown in them in various shapes. It is that they were infected by other beliefs, like that which deal with dragons.

There are other traditions still where the Wyvern is no longer a monstrous animal, but where she is humanized, either while being presented in the shape of a semi-woman, semi-snake, creature, or having been woman in a past existence (cf. the famous Melusine of the Plantagenet).

The legend largely overflows the limits of the Free County (of Burgundy) . So we meet her in the west of Switzerland. Her presence is witnessed here by toponyms: there exists for example a “wood of wyverns “in the Bernese Jura. But it is especially the Valais which is still rich in legends relating to her.

A monster named “Wivre “, haunted the mountainsides of Louvye and attacked the cattle, to the bitter disappointment of the stock breeders. This snake was deprived of a carbuncle, but it was often got up with a cat’s head. It is said that the mountain dwellers of the Valais managed to get rid of it while luring it by bulls they had fed only with milk, for seven years; and that they had covered with iron armors against which the famished monster would have come to be crashed to pieces.

We also find the vouivre for example at the springs of the Areuse River, in the Neuchatel canton. The wyvern also figures in the coats of arms of the country of Ajoie. In German-speaking Switzerland, we find Wira and Wura, also Lindwurm and Stollenwurm. In Aosta Valley people say Wibra. Guivre in Piedmont. In the Aosta Valley and in Savoy, the wyvern was taken for guarding treasures, and many stories report the stratagems used by some brave eager to seize them……

The deformity just like the physical anomaly (unicity of the eye, the leg and the arm) belong to the signs or the marks of the hellish world of the Andernas or Fomoire, who are therefore the Celtic equivalent of the Greek Titans or of the Germanic Wanes. But that, it is the result of the Christianization, which rejected the Andernas renamed Fomoire in infernal darkness.

There was obviously exaggeration in this direction on behalf of the Irishmen who, before even the arrival of Christianity, or just after and because of the latter, have demonized these underground supernatural beings. The unicity of the limbs is only the sign or the symbol of the primeval nature of the divine beings, even of the next world in general.

Moreover, all the gods in the Irish meaning of the word, have family ties with them. The prince of the people of Andernas or Fomoire, Bregsos/Bres, will be even temporarily king of the tribe of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Danu (bia). He was besides the favorite candidate of the women (because of his beauty).

The gigantic anguipedic wyverns (Andernas on the Continent, Fomoire in Ireland) will hammer down the inhabitants by the cost of heavy tributes and will force them to live in a permanent fear. Thereafter will therefore take place a big and gigantic battle between them and the men of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Danu (bia), the second battle of the Plain of the standing stones or mounds ; exact equivalent of the fight of the Olympian god-or-demons and of the Titans in the Greek tradition, or of the combat of the Aesir and of the Vanir in the Germanic tradition. Not forgetting the Indian epics of India about the same topic.

We may deduce this from it.

Myths relating to the children of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Danu (bia), and to the Andernas or Fomoires, were imported into Ireland. The case of Cicholl Gri-Cenchos proves it in a peremptory way. This prince of the people of Andernas or Fomors is presented to us as having always lived Ireland. However he is also known as residing in the Continent under the name of Cicolluis. The Celts of the Continent not being, of course, originating in Ireland, there is therefore only a single possible explanation. Irishmen adapted to their island some continental myths.

These myths and these legends influenced the myths and legends of the populations which succeeded to them, with deep deteriorations, until the Middle Ages. The dating given by Irish annals is erroneous for the archaic period. These texts were altered at the end of the Middle Ages by Christian copyists who tried to make them compatible with a more biblical chronology.

The terms “Fir Bolg “ “Fir Gallioin “and “Fir Domnain “ refer to the Andernas renamed Fomoires (Fir Domnain) or to the Gaulish peoples who are combined with them.

Unlike what a popular etymology claims, Fir Bolg does not mean “Bag-Men “but “ Lightning-Men“ i.e., having bronze even iron metallurgy. In the same way, Fir Gallioin would mean “Men from Gaul “ i.e. “people from the Continent “; and “Fir Domnain “corresponds by no means to “Men from Domnonea “(one of the names of Brittany), but “Men from the Abyss “ since it is said that Andernas or Fomoires “worshipped “a female deity of the underwater abysses: Domnu.

One of the fundamental characteristics of druidic theology was nevertheless its refusal of dualism or of Manicheism, and some of the lower entities of its Panth-eon, or Pleroma, were therefore quite simply ambivalent (neither good nor evil, but AT THE SAME TIME GOOD AND EVIL). Not like the jinns in Islam, however.

The bocanaig, the bananaig and the valley spirits (geniti glinne) are also to arrange among the god-or-demons (the Tuatha De Danann); if one believes of them certain passages of the legend of the cattle raid of Cooley, speaking to us about the terror the Hesus = Cuchulainn can inspire to his enemies (see particularly his fight with Ferdiad).

One of their characteristics was to be able to give, to those who were victims of them, the feeling to hear around them cries or whispers.

Some of these lower entities of the original primeval Celtic Pantheon, still undifferentiated between the forces of good and the forces of evil (egregores and elementals. See the ambivalence of the folk topic of wyvern ) “were little by little demonized “ or equated with the side of negative forces. The phenomenon is particularly obvious in the case of Ireland.

For example, in the Book of Conquests, where the elemental called Cicolluis (Cicolluis Mars on the continent) found himself equated with an anguipedic wyvern king (one of the Andernas or Fomoire), being in trouble with King Partholon. The footless Cicholl Gri-Cenchos, Cicholl (or Cigal), footless and not cloven-footed, be careful!

As for the bocanaig, the bananaig and the spirits of valleys, here what that will produce under the influence of Christianity in the later texts. “ The furies and monsters and hags of doom cried aloud so that their voices were heard in the rocks ‘and waterfalls and in the hollows of the earth. It was like the fearful agonizing cry on the last day when the human race will part from all in this world “.

As we have had the opportunity to see it at the beginning of this study, there was in ancient druidism a concept similar to that of the elementals of Paracelsus but called “duses “(singular dusius, plural dusii); in other words, semi-intelligent forces dwelling in various invisible fields. They are in a way the guards of nature, they take care of the growth of the animals and of the plants, compose the spiritual part of the Earth, of the stones, of the rivers or of the wind.

Among Romans, fauns and sylvan deities were, with little difference, what were aegipans and satyrs among Greeks. Rustic God-or-demons, they were represented in the same shape as the satyrs, but in less hideous features, with a merrier figure, and especially with less brutality in their loves.

On the monuments, we see fauns who have all human shapes, except for tail and ears; some appear with a thyrsus and a mask. Generally, the top of the body is human, while the bottom is that of animals like goats (or would correspond then rather to an animal egregore according to the high-knowers of the druidiaction).

Romans distinguished fauns from sylvan deities through the kind of their pastime, which approach more agriculture. However, poets claimed the voice of fauns was often heard in the thickness of woods. Though demigod-or-demons, they were not immortal, but died only after a very long existence.

Usually the sylvan god-or-demon is represented holding a bill hook, with a crown of ivy or pine, his favorite tree. The sylvan deities lived preferably in orchards or woods.

Sylvan had several temples in Rome, particularly one on the Aventine Hill, and another in the valley of the Viminal Hill. He also had some of them on the seaside, from where his name of littoralis.

This god-or-demon was the specter of the children who enjoy breaking tree branches. People made him a kind of bogeyman who did not let with impunity the things entrusted to his guard being spoiled or broken.

The procession of the Luperci, some priest wolves, at the time of the festival of Lupercalia, on February 15th, was dedicated to him.

But let us leave our Roman friends there, and let us try a more serious, more druidic approach. In reality, it is more judicious to say than these soul/spirits of nature, called dusii, have as a body some forms of energy which are not strictly physical or material, in the common meaning of the word; although every energy also has a material aspect, and each day proves to us its effects on the physical level of the matter.

The existence of intermediate vibratory states between invisible energy and visible matter has as result that Mankind can reach the observation of the elementals, without even seeking it. The fact that what we call “electricity “is a normally invisible energy, does not prevent that by traversing the surface of a wire cable , it produces quite visible material phenomena; such the actuation of a heavy machine.

The elementals or dusii, are endowed with reactivity much stronger than ours to their environment, their forms being more unstable and more dynamic. When their vibration slows down, these shapes are more materialized, and are seen more easily. To get from them this vibratory deceleration, the human beings who wish to perceive them and communicate with them, must initially express this will with force, but without aggressiveness; because the least instability in the awarenesses is reflected on the soul/spirits of nature, and drives out them towards their energy-giving “refuges “ or the visual effects specific to their extraordinary power to be dissimulated in the Elements even in which they live.Under the general designation of genies or jinns, these soul /spirits of the elements appear in the myths, the fables, the traditions, or the poetry of all the old and modern nations. Their names are very numerous.

Come at this point of our small talk on the druidic Panth-eon ; and in spite of the rather anti-scientific or not-scientific nature of the thing (the belief in the jinns is a real challenge for the modern science); it can be useful also beforehand to look at rapidly on our equivalent in the Arabian world of the time of the Jahiliyya * or after (Arab-Muslim). The jinns are a kind of angel-or-demons in the Semitic beliefs. For the Arab high-knowers of Antiquity (Jahiliyya), these god-or-demons represented another race of creatures living the earth , it was spirits lived the deserted places, the water points, the cemeteries and the forests. To appear, they took various forms of which these of man or animals, for example of snakes. Their names, words or behaviors, which remained strange, made it possible to distinguish them from the human beings when they took their shape. Besides some of these spirits inspired certain poets of the time of the Jahiliyya besides (we find there again the meaning of the word demon in Greek). According to Jacqueline Chabbi, Muhammad’s political adversaries of the time when he was in opposition in Mecca, not refrained besides from making the rumor circulating he was in this case (inspired or possessed by a jinn): Quran chapter 37 verse 36; chapter 51 verse 39, chapter 52 verse 29.

This type of angel-or-demons called “jinn” is therefore able; at least it was believed at the time ; to exert a spiritual and mental influence on mankind (psychic control: possession), but does not use it necessarily. Their strength is, moreover, strictly speaking” superhuman.”

Like the Man, they reproduce and live everywhere on earth (even in desert or seas) and in the middle of men. But unlike man who was created with the annoying tendency to forget, the god-or-demons the Arabs call jinns, forget nothing they could live, see, hear; and this, from their birth until their death.

Muslim theologists have much looked into their case, but think the essential in this field discoveries should not be revealed (because they could be used ill-advisedly). But here nevertheless what we may say about them.

As Quran indicates it in the chapter entitled in Arabic Ar-rahman (“The Most Gracious “), the jinns are some beings created by God or the Demiurge starting from Fire. The Quran considers that Man is higher than this type of god-or-demon (important difference between the high-knowers of Islam and the high-knowers of druidism about this point).

Unlike angels, made of light, which have no free will and do only what God request from them; the jinns, like men, can disobey God and make sins. Like the men also, they are organized in kingdoms, States, tribes, people, they have laws, like in the case of the god-or-demons of druidism; and religions.

There, on the other hand, is another of the very important differences separating the druidic views on this subject, from these which are current among Muslims; who go as far as to think these intermediate creatures can also have a religion similar to that of men (since all the prophets were sent by God at the same time for jinns and men, according to Islam). These angel-or-demons called jinns also have to believe, and will consequently have to undergo the last Judgment, just like human beings.

There are therefore good and evil jinns. The evil ones are called shayatin (cf. Satan for Christianity). On this subject, it is reported in hadiths that an evil jinn who “followed” Muhammad constantly, ends up converting to Islam and becoming a good jinn before his death, considering the isma of the latter. Best known of these god-or-demons called jinns is Iblis.

For Islam, jinns have no power over a human being besides that to murmur in his ear, and cannot enter the human body nor control it. But some Muslim theologists support nevertheless that they have the power to possess those who are in a state of stain (i.e., those who did not make their ritual ablution) or who consume prohibited food (drug, alcohol, blood, illicit meat).

In a general way, alliance between man and god-or-demon of jinn type, gives an immense power to the one or the ones who use it. The jinn can also be opposed to man, what represents one of the two cases, in good as in evil, but they can also both, alone or with several, create gigantic forces by being supplemented mutually; there too for the worst as for the best. Under these conditions, either man subjects jinn, through his own science (that God gave him, the Muslim theologists add) or because God expressly wanted it, so much in the direction of good as of evil. He is in evil when the aims in view are contrary with the laws imposed by God-or-the-Demiurge, or when he does not recognize that his science was given to him by God or the Demiurge. Generally, both are dependent.

Muslims also think (and they are right) that nobody can predict except God or the Demiurge, according to them, of course, but they believe nevertheless that a person making a pact with a jinn could know many things… from their nature. The intervention of one or more god-or-demon (s) of this type therefore makes the force of the great magicians or wizards… End of our short aside about the elementals of the Islamic religion.

Let us leave our Arab-Muslim friends there, and return to more careful and more measured considerations on this subject, a more serious, more druidic, approach. The naturist or animist worship revised by druidism is not necessarily as it is often said, primitive, since it considers the world as an objectification of the divine thought. But in reality, it is more judicious to say than these soul/spirits of nature, called dusii, have as a body some energy forms which are not strictly physical or material, in the common meaning of the word; although every energy also has a material aspect, and each day shows to us its effects on the physical level of the matter. Repetere = ars docendi.

* Jahiliyya = roughly speaking secularism.

FAIRIES OF THE GOOD MOTHERS , MAIRES, OR MATRES, TYPE.

Certain authors, such Marija Gimbutas, think that the worship of the Goddess-or-demoness, or the fairy if this term is preferred, appears in the lower Paleolithic . According to this assumption, the first traces of this primeval religion would date back to 35.000 before our era, with in particular remains such as the Venus of Willendorf.

The worship or veneration of goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, instead of god-or-demons like thereafter, refers to the worship of the handing down of life and fertility, such as it seems to have been universally practiced in the end of Prehistory. This worship, in which the figure of the woman held a great place and took on a sacred dimension, consisted especially of the veneration of the universal female principle.

This system implied no gender discrimination, but was based on the importance attached to the female one, the woman incarnating the reproduction of the species and its hope of perenniality; in a temporal dimension which was not linear as it became so later, but circular and cyclic.

The existence of such a social system during prehistory is hardly no longer questioned today, even if ethnologists, archeologists and anthropologists still don’t agree on its definition.

What poses more problem is of knowing why and how the patriarchate would have been substituted to it and would have prevailed with the invention of agriculture, between - 5000 and - 3000.

The Mother Goddess-or-demonesses will be called after the Roman conquest Matrae, Matres or Matronae, they are, even more fundamentally than Epona, the basic goddess-or-demonesses of plenty , wealth, family, clan, tribe. Often combined with the healing or not healing springs and wells.

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by Daremberg and Saglio *.

Though the idea of maternity holds a broad place in the religious conceptions and the practices of the worship among Romans [JUNO, P. 684; matronalia, mater matuta, matralia, etc]; it is a question nowhere, in the literary monuments of the classical Latinity, of deities called Mothers and called upon on a purely collective basis. Nevertheless the existence of this class of deities is attested by inscriptions in great number (we know today more than four hundred of them) and even by figured monuments; mostly originating in the Celtic or Germanic provinces, others set up in Italy by Celtic or Germanic ones, who emigrated in this area of the world, usually due to military service.

The inscriptions are complicated by terms and phrases borrowed from the processes of Roman piety; the plastic representations are adapted to these of Roman art; there are here documents interesting for the history of the Roman religion, in its relationship with that of the conquered people.

The epigraphic recension and the comparison of the texts where the worship of the mother deities survives, prove that they are called indifferently, according to the areas, Matres or Matrae (with the form matrabus), Matronae (which produced matronabus) and lastly Mairae. Matrae, mairae as well as the special forms of the dative, belongs to the popular language. Mairae was disputed, as long as we knew one example of it, of doubtful reading. But the form is sure, today that it was discovered three others, all the three in the area where Belgian Gaul borders on that of Lyons (in that of Dijon). It is to the linguists to discuss the relations which can exist between the fairies of Mairae, Matrae or Matres type; it is enough for us to note that these words designate identical personifications, and that Matronae is a synonym of them. Worthiest and most frequent is that of Matres; only the fairies of the Matres type are named augustae, an epithet which gives them a kind of official dedication; sometimes divae or deae, whereas divinae Matron is met only once, augustae or deae Matronae… never! The divine nature of the ones and others comes out, however, from the fact that all are also called upon beside other Roman god-or-demons, with Jupiter, Mercury, Neptune, Minerva, Bona Dea, Diana, etc.; with deities of unspecified name (dis deabusque), with genies of a lower rank like Fortuna, the Junones, the Genii themselves. In certain cases, the identity of the Matres and of the Matronae is guaranteed by the enumerations where they appear together, without concern for precedence, by their association with deities of first rank, finally by the general resemblance of the phrase of invocation and dedication. It is necessary to look there closely to realize that in fact, the Matronae are subordinated to

the Matres, that the office of those are higher or their power of a broader application. Men speak to the Maires more than the women and the Matronae seem honored rather often in situations or interests specific to their gender. What they were exactly the ones and the others, we initially learn it by the countries from where they are originating and by the nationality of those who, in Latin country, express homages to them. In Rome, the religion of the Maires appears among the worships practiced by the EQUITES SINGULARES, an imperial guard which was recruited especially on the banks of the Rhine and of the Danube River.

On the inscriptions discovered in the Lateran, where these cavalrymen had one their barracks, they are called upon as deities of the absent homeland. The persons who dedicate something to them, soldiers or officers of lower rank (highest in rank is a tribune), are obviously foreigners settled in the capital. In the same way in Latin country, the worshippers of the fairies of Matres or Matronae type, when they are not soldiers, are peregrini, merchants, slaves or freed slaves, always people of low social status, sometimes some women. The modest monuments that people erect for them are to be placed between the reign of Caligula and that of Gordian; it is the 2nd century which provides the greatest number of them. Out of Italy, the inscriptions are especially frequent on the left bank of the Rhine, rarer on the right Bank; they multiply as one goes down towards the Lugdunensis . Numerous in the countries of the Vocontii, of the Allobroges, in the Eastern Narbonnese, there are some of them at Sequani, Helvetii, Lingones.

In all these countries, the name of matres prevails; matron, on the other hand, is usual in Transpadane Gaul, exceptional in Gaul itself, very frequent in Germanic country, where barbarian terms, generally with an obscure meaning, determine them. On the other hand, the Great Britain, which provides us a full harvest of homages to the Matres, seems to be unaware of the Matronae; whereas Spain, which does not know more the latter, appears only for rare documents in the statistics of the fairies of Matres type; but everywhere, in these last two countries, the consecrating persons are soldiers or travelers who transported in foreign country a worship of their homeland. Curious characteristic: the Guyenne and the part of the Narbonnese which borders it seem about indifferent, as well to the fairies of Matronae type as to the fairies of Matres type, as if these provinces were purely Roman.

However, if in Guyenne inscriptions are rare, it is this province which provides us two of the figured monuments of which it will be a question further. In this respect, a characteristic epithet is that of transmarinae which the inscriptions of Great Britain give to the Mothers, in order to indicate that they are there, in this case, come from the Continent.

Not less demonstrative are the homages to the Mothers in Italy, Germania, Gaul, [Great] Britain , Africa, whose authors are legionaries stationed abroad. Some of them generalize by calling upon the goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies if this word is preferred, as domesticae, as matres omnium gentium, what is to be understood of the nations the Romans called barbarian, therefore apart from Romans themselves. The geographical distribution of all these inscriptions in general, the origin of those who erect them where the fortuitousness of their campaigns led them; and chiefly the large number of Celtic or Germanic words which diversify their personality; make us able to bring back the religion of the Mothers to her cradle; we may hesitate between Western Germania and Gaul. Most probable opinion, it is that the fairies of the matres type are from Celtic sources and that those who look Germanic were imported on the right bank of the Rhine. Then acclimatized into Germania, by the Celts who formed a notable element of the population there, as they were acclimatized later in Italy by the Germanic and the Celtic ones. The adoption was to be all the easier as the Germanic tribes liked to deify women, to grant prophetic intuition to her and a supernatural influence in the public and private affairs. A fact which, from this point of view, is important, it is that the still remaining representations of the fairies of Matres type, all were found in the Celtic countries; or in areas of Germania and Italy the Celts had occupied by immigration or conquest.

All were subject to the influence of Roman art for the general layout of the monuments and the choice of the attributes which make the deities recognizable. They are usually grouped in triads, what made them be identified, in the Antiquity already, with the three Parcae or Fata, whom they resemble in other connections. Therefore modern mythologists brought them closer to the Norns of the Germanic legend, and gave them the same origin; others even wanted to see in them the personification of the three Gauls. However, this number does not appear exclusive of other groupings; without speaking about a low-relief of Avigliana on which five women hold hands while dancing, above an invocation to the fairies of Matres type, which are not surely these women. It is a question elsewhere of deities similar to Matres, grouped by two. There is no temerity to interpret as individual Matres or Matronae, some figurines out of terra cotta, the most part discovered in Gaul, which represent women sitting, in the attitude and with the costume of those who are grouped elsewhere by triad; and bearing in the

hand either an apple, symbol of their beneficial and fertilizing action, or the horn of plenty. Such is the case of the figurine, which was found in Angouleme, and in which people wanted to see whatever Egyptian deity, opinion given up as soon as expressed. We estimate that it has to be also cataloged among the fairies of Matres type.

It is the three grouping, however, which provides us the representation characteristic of the fairies of the type Matres or Matronae; and among the monuments which present them thus to us, most remarkable is the niche found in 1875, in the duchy of Juliers in Rhenish Prussia, now preserved in the museum of Mannheim. It bears the inscription: MATRON (is) CESAIEN (is) M. JUL (ius) VALENTINUS ET JULIA JUSTINA EX IMPERIO IPSARUM L (ibentes) M. (erito). The word Cesaienae or Gesaienae remains obscure; Tacitus mentions a Julius Valentinus among the chiefs of the rising up of the Batavians in 70, but the name is frequent in this area. The inscription, in large upper-case letters, supports the niche where the Matronae are sitting on a bench equipped with a back , provided with cushions, and of which the arms are carved in the shape of dolphins. A Corinthian capital, carved in shallow relief , is supposed to support by the middle the entablature; outside, on each side, are represented in high relief two characters, in the behavior and with the attributes of the sacrificers; on the right a man in a short tunic, on the left a woman dressed with a long see-through gown. The goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies if it is wanted, sat, wrapped with loose, thick, clothing, a coat covering the dress which falls to her feet: on their knees they have baskets where fruits are placed; the one who is on the left side familiarly presses her right hand on the arm of her neighbor; this one, who takes the middle, is bare-headed, smaller-sized; the two others wear berets ( ?) of which the edges widen in turbans and that certain interpreters took wrongly for aureoles aureoles [from where the persistence of this type of sculpture in the Middle Ages with the three Bethen: Einbeth, Warbeth and Wilbeth. Editor’s note].

We find the same headdress on a monument of coarse craftsmanship, which is originating in Mumling-Crumbach; here still, the figure of the middle is bare-headed, but taller than her companions and placed on a higher seat. A bas-relief of London, from which only the lower part remains, offers the same layout, with traces of the same costume, and on the knees of the deities , the same baskets filled with fruits. Lyons has a similar niche where the fairies of the type Matres, nicknamed Augustae by the votive inscription, simply have their hair rolled in thick headbands ; the one of the middle holds a horn of plenty with her left hand and an offering bowl with her right one; all the three have fruits in the folds of their dresses. If we want to notice that nowhere, the inscriptions mention the fairies of the type Matres or Matronae as going by three; we are well founded to believe that the triad is a kind of artistic and religious at the same time synthesis, perhaps imitated from these which are usual in Greco-Roman religion, and being solved in the more general idea of plurality; which is witnessed by all the epigraphic monuments without exception. Other monuments vary the attitudes, in what the figure of the middle is represented standing upright and the two others sitting, or reciprocally, without it is necessary to see another thing there that artistic fancies. It is wrong that Mr. J. Becker believed to be able to show that the female figures riding mules or assess separately, and of which a rather considerable number was discovered in Celtic countries, represent fairies of the individual Matres type; for this reason that the hairstyle sometimes, the horn of plenty and also the symbolic fruit , make them resemble Matres.

This opinion is no longer justifiable , after the double disproof of which it was the subject ; in the name of Epona by Mr. S. Reinach; in the name of the Maires by Mr. Ihm, who made himself the official historian of these last deities. What besides is not doubtful, it is that the warships of Epona and of the fairies of the Matres type, are practiced on the same spot; and that their spreading, departed from the same cradle, took place under the influence of an identical piety. We can be convinced of that while by comparing the two maps drawn up, one by Mr. Haversfield for the Matres-Matronae, the other by Mr. S. Reinach for Epona. Moreover, the fairies of the Matres type are often called upon with Epona, and perhaps even combined with her legend; thus the Mairae are named beside Epona in an inscription of the country of Dijon; whereas the Equites singulares in Rome pay homages communal to the she-guardian of the horses and to the fairies of the Matres type who, under the patronage of Campestres, are the patron saints of the military life and the guardians of the camp. In Bregenz, on the shores of the Constance Lake, people still tell the legend of Hergotha, Gutha, Ehrguta, legends of which the heroine is probably Epona *, who develops there a guardian action similar to that of the Matres.

Two species of terms usually accompany the title of Matres or Matronae; ones in Latin language, very few and of rather vague meaning , which would hardly enable us by themselves to determine their

nature; others Latinized, but with Celtic or Germanic consonance, very frequent, though generally obscure and left to most conjectural interpretations. Some of them, however, stemmed from known place names, provide us precise indications; and all together are sufficiently explicit to make us distinguish the two orders of ideas which inspired then spread the worship of these deities. Sometimes they are indebted for their special designation to a locality, sometimes they draw them from a moral quality, from a supernatural influence. We already quoted these of domesticae, matres omnium gentium, transmarinae, which imply geographical or ethnic notions. Others clearly let some known village or country showing through. Like the Matres Mahlineae (Mechlin), Nersihenae (Neersen), Vacallainehae (Wakelendorp), Albiahenae (Elvenich), Gerudatiae (Gironde), Eburnicae (Ivours), Namausicabo = Nemausicis (Nimes), Afrae, Britannae, Britannicae, Brittae, Gallae, Gallicae, Italae, Germanae, Noricae, Treverae, Suebae; adjectives sometimes replaced by possessive genitives like Delmatarum, Pannoniorum, which are known; Ausuciatium, Braecorium, Gallianatium, Masuonnum, etc. (we do not mention here these which are Germanic), of difficult or conjectural interpretation. Generally, we may say, with an authoritative Celtizer that it is generally impossible to see on the face of it if the attribute is stemmed from a place name or not. Often we don’t know to what language allocate certain Latinized words, but of origin obviously non-Latin. Because, while it sometimes happened that a foreigner paid homage to the deities of his temporary residence; it did not occur less often than one or the other, remembering again his guardian god-or-demons, devoted to them a monument abroad. In the same way, it is not doubtful that, among names of Celtic or Germanic source, good number had then a moral meaning; but as the linguists are far from agreeing on their real sense, you will not be surprised that we limit ourselves to mention them. We know these which, of Latin and classical form, have an honorary value; it is necessary to add to them the title of Dominae. Come then the terms which make these deities enter the circle of the genies guardians of the family home or the homeland, like domesticae, paternae, maternae, trisavae, or simply the possessive meae or suae. A special class is that of the Matres campestres whom in Rome the Equites singulares honored, and also unspecified soldiers in various places; they remind of the Genies specific to the army and the camps, we quoted elsewhere. In Great Britain, the Campestres are combined with personified Britannia, Victoria, Epona, what completes to show their military nature; they have for twins, in the Danubian Provinces and in Africa, some dii campestres who are, like them, and like the purely Roman Genies, whom all and sundry resemble, some guards of the army under the various conditions of its functioning. The Campestres are reproduced on a low-relief, three of them, similar to the Mothers in general, i.e., sitting and having as attributes some ears in their hands, on their knees some baskets of fruits and flowers. Lastly, there are Matres called Viales, like the Lars who protect the travelers or the Fortunae who bring back them in their homeland, or the Tutelae who take care of the cities and the nations; others are known as preserving or lenient, those called upon in the company of Jupiter and Mercury, guard of the trade: lucrorum potenti. The inscriptions to the Mothers Parcae let suppose that their worshippers granted a prophetic power to them: no precise text, no figured attribute makes it possible to affirm it **. What arises without question from the whole of these terms as also from the attributes given to the Matres/Matronae on the figured monuments; it is that the Celts and the Germanic ones, from whose countries they are originating, from time immemorial regarded them as lower deities, guardian genies of the villages, cities, nations; perhaps also as the soul/spirits beneficial whose empire extended on countryside and woods; in a special way as the she-guardians of women, whose they embodied most majestic function. Through contact with Roman religion, Celtic and Germanic ones could recognize the fairies of Matres type in the Junones, like also in some deities having an eminent name, a generally archaic significance; such as MATER MATUTA, the Mother of the Lares, Mater Magna [CYBELE], Juno Lucina honored at the time of the MATRONALIA, etc., to only quote most famous. It is probable that the glimpsed resemblance , in many cases, caused an accentuation , in the public homages, of the Roman nature of the Maires, by the people who regarded them basically as their national deities. As for the Romans, they were to welcome all the better these foreign deities than they saw them more getting used to their own religious designs. At the time of triumphing Christianity, the assimilation continued according to identical processes: the triad of the matres became that of the three Marys, transformation all the easier as the popular form Mairae became without difficulty Mariae. In Vaison an inscription in the honor of the Matres is visible on an altar of the Blessed Virgin (J. - A. Hild. Charles Daremberg and Edmond Saglio).

* Our personal opinion is nevertheless, with due respect to this dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, more detailed, more recent, and, by far, better therefore than Smith's Dictionary, according

to Bill Thayer (LacusCurtius) ; that Hergotha Gutha and Ehrguta are only a local variant of the three Bethen.

** At Vertault nevertheless, the mother in the middle holds what seems to be an unrolled book where is written what is in store for the newborn. Maktub our Muslim brothers would say.

MEDIEVAL SURVIVALS.

The fairy tree of Joan of Arc.

The historians agree to write that near the village of Domremy was a forest called “Chenu Wood”; and that Jeanne of Arc often went in this forest, to join the site of the May tree, or fairy tree. A pastime, in conclusion, quite innocent, but which raised many interrogations at the time of the trial the Catholic church in Rouen brought to her ! But why such a childish activity called the “English” judges to mind? What these walks in forest hid?

A problem arises first of all, as for interpretation to be given to the old French word “chenu”: Some people understood it in the meaning “planted with oaks,” others in the traditional meaning “hoary or white with age.” It is difficult to decide here, insofar as there exists arguments as many for one or for the other version. But it is obvious that this sector, very sloping, has a rather acid ground , testament of this the many pines which grow there.

Then what are the exact names and the situation of these springs which go down from the Chenu Wood, along the Great Coast, in Domremy, and of which the deeds of the two trials of Joan of Arc left us the memory?

The most famous of these fountains is that of the Fairy Tree , or the Beautiful-May, where the patient’s suffering of fever were going to drink to be cured . For soon two centuries, the historians give us on their subject variable, doubtful and sometimes obviously false, indications.

And now to those whose ego has only secret contempt or open hatred for the common peoples, who want at all costs therefore to make our poor Joan the hidden daughter of a king or an envoy of God according to the Catholic church, I answer this because Echenay, although having nothing to do with old French “Chenu,” is not very far from Donremy.

The druidism today has nothing to do with these inappropriate considerations, because it despises in no way the people and has only indulgence for it. Better even, it is worried only about its sort and the salvation of his soul, what the very definition of true democracy and therefore of populism, is, which is not summarized to an oligarchy of the media-political class if I remember correctly; and gives up the self-proclaimed elites of this world to their insane hubris. Therefore let us repeat it once again, the true druidism respects the sorrows and the hard labors of our fathers, their simple and difficult life, and has only indulgence for what helped them to live. Far away from any idea of last judgment, it has on the contrary a surprising Amidist streak.

Joan of Arc was therefore simply the youngest daughter of Jake from Arc and Isabel from Vouthon, known as Romea. Her parents were known as “plowmen,” i.e., they were relatively easy peasants: without being rich, they had some grounds, some animals and a stone-built house. Joan’s father had an excellent reputation in the village and he has besides several times represented its inhabitants in lawsuits. When she was born , the family counted already three sons, Jake, Peter and John, a daughter, Catherine.

Joan of Arc did not seek to be distinguished from the others, and mingled with her she companions in the festivals of the village. On the very slope against which the village of Domremy is leant, between the flowered banks of the river Meuse and the dark forest of oaks, the Chesnu wood, which crowned the heights of it, there was a beech of a remarkable beauty, “fair as a lily,” said one of the inhabitants, broad, bulky, of which branches fell down to ground. It was called “lodge-of-the-Ladies, Lobias Dominarum” or still “tree of the ladies.” The name of ladies, given to the women of high rank , was also the name given to the fairies in the popular speech. It was told that a knight, lord of Bourlemont, came to see a fairy there, conversed with her. The tree of the Ladies was therefore also the tree of the

Fairies and it was therefore the fairies, in the olden days, who came to dance under this splendid beech; it was said even besides that they still came there.

That did not prevent the inhabitants of Domremy from doing what their fathers did. The tree was still as beautiful. In spring, people gathered beneath its broad vault of greenery. It was inaugurated, in a way, with the summer weather, on Sunday of the mid-Lent (Lætare). In this day, which people also named Sunday of the Fountains, the young boys and the young girls came beneath the tree to do what people called their fountains, we would say a picnic today.

They carried, as supplies for the day, small breads made purposely by their mothers, and devoted themselves in the place to the recreations of their age, while singing, dancing, and gathering flowers in the neighborhoods to make with them garlands of which they decorated the branches of the fair tree; then when they had eaten, they were going to be refreshed to the limpid water of a shaded with gooseberry bushes spring. Joan undoubtedly came there like the others; Mengette, her friend of childhood, says besides that she went there and danced there also more once, with her. However she was not a dancer; and often, in the middle of the festival, she was diverted towards a small chapel erected in the vicinity on one of the more pleasant points of the hill, Our Lady of Domremy, to hang up there in the honor of the Virgin Mary the garlands she had made with the first flowers of the fields.

Her godfather, John Morel, plowman in Greux, tells: “On Sunday when we sing for introit Lætare Jerusalem, Sunday called in these regions Sunday of the Fountains, young people and maidens of Domremy go under the tree of the Ladies and also sometimes during spring and summer, at the feast days. They dance there, have small meals there, and, when they are going back home, while playing , while singing, they come to the Well of Rains; et redeundo veniunt supra Fontem ad Rannos, spaciando and cantando; they drink of its water, and while frolicking gather flowers here and there.”

One of the godmothers of Joan, Beatrix Estellin, widow of a farmer of Domremy, heard in the nullification investigation of 1456, left us this account: “… I went formerly for a walk under this tree, called tree of the Ladies, of which the beauty attracted us; it is close to the main road of Neufchateau…”

And she repeats the same details for the picnic beneath the Tree of the Ladies by adding: “When they are going back home they stop at the well of Rains; et redeundo veniam ad Fontem ad Rannos, and drink from its water. When on the day before the Ascension , the crosses are carried through the fields, the priest goes under this tree, he sings the Gospel there; he also goes to the Fountain of Rains, ad Fontem Rannorum.”

Still let us listen to a friend of childhood of Joan of Arc , a companion of her plays. Mengette, wife of John Joyart, a plowman of Domremy: “I went several times with Joan to the Lodges of the Ladies ad lobias dominarum, on the aforesaid Sunday; we ate there, and then we came to drink to the Well of Rains; et postea veniebant bibitum ad Fontem Rannorum; sometimes we extended a tablecloth under the tree, and ate our meal together here; we played then and made round dances, like that is still practiced.”

During her childhood Joan of Arc thus played and sang around this well , plaited garlands and taken her modest snack under the branches of the Tree of Fairies, with the girls and the boys of her age. What a crime! On the day before the Ascension, the priest led the procession of Rogation to the tree, to prevent the come back of the fairies; while returning to the church, he also stopped ad Fontem Rannorum to recite the ritual prayers there.

N.B. It is good form today in the media-political class to dispute the nationality of our national Janet by being based for that only on the exact site of her birthplace, as if it was a question of a hotel or of a modern private clinic.

Her village was divided admittedly between the Mouvant Barrois (i.e., coming within the jurisdiction of the king of France but only indirectly) and the direct estate of the aforesaid king of France, some houses in the north pertaining to the parish of Greux. A small brook marked the border: the right bank, where one counted twenty to thirty hearths, depended on the Barrois known as mouvant (=enfeoffed) and its inhabitants were serves; the left bank belonged to Champagne, came within the competency of the lord or marshall in Vaucouleurs, and its inhabitants were free. Or conversely, historians disagree, the stream having changed its beds several times.

But even if Joan of Arc's birthplace were on the other side of the brook, what difference that it would have made?? All the inhabitants of Domremy, those of the right bank like those of the left bank, apart from one, Joan of Arc herself says (there always was indeed from time immemorial and in any places traitors and spies of the party of foreigners) were heartedly with the Armagnacs and not with the Burgundians. And who is besides, after God, the one Joan of Arc recognizes as her lord and her king? The best piece of evidence of her nationality remaining besides that it is by Charles VII that both villages of Domremy North and of Greux which formed the same parish will be for that exempted thereafter from taxes, and by no one other.

BECAUSE THE ONLY NATIONALITY WHICH IS IMPORTANT, UNLIKE WHAT THE IDEOLOGY PREVAILING IN THE MIND OF THE INTELLECTUALS OF THE POLITICAL MEDIA CLASS, REPEATS TIRELESSLY, IT IS THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NATIONALITY, THE WILLINGNESS TO LIVE TOGETHER, IT IS THE DESIRE TO LIVE TOGETHER (PHILIA) THE NATIONALITY OF THE HEART. THE NATIONALITY THROUGH WHICH WE DEFINE OURSELVES SPONTANEOUSLY AND WITHOUT REFLECTING IN OUR INTIMACY, AS A TRUE CRY FROM THE HEART. AND NOT THAT OF THE PASSPORT YOU MAY HOLD AFTER HAVING PAID OFF THE TAXES PERTAINING TO IT.

And if you want to speak only about the territory, then Joan of Arc was a child of the river Meuse: the Meuse being the communal mother of all these villages she waters , without distinction, either they are of Lorraine, of Champagne, of the Barrois known as mouvant or of the Barrois known as non-mouvant (non-enfeoffed) that is to say of the part of the Barrois country continuing theoretically to come under the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire.

* Let us notice nevertheless that the local pronunciation to designate this well is “groselle” and that there exists close to Malaucene at the foot of the Mount Ventoux a Vauclusian spring known as “of the Groseau.” See further.

The worship of the three virgins or of the three “bethen “.

The three Beten, Bethen or Beden, are three saints of the Germanic countries, venerated in small churches or chapels in the south Tyrol, in Bavaria in the Rhine valley and in Luxembourg (town of Troisvierges). Their worship was very widespread in the Middle Ages and particularly in the 11th century, but they do not form part of the official lists of female saints recognized by the Catholic church. The bishop of Worms Burchard considered even that to worship them was a sin. In his famous decretum, he mentions the penances to be done for those who still believe in the Parcae i.e., in the fairies of matres or matronae type.

They are generally called bethen because of the termination of their names.

Einbet (h), Ambet (h), Embet (h), Ainbeth, Ainpeta, Einbede, Aubet, Worbet (h), Borbet, Wolbeth, Warbede, Gwerbeth, Wilbet (H), Willebede, Vilbeth etc

But also:

Furbeth, Firpet, Cubet…

Gutha, Ehrguta, Hergotha…

The origin of their names is questionable. Some people relate them, and particularly that of Borbet, with the initial name of the town of Worms justly, Borbetomagus, in which Borbeto means “bubbling spring “.

Heiligendorf interprets their name as meaning “what is “ “what was “ “what will be “. That would thus make them fairies of the matres type.

Saint Einbeth or Himberte was honored in Strasbourg in the second half of the 12th century. In second half of the 14th century, we find her accompanied by Wilbeth and Worbeth. They were supposed being companions of Aurelia a virgin and martyr died in 237 in Strasbourg, according to the Christian legend of the eleven thousand virgins in Cologne.

According to other legends these three virgins belonged to the retinue of Saint Ursula, daughter of an English king who undertook in the 5th century a pilgrimage in Rome with her lady's companions. On the way of the return, the eleven thousand virgins were attacked by Huns in Cologne, and died in martyrs. But, become sick on the way, the three bethen, Kunigundis (Cunegund) , Mechtundis and Wibrandis, had had to stop before in Basle, where they died.

Einbeth, Worberth and Willbeth, were also compared with Saint Margaret, Saint Barbara and Saint Catherine. Closely related to Einbede, Warbede, and Willebede, by their iconography, is the

veneration of three sisters known under the name of Faith, Hope, and Love. Three martyrs, daughters of Saint Sophia, supposed to have been tortured in the reign of the emperor Hadrian in the year 137.

The three Bethen appear in the sculptures of 22 churches or chapels built between the 13th and 15th centuries in the south of Germany.

Some places of worship devoted to the three virgins. From most famous to most modest.

The cathedral of Worms (chapel St Nicholas) in Germany. Saint Embede, Saint Warbede, Saint Willebede. The three virgins are represented as women heavily clothed and with their head surrounded by a kind of aureole. Each one holds a book and a branch of palm trees. The representation of these three holy martyrs incontestably makes us think of the various representations of fairies of matres or matrones type, in the Roman time. Same kind of clothing, the hair is long and loose like that of the central fairy of the groups of matres. The aureoles remind of the berets that the oldest ones wear. They hold objects being able to remind of these of the fairies of matres or matronae type. In one of the hands some branches of palm trees, lilies or other flowers of this type, in the other a book, a rose , an arrow, a wand, or a gold ring. The Christian interpretation of these objects resembles that of the fruit, money, or bread, of the matres matronae, namely abundance, fertility, power, and wealth. It is therefore extremely possible that the artists who carved these works were the heirs to those who had carried out the representations of matres or matronae in Roman times, or at least that they have had some of them before their eyes. The iconographic traditions can survive , independently of the beliefs, as the case of the famous “garden of delights “ by Herrad of Landsberg proves it.

The church of Eichsel in Germany. On the Dinkelberg above Rheinfelden in the state of Baden. The place was already inhabited at the Roman time and it is probable that a prechristian place of worship existed on the site of the current church. Each third Sunday of July a traditional feast in honor of the three virgins proceeds there: a procession during which maidens carry the relics of the three she saints through the village, and which comes to an end with a small festival. The statues of the saints are on the right side of the altar of the church.

The grave of the Three Virgins in Alsace. In the center of Wentzwiller, a picturesque village located close to Folgensbourg, is a panel indicating the locality, “ of the three virgins “. It leads to an idyllic clearing located in the forest between Wentzwiller and Hagenthal, where three virgins makers of miracles rest in the shade of the beeches. The origin of these women remains mysterious; according to the legend, they would have lived there, solitary and pious, and would have dispensed their benefits before being killed by an unknown. The inhabitants of Wentzwiller buried them with full honors in the forest which became a place of pilgrimage at once. It is reported that paralyzed or suffering of the teeth people, found there some assistance. In the village the three virgins are combined with the three followers of Saint Ursula, Einbeth, Wilbeth and Worbeth.

In the 19th century, the priest of Wentzwiller wanted to put an end to their worship, and made the graves being opened. Surprisingly , he found three skeletons he made been transported to the cemetery. After the ceremony, a pouring rain would have started to fall, which would have ceased only when the three saint women found again their place in the forest.

The English historian Bede the venerable , at the end of the 7th century, puts their feast on the day before Christmas, under the Germanic name of Modranecht or Modraniht. “ They began the year on the 8th kalends of January [25 December] when we celebrate the birth of the Lord. That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to call by the heathen word Modranecht, that is, "mother's night,” because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night “.

During the night of the winter solstice, we therefore celebrated a worship of the fairies of Matres (good mothers) type and during the meal, places were left for the fairies and the dead .

Note of Peter DeLaCrau found (crossed out) by his heirs.

What to answer the following question of our reader: “Do we also have to worship the three Bethen in question? “

Answer.

Worship is, of course, not the name which is appropriate, being given the position in our Panth-eon or Pleroma of these simple fairies of matres type. To honor would undoubtedly be the most suitable term. And even to venerate (worship of dulia).

Then. If you really always see in these three saint women of Christianity, the three fairies of the matres mopates type of our spiritual ancestors, in spite of the centuries of evolution; if for you it is always the same symbol, hardly modified by the centuries; then go ahead! Do not hesitate, grant to them the

worship they deserve. Let us not be sectarian! But will the Catholics accept your homages? It is another history, the intolerance of this love philosophy is well known.

MEDIEVAL AND CONTEMPORARY SURVIVALS.

Briefly let us remind what is the “respite “. In Christian Europe since the 12th at least and until the end of the 18th (even sometimes of the 19th ); considering the cruel stupidity of the dogmas of this love religion; the birth of a still-born infant is a triple drama. To the sorrow to lose a child is added for the parents the impossibility of making it baptized (thus condemning the little dead to wander like a lost soul/mind and for eternity in the limbo, without hope of salvation), and the prohibition to make it buried in the consecrated ground of the parochial cemetery. This sad destiny of the child without name, without trace in the line, without anchorage place nor rest, is unbearable.

So, when it is proven that, definitely, the child died well (sometimes, it was already buried, but they are the supplications of the mother tortured by the anguish which urge the entourage to unearth the small body); some close relations, accompanied by the obstetrician, transport the corpse to a “ respite sanctuary “(the expression, late, dates back to the 19th century), where it will be shown, often several days, near the altar of a guardian saint or a Virgin. During the time the exposing lasts, the entourage of the child and the assistance present in the sanctuary watch for the appearance of some “signs of life “: an effusion, a heat, a vermilion color which appears on the face, a limb which seems to move… People then run to call the incumbent , the hermit, or a member of the brotherhood attached to the sanctuary, and the child is baptized forthwith, sometimes in the presence of a godfather and of a godmother. The respite thus granted by “God “ sagged by the saint or the Virgin, lasts only a few minutes, even a few hours. But it is sufficient to make the child a blessed one sure of his eternal salvation, a full member of the family, and to alleviate the anguish of the parents who can then “grieve. “

Precise charts make it possible to grasp the distribution of the respite sanctuaries in Europe: South Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italian Alps, Belgium, and, in France, the regions of Alsace and Lorraine, Burgundy, Auvergne, Dauphiné, Provence…

West France, on the other hand, practically has no respite sanctuaries, neither the Iberian peninsula nor the major part of Italy - whereas the Christian dogma of the baptism and its negative consequences on the fate of the stillborn babies, are obviously the same ones as elsewhere. Certain authors explain this absence of the respite rite by the existence of other substitution rites, public or hidden. More advanced studies on the site of certain respite places make it possible to see the complex overlaps of the geography of the sacred one in a Europe which keeps, even a long time after Christianization, the traces and the memory of the prechristian agropastoral worships: sanctuaries near springs or trees, in which the miraculous statue at the foot of which the respites take place would have been found, or near “standing stones “being used as antique territorial boundaries, as contact points between Celtic tribes, keeping trace of the negotiations and agreements of good neighborhood essential to the settlement of the conflicts, to the establishment of the peace between communities…

The files of the most famous respite sanctuaries preserved hundreds of accounts of these facts considered to be miraculous, recorded by priests: 459 cases at Faverney, in Haute-Saone from 1569 to 1593; 138 cases between 1625 and 1673 in Our Lady of Avioth, Meuse; 336 between 1666 and 1673 in the chapel Our Lady of Beauvoir, in Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. It does not seem that there was trickery or collective hallucination in these accounts, but erroneous interpretation of physical phenomena due to the process of decomposition of the small corpses, studied well by the legal medicine of the 19th century: softening, coloring, bleeding, noise of the internal organs. For the witnesses, something extraordinary occurred.

OUR LADY OF LIFE.

The Fountain of Life is located close to the chapel of Our Lady of Life in the upper Doron Valley, in the Tarentaise Valley. This fountain which runs into an old sarcophagus used as a trough was topped in the retaining wall with a statue of mother-goddess-or-demoness, which is now leant against the western wall of the chapel.

This place was visited with two distinct aims.

First of all, it was a place of worship having for a goal to get fertility or to recover health: the women immersed a linen and washed their eyes, face and chest, mainly at the time of the pilgrimage of September 8th. Offerings were carried out (coins, jewels, food, live animals sold then at auction).

The other vocation of the place was that to be a “respite sanctuary “: the celebration of a service made it possible to bring back to the life the stillborn children the time to be baptized.

In the beginning of the 20th century in France, an informed person reported the scenes of which she had been the astonished witness, by taking part, on September 8th, in the pilgrimage of Our-Lady-of-Life (Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, 20 km away in the south of Moutiers). This demonstration of faith gave rise to a considerable surge of Savoyards, come, often on foot, from distant villages, located into the Maurienne Valley.

The pilgrims hasten to put down their atebertas. Other offerings in kind, products of dairy produce, varied cheeses, are put down close to the altar , and even on the altar.

Gifts of a different category are grouped outside, in an annex of the church reserved for this purpose [ sacrarium] and for a very good reason: they are live animals, which will be sold at auction, at the outcome of the processions of the afternoon, in favor of the chapel. The atebertas or offerings at the time of Celts were intended to favorably induce the mother-goddess-or-demoness, who is the great dispenser of the goods of the earth.

It is famous Sanskrit “ dadami se dehi me “: I give you so that you give (the deity then is in a way obliged to give tit for tat ), an expression coarsely translated by the Romans with their “do ut des “.

Except the case of precise vows, Catholics hope from Mary the same help, because the needs of populations did not change so much.

Specialists called upon four different etymologies to explain the qualifier of Our Lady (of life) . The abbot Hudry saw rightly while choosing vita, life, solution of common, which is also richest of meaning, the one which is harmonized with the whole of the data. The abbot Hudry quotes for that two official reports, one of 1664, the other of 1669; from where it results that Our-Lady-of-Life, fulfilling the function literally matching her patronage, brought back to life the stillborn children [at least for the length of the baptism. Editor’s note].

The primordial Mother guarantees the permanency of the social group, by guaranteeing fruitfulness but also by getting earthly foods; thanks to the purifying action of water, she cured the diseases and postponed the dreaded expiry of the death; she introduced, finally, her dagolitoi or believers, in the life of this world parallel to ours which we generally designate, we uns poor human beings, with the name of hereafter.

The Virgin of Christians too, also assumes the first two functions. And with regard to the third, her action, somewhat different, led to the same result; she gave again one moment the life to the not-baptized children, in order to guarantee to them, after baptism, the fullness of the heavenly bliss. We have there a striking example of the prolongation, with adaptation, of a several times thousand-year-old worship.

To the mother-goddess-or-demoness, personification of the spring of Life, the Church did not even substitute the Marian worship. It was enough for it to juxtapose it discreetly, and the antique statue continued to receive its tribute of homages, in the same way that the ritual of the ablutions remained.

The aptitudes of the Mother nevertheless were put little by little ascribed to the Virgin Mary, whose statuette bears the child. The passage from the pagan worship to the Christian worship thus took place without clashes, through a slow and unconscious transition.

OUR LADY OF LOURDES.

In Lourdes were discovered between 1904 and 1907, during the demolition of the old parish church Saint-Peter, the ruins of a pagan temple devoted to the water goddesses called “Tutelae” (three votive altars used again in the foundations of the old apse). Evidence if it is this territory was always that of one or several goddesses of matres or good mother type, the Catholic church having done nothing but recover, with the business acumen we know to it, the phenomenon. Today, Lourdes is one of the greatest Catholic pilgrimages in the world as well as Guadalupe…..and Rome. Regarding the history of the pilgrimage in Lourdes since the Bernadette Soubirous appearances in 1858 see your usual church.

END OF OUR GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE QUESTION ILLUSTRATED WITH SOME EXAMPLES. LET US COME NOW TO THE DETAILED STUDY.

THE FIRST OF THE TWO LARGE FAMILIES OF GOD-OR-DEMONS:

THE ELEMENTALS AND THE ANIMAL EGREGORES.

Andernas called Fomore in Ireland and represented by gigantic anguipedic wyverns as in Arlon in Belgium, struck down by a rider compulsory considered to be a Jupiter.

A colored reconstruction of the type "anguiped lying on the belly" was erected in the (open air) Roman museum) of Homburg Schwarzenacker in Germany as well as the reconstruction of fanum.

ELEMENTALS (reminder of the thesis by the druid Leonorios about the subject).

The word “elementals “ designates the soul /spirits of nature governing the five elements: earth, water, air, fire, and fog. They constitute the spiritual part of stones, big rivers, small rivers, oceans, or of wind and plants, and as such, they direct the phenomena of nature related to the element they control. They are in a way the guards of nature, they take care of the growth of the animals and plants. These entities are called gandharva in Hinduism.

It is not a question of souls in the strict sense of the word i.e., detached from everything, but of souls “incarnated “ in an energy body. These soul/spirits are not invisible, but they have a body made of pure energy, which vanishes in the natural environment of which it adopts shape and color, like in the case of the dusius called Viridis or “green man “for example. This is why it is in theory very difficult to see them.

These elementals are represented in multiple ways in the legends, because, unlike the Arab-Muslim jinns, they do not have their own form; if it is not that they take in the mind of those who focus on them. From where generally a more or less anthropomorphic shape, of course.

Said differently, they are phenomena being able to appear by using the mental shapes that our imagination works out.

They are not pure dreams for as much! They are as real as us in their world to them (their vibratory level is different that’s all). They belong to a kingdom different from ours, even if they share the same planet as us.

ELEMENTALS OF SEASONS.

The elemental of the winter months, of the cold season or of the winter, is called the old woman of Beara, or of Bheur, in Scotland. Caillech Bérri/Cailleach Bheur.

Tales of the Highlands in Scotland.

Cailleach Beara, the terrible old woman of Beara, formerly made an endless winter reigning over Scotland. Since immemorial time , the frozen shawl of the Cailleach covered with her snow whiteness plains and tops. Since always the Cailleach struck plains and tops with her steel hammer to cover them with ice. But one day of Ambolc, the first day of February, Mabon/Maponos/Oengus crossed the ocean to challenge the Cailleach. By driving out the eternal cold, he released his beloved , noiba Brigantia Bigindo Brigit, the flame-goddess-or-demoness (Belisama), Queen of Summer , hitherto kept captive by the Cailleach.

The masks or the disguises representing the Cailleach Bheur or the old woman of Beara are frequently used at the time of the Christmas and new Year holidays. Particularly at the time of the ceremony of the twelve days of Grannus (decamnotiaca), this 10-night and 12-day period called gourdeziou in Breton language.

Irish ballad.

If Beare is well indeed a concrete or localizable place (it is an island and peninsula in the south-west of Ireland), the Irish Caillech Bérri is in reality a mythical character, great ancestor of the royal lines of Munster, around Tipperary. Her name means literally the “veiled one “ an epithet often applied to those who are members of the hidden worlds, but which later came from there to mean simply “old woman “.

She personifies the sharp winds and the length of the northern winter, which is called “season of the Cailleach “. She is the soul/spirit of the weather causing the strong winds which blow from North-East, and the local fishermen gave her the ironic epithet of “Gentle Annie “. It is said that she is changed into stones every April 30th (Beltene) to reappear each October 31st (Samon-ios). The splendid Irish poem of the 9th century entitled in Gaelic language Sentainne Berri stages her with poignant emphasis. It is a poem of average length (thirty-five quatrains), composed in old Irish (8th or 9th century), in short lines of verse. Nothing is known about the author, man or woman. The tone of it especially is remarkable, the lament seeming to emanate from an old speaker complaining about her plight. The work takes place thus from one end to another, while generously lavishing resources which seem unlimited. The genius of the anonymous poet culminates in the way in which he loops his work on itself, by linking magnificently the flow and backward flow of the tides around the island and that of the human life. As for knowing if the features of the poem are properly fictional or autobiographical, let us give up there: the important thing is the impression of “personal experience “ is amazing.

Ebb tide has come to me as to the sea;

Old age makes me yellow;

Though I may grieve thereat,

It approaches its food joyfully.

Is mé Caillech Bérri, Buí

I am Buí, the hag of Beare;

I used to wear a smock that was ever renewed;

Today it has befallen me, by reason of my mean estate,

That I could not have even a cast-off smock to wear.

The wave of the great sea is noisy

The winter storm has begun raising it

A man of office, a son of a slave, today

I do not expect to visit…

First I consumed my youth

I am glad that I so decided

Although my leap over the wall was small

The cloak would still not be new.

N.B. Let us underline the strength of the metaphor in the final reversal.

Had the Son of Mary

The knowledge that He would be beneath the house pole of my cellar!

Though I have practiced liberality in no other way,

I have never said ‘No’ to anyone….

My Parisian penfriends announce me that can be compared with the best of Rutebœuf…

What has become of my friends

Whom I held so close to me,

Whom I loved so much,

Such friends did not protect me,

When God attacked me

On all sides,

I do not see one of them in my residence,

They were scattered, I think,

And blown away with the wind,

Love is dead.

All my friends gone with the wind

That blew so strong at my door,

Blew them away.

Closer to us with this song of Frehel (1935).

Where are all my lovers

All those who loved me so

Once when I was beautiful?

Farewell the unfaithful ones

They are I do not know where

In other rendez-vous

I my heart has not aged yet

Where are all my lovers

In sorrow and the night which comes

I'm alone, isolated without support

Without any hindrance, but without love

As a wreck my heart is heavy

I've known that once happiness

Evening of celebration and worship

I am a slave of memories

And that hurts me.

The night ends and when the morning comes

Dew cry with all my sorrows

All those I love

Who loved me

In pale day

Are cleared

I see passing fog over my eyes

All these puppets that I see are the ones

Still struggling, supreme effort,

I think the hug again.

WIND ELEMENTALS

( Galerna Cers etc…).

VETIRUS/VITIRUS in the singular, VETERIAE/VITIRIAE in the plural (also transcribed Vitiris, Vheteris, Huetiris and Hueteris) is a god-or-demon witnessed by many Roman inscriptions of Great Britain (around fifty, most part coming from the zone of the Hadrian's Wall). Very few things about him are known. A druidic equivalent of the Greek god-or-demon Aeolus?

In the 3rd century of our era, his worship was particularly widespread in the Roman army. The persons who dedicate the altars are generally some privates. His name was never combined with a great god-or-demon of the classical Panth-eon, apart from Mogons in Netherby. Many altars erected in the honor of this Celtic Aeolus were discovered. Certain inscriptions call upon him in the singular, others in the plural. The principal center of his worship seems to have been localized at Carvoran in Northumberland (Fort Magnis), where a certain number of altars engraved with various Latin inscriptions were found.

One of the best-preserved specimens bears the inscription “DEO VETIRI SANCTO ANDIATIS VSLM F “: with the saint god Vetirus, the Andiates erected this altar. And “DEO SANCT VETERI IVL PASTOR IMAG COH II DELMA VSLM “: to the saint god Veterus Julius Pastor, bearer of the effigy of the Emperor [for] the Second Cohort of the Dalmatians .

At Carvoran his altar is decorated with figures of a wild boar (hunting or war) and of a snake (death or cure).

Nine other inscriptions were found on this site.

Latin inscriptions were also discovered at Thilrwall Castle in Northumberland. Six altars were also found in Chesternolm (Vindolanda), in Northumbria. An inscription of Chester-le-Street, County Durham is read as follows: DEABVS VITBVS VIAS VADRI : To the Vitirian gods. Protect this traveler.

In Cataractibium (Catterick, Northern Yorkshire), the inscription which is dedicated to him reads as follows: DEO SANCTO VHETERI PRO SALVTE AVR MVCIANI VSLM (to the saint god Veterus, for the wellbeing of Aurelius Mucianus…)

The form of the name seems Germanic here, what made some people say it was not a god-or-demon pertaining to the druidic Panth-eon or Pleroma. But the question remains very discussed, considering the inaccuracy of the ethnic borders at the time.

The meaning is rather dubious. Wind? Food? Old age? And it is possible that there are quite simply two different deities, one corresponding to the names, in the singular or in the plural, of the vetiros family, and the other with the names, in the singular or in the plural, of the family vitiros.

The foehn effect is a weather phenomenon created by the meeting of wind and relief.

The foehn is a strong, hot and dry, wind, appearing when a prevailing wind is involved above a mountainous range and goes down again on other side after the draining of its steam contents.

When the wind meets a mountain more or less perpendicularly, it follows the relief and rises. The atmospheric pressure decreasing with altitude, the temperature of the air decreases.

When it goes down, the air is compressed (since the pressure increases downwards) and is heated by adiabatic compression.

Foehn effect does not require there are precipitations (rain) or produced clouds on the upward side, but the effect will be all the more strong as the mass of air loses of its humidity. In this case, the air received heat by the condensation of water; therefore the air is hotter and dryer on the leeward slope

than on the windward slope. The foehn effect therefore is frequently met on the mountains of the coastal regions. Then, the seaward slope is wet, whereas the inland slope is more arid. An extreme case is the Death Valley. The Death Valley is “protected “by the Sierra Nevada from the oceanic influence and constitutes an almost absolute desert.

A variant of this process is set up when the air comes from an area more in altitude that the downstream area. It is the case of the Santa Ana wind which comes from the inland of the mountains and goes down towards the Pacific Ocean. The winds of Santa Anna (or winds of Santana) are hot and dry winds which appear during the autumn and the beginning of winter. They are the cause of many fires.

In this case, the updraft does not need to reach the saturation point and to get an input of latent heat. The updraft mass will follow the dry adiabatic during the ascent as during the descent of the mountain. The final level being lower than that of the starting , the final temperature will be higher. Naturally, we can have a combination of the two effects, that is to say a level difference between the start and the finish as well as a latent heat emission through steam condensation.

The areas located under the foehns can see their temperature increasing until 30°C in a few hours. These winds are called “ snow eaters “ because of their capacity to quickly make snow cover melting. This capacity to make snow melting is mainly due to their temperature, but the dehydration of the air mass also takes part in it. The foehns can also support forest fires, by making the areas where they prevail particularly dry and by poking the flames once started fire. Case of the Santana or Santa Ana Winds in California.

A study of the University of Munich (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen) found an increase of 10% of the suicides and accidents at the time of foehn weathers in Europe. Popular mythology also combines various affections ranging from migraine to psychosis, with winds of this type, of which the Santa Anna Wind, which is called devil wind, we noted higher. The word foehn from German Fohn, has its origin in the Alps. The term comes from Latin flavonius (soft wind), and was adopted by the alpine Germanic dialects, of course, through Romansh. The foehn is therefore in its strictest sense , a wind from the Alpine area. The foehn is a wind which appears on the southernmost slope and moves towards Central Europe, while causing an abrupt increase in temperature (often more 10°C at once), generating avalanches by brutal snow melt. It prevails especially in Switzerland and Austria.

A German saying sates : Kriegt der Knecht vom Föhn einen Wahn, schlachtet er den Wetterhahn (“A barn valet hit by the Foehn will kill the Weathercock “). Moreover the one who commits a crime of passion on a day of foehn in Bavaria has the benefits of the mitigating circumstances, it is said…

White Autan black Autan. My Parisian penfriends point out to me that similar phenomena are frequent also in France. The Autan wind is a wind blowing in the south/south-west, coming from south-east/south-south-east, which affects Roussillon, the inland of Languedoc, as well as the Toulouse region. The Autan wind releases indeed many positive ions. It is advised when the southerly wind blows, to take many showers (two to three per day): water releases indeed many negative ions, thus blocking the harmful effects of this wind on our organism. It is said about it , in the areas where it prevails, that it can make mad! What is certain it is that the action of this wind, on men and animals, is also very important. It is supported with difficulty by nervous people and by the rheumatics. The organism of the patients is affected, it results from it a worsening of the disease. This wind irritates the animals which become capricious and restive; it stops practically hunting and fishing: the dogs lose their sense of smell; the fish scorn the lure.

The directions of the Autan wind are variable and there exist therefore several types of Autan winds, with sometimes very particular characteristics for the Autan wind from Siberia or manja fanga, this current from the North-East, very cold and very violent one, which only prevails in February. It blows more generally from south-east, sometimes from south. It is then called wind from Spain, wind from Pamiers, even wind from Libya. Several days before it blows, it a sign, the Pyrenees can be seen very clearly: “l’autan bol bufa “(the Autan wind will blow) the farmers say then.

The southerly wind results initially from a barrier effect. While running up against the Pyrenees, the meridian (directed south-north) flow (or current) causes, leeward the wind of the range, in the north, a small zone of dynamic low pressures of extreme importance.

This center of action starts a whole dynamic by attracting around it the Mediterranean air by the Lauragais corridor. A foehn effect can be added to it. Unloaded of its humidity on the Spanish slope, the air is compressed and heated on the northern slope. This heating effect comes to reinforce the small dynamic depression, and activates the Mediterranean in-draft. In the north of the Pyrenees, the high layers subside, creating a lid which maintains the southerly wind in the low layers. Its thickness is indeed about 800 to 1200 meters only. Wedged by the relief of the Montagne Noire and of the

Pyrenees as by the lid in altitude, the southerly wind undergoes an acceleration or Venturi effect. After Naurouze, a depression effect of starts a brutal draft, not only of the air from South-east, but also from the higher air. What explains the violent turbulence of the wind, with swirls and big speed irregularities.

The southerly wind was sometimes interpreted as a Manichean fight between the good wind or “wind of God “(represented by the west wind or Galerna) and the bad wind or “envoy of the Devil “(that of the east).

It devastates harvests, breaks, breaks the fields. In the barrels, the wine “turns “and is transformed into vinegar. This wind of the Devil or Satan is thus hated by the country populations.

People distinguish the black Autan, not very durable and announcing the rain, from the White Autan, more stable and associated with good weather. The black Autan, linked especially to the presence of a depression in the Bay of Biscay, is the extension of a very wet Marin wind (having traveled a long maritime journey).

The white Autan, which comes as much from the east as from the south-east, is associated with a moderately humid Marin. It owes its existence to an anticyclone extending from the north of France to central Europe.

Our ancestors practiced feng shui without knowing it . The old dwellings were adapted to the Autan wind. The main axis was parallel to the direction of the wind which always ran up against a wall without opening. The kitchen was placed at midday and often protected by an awning called “capelada “. Today these requirements are completely forgotten by the architects and we are astonished that, when the southerly wind blows, doors and windows flap brutally with often breaking of panes…

The men very badly accept this wind which causes migraines, an abnormal tiredness, as well as excitation the teachers find among their pupils. A saying states : “quand l’auta bufa, los fats d’Albi dansan “(when the southerly wind blows, the madmen in Albi dance). The wind also acts over the animals: oxen gore, horses give kicks, dogs bite, vipers attack. Even the fish are no longer hungry, from where the saying, “l’auta es pas cassaire, es pas pescaire, es pas femnejaire “, in other words “ the Autan wind is not hunter, is not fisher, is not womanizer “.

N.B.The same thing is said about winds like Tramontana, Cers or Mistral.

UALARNOS. The elemental of the west wind called Ualarnos (“ Galerna wind “ a rain wind from West or from North-West). The galerna begins with a fast descent of the temperatures, very strong and very cold winds accompanied by short strong. It blows in gust on the west , particularly in Touraine, Berry, Deux-Sevres, Bearn, Quercy and Brittany (where it has the name of Gwalarn).

CERCIOS/CIRCIOS. The elemental of north wind was called Cercius or Circius. This wind gains speed along the valley of the Rhone River, and emerges in Marseilles with bursts which can exceed 100 km/h. It blows without stopping all day, in violent gusts which end up irritating. From where a particular indulgence of the older generations with regard to the committed on these days crimes, the Cers belonging to the winds which make mad.

Strabo spoke about it thus (Geography IV, I, 7).

“ Between Massilia [ today Marseilles] and the outlets of the Rhodanus there is a plain, circular, which is as far distant from the sea as a hundred stadia, and is also as much as that in diameter. It is called Stony Plain from the fact that it is full of stones as large as you can hold in your hand; although from beneath the stones there is a growth of wild herbage which affords abundant pasturage for cattle. In the middle of the plain stand water and salt ponds, and also lumps of salt.

The whole of the country which lies beyond, as well as this, is exposed to the winds, the Melamborion [in Greek the Black wind from north] a violent and chilly wind, which descends upon this plain with exceptional severity; at any rate it is said that some of the stones are swept and rolled along, and that by the blasts the people are dashed from their vehicles and stripped of both weapons and clothing“.

In his “Poems of Provence “(1873), the writer John Aicard spoke about it as follows: “It is the soul/mind of the country which thunders and in the night reverses our pillars by a tempestuous breath! Circius is a god-or-demon who speaks in this noise, because only a god-or-demon resists Caesar who advances… “

The Romans too worshipped it truly, because it purified the atmosphere and they set up several temples in its honor. “To Circius, to the ruler of Provence god “was the inscription being reproduced on their pediments.

This elemental indeed has its days of wrath like a man. It blows per periods of three, six, or nine days, and some high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) affirmed it is because this figure of three is sacred for men and god-or-demons, that Circius regulated its cycle according to it. Circios reigned supreme a long time in Provence, under the Occitan name of Mistral. And the old people of this country always repeated: “It does too much evil so that we speak well about it, it does much too good so that we speak ill about it. “

The mistral is also regarded as a wind which makes “mad “as we could see it and the old ones recognized mitigating circumstances to the murderers having killed under his influence.

N.B.There is also the Cisampa or Cisampo, a frozen wind from North-East or from East.

The compass rose of the known former Celtic winds is therefore not complete, but without cheating, we may designate the missing ones by the corresponding directional adjectives. For example, Dexsiuatera for the south wind (Dexiua is the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the people of the Dexivates, whose capital was the hill-fort of Castellar, in Cadenet ; and whose territory extended between the Luberon’s ridge and the Durance, on the right bank of the river)… Dexsiua is therefore a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the south or of the south winds. From the old Celtic dexs (i) wo: right-hand side, and south consequently, considering the way of orienting oneself of the Celts. Known by inscriptions discovered at the Castellar-de-Cadenet, in the Upper-Provence- Alps, and at Pertuis, in the French department of Vaucluse.

BANANA or BANNACHT.

The Geniti Glinne are perhaps quite simply the winds blowing in some valleys. But there are also the mist and fog elemental. Bananaig/Bananacht or white, pale and livid soul/spirits. See the Twelve White Mouths whose father is the wyvern or anguiped king (of the people of Andernas or Fomoire) Balor, in the Battle of the pillar-stone plain.

The French Paul Verlaine compares them, him also, with phantoms in his poems under Saturn of 1866.

Sentimental stroll.

And I,alone,roamed with my agonies,

Wandered the shore among the willow trees

Where milk-white mist hung vaguely in the air,

Phantom-like form, bewailing its despair,

And weeping with the voice of seabirds’ sputter

Calling each other westward, wings aflutter

Among the willow trees,where I, alone,

Roamed with my agonies ; the shadow, sewn

Into a shroud,drowned deep the sunset’s rays,

Splendorous,sinking in the billows’ haze.

And since we are in the world of dreams and poetry, here what the Songs of the Wind Peoples (http://oneira.net) says about the Bananaig or Bananacht.

Of a size virtually identical to that of human beings, it is, however, difficult to define the appearance of the mist beings with precision, because it is changing and “fuzzy “ at the whim of the fog movements. They are imperceptible and without consistency, with a translucent and, naturally, misty aspect. It is not really possible to say that they speak (they remain at all events dumb, without voices and often motionless, in front of the foreigners). But they know how to be understood and people ascribe to them the mysterious songs and whispers which we often hear in the fog. Their movements are lively and agile, they appear and disappear as much as they want in the fog and they move with a kind of lack of unconcern and contempt of the “physical “reality of the things, which may appear disconcerting.

The fog beings form, however, a benevolent people, and many legends or stories report that they help mislaid travelers to find again their way.

SUN MOON AND STARS.

GRIAN OCUS ESCA OCUS DULE DE ARCHENA.

Note for the readers.

Some people will be astonished perhaps to see appearing here with chthonian entities, some incontestably celestial entities. The explanation is quite simple. As there are much less air elementals that of chthonian elementals…. we thus gave up devoting to them a separate part of this modest essay.

ESCA. Elemental of the moon (Welsh Aranrhod). Her name is generally interpreted like meaning, “silver wheel “ “silvered rings “. The veneration of the moon constitutes a phenomenon older than the worship of the solar force. That is understood easily. The various phases of the moon are indeed more perceptible than these of the sun; and the light in the night is more mysterious and more magic. In Welsh mythology, Ariane-Rode is the only daughter of Donn, the mother-goddess-or-demoness. Well, at least in Wales. Arianrode is the incestuous sister of the magician Gwydion, with whom she would have conceived Dylan and Llew (or Lleu Llaw Gyffes) “ the lion with a sure hand “ whose name is, of course, the Welsh transcription of the god-or-demon Lug. She is combined with the night, the Pole Star and the constellation Corona Borealis, called Caer Arianrod in Welsh language.

SIRONA. From the old Celtic *ster- (star).

Sirona, Serona, Sarona, Dirona, Sthirona, Dirona. Known by many inscriptions found in Mainz, Maximiliansau, Muhlburg and Wiesbaden in Germany.

In Bitburg, Grossbotwar, Hochscheid, Alzey, Nierstein, it is honored with Apollo. In Augsburg, still in Germany, she is called upon by the name of Diana Sirona, and combined with Apollo Grannus.

Inscriptions mentioning this goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if it is preferred, were also found in Vienna in Austria and Augst in Switzerland. In Rome in Italy, Breta and Sarmizegetusa in Romania, she is mentioned in the company of Apollo Grannus. The variant Serana of her name was found in Budapest, in Hungary. The variant of the name beginning with “d “or barred “d “ (tau gallicum) would be due to the difficulty of transcribing her name in Latin language. Sirona is associated with Asclepius the Greek god-or-demon of medicine, in an inscription discovered in Vienna (Austria).

I (ovi) O (ptimo) M (aximo) Apolloni et Sirona (Ae) sculap (io) P (ublius) Ael (ius) Lucius (centurio) L (egionis) X.

Most spectacular of her temples was located at Hochscheid in Germany. Her name means “star “. Under the well-known druidic principle of the fire in water, she was too therefore a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of healing spring, under the name of Sivelia. Sivelia is indeed an attribute of this elemental (her healing aspect) known by an inscription found at Le Mans in the West of France where she is compared with Sirona and is in the company of Atesmerius Apollo. Celtic *sî- (she) and *uello- (better).

GRIAN. The trajectory of the earth in the cosmos and the intensity of the sun’s rays of the sun determine the seasons and, therefore, the fertility of the fields. The physical sun is therefore the symbol of the primary , pure and radiant, principle, which is offered without the least selfishness so that others grow. The Sun was initially regarded as female among Celtic people, and today still in Ireland, Grian is a female name. There exists besides a sun goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, called

Greine or Grainne. This Grainne had nine daughters who lived in a residence called Griannon (the house of the rising sun). It appears in a Scottish popular history as being kept captive in the land of the giants (Tìr naBoireannachan Móra). The old woman of Beara, disguised in a fox, and a young man named Brian, will make her escape.

See also Grian the goddess-or-demoness, or guardian, fairy, in the North-East of Leinster (Cnoc Greine, County Limerick).

According to the Irish legend, she was the daughter of a named Fer Í or Eogabal and sister of Aine, what would therefore make her too, a sun goddess-or-demoness or fairy. One of the legends combined with Cnoc Greine reports that Eogabal was tackled one day by the five sons of Conall, but that Grian routed them and changed them into badgers.

The veneration of our distant spiritual ancestors was addressed, of course, to the most intense of these cosmic forces, to the highest symbol of the spirituality, to the symbol of the friendship or of the luminous facet of Mankind. But beyond its metaphysical meaning, the physical Sun is first and especially the direct source of energy necessary to every organic life, therefore to our life. (The Sun, as a dispenser of an energy essential to every life, also symbolizes the force of the divinity which moves the rhythms of life.)

The mound of Newgrange. Grange is an Anglicization of the Irish word “grian“. Newgrange is largest and most elaborate of the three burials of the Neolithic era discovered in the valley of the Boyne River.

But it is not a grave like the others. It would be in fact a kind of prehistoric cathedral erected to the glory of the Sun, symbol of life.

In the south, a white quartz wall stands. An entrance protected by a richly carved monolith is cut in the middle of this wall.

This mound conceals a masterpiece of megalithic architecture.

The entrance leads to an 18 m length gallery, lined on both sides by 43 monoliths of almost 2 meters high, weighing each one 10 to 12 tons.

At the end of this chambered passage, a massive stone tangle forms a cross-shaped room.

At the foot of each arm of the cross there is a broad stone, dug out in a basin-shaped way.

It is in the middle of this gallery that the dead were laid down.

Whereas they worked to the restoration of Newgrange, undertaken in 1960, two Irish archeologists discovered a vertical opening made between the flagstones of the roof. This breach comprised a decorated structure.

In 1969, having a presentiment this opening had a particular function, they decided to station themselves inside the tomb on December 21st, day of the winter solstice.

Four minutes after the rising of the sun, a first direct ray penetrated through the opening of the roof and went along the chambered passage to reach the basin-shaped stone of the room in the bottom.

The thin ray of light widened and set ablaze suddenly the tomb. Each year, the day of the winter solstice (on December 21st), at 9:17 of the morning, the sun thus penetrates directly in the central room during about 15 minutes. The precision in the orientation of the building is spectacular.

N.B. The physical sun was the subject of various beliefs in the ancient Celtic world we have said. One of most poetic consisted in seeing in him a crossing point of the souls after death. At least according to Henry Lizeray *.

“As the religions are only symbols, people sacrificed victims to Crom by analogy with the Time which consumes all, edax rerum. People recognized the same aptitude to Bel , the spring sun, because the word bel means mouth. The sun, indeed, is the open mouth towards which, after more or less of duration, all the beings having a soul rush in order to be renovated and remade there in a purer form”.

* It is undoubtedly on behalf of our old Master, a wrong interpretation of one of the scholiasts of Lucan, the one who speaks [wrongly too ] about planets as places of regeneration of the souls.

FIRE IN WATER (APAM NAPAT).

There exists in the Vedas a deity named Apam Nepat who is not found in Druidism except in trace amounts in the worship of the waters.

The springs enjoyed especially a completely particular prestige then. It is indeed a true benefit from sky this pure rain water which, often announced by thunder, dependent on the marvelous rainbow, stream on the ground, are inserted in its depths. To leave again, charged with the mystery of their underground progress , and fresh with the crossed shade, in a privileged point or, after a second plunging under ground, in an all the more miraculous resurgence. Frozen by snows or become hot by underground heat, water murmurs or rumbles, shines, purifies, fertilizes and cures. The water movement - let us say the life -, their utility, which can give way to devastation in certain cases, caused that, very early, the peoples saw in them some persons, and even more precisely some deities. The mysterious whisper of the spring seems to be a voice come from the bosom of the earth . Threat or promise? But especially, this worship came, of course, from a basic observation: without water, the human life is impossible. Man can only settle where a spring, a brook, guarantees water in a sufficiency to him. How wouldn't him, under these conditions, therefore felt gratitude towards this element? And when water is thermal, the spring is a fortiori venerated.

Running water was to take in popular imagination the shape of animal, monstrous or human, demons, and it seems that the belief prevailed that in the rivers lived, not god-or-demons, but goddess-or-demonesses. Or some fairies. With some exceptions.

Concretely, much of these water elementals are therefore perceived by the surrounding populations as fairies which like only love and seek it in the company of men. People often see them under the features of young and pretty women, but it also sometimes happens they appear in the shape of a hind or of a white lady… these fairies can lavish to human beings, fortune and love. They are endowed with a curing power , and drive out the diseases. Their presence could only be of primary importance for the development of the sacred springs, the wells , and balneology.

They can also allure men and get married with them. But their requirement is so large that they can never be satisfied. And because of this frustration, some become affected by a wasting disease because of that. The springs , birthplaces of the rivers, were in themselves subjects of worship sometimes different from that of the rest of the river (case of the Boyne River and of its spring the Segais for example). They are in reality generally placed under the patronage of an air god-or-demon who has the capacity to start the rain, or who brings heat. And of a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the earth, who receives it in her bosom and makes it fertile.

All these couples offer a common point. The goddess-or-demoness or fairy bears the attributes of the fertility, or, what amounts to the same thing, of health; or all and sundry. She represents the mother-goddess-or-demoness, from where any birth in this world proceeds, and who welcomes in her bosom all that dies. As for the god-or-demon of the couple, it is always a luminous and air god-or-demon (Grannus, Vindonns, Albius) compared to the god-or-demon Apollo by Romans.

Hail, fountain of source unknown,

Holy, gracious, unfailing,

Crystal-clear, azure, deep, murmurous, limpid and shady!

Hail, genie of our city, of whom we may drink health-giving drafts,

Named by the Celts Divona,

A fountain added to the roll divine!

Divona is the Latinization of a Celtic Devona, a term designating the elemental of a spring. This name is a word of the same family as the words “divine “or “diurnal “. Divos/- a/-on = luminous. Devos/- a/-on = divine. Both derived from proto-Indo-European * Deiwos (divinized light). + onna (water which runs). A Divonna is therefore at the same time the divine one and the luminous one, but in Cornish divona

means on the other hand “sacred well “. The name of this water elemental is found in Divonne-les-Bains, city located at the Eastern foot of the large barrier of the Jura Mountains, in the plain of Geneva; the Fosse Dionne in Tonnerre, and Dions in the Gard, in France. It is combined with the fountain of the Carthusian monks in Cahors; in the past Divona Cadurcorum. Some Celtic rivers and some springs are therefore simply known as “the Divine one “; such the Divona of Bordeaux, sung by Ausonius. From the spring, the worship passes easily to the river of which it is the beginning. The fact is probable for the Boyne, the Shannon, the Seine, and the Marne, is personified under divine names which are applied to the stream itself: the dea Bovinda, the dea Sequana, the dea Matrona.

Another way of designating these goddess-or-demonesses, these fairies or water elementals, is to make the name of the river followed by the word niscai, or nixai/nexai (from where Latin “neha “), as in Cantainiscai (nixes of the Cantai River). It is the Celtic common noun best known for the watery elementals and it means roughly speaking, “water soul/spirit “ naiad, neck.

Examples Abianexai (the girls of the Abia River) Albinexai (the girls of the Albis River) Alcianexai, Almanianexai, Amnesanexai, Anesaminexai, Asericinexai, Atuprapinexai, Auiaitinexai, Auitinexai, Axinexai, Axsinginexai, Boudunnexai, Caiminexai, Campanxai, Candrumanexai, Candrunexai, Cexanexai, Cuinexai, Cuxinexai, Etianexai, Etranexai, Iulinexai, Lanexai, Mamaitinexai, Mauiatinexai, Maxalinexai, Paxinexai, Pernouinexai, Reininexai, Rumanexai, Teniauanexai, Uacalinexai, Uallabunexai, Uataranexai, Udrauarinexai, Ulatuxinexai, Uocalinexai, Vesunianexai…

In Germany, from Cologne to Bonn, the fairies of Matrones type are described with very varied local nicknames. As we have just seen it, these names frequently comprise a suffix - nehae. (This Latinized suffix is only the transcription of the Celtic nexai where x is a “khi “ meaning naiads. Still nixie in Germanic countries. The distinctive name is generally that of a local stream and many of these naiads are also indeed often called “matres “or “matrones “.

But let us stop there this list which would be too long to give (hundreds of names).

Especially since we could also have the name of the river added with the suffix - genai, like in Gesagenai or Nersigneai (the girls of the Gesa or of the Nersis river). - Icai, like in Griselicai (the girls of the Grozeau or Groseau river. Cf. Joan of Arc). Or quite simply - a, like in Ubelnai (the Mothers of the Huveaune, a small river of the surroundings of Marseilles). It is then the name of the deified river (Ubelna) quite simply put in the plural.

What is important is to understand well that these Good Mothers are therefore the guardians of a given territory or terroir (spring, but also by extension valley, plain, massif, etc.) small, or large like that of the Trevirian nation in Germany. But in practice there was obviously, often, fusion between this protective entity of the ground (fairies of Matres type) and the protective entity of blood (the clan, the tribe living this place).

A fairy of the matra or matrona type was seldom isolated, generally we see her represented with two she companions, one on her right, the other on her left, but each one was to have her personality, therefore could have her own worship. An inscription found in Carnoules and Pierrefeu in the Var was indeed formerly dedicated to the third of the fairies of the local triad, Trittia. From Celtic: three, which undoubtedly also gave its name to the town of Trets, in the neighboring department .

The contact with these entities generally takes place unexpectedly (travelers mislaid in the forest or the mountain) by space-time accident (day of Samon), disease causing a trance state, dreams, or apparition. A little like St. Paul on the road to

Damascus

People quite naturally requested from the fairies of Matres type, in the event of disease, the cure, particularly for the children. We find their images in spring sanctuaries, with some bratou decantem (ex-voto) representing either the sick parts of the body, or swaddled infants. At Lhuis, France, in 1957, during work carried out inside the church, was left from the ground a very interesting dedication to the Mothers (Matris, Latin plural dative of the Celtic form Matra). They were perhaps healing Mothers , acting by means of water. The giver proclaims there his gratitude to the Good Mothers who gave back health to his sick children, by making an enclosing wall as well as entrances (circumsaeptum et aditus) built. Fact which will hardly astonish us, the Christian sanctuary in question was dedicated to the Virgin, as if it had prolonged, on the same site, the ancient devotion to the Good Mothers.

SULIS (the elemental of the source in Bath). Sul. Goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the sun.

But this goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, like Grannus on the Continent, and particularly in Aachen in Germany, was not the physical sun lighting our universe, but combined with the cosmic fire as an energy, from where her link with the thermal springs. Elemental therefore also resulting from the application to a given spring, of the great druidic principle of the fire in water. It is a spring which, today still, daily pours 1.170.000 liters of a mineral water reaching 46 centigrade degrees, a phenomenon which, at the time, was unexplainable, therefore of supernatural origin.

Certain historians compare the forms sulevia, suleviae, of the name of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, in Bath: Sul/Sulis, but an inscription found in Cirencester shows us that the plural of Sulis was the form Sulei.

That Sul is a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, combined with the sun, is quite obvious when we see the pediment of the temple the Romans built for her in Bath. The gigantic head of Gorgon which is reproduced on its pediment is obviously a representation of the sun and of its rays. The head of the triangular pediment found in Essarois in France, and bearing the inscription “to Vindonnus and the fountains “ is the exact equivalent of this head of solar Medusa or Gorgon being reproduced on the pediment of the Roman temple in Bath.

The sun environment of the thermal complex in Bath is obvious and it is, of course, due to the Celtic populations of the area, in any way to a Roman contribution.

As goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, combined with the strength of the sun, Sul was, of course, healing (particularly female diseases) and clairvoyant, since the sun sees everything.

We found in her temple in Bath representations of breast or of mother- goddess-or-demoness.

As for her gifts of clairvoyance, they are suggested by the calls for divine justice, engraved on lead tablets and which Romans called “defixiones “ that we also found in her temple of Bath.

According to the legend, Bath was created by a Celtic prince called Bladud in 862 before our era. At least according to Geoffrey of Monmouth and his Historia regum Britanniae (written about 1135). The story is more than hypothetical, being given the little of reliability of this monk (Christian, not Buddhist) as regards History. He claims for example to be based on a translation of the Britannici sermonis liber vetustissimus, source of which the existence is strongly disputed.

The Historia regum Britanniae is a legendary history of the kings of the Isle of Britain since Brutus (ouch, that starts badly), the founding myth , to Cadwaladr. It is the first appearance of outstanding characters such Merlin, Uther Pendragon or king Arthur. Near to the chronicle, the text presents the succession of a hundred reigns with epic passages.

It is nevertheless more than likely that the author, a little lacking in imagination, was inspired, for that, by various local folk tales legends, that he has altered then to insert them within the framework of his account.

After the Trojan War, Aeneas arrives to Italy, with his son Ascanius, and becomes the Master of the kingdom of Romans. His grandson Brutus is constrained to exile for having accidentally killed his father. After a long voyage , Brutus lands in the island of Britain, occupies it and makes it his kingdom . He marries Innogen from whom he has three sons. On his death, the kingdom is divided in three parts and his sons succeed to him. Locrinus receives the center of the island to which he gives the name of “Loegria “or “Logres “ Kamber receives the “Cambria “(current Wales) and gives it his name, Albanactus inherits the area in North and calls it “Albania “(Scotland). It is the beginning of a long list of sovereigns. Bladud is the son of King Rud Hudibras who had ruled thirty-nine years. Affected by leprosy, he becomes pig-keeper close to the Avon River. On his contact, the pigs caught the same disease as him. One day, he led his pigs where the spring left ground while bubbling. When the pigs discovered the warm mud, they wallowed in it , and it was necessary to attract them with acorns for making them leave from there. When dried mud had fallen, Bladud realized the wounds of his pigs had disappeared. He plunged in the spring of warm water in turn and covered himself with mud.

When he left the place some time after, he was cured. He returned in the kingdom of his father, and once become again king, builds a city he named Caer Badon, where he arranges warm baths.

Bladud controls magic and causes many enchantments. He dies while trying to fly with wings of his manufacture, while being crushed on the temple of Apollo in Trinovantum.

This legend is perhaps an adaptation of a local Celtic myth, relating to the elemental of this well. It would remain to explain the passage of the male to the female thereafter. Unless we are in presence of a divine group composed of a god-or-demon and of several goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, like Glan and the Glanic fairies or mothers in Provence.

What is certain, it is that the site was occupied since earliest antiquity. Flint tools found on the site indicate that at the Stone Age, hunters lived winter in the heat of the spring, and many tools dating from the Bronze Age were also found near. In year 43, under the emperor Claude, the Romans conquered this area and discovered in turn this spring of hot water of which the temperature reached 46 degrees, while pouring more than one million water liters per day. They probably built, initially, a fort in the surroundings, then in the Sixties and Seventies began the construction of the site, they named Aquae sulis (bath of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Sulis), by building an enclosure around the well. The construction of a temple dedicated to the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Sulis Minerva, followed. The construction of this gigantic “thermal complex “ ranged from the 1st to the 4th century of our era.

These baths were placed under the protection of Minerva and of fires burned permanently in the sanctuary which was dedicated to her.

The temple was to resemble the square house of Nimes and its pediment bore, in its center, the sculpture of a Gorgon’s head, but male and with a mustache. What irresistibly evokes in this case a sun god-or-demon of male type. This strange Gorgon’s head was found at the time of excavations during the 18th century. The head of a statue of Sulis Minerva was also unearthed at the time of these excavations.

In that time many were the visitors to come with atebertas or offerings in the honor of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer, and of the sacred well (saucers with food, coins…)

The water from the spring was much too hot so that one person can directly bathe there, but a clever system of channels made it possible to feed, in different temperatures, multiple ponds. In the 1st century, there was the choice to bathe between a large pool, a smaller pool, the caldarium or the frigidarium. Multiple rooms were added to this unit, during the following centuries. You reached the basin, 1,5 meters deep, thanks to four steps which make the turn of it; the bottom is covered with large welded lead sheets. The room of the Great Bath was formerly vaulted, initially with wood then with brick: pieces of a vault were found around. The curious person will still discover there other basins in the roofed parts, swimming pools of cool or warm water , round, square or oval ponds. The current visitors still throw there their coins while making a wish, like the dagolitoi or believers 2000 years ago, who put down their atebertas or offerings in the bottom of the sacred well of the sun water.

What is certain also, it is that a perpetual fire, as in the case of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer to use this word, Brigindo/Brigantia/Brigit in Killdare, was well maintained in the temple in the honor of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, according to Solinus (Caius Julius Solinus. Collectanea rerum memorabilium. Polyhistor, chapter XXIII). “...The circumference of [Great] Britain is 4875 miles. In this space are many great rivers, and hot springs refined with opulent splendor for the use of mortal men. Minerva is the patroness of these springs. In her shrine, the perpetual fires never whiten into ashes. When they dwindle away, they change into stony globules “.

Archeologists discovered in Bath thirteen inscriptions mentioning Sulis only, including three in the form Sulis Minerva. The other inscriptions are curses (defixiones). Eleven call upon Sulis and many more still Sulis Minerva. A good example being that known as “of Docilianus “.

To the most holy goddess Sulis. I curse him who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether man or woman, whether slave or free, that...the goddess Sulis inflict death upon...and not allow him sleep or children now and in the future, until he has brought my hooded cloak to the temple.

N.B. One of the variants of the name of Sulis on these defixio tablets is “Sulla “.

Let us insist on a point, in order to avoid every ambiguity! As we already have had the opportunity to say it, but finally, repetere = ars docendi, this practice of bewitchment by writing on a lead tablet, Celts did not invent it. They did nothing but borrow it.

“Defixio “is a Latin term designating in the beginning the action to stick a nail, then the magic operation through which man thus tortures a substitute (for example, a lead plate) while hoping to cause the same nuisances in the enemy to whom he thinks. This process of sympathetic or imitative magic , such as we perceive it in Greece and in Rome, includes the writing down , on the tablet, of the name of the enemy concerned. The registered text can be besides developed by the invocation of supernatural powers, supposed to implement this evil charm, and by various specifications relating to the motive of the judgment or to the various torments which will be used as punishment. It is a type of magic procedure which is witnessed through all the Mediterranean basin, during Antiquity.

And if in certain cases (Chamalières in France for example) the sorcerers successors of the high-knowers of druidiaction (druidecht) believed to have to use the Celtic language in this intention; it is perhaps because they addressed the magic message to Celtic supernatural entities.

Editor’s note. Let us be clear on this subject, if the caragus caragius caraius of the late empire is well the immediate successor of the druid, it is nevertheless his illegitimate or born from adultery child having degenerated because of the prohibition of druidic conferences and meeting by the Roman authorities, which did not, of course, prohibit the druidic religion, but which persecuted the druids; thus reducing them to clandestinity therefore fatally to the decline, for lack of exchanges.

Examples of votive inscriptions in Latin now.

EAE SVLI MIN AET NVMIN AVG G CVRIATIVS SATVRNINVS C LEG II AVG PRO SE SVISQVE VSLM: to the goddess Sul Minerva and to the deified Emperor [numen], Gaius Curiatius Saturninus, Centurion of the second Augustan legion , for himself and his family.

PRISCVS TOVTI F LAPIDARIVS CIVES CARNVTENVS SVLI DEAE VSLM: Priscus son of Toutus, stone mason of the tribe of the Carnutes, to the goddess Sul.

SVLEVIS SVLINVS SCVLTOR BRVCETI F SACRVM F L M.: to the suleviae, Sulinus Scultor, son of Brucetus.

N.B. This last inscription therefore seems to regard Sulis as a multiple (triple?) goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, called suleviae. What would then make her a “mother “similar to those of the Continent.

One of the images of Sulis Minerva found in Bath indeed wears a headgear resembling much that of the fairies of the matres type in Xanten, or of Nehalenia (a beret?)

Sulis is also called upon in the plural in Corinivm Dobvnnorvm (Cirencester, Gloucestershire) in the inscription below.

SVLEIS SVLINVS BRVCETI VSLM : to the suleviae, Sulinus Brucetus.

Comparable inscriptions were found in Switzerland, in Bern, Avenches, Solothurn, and Lausanne, what tends to prove that the worship of this elemental was not only British.

There was in the sanctuary a splendid statue of Sulis, of which only the head remains, the rest having perhaps been destroyed by the Christian Taliban of Parabolani kind.

Sulis was therefore a healing goddess-or-demoness, or fairy. Besides an inscription found in Bath combines her with a local school of midwives. Following the example of the suleviae, Sul was probably a goddess-or-demoness, or good fairy, presiding over births.

The fact that Sulis was equated with Minerva by the Romans, provides us some indications, moreover, on her powers or her field of expertise.

Minerva was the Latin counterpart of the Greek Athena , goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, guardian of the homes or of the country. She was also considered goddess-or-demoness, or good fairy, of craftsmen and farmers, and personified wisdom, reason, purity. Sulis therefore was to have the same remits. The warlike aspect of Athena/Minerva is found for example in the fact that Sulis was supposed to punish the thieves or the perjurers.

The name of Sulis is undoubtedly in relation with one of the Celtic names of the sun (sul /sol) from which old Welsh haul and old Irish suil meaning eye, stem. Because suil is a female Irish name meaning at the same time sun and eye.

Sulis, Sul, Sulei, Sulla, is therefore called upon for all that concerns health and children but also as soon as it is a question of honesty, probity, justice and punishment.

GRANNUS (cf. mac Greine in Ireland).

Inscriptions mentioning this god-or-demon of the druidic Panth-eon were found in Germany (14) in France (4) in Spain (1) in Hungary (1) in Italy (1) in Romania (1) and in Sweden (1).

In Great Britain Grannus is known by inscriptions found in Thetford (Norfolk), Inveresk (Midlothian) and Musselburgh.

All the temples or the dedicated to Grannus sites are combined with thermal springs. For example, in Germany at Aachen (Aachen, in the past Aquae Granni), what explains his equating with the god-or-demon Apollo in the interpretatio romana.

Called upon as the patron saint of thermal springs, Grannos has for consort (shakti Hinduists say), Sirona (“the star“).

Aachen is the city having the hottest Springs in the north of the Alps. Aachen is indeed known for its thirty mineral-water springs with curative properties. The Celts - and before them perhaps the men of Stone and Bronze Age - knew the beneficial force of the aqua granni l come while bubbling from the depths of the thermal baths, and knew how to use it.

The site is occupied since the Neolithic era. The basin of Aachen indeed has many springs which make it a marshy zone. They are the heights (Lousberg) which were inhabited by these first men: some careers witness their presence.

Frederick the Great spoke with much contempt of this place, "...where so many people go in order to distract themselves and from where so many leave without having been healed at all; where the doctors’ talk is concerned with their own glory, which plays its game like the intrigues of lovers; where finally infirmity and prejudices attract people from all parts of the globe.” Modern science for a long time refuted Frederick’s doubts about the medical virtues of the water in Aachen. Heat, on the one hand, and, moreover, not less than in total 19 different mineral elements; among which sulfur, sodium, chlorine, hydrogen and carbonate; have an extremely positive influence on bone diseases, muscles, joints and skin. They have, moreover, a detoxicating effect when they are given in a treatment to be drunk.

According to Cassius Dio Cassius (Roman History LXXVIII, 15,6), the Roman Emperor Caracalla (186-217), would have truly worshipped this god-or-demon.

“But to him no one even of the gods gave any response that conduced to healing either his body or his soul/mind, although he paid homage to all the more prominent ones. ....He received no help from Apollo Grannus, nor yet from Aesculapius or Serapis, in spite of his many supplications and his unwearying persistence “.

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On the Western borders of the Vosges, the "non-located on the river soils,” in Grand, forms an overhang towards the Champagne, region with which they were united formerly. The limestone plateau located at the southernmost end of the Coast of Meuse, culminates at around 400 meters above the sea level. This carbonated formation was released then notched by the upper river s Meuse, Marne, Ornain and their affluents. It forms a powerful bedrock (approximately 90 meters), favorable to the formation of dry valleys (combes, from the Celtic cumba) and to the installation of karstic phenomena. The village of Grand, viewed from the air, appears with its star-shaped communication network, in the center of a cleared zone encircled by the forest. The beech grove-oak grove-hornbeam grove ,climax forest of the submontane level in Lorraine, is present everywhere. It is the evidence, through its treatment in coppice with standards , of the former demand for firewood and timber.

The topography of this site, located between three large valleys, supported an early human settlement. Various lucky finds dating back to the final Neolithic era (- 2500 - 1800) were discovered in Grand even and close to the spring of the “Roises “in the north of the village. The presence of a bracelet with plugs and nodes (4th century before our era), of a fibula, both out of bronze, of several Celtic coins of which a silver denier; shows the permanency of the peopling of this territory. In connection, probably, with the water points (karst spring in the center of the current village and spring of the “Roises “).

The village is located t 22 km away in the west of Neufchateau. The locality, which owes its name to the god-or-demon Grannus, was called Andesina in Antiquity. The shrine of Grand is mentioned on the Peutinger map under the name of Andesina, a name combined with the label which designates the great hydropathic establishments in the empire. Its construction took place between the years 70 and 140 of our era. It comprised a 1.750 meters enclosure with 22 towers and gates delimiting a 70 hectares space. Fifteen kilometers of hydraulic underground tunnels converge towards the center of the sanctuary the resurgence of an underground river occupies. Their function was to regularize the flow of the spring. Three hundred and seven wells were also indexed on the whole of the site.

A bratou decantem (ex-voto) found on the site in 1935, bears the inscription “somno jussus “, thus confirming the practice of the incubation by pilgrims. Those spent the night in the enclosure of the sanctuary and awaited for the visit of the god-or-demon through a dream. We may suppose preliminary purifications and a ritual around water.

Some dates.

213: Visit of the emperor Caracalla. But it is only an assumption which is based on Cassius Dio.

309: Visit of the emperor Constantine I. According to the Christian tradition, it is in the temple of the Apollo of Grand that Constantine would have converted to Christianity. According to the historians, it would have rather adopted there the sun worship of Sol Invictus, as the coins he will therefore mint at the time confirm it, which are dedicated to SOLI INVICTO, what a completely different matter is. A lie, moreover!

Panegyric of Constantine VII, 21,3-4. “For on the day after that news had been received and you had undertaken the labor of double stages on your journey, you learned that all the waves had subsided, and that the all-pervading calm which you had left behind had been restored.

Fortune herself so ordered this matter that the happy outcome of your affairs prompted you to convey to the immortal gods what you had vowed at the very spot where you had turned aside towards [the village of Grand, French department of the Vosges] the most beautiful temple in the whole world, or rather, to the deity made manifest, as you saw. For you saw, I believe, O Constantine, your Apollo, accompanied by the goddess Victory, offering you laurel wreaths, each one of which carries a portent of thirty years “.

362: According to a medieval tradition, martyrdom of St. Eliphius and St. Libaria in the reign of the emperor Julian the Apostate. On the reality of these persecutions, see our essay about, or more exactly against, Christianity. Through the Passion of St. Eliphius and its extension the Passion of St. Libaria, hagiographic texts of the Middle Ages, we guess on the contrary a first attempt at Christianization of the traditional rituals of this pagan Lourdes: Eliphius and Libaria are cephalophoric saints.

- Christianization of the water worship.

- Destruction of the pagan sanctuary by the Taliban or Parabolani of Christianity. The church of the village is built on an archeological embankment filling a cavity. The hole in question is recognized by soundings and geophysics. This cavity probably corresponds to the sacred basin, place of the worship of Grannus. The comparison with the Apollonian Sanctuary of Claros in Turkey, near Ephesus, makes it possible to understand the layout of the sacred pond , former to its destruction and its disappearance under the Christian place of worship.

- State of neglect of the amphitheater.

It was a vast building being able to receive between 16.000 and 20.000 pilgrims; it was pressed against the natural slope of a narrow and not very deep small valley: the dry valley “the Rock “. Conceived with a complete elliptic arena, it had as a characteristic to present an incomplete cavea (part reserved to the spectators) incomplete, forming a broad half-ellipse comprising three maeniana, from which the steps disappeared, on the slope facing north; while it is reduced to a line of steps on the slope facing south. It seems to have been definitively abandoned in the last quarter of the 4th century. Since its destruction by St Libaria , according to the legend, the limestone blocks were used for the building of the dwellings of the current village.

1789: Filling of the miraculous spring of St Libaria.

According to Frazer, we would find traces of the worship of Grannos in the Auvergne folklore at the time of the fires kindled by some grannas mias, on the first Sunday following Lent. Is it possible?? It is true that the worship of water under all their aspects, springs and brooks, rivers, lakes, and seas, is at the same time one of most formerly witnessed but also one of the most generalized which were. And unlike a generally accepted idea, the Indo-Europeans knew as well the vast ocean, *ekwor, as the sea in general, *mori; because they had a god-or-demon who patronized at the same time the springs, the big rivers and the small rivers, the underground water, and the sea. Through resemblance with the Indo-European nepot, “nephew“ he was also called Akwam Nepot, for example in Hinduism, what means “ water nephew “; name we find in the Indo-Iranian god-or-demon Apam Napat, and which dates back to a myth of which the meaning escapes to us today. In the great free and independent Celtica of the time of Ambicatus, he was called Lero.

LIR CLANN.

“There was in Indo-European a word *ab-, *ap-, of neutral gender , designating water as they are regarded as beings which act and, consequently, as natural forces of religious nature [Meillet LHLG 216] by contrast with water considered as an inanimate matter (I.E. uodr. Greek hydr). Xavier Delamarre.

LERO/LIR/LLYR. LLYR LLEDYEITH, LLYR MARINI.

Elemental of the Ocean or primeval water. It rules over the abyss of the deep water (on which the dry land is based) springs and rivers.

The part of Celtica conquered firstly by Romans is rich of the three seas which goes along it; of powerful and harmoniously laid out rivers, lakes, ponds, springs; and of all the streaming water which it therefore owes to the humidity of its climate or to its mountainous massifs. In addition to the former river god-or-demons and to the spring genies, beside Apollo sometimes called upon as a guardian of the navigation, we would therefore expect to find a worship of Ocean there. However, this god-or-demon is unknown among Celts.

Nevertheless Neptune is shown there under an aspect that he had no longer in Italy, god-or-demon of all waters and not only of sea waters. So that we can believe him being compared, here and there, by Roman interpretation, with some deities of the liquid element. And we think then quite naturally of LERO/LIR/LLYR.

People doubted unnecessarily the existence of this deity , who represents one of the aspects of the origins. Strabo for example, wanted to see in him only a Ligurian hero. He was humanized or personified (even backward euhemerized) under the features of King Lear by Geoffrey de Monmouth (History of the kings of Great Britain ) and William Shakespeare.

The first to have perhaps spoken of him to us is therefore Strabo (Geography. Book IV, 10) in spite of the erroneous interpretation of him that he gives.

Here indeed what we can find in his writings. “Lying off these narrow stretches of coast, if we begin at Massilia (Marseilles), are the five Stoechades Islands, three of them of considerable size, but two quite small; they are tilled by Massiliotes. In early times the Massiliotes also had a garrison, which they placed there to meet the onsets of the pirates, whence the islands were well supplied with harbors. Next, after the Stoechades, are the islands of Planasia and Lero, which have colonial settlements. In Lero there is also a hero-temple , namely, that in honor of Lero; this island lies off Antipolis (Antibes)“.

This kind of place, called heroon by the Greeks, was intended to celebrate the worship of a hero, semi-man semi-god. Perhaps this worship of dulia resembles that which today is still celebrated for the Saints in the Catholic church. The dagolitoi (believers) came on the islands to pray Lero, perhaps to the foot of his statue, and offered an object in exchange of his protection. We found besides a very pretty small lid of ivory box on which was written, in Greek language, the dedication of an inhabitant of Naples, to Lero and Lerina (“Athenaios,son of Dionysos, from Neapolis - Naples? – to Leroon and to Lerina “).

We can date with a quasi-certainty the occupation of the islands by the Romans who named them “ Lerinian islands “. This one took place during the second half of the last century before our era. Lero then became a stage for the ships which coasted between Frejus and Antibes.

Archeological discoveries make it possible to determine the importance of the installations built at the beginning of the first century. On the supposed site of Vergoanum, an acropolis, with its sanctuaries, its buildings and an important citadel, the whole girded with ramparts. A little everywhere, on the northern coast of Saint-Honorat, are found vestiges of warehouses, stores, cisterns, thermal baths, arsenals, buildings of fisheries, as well as luxurious villas decorated with mosaics and murals… The port was probably located at the north-west end of the island, at the farthest point of Bateguier, where a 170 meters long breakwater could be localized, between the pond of the same name and the sea…

In Saint-Marguerite, were found an inscription in the honor of the God-or-demon Pan, and in Saint-Honorat, a cippus placed under the protection of Neptune…

At the very beginning of our era, there was therefore here an active and flourishing colony where trade, religion and public life were mixed harmoniously.

Pliny, a few years later, there mentions nevertheless a ruined city, Vergoanum. “…There are also about twenty other small islands in this sea, which is full of shoals. Off the coast, at the mouth of the

Rhodanus, there is Metina, and near it the island which is known as Blascon, with the three Stœchades, so called by their neighbors the Massilians [today Marseilles], on account of their alignment; their respective names are: Prote, Mese, also called Pomponiana, and Hypæa. After these come Sturium, Phœnice, Phila, Lero; and, opposite to Antipolis, Lerina, where there is a remembrance of a town called Vergoanum having once existed “(Natural history. Book III, 2). Let us note by the way that Saint-Marguerite was thus then known under the name of “Lero “and Saint-Honorat under that of “Lerina “. Pliny seems to locate the vestiges of Vergoanum on Saint-Honorat, while the modern authors rather see them on Saint-Marguerite.

According to the legend taken over by Shakespeare, Lero in the beginning would have been one of the first kings of the tribe of goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Danu (bia). Because the history of King Lear and of his three daughters; such as it appears as of the oldest texts (Historia Regum Britanniae, Roman de Brut); is explained neither by the folk substrate nor by the assembly of various tale motifs. Archetypal royal Exemplum, it draws its matter, all its matter, in the “king mythology “specific to the Indo-Europeans and to their heirs. A figure of the sovereign and not image of the father, the central character is modeled on the mythical or legendary type of the “first king “. His reign, in its structure as in its teaching, reproduces an antiquated diagram and an ideology, which underlie and constitute as well the extraordinary destiny of the Indian as Yayâti as the mad expedition of the Iranian Yima. King of the origins, Lear forms part of a history of the Breton beginnings which is only the remote metamorphosis of an already Indo-European “Kings Chronicle “. What is certain in any case, it is that before the play of Shakespeare, there was a play entitled the true chronicle history of King Leir and his three daughters. Coming out of the Middle Ages, at the time of Shakespeare, the most current version tells how a king bequeathed his kingdom to his two oldest daughters; disinheriting his youngest Cordelia , who did not know how to make beautiful sentences in order to express her love for him. From now on queens, the two elder ones are horrible towards their father, depriving him of all, and driving him out of their house. Up to that point, this play by Shakespeare follows the existing story. But whereas the tradition says that Cordelia, wife of the king of France, lands in England with an army, then restores her father on the throne, while reconciling herself with him, Shakespeare introduces a new element. Lear swings in the madness and, in spite of a recovery in the arms of Cordelia, is captured with her. The play is concluded by the death of the majority of the characters, of whom Lear and his three daughters, in an insupportable outburst of passions.

But let us return to the sanctuary mentioned by Strabo in the islands located off Cannes. Quite a strange legend evokes the coming of St Honoratus on the spot.

“From this place Christ brought your Honoratus back to you and by His hidden craftsmanship made the journey back a bringer of health. For whatever he touched as he passed by he made bright. Italy welcomed his entry, with joy as a blessing. Hallowed Tuscany took him to her bosom and through the hospitality of her priests, contrived the most agreable prolongations of his stay. And then the Providence of God, planning future benefits for us, overturned everything. The desire for the desert had called him from his fatherland but Christ invited him to a desert not far from this city. So it came about that he sought to go a certain island uninhabited because of its utter desolation and unvisited for fear of its venomous snakes, lying quite close to the foot of the Alpine range. Apart from the facilities for solitude, he was attracted by the neighborhood of Bishop Leontius (a holy man most blessed by Christ) , and had ties of friendship with him. There were many who tried to draw him back from this new venture. For the surrounding population described the island as a terrible wilderness and tried their hardest, with an ambition inspired by faith, to keep him in their midst. But he was finding it hard to endure intercourse with his fellow men and craved to but cut off from the world by the barrier of the straits. He had ever in his thoughts or on his lips the words that he kept repeating, now to himself now to his followers : you shall walk upon the asp and the basilisk ; you shall trample on the lion and dragon…And also the promise in the gospels, made by Christ to his disciples : I have put it in your power to trample upon serpents and on scorpions. So he went fearlessly on the island and dispelled the alarm of his followers by his own unconcern.

The terrors of the solitude were put to flight ; the army of serpents gave way. But what darkness did not flee before that light ? What poison did not give way before that remedy ? This I consider truly unheard of and assuredly to be counted among his miracles and favors, that the encounters with serpents in that desolate land, which were so frequent, as we have seen, being stirred up especially by the agitation of the sea, were never a source of danger to anyone or even the cause of fear “ (Life of Saint Honoratus by Hilary of Arles).

N.B. This history of snakes which evokes a little too much Ireland and saint Patrick to be a coincidence is quite mysterious. What darkness did not flee before that light ? What poison did not give way before

that remedy ? Christianity accustomed us to such non-truths. Is it an image to designate the waves (rather compared with horses in Ireland) or a nth insult from this Taliban or Parabolan of Christianity to designate the believers of other worships than his?

Saint-Marguerite Island, the closest to the continent, is also largest. Directed from east to west, it is 3 km long and has a width which varies from 100m to 500 m. It has a pond, some pastures, slopes covered with admirable pine wood and a rock hill on which was built, at 26 m of altitude, a rather important fort. It also has a little port. Saint-Honorat, of which the direction is parallel to Saint-Marguerite, is approximately 1,5 km long and has 3 km circumference. It is rather well cultivated.

It is often said that Saint-Marguerite Island was uninhabitable, because it had no spring, no well, and it was therefore uninhabitable in a permanent way. It is also spoken about the miracle of Saint-Honorat making a spring spouting the smallest island and thus making possible the settling of a permanent community free from thirst. However all this is false, since we found the remainders of a small town under the fort,an evidence that people lived there. Christianity always had a difficult relationship with truth: it did not fall, very little and still a child, in its big cauldron.

In Wales and in Ireland, Llyr and his Irish equivalent Lír, are two rather obscure, mythical figures, especially known to be the father or the ancestor of such or such divinity. The Irish and Welsh versions of his myth hardly have common points.

The epithet letoiecto/lledyeith (“with half-speech “) this god-or-demon bears in Wales implies that people badly understand what he says. What means perhaps quite simply that he was of Irish origin, or at least that his worship was of Irish origin. Marini is a Welsh epithet meaning quite simply “of the sea “. The town of Leicester (Llyrcestre) possibly owes him its name.

Best known of his children is without a question Belinos Barinthus/Manannan, but he had of them four others with the beautiful Aupa, three sons: Aedos, Connos, Veco (Aed, Conn , Fiachna in Ireland), and a daughter : Vindula ( Gaelic Fionnula).

King Lero appears under the name of Lir in Ireland in the legend entitled Oidhe Chloinne Lir (the death of the children of King Lir). Tory handed down tardily and therefore strongly Christianized (in other words apocryphal ), but bringing to us invaluable information on the tragic destiny of Aedos, Connos, Veco and Vindula their sister (of Aed, Conn, Fiachna and Fionnula).

Their mother-in-law (the second wife of Lero, yet a sister of the poor Aupa) having changed them into swans for nine hundred years, they are received by saint Mochaomog. Who converts them to Christianity and, after their return to the “human “ shape, assists them in their last moments before sending their soul/mind in the world parallel to ours we say better. The Acallam na Senorach informs us in addition that king Lero was bravest of the Tuatha De Danan, and that he died in action, killed by Caletios (Cailte). What is, of course, pure fancy from a bard.

In Wales, Lero is supposed to have had for a wife, not Lerina, but a woman called Penarddun, and for children Manawydan (shoemaker, farmer, and builder) Brennos (called Bran the blessed, in other words, Bendigeit Vran in Welsh language. Sponsor of the bards, king of the infernal areas and owner of a cauldron of plenty which brought back to life the dead), Branwen, Cordelia and her two sisters, according to Shakespeare.

What is curious in this Welsh mythology, it is that the children of Lero/Llyr (plant Llyr) are all supposed to have been giants, what evokes a little the anguipedic wyverns that people called Andernas on the Continent and Fomoire in Ireland. And giants more or less always in war against the children of the goddess-or-demoness Danu (bia) or more exactly Don in this case (plant Don).

The relatively high position in the divine genealogies of King Lero makes him a complex god-or-demon, although reasonably forgotten. The Celts (in Ireland or Great Britain) having ended up in going onto the oceans, they made him a kind of sea god-or-demon (in Gaelic the waves are called “the plain of Lir “). But initially it is by no means a sea god-or-demon in the classical sense of the word as we

saw it (not like Neptune in any case). It is only in the beginning a god-or-demon “having relationship with the sea “. And the waves are compared with snakes.

The name of Lero is, of course, metaphorical (a secondary meaning is “multitude, abundance “) and it designates at the beginning the sea as a source of life.

Folk survival. Scotland and Ireland. Seonaidh (anglicized into Shony or Shoney, even “Johnny “in modern Gaelic) is the name of a soul/spirit of sea water in the Isle of Lewis. The Dwelly, which is for the Gaelic language what the Oxford dictionary is for English, gives of the word seonadh (without “i “) the two following definitions: “1. Augury, sorcery. 2. Druidism “.

It was perhaps at a former stage a kind of “Neptune “ ruling over North Atlantic. In the 17th century, local fishermen had still habit to offer ale libations to him, in the following way according to Martin Martin and his description of the islands located in the west of Scotland (1695). They came to the church of St. Mulway, the church of St. Moluag or Teampull Mholuaidh, at the northern extremity of the island. Saint Moluag was a disciple of St. Columba of Iona, but the church was dedicated thereafter to saint Maelrubha, a healer considered as doing miracles.

Each man carried his own provisions but every family gave a pock of malt, and the whole was brewed into ale. One of their number was chosen to wade into the sea up to his waist, carrying in his hand the cup full of ale. When he reached a proper depth, he stood and cried aloud: "Seonaidh, I give thee this cup of ale, hoping that thou wilt be so good as to send us plenty of seaware for enriching our ground during the coming year."

He then threw the ale into the sea. This ritual was performed in the night-time. Then everybody came back to the church, where there was a candle burning on the altar. There they stood still for a time in order to pray, then they adjourned to the fields where the night was spent mirthfully over the ale. Next morning, they returned to their respective homes.

THE WATER ELEMENTALS by Jose MarIa Blazquez.

Water, in the Celtiberian shrines, could have one of the two following functions: either to be used for lustrations, or to have therapeutic virtues. The believers came to seek health while bathing there.

Gospel according to Saint John 5,2-4. “ There is in Jerusalem a pool, which is called the sheep pool [Bethesda, Bethzeta etc. archeological excavations made it possible to release the ruins of it. Editor’s note]. An angel of the Lord [the god-or-demon of this thermal spring therefore. Editor’s note] went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had“.

Exactly like the most part of the springs of Spain or Gaul, which comprise inscriptions dedicated to water fairies.

In the imagination of the dagolitoi (of the believers) , protective deities lived there. In the necropolis of Verdolay, was discovered a very interesting ceramic, which could represent, according to A. García y Bellido, a woman beside a fountain. Water was therefore probably at the same time a therapeutic means and a communication means with the other world.

Et in Cantabria fontes Tamarici in auguriis habentar. Tres sunt octonis pedibus distantes, in unum alveum colunt vasto singuli amne ; siccantur duodenis diebus, aliquando uicenis, citra suspicionem ullam aquae, cum sit uicinus iis fons sine intermissione largus, dirum est non profluere eos adspicere volentibus (Pliny. Natural history XXXI, 18).

The sources, too, of the Tambre River in Cantabria, are considered to possess certain powers of presaging future events: they are three in number, and, separated solely by an interval of eight feet, unite in one channel, and so form a mighty stream. These springs are often dry during twelve or twenty days without there being the slightest trace of water there; while, on the other hand, a spring close at hand is flowing abundantly and without intermission. It is considered an evil presage when persons who wish to see these springs find them dry.

This text of Pliny quoted by Jose Maria Blazquez Martinez (water worship in Iberian peninsula) is interesting in more than one way; because it shows us well at which point the springs and their mysteries (they could disappear or to come back, people did not know too much how in this time) always fascinated the men. Who therefore saw there something divine or at the very least supernatural and in connection with the god-or-demons or their destiny to them, mere mortals.

This spring existed, there is little time still, under the name of Fuente of S. Juan de las Aguas Divinas and had medicinal properties. Currently, it is still intermittent; we see there the remains of a Roman arch and a former vault located above a swimming pool intended for the baths. The fact that Pliny reports, occurs in the year 70.

The pilgrimages, in great favor in all Celtica, often moved towards the sanctuaries built on the banks of these springs and attracted considerable crowds (see the example of Grand in the East of France). Not only at the time of such or such a particular festival, but also during all the year. Torches were lighted in front of the springs, and people brought atebertas or offerings to them. This worship, probably of Neolithic origin, survived until full Christian time.

The worship of water and particularly that of the thermal springs therefore shows a stunning continuity. No religious revolution could abolish it; supplied with the popular devotion, the water worship ended up being tolerated, even by Christianity, after unfruitful persecutions of the Middle Ages. The pertaining to worship continuity with regard to certain springs, goes from the Neolithic era until our days (for the water worship and the watery symbolism, see Mircea Eliade, Tratado de Historia de las Religiones, Madrid 1954, pp. 185-210).

Most of the inscriptions are near thermal springs. The same phenomenon was also observed by Mario Cardozo and Santos Júnior, in their recent study of the worship of the elementals in Portugal. And by López Cuevillas when he refers to the inscriptions devoted to watery indigenous deities, in the North-West of the Peninsula.

We may deduce from it, that as regards water worship, the dagolitoi (the believers) sought there before any a practical utility. The names were perhaps the personification of the healthful virtues lying in these springs where the believers ran in the search of a remedy for their infirmities. It is more than probable that all these wells received already worship at the Neolithic era. Chamoso Lamas observed that many Galician springs are currently placed under the patronage of the Virgin or of a saint, others are attached to sanctuaries. These wells were surely venerated before Christianity; with the coming of this one, their worship was carefully purified of its original paganism, and they were placed under the protection of the Virgin and of the saints.

There exists two important pieces of evidence concerning the water worship, both found in the north of Spain, they are Roman, but fully confirm the nature that had this worship. These pieces of evidence are the monument of Santa Eulalia-de-Beveda, and the offering bowl devoted to the Salus Umeritana.

A. The underground monument of Santa Eulalia-de-Bóveda, province of Lugo, is one of the most interesting documents we have preserved of the water worship in Roman Spain. It was discovered in 1926, and specialists put forth various assumptions on its origin and its primitive use. The monument is in the northern part of the atrium of the current church of Santa-Eulalia-de-Bóveda, located approximately 14 km away of Lugo. In a place close to the sacristy of the church, a large slate flagstone hid the entrance, giving access to a 3,40 m deep crypt, in which people went down by a staircase. The plan of the monument is rectangular, and represents an atrium or interior court. Its layout corresponds to a building with three naves, among which the central nave is proven very broad, and side naves extremely narrow. The monument is of great interest, because of the motifs which are of a great technical perfection, and of a great pictorial richness, and which make more beautiful most of the walls, archways and vaults. The motifs are of three kinds, geometrical, vegetable and animal. The first ones seem to imitate a coffered ceiling. The second ones are represented by watery and exotic plants, leaves, trees, and bunches of grapes; the animal motifs are very varied, pheasant, ducks, cocks, partridges, doves and quails. The whole is decorated with some small low-reliefs, distributed separately on the walls of the portico. On two equal reliefs, existing outside the pilasters of the hall, five female figures appear, arms up, except one who presses a hand on the shoulder of her neighbor, while with the other she rides up her skirt.

On the interior face on the northern side of the portico, another small low-relief is seen. Of aver fine drawing and execution, it represents two male figures, one naked and the other dressed with a short tunic, who through their attitude seem to show themselves their body deformations; one shows his rigid leg, and the other his deformed arm.

The excavations carried out in 1947, unearthed , under the ground, the existence of a pool full of water. H. Schlunk in 1935 (Santa Eulalia de Bóveda, in Goldschmidt Festschrift, 1935) recognized in this monument parallels with monuments of East, South of Russia and Syria; and believed that of Santa Eulalia de Bóveda in fact, had the same goal. Assumption confirmed, apparently, by the low-reliefs which decorate the frontage, in which he saw a relationship with former funerary symbols, this nature appearing more clearly in the scene of the veil dancers. He ascribed the fact that we did not find human remains nor remains of sarcophagi, to the transformations undergone by the building in order to adapt it to other purposes, and precisely to the Christian worship. He supposes the monument was erected at the Roman time, and that it would have been restored after the collapse of the vault as well as the frontage; the rebuilding of the vault and the addition of the archways inside would be located in the 9th century, time during which the building was devoted to the Christian worship.

The discovery of the pool, in 1947, eliminated all the doubts being able to remain on the use of this monument. It is a nympheum, a public edifice devoted to the worship of the elementals, with an aim of seeking their protection and of resorting to mineral water with therapeutic purposes. It is what the relief seems to indicate, because of the fact that two characters show mutually their scars; in the same way by the discovery of the upper part of a Roman altar, where we read PRO SA (lute). The water of the swimming pool of Santa Eulalia is precisely ready to fight rheumatism. This monument is a piece of evidence of the Christianization of the water worship, since this place was adapted to the Christian worship.

B. The silver patera dedicated to Salus Umeritana, was found on a height named Pico del Castillo, close to the locality of Otañes, in the province of Santander, among the ruins of an old building. On the upper part, there is a woman laid down on the ground and half-covered with a coat , personifying water. The nymph holds in her right hand a small branch of sedges, a grass which grows in the very wet and marshy areas. She presses her left arm on a container from where runs out water, which, passing under a small bridge, comes to flow in a pond. Next her, there is a servant Knelt down on his right knee who pours water in a container with a bowl. Under this scene we see we , similar to the previous one: a man pours water from an amphora in a barrel placed on a four wheeled cart, pulled by a pair of mules. On the right there is a bearded old man, dressed in a toga, which pours a libation on a broad-based circular altar. At the right side of the offering bowl, we see two scenes independent one of the other; the higher scene shows an old peasant, also wearing a short tunic, and being pressed on a bent cane, which throws on a quadrangular altar a handful of amber or incense (?) grains. In the lower scene, there are two characters, one, older, sat on an armchair equipped with a high back, while a young man, wearing a short tunic, presents a goblet to him. It is probably a patient to whom water is brought.

This offering bowl is very important for understanding well the nature of the water worship at the Roman time. The nature of this worship, such as it is released from the atrium of Otañes, coincides fully with the impression we draw from the study of the monument in Santa-Eulalia-de-Bóveda and with the fact that the inscriptions are close to sources endowed with therapeutic properties. The dagolitoi (the believers) sought in the worship of the elementals and of water, a precise result : to be delivered from their bodily pains, thanks to the water. The offering bowl of Otañes, in two of the scenes which are represented on this drinking cup (transport of the water, and offering of this water to a patient) indicates the water having healing virtues was brought to the patients. It also announces of what the water worship could consist: in libations and incense (undoubtedly originally amber) offerings; and the way in which popular imagination represented the water in question: under the features of half-naked maidens living the wet places.

The indications about the water worship handed down by the councils coincide with the information on it that Saint Martin Dumiensis, or of Braga, gives involuntarily in his treatise entitled De correctione rusticorum (XVI). When he requests that people light no longer candles by the rocks, the trees, the fountains and in the crossroads of the paths, and that people throw no longer bread into the fountains. Habit which remained still in Galicia there is little time.

The interpretation this Taliban or Parabolan of Christianity gives on the origin of the water worship is interesting. “Many demons among those that were expelled from Heaven preside to the rivers, the fountains and to the forests and to them in the same way do men, ignorant of God, worship them as they were gods and offer them sacrifices“ (De correctione rusticorum, VIII).

Let us note by the way , what is frequent with these philosophers followers of the love god , despisers of the superstitions of all kinds, that Martin of Braga denies in no way the existence of the gods of ancient paganism; but that he makes them only expelled demons from the Heaven. Such a treatise resembles besides much the diatribes of Islam on this subject.

Denounced practices being it also by several other authors of the time (Caesarius of Arles, and so on) the question which is asked is to know if they are really observations made in the field, by saint Martin of Dumio personally; or a fashion among the Christians of the time. The prevalence of the Greco-Roman elements in the judgments, to the detriment of the Pagan-Celtic elements (however testified well by epigraphy…) makes us lean towards the second assumption.

Water worship was undoubtedly to be much more planted in the north of the Pyrenees apparently. The councils anathematize there infinitely more severely those who venerate the fountains than the councils summoned in the Iberian peninsula do it. A catalog as impressive as that which was done by A. Bertrand on the canons of the councils, while starting with that of Arles (452), condemning the worship of the fountains, would be impossible to establish in the Iberian peninsula.

There exist nevertheless several of them in which we can find exhortations or anathemas against the unfortunate ones who still venerated the fountains, what well proves the implantation of this water worship in the country.

The first council of Braga mentions the infidels who light candles or who honor through worship trees and fountains. There is in the decisions of the Second Council of Braga, in the year 572, a canon (the canon 71) which relates to those who still carry out lustrations (lustrationes paganorum faciant). And the canon 11 of the 12th council of Toledo again mentions those who light torches or who worship fountains, even trees (accensores faculorum et excolentes, sacra fontium vel arborum). Just like the canon 2 of the 16th council of Toledo summoned in the year 693.

Short study of some inscriptions.

AIRO DEO. A.

IRONI.

FECIT. F

MILIA OC

VLES. VSE

C. IITINN

CRISPINV.

The altar, which is out of limestone, was found in the locality known as the Round Fountain, near to Uclés, a place where a small pond is, around which probably Roman remains of constructions, stand. Not far from the fountain where the Bedija River springs, stretches a Roman cemetery of which we preserved a great number of urns. The geographical adjective oculensis corresponds to the oldest form which is known, in the documents of the Middle Ages, to designate the village of Uclés. The altar is devoted to the guardian genie of the fountain. In various localities of Spain, people give the name of Airon to a well; for example, the Airon well, on the borders of Garci Muñoz (Cuenca). Another well, called Airon, is in Hontoria del Pinar (Burgos). There also exists in Granada a small place of this name.

ABIA. FELAESVRAECO.

SACRVM

POSITVM CVRA VICCISIONIS.

The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum proposed the following reading for this stone, which comes from S. Juan of Camba.

NABIA ELAESVRRAEGA.

The name of the god-or-demon in question would be therefore Abiafelaesuraecus and it is under this name that Leite de Vasconcelos mentions it in the second volume of the Religions of Lusitania.

In the third volume, Leite, on the other hand, followed the reading suggested by Vázquez Núñez, considering it much surer.

[N] ABIAE ELAESVRRAEC

SACRVM

POSITVM CVRA VICCION.

The letters of the beginning of the first and of the third line are restored in a very fortunate way by Vázquez Núñez. In the Peninsula, the inscriptions dedicated to the great or to the small river Nabia, discovered until now, are seven. In the first line, ELAESVRRAEC is put for ELAESVRRAEC (AE), female dative of ELAESVRRAECUS. A name made up of the stem Elaesus we find in various Hispanic inscriptions (CIL II, 2633,2688,5034), in toponyms (CIL II, 5034, 5763); and of the suffix - aecus, a typical suffix of the North-West of Spain, which appear very usually under distinct variants. ELAESVRRAECAE in this case is exactly the same type of word as Cariocieco, composed of the suffix - aecus, preceded by the toponym.

GENIVS FONTIS AGINEESIS

FONTI SAGINEES GENIO

BROC CI L VIPST

ALEXIS AQVEEGVS

V. S. L. M.

Part of the inscription is illegible today, because it is hidden by a construction built at the place where the altar was discovered. According to Gómez Moreno, of whom we give the reading, the letters are well formed, though unequal. The altar is in Bonar, above a spring with healing virtues, which is currently called “the Hot“ because of its temperature. The rock, on which the inscription is engraved, is a slater quartzite; Roman vestiges in the immediate neighborhoods of the spring were not found. The inscription was dedicated to the genie of the well, by a dagolitos or believer who had profited from the beneficial virtues of its water.

NYMPHAE FONTIS AMEVCNAE

NYMPHIS

FONTIS. AMEV

CN. L. TERENTIVS

L.F. HOMVLLVS

IVNIOR. LEG

LEG. VII. G.F.

L.V.M.V.

The stone was discovered at León, and was dedicated by a legate of the 7th legion. The name of the fountain was probably Ameucna. It surely must have therapeutic virtues. The man who offered the stone is unknown. The letters are well written like it suits to a senior official of the Roman Empire.

CASTAECAE

REBVR

RINVS

LAPIDA

RIVS. CA

STAECIS

V.L.S

The altar , currently disappeared, comes from Santa Eulalia-de-Barrosa, a town of Lousada (Oporto). Hübner, Mario Cardozo and Leite, believe that the deities venerated on this altar are elementals designated by the suffix - aecus joined with a toponym, as it is frequent to find some of them in the formation of the names of god-or-demons.

CELIBORCA

BAEDIVS

RIBVRRVS.

CELIBORCAE

SACRVM

V.S.L.M.

The inscription is probably devoted to a guardian nymph of thermal springs. In the Antonine Itinerary , on the way from Bracara to Asturica a locality named Celenae Aquae appears, today Caldas de Reyes. The second element, of the name of the deity, has perhaps a relationship with borm “to bubble “ which appears in Bormanicus.

DVRBEDIGVS

CELEA

CLOVTI

DEO D

VRDEB

ICO EX V

OTO AN.

The two etymologies we can give for this name confirm the assumption according to which DVRBEDICO would be a water god-or-demon. The name ends in the suffix - ecus, very widespread in

toponymy. Durb would have a relationship with Irish drucht “fog“ or with derb “clear, crystalline “ an idea which is well in harmony with a watery deity; - ed is the suffix we meet in many Celtic words.

DVRVS

DVRI

C. IVLIVS

PYLACES.

The inscription, discovered around Oporto, is dedicated to the genie of the Doero/Duero River; the name has the termination of the Celtic dative - i.

EDOVIVS

EDOVIO

ADALVS. CLO

VTAI. V.S.L.M.

The name of the person who offers the altar, ADALVS appears once in the Peninsula. The altar was found close to Caldas de Reis, in Pontevedra, around a former thermal fountain; it is devoted to the genie of this fountain.

FROVIDA

SACRVM

MATERNVS

FLACCI

EX VISV

V.S.L.M.

Frovida is the nymph of one of the rivers which run in the town of Braga, place where the altar was discovered.

The name of the deity is attached to the Indo-European stem *sreu “to run “ Frudis, Froutis, Combo-frutis, Can-fruth, “river “in old Welsh, modern Welsh ffrwd, Breton froud “brook, torrent, the running water in general “(cf. Holder, op. cit. I, 1500; Walde-Pokorny, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, II, 7025). Leite de Vasconcelos attaches Frovida to the name of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of allegorical type, Providentia; relation which appears very doubtful and much less sure than the previous one. Hubner wonders whether that would not come from [Fortunae] Providia (e) sacrum; it would be in this case of a simple Roman deity. The interpretation of Frovida as being one of the goddess-or-demonesses, or fairy, of water, could be acceptable; because in the Peninsula, the water worship is very current.

LACVBERGVS

COLEY. TE

SPHOROS

ET FESTA

ET TELESI

NVS. LACV

BEGI. EX

VOTO.

The altar was found in Ujué. It has the head of a bull in relief on one of its sides. Lacu, element we find in modern toponyms = “water “. Lacubegus was to be a watery deity. The name of the deity in question is in the Celtic dative in - i.

LVPIANAE

ANTONIA

RVFINA

VOTO NYM

HIS LVPIA

NIS LIBENS

ANIMO

POSVIT.

This altar was discovered in 1887, in the town of Guimarães. It is currently in the Museum of the Society Martins Sarmento. It was found on the banks of the Vizella, and Lupia designates a river of Germania (Real Encyclopädie, s.v col. 842); Lupia, Lupius, Lupia, Lupianus, are names which appear in the Hispanic inscriptions and apart from the Peninsula (CIL, II, 2793, 6257,4970). In Huesca, there is a toponym, Lupinen, which is connected with this word (R. Menéndez Pidal, op. cit. p. 135).

MATRES

MATRIBVS

TER

MEGISTE

V.S.L.

The altar was discovered on the bank of the Durato River. In this inscription, the Matres have probably a nature of watery deities; nature in which they appear in many other inscriptions (Toutain, Les Cultes païens dans l’Empire Romain, 1920, volume III, p. 243), because the altar was found close to the river.

NABIA

CICERO

MANCI

NABIAE

L.V.S.

The altar was discovered in S. Joao Baptista de Pedregao Pequeno. The altar is devoted to the He or to the She Nabia, river to which are dedicated eight inscriptions in the Peninsula. The altar is out of granite, dimensions 0,70 X 0,28 X 0,20 meter; the height of the letters varies between 0,06 and 0,07 meter.

CATVRO

PINTAMI

NABIAE

IBENS.

The altar was found in Monte Maltar; the name of the river to which the inscription is dedicated, is spelled in the same manner as in the inscriptions found in S. Joao Baptista de Pedregao as in San Juan de Camba. There is a variant between b and v in the orthography of the name of this deity.

NABICCA.

López Cuevillas read the name of this goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, who is perhaps a variant of NABIA, on a stone discovered in Marecos.

NAVIA

NAVIA (E)

ANCETOLV (S)

ARI. EXS G

SESM

VOTVM

POSSIT

Q.E.C.I.

The G of the Latin word “gens “is back to front, a phenomenon we observe in other inscriptions collected in Spain (CIL II, 5739); the latter was found in Asturias. Hübner proposes for these initials the reading Gens or Conventus, because it is not seen clearly if the letter is G or C. This inscription proves that the He or the She Nabia as river elemental was worshipped by the gens Sesmaca, without being able to specify the localization of this gens or this conventus, which was to be in Galicia. On the localization of the Navia and the problem of the two Navia, see J. González, El litoral asturiano en la epoca romana, Oviedo 1954, pages 84-86).

REVA

PEREGRINV

APRIFREVE

EIS VOTO.

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The altar was found in Mosteiro da Ribeira. Reua (Reue, vulgar dative for Reuae) apparently is a deified personification of Diua. The altar consequently is dedicated to a watery divinity, personification of running water, exactly like the god-or-demon, or the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the name of Nabia. It passes in Ruanes a river which is called Deva; and in the territory of the Celtiberian Arevaci , another passes Areva, which perhaps has a relationship with Reva, even while admitting this word is an indigenous personification of Diva. In any event, it seems acceptable that the deities in the name of whom the word deva appears are watery deities.

REVELANGANICAEIGVS

RECTVS

RVFI F

REVE

LANGA

NIDAEI

GVI. V.S.

This altar was discovered in Idanha, and is currently in the Ethnological Museum. It is 0,68 X 0,21 in dimensions; it is out of granite and broken in two halves. The name of the person who offers it is frequently met in indigenous onomastics. The name of the deity in question is Rave, in vulgar dative, E for AE, as it is frequent in the Hispanic inscriptions, followed by an epithet which specifies it; this one ends in - aeigus, a voiced form with development of i in front of ae as basic ending, and the suffix - ko. In another inscription of Proença, also dedicated to Reua, the epithet ends in the unvoiced form - aecus, without development of i in front of - ko. We observe this variant between unvoiced and voiced form of the final suffix in another epithet: in Idanha, there is Langanid-- and in Proença, Langanit-- in accordance with the phenomenon which we notice for Adaegina and Ataecina.

SALVS BIDIENSIS

CATVRO

SA. BIDIE

SIV. A.L.S.

Romans considered this deity under two different aspects: on a side, it meant in general the public good, Salus Populi Romani, Salus humani generis, on the other the body health; in this case, salus alternated with valetudo. This second aspect of the deity in question is the meaning of Salus in the inscription about which we speak. As we have had the opportunity to see it higher, in Pico del Castillo, close to Otañes, in the province of Santander, there is a similar inscription on a silver offering bowl of the first century, which shows in relief a fountain, probably of thermal springs, and a cart with a barrel for the transport of its water. The inscription has a dedication Salus Umeritana (A. García y Bellido, Esculturas romanas de España y Portugal, Madrid, 1949 pages. 467-470). It is around Montánchez that the fountain of Bidia was to be, of which the genie or the curative principle could be identified with the SALVS BIDIENSIS.

SILONSACLVS

NIMPHIS SILONSACLO

VIANA EX VOTO F.C.

The inscription in question appeared on the territory of the locality of Alongos, close to the Mino, among the stones which blocked a spring. Hübner believes that the indigenous name (in the singular dative, while nymphs is in the plural) is attached in the name of the Sil River. The name of Silo, element which appears in the form Silonsaclus, is met on several occasions in the peninsula, as a name of person CIL II, 2633, 2947,5649; Hübner, Eph. Ep. VIII, 416) among the Zoelas, in a bratou decantem (ex-voto) of Zamora, San Esteban-de-Gormaz, Alebniz. We read it on two of the 62 new inscriptions published lately by F. Santos, and originating in Zamora (F. Santos, in the Boletín del Instituto de Estudios Asturianos, 23,1954,15, 25). The Sil was worshipped , as well as the Thames, Rhine, Danube, Seine… (Cuevillas, in Zephyrus, VI, 1955,233.)

TAMEOBRIGVS

TAMEOBRIG

POTITVS

CVMELI

VOTVM

PATRIS

101

S.L.M.

The name of the god-or-demon is composed of the ending - briga and of the river name Tamega; the votive stone precisely appeared at the confluence of the Douro/Duero and of the Tamega. In an inscription a village of the name of Tamagani (CIL II, 2477) appears. The deity in question is watery, and just as to the god-or-demon Aturro, also river deity, man devoted to it an altar of which the funerary nature is marked.

Currently, the altar is preserved in the Museum of the Society Martins Sarmento in Guimarães. II is out of granite. Dimensions are 0,74 X 0,39 X 0,27 meter (Rel. II, 319 - 321).

TANITACVS

AVRELIVS

FLAVS

TAIT.T.ACVARV

NYMPHIS

EX VOTO.

This altar was discovered at the Baths of Molgas, province of Orense. It is probably dedicated to the elementals of a thermal spring.

TONGVS NABIAGVS

In Braga in Portugal, in the Fonte do idolo (in Portuguese language the idol fountain), was found a very strange quadrangular monument, cut in the rock itself, with Latin inscriptions and sculptures. At the foot, there is a fountain with a pond. The monument and the fountain are out of granite. If we start the description with the higher left angle, we find the following inscription.

CAELIVS FRONTO

ARCOBRIGENSIS

AMBIMOGIDVS

FECIT.

The letters are of the1st century; their height varies between 0,06 and 0,065 meter. Arcobriga , word from which the adjective Arcobrigensis is stemmed, is perhaps the Adobrica which Pomponius Mela (III, 1,9) quotes, name Galicians gave it; Ptolemy speaks about Arcobriga among the Celtiberians (II, 659) close to Bilbilis, city also quoted in the Antonine Itinerary (1, 438,13). In Coria, man discovered a stone with this same adjective arcobricense (CIL II, 765).

Then, is carved in the rock a human figure, 1 m 10 high, which represents a standing elemental , wearing a tunic, with a long beard, and who holds on his right side a bulky object difficult to identify (a horn of plenty filled with fruits?) Leite de Vasconcelos believes this figure represents the person offering the altar, little founded opinion, because this sculpture is the representation of Nabia. The rivers are frequently represented in the Roman art of this country by bearded men with a horn of plenty; the presence of the latter forces us to dismiss the assumption of Leite.

In a second inscription, we read the name of the deity to whom the monument is devoted:

TONGOE

NABIAGO.

This name is an unsuitable compound, because it gives an inflection to the two elements; the first is the word tong- which occurs very frequently, in the peninsular names; and in the onomastics of the deity the Celtic dative - oe appears; in the second element of the name we have the word NABIA, an Asturian river , with the suffix - acus in the form - agus.

The name of the deity meant “ the Nabia on which people swear “. This name reveals an unknown aspect of the river worship in the Peninsula: people swore oaths on them. This habit to swear by rivers and water in general was frequent as well in the Greek world as in the Roman world.

The height of the letters composing the name of the deity varies between 0,09 and 0,10 meter.

In the lower right angle is a 0,50 X 0,12 meter niche , topped with a pediment, we can see a dove and a hammer. A bust of man is placed in the niche. Under the left angle, we can read CAELIVS FECIT, and under the niche: FRONT. This character is perhaps the offering person , who is at the same time the author of the monument.

REMARKS FOUND ON A LOOSE LEAF BY THE HEIRS TO PETER DELACRAU.

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Jose María Blázquez Martínez (the water worship in the Iberian peninsula) notices many similarities with what we can know from the religion in North Africa. Why not? It is certain indeed that man, where he can be, was always fascinated by the springs and the water points; so essential to life and yet apparently so capricious (springs which are dried up or which reappear, without logical explanation, at least at the time).

II is not rare to discover in the whole Berber Africa, in Roman forms, water worship; the many sanctuaries, like that built near Zaghwan or that of Ayn Taburnuk (Tubernuc Grombalia), are frequently accompanied by springs. These sanctuaries are devoted to water elementals. They generally include a building, inside which the spring is, of which the invaluable liquid is collected in a pool. G. Picard believes that the shrines dedicated to Neptune or to the Elementals hide old Berber rural sanctuaries, in which the worship, in the Roman Empire, had kept its primitive form.

G. Picard, who made excavations in 1939 and 1941 at Castellum Dimmidi (Messad Algeria) , discovered a construction which has the aspect of a small temple, surrounded by caves. There was on one of its sides a well separated from the rest of the building by a wall. This layout indicates clearly that the well had a sacred value: an inscription is devoted to the god-or-demon Apollo, Aesculapius and Hygieia. The archeologist deduced from this discovery that the Berber elemental who presided over this water was confused by the Romans with their god-or-demon of medicine. In Timgad, in front of the sanctuary, there is a large pool. The god-or-demon patron saint of the temple, according to the fragments of statues collected, was Serapis or Aesculapius; the pool bears the name of “ Septimian bath “ (Aqua Septimiana)

Ogam. Celtic tradition 9, Fasc. 3,1957,209-233 (= El culto a las aguas en la Península Ibérica, en J. M. Blázquez, Imagen y Mito. Estudios sobre religiones mediterráneas e ibéricas, Madrid 1977,307-331).

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FIRST NOTEBOOK

FOUND BY THE HEIRS TO PETER DELACRAU.

As of prehistory, the boiling and the vapors of the source of warm water fascinated the human beings, who often settled in the vicinity. The she-elementals or water dusii are generally viewed as being female in Celtic land . These soul/spirits of the watery element became the matres, nymphs, mermaids or nixies , of our Germanic legends. Their powers are related to fruitfulness, seduction, erotism and passion. The dusii or elementals seen as being of the male gender are a very small minority, but these exceptions exist.

Last point of this introduction. We saw that some elementals of dubious gender in reality ; will be regarded as of the male gender by the Romans, a macho people if there was one.

Let us note finally a small technical difficulty. As we saw it higher, men call sanctity (sanctitas) in the Romano-British and Gallo-Roman world, in Narbonnese particularly, the charismatic relation (divine patronage) being able to exist between the sovereign god-or-demon (Taran/Toran/Tuireann = Jupiter) and the kings or the chiefs. This notion of divine patronage expressed by the Latin term of sanctitas, is an at the same time Latin and Celtic religious concept.

The Celts indeed experimented a particular form of relationship between their god-or-demons and their leaders, conveyed well by the fact that they thought to be of divine origin (descendants of Ogmius, or Herakles for the Greeks, even descendants of Belin/Belen/Belenos, said Apollo in interpretatio graeca). It was therefore relatively easy to them to interpret in heir way the “sanctitas“: the divine force going down from the god-or-demons to the great political leaders or warriors.

The panegyric of Maximian by Mamertinus, particularly important text because expressing the ideas of the Celtic rhetoricians of the time, begins with the following expression “ille siquidem Diocletiani auctor deus… “ What means: “ The god-or-demon founder, or father, of the race of Diocletian… “ We therefore deal in this precise case with an example of Romano-Celtic syncretism. The Latin noun of sanctitas being used to express a druidic idea: a certain form of mythical ancestry , or of divine patronage, of the great Celtic god-or-demons, and mainly of Taran/Toran/Tuireann.

As regards Latin inscriptions, we will systematically translate nevertheless the quite Roman and only Roman notion of numen of such or such emperor by “deified ” for lack of anything better. The druids indeed admitted well that some human beings could have kept more or less preternatural gifts but they never systematically combined such a charisma with the political power and only because it is the official power.

SENUA. Elemental of the water mentioned in the cosmography of the anonymous geographer from Ravenna (in the south of Great Britain). And localized in 2002, when it was discovered, close to Baldock in Hertfordshire, a treasure made up of 26 atebertas or offerings dedicated to this goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, who resembles much the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of Bath (Sul). Thomas G. Ikins suggests identifying her with the Alde River. The temple of Senua, which stood at this place, was to be a large spring temple completely comparable with that of Sulis, with buildings for the pilgrims, workshops, shops, and so on. These atebertas or offerings seem to be buried, undoubtedly in order to protect them, in the 3rd or 4th century. There were silver plates enhanced with gold, seven gold plates and jewels, of which a pin, a cameo, as well as coat fibulas, etc.

One of the inscriptions is read as follows.

DEAE SENVA [...../FIRMANVS [...../V [SLM]

“To the goddess Senua [.....] Firmanus [.....]

Another inscription, on a jewel, specifies that the ateberta (offering) was made by a man called Servandus from Spain.

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The small silver figurine which was discovered represents the elemental this spring in the shape of a gracious young woman with her hair up in a bun.

Twelve of the votive plates represent her in the way of a classical Roman Minerva , but the five which have an inscription call upon her under the name of Senua, Senuna, or Sena.

SIANNON, SINNAN or SIONNA. She elemental of the Shannon River. The river has its source in the Shannon Pot, a karst of the slopes of the Cuilcagh Mountain, in the North-East of the lake Allen (few km away of Dowra). Sionnan was supposed being a daughter of Lodan and, therefore, a granddaughter of Lero/Lir. She would have come to this place to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. But as soon as she had begun to swallow some, the well overflowed, covered her with its water, and dragged her away throughout the country, what gave rise to the river bearing her name.

TAMESIA. She elemental of the Thames. Middle English Temese, it is a name stemmed from the Celtic name of the river, Tamesia/Temesia transcribed in Latin Tamesis and in Welsh Tafwys. This name is found in Antwerp in Belgium and in Saint-Marcel-les-Chalon in France, under the name of Temusio. It probably means “dark, deep “. The letter “h “was added in the Renaissance. Unlike to the practice in the Celtic countries, the river was represented as a man in 1854, under the name of “Old Father Thames “. The statue, initially set up at Thames Head, was then moved to Saint John's Lock (Lechlade). A sculpture representing the goddess-or-demoness or the fairy Tamesis, a work by Anne Seymour Damer, on the other hand, was installed in Henley-one-Thames, close to Oxford, on the bridge located downstream. But, as opposed to what the group represents, the she elemental of this river has noting to do with the goddess Isis.

SABRINA. Welsh Afon Hafren. She elemental of the Severn, river born in Wales and crossing Western England. Three hundred and fifty-four kilometers long, it is the longest river of the United Kingdom. Sabrina is a name which appears at the same time in the classical sources and the Historia regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth. She would be a princess called Sabrena or Sabrina, drowned in the river from where its name. Perhaps an evolution of the legend initially relating to the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of this large river. We find exactly the same kind of legend, but in the masculine, on the Continent, with the Arar River. Pseudo-Plutarch, About the names of rivers and of mountains and of the things found in them. VI. The Arar.

Arar is a river of the Celtic region which...Formerly it was called Brigulus, but was renamed for a reason of this sort. Arar, for the sake of the hunt, when he had headed to the wood to go hunting and found his brother Celtiberus slain by wild beasts; after he had mortally wounded himself through an excess of grief, fell into the river Brigulus, which from him was renamed Arar.

RENUS. The elemental of the Rhine. Rare exception to the rule of the femininity of the river deities. Its worship was, of course, of protohistoric origin. In 1970, were discovered in Strasbourg; in a well already filled at the Roman time, below a Corinthian capital coming from a nearby building, destroyed then cut up after the fire of the year 235; most part of the fragments of an altar dedicated to the Rhine Father by Oppius Severus, legate of Augustus. This discovery is important, as well for the name allocated to this deified large river as for that of the giver.

Indeed, if the title of Father, added to the name of the river, appears for the first time on a Roman inscription, the identification of the personality of the man who offers the altar brings important data to us about this dusius.

The altar is decorated, on one of its faces, with a libation jug and an offering bowl, on the other side, with a double axe, as well as with a triangular case containing three sacrifice knives. At the top of the altar , between the two curls, a rib-shaped tympanum is engraved with two series of two spiral ended features, framing a vertical hasta topped with an Amazon shield.

On the higher face of the altar, on the two sides of the offering bowl for libations, some chains to which are attached ropes symbolize the shipping on the Rhine. With these purely Roman ornaments, the decoration of the tympanum at the top therefore combines Celtic religious signs, still in use at that time in the Rhenish army.

To return to the expression Rhenus Pater , what was therefore the exact meaning of it, inherited from the Celtic period without any doubt ? Two texts inform us about this point.

- Mythical Ancestry of a warrior. See the Epigram of Propertius: “ Claudius threw the enemy back when they’d crossed the Rhine, at that time when the Belgic shield of the giant chieftain Virdomarus

105

was brought here. He boasted he was born of the Rhine itself, agile at throwing javelins from unswerving chariot wheels“.

This epigram relates to the feat of a Roman general who, in the year 16, had repelled the Germanic ones having crossed the Rhine. To thank him or congratulate him on this victory, Rome had allocated to him a memory of the last wars having occurred between Celts and Romans; the shield of Viridomarus, taken by the Romans during the engagements against the Celts during the 2nd century before our era. This shield was attached to the Rhine, ancestor of the warrior.

- Demonstration of paternity. The Rhine judges the legitimacy of the new-born children.

An older epigram than that of Propertius, pertaining to the Greek anthology, and probably dating back to the end of the 3rd or to the beginning of the 2nd century before our era, echoes an ordeal, used at the residents bordering the Rhine. “ The brave Celts test their children in the jealous Rhine, and none regards himself as being the child's father until he sees it washed by that venerated river. At once, when the babe has glided from its mother's lap and sheds its first tears, the father himself lifts it and places it on his shield, caring nothing for its suffering for he does not feel for it like a father until he sees it judged by the bath in the river, the test of conjugal fidelity. The mother, suffering new pangs added to those of childbirth, even though she knows him to be the child's true father, waits in fear and trembling the pronouncement of the dubious wave “.

It is possible that the adjective applied to the Celts by the poet, “brave “ comprises a restrictive nuance: they would be the fine gentlemen , i.e., only those who are members of the aristocracy.

At all events, it appears certain that this ordeal is to be put in connection with the mythical paternity of the Rhine god-or-demon. This ancestry affirmed by some chiefs, explained the confidence they put in the river to recognize the legitimacy of their own descendants.

This epithet of Father, still allocated to the Rhine at the Roman time, and probably dating back to the origins of the Celtic settlement of the Rhenish valley, therefore plunges us in the most remote past.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT.

The dedication to Rhine Father appears in the first third of the 2nd century, during a time when the very executives of the army become openly friendly with certain forms of the druidic religion, dear to their soldiers of Celtic origin; particularly numerous in the legions and in the Rhenish Amy corps.

The dedication to Rhenus Pater of Argentorate, in the beginning of the 2nd century, is therefore in a context particularly favorable to the expression of the remaining druidic beliefs.

Other dedications to this large river, these which were found in Germany.

One dedication to the river comes from Upper Germania: CIL XIII 5255, Stein am Rhein. To the Rhine River, for the safety of Quintus Spicius.

The other dedications all come from the two ends of the Lower Germania.

- CIL XIII 790, Remagen: To the very good , very great, Jupiter, to the place genie and to the Rhine, Cl. Marcellinus, consular beneficiary , in the reign of Emperor Commodus during his fifth consulate (190).

- CIL XIII 7791, Remagen: To Jupiter, to the place genie and to the river Rhine, Flavius Stilo, consular beneficiary of the consul Salvius Justinianus, has fulfilled his vow gladly and according to merit.

- CIL XIII 8810, Wittenberg (Vechten): To the gods of our ancestors who reign on these places, to Ocean, to the Rhine, Quintus Marcus Gallianus legate of the Victrix XXX legion, for his safety and that of his, has fulfilled his vow freely and deservedly .

- CIL XIII 8811, Wittenberg: In the honor of the divine household, to Jupiter, Juno Queen and Minerva the saint one, to the place genie, the Ocean, to the Rhine, to all the gods and goddesses. For the safety of our sovereign Marcus-Aurelius Antoninus, son of the pious Augustus and Divine Antoninus the great one (Caracalla), grandson of the divine Severus (Septimius Severus) legate of Augustus, 1st Antonian, pious and faithful, legion, devoted this altar.

Let us observe these five dedications come all from localities important for the navigation on the Rhine and its organization on the trade, civilian and military level. Except for the inscription of Stein am Rhein, which contains an invocation for the safety of a taken individually person,all the other inscriptions present an official and administrative nature, just like that of Strasbourg. It should also be noticed that the dedications of Remagen relate to only the Rhine, combined with Jupiter and the place gene; while these of Vechten-Fectio comprise a much fuller list deities, including ancestral god-or-demons, the Ocean, the Rhine, Jupiter-Juno-Minerva. It is sure that the center of Vechten-Fectio was most important, and that the responsibility of the legates who directed it was diversified much. It was exerted at the same time on the river and sea traffic, warehouses and toll, civil and military security.

Representations of the deified river.

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It should not be concluded from these particularly important and suggestive inscriptions that the worship of the Rhine Father was reserved for the military and administrative power. Some illustrated representations prove it is not the case.

- Upper Germania: a statuette of the Museum of Haguenau, found in Seltz, provides us a good image of the river god-or-demon. He is represented standing upright, under the aspect of a middle-aged vigorous , entirely naked, man, abundantly bearded and curly-haired. He leaned at the origin with his left hand on a scepter, and held with his right hand a dolphin. The statuette can be dated back to the end of the 2nd century.

- Lower Germania: the representations of the deified river are there relatively numerous and varied. Esp. VIII 6233, Bonn: stele discovered near the Roman camp. The god-or-demon is represented there sitting, bare-chested, his legs covered with a coat worn on his right shoulder. He leans with his left hand on a dolphin, right hand resting on the knee. Awkward military art of the beginning of the 3rd century.

Esp. VIII 6258, Bonn: acroterion of a temple pediment, decorated with a horned head of rivers divinity, inspired by Greek art. Beginning of the 2nd century.

Esp. VIII 6333, Bonn: a probable pediment ornament found at Bandorf in the ruins of a temple. This piece, preserved in the museum of Bonn, carved out of sandstone, is 0,36 meter high and 0,50 meter long. bearded river God-or-demon, half lying , his left leg lengthened, his right leg bent, his left elbow pressed on a coat lying on the ground. The same coat passes behind his back and covers his right arm, his elbow being supported by his thigh and holding with his right hand the tail of a dolphin. His left hand appears to have apparently held a pouring jug, which was torn off. Provincial art of the 3rd century, of which the very lengthened model reminds that of the fairies of the matrones type in Bonn.

Esp. VIII 7432, Cologne: triangular pediment, a long time embedded in a house. In the center, Mercury sitting, holding caduceus with his right hand, and on the left a purse resting on a post. On the right and on the left of the god-or-demon, two deities standing draped. The one who is on the left side of the god-or-demon holds an oar with her right hand, as well as a horn of plenty with her left hand. The one who is on his right side holds a torch. This central ternary group is framed, on the right and on the left, by two half-lying water deities, resting each one on a pouring jug. The left deity, symbolizing a river, is of the female gender, and the one on the right side the deified Rhine.

The central triad, made up of Mercury, the Mother Earth and Abundantia, is framed on its right by the female personification of springs and rivers, on its left by Rhenus Pater. This group of five deities decorated a municipal fountain. In the center, Mercury represented the god-or-demon of abundance through trade and craft industry. On his right, the Mother Earth, in connection with the agricultural activities, supported by the fertilizing water of springs and rivers, these latters being symbolized by the springs goddess-or-demoness, or fairy. On his left, the Fortune, in connection with the navigation on the Rhine (the oar), this last one himself being present (Jean-Jacques Hatt, Myths and Gods).

N.B. The river was undoubtedly play a role in the myths of the residents about the travel of the soul/minds towards the world parallel to ours we call the hereafter. On the shores of the Dutch coast, close to the Rhine, the pagan dagolitus put himself under the protection of the deities able to secure at the same time his safety in the life and his salvation in death. And thought of the ultimate travel towards a hereafter located in the mythical space bordering Ocean.

It is, of course, there, the meaning of the bratou decantem or ex-votos to “Nehalennia “, she guardian of navigation, but also of the travel of the dead towards the universe parallel to ours we call Heaven, as this inscription proves it.

“To the very good really great Jupiter, to the gods of our forefathers, and to those who preside over this place and to the Ocean, as the deified Rhine, Q. Marc. Gallianus legate of the XXX legion Ulpia Victrix, for his safety and that of his, fulfilled his vow. “

Not forgetting the invective of Claudian against Rufinus: “There is a place where Celtica stretches her furthermost shore spread out before the waves of Ocean: It is there that Ulysses is said to have called up the silent ghosts with a libation of blood. There is heard the mournful weeping of the spirits of the dead as they flit by with faint sound of wings, and the inhabitants see the pale ghosts pass and the shades of the dead“ (Book I, lines 1296134).

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NISINA AND NISINCIUS. Elemental of the springs in Saint-Honore-les-Bains (Aquae Nisinciis or Nisinaei) close to Autun. This Nisincius was apparently the guard of a substance known as “fire in water “on the true nature of which we lose ourselves in conjecture (see Apam Napat in Hinduism). The arsenical and sulphurized water is anti-inflammatory, disinfectants, antispasmodic, and anti-anaphylactic. They are known since earliest antiquity. In 50 before our era, the troops of Julius Caesar crossing the Morvan massif will discover it in turn, and the Romans will build there thermal baths which will function until the 4th century. The village changes its name and becomes then Aquae Nisinaei or Aquae Nisinciis (a precise dating could be carried out starting from the Roman coins discovered in the wells at the time of the excavations of 1830).

Panegyric or speech of Eumenius in the honor of the emperor Constantine, year 310.

“Rightly, therefore, have you honored those most venerable shrines with such great treasures that they do not miss their old ones, any longer. Now may all the temples be seen to beckon you to them, and particularly our Apollo, whose boiling waters punish perjury which ought to be especially hateful to you.

Immortal gods, when will you grant that day on which this most manifestly present god, with peace reigning everywhere, may visit those groves of Apollo as well, both sacred shrines and steaming mouths of springs? Their bubbling waters cloudy with gentle warmth seem to wish to smile, Constantine, at your gaze, and to insert themselves within your Iip.

You will, of course, marvel at that seat of your divinity too, and its waters warmed without any trace of soil on fire, which has no bitterness of taste or exhalation, but a purity of draft and smell such as you find in icy springs. And there you will grant favors, and establish privileges, and at last restore my homeland because of your veneration of that very spot “.

THE SEGAIS and THE BOYNE RIVER. The Boyne (Irish Abhainn Na Bóinne) has her spring at Trinity Well (Tiobar Na Trianaide), Newbury Hall, close to Carbury, in the County Kildare. Her name comes from that of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Boand (mythology of Ireland). The guard of the spring was a deity called Nechtan. He was one of the brothers of Dagda, the most important god-or-demon of the local hierarchy, after Lug and the son of Collbran. The Segais was a magic spring which belonged to him. The goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if this term is preferred, Boann, bathed there one day in order to be washed or to be purified of an adulterous relationship, but she was atrociously burned there by the power of the magic water.

See above the same legend on the continent in connection with the thermal spring called Aquae Nisinciis or Nisinaei by the Romans, not far away from Autun, and of which burning water was supposed to punish the perjuries.

Boann loses there an arm, a leg and an eye, then becomes the Boyne River while fleeing towards the ocean. According to the accounts, Nechtan is either her father or her husband. The Tobar Segais was guarded by three wine waiters, Flesc, Lam and Luam, because nine magic hazel trees growing around gave fruits being able to give knowledge and wisdom. The well is also known under the name of fountain of Conla. It was worshipped each November 1st. A legend has it that Saint Patrick on the way toTara drank from its water.

The damona Vinda/Bovinda/Boann was apparently also known in Utrecht in the Netherlands, under the name of Boenda (which we find combined with the Celtic god-or-demon called Borbo. Cf the inscription Borvoboenda).

SEQUANA. Goddess-or-demoness of the Seine River: Sequana (“the pouring one “). In any case, what is certain, it is that the elemental of the Seine was considered, at her spring, as health or safety deity; as the very numerous bratou decantem or ex-votos out of stone, wood, and metal, witness it . She was regarded as able, through her water, to cure a large number of diseases and infirmities. The dagolitoi (believers) of the sanctuary, belonged, for the majority, to popular classes, as we can judge it according to the scarcity of the inscriptions and the irregularity of the orthography of some of them. However, the honorary inscription of which the fragments were preserved in CIL XIII 2870, proves that provincial personalities were also interested in the sanctuary, and made it profit from their largess.

We have of the elemental of the Seine River only three representations: a stele carved in high relief, an incomplete sitting statue, a bronze statuette standing on a boat.

The high relief (Esp. 2845 = CIL XIII 2859-2860) is one which has an inscription,besides partial. The elemental of the Seine River is illustrated there in the shape of a draped woman, holding with her right

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hand a jug with two handles: simple figuration of a spring deity. The incomplete statue, Esp. 2405, shows her sitting on a seat, like a fairy of matron type. But the most remarkable representation of the she elemental of the Seine River is the bronze statue 0,80 meter high , discovered in 1933 by Henri Corot in a hiding place, which also contained the statue of a young satyr. The statue of the deity has the nº 7676 in the collection of Esperandieu, and that of the young satyr the n° 7677.

The goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, was represented standing on a boat, dressed with a heel-length tunic and a coat. Her hair is divided into two by a part in the middle of her head. They are cropped on her nape. But on the front, they hang on the shoulders in two twists. This type of hairstyle resembles that of the mother- goddess-or-demoness occupying the center of the group of the three fairies of the matrones type in Bonn (Esp. 7761). The tunic, seamless, was fixed above the shoulder and the right arm by buttons. The two forearms bent forwards, the gesture of both hands, the attitude even of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, slightly backward leaning, her head leaning forward; make us suppose that she held with her two hands the two handles of a flat basket filled with fruits and cakes.

She was therefore represented as a distributing mother-goddess-or-demoness. She has on her head a crown decorated with six big pearls, strongly posed behind. The very small head compared to the whole, the stiff, hieratic,folds, of clothing, schematized in a decorative way, all these features remind of the mother goddess-or-demonessses and matrones of lower Germania. However, the style of the statue appears clearly older ( Claudian or Neronian period). It may be that it is inspired by even older models, out of wood.

The crown that the goddess-or-demoness or fairy has on her head makes it possible to think that she had been somewhat influenced by the sovereign deity of the Celts, and that she was too, regarded as Queen, at least in her sanctuary and on her grounds.

The statue was not figured, according to every probability, standing upright on the boat, at the origin. She was welded on it with tin. It is not a real boat, but of the reproduction, small scale, of a worship object, probably representing a wooden processional boat. This boat ends in a head of a swan, holding in its nozzle a berry. The swan is a water bird. But it is also, since Protohistory, a solar and funerary symbol.

The role and the attributes of this deity therefore seem here being particularly complex. She is at the same time regarded as sovereign, distributing, and as psychopompous, opening to the dead the ways leading to the universe parallel to ours but of heavenly nature, through higher water.

With regard to the boat itself, is it necessary to think of something analog of the chariot of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Germanic, Nerthus? (Tacitus, Germania, 9,2.) At all events, it is difficult not to recognize that there are in this exceptional representation of the elemental of the Seine River, much more than the common representation of a simple spring deity.

Watery and nautical goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the Mount Auxois.

A recent examination of the group of the three fairies of matrones type discovered on the Mount Auxois in 1924 (Esp. 7107) showed that the fourth character on the left side of the three Mothers, was not a child, but a naked young woman, represented small scale, wearing a coat fluttering behind her. She sat on a boat, a swan put in front of her poses its head on her knee. There is therefore here a combination between the three Mothers, nourishing and distributing, and the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Seine, with the swan. The migrations of the swan towards north, the myth of its song at the time of its death, had conferred to it in the eyes of Ancients the role of a guide of soul/minds.

We therefore find on this group of the Mount Auxois the same ideas as these which accompany the goddess-or-demoness or fairy of the spring of the Seine River, standing upright on a ship representing on her bow the head of a swan.

The goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer this word, Seine, and the coins of the Parisi.

Is it possible to establish a relationship between this Roman dea Sequana , and the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, whose head decorates the obverse of the gold coins of the Parisii? We saw above that the head of this goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, sometimes topped the diagrammatic figuration of a ship (ALT, plate XXXI, 7796). It is probable that the bringing together of the sovereign goddess-or-demoness of the coins with the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Seine, occurred as of the period of independence. We may think that throughout the course of the river was present in the eyes of Celts and Romans, a great water deity ; allied with the Queen of the Skies and of the Earth, and borrowing from her some of her remits, particularly in the funerary field.

The goddess-or-demoness of Vertault.

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We also observed that a mother- goddess-or-demoness sitting, coming from the ruins in Vertault, had her left foot put on a boat’s prow (Esp. 3376).

It is likely that this is there an image of the goddess-or-demoness, fairy or if you prefer, Seine, worshipped in Vertault as she was in the temple of Alise-Sainte-Reine. We can notice that Vertault is only 15 km away in the west of the Seine River. The vicus (village) of Vertillum could count, among its inhabitants, some merchants practicing the river traffic on this river.

The Seine river springs on the plateau of Langres, at 471 meters above sea level, not far away from Saint-Seine the Abbey at approximately 30 km in the North-West of Dijon. Surrounded by a wood with leafy trees, small springs gather in a pond. The town of Paris bought the enclosure in 1864 and built a cave there where the statue of a young naiad carried out at the request of Napoleon III sits in state. It reminds of the statue of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy Sequana, found at the time of excavations undertaken in the neighborhoods, since 1836, near the ruins of an ancient temple. The Romans had built at this place some thermal baths and the pilgrims came there from all Europe, because they thought that the water of the Seine River had healing virtues. And there was to be cure cases indeed, considering the number of the bratou decantem (ex-voto) discovered here.

To imply that the patients who visited the Seine’s spring, had been victims of a collective hallucination, when they gave thanks to the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy Sequana, is a simplistic way to deal with this question. Were the chemical analyzes rather advanced? Is the chemical analysis enough to distinguish if such spring water is curative or not?

The Church recovered for one of its saints the magic of the site and the processions multiplied, especially the years of dryness. The village became the head office of a Benedictine abbey founded during the 6th century by a certain … Sequanus (Seine), son of the count of Mesmont. Seine… Who would think, nowadays, of thus baptizing his child? There existed well and truly, however, this Seine who gave his name to the village (Saint-Seine-sur-Vingeanne). He was called, originally, “Sigo “ had been made a monk in the 6th century in Moutiers-Saint-Jean, before settling in the forest of Cestres, today a modest hamlet of the district. It is he who was the initiator of what was going to become one of the most powerful Burgundian abbeys the, his family name evolving through ages and circumstances into “Soignes “, then into “Seigne “. A name it was easy to assimilate to the very close Seine, and that the scribes Latinized in “sanctus Sequanus “at the time of his canonization. What conferred his final name of St Seine to him. Pretty redirection of etymology. Certain legends affirm that Sequanus was the descendant of one of the priests of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Sequana. In any case, he was not her spiritual son since he undertook to build the primitive buildings of the first monastery in the area, by clearing several of the grounds around and by multiplying the cures or miracles (like the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Sequana). Sigo died in 581.

DANUBIA/DANUBIUS. Elemental of the Danube. Female in the Germanic languages (die Donau) male for the Romans.

The Danube is the second-longest stream in Europe (after the Volga ) and the longest one traversing the European Union. It springs in the Black Forest in Germany, when two small streams , the Brigach and the Breg, meet in Donaueschingen; it is starting from this point that the river takes its name of Danube. This not very common situation for a long time drew the attention of the observers.

Here what a dictionary of the 19th century says about that. “Some people credited a very beautiful well , locked up today in the court of the castle of Donaueschingen, to be regarded as being the spring of the Danube; and the weak current which goes out from the spot has the name of river, receives as simple affluents two rivers which come to join and lose their name in it. This privilege granted to the weakness against the rights of the force, so seldom disputed, undoubtedly dates back to a very early antiquity; it is probable that its origin was mythological; the beauty of the spring and of the sites which surround it could make people believe that the river god-or-demon had chosen this place for his residence. The Prince of Furstemberg, owner of this charming country, had the ambition to put himself at the place of this god-or-demon, to hold in turn the tilted jug from which the water will be spread all over to the Euxine Sea; he built the castle of which this natural basin and the brook which feeds it, is most interesting decoration “.

The original words of the famous Strauss’s waltz of the same name are infinitely less known than its music

Donau so blau,

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So schon und blau,

Durch Tal und Au

Wogst ruhig du hin,

Dich gruss unser Wien,

Dein silbernes Band

Knupft Land an Land,

Und frohliche Herzen schlagen

An deinem schonen Strand.

Weit vom Schwarzwald her

Eilst du hin zum Meer,

Spendest Segen

Allerwegen,

Ostwarts geht dein Lauf,

Nimmst viel Bruder auf:

Bild der Einigkeit

Fur alle Zeit!

Alte Burgen seh'n

Nieder von den Hoh'n,

Grussen gerne

Dich von ferne

Und der Berge Kranz,

Hell vom Morgenglanz,

Spiegelt sich in deiner Wellen Tanz.

Die Nixen auf dem Grund,

die geben's flusternd kund,

was Alles du erschaut,

seit dem uber dir der Himmel blaut.

Drum schon in alter Zeit

ward dir manch' Lied geweiht;

und mit dem hellsten Klang

preist immer auf's Neu' dich unser Sang.

.....

Du kennst wohl gut deinen Bruder, den Rhein,

an seinen Ufern wachst herrlicher Wein,

dort auch steht bei Tag und bei Nacht

die feste treue Wacht.

Doch neid' ihm nicht jene himmlische Gab',

bei dir auch stramt reicher Segen herab,

und es schutzt die tapfere Hand

auch unser Heimatland!

............

Das Schifflein fahrt auf den Wellen so sacht,

still ist die Nacht,

die Liebe nur wacht,

der Schiffer flustert der Liebsten ins Ohr,

dass langst schon sein Herz sie erkor.

O Himmel, sei gnadig dem liebenden Paar,

schutz' vor Gefahr es immerdar!

Nun fahren dahin sie in seliger Ruh',

Schifflein, far' immer nur zu!

What means (approximately, because my 4 years of German language are far away)

Danube so blue,

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So beautiful and blue,

Through vale and field

You flow peacefully,

Our Vienna greets you,

Your silver ribbon

Links all our lands

You merry the heart

With your beautiful shores.

Far from the Black Forest

You hurry to the sea

Giving your blessing

To everything.

Eastward you flow,

Welcoming your brothers,

A picture of unity

For all time!

Old castles looking

Down from high,

Greet you smiling

From their distant heights;

And the mountains corrie,

In morning light

Mirror in your dancing waves.

The nixies from the ground,

Whisper in a familiar way,

And all we can see

From the sky, gives to your waves a blue color.

…………

You know very well your brother, the Rhine,

On its banks grows a divine wine,

There is also, day and night,

The most firm and faithful watch.

But envy him not those heavenly gifts

By you, too, many blessings stream down

And the brave hand protects

Our homeland!

…………..

The boat travels on the waves so softly,

Still is the night,

Love watching only

The bargeman whispers in the lover's ear,

That his heart long ago she owned.

O Heaven, have mercy on the loving couple,

Protect them from danger there forever!

Now carry them in blissful repose;

O small boat, therefore sail always on!

As we said , the elemental of the Danube seems to have been female for the Celts and the Germanic ones (Donau) but male (Danuvius) for the Romans. In any case, it is undeniable that elemental or divine entity, there was, since the Romans represented it on the Trajan’s column. The scene represents Danubius (head and shoulders) looking at the legions of Trajan crossing the river on a boat bridge. A coin issued at the time (a denier) also represents us the river elemental, in a more complete

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way this time. Lying on a bench in the Roman fashion, and leaning on his left elbow. Several Latin inscriptions were found in Menagen and Rissitissen, in Germany, combining the Danube with the Roman god-or-demon Jupiter. He is also mentioned in Vienna, where he is called upon with the Roman deities Jupiter (IOM) Neptune, the nymphs, but also in the company of the Celtic deities Agaunus and Salacea. In Hungary (in the Old Buda-Pest and Tinnye), he is equated with the elemental called Dravus.

N.B. IN IRELAND; UNDOUBTEDLY FOLLOWING A SIMILAR PROCESS OF WHICH THE TRUE NATURE ESCAPES US; THE MEMORY OF THIS SHE ELEMENTAL OF THE DANUBE HAS PLAYED SUCH AN IMPORTANT ROLE AMONG IVERNIAN PEOPLES OR ERAINN ACCORDING O'RAHILLY; THAT SHE ENDED UP IN OCCUPYING THE PLACE OF THE NAMELESS MOTHER GREAT COSMIC GODDESS AMONG THEM. BUT WE WILL RETURN IN ANOTHER STUDY ON THIS COUP OR PALACE REVOLUTION WHICH, IN IRELAND, HAS OUSTED TARAN/TORAN/TUIREAN AND THE CGMG * FROM THE FIRST PLACE OF THE SACRED DODECAHEDRON OR CELTIC-DRUIDIC PANTHEON.

* Cosmic Great Mother Goddess in Latin epigraphic style of the time, that is to say in script with a lot of abbreviations (a little humor to relax!)

PADUS. This personification of the river Po is known to us only by one inscription found in Pegognaga, Montava, Lombardy (Italy). The city was built close to the Roman station of Flesso where the inscription was found. Both are in the valley of the Po River. Padus being the Roman name of the river, it thus seems well that it is the deity personifying the river. The Po is undoubtedly the Eridanus river of the ancient authors, and this equating gives us therefore invaluable additional information about it. In Greek mythology, amber is related to the story of Phaëton who, driving the chariot of his father Helios, approached much too close to Earth and caused a fire there. To extinguish it, Zeus made Phaeton falling from the sky into the Eridanus River. The sisters of Phaëton, the Heliades, hopelessly cried over the death of their brother, so much so that the god-or-demons changed the nymphs into poplars. Their golden tears which fell into Eridanus are the cause of amber, which was then called “tears of gods “. There we find the druidicyopic of fire in water (“one day only fire and water will prevail “. Strabo IV, 4). The whole legend seems besides of Celtic-druidic origin.

“…These Galatians inhabit the most remote portion of Europe, near a great sea that is not navigable to its extremities, and possesses ebb and flow and creatures quite unlike those of other seas. Through their country flows the river Eridanus, on the bank of which the daughters of Helius are supposed to lament the fate that befell their brother Phaethon. It was late before the name “Galatians” came into vogue; for anciently they were called Celts both among themselves and by others “ (Pausanias. Description of Greece. Attica. Book I chapter III).

Some tears of poplars fallen into the Eridanus River following this drama would be therefore the cause of amber.

Virgil, whose grandfather was a druid, speaks thus about this river.

“.....""....and, bull-browed

between either gilded horn, Eridanus,

Than whom none other through the laughing plains

More furious pours into the purple sea “.

(Virgil, the Georgics IV, 360-384.)

N.B. Virgil knows the existence of the Monte Viso, and even its vegetation (pines and larches on the southernmost slopes), in the Aeneid (Book X).

According to Pliny finally, the Eridanus, not far from its spring, disappeared or ran under ground: it was believed that it sprinkled the Hells then. What therefore combines this river clearly with the next world, and an underground next world.

The good localization of Po’s spring , on the Monte Viso, led Pliny the Elder to specify the name of this top of Alps, what Strabo could not do. Strabo speaks indeed in detail about the affluents of the Po, but never locates precisely its spring (IV, 6,5). He does not speak about the Monte Viso, because, in fact, it is not necessary yet to speak about it as a spring, and, consequently, it does not interest yet the

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Ancients as a mountain. With Pliny, on the other hand, with have the clue of progress in the knowledge of the spring of Po River and therefore of the individualization of the Monte Viso. “The Po descends from the bosom of the Monte Viso, one of the most elevated points of the chain of the Alps, in the territories of the Ligurian Vagienni, and rises at its source in a manner that well merits an inspection by the curious “ (III, 20,16). Pliny stresses here the spring of the Po which would justify a visit of the top. Exceptional remark when you know the repulsive aspect the mountains have in the Roman imagination, and the loathing the Romans feel to climb a mountain in a purely geographical interest.

The presence of the spring is therefore well the only reason why this mountain was “discovered,“ and recognized personally by the Ancients as an object of interest or prospecting. Pomponius Mela takes over the localization of the spring in the Monte Viso, but corrects with reason its exact situation compared to the text by Pliny. It rises “from the very roots “of the mount, and not “in its bosom “(II, 62) “The Padus ...rises from the very roots of Mount Vesulus “.

SOUCONNA. The Saone River owes its current name to a Souconna, small spring honored in Chalon-sur-saone. From Celtic *sou- (demonstrative) - and *kan (u) - (song). It is estimated that this name, initially used in Chalon, was extended thereafter to the whole of the river by the Roman legionaries, by eliminating the name used by Caesar, who knows only Arar.

Pseudo-Plutarch. About the names of rivers and of mountains and of the remarkable things found in them. VI. The Arar.

“Arar is a river of the Celtic region which..... Formerly it was called Brigulus, but was renamed for a reason of this sort. Arar, for the sake of the hunt, when he had headed to the wood to go hunting and found his brother Celtiberus slain by wild beasts; after he had mortally wounded himself through an excess of grief, fell into the river Brigulus, which from him was renamed Arar“.

We find exactly the same type of legend, but in the feminine, in Great Britain, in the case of the Severn.

The name of Souconna will evolve thereafter into Sagonna then Saone.

Waltzing 314. Aug. Sacrum deae Souconna, oppidani Cabillanenses ponendum curaverunt: devoted to Augustus and the goddess Saone, the inhabitants of the hill fort of Cabillo took care to make placed…

CILL XIII 11162 = Esp. 6968. Numini Augustarum deae Soucannae divixtus Silani filius. To the deified Augusti as to the goddess Souconna, Divixtus son of Silan.

The goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Souconna, is represented in addition on a stele discovered close to Seurre, Esp. 3584, in the shape of a standing woman, crowned with a tower, holding with her right hand a cup full of fruits. On her left side, a boat above a pouring jug , then a three-pronged fork put vertically. The river deity, here, has the appearance of a giving and of protective deity of fishing or navigation. It is strange she is also worshipped in Sagonne, in the Cher department.

The inscription CIL XIII 11162 = Esp. 6968, was engraved on a base, on which are preserved the two feet of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy. Near the lucky find, the spring of the Sagonin spouts out.

IGUANA/ICAUNIS.

The elemental of the Yonne as a river and not only as a spring is also worshipped in Auxerre under the name of Icauna: XXI XIII 2921. Aug. Sacr. Deae lcauni T. Tetricius Africanus de suo dono dedit… devoted to Augustus and the goddess Icauna T. Tetricius Africanus offered as a gift, out of one's own pocket.

It should be noticed that, each time, the name of the emperor or the deified emperor (numen) is combined in the dedication with the goddess-or-demoness or fairy of the river, whether it is Icauna or Souconna. Exactly like for the great god-or-demons, such Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The worship of the river deity has obviously all the appearance of an official worship, and the watery elemental itself gets importance and a particular distinction there. Let us notice, moreover, that it is the Celtic dative in i which is used.

It therefore seems that, in the area which interests us; and which includes in addition to the tribe-states of the Lingones, Aedui and Senones, the north-Eastern part of the Bituriges; the remits of the female river deities were extended from the navigation, to the supply of the goods. And even to the supervision of the dead, by a kind of influence from the Celtic Rigani. Undoubtedly is it necessary to see there in this case, the way in which the bordering residents expressed their confidence and their gratitude with regard to the great rivers and to the smaller rivers; natural water ways to which they owed a great part of their prosperity, as well as their enrichment in the material and cultural field.

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NECHTAN (Latin Neptune??) is the Irish god-or-demon of the Next World (sidh). It is one of the brothers of the Suqellos Dagda Gurgunt, the most important god-or-demon in the hierarchy, after Lug. He has the Segais, the magic spring of the Boyne, in which the Damona/Bovinda/Boann will want to bathe, in order to purify of her adultery. As we have already seen it , she will lose there an arm, a leg and an eye, then will precisely become the Boyne River. According to the accounts, in Ireland at least, Nechtan is, either her father or her husband. The well of the Segais is guarded by three wine waiters, Flesc, Lam and Luam, and nine magic hazel trees drop there fruits of knowledge as well as wisdom. Its name is perhaps, alas, a Gaelic adaptation of the Latin Neptune. What is a little pity!

BORVO-BORMO-BORMANO-BORMANICUS (but also Bormanus, Borbanus, Boruoboendua Vabusoa Labbonus, Borus) was perhaps in the beginning a Panceltic god-or-demon, but equipped with a specific function in relation to thermal springs. We find traces of him in the Netherlands, in Utrecht, where he is called Boruoboendua Vabusoa Labbonus. And in Portugal, in the localities of Idanha a Velha, where he is called Borus and compared to Mars, and of Caldas de Vizella, where he is called Bormanicus.

BORMANICVS

MEDAM

VS CAMAL

BORMANI

CO. VS.L.M.

Bormanicus is a variant only attested in the Iberian peninsula. The combination with Apollon did not occur in the case of Bormanicus. What makes it possible to suppose a development independent as from a certain time (before the arrival of the Romans) of the deity known in the north of the Pyrenees under the name of Borvo. The syncretism between the elementals of the indigenous thermal springs and the Roman deities took place then in two different ways. The elementals were equated to nymphs in the Western Area and to the god-or-demon Apollo under his healer aspect, in the Eastern zone of the Tarraconense.

To suppose that the worship of Bormanicus was introduced into the Iberian peninsula on a relatively recent date is an assumption which encounters some difficulties, particularly the name of the persons who offer the object in question. In Caldas de Vizela, Medamus Camalus is a native whose second name is purely Hispanic. As for C. Pompeius Caturonis, obviously a foreigner in Caldas de Vizela, he would have chosen another deity if the worship of Bormanicus had not been firmly established in the area.

Moreover, it is obvious that the syncretism of then consisted especially of the adoption of a Roman name for the deity, even if its reality remained unchanged in fact; and that the choice of a name of the north of the Pyrenees, especially without its reference to the god-or-demon Apollo, to designate an Iberian deity, is not very probable. And supposes in any case that there was not yet too important differentiation between the Celtic populations on both sides of the Pyrenees.

Bormanicus is therefore the single Hispanic god-or-demon of whom we can affirm with certainty he belongs, at least in this form, to the Celtiberian substrate. While not drawing aside the possibility that the offering person could not be originating in the Peninsula.

In France and in other forms, he was particularly venerated in Bourbonne-les-Bains, where ten inscriptions relating to him were discovered. The existence of votive tablets calling upon this elemental (Borvo) shows that the offering persons were worried then about their health or that of other people. Inscriptions having been dedicated to him were discovered in Aix-en-Diois, Aix-les-Bins, Aix-en-Provence (where he is called Borbanus even Bormanus) Auch, Entrains, and Bourbon-Lancy.

Except for some exceptions (see the case of Idanha a Velha in Portugal), Borvo, Bormo, or again Bormanus, Bormanicus, is known as a nickname of Apollo by ten Gallo-Roman inscriptions and various toponyms. Borvo-ialum, La Bourboule (Puy-de-Dome); Borvo-cetum, Burtscheid (close to Aachen in Germany); Bormenacum, Wormerich (close to Trier in Germany); Borbona, Bourbonne-les-Bains (Haute-Saône); Borbone, Bourbon-L' Archambault (Allier); Burburinum, Bourberain (French department of the Cote-d’Or); Borbeto, Worms in Germany, etc.

He resembles much the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer this word, Sirona, who was also a healing goddess-or-demoness or fairy, related to the worship of the springs, by application of the well-known druidic principle of fire in water. “One day only fire and water will prevail “(Strabo IV, 4). But

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nevertheless he is different on other points. His true consort (shakti Hindus say) is Damona Vinda, whose name means “big white cow “what is not without relationship with Boand (old Celtic Bo Vinda) of the Irish mythology. Eight of the inscriptions in question mention her. Here is one.

Deo Apol/lini Borvoni/et Damonae/C (aius) Daminius/Ferox civis/Lingonus ex/voto.

In certain areas nevertheless, he seems well to have as partner a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer to use this word, called Bormana (for example in Die), who is sometimes venerated for herself, and without her companion (for example in Saint-Vulbas).

Bormona and Damona are perhaps synonymous.

Menéndez i Pidal formerly studied this toponym, communal to Spain, Liguria, Illyria and Gaul (R. Menéndez Pidal, Toponimia prerománica hispana, Madrid 1952, p. 91-98).

The variants of Borus/Borvo/Bormo/Bormanus , seem to come from a stem *boru/beru meaning “to bubble, to boil “according to Kretschmer. In Proto-Celtic *Boru-s, *Borwon-, *Borumano-s and *Boruman-iko-s. Meaning which tallies perfectly with a deity of fountains and thermal springs.

The name of the Irish river called “Barrow “ in Gaelic language Bearú, is undoubtedly resulting from it. And it should also be reminded that in the mythology of Ireland, it is the healer and bonesetter god-or-demon Dian Cecht, who is supposed to have made it boil for the very first time.

IN SHORT, WHAT TO CONCLUDE ON THE DEITIES OF THE TYPE BORBO, BORVO, BORMO or BORMANOS?

Borbo too was the guard of the substance known as “fire in water “and on the true nature of which we lose ourselves in conjectures (see Apam Napat in Hinduism), but that we can summarize thus. This fire does not burn, spares or even on the contrary treats , the one who has nothing to feel guilty about , but burns the man or the woman who made a fault. The legend of the well of the Segais and of the unfortunate Boenda in Ireland, being an example of this second possibility.

The worship of Borbo/Borvo/Bormo is spread on a rather vast area, in its simple form and in the form of derivatives Latinized in Borbanus, Bormanus, and Bormanicus. It is indeed witnessed from the Netherlands as far as Western Spain (Galicia), through Bourbonne-les-Bains, the Loire and Rhone valleys, the Alps and the Provence. It is on the big rivers, on the shore of the lakes, near the springs where the nymphs accompany him, that we meet him.

Borbo was also a sun and luminous god-or-demon since he was sometimes described as Albius (in Aignay-le-Duc in particular), what means about “the white, the luminous one “. He is also described besides as Vindonnus, what means the same thing roughly speaking.

The head of the triangular pediment the found in Essarois in France, and bearing the inscription “to Vindonnus and the fountains “ well confirms the relation which always existed between fire and water in the ancient druidic thought. The inscription “to Vindonnus and the fountains “ is the exact equivalent of the sun head of Meduas or Gorgon,

being reproduced on the pediment of the Roman temple of Sul at Bath.

The term generally evokes hot springs; it also applies to springs stripped of any thermality, but where a strong gas emission is noted.

The essential characteristic could be the boiling, rather than the temperature. In any case, the relation with water is constant.

In Europe, certain health resort kept as a name that of this guardian deity. Let us quote for example Worms in Germany, whose current name comes from Borbetomagos, what means “ Borbo’s market “. As we saw it, Bourbonne-les-Bains, Bourbon-Lancy, Bourbon-L' Archambault, Aix-en-Diois, Aix-en-Provence, Aix-les-Bains, rank among the most representative places of worship.

At Aix-les-Bains, the artists borrowed the features of Hercules fighting to represent Borbo: the choice can be explained by the fact that Hercules is very often put personally in connection with healing springs. Is this to say that, in the thought of the dagolitoi or believers, Borbo must wage , for health recovery, a true fight against malign powers, which would be the cause of diseases? The intervention of the salutary deities would constitute then an episode of the eternal conflict between Good and Evil. According to the French historian Emile Thevenot, to whom we leave the responsibility of this assumption.

In the country of the Lingones, the inscriptions bear, beside his name, that of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer, Damona, whose nature is not very well known. All that we know of her, it is that the radical of her name, dam, is that we find in the old Irish dam (ox, stag) and the French word “daim“ is generally regarded as a loan from this Celtic root. Borbo therefore has as a partner the

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nymph or the fairy Viviane/Coventina, goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the lakes and ponds (Damona Vinda/Bo Vinda/Boann in Ireland). Borbo is consequently the master of the “magic “ wells of which water cures, but can also sometimes burn or mutilate. Do not deprive ourselves here to quote again this extract of the Constantine’s panegyric by Eumenius.

Cf the case of Damona Vinda or Bo Vinda/Boand in Gaelic language. Under the name, from Latin origin, of Nechtan, the Irishmen, on the other hand, made Borbo, a true Neptune, brother of the Suqellus Dagda Gurgunt, as in the story where the three wine waiters, Flesc, Lam and Luam, guard his spring there.

BORMANNA. Goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if it is preferred, of the vapor, consort (shakti Hindus say) of Borvo or Bormo. Perhaps a synonym of Damona. Inscriptions concerning this goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, were found at Saint-Vulbas, in the Ain, and at Aix-en-Diois, in the Drome (France). From the Celtic *berw- (to bubble, to boil) and *anna- (soul, breath).

NERIOS. Elemental of the thermal spring having given its name to the town of Neris-les-Bains in France. Its name probably comes from the Celtic root nero (hero) or naro (noble). Perhaps still a case of druidic application of the fire in water principle.

The village founded at this place was called Neriomagos, which means “market of Nerios “ and became a little town with flourishing trade, located well, at the crossroads of two major routes. With Roman colonization, the village is urbanized. Nerios is Latinized into Nerius, Neriomagos becomes Aquae Nerii (the bath of Nerius). Water is used in therapy purpose, and two luxurious hydropathic establishments are created. Many monuments are built: temples, thermal baths, villas… the 8th Augusta legion is stationed there around the end of the 1st century, and a theater amphitheater is built to offer to the soldiers and to the inhabitants, circus games and theater performances. Many vestiges still testify to this time. This golden age ends in year 275, with the Germanic invasions which destroy a part of the city and cause the disappearance of the population, as attest it the coin treasures not recovered by their owners. What complicates everything, it is that this elemental was also venerated in the company of Bugius in Haegen, in the Low-Rhine. Only possible assumption: a local god-or-demon was compared to Nerius by an inhabitant of the place having traveled enough to make the comparison with the elemental of Neris-les-Bains.

GLANIS. Elemental of the ancient site of Saint-Remy-de-Provence, in the South of France. If there is a spring at Glanum, it is thanks to the rainwater run-off , soaked up by the calcareous massif, emerging at the foot of the massif. Framework particularly favorable to the evocation of mysterious forces, the famous digger of Glanum, H. Roland, writes .

Like in Nimes, it is a spring which gave rise to the city. Considered curative, it is attended as of the protohistory by the Ligurians, then by the Celts, who deify it under the name of Glan; this stem which applies to pure, running, water, we find it in many river names in the Massif Central or the Belgian Ardennes in forms Glain, Glane, etc.

A monumental twenty-two steps staircase, cut as of a remote antiquity on a high rock face, led to the spring from the rock crevice where the god-or-demon thrones; a god-or-demon whose ancient statue, in heroic pose, reached us through the fragments of sculpture collected on the spot.

Around the 3rd or 2nd century, the well will be then arranged in the Greek, and more exactly Hellenistic shape, of a nympheum together with various rooms, which make it a true temple, built using regularly jointed rubble stones.

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At the same time as the god-or-demon Glan, are revered, as often in the Celtic world, auxiliary mother-goddess-or-demonesses; they are the Glanic mothers, who add to the aspect perhaps a little proud of Glan, a female element, at the same time healing and commiserating: their combination is known by a dedication of the Roman epoch. Thus, Glanum is Hellenized at the point to resemble the Delos of 3rd or 2nd centuries; it mints coins, in imitation of Massiliote coins, adopting even Greek official language, and borrowing from Marseilles its alphabet; we found there sculptures of a style purity such as it led one of them to the famous Glyptothek in Munich.

But the god-or-demons continue to be revered in the old national language there, and it is the reason why we have some bratou decantem (ex-voto) unearthed near the sanctuary, and engraved in Celtic language. The name of the first group of the partners of Glan, is explained easily as ethnic epiclesis or epithet, as it happens for other Celtic mother-goddess-or-demonesses (we know some matres Treuerae in Trier, etc.); on the other hand, the name of Rocloisiabo, which designates another group, refers perhaps to the notion of listening, more especially as a Roman votive altar coming from a house close to the thermal baths, is dedicated “to the ears of Bona Dea “; however this goddess or demoness, or fairy if you prefer was venerated among others for her quality of beneficial listening, what the carved decoration of the small monument indicates besides in a very explicit way with two ears surrounded by an oak crown; no doubt that they are the auditive organs of the deity , not any symbolic ateberta or offering. The dative auribus, which is here like on an inscription of Aquileia [auribus B (onae) D [eae], seems in this respect decisive. Let us add that in Glanum, the same beneficial deity is clearly designated on another cippus found at nearby.

Let us note that it is a romanized Celtic woman, Cornelia, who was silent partner of one of these votive cippi; she has not only adopted the local cult, but also, as we see it, the Celtic language in which it was practiced. All that takes part of a Greco-Celtic mixed culture, to which testifies clearly, in addition, the votive or architectonic sculpture, and which survives the Roman conquest during some time. The effects of the Romanization are felt in Glanum as of second half of the 1st century before our era, whereas Marseilles lost autonomy that Rome had left to it until the Civil wars. We attend then, about the years - 30, a transformation of its town planning, due to the personal action of Agrippa. A small temple to Valetudo (the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if it is preferred, “Health “), supplanted herself later by Salus, often called upon as guardian of the health of the Emperor, is built above the spring. These two personified abstractions, of completely Roman design, coexist with the traditional Glanic “mothers “ and will replace them gradually. In the same way, the worship of Apollo healer too is present , with that of Hercules, other patron saint of the springs, around the same sanctuary thus refitted. Admittedly, Glan and the Glanicae are not forgotten, but at the Roman time, they remain without known iconography, without official worship; and, in a dedication where they are combined, it is from now on in Latin language that they are honored (Glani et Glanicabus). Lastly, it is now, we have just seen it, to the ears of Bona Dea, and no longer to the local “Listening ones “that from now on prayers and bratou decantem (ex-voto) go.

Thus, from Glan to the god-or-demon Apollo and to Hercules, from the Glanic “mothers “to Valetudo, then to Salus, from the “mothers who fulfill “ to Bona Dea then to Cybele; the god-or-demons match each other , according to communal remits, and under the effect of the same human aspirations; like in a dialog continued through time and History vicissitudes (Jean Loicq, professor at the University of Liege, Belgium).

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WATER ELEMENTALS : CONTINUATION 2.

SECOND NOTEBOOK FOUND BY THE CHILDREN OF PETER DELACRAU.

ABANDINUS. Water elemental known by an inscription found at Dvrovigvtvm (Godmanchester Cambridgeshire): DEO ABANDINO VATIAVCVS D S D. Or then a place god-or-demon , genie of quite a precise spot???

ABIANIUS. Water elemental, known by three inscriptions found in France. At Roussillon, in the Vaucluse [CIL XII 6034]; at Castelnau-du-Lez, in the Herault [ILGN 666] and at Saint-Remy-de-Provence in the Bouches-du-Rhone

[AE 1937,143]. From the Celtic abon-, river.

The inscription found in Roussillon comes from a small votive altar out of white stone with moldings up and down, decorated on the top with two carved scrolls; as well as with a relief circle of approximately 0m10 diameter, forming an offering bowl for the atebertas or offerings. This circle does not have any button in its center as that frequently exists on these monuments; its preservation state is excellent; its dimensions are, height 0 m 43, width 0 m 19, thickness: 0 m 15.

The inscription, which is read without any hesitation, is in somewhat irregular characters, traced nevertheless with the assistance of a still very apparent adjustment; the case is frequent in the area. The height of the letters is 0 m 03 for the first two lines, 0 m 025 for the third and 0 m 04 for the last one.

DEO A BIA

NIO

VVII.

For the last line, is it necessary to read Vivixi or Vivii, meaning something as alive, existing, vigorous, strong, powerful…, term applying to the god-or-demon Abian; or are we there in the presence of the shortened name of the giver of the altar ? It is difficult to decide.

ABINIUS. Idem. Nice. France. An inscription found in Cimiez where he is called upon as deo Abinio [CIL V 7856].

ACIONNA. Water elemental witnessed in France. In 1822, a man by the name Jean-Baptiste Jollois carried out soundings on the site of the “fountain of Etuvee “ a former artificially dried up spring which it was then a question of unearthing to feed out of water the public fountains of the town of Orleans.

He unearthed , in what appeared to him to be a former sump, a roughly square stele (0,60 X 0,55 meters) bearing a votive inscription. According to its style, it could date back to the 2nd century. The engraving is neat, the reading presents no difficulty.

AUG (ustae) ACIONNAE

SACRUM

CAPILLUS ILLIO

MARI F (ilius) PORTICUM

CUM SUIS ORNA

MENTIS V (otum) S (olvit) L (ibens) M (erito).

“Devoted to Augusta Acionna, Capillus son of Illiomarus (donated) this portico with its ornaments. He has fulfilled his vow freely and deservedly."

It will also be noted that Capillus - Latin name - is the son of Illiomarus, a man with a clearly Celtic name. This Capillus is perhaps a representative of the second generation of a line of Romanized local public figures,but who did not forget, if need be, the recourse to the traditional deities.

Acionna is unknown in addition, but the final in - onna indisputably indicates a Latinized Celtic name. The discovery of her stele in an old well suggests a deity related to water. Her name can be brought together with the name of the river Essonne - Axiona, Exona, in medieval texts - which has its spring in the northern dip of the forest of Orleans. The upper river is called today “l’Oeuf “and takes the name

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of “ Essonne “only after its junction with the Rimarde. Another river of the forest of Orleans, the “Esse “or “Brook of the Esses “which, itself, runs out towards the south, bears perhaps the same name. The Esse River flows into the Bionne, a river having, of course, a Celtic name.

Acionna therefore probably had her sanctuary at the Well of the Etuvee in the town of Orleans. The vestiges of a Gallo-Roman temple, and a section of aqueduct, were unearthed in 2007, at the time of archeological excavations.

ADSULLATA. Known by an inscription found in Saudörfel in Austria, where she is combined with the eponymous god-or-demon Savus (valley of the Sava River in Slovenia). Perhaps it is in the beginning a sun and healing goddess or demoness, or fairy if this term is preferred, then combined with a river.

AGAUNUS. (Water ?) elemental known by an inscription found in Vienna in Austria. He is combined there with the Celtic god-or-demons Danubius and Salacea as with the Roman god-or-demons Jupiter IOM [Jupiter Optimus Maximus], Neptune, and the nymphs. His combination with the elemental of the Danube (Danubius) tends to show that he too was there to be a water god-or-demon. From *ag-e/o- (to go, to leave, to advance) the particle - un/on and the masculine suffix - us.

AGRONA. Celtic goddess-or-demoness who left her name to the river Aeron, in Wales. Etymologically , Agrona means carnage in Proto-Celtic language, but another etymology is still possible. Aron is a very widespread name of river: the Arun in Lancashire, the Aron in France (department of Mayenne), written Aroena in 615, the Aron, river of the Nievre, Arrone in Italy, Arroyo in Spain… The specialists in hydronyms (names of rivers, lakes, and so on) see there a compound of a pre-Celtic root ar, designating the running water, very frequent in the whole Europe. Let us quote just the Aar in Switzerland, the Ahr close to Coblentz in Germany, or the Ara in Aragon (Spain). On their coming on the spot, the first Celtic populations simply added there the word on (na) which means stream or river.

AIRO. In Spain, people give the name of Airon to various wells; in particular on the borders of Garci Muñoz (Cuenca); and in Hontoria del Pinar (Burgos). There exists besides in Granada a small place bearing this name.

ALAUNA/ALAUNIA. Alauna is the ancient name of the town of Maryport in the county of Cumberland, city located at the mouth of the Ellen River. The name means “full of fish “. We find this name in the name of the Roman fortified town of Alauna (today Watercrook in Lancashire), Alauna become Learchild, in Northumberland, the river Alaunus (originally perhaps Alaunia, today Aln). We also find this name in that of the French localities of Valognes and Allones. In Chieming and Seeon in Bavaria, she is called upon under the name of Alouna [inscription: Alounis sacr (um)], and in the former Noricum (current Austria), lived a tribe of Alauni venerating goddess-or-demonesses or fairies, called Alaunae. This water elemental is also known by an inscription found at Pantenburg in Germany, where she is combined with Boudina and Voroius.

AMEIPICER. Elemental of spring whose altar was discovered at Bracara Augusta, in Spain.

AMEIPICER

AMEIPICRI

SACRVM

AGRASSICIVS

PATERNVS

V.S.L.L.

The deity in question is undoubtedly the nymph of a fountain, because the beginning of the word is the same one as AMEVCN, a watery deity.

The altar was discovered in the farm of Avellar, at the southern end of the city. It has a small hearth at its upper part to burn some atebertas (offerings). The cornice finishes in an elegant pediment, with scrolls of five lead rosettes, in the center an emblem is which we distinguish badly. The writing is typical of the second century.

ANCAMNA. *Ancambona. Water elemental. Known by inscriptions in the valley of the Moselle River close to Trier, but also by inscriptions discovered in Möhn and Ripsdorf in Germany.

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Among the Trevirians, she is also combined with the worship of Lenus Mars. Idem in the inscription of Ripsdorf. In the inscription of Möhn on the other hand, she is combined with the worship of Smertrios Mars.

From old Celtic *an-kambo-abon-a (the very tortuous one, the one who has many meanders).

ANCASTA. A water elemental known by one inscription, engraved on an altar , discovered in Clavsentvm (Bitterne) in Hampshire. DEAE ANCASTAE GEMINVS MANI : for the goddess Ancasta, Geminus Mani [lius]. Celtic *an-kast-a “the fast one “.

APADEVA. Elemental mentioned on an altar found in Cologne in Germany. Deae/Apadevae/T (itus) * Ver (inius?) * Sene (cio?) L (ibens) * m (erito). For the goddess Apadeva, Titus Verinius Senecio.

Perhaps the place of the discovery corresponds to a former spring. Apa is probably a Celtic word to designate water, and the word deva itself, can only have the meaning “goddess “.

APONUS. The water elemental of Abano Terme, in Italy ( 10 km away in the south-west of Padua). The root of the name “ap “means “water “. The long story of the Thermal baths of Abano and Montegrotto, is based on the ancient worship of Aponus,a god-or-demon of thermal spring and of healing virtues.

His main sanctuary was to be in the village which took its name from him, Aponus, a thermal locality corresponding to current Abano Terme, in the province of Padua. On the mount Montirone d'Abano, the archeological excavations showed a temple dating back to the first century, but before he was consulted in the locality close to Montegrotto since the 9th century before our era. According to certain myths, it is there that Phaeton would have fallen with the chariot of Helios (see the Celtic-druidic legend of amber).

Still the druidic ancient principle of the fire in water (“One day only fire and water will prevail “ Strabon IV, 4). Water spouts out indeed at approximately 90° hot. It contains chlorine and sodium. It comes from the Alps and has an underground course starting from Poggio di Montirone.

The legend says that it was Hercules who, while passing through the land of Aponus, founded the worship of Geryon. This mysterious god-or-demon, imprisoned in the bosom of the earth , predicted by the means of a priest or a priestess, guards of the temple, who interpreted the prophecies of the god-or-demon by using thermal springs.

Since 49 before our era, date when Padua (Latin Patavium) and the close lands became a “municipium “ the upper middle classes of the Romanized Patavini imitated the most comfortable classes in Rome, by giving a large importance to the thermal baths. What supported the institution of public baths and hydropathic establishments. The ancient lake sanctuary was transformed into a rich well-organized thermal locality, where people went to strengthen the body and the soul/mind.

Suetonius says that even the young Tiberius consulted the sacred thermal spring in which, on the request of the oracle, he threw golden dice to know if the destiny would be favorable for him in the battle against the Pannonians; victory being for him fundamental to become emperor.

“He visited the oracle of Geryon near Patavium, and drew a lot which advised him to seek an answer to his inquiries by throwing golden dice into the fount of Aponus, it came to pass that the dice which he threw showed the highest possible number and those dice may be seen today under the water “. (Suetonius, the life of the twelve Caesars, 3, Life of Tiberius.)

ARAUSIO. Water elemental (aar) having given its name to the town of Orange in the south of France. According to the French historian Jean-Paul Clebert (Ancient Provence), there were even probably thermal baths in the city.

AVICANTUS. Water elemental known by an inscription found in Nimes in France, where it is honored with Minerva, Nemausus and Urnia. Perhaps in connection with the name of the Vigan in the Cevennes. Celtic *awo-/*awâ (river) and *cantlo- (song).

BRIXIA or BRICIA. A local deity (French department of the Haute-Saone), perhaps a deified spring, the Breche. This goddess-or-demoness or fairy if it is preferred, is combined with the god-or-demon Luxovius.

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CLOTA/CLUTOIDA. Elemental of the Clyde, the famous river of Glasgow ( Gaelic Abhainn Chluaidh) and therefore of the area to which it gave its name, Strathclyde. The Strathclyde (Scottish: Strathalcluith, then Strathcluaide: “beyond the Clyde “) is one of the Brittonic Celtic kingdoms which resisted to Anglo-Saxons, Picts, Scots and Vikings, during the Early Middle Ages; before being joined together with the kingdom of the Picts and Scots around the middle of the 11th century. Its formation, badly known, took place during the Roman period of the Isle of Britain (before 410). During the Anglo-Saxon period, the Strathclyde had as neighbors Dal Riada and Caledonia in the north, Gododdin and Bernicia in the east, northern Rheged and Galwyddel (Galloway) in the south (from 450 to 600); then, Cumbria in the south and Northumbria in the east (from 650) before melting into medieval Scotland.

The name of this water elemental is also known in France in the plural form deae Cluto [i] dae (CIL XIII 02895) in Mesves-sur-Loire, and dea (e) Clutieae (CIL XIII 02082) at Etang-sur-Arroux. What would thus seem to make them fairies of the matronae type. This goddess-or-demoness or fairy perhaps also appears in the Mabinogi of Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed, as a mother of the rival of Pwyll/Pelles (or Pellehan, even Pellinor) called Gwawl ap Clud.

COMEDOVA. An inscription discovered in Aix-les-Bains in Savoy. The inscription mentions this water elemental under a triple form: matres comedovae. It has to be a healing goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, what is not incompatible with protective functions in general, and therefore finally warlike also.

DIVONA. Deified spring located in Cahors in France. The very many coins which were found in 1989 in the remarkable natural site of the fountain of the Carthusian monks, prove it was indeed the spring cause of the city. Wedged between the slopes and the river, the water spouts out from the bosom of the earth through a gulf more than 140 meters deep. This splendid Vauclusian resurgence, venerated in the Antiquity, as the many coins discovered in its basin show it, even gave its name, at the beginning of the first century, to the Roman city, Divona Cadurcorum, which was changed into Cahors during the Middle Ages. Tapped by pumping, the water of the fountain of the Carthusian monks, feeds out of drinking water all the conurbation of Cahors and its surroundings.

DRAVUS. Elemental of a river emerging in the Pusterthal (Tyrol) close to Innichen, and which separates Croatia from Hungary then flows into the Danube.

DURUS. The elemental of the Douro/Duero, inscription discovered in Oporto. Douro (Portuguese name) or Duero (Spanish name) is a river which has its spring in Spain then crosses Portugal where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean close to Oporto. Its name, Durius in Latin, comes from the hydronymic root dur-.

DURBEDICUS. An Inscription discovered at Ronfe in Portugal. It is possible that it is the god-or-demon of the spring or river of the Ave, assumption consolidated by the existence of thermal springs in Ronfe as by the personality of the person who dedicates this, a woman called Celea Clouti.

EDOVIUS. Elemental of a thermal spring close to Caldas de Reis, Pontevedra, in Spain. The modern hydropathic establishment seems to be on the remainders of a previous building, probably Roman.

ELETESES. Elemental of the river called Yeltes in Spain, conceptualized in a female form by the inhabitants of the area. An inscription discovered in Retortillo.

C. ACCVS

ALBANI. F

AQVIS. EL

ETESIBVS

VOTO.

In the bed of the river, man discovered a thermal spring, endowed with a temperature of 40°. While building the current baths, workers unearthed a pavement, under which six gold coins and some in copper appeared, as well as the votive altar with the name of the nymphs of the fountain. The altar is 0,80 X 0,40 meters. One of the coins dated back to the reign of Vespasian. The habit to throw coins in the thermal springs to get the cure from it was very widespread at the time.

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GRASELOS. Elemental of the spring of the Grozeau in Malaucene in France, at the foot of the Mount Ventoux. A stele with a Greek inscription in the chapel of the Groseau, built by the Benedictines in the 11th century, on the ruins of a Roman temple, and only vestige of the summer residence of Pope Clement V, witnesses that. This spring is of Vauclusian resurgence type , like Fontaine-de-Vaucluse therefore, but to a very lesser extent. People came there for a long time, since Antiquity to Middle Ages, to treat their pains there.

N.B. This name, just like the following one, irresistibly evokes the name of the famous fountain of the native village of Joan of Arc, the Groseilliers.

GRISELICAE. Deified thermal springs (Greoulx in Provence). A fragment of an ancient altar out of gray limestone, bearing a dedication to the nymphs of the spring, was discovered in the (disappeared today) church Saint-Pierre-hors-les-murs, which was located in the district of the ancient thermal baths. In 1806, were found fragments come to supplement the initial inscription, which can therefore be read thus from now on.

FIL. FAVSTlNl

T. VITRASI. POLL

[I] ONIS. COS. II. PRAE

[TORIS] II. IMP. PONTI [F]

[PROC] OS. ASIAE VXOR NYMPHIS GRISELICIS.

It is a token of gratitude for the nymphs of this thermal spa, set up by a Roman matriarch of the polite society, wife of Vitrasius Pollio, consul for the second time.

ICOVELLAUNA. Spring elemental known in three different places. In Trier in Germany, Malzeville as in Metz (Le Sablon) in France. The etymology of Icovellauna is dubious. Ico is, of course, a Celtic word meaning “water “and vellauna a word meaning good or beneficial.

Its temple was discovered in 1879. Cf dedication C.I.L., 4294:

DEAE ICOVELLAV NAE SANCTISSIMO NVMINI GENIA LIS SATVNINVS V S L M.

It is a round well surrounded by an octagonal construction 6 m in diameter. The well is approximately 6,5 m deep, it reached a spring , currently dried up, which ran in a small octagonal basin 1,5 m in diameter. A spiral staircase went down there from a gallery located at the level of the external ground and made it possible to see the spring. On the wall, all along the stone staircase, were fixed bronze plates, offered as bratou decantem or ex voto to the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of which at least one was found intact. The building of Icovellauna seems to have belonged to a sanctuary dedicated to salutary divinities. Were collected in the surroundings a stele representing a woman standing upright, dressed with a tunic coming above the knee, and which sacrifices on an altar, with a dedication to Mercury healer (Esp. V, 4343; the inscription is indexed in the C.I.L. XIII, 4306); fragments of a stele which was to represent Mercury with a dedication (Esp. V, 4401; C.I.L. XIII, 4309), a relief representing on one of its faces Mercury and Rosemartha, and on the other Apollo (Esp. V, 4346), a dedication to Mercury (C.I.L. 4305) and a small altar bearing the dedication of an imperial messenger to the goddess-or-demoness or fairy Mogontia (C.I.L., 4313).

To note. There also existed in Metz a nymphaeum dedicated to a water goddess-or-demoness or fairy, unknown if she is not Icovellauna. This nymphaeum was close to the water inlet in the city. It was a small temple in the honor, either of a nymph, or of one of the nature goddess-or-demonesses or fairies. Each natural element has a nymph we could describe as a deified representative of the mentioned element. Best known are those of the water of whom the nymphaeum in Divodurum (Metz) is a place of worship. This nymphaeum was decorated by the four members of the college responsible for the worship, having financed the building of the aqueduct.

ILLIXO. Elemental of the thermal spring of Bagneres-de-Luchon in the Pyrenees.

The presence of a population is proven since the Neolithic era at least, in the cave of Saint-Mamet.

Strabo. Geography. Book IV, 2.

"The interior and mountainous country, however, has better soil: first, next to the Pyrenees, the country of the "Convenae" (that is, "assembled rabble"),in which are the city of Lugdunum and the hot springs of the Onesii, most beautiful springs of most potable waters; and, secondly, the country of the Auscii also has good soil.”

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The date of the text (first quarter of the 1st century of our era) shows the precocity of their use. The observation of Strabo can even be understood as an allusion to a pre-Roman exploitation, by the Onesii, inhabitants of the area of Luchon, of the benefits of hydrotherapy.

An indirect evidence of the phenomenon can be drawn from the deification of the spring, whose name Ilixo produced the toponym of Luchon. Admittedly, the votive inscriptions of the dagolitoi (believers) cured by miraculous water, are Latin inscriptions of the first centuries of our era. But the name of Ilixo belongs to the Aquitanian language, former even to Celtic and Latin in the area, and the god-or-demon eponym of the spring thus belonged to the Panth-eon or Pleroma of the old Pyrenean god-or-demons. What lets us imagine that the virtues ascribed to the hot water of Luchon were recognized in a time previous to the presence of the Romans and even of the Celts.

N.B. All the question is to know if Onesii and Convenae were Celts or some non-Celts (Iberians, or Basques).

From the 3rd century before our era to the arrival of the Romans, there were genuine Aquitani, Aquitanized Celts but also Celtized Aquitani. In a sufficiently fuzzy way so that not only Caesar, Strabo and Pliny, see homogeneous peoples there, but also so that is created a particular province. Some of these peoples were undoubtedly of Celtic origin (the Tarbelli and the Tarusates, root “tarv- “ = bull) as well as the Boiates. Convenae were also Celts on the evidence of the name of their city Lugdunum Convenarum, but the funerary steles of the city comprise a whole variety of nicknames called proto-Basque by linguists.

Flavius Josephus, the historian of the Antiquities of Jews, reports that Caligula - emperor from 37 to 41 - exiled Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, his partner Herodias and Salome, into Lugdunum. According to certain enthusiastic people, they would have brought back with them from Palestine of heavy secrets about Jesus, behind the Cathar movement.

At the end of the Early empire (probably as of the 2nd century in fact), these peoples still ask, and get, to be separate from the other “Galli “. An inscription of the stele preserved in the church of Hasparren:

Flamen item du(u)muir quaestor pagiq. magister

Verus ad Augustum legato munere functus

pro novem optinuit populis seiungere Gallos

Urbe redux genio pagi hanc dedicat aram.

“Flamen, duumvir, quaestor as chief of the pagus, Verus was sent on a mission to the Emperor. Being discharged from his mission, he got for the nine peoples to be separate from the Galli. Back from Rome, he dedicates this altar to the god-or-demon of his pagus (county) “.

In Bagneres-de-Luchon, several dedications to the Nymphs and Ilixo, discovered in the same circumstances, illustrate the faith of the dagolitoi and of the believers come to be cured by this beneficial water with divine properties. Some came from far, as Manutia Sacra, originating in the area of Rodez, or Cassia Touta, come from the area of Lyons.

Illixo is also known by inscriptions found at Montauban-de-Luchon, in Haute-Garonne.

IVAVOS. God-or-demon of the healing springs in Evaux (French department of the Creuse). The thermal water of Evaux-les-Bains is recognized for its regenerating and anti-inflammatory properties, but the name of this elemental is perhaps in connection with that of the yew.

LETINNO. Letinnoni. Ledinnoni. Spring elemental or goddess-or-demoness or guardian fairy of Ledenon close to Nimes, in France. The settling of men on this site is due to the presence of a perennial source, but also of natural shelters, territories of hunting and gathering. An inscription on a small rectangular stone altar is read as follows:

LETINNONI B OPI IMPER PONI NEMAUSENSES.

For Letinno, good and enriching deity, on behalf of the grateful inhabitants of Nimes.

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LARRASO. God-or-demon known by three inscriptions found in the French department of Aude. In Moux. Health Fountain or Comigne Fountain. The fountain draws its name from the path which leads to Comigne. It is a roofed fountain, very coarse, built in 1869. On this site various votive stones were found which validated the presence in this place of a “fanum“ where the local god-or-demon was honored, Larraso.

A first lucky find, in 1837, made by Dominique Belly, is currently in the lapidary museum locate in the castle of the count of Carcassonne.

This inscription bears the following text: P. Cornelius Phileros Larrasoni V.S.M.L.M. Publius Cornelius Phileros to the god Larraso. He fulfilled his vow freely and deservedly.

A second lucky find was made in 1849, on the same site.

T (itus) Valerius C (ai) f (ilius) Senecio,

P (ublius) Usulenus Veientonis I (ibertus) Phileros,

T (itus) Alfidius M (arci) I (ibertus) Stabilio,

M (arcus) Usulenus M (arci) I (ibertus) Charito,

Magistri pagi, ex reditu fani Larrasoni cellas faciund (um) curaverunt idemque probaverunt (Masters of the county, with the incomes of the fanum of Larraso, they saw fit and took care to make some cellas built).

A third inscription was unearthed during work of tapping and clearing out of the spring of 1868, required by dryness alarming for the town. This one, in Greek characters, was still a dedication to Larraso.

LUXOVIUS. Elemental of the thermal springs in Luxeuil (French department of the Haute-Saone). Ten springs spout out in the park and under the buildings of the thermal baths. The ones are hot, between 43° and 63°, charged with chloride, sulfate and sodium. Others, more moderated, contain iron and magnesium. Six wooden statuettes (some bratou decantem or ex-votos) attest the virtues of this water. Connsort (shakti in India): Bricta. The name of Luxovius being in connection with that of Lug, of the light or of the lightning, we can think that it is there once again, the well-known druidic idea of the fire in water.

MATRONA. Goddess-or-demoness or fairy of the Marne’s spring (French department of Haute-Marne). Known by an inscription found in Balesmes. Its name comes from Matra, mother, and from the very current hydronymic root: onna. The source of the Marne River is 419 m above the sea level, in the corrie of the Marnotte, not far away from the town of Langres. Its course continues on nearly 525 kilometers. It is in this place that the Druidic Church of Gauls was founded on November 2, 1985, by Ronan ab Lug and Gal Crae. Man unearthed , close to the spring of this important river, the vestiges of a temple, which was practically not excavated. We indeed know few things of the sanctuary which was erected at the spring of the Marne River. A text informs us nevertheless that a public figure has there one day offered “a cemented wall around the temple “. It is, this time still, an indigenous temple and a water deity .

Meyronne (Var), Maronne (Seine-Maritime, Aisne, Haute-Marne), are modern results of Matrona, and Matrona is also a former name of the Durance River.

MATTIACA. Water elemental. The form in the plural of its name shows that it was triple goddess-or-demoness or fairy at the same time water elemental combined with its worship, and goddess-or-demoness or guardian fairy, of the local tribe of the Mattiaci. We find its name in that of the towns of Marburg (Mattium) and Wiesbaden (Mattiacum/Aquae Mattiacae) in Germany. Its name is nevertheless in connection with that of the bear: matus.

MIROBIEUS. Elemental of the river called Mira in Portugal. It also gave its name to the city of Mirobriga, currently Santiago do Cacem.

MOGONTIA. She elemental of the river running in Mainz in Germany, and called today the Main River. Known by an inscription found in Metz, in the temple of Icovellauna. Dedication from a tabellarius

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(courier or messenger) to the goddess-or-demoness or fairy Mogontia (C.I.L., 4313). Seems to be a female counterpart of the god-or-demon Mogons.

NABIA. Elemental of the rivers called Navia in Spain or Neiva in Portugal. Man discovered seven inscriptions dedicated to this water elemental in the Iberian peninsula including one in Braga. For the localization of Navia and the problem of both Navia, to see J. González, El litoral asturiano in the epoca romana.

NASSANIA. Water she elemental , known by an inscription found in the tower of Nassogne, in Belgium. The spring running at its feet is still known under the name of Nassania fons, in 690.

On its banks, came to be erected some dwellings, of which the whole was called Nassonia, Nassoigne, Nassonacum, and later, Nassogne.

All that bring back us to the very first centuries of our era, time during which we find, in 372 several edicts of the emperor Valentinian, signed in Nassogne, locality at the edge of the Bavay-Trier roadway. Then, during more than two hundred years, Nassogne will sink into oblivion . Around year 600, a Scottish monk by the name of Monon or Muno (in Scotland, his dulia worship still exists, and we even know, close to the town of Saint Andrew, a small conurbation called Monon's Kirk); withdrew himself in the area. The legend says that one day, in front of him, a pig unearthed a small bell of a former time (probably lost by one of the convoys which traversed the roadway from Trier to Bavay) which Monon used for to call for the prayer. This saint is therefore always represented with a pig and a small bell, and he is requested by the stock breeders and the farmers for the protection of the cattle. History says the missionary was beaten to death by the inhabitants of a nearby village (excited by the supporters of the local druidism?) in 645. N.B. In the life of St Columba of Iona, a river bearing a similar name is mentioned: Nesa; and the spring of the river is called ad lacum fluminis Nisae (the Loch Ness??)

NEMAUSOS. Water Elemental which was honored by the tribe of the Volcae Arecomici in Nimes in France (garden of the fountain). Celtic *nemos.

Several inscriptions mentioning it were found, of course, in Nimes, but also in Lansargues, in Herault. In Nimes, it is honored with a certain number of other deities: Jupiter, Minerva, Urnia and Avicantus. Another inscription rather strangely connects it to Egypt. IOM HELIOPOLIAN ET NEMAVSO. For Jupiter Optimus Maximus from Heliopolis, and Nemasus.

NISKAE. Nisca being a common noun to designate the she elemental of a spring, we therefore don’t know, in fact, the proper noun of the deified fountain of Amelie-les-Bains (French department of the Eastern Pyrenees). The place was known as of Antiquity, we find of it many traces, most important being, of course, what remains of the Roman thermal baths (partly destroyed or reorganized in the 19th century). We also found in the 19th century, in the part known as Lo Gros Escalador, engraved lead tablets (some defixiones) which made a lot of ink flowing (“KANTAS NISKAS ROGAMOS ET DEPRECAMUS “) etc. Etc.

NONISSUS. God-or-demon of Armancon’s spring (Essey, French department of the Cote-d’Or).

SAMARA. Elemental of the Sambre, and of the river called today the Somme, in France. Celtic *samo- (rest, calm, peaceful, slow).

SAVUS. Elemental of the Sava River in the Balkans, known by an inscription found in Saudöfel in Austria, where it is honored in the company of the goddess-or-demoness or fairy Adsullata. In Slovenia this elemental is known in Abbruch (paredra Atsalut). It is also honored in Scitarjevo and Sisak in Croatia.

SEGETA. She elemental of thermal spring known by inscriptions found in Bussy-Albieux, Feurs, and Roanne, in the department of the Loire, as in Sceaux -en-Gatinais, in the Loiret (France), a temple dedicated to this elemental.

AVG (uste) DEAE SEGETAE. T MARIVS PRISCINVS V S L M. EFFICIENDVM CVRAVT.

For the majestic goddess Segeta. T Marius Priscinus fulfilled his vow become deserved by an effective cure.

Another inscription was found in Moingt (Montbrison).

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The thermal baths which constituted the center of Aquae Segetae found inside the Close Saint-Eugenia, and they were composed of a vast rectangular building, more than 80 meters long.

SIANNUS/STIANNUS. Elemental of the thermal springs of the baths of the Mont-Dore in France. The city of Mont-Dore (or Mont-d'Or until the 19th century) developed at the beginning of the 19th century starting from the small village of Bains, located near thermal springs known since Antiquity, at the foot of the Puy of Sancy. Two inscriptions. One found in Lyons, where Siannus is compared to the god-or-demon Apollon, the other discovered precisely in Mont-Dore. The thermal baths in Mont-Dore are adjusted to the treatment of the rheumatic affections and of the pathologies of the respiratory tracts.

SILGINA. Water elemental. Known by an inscription found in Sainte-Mesme, in the Yvelines, in France. The sanctuary is combined with a source.

SIOIO. Deified spring which gave its name to the village of Soyons, in France. Its name means “the one who meanders “.

STANNA. The one who stands firmly. Celtic *sta-ne/o- (to STAND upright). Known by an inscription discovered in Perigueux in the Dordogne, France, where she is combined with a god-or-demon named Telo. The inscription can be read as follows. [Deo Teloni] et deae Stanna [e] solo A (uli) Pomp (eii) Antiqui perm [issuque eius]/[Silvani f (ilius) Quir (ina) Ba] ssus c (urator) c (ivium) R (omanorum) consa [ep] tum omne circa templum/[basilicas du] as cum ceteris o [r] namentis ac muniment [is faciendum curavit].

TELO. Elemental of spring known by two inscriptions in France. One in Perigueux the other in Toulon. In Toulon this spring, still exploited by the municipal services, is the cause of the name of the city and matches the harnessing of the Saint-Anthony spring. The inscription in Perigueux combines this god-or-demon of the spring in Toulon with the goddess-or-demoness or fairy Stanna, which would be therefore his consort (what we call a shakti in Hinduism).

TEMUSIO. Celtic *temeno (dark) and *si-e/o- (flood). Water elemental , known by an inscription found in Saint-Marcel-les-Chalon, in Saone-et-Loire (France): deae Temusioni. Same name that the Thames.

TEURNIA. River elemental known by an inscription found at Lendorf and at Sankt Peter in Holz, in Austria.

TREBARUNA (or Trebarunis) is a Celtic goddess-or-demoness or fairy very present in the borders of the Lusitanian and Vettonic countries. As much in Spain (Coria, Cáparra, perhaps Talavera Vieja) as in Portugal (Fundão, Cabeço das Fráguas, Castelo Branco, Vale Feitoso, Cabeço back Tiros). As for the identity of Trebaruna; the Celtic etymology of the stem TREB (topic in relation to the idea of housing or village) and that of the second element of the name, ARUNA (derivative of Arunis, itself dependent in the name of a river); make us able to suppose that Trebaruna was a female divinity related to the watery world. A kind of local nymph according to F. Villar (1995, pages 355-388; Prósper, 1994, pages 187-195).

According to S. Lambrino, it would not be a deity equated with the victory, as Leite de Vasconcelos thought it, but the goddess-or-demoness or guardian fairy of a human community including at least the inhabitants of Igaeditania and those of Caurium (Lambrino, 1957, pages 87-109). But the votive furnace bridge of Coria was set up by an individual originating in Aebosocelum. An origin that we also find mentioned in Orense and which refers to a non-localized site (LASH II 2527; ILER 619; Tranoy, 1981, page 254, number 434; Salinas, 2001, pages 193-194). It could be thus that the surface of expansion of the worship of Trebaruna is wider than the country Lusitanian. But one can also think that this individual originating in Aebosocelum set up a furnace bridge with a local divinity adored by the Lusitanians and VettonEs.

UMERITANA. Elemental of thermal spring. Otanes. Spain. As we could see it previously, the iconography of the Salus Umeritana is revealing. The Goddess-or-demoness or fairy is quite simply the personification of the giving health spring. Without the inscription of the offering bowl, we could have believed that it was the representation of a nymph in general.

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URA. Elemental of the spring (the well of the Eure River) which supplies the aqueduct of Nimes in France, and of which the Pont du Gard transported water. Known by an inscription found in Nimes: Urae fontis [CIL XIII 3076].

URNIA. She elemental of the Ourne River, known by an inscription in Nimes: Urniae [CIL XIII 3077].

VARGILENA. (Watery) elemental of Varciles in Spain (Valtierra, village located 20 km away from Alcalá de Henares).

VERBEIA. Elemental of the river called Wharfe in Great Britain.

VESUNNA. Elemental of the Vesonne, spring located in Perigueux in France. Currently the Saint-Sabine fountain. The first of the inscriptions [CIL XIII 00949] calls upon the goddess-or-demoness or fairy, as Vesunnae Tutelae, the second one [CIL XIII 00956] calls upon it in a plural form: Vesunniae. We find its name in Germany in Zulpich and Vettweis. Four of the inscriptions in Vettweis [NL 192; CIL XIII 07851; CIL XIII 07852; CIL XIII 07854] are dedicated to the Matronis Vesunia (h) eni [s], one [CIL XIII 07850] is just dedicated to Vesuniahe [nis]. The inscription in Zulpich [CIL XIII 07854] is also dedicated to the Matronis Vesuniahenis.

The temple of the Vesonne’s tower is the very model of a temple of Celtic indigenous tradition. This tower 17,10 m in diameter and 24,50 m high was in fact the heart (cella) of a circular temple built in the 2nd century, and dedicated to goddess-or-demoness Vesunna. It was surrounded by a 23-column peristyle. The crumbled part comprised a monumental door. The legend has it that Saint Front himself, apostle of the Perigord which, striking it with his stick, created this breach. That is completely false, of course, and Christianity has done more than accustomed us to this kind of fraud, since it never was based on truths. But this legend has nevertheless the advantage of well expressing the Christian Taliban (Parabolanus) aspect of this envoy of Saint Peter.

There exists besides other Christian deceptions of this kind, like that of Saint Valerius in Trier in Germany, or Trophimus in Arles, Martial in Limoges, Austremoine (Stremonius) in Clermont, Gatian or Gratian in Tours, Saturnin in Tolosa; not forgetting Saints Lazarus and Maximin in Provence, or Mary-Magdalene and Martha.

END OF the 2nd NOTEBOOK FOUND BY THE CHILDREN OF PETER DELACRAU.

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Notes on loose sheets found by the heirs to Peterdelacrau and inserted by them into this place.

OTHER WATER ELEMENTALS

PRITONA/PRITONIA/RITONA. Elemental of the fords known by an inscription found at Pachten, in Germany, where it is combined with Bormo. The goddess-or-demoness or fairy if this term is preferred is also honored under the name of Pritonia in the city of Trier, always in Germany. It is perhaps also a guardian of the next world or a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, psychopomp, even a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the healing water. The name of Ritona, in the past Pritona, evokes that of the passage, of the ford (p) riton, related with Latin portus: the importance of the passage is well known in the ancient religions. That of the bridge also (Briva). The invocation to the goddess-or-demoness, or to the fairy if this term is preferred, Ritona, was in itself meaningful (skulls… as in the feats of Cuchulainn defending a ford being used as a border for his country. Perhaps this legend was caused by such a practice). We find the goddess-or-demoness or fairy Ritona in a male form this time, in an episode of the Arthurian cycle (the knight of the two swords). Arthur must go to war in it against a guard of death “fords “ called… Rion.

CONDATIS. Elemental of the river confluences. Known by several inscriptions found in Great Britain and one found in the town of Alonnes, in the Sarthe, France. In Great Britain, the majority of inscriptions come from the area located between the Tyne River and the basin of the Tees River. A new inscription mentioning Condatis was discovered in Cramond in Scotland. Condate was the former name of Northwich in Cheshire, and in France, Condate was the former name of the town of Rennes. If man feels the need to call upon the deity when he crosses a river, with all the more reason must he pay attention to the confluences. We will not go as far as to claim that in this geographical particularity, the width and the volume of the rivers which mix their waters are without importance. These considerations, which would be paramount for the strategist or the hydraulics engineer, become secondary nevertheless, if we want to examine the sacred nature of the thing well. A confluence, however tiny it is , is the sum of two elements, of which each one is filled with religious senses; it is a redoubling of intensity arranged by nature.

OTHER WATER ELEMENTALS.

ENTARABUS/INTARABUS/INTERABUS. Elemental of the lands located between two rivers. From the Celtic enter- (between) and ab- (river). Known by an inscription and a statue found in 1862 in Noville-lez-Bastogne in Belgium (where it is combined with Ollodagus); by an inscription found in Ernzen in Germany; and by others found in Feyen, Niersbach and Trier (where it is compared to Mars by interpretatio romana). In Luxembourg inscriptions mentioning it were found in Dalheim and Echternach. In Mackwiller, department of the Bas-Rhin , it is compared to the god-or-demon Narius.

ELEMENTALS OF THE MARSHES.

At the prehistoric time , after the last glacial period, the peat formation started. Through ages , vast stretches were covered with peat bogs. The people of then lived on the high and drier grounds, between the peat bogs. Dangerous and often misty places where you easily risked being mislaid to even being drowned, peat bogs were enveloped with mystery. We understand easily why people believed these places inhabited by god-or-demons or soul/minds reigning over life and death, health, harvests, cattle and even the destiny of the human beings.

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It was therefore essential to maintain the harmonious relationship with these powerful beings, in particular by atebertas (offerings) put down at the threshold of the residence of these deities. Invaluable goods like cereals, horns of animals, pieces of pottery, wheels, weapons and jewels were thus given up in the marshes, which became immense reservoirs of these gifts. All that had value could be used as offering. That could even go as far as the human sacrifices. We found in certain peat bogs corpses evoking the human sacrifices in the honor of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer, Domna/Nerthus.

Lindow man is a mummy preserved in a natural peat bog, discovered on August 1, 1984, in the peat bog of Lindow Moss (Wilmslow), in Cheshire, by peat owners.

The carbon dating of the Lindow Man made it possible to locate the date of his death between - 2 and + 119 of our era. He was approximately twenty-five years old, 1,68 m high and weighed between 60 kg and 65 kg. What is remarkable in this man of peat bogs, it is the eagerness with which he was killed. It is considered that his execution started with the three blows given to his head that the specialists noted on his cranium, followed by an incision in his throat. Lastly was found around his neck a strongly tight cord. The corpse was found with his face leant on his chest in a peat bog of Lindow Moss. These characteristics, in particular the triple execution procedure, evoke a “ritual murder “ insofar as the triads are attributes of the druidic religion. As for knowing if it it was a human sacrifice, an execution, or both, specialists are divided. As the accounts of human sacrifices among Celts are the fact of historians unfamiliar with this civilization, the details we find there are always a priori suspect.

The acidity of the peat bog preserved the contents of the stomach: the last meal of this man consisted mainly of cooked cereals (corn, bran and barley), which corresponds more to a sacrificial offering than to an ordinary meal. The presence of pollen of mistletoe in the stomach of the victim, initially appeared very suggestive, taking into account the place this plant has in the druidic tradition. The mistletoe is a poisonous plant known to cause convulsions, so that it is not very probable that a man ingested it accidentally; and moreover, this mode of poisoning is well witnessed in the Celtic literature later than Roman occupation. But Gordon Hillman (1986) rightly drew attention to the fact that the pollen found in the intestines is more probably some pollen which is left on the stigmas of the cereal flowers, ingested then with the seeds.

The archeologist Anne Ross, being based on the fact that this man did not perform manual duties, reckons the Lindow man was a druid. She suggests that he lent himself to a sacrifice, perhaps at Beltene, after a meal of bread made out of symbolically burned seed. The writer John Grigsby believes as for him to see in the death of the Lindow Man a mimetic experiment of rebirth and death, related with the rites of Nerthus and Attis; theory supported by the fact that the chemical analysis of the skin seems to show that the Lindow Man had covered his body with a vegetable green pigment.

Editor’s note. If it is indeed a sacrifice, the Lindow man cannot be a druid, since this one is a member of the priestly class, and that he is precisely in charge to perform the sacrifices. On the other hand, there exists in the Irish Celtic mythology some cases of killing of despotic druids. Generally, the human sacrifices were relatively rare among Celts, the animals and the objects were more usually used. There is in addition contradiction in the execution procedure: strangulation (the cord) evokes a sacrifice of first function without bloodshed, whereas the incision in the throat makes us think of a sacrifice of second function with bloodshed. It is nevertheless a kind of death we find in the legends of Lleu Llaw Gyffes and of Lailoken.

GENAVA. The high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) had also defied the estuary of the large rivers, under the name of Genava. What produced the name of the town of Geneva in Switzerland.

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Notes on loose sheets found by the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau and inserted by them into this place.

A SPECIAL CASE: DAMONA.

The she elemental of running water in general (brooks small rivers).

Goddess-or-demoness or fairy if you prefer, known by many inscriptions, where she appears in general in the company of Borvo (or of Apollo in the interpretatio romana) in France. It is perhaps not the goddess-or-demoness or fairy of such or such a precise place , but the goddess-or-demoness or fairy of more or less running water, and not of stagnant waters like the famous Lady of the Lake godmother of Lancelot, the goddess-or-demoness or fairy of fresh water in general; because she is often combined with Borbo, and is described then as Bormana. Bormana, female counterpart of Bormanos, therefore of Borbo, seems well indeed, being another name of this mysterious Damona.

In the city of Alise-Sainte-Reine , she is combined with the god or demon Apollo Moritasgus (Borbo), in Bourbonne-les-Bains, she is combined with Borvo and with the god Apollo, whereas in Bourbon-Lancy, she is associated with Borvo and Bormo.

In Bourbon-Lancy, the inscription evokes an incubation ritual during which the pilgrim, come to seek the cure, could see the goddess-or-demoness or the fairy appearing to him in a dream, and suggesting remedies to him.

Borvo/Bormo being, like the Irish Nechtan, a god or demon linked to the healing springs, by application of the well-known druidic principle called “of the fire in water “(one day will prevail only fire and water. Strabo IV, 4); Damona Vinda was therefore perhaps a goddess-or-demoness or water fairy similar to the Irish Boann, a kind of white lady, goddess-or-demoness or fairy of thermal springs.

One of her main sanctuaries, that found in the village of Alise-Sainte-Reine, included an octagonal temple, several chapels, basins, thermal baths, as well as a complex network of pipes, particularly intended for the tapping of a spring. Window glass is present in the various levels of the octagonal temple (including in oldest, dating back, according to Esperandieu, “the time of the first emperors “), of the square chapel; but also, in large quantities, in the various pipes.

The important role played by water in the sanctuary, perhaps implying partial or total baring of the dagolitoi (of the believers), the ingestion of the liquid; explains the importance of the glazing, which protects water from pollution (leaves, animal intrusions, various remains) and ensures a thermal protection. This element of comfort or of luxury is to be put in parallel with the architectural and carved decoration, of quality, as well as with the mosaics.

The statue of Damona which was found there, had a head ear crowned and held a snake in a hand. The very name of Damona, like her combination with corn ears, therefore do her a goddess-or-demoness or fairy, if this term is preferred, of fertility. As for the snake, it perhaps symbolizes her healing function.

In the well where the votive inscription of Aignay-le-Duc was found, there was also the fragment of a sculpture representing the head of a snake like intertwined around a human arm.

Damona enjoys a true personality, because a bratou decantem (ex-voto) is dedicated to her personally in Saint-Vulbas, without it is mentioned neither Bormanos, nor Bormo. The dedication, remained a long time left in a state of abandon, close to a fountain, was put now in a safe place. The spring itself has no thermality. The name of the village appears in connection with that of the goddess-or-demoness or fairy (Burbaz in dialect. Editor’s note).

In the inscription found in Rivieres in Charente (France), Damona is called matuberginnis.

IVLIA•MALLA•MALLVRONIS

FIL•NVMINIBVS•AVGUSTORVM•ET

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DEAE•DAMONAE•MATVBERGIN

Ni•OB•MEMORIAM•SVLPICIAE

SILVANAE•FI […] AE•DE•SVO

POSVIT•

Translation: “Julia Malla, daughter of Malluron, erected (or dedicated?), at her own expenses (this monument) to the divine force of the Augusts and to the goddess Damona Matuberginnis, in memory of Sulpicia Silvana, her daughter “.

This inscription enters within the general framework of the dedications made to deities. It mentions the name of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, combined with the numina of the emperors, the name of the dedicating person , Julia Malla, the reason why the dedication was made, to honor the memory of the daughter of the dedicating person, Sulpicia Silvana.

As we may translate Matuberginn “ Bear’s hill “ two questions come immediately into mind. This nickname, this epithet, which so strongly characterizes Damona, does it identify her with a precise place called “ Bear’s hill “? Or should it be thought that by thus designating her, people sought to dissociate her from another Damona, known elsewhere? We know a Damona Augusta, but the name of the goddess-or-demoness or fairy thus called upon, Damona Augusta, shows initially that through her the dedicating person honored the emperor, and that the protection of the goddess-or-demoness or the good fairy extended on his person.

The expression numinibus augustorum, met in the inscription of Rivieres, therefore refers to the imperial worship. The numen of the emperor, it is his inner, almost divine, power, which helps it to decide then to act, in the right direction, his sanctitas. This impersonal force is essential to the good emperor to preside over the destinies of the Empire.

Located on a slope, approximately 100 meters away from the place where the Latin inscription was discovered, there was on the spot a spring called “Bear’s well “ and this water point was regarded as having healing virtues. People came from the surrounding farms to soak the bonnets of the newborn babies there to protect them from the convulsive diseases. This spring has the aspect of a small pond having a several meters circumference . The well-known phenomenon of appropriation of the places of pagan worships (and particularly of the springs), by Christianity, did not function in this case, because no Christian saint seems to have replaced Damona.

The name of Damona is a word of the same family as the Italian word “daino “or of the French word “daim “. Damona is therefore a doe, and white probably. But the hind, in the beginning, it is every female of Cervidae of the time, and not only that of the deer. Damona is combined with the notion of speed (his feet are hard-wearing, like if they were made of bronze) and with the divination. At least according to the story of the white hind of the Lusitanians and Sertorius.

Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 11.

“ Most of the tribes voluntarily submitted themselves, won by the fame of his clemency and of his courage, and to some extent also, he availed himself of cunning artifices of his own devising to impose upon them and gain influence over them. Among which, of course, that of the hind was not the least. Spanus, a plebeian who lived in those parts, meeting by chance a hind that had recently calved, flying from the hunters, let the doe go, and pursuing the fawn, and took it, being wonderfully pleased with the rarity of the color, which was all milk white. And as at that time Sertorius was living in the neighborhood, and accepted gladly any presents of fruit, fowl, or venison, that the country afforded, and rewarded liberally those who presented them; the man brought him his young hind, which he took and was well pleased with at the first sight. But when in time, he had made it so tame and gentle that it would come when he called, and follow him wherever he went, and could endure the noise and tumult of the camp, knowing well that uncivilized people are naturally prone to superstition, by little and little he raised it into something preternatural, saying that it was given him by the goddess Artemis, and that it revealed to him many secrets. He also added such devices as these. If he had received at any time secret intelligence that the enemies had made an incursion into any part of the districts under his command, or had solicited any city to revolt, he pretended that the hind had informed him of it in his sleep, and charged him to keep his forces in readiness. Or if he had noticed that any of the commanders under him had got a victory, he would hide the messengers and bring forth the hind crowned with flowers, for joy of the good news that was to come, and would encourage them to rejoice and sacrifice to the gods for the good account they should soon receive…. “.

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To sacrifice hinds was a current practice among Celts, as the preliminary of the battle of Sentinum proves it (Titus-Livius, Roman History, X, 27).

“Whilst the two armies were standing ready to engage, a hind driven by a wolf from the mountains ran down, into the open space between the two lines, with the wolf in pursuit. Here they each took a different direction; the hind ran to the Celts, the wolf to the Romans. Way was made for the wolf between the ranks; the Celts speared the hind “. As from this moment, each of the two camps was persuaded of the victory, the Romans because the wolf Quirinus was their and in their ranks, the Celts because they had been able to sacrifice the hind. And if they had killed it with their spears, that can be only for two reasons. The first in order to offer it in sacrifice to the goddess-or-demoness of hunting, this sacrifice ensuring the protection of the goddess-or-demoness and the certainty of the eternal life to them. The second in order to prevent that the hind is devoured by the wolf, symbol of the destruction in death.

MEDIEVAL (and modern?) SURVIVALS.

The fairy tale entitled “the hind in the wood “is the ultimate avatar of this myth which stages the goddess-or-demoness or fairy Damona. This account is really attractive, because, whether it is involuntarily, for example by taking as a starting point her time, or not 1), Mrs. d' Aulnoy, perhaps without wanting it indeed, found at once there all the elements of the original Celtic myth (the fairies, the worship of fruitfulness, the role of the sun, and so on).

Once upon a time there was a King and a Queen who were perfectly happy together; they loved each other most affectionately, and their subjects adored them; but the regret was universal, that there was not an heir to the crown. The Queen, who felt persuaded that the King would love her still more if she brought him one, went in the spring to drink the waters at some baths that were in high estimation. People flocked to them in crowds, and the number of strangers was so great, that persons from all parts of the world were to be found there.

There were several fountains, in a large wood, that the visitors went to drink from; they were surrounded by marble and porphyry; for every one was anxious to ornament them. One day that the Queen was sitting at the edge of one of the fountains….. She remarked that the water in the fountain was agitated. Presently a large crawfish appeared, and said, "Great Queen, you shall have your wish. I must inform you, that hard by there is a superb palace, which the fairies have built; but it is impossible for you to find it, because it is surrounded by thick clouds, that no mortal eye could penetrate; however, I am your very humble servant; if you will trust yourself to the conduct of a poor crawfish, I offer to lead you there."

The Queen listened without interrupting her, the novelty of hearing a crawfish talk being so surprising. She told her that she would accept her offer with pleasure; but that she could not walk backwards as she did. The crawfish smiled, and immediately took the figure of a handsome little old woman.

"Very well, Madam," said she, "we will not walk backwards, I consent to that: but, at all events, look upon me as one of your friends, who would be of service to you."

She walked out of the fountain without being wetted. Her dress was white, lined with crimson, and her gray hair was dressed with knots of green riband….;

Immediately the gates of the palace opened, six fairies issued forth—but what fairies! the most beautiful and the most magnificent that had ever been seen in their empire. They all came and made a profound courtesy to the Queen, and each presented her with a flower of precious stones, to make her a bouquet. There was a rose, a tulip, an anemone, a columbine, a carnation, and a pomegranate. "Madam," said they….We are delighted to announce to you that you will have a beautiful princess, whom you will call Desiree…. Do not fail to send for us the moment she is born, for we wish to endow her with all kinds of good qualities; you only have to hold the bunch that we have given you, and name each flower, thinking of us, and be sure that we shall be instantly in your chamber……After which they begged the Queen to enter their palace, the beauty of which it is not possible sufficiently to describe. They had chosen for the builder of it the architect of the Sun; he had executed in miniature all that which is on a grand scale in the palace of the Sun 1). The Queen, who could not support the brilliancy without pain, shut her eyes at every instant. They conducted her to their garden; there had never been such fine fruit:…..

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The Queen returned to court, and was in due time confined of a Princess, to whom she gave the name of Desiree; she immediately took the bouquet she had received, and named all the flowers, one after the other, and forthwith all the fairies arrived…..

The Queen, enchanted, thanked them a thousand and a thousand times for the favors they had just conferred upon the little Princess; when they perceived, entering the chamber, so large a crawfish, that the door was scarcely wide enough for her to pass through.

"Ah! too ungrateful Queen," said the Crawfish, "you have not then deigned to remember me! Is it possible you have so soon forgotten the Fairy of the Fountain, and the services I rendered you, by introducing you to my sisters!

I have already said that the Fairy of the Fountain was rather a coquette; the praises of her sisters softened her a little. "Very well," said she; "I will not do all the mischief to Desiree I had intended; for assuredly I had a mind to destroy her, and nothing could have prevented my doing so. However, I give you warning that if she sees the light of day before she is fifteen years old, it will perhaps cost her her life." …..

As the time drew near for her dear daughter to leave the palace, she made her sit for her picture, and her portrait was taken to the greatest courts of the universe. There was not a prince who could avoid being struck with admiration at the sight of it but there was one who was so moved by it that he could never leave it. He placed it in his closet, shut himself up with it, and talked to it, as though it were sensible and could understand him……

When the Queen sent her dear child away, she recommended her above all things to the care of this wicked woman [Long-Thorn]. "With what have I not trusted you!" said she, "with more than my life! Take care of my daughter's health; but, above everything, be careful she does not see daylight, or all will be lost; you know with what evils she is threatened, and I have stipulated with Prince Guerrier's ambassador, that until she is fifteen, they will place her in a castle where she will see no light but that from wax candles." …..

Long-Thorn, who learned each night from the Princess's officers, who opened the coach to give her her supper, the progress they were making towards the city where they were expected, urged her mother to execute her intentions, fearing the King or the Prince would come to meet the Princess, and that the opportunity would be lost. So about the middle of the day, when the sun's rays were at their height, she suddenly cut the roof of the coach in which they were shut with a large knife, made expressly for the purpose, which she had brought. Then, for the first time, Princess Desiree saw the light of day. She had scarcely looked at it, and heaved a deep sigh, when she sprang from the coach in the form of White Hind, and bounded off to the nearest forest, where she hid herself in a dark covert.The Fairy of the Fountain, who had brought about this extraordinary event, seeing all those who accompanied the Princess in commotion, some following her, others hastening to the city to announce to Prince Warrior the misfortune that had just occurred, seemed bent on the sudden destruction of creation. The thunder and lightning terrified the boldest….

The incomparable Princess wept when she saw herself in a fountain, which served as a mirror for her." "What! can this be me?" said she. "Now do I find myself subjected to the strangest fate that could happen to a princess. How long will my transformation last?—Where shall I conceal myself from the lions, bears, and wolves, that they may not devour me? How can I eat grass?" In short, she asked herself a thousand questions, and was in the greatest possible grief. It is true that if anything could console her, it was that she was as beautiful a hind as she had been a beautiful princess.

Becoming very hungry, Desiree nibbled the grass with a good appetite, and was surprised she could do so. Afterwards she laid down on the moss; night overtook her; she passed it in inconceivable alarm. She heard the wild beasts close to her, and often forgetting that she was a hind, she tried to climb some tree. The light of day somewhat reassured her; she admired its beauty, and the sun appeared something so wonderful to her, that she was never wearied with looking at it; all she had ever heard of it appeared to her much below what she now beheld; it was the only consolation she could find in that desert place; she remained there for several days quite by herself….

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I have already said that Prince Guerrier had halted in the forest, and that Becafigue was hunting through it in all directions for some fruit. It was already late when he arrived at the cottage belonging to the good old woman of whom I have spoken. He spoke politely to her, and asked her for several things his master wanted. She hastened to fill a basket, and gave it him. Then he knew so well how to persuade the Prince that he allowed himself to be conducted to the old woman's cottage: she was still at the door, and without making any noise, she led them to a room like the one the Princess occupied, and from which it was only separated by a wooden partition.

The Prince passed the night a prey to his usual anxieties. As soon as the first rays of the sun were shining in at his windows, he rose, and to divert his sadness, he went into the forest, telling Becafigue not to follow him. He walked for some time without taking any certain path, at length he arrived at rather a spacious place, thickly covered with trees and moss. Instantly a hind started off. He could not help following it—his dominant passion was the chase, but he cared less for it since love had taken possession of his heart. Notwithstanding that, he pursued the poor Hind, and from time to time he let fly an arrow at her, which frightened her to death, although she was not wounded, for her friend Tulip preserved her from that; and nothing less than the guardian hand of a fairy could have saved her from perishing from shafts so truly aimed. No one had ever felt so tired as the Princess of Hinds; such exercise was quite new to her. At last she fortunately took a turn by which the dangerous hunter lost sight of her, and being extremely fatigued himself, gave up the pursuit.

The day having passed in this manner, the Hind was delighted when the hour for retiring drew near. She turned her steps towards the house, where Giroflee was impatiently awaiting her. As soon as she was in her chamber, she threw herself upon the bed, quite out of breath, and in a great perspiration.

The lovely Princess resumed her proper form. "Alas!" said she, "I thought I had nothing to fear but the Fairy of the Fountain, and the cruel inhabitants of the forests; but today I have been pursued by a young hunter, whom I scarcely saw, so hasty was my flight. A thousand arrows, shot after me, threatened me with inevitable death; I am still ignorant by what good fortune I could have been able to escape."…..

The Prince, on his part, had returned in the evening, and rejoined his favorite. "I have spent my time," said he, "in running after the most lovely hind I ever saw; she eluded me a hundred times with wonderful dexterity; I took so true an aim at her that I cannot understand how she could escape untouched. As soon as it is daylight, I shall look for her again, and I will not miss her the next time." In short, the young Prince, who wished to drive from his heart the idea of a being he believed to be imaginary, was not sorry that his love for hunting amused him, and returned betimes to the spot where he had found the Hind; but she took good care not to go there again, fearing a similar accident to the one she had met with. …..

At length, after making the round of the forest, our Hind could not run any longer, and slackened her pace. The Prince redoubling his, came up with her with a delight which he could scarcely believe it possible he could feel. He evidently saw she had lost all her strength; she was lying down like a poor half-dead little animal, and only expecting her life to be taken by the hands of her conqueror; but instead of being so cruel, he began to caress her. "Beautiful Hind," said he, "do not be afraid; I will take thee with me, and thou shalt follow me everywhere." He cut some branches from the trees, twisted them skillfully, and covered them with moss; scattered roses upon them, which he gathered from some bushes in full blossom, then took the Hind in his arms, laid her head upon his neck, and placed her gently upon the boughs; after which he sat down near her, seeking from time to time the finest grass, which he gave to her, and which she ate from his hand.

The Prince continued to talk to her, although he was persuaded she did not understand him. Notwithstanding the pleasure she felt in looking at him, she became very uneasy as night was approaching. "What will be the consequence," said she to herself, "should he see me suddenly change my form? he will be alarmed and fly from me; or if he do not fly from me, what have I not to fear then alone in this forest?"

She could think of nothing but how to escape when he furnished her with the means himself; for fearing she might want to drink, he went to find some streamlet that he could lead her to. While he was seeking it, she quickly stole away, and safely reached the cottage where Giroflee was waiting for her. She again threw herself upon her bed, night came, her transformation ended, and she appeared in her own form. ….

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Daylight returned, and with it the Princess resumed her form of the White Hind. She did not know what to do, whether to seek the places the Prince generally frequented, or to take an opposite direction and avoid him. She decided upon the latter, and went very far away; but the young Prince, who was as cunning as she was, did the same thing, firmly believing she would adopt this little ruse, so that he discovered her in the thickest part of the forest. She was just fancying herself perfectly safe when she caught sight of him. She instantly bounded up, and jumped over the bushes, and, as if she feared him still more on account of the trick she had played him the preceding evening, she flew faster than the winds; but at the moment she was crossing a path, he took so good an aim at her that he lodged an arrow in her leg. She was in violent pain, her strength failed her, and she fell.

Cruel and barbarous Cupid, where were you then? What! couldst thou suffer an incomparable girl to be wounded by her affectionate lover? The Prince came up; he was sensibly affected to see the Hind bleeding. He gathered some herbs, bound them round her leg, to alleviate the pain of the wound, and made her a new bed of branches.

"What did I yesterday, that you should have abandoned me? It shall not happen again today; I will take thee with me. How grieved I am that I have wounded you!" said he; "you will hate me, and I would you should love me." To hear him, it seemed as if some genius secretly inspired him with all he said to the Hind. At last the time arrived for returning to the old woman's; he lifted up his game, and was much inconvenienced by carrying it, leading it, and sometimes by dragging it.

She had not the slightest wish to go with him. "What will become of me?" said she, "alone with this Prince? Ah! I would rather die!" …

……Yet his passion, however, flattered him. We are naturally inclined to persuade ourselves of the truth of that which we desire; and upon such an occasion, one must die with impatience, or obtain an explanation. Without a moment's delay, he went and knocked gently at the door where the Princess was. Giroflee, never doubting but that it was the good old woman, and needing her assistance to bandage her mistress's arm, hastened to open the door; and was much surprised to see the Prince, who entered, and threw himself at the feet of Desiree. The transports which excited him interfered so much to prevent his making any connected speech, that, notwithstanding the pains I have taken to ascertain exactly what he said in these first moments, I have found no one who could much enlighten me on the subject. The Princess felt equally perplexed to answer him; but Love, who often acts as an interpreter to dumb people, became a third in the party, and persuaded them both that nothing had ever been said so well, or at least nothing so touching and so tender. Tears, sighs, vows, and even some sweet smiles, succeeded. Daylight appeared without Desiree ever thinking about it; and she did not, as usual, take the form of a Hind. Nothing could equal her joy at this discovery. She then recited her history to him, which she did with a natural grace and eloquence that far surpassed that of the most skillful narrator.

"What!" exclaimed the Prince, "my charming Princess! is it you I wounded under the form of a white hind? What can I do to expiate so great a crime? Will it suffice to die with grief before your eyes?" He was so sadly afflicted that his distress was painfully visible in his countenance. Desiree suffered more from that than from her wound. She assured him it was a mere trifle, and that she could not help blessing an accident which procured her so much happiness….

The Prince mounted a horse, that he might accompany his lovely Princess. They were received in the capital with a thousand shouts of joy; everything was prepared for the nuptials, which were rendered more solemn by the presence of the six benignant fairies who loved the Princess. They made her the richest presents that could possibly be imagined; among others, the magnificent palace, where the Queen had been to see them, appeared suddenly in the air, carried by fifty thousand Cupids, who placed it in a beautiful plain on the bank of the river.

1. The account, through the description of the palace, incontestably makes the praise of the power in place. We attend in fact a kind of mise en abyme of the history of the reign of the sun king. The castle is decorated by the fairies, who had, as a decoration, recalled on their hangings the heroic deeds of the greatest king in the world.

“They had chosen for the builder of it the architect of the Sun; he had executed in miniature all that which is on a grand scale in the palace of the Sun" 1). This name and this reference to the sun star evoke Louis XIV personally, of course, and we find inserted in the tale then, without another preamble

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and without direct narrative link, if not descriptive, the praise in lines of verses of the monarch who is presented like hereafter.

Here of the Thracian god

He bore the mien;

Fierce lightning flashing from his eyes were seen:

There over France he ruled in peace profound;

Her lot the envy of the world around.

The arts he fosters, grateful for his care,

His form august had pictured everywhere:

To fierce assaults victorious legions leading,

Or, generously, peace to vanquished foes conceding.

In the history of the prince charming, this mysterious Damona Vinda is psychopompous, she leads the soul/minds to another world (True Glory).

But caution, we do not claim nevertheless that the story of the prince charming is a Celtic-druidic myth. We say only that there are inside elements which evoke strongly certain Celtic-druidic myths staging a prince passing in the next world on the invitation of a fairy, like Niamh or Liban or which evoke the topic of the hunting of the white stag of Arthur in Erec and Enide by Chretien de Troyes; because it goes without saying the mysterious doe of this tale is a substitute for the fairy True-Glory. The personal contribution of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (or her predecessor) only consisted in duplicating the character of the prince (Absolute) and that of the fairy (False Glory) to make it a moralizing tale for 7-year-old children far from any Machiavellism and a little Manichean.

"There was one time a prince, who was but sixteen years old when he lost his father; at first, he was rather sad, but the pleasure of being a king quickly consoled him. This prince was called Charming: he had not a bad heart, but he had been brought up as a prince; that is to say, he had his own way in every thing; and this bad education would in consequence have undoubtedly rendered him wicked. He had already began to exhibit symptoms of anger when any one told him of his faults; he neglected his business to deliver himself up to his pleasures; above all, he was so passionately attached to the chase, that he passed the greater part of his time in this amusement. He would have been spoiled, as are almost all princes; however, he had a good governor, whom he loved very much when he was young; but after he became king, he thought his governor too virtuous. "I will never dare to follow my own notions before him," said he to himself; "for he says that a prince ought to give all his time to the business of his kingdom, and should not be too fond of pleasure. Even though he should say nothing, he will look sad, and I shall perceive by his countenance, that he is dissatisfied with me; I must remove him to a distance, for his presence will be a constraint upon me." On the morrow, Charming assembled his council, bestowed great praises upon his governor, and said, that to reward him for the attention he had shown him, he bestowed upon him the government of a province, which was at a great distance from the court. When his governor had departed, he plunged into all species of indulgence, and particularly hunting, of which he was fond to distraction.

One day, while Charming was in a large forest, there passed by him a doe of a snowy whiteness; she had a collar of gold around her neck, and when she had approached near the prince, she looked at him earnestly, and then retreated. "Let no one attempt to kill her," cried Charming. He then gave orders to his people, to remain with the dogs, while he pursued the doe. It appeared as if she waited for him; but when he came near her, she kept retreating; at the same time, frisking and gambolling. So great was his desire of taking her, that following her, he had proceeded a great way unconsciously.

The night came on, and he lost sight of the doe. He was greatly embarrassed, for he knew not where he was. All on a sudden, he heard the sound of musical instruments, but it appeared to come from a distance. However, he followed the direction of this agreeable noise, until he arrived at a large castle, whence proceeded the music. The porter asked him what he desired, and the prince related his adventure. "You are welcome," said the man to him: "let me lead you to supper, for the doe belongs to my mistress, and whenever she goes out, it is to bring her company." At this moment, the porter whistled, and a great number of servants appeared with torches, and led the prince to a well-lighted apartment. The furniture of this apartment was not splendid, but every thing was so appropriate, and so well arranged, that it was pleasant to see it. Immediately the mistress of the house made her appearance; the prince was struck with her beauty, and having thrown himself at her feet, he could not

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address her, so deeply intent was he in looking upon her. "Arise, prince !" said she to him, presenting him her hand: "I am delighted at the admiration I excite. You appear to me so agreeable, that I wish from my heart it may be your fate to draw me from this solitude. I am called True Glory, and am immortal; I have lived in this castle since the beginning of the world, awaiting a husband and… "

The continuation of this fairy tale continues like hereafter. True-glory being also courted by many other suitors, the prince charming must make a success of various tests, and especially not fall into the trap set by False-Glory, her alluring sister, to win her heart. At the end of three years of efforts, the prince charming will become a true great king, and he therefore marries True-Glory.

N.B. There was perhaps also in this case, influence of the topic of the stag with a gold collar.

The famous song of the White hind brings back to us to another symbolic system, the impossible love between the body and the soul. In this story the king Renaud symbolizes the physical love and particularly the desire of immediate pleasure. The White Doe symbolizes the soul. Unless, of course, than it is ritual cannibalism. Or a very druidic way to express the almost totemic solidarity/brotherhood being able to exist between men and animals. In any case it is a very strange story.

The lament of the white doe ( Brittany 16th century).

1. Those who go to the forest

Are a mother and her daughter,

The mother goes singing

And her daughter sighs.

2. "Why do you sigh,

Margaret, my daughter?"

"There is a great wrath in me,

And I dare not tell it you.

3. I am a girl by day,

And a white doe by night.

Etc.

There exist other variants but all have a tragic end we could summarize thus.

The barons and the prince hunted me there,

And my brother Reynold, who is worst of all.

Go, my mother, go right soon and tell him

To hold back his hounds until tomorrow morning."

"Where are your hounds, Reynold, and the noble hunt?"

"They have gone to the forest to chase the white doe."

"Hold them back, Reynold, hold them back, I pray you!"

Three times he blew his copper horn,

And at the third time the white doe was caught.

"Let us call the skinner that he skins the doe!"

He who skinned her said, "I don't know what to say!

She has the golden hair and the breasts of a girl!"

He drew his knife and cut her in quarters.

"Let us call for a dinner for the barons and the prince!

Look, we're all seated except my sister Margaret."

"You only have to eat I was the first to be seated,

My head on the plate and my heart on the butcher's hook,

My blood is spilled all through the kitchen

And over your black coals my poor bones are roasting."

Those who go to the forest…

In short, the tale of the White Doe is an attractive legend in songs, where the fantastic elements create a world of blood and mysteries, to date still unsolved.

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See also the admirable following medieval lays.

The lay of Graelent.

The queen loves Graelent, but he rejects her to remain faithful to his king. She had a sudden dislike to him . Unhappy, he pursues a doe in the forest, sees a nude woman close to a spring , pursues her , forces her and is therefore loved by her. She brings gifts to him , as a Water Good Mother she is. But he must not speak about her. However in a beauty contest, he affirms that a woman is more beautiful than the queen. The fairy precipitates to save him then they disappear both under water.

The lay of Guiguemar.

Some wanted to also see the divine Vinda Damona in the medieval character of the Lady of the Fountain, called Laudine, the lady of the manor who reigns over Barenton and who will marry the valiant knight Yvain, at least according to Chretien de Troyes and his famous “knight of the lion “.

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ANOTHER SPECIAL CASES: THE LADY OF THE LAKES: COVENTINA.

The lady of the Lakes. Panceltic goddess-or-demoness or fairy, of fresh water. Also known under the name of Covventina/Covontina/Countina/Covvintina. Cohvetene or Cuhve in the Iberian peninsula (area of Lugo). Water elemental. There also it is not very probable that it is an importation of her worship in Spain. The orthography Cohvetene or Cuhve corresponds rather to a local (and awkward) Latinized transcription of her name.

We saw that there was an elemental of the terrestrial water in general and not only of the sea, like Latin Neptune, called Lero/Lir/Lear. And well there was also in former druidism an elemental of the lakes in particular, of the female gender this time, the famous lady of the lakes (unless it is the goddess Nerthus?) taking part in the Romances of the Round Table.

N.B. It goes without saying it is completely artificially that her mythology was attached by the Welsh storytellers to that of the historical character Arthur, Roman war leader having lived in Great Britain in the 5th or 6th century (Artorius Castus, Riothamus?).

Coventina in any case is known by dedications found at Carrawburgh, in Northumberland. Her sanctuary was built beside a well supplied by a sacred spring, combined with the Roman Fort of Brocolitia. Many atebertas or offerings were found in this sacred , some needles, more than 400 coins, most dating back to the reign of Gratian, votive pearls, glass, pieces of pottery, bells, a human skull. Large altars engraved with the inscription “AUGUSTA COVENTINA “and some dedications were also found. The twelve inscriptions of Brocolitia (Carrawburg) dedicated to Coventina (named Nympha in some of them) were published by R.G. Collingwood and R.P. Wright in their Roman Inscriptions of Britain, numbers 1523-1535.

This lady of the lakes is sometimes represented in the form of goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, sometimes in the shape of a triad of goddess-or-demonesses (or fairies).

The excavations released several altars decorated with representations of this water elemental, in the form of a nymph. On one of them, she is represented as a triple goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, or as goddess-or-demoness or a fairy, adjoined with two assistants, each of the three women holding a jug or a vase which water leaves (what archeologists or historians call a pouring jug if I remember well) ; on another, found in the bottom of the spring, she is represented alone, and seems to float on what can be an oak leaf. She holds a jug in a hand, and a flower in the other.

The environment of her worship is clearly that of a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of fresh water, but also of a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of fertility, as well as of childbirth. The Romans had combined her with the worship of Mnemosyne, or Mneme, from where Nimue, one of the two names of the lady of the lake in the Arthurian legends. Other authors think that Nimue comes from the Latin name nympha. As for the name even of Coventina, it produced “Co-Vianna “ then Vi-Vianna. Certain specialists make the name of Coventina coming from a Proto-Celtic *kom-men- (memory) and *ti-ni, to disappear, to vanish. This combination of the goddess-or-demoness or fairy, with the wells, explains in any case why Merlin is supposed to have met her at the fountain in Barenton. Some people think that Coventina would have produced Gw-end (- ol) - oena for Romans then Gwendoloena, name of the first soul mate of Merlin.

As we could see it, dedications to Coventina and votive deposits were found in a small tank intended to keep the water of a spring called “Coventina’s well “; located in the surroundings of the Roman Fort of Procolita, Brocolitia, or Brocolita, along Hadrian's Wall. The sanctuary probably was destroyed or given up around 388, following the anti-pagan persecutions started by the Christian Taliban or Parabolan named Theodosius.

The sacred pond of Coventina was the heart of this temple.

A second basin close by seems to have been devoted to the genie of the place (genius loci) and to the water elemental-called nymphs in interpretatio romana.

As indicated higher, the atebertas or offerings which were brought to Coventina, were especially coins (407, from Augustan time : Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius) some pins,rings, safety pins, pearls

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out of small glassware as well as pottery. A skull we don’t know too much what to think of, thus announced higher, was also discovered.

Inscription (RIB 1534) engraved in lower part of the representation of Coventina as goddess-or-demoness or fairy, single or isolated, can be read as follows.

DEAE COVVENTINAE.T.D. COSCONIANVS PR (aefectus) COH (ortis) I. BAT (avorum) L (ibens) M (erito).

What means: for the goddess Coventina, Titus D.? Cosconianus, Prefect of the first cohort of Batavians. , freely and deservedly.

A certain number of inscriptions mention her in the plural.

DEAE COVENTINE COH I CVBERNORVM AVR CAMPESTER V P L A.

The inscriptions MATRIBVS ALBINIVS QVART MIL D (to the mothers, the soldier Albinus Quartus donates this) and MATRIBVS COMMVN (to the camp mothers) therefore refer perhaps also to Coventina.

Another inscription.

GABIVNS IF EL CSI SATVRNI COVETINA AGVSTA VOTV MANIBVS SVIS SATVRNINVS FECIT GABINIVS.

On this side of the Infernal region and of the Elysian fields , Gabinius and Saturninus, for the noble Coventina, and in offering to the spirits of his ancestors on the behalf of Saturninus and Gabinius…

The presence on the site of bronze heads or bronze plates representing heads, as well as pieces of pottery having the shape of a human head, of which a very successfully performed female head (that of Coventina herself perhaps?) ; just like the discovery of the skull; make us think of a cut head worship. Other elements suggest a therapy function a little similar to that of thermal springs. The safety pins probably evoke the worship of the fertility or maternity.

An inscription mentioning, under the name of Cuhvetena, the lady of the lakes, was discovered in Santa Cruz de Loyo 1), in Guittiriz 2), and Guntín 3) in Spain.

The inscription which contains the name of this elemental was studied by L. Monteagudo and recently by Scarlat Lambrino. It is a one-meter-high altar out of granite, with a small hearth on the higher face and two scrolls, of which one misses.

The preservation state of the stone is almost perfect, only the scroll of the left higher face is missing. The stone was discovered at the beginning of the 20th century by a farmer from Os Curveiro, close to the station of Guitiriz. People found at the same time a small shaft of columns, without moldings, on the bank of a brook and at the foot of a water fall. Which had to some importance in Antiquity, judging by the remainders of a channel and the artificial cracks of the rocks through which water runs out; it is perhaps an old Roman construction, because around the brook, cut stones were found on the bare ground.

Here the inscription.

CONVE

TENE

E.R.N.

L. Monteagudo maintains that the presence of an elemental from Great Britain in the Galician lands is due to the fact that the seventh Gemina legion; that which remained longest in the NW of the Peninsula, during the reign of Hadrian; sent a vexillatio of thousand men into Great Britain.

L. Monteagudo deduced from that it is very probable that a soldier of the VII legion, having served before 119 in the Galician lands, and coming back, safe and sound, from Great Britain ; devoted this altar to a nymph of whom he was a dagolitos or appointed believer. The stone was found approximately 1 km away of the hydrosulfuric water station of Guiteriz. In the Peninsula, like in Procolitia, the nymph is the goddess-or-demoness or fairy, of a well with beneficial water.

What is an obstacle to the reading CONVETENE, in the Galician inscription, it is the H which is inserted, in small, between the O and the V. Monteagudo explains this rare fact, by the influence of the handwritten cursive script writing on the epigraphic upper case letter, because the letters were initially drawn with a coal on the stone.

The presence of the H is surely due to a convention, intended to express a sound unfamiliar to the giver of the altar , what would confirm the assumption that the worship of this nymph is not indigenous.

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Another stone probably devoted to the same deity was discovered in Santa Cruz de Loyo, and here what we can read there.

CVHVE

BERRAL

OCECV

FLAVIVS

VALERIANVS

NVS.

S. Lambrino reads the last line of the first stone: E (x) R (esponso) N (uminis); it would be consequently an underground deity . For Lambrino, it is not necessary, since we find in Procolitia several dedications to Conventina; to resort to the assumption according to which these inscriptions would be due to dagolitoi (believers) having traveled to Great Britain, and having brought back this worship in Galicia. It would be quite simply a local deity, guardian of the springs of Guitiriz, and most probably Celtic.

Medieval prolongation.

As we have already mentioned it, higher, the fairy Vivien or Lady of the Lake is the name of a character of the Arthurian legends. This character plays several roles. The fairy Vivian is a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the Next-World (a devona) and it is this mysterious lady of the lake which provides to the young Arthur his famous sword of the name of Excalibur, before taking it again, to hide it, after the battle of Camlann.

The various authors and copyists gave to the Lady of the Lake various names: Vivian,Vivien, Niniane, Nimue, Nyneve…

Vivian dwelling in the forest receives the young Lancelot, still child, after the death of his father, King Ban of Benwick (dead through sadness being informed his kingdom had been burned by his enemy Claudas of the Land Laid Waste. She takes him to deepest of a very large lake, he never believed to be able to leave , not knowing it was there a forced “ passage “ to reach the marvelous and hidden kingdom of Avalon. In other texts, it is not a question of Avalon but of Diana’s Lake (cf. The Merlin of the Huth manuscript, a romance of the 13th century). Vivien teaches arts and letters to Lancelot, inspiring wisdom and courage to him, thus making him an accomplished knight. She then leads him to the court of Arthur, in Camelot, to be dubbed there, then presents him to the knights of the Round Table, of which he becomes most famous representative.

Her relationship with Merlin is at the very least complex. With an only aim of winning over her, Merlin accepts, while knowing (thanks to his gift of divination) she will cause his downfall. Vivian locks up him alive in a grave thanks to an enchantment that he taught her himself (cf. Prose Lancelot in prose or its continuation, the Huth Merlin , of the 13th century romances , for example). After the death of her mother Igraine, Vivien took care of Morgan, by making her a magician, while Merlin the enchanter took care of the education of her half-brother, the future king of the Bretons: Arthur. According to other texts, Morgan is not the half-sister of Arthur, but her sister, and this one was not brought up by Vivian, but would also have learned her magic from Merlin.

Both clash. Vivien protects Arthur, her court and the courteous or chivalrous ideal he embodies, while Morgan wants the downfall of her brother and her sister-in-law, the queen Guinevere (cf. Prose Lancelot, Hut Merlin’s manuscript and the Death of King Arthus by Malory , for example).

Certain authors bring her closer to the Irish Befinn/Bebhinn/Bebhionn/Bebinn/Befind/Beibhinn/Bevin/Vevina. Many legend heroines have this name in Ireland. One of them is known as the wife of the god-or-demon Aed Alainn or of the mere mortal Idath. Her name means “the beautiful one “or “sweetie “. Goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if it is preferred, of births, sister of the Irish goddess-or-demoness or fairy Damona Vinda/Boann, who personifies the Boyne River. In certain legends concerning the Fenians, she is described as a very tall and aristocratic-looking woman, pursued by a horrible giant, and coming to seek refuge or protection among them. Other literary sources mention Bebinn daughter of Elcmar.

Notes.

1) GUITIRIZ (Lugo, Spain). In relation with the Roman spa was discovered an inscription dedicated to the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Coventina.

2) SANTA CRUZ DE LOYO, Paradela (Lugo, Spain). The appearance of an inscription dedicated to Coventina makes it possible to propose the hypothetical existence in the area of a Roman spa.

3) BANOS DE GUNTIN, Guntín (Lugo, Spain). The former name was Aquae Quintiae (It. Ast. II). Udata Kouíntina (Ptol. II, 6,27). Quintia/Kouíntina can be linked with the theonym Coventina.

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THE LAKE WORSHIP OF LAKES by Jose María Blázquez.

REMINDER. THIS SWORD STORY ENTRUSTED TO THE FAIRY VIVIAN IS NOT DISSIMILAR TO THE PRACTICES WHICH TOOK PLACE AT LA TENE IN SWITZERLAND 2,500 YEARS AGO.

Thanks to Suetonius indeed, we know the existence of the worship of lakes: it consisted in throwing axes in them.

Not multo post in Cantabriae lacum fulmen decidit, repertaeque sunt duodecim secures, haud ambiguum summi Imperii signum (Galba, VIII, 3).

Not long after this lightning struck a lake of Cantabria and twelve axes were found there, an unmistakable token of supreme power.

The stagnant waters, lakes, basins of spring, ponds, pools,too, were therefore also deified , as we could see it.

An invaluable inscription was discovered in the town of Real Villa of Tras-os-Montes, in a place where existed a temple and a sacred lake, which Gaius Caius Calpurnius Rufinus devoted to the gods and goddesses.

LAPITEAAE DIIS DEABVSQVE AE TERNVM LACVM OMNI BVSQVE NVMINIBVS AND LAPITEARVM CVM HOC TEMPLO SACRAVIT G.C. CALP. RVFINVS IN QVO HOSTIAE VOTO CREMANTVR.

Were discovered at the same place four other inscriptions, of which one in Greek language that we will not reproduce here, because it contains no name of indigenous deity. On the four inscriptions is found the name of Calpurnius Rufinus.

The name LAPITEARVM refers to deities who are probably the elementals of the sacred lake which are quoted in the inscription; it is formed on a toponym Lapitea , which, according to Ptolemy, would be a cape among the Galicians (II, 6,4). F. Russell Cortez defended the assumption according to which the name of Lapiteae designates a village, and in this case the altar would be dedicated to the goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, of the Lapites, assumption already put forward by Leite de Vasconcelos. The name of the indigenous deities has a form which we already know thanks to another inscription (CIL II, 5607). In the honor of these indigenous and Roman Deities, people burned victims, as the inscription specifies it.

Another of the discovered inscriptions speaks about the victims which people sacrificed, which people immolated inside and outside the square enclosure; which was to be the really religious place. And which was perhaps the lake on which the blood was spread. Unless it was a sacrificial installation a little similar to that of La Tene in Switzerland: some bridges or pontoons advancing on water (spanning the river called La Thielle as regards the Swiss site).

Mommsen read, instead of LAPITEARVM, AMPHITEATRVM, reading rejected by Hubner and Leite.

This worship of the lakes is confirmed by the discoveries made in the north of the Pyrenees or elsewhere (Toutain, III, pages 367,379).

We find a little everywhere lakes housing fairies, undines, white ladies, mysterious magic beings, whose Vivian remains the most beautiful symbol. All these nymphs with vaporous body like calm waters and their layers of fog.

The devil’s pools quoted by George Sand are, they also, many and are regarded as gates of hell.

Frequent are the legends dealing with treasures and cities absorbed in mysterious lakes, of which the bottoms would open on other worlds. Many of them seemed to hide, under their surface where is reflected the sky, a deity the surrounding populations respected. And to whom they sacrificed, while making to them offerings of coins, but also of linen, clothing, various food , sometimes even jewels and invaluable objects. And even, as we have had the opportunity to say it on several occasions, a small wine amphora, symbolizing blood, that people give up as is or they pour the contents in a suitable place after having opened it or having broken ritually the neck of it. Perhaps with a gesture similar to that which consists in “cracking open“ a bottle of champagne, nowadays. It is the famous Sanskrit “the dadami dehi me “: I give you so that you give (the deity then is in a way forced to give tit for tat). Expression coarsely translated by Latin with their “do ut des “.

Let us quote among most remarkable of them.

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The lake Pavin. In Auvergne, in an impressive landscape topped by a volcano, the Puy of Montchal. Basalt walls are reflected on so black water that, people say, fish cannot live there. This splendid lake was always regarded as a sacred lake, blessed by the god-or-demons. An ancient legend says that you should not throw stone inside at risk of starting a hurricane and being absorbed. In the vicinity, the Creux of Soucy, strange natural pit which opens at eighty meters above the lake, in the basaltic lava flow of the volcano, appears as a twenty-five meters broad funnel. It opens a dozen meters below on an open hole, true mouth of the abyss, which leads to a vast cupola shaped cave with, in its center, another small lake. Watch out for the one who moves into there: a layer several meters thick layer of carbon dioxide, hovers above water, prohibiting any life. The infernal reputation of this place was therefore quite based on a real danger which terrorized the primitive populations.

The lake of Antre. This lake is mysteriously fed by an underground river which emerges impetuously , then flows into the lake of which the water disappears on the other slope, in a pit open at the foot of a cliff, to reappear hundred meters below. But after having crossed a succession of sumps, which it spends twelve hours to traverse. This place was protected by the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Bellona, then by the Roman god-or-demon Mars. In the sanctuaries of which nothing remains, save a bridge , known as Bridge of the Arches, some inscriptions and fragments of calendars proved that people worshipped there the surrounding mounts, the lake and the sun.

Let us quote to finish a disappeared sacred lake: that of Tolosa, where a treasure would have been precipitated in order to ward off the plague, an evil come from the East like this cursed gold. On its site is built the church Saint-Sernin.

It is Strabo, in a long essay about the Tectosages (Geography IV, 1,13) who hands down to us the fabulous story of the sacred “lakes “or “ponds “(limnai) in Tolosa, where was deposited, before their plundering by Caepio, part of the treasures of the Tolosa inhabitants. He maintains, following Posidonius of Apameia, that “the treasure that was found in Tolosa [Toulouse] amounted to about fifteen thousand talents (part of it in sacred lakes), unwrought, that is, merely gold and silver bullion “.Further, Strabon revisits this so exotic subject for him: “It came to have treasures in many places in Celtica. But it was the lakes (limnai), most of all, which afforded the treasures their inviolability, into which the people let down heavy masses of silver or even of gold.”

Become masters of the country, the Romans sold the lakes for the benefit of the State, and many purchasers found in them hammered millstones of silver. In Tolosa also, the sanctuary was sacrosanct for the inhabitants.

Strabo is the only Greek author of Antiquity to mention these limnai, without equivalent elsewhere. The other ancient authors who dealt with the plundering of the treasures of Tectosages by Caepio in 106 before our era (Aulus-Gellius, Cassius Dio, Orosius) do not mention these “sacred ponds “. Only Justin - according to Trogue-Pompey - speaks about a tolosensem lacum, place where the sacred treasure resulting from the plundering of Delphi by the Tectosages had been placed formerly. It is necessary to await for Nicolas Bertrand (1515) to see the memory of the “lakes “of the Tectosages reappearing : the author, who quotes the ancient sources (Posidonius and Timagenes therefore Strabo), speaks about consecratis lacubus. Bertrand in addition echoes a tradition locating a lake under Saint-Sernin, whereas at that time the “temple of Apollo “of the Tectosages was generally identified with the church of La Daurade. These various legends and traditions intermingle quickly, and as of the middle of the 16th century, man locates the “ treasure lake “of the Tectosages (sometimes combined with a “pit “or an “abyss “), either under Saint-Sernin, or under La Daurade.

These “lakes “ when we read Strabo well are not the prerogative of the town of Tolosa, but well of the territory of the Tectosages, and even of “Celtica “. It is not therefore unreasonable to consider a generalized “worship of the lakes “ which would express a singular will to immerse noble metals pertaining to the gods and/or to the Treasury.

In 106 before our era, the Roman general Caepio seizes the town of Tolosa which had revolted against Rome, plunders it, and gets his hand on fabulous richnesses, 100.000 silver pounds , 100.000 gold pounds. This treasure, the consul then sends it to Rome, but it will never arrive there. Caepio was attacked on the way , a stolen person then in turn suspected of theft, he was imprisoned in Rome. In reprisals his daughters were given up to the prostitution.

But let us leave there “my countrï, O Toulouse, and its Capitol “.

Another account of this kind of worship in the north of the Pyrenees: Gregory of Tours, Liber in Gloria Confessorum, 2.

“In the Gabalitan territory there was a mountain named after Hilary that contained a large lake. At a fixed time a crowd of rustics went there and, as if offering libations to the lake, threw [into it] linen

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cloths and material that served men as clothing. Some [threw] fleeces of wool; many [threw] cheese and wax and bread as well as various objects, each according to his own means. That I think would take too long to enumerate. They came with their wagons; they brought food and drink, sacrificed animals, and feasted for three days. But before they were due to leave on the fourth day, a violent storm approached them with thunder and lightning. The heavy rainfall and hailstones fell with such force that each person thought he would not escape. Every year this happened this way, but these ignorant people were tied up in their mistake. Much later a priest from the city became bishop 1) went to the place. He preached to the crowds that they should cease this behavior lest they be consumed by the wrath of heaven. But their coarse rusticity rejected his preaching. Then, with the inspiration of the Deity this priest of God built a basilica in honor of the blessed Hilary of Poitiers at a distance from the banks of the lake. He placed relics of Hilary in the church and said to the people: 'Do not, my sons, do not sin before God! Worship also St Hilary, a priest of God whose relics are located here.' The men were stung in their hearts and converted. They left the lake and brought everything they usually threw into it to the holy basilica “.

It would be the Lake of Saint-Andeol (Lozere), close which we observed ruins of a Roman temple.

Let us note by the way that this bishop thus killed two birds with one stone . He put an end to the worship of the elemental of this lake, and diverted towards his church the gifts of the poor unhappy wretch , which were therefore not lost for everybody.

Medieval survival. The kelpie is a creature of the Gaelic folklore having head and legs of a horse, with a rush mane. In Gaelic language, the kelpies are called “each Uisge “ which means “water horse “ or “tarbh uisge “ which means “water bull “. They live in lakes and rivers, and when they leave there, it is to attract somebody, to the bottom of the pond and to drown there.

You always recognize a kelpie at first glance, but the supernatural beauty of this sea horse sometimes prevails over its prudence, and man captures the creature, which generally shows no resistance. You can even manage to train it. But as soon as the kelpie is in contact with water, it will trail its master into it and will drown him. The only means of keeping a kelpie is to put on it a halter out of birch bark , and never to let it drink. Certain legends say that they are the kelpies which make the shells.

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UNDERGROUND AND CHTHONIAN FORCES OR MAIN ELEMENTALS OF THE GROUND.

Many god-or-demons did not leave become Romanized in another way than by the Latin drafting of the dedications, and the occasional combination with a Roman god-or-demon. Their names, often older than the Celtic occupation, are witnessed generally in one place. They are local worships, either of a god-or-demon we know only in this place but who could also exist elsewhere, or a local god-or-demon in the strong sense of the word. i.e., a deified place, often in the shape of a marking feature of topography (for example, the manifestation of a natural force). From where the expression of “topical” god-or-demons (Greek topos) that specialists use generally about them and the naturist nature of a certain number of them. On several hundreds of known names, much say nothing to us about the deities who bear them: you will find regional lists of them in the specialized works; their quantity alone impresses. A certain number, on the other hand, can be explained by the etymology or differently; they reveal to us in particular extremely long-lived naturist worships.

The chthonian god-or-demons are god-or-demons of the ground, underground gods. The earth plays in the eyes of men a double part. By her fertility initially, she nourishes them. She then receives them in her bosom when they died.

These underground god-or-demons therefore have two functions which make them take part in the life of men: they guarantee the wealth of the soil and they reign over the Kingdom of the Dead.

These Andernas were called Fomoire in Ireland, and were represented in the form of anguipedic wyverns on the Continent.

They are narrowly localized but also very numerous. Their leader is a female deity: the Mother-Earth. The main function of these lower god-or-demons is fruitfulness. The Mother-Earth of the ancient Celts, symbolized by the rhombus: lausinca… this image of the earth is not other than the simplified diagram of the female genitals.

To a second level of worships and beliefs correspond archaic and syncretic, also multifunctional , deities.

The religious design which left oldest traces appears even besides, very former to the Celts themselves and to their arrival. It dates back to the Neolithic era; it belongs consequently to the populations who occupied the ground of the country originally. The monuments of this time enable us to recognize a worship of the Mother-Earth, a deity at the same time of life and death. From the fertile matrix of the divine Earth leaves the race of men, animals and plants. The Earth is the communal mother of all living things and all living things come back finally to merge in her. After having given birth to all the beings, she welcomes and protects their last sleep. Mother of the life, she is also the mistress of the dead… idea of an imposing poetry.

The oldest clues, if not of worship, undoubtedly of attention paid to the renewal Forces, can be observed as of the time of the Paleolithic Age.

Specialists relate to the Aurignacian the female statues out of ivory (known as “Venus “) of Brassempouy, Lespugue, and similar, all characterized by the smallness of the head and the development of the hips. The Magdalenian is less rich in images.

However, the discovery in 1927, close to Angle-sur-L' Anglin (in the French department of the Vienne) of the shelter of the “Roc aux Sorciers “made known a significant document. A panel of the “carved frieze “decorated with three female headless and footless shapes. The artist stressed the generation organs. It is noteworthy, we will add , to meet, in such an early antiquity, the triple repetition of an image, principle which will find among Celts a systematic application.

At Neolithic times, the Mother-Earth appears, always in female form, in the role of guardian of the dead. Such are the idols, illustrated in a diagrammatic way, in several sepulchral caves of the valley of the Petit-Morin. In a mouthless face, the only salient features are the nose as well as the eyes; the neck is adorned with a necklace, the waist is sometimes girded of a kind of fringed fabric. A new enrichment of the drawing led to the “standing stone statues “of the Tarn, the Aveyron, and the nearby French departments, personifications of the creating forces of Nature.

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The alleged Venus of the interpretatio romana are generally only druidic mother-goddess-or-demonesses.

The various names under which the mother-goddess-or-demoness is known, show only the multiplicity of her aspects or of her functions. And that, the Catholics should understand it without difficulty because, nowadays still; names as different as Our Lady of Good-Help, Our Lady of Seven-Pains, Our Lady of Victories, Our Lady Star of the Sea, Our Lady of Snows, Our Lady of the Rosary, Our Lady of Lourdes; designate the same heavenly mother, under consideration in her various relations with Mankind.

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DOMNU/DOMNA/NERTHUS.

The name of this very old goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of Earth, appears in two series of different accounts.

Undoubtedly in certain patronymics or certain genealogies, to see the case for example in Ireland, of the prince of the andernas or fomorians called Indicios son of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, called Domnu (Indech mac De Domnann). And perhaps also in the name of the Fir Domnan Gauls, one of the mythical races having peopled prehistoric Ireland. Unless, in this last case, that the name quite simply means “Domnoneans “,“men from Domnonea “ an area of the south-west of Great Britain, corresponding to current Devon and which had been formerly peopled by a Celtic tribe called Dumnonii. Their territory was composed roughly of current Devonshire and Cornwall. Their neighbors were the Durotriges and the Dobunni. In the Middle Ages, part of these people emigrated on the Continent to found the Domnonea (Armorica, 5th century).

We find the word in the Latin designation of Exeter: Isca Dumnoniorum, where Isca would be related with Gaelic Uisge (which means “water “ and which produced the word whiskey).

The Mother-Earth of the former high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), Domna Nerthus, is almost always designated under the names of Gaia or Ge in Greece, of Tellus or Terra-Mater among Romans, words all considered as literal translations of the word “Earth “. But for the former high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) the name seems based on the root “dumno, dubno “ which means deep.

Here what the great French linguist Xavier Delamarre says about that.

Dubnos, dumnos, 1° “Deep, lower “, dark, black. 2° “the lower “.The coexistence of the meanings “deep “ and “world “can be explained by a cosmology which divides the universe into three zones. A celestial, luminous and divine higher world, albio (see this word), an intermediate world of the human and living beings, bitu- (* stem gwei : to live) and a lower world , deep, dark and hellish, dubno- (= “Tenebrae “, “Darkness “); this vertical design of the three worlds is found among other peoples (Germans, Greeks, Hittites) and it pertains therefore probably to the common Indo-European. The meaning of dubno-/dumno- in the proper nouns has to refer to this representation and consequently to be more surely translated by “Gloomy, Dark “(> “Black “) than by “deep “. The insular Celtic , which got rid of the mythical connotations of the word with the Christianization, kept of it the concrete meanings of “deep “and “world “ (“depth “): old Irish domun “world “ (*dubnos), domain “deep” (*dubnis), Welsh dwfn (*dubnos), dofn (*dubna) “deep“, Comish down, Breton doun. Cf. also the Irish proper noun Domnall > Donald, Welsh Dyfnwal, from *Dumno-ualos “who rules over the world “.

See also Greek buthos “bottom “(*thubos), etc., but there is undoubtedly an old duplicate of Indo-European time *dhub (h) - no-/*bhudh-no, being used to designate the dark depths where the Primeval Snake reigns.

Domnu or Domna Nerthus is therefore a primeval goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, identified with the “Mother-Earth “. She is the maternal ancestor of various “divine “or human races. She appears, moreover, as an underground deity people called upon or to whom people sacrificed victims of dark color, at the same time as to the other “hellish “powers, such Crom Cruach. The former druids or more exactly predecessors of the druids perhaps wanted to thus represent the two aspects of nature: able to create beauty or harmony, but also some moments when the original chaos reappears.

The theocracies do not work without human sacrifices, and life was not always enjoyable in the former times, among man-eaters. At least, this reproach is addressed to Bretons and to Irishmen by the Greek and Latin historians (nature is neither perfect nor imperfect it is what it is and there is only it).

As a primary deity , Domna Nerthus is, in a certain way, the guardian of the divine power. It is her who, in the Irish variant of the myth, supports the rebellion of the gigantic anguipedic wyverns against the god-or-demons of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer to use this term, Danu (bia): the Tuatha De Danann.

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Domna was particularly honored by certain peoples who, under the name of Nerthus, made her even their main deity according to Tacitus. His Germania (Latin De Origine et Situ Germanorum) is an ethnography treatise written around the year 98, and devoted to the tribes living beyond the borders of the Roman Empire.

Tacitus is the only author to mention Nerthus. The historian made there the (second-hand) account of a human sacrifice having been offered to her on the bank of a lake, often identified as a metaphor designating the island of Fyn or Zeeland (current Denmark) even the German island of Rugen.

It is almost certain that the role of the celebrant and servant of the goddess-or-demoness, or of the fairy if it is preferred, was reserved to the principal characters of the marsh people , particularly to the one we designated under the name of Tollund Man (central Jutland). He was naked, except for a leather hat which covered his head, a leather belt around his waist, and a leather cord tightened around his neck; undoubtedly the lace with which he was hanged or strangled. He laid in squatted position, curled up, with his legs under him and his arms crossed, resting on the side as if he slept. Because of his delicate features preserved magnificently, but also of his hands, which were very thin, specialists think he was a priest or a village chief . Because people chose sometimes, as victims of sacrifices, individuals of high social status, in the hope that the late one would continue to make the village profiting from his particular powers. The autopsy revealed that he had eaten a special meal, 12 to 24 hours before dying: a kind of gruel containing cereals and grains, the ones of wild origin, the others cultivated.

These same seeds were to germinate, to grow then to mature, during the travel of the goddess-or-demoness, or of the fairy, through the spring landscape. From these clues, we deduce that Tollund Man of was perhaps one of the priests who guided or accompanied the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, during the festivals of the spring sowing. After having escorted the sacrosanct chariot , and having eaten the ritual meal, he played his part until the end and was sacrificed so that the ground can make a new life spouting out.

The short description that Tacitus gives of this worship evokes that of Cybele and that of the Magna Mater in Rome. This deity remains difficult to locate in the Germanic Panth-eon or Pleroma, but archeology well confirms the existence of pertaining to worship chariots in this area of the world. They for example are evoked, at least according to John Rhys, in an inscription found in Vaison French department of the Vaucluse (Anoniredi. CIL XII 1285: Ioventius Daveri f (ilius) s (olvit) v (otum) l (ibens) m (erito) Anoniredi.

The text of Tacitus.

40. Next come the...... … [a long list of peoples living the part of Northern Germany giving onto the Baltic, follows]....who are fenced in by rivers or forests. None of these tribes have any noteworthy feature, except their common worship of Nerthus, or mother-Earth, and their belief that she interposes in human affairs, and visits the nations in her car.

In an island of the ocean [the island of Fyn or Zeeland in Denmark? The country of Gundestrup’s cauldron or the German island of Rugen?] there is a sacred grove, and within it a consecrated chariot, covered over with a garment. Only one priest is permitted to touch it. He can perceive the presence of the goddess-or-demoness in this sacred recess, and walks by her side with the utmost reverence as she is drawn along by heifers. It is a season of rejoicing, and festivity reigns wherever she deigns to go and be received. They do not go to battle or wear arms; every weapon is under lock; peace and quiet are known and welcomed only at these times, till the goddess-or-demoness, weary of human intercourse, is at length restored by the same priest to her temple.

Afterwards the car, the vestments, and, if you like to believe it, the divinity herself, are purified in a secret lake. Slaves perform the rite, who are instantly swallowed up by its waters. Hence arises a mysterious terror and a pious ignorance concerning the nature of that which is seen only by men doomed to die.

This branch indeed of the Suevi stretches into the remoter regions of Germany. Nearer to us is the state of the Hermunduri (I shall follow the course of the Danube as I did before that of the Rhine), a people loyal to Rome. Consequently they, alone of the Germans, trade not merely on the banks of the river, but far inland, and in the most flourishing colony of the province of Rætia. Everywhere they are allowed to pass without a guard; and while to the other tribes we display only our arms and our camps, to them we have thrown open our houses and country seats, which they do not covet.

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It is in their lands that the Elbe takes its rise, a famous river known to us in past days; now we only hear of it.

The Narisci border on the Hermunduri, and then follow the Marcomanni and Quadi. The Marcomanni stand first in strength and renown, and their very territory, from which the Boii were driven in a former age, was won by valor. Nor are the Narisci and Quadi inferior to them. This I may call the frontier of Germany, so far as it is completed by the Danube.

The Marcomanni and Quadi have, up to our time, been ruled by kings of their own nation, descended from the noble stock of Maroboduus and Tudrus. They now submit even to foreigners; but the strength and power of the monarch depend on Roman influence. He is occasionally supported by our arms, more frequently by our money, and his authority is none the less.

Behind them the Marsigni, Gotini, Osi, and Buri, close in the rear of the Marcomanni and Quadi. Of these, the Marsigni and Buri, in their language and manner of life, resemble the Suevi. The Gotini and Osi are proven by their respective Gallic and Pannonian tongues, as well as by the fact of their enduring tribute, not to be Germans. Tribute is imposed on them as aliens, partly by the Sarmatæ, partly by the Quadi. The Gotini, to complete their degradation (????) , actually work iron mines.

All these nations occupy but little of the plain country, dwelling in forests and on mountaintops. For Suevia is divided and cut in half by a continuous mountain range, beyond which live a multitude of tribes. The name of Ligii, spread as it is among many states, is the most widely extended. It will be enough to mention the most powerful, which are the Harii, the Helvecones, the Manimi, the Helisii and the Nahanarvali.

Among these last is shown a grove of immemorial sanctity. A priest wearing a robe [like the druids?] attire has the charge of it. But the deities are described in Roman interpretation as Castor and Pollux. Such, indeed, are the attributes of the divinity, the name being Alcis. They have no images, or, indeed, any vestige of foreign superstition, but it is as brothers and as youths that the deities are worshipped.

The Harii, besides being superior in strength to the tribes just enumerated, savage as they are, make the most of their natural ferocity by the help of art and opportunity. Their shields are black, their bodies dyed. They choose dark nights for battle, and, by the dread and gloomy aspect of their deathlike host, strike terror into the foe, who can never confront their strange and almost infernal appearance. For in all battles, it is the eye which is first vanquished.

Beyond the Ligii are the Gothones, who are ruled by kings, a little more strictly than the other German tribes, but not as yet inconsistently with freedom. Immediately adjoining them, further from the coast, are the Rugii and Lemovii, the badge of all these tribes being the round shield, the short sword, and servile submission to their kings.

Beyond the Suiones is another sea, sluggish and almost motionless, which, we may, of course, infer, girdles and surrounds the world, from the fact that the last radiance of the setting sun lingers on till sunrise, with brightness sufficient to dim the light of the stars. Even the very sound of his rising, as popular belief adds, may be heard, and the forms of gods and the glory round his head may be seen. Only thus far (and here rumor seems truth) does the world of the living extend.

At this point the Suevic Sea, on its eastern shore, washes the tribes of the Æstii, whose rites and fashions and style of dress are those of the Suevi, while their language is more like the British. They worship the mother of the gods, and wear as a religious symbol the device of a wild boar. This serves as armor, and as a universal defense, rendering the votary of the goddess safe even amid enemies.

They often use clubs, iron weapons but seldom. They are more patient in cultivating corn and other produce than might be expected from the general indolence of the Germans.

But they also search the deep, and are the only people who gather amber (which they call "glesum"), in the shallows, and also on the shore itself. Barbarians as they are they have not investigated or discovered what natural cause or process produces it.

Nay, it even lay amid the sea's other refuse, till our luxury gave it a name. To them it is utterly useless; they gather it in its raw state, bring it to us in shapeless lumps, and marvel at the price which they receive.

It is, however, a juice from trees, as you may infer from the fact that there are often seen shining through it, reptiles, and even winged insects, which, having become entangled in the fluid, are gradually enclosed in the substance as it hardens. I am therefore inclined to think that the islands and

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countries of the West, like the remote recesses of the East, where frankincense and balsam exude, contain fruitful woods and groves; that these productions, acted on by the near rays of the sun, glide in a liquid state into the adjacent sea, and are thrown up by the force of storms on the opposite shores. If you test the composition of amber by applying fire, it burns like pinewood, and sends forth a rich and fragrant flame; it is soon softened into something like pitch or resin.

46. As to the tribes of the Peucini, Veneti, and Fenni, I am in doubt whether I should class them with the Germans or the Sarmatæ, although indeed the Peucini called by some Bastarnæ, are like Germans in their language, mode of life, and in the permanence of their settlements. They all live in filth and sloth, and by the intermarriages of the chiefs they are becoming in some degree debased into a resemblance to the Sarmatæ.

The Veneti have borrowed largely from the Sarmatian character; in their plundering expeditions, they roam over the whole extent of forest and mountain between the Peucini and Fenni. They are, however, to be rather referred to the German race, for they have fixed habitations, carry shields, and delight in strength and fleetness of foot, thus presenting a complete contrast to the Sarmatæ, who live in wagons and on horseback.

Notes of the editorial board in connection with the text of Tacitus.

Amber. Archeology revealed that worked amber, as opposed to what affirms Tacitus, was as widespread among the peoples of the Northern Europe as in those of the Empire. Tacitus wants to therefore insist on the overindulgence of civilized society in the Roman way, who pays very expensive objects of which the value is overrated. Still a defect from which, according to the author, the barbarian societies of the Northern Europe are free.

Juice of trees. This theory is very old. It appears in the myth of the Heliades, sisters of Phaeton, changed after the death of this one into weeping trees, of which tears harden into amber. Is it necessary to see a link in the text of Tacitus with the myth of the chariot of the rising sun ? That would explain, in the immediate continuation of his talk, the rupture the presentation of the Sitones constitutes after Æstii . In Martial amber was designated by the expression “Phaethontide… gutta “(IV 32,1) and, in a similar context, the poplar by “Flentibus Heliadum ramis “(IV 59,1).

The Gotini or Cotini was a Celtic people who occupied the north of the Carpatic Basin (in the south of current Slovakia and in the North-East of current Hungary). They are named by Tacitus, Cassius Dio Cassius and Ptolemy. Last autonomous Celtic people of continental Europe (they will remain so until the 2nd century). The late Latenian civilization known as “of Puchov “ is ascribed to them. Their hill fort of “Liptovska Mara “is one of the main archeological sites of the area.

Bastarnae or Peucini.

It is people located close to the mouth of the Danube. But their celticity is only partial since they were probably, like Cimbri or Teutons, peoples of Germanic origin entered into a Celtization process. At least with regard to their nobility. Polybius and Plutarch give them as Galatians, other authors compare them to the Germanic ones. Livy is the only author to give some arguments making it possible to compare Bastarnae with Celts. He states to us indeed that Bastarnae share with Scordisci a roughly similar language and same habits.

Titus-Livius, History of Rome XL, 57: “There was to be a double advantage in this; the Dardani, who had always been bitter enemies to Macedonia, and ready to fall on her in times of misfortune, would be put out of the way, and the Bastarnae could leave their wives and children in Dardania and be sent on to devastate Italy. The way to the Hadriatic and to Italy lay through the Scordisci; that was the only practicable route for an army, and the Scordisci were expected to grant a passage to the Bastarnae without any difficulty, for neither in speech nor habits were they dissimilar, and it was hoped that they would unite forces with them when they saw that they were going to secure the plunder of a very wealthy nation “.

They are probably the Galatians, who around 230 before our era, take the Greek city of Olbia. In 182 before our era, under the direction of Cotto, they served Philip V of Macedon to attack Romans and Dardani, but a few years later we find them fighting against Macedonians. They were probably subjected by Burebistas, after the taking of Olbia. Peucini were one their factions, these last being apparently five.

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Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Aemilius Paulus, VIII: “He [Perseus] privately, moreover, solicited the Celts (also called Basternae), a warlike nation and famous for horsemen, dwelling near the Danube “.

As for the Cimbri, they lived Jutland in current Denmark. Their origins are prone to polemics, some say them Celtes like Ambrons, as well as Teutons, others call them Germanic.

Himmerland could be their area of origin; it is the country besides where the Gundestrup’s cauldron was found, but that does not match at all the description of their area of origin made by the Roman authors. Their name also approaches the Germanic Kimme, which means “shore “, “edge “. Nevertheless, the sound shift rules of the Germanic languages invalidate this assumption. The sacrifice of many women at the time of their defeat before Rome in - 102 reminds of the Germanic sacrifice of the Blót. Their king, during their tribulations, took the name of Boiorix, a Celtic name. Perhaps also they have mixed origins, or then they are Celtized Germanic ones . Idem for the Ambrons.

The tribe of the Ambrones appears briefly in the 2nd century, when they migrate at the same time as Cimbri and Teutons during what will be called the Cimbrian war. They disappear from the chronicles after being overcome with their fellow travelers in - 102. They were estimated 30.000 among a migratory wave including from 100.000 to 300.000 people. They could be originating in the Northern coasts of Europe, the Friesian islands, or the Jutland. In this case, they would have been the neighbors of the Cimbri and Teutons. Like them, they could have fled the area because of the starvation. If their exact origin is unknown, we may nevertheless suppose them Celts like Cimbri, and this, for two main reasons. The name of their tribe is relatively close to that of many other Celtic tribes (Ambr…) Ambrones follow the Celtic habit which consists in shouting the name of their tribe in the battle. However the Romans regarded them as Germanic ones. That suggests a perhaps mixed origin or Celtized Germanic people.

The proceedings of the fight, during which the advance of the Cimbri and of the Teutons towards Rome was stopped, at the extreme end of the 2nd century before our era, gave rise to many debates between specialists.

The Greek writer Plutarch devoted to this subject approximately seven pages of a book of the current type, in his work entitled “Parallel lives “ more precisely in the chapter on the life of Marius.

Plutarch lived from 50 to 125 and consequently reported facts which dated back already approximately to two hundred years before! The majority of these therefore were most probably communicated to him by hearsay, with all that supposes as legends and approximations. In spite of his chronological and especially topographical insufficiencies, causes of the later interpretation divergences, he represents, however, the essential base, almost single, to which we have recourse for this episode of the military campaign of Romans against Teutons, in 102 before our era.

Remainders of the monument known as “of Marius “ a pyramid built close to the Grande Pegiere, on the left bank of the Arc River, 100 m away of the bridge crossing the river very close to the main road 7 (crossroads); match more a tomb than at building of the triumphal kind.

In fact, right from the pen of the majority of the historians, it is very difficult, there still, to determine in an exact way the position of the Romans and the precise site of the camp of the Teutons. The data provided by the former historians being insufficient. However, it is now generally admitted there that it has to be well two distinct successive confrontations, one close to Aix, the other between Trets and Pourrieres, and not a single battle. But much darkness still remains, particularly in the sequence of the events and in their localization…

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THE TRIAD LITAVIS ROSEMARTHA AND TALANTIO.

Litavis: mother earth as an extent of dry land, or in her aspect kingdom of the dead.

Rosemartha: mother earth as a wild or farmed nature (forests fields, etc.) provider of abundance, game or harvests. We mention here also the forest because our ancestors drew from it also many resources for themselves or their animals and especially the pigs.

Talantio: mother earth as a ground or farmed plain.

LITAVIS.

Old Welsh Lettau, Middle Welsh Llydaw, Irish Letha, but also Litaui, Litauia, Letavia. Earth elemental as a ground or a surface and not as a depth or under ground, field of Domna/Nerthus.

In the Latin texts, Armorica or continental Britain is sometimes also called Letavia, Llydaw in Welsh language. Llydaw is also the name of a lake of the Mount Snowdon. The name of Litavis in any case is related to that of the Indian goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the earth, prthvi, prthivi, and can result from a word like *leito/leto meaning “gray” or *lâto meaning “broad “and from the suffix *-auâ. Litavis would be therefore “the flat one, the vast one, the stretched one “.

The goddess-or-demoness Litavis or Great Land , Celtic equivalent of the Europa of the Greeks, is also known by inscriptions found in Malain and Aignay-le-Duc in France; where she is called upon with the prince of Andernas or Fomoire named Cichol/Cicolluis, of whom she is obviously the consort (shakti it is said in Hinduism). Another inscription found in Narbonne in the south of France, bears the following text: “MARTI CICOLLUI ET LITAVI “(“for Mars Cicolluis and Litavis “). Lastly, she is also mentioned in the text called “the will of a member of the tribe of the Lingones “. Considered a long time, wrongly it seems today, as the text of an inscription, this document is known by one copy on parchment of the 10th century, preserved at the university library in Basle. The original would date back to the 2nd century. The author of this text states there in detail his last wills concerning the architecture of his monument, the maintenance of the field which surrounds it, the ritual meals which will have to be celebrated in his memory; not forgetting the list of the objects which will have to be cremated with him.

“I entrust the handling of my funeral and rites and everything else, and of the buildings and my monuments to Sextus Iulius Aquila my grandson and Macrinus, the son of Reginus, and Sabinus, the son of Dumnedorix and Priscus, my freedman and steward, and I ask them to take care of all these things and that they should be responsible for those things which I ordered to occur after my death.

Furthermore, I want my hunting and bird-catching gear to be cremated with me, along with my spears, swords, knives, nets, snares, traps, tent props, tents, scaring devices, bathing equipment, litters ... sedan chair and all the ointments and gear for that sport, and my boat made of bulrushes — without any exception — and my multicolored and feather-patterned clothing [.....] whatever I leave ...

Let all those whom I freed when I was living, or by will, bring annually and individually a share of a sestertium. Let my grandson Aquila and his heir provide each year the sum of money of… So that each one prepares food and drinks intended to be exhibited below, and on the front of the tomb which is on the domain of Litavis [Litavicrari, in the text]. Let they eat there, and let they remain there until they consumed the whole etc.etc. “.

A text of Strabon perhaps also combines this goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, with the druidic next world . Here!

“Last of all come the Artabrians, who live in the neighborhood of the cape called Nerium, which is the end of both the western and the northern side of Iberia. But the country round about the cape itself is inhabited by Celtic people, kinsmen of those on the Anas; for these people and the Turdulians made an expedition thither and then had a quarrel, it is said, after they had crossed the Limaeas River; and when in addition to the quarrel the Celtic peoples also suffered the loss of their chieftain, they

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scattered and stayed there; it was from this circumstance that the Limaeas was also called the River of Lethe” (Strabo, Geography, Book III, 3,5). Lethe for Letavia???

For certain authors, Litavis would be the name given to the Earth, by ancient Celts, therefore, from the name of their original cradle in a way. In any case the worship of Litavis seems quite combined , in fact, with that of water, or at least with a crossing, so short it is.

ROSEMARTHA.

Elemental of cultivated ground as well as of forests. Goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, if this term is preferred, of fortune, prosperity, beauty, foster or combined with lug, Mother. This goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, is known to us by a large number of sculptures or inscriptions. A statue found in Gloucester represents for example probably Rosemartha, and the Roman interpretation of Lug known under the name of Mercury. The principle which makes it possible to a family, a society, a nation, etc. to preserve its unit, it is the prosperity, whose Rosemartha is mistress and guarantor. Therefore as well as Lug, she is venerated by tradesmen and families.

As regards the inscriptions mentioning her, we have currently 27 of them.

In Germany we found some of them in Neuenstadt, Niedaldorf, Niederemmel, Reinsport, Spechbach, Trier, Alzey, Cologne and Worms, where she is called upon in the company of the Roman god-or-demon Mars. An inscription found in Eisenberg is read as follows: DEO MERCU (Rio) ET ROSMER (tae) M (arcus) ADITORIUS MEM (m) OR D (ecurio) C (ivitatis) ST () [PO] S (uit) L (ibens) M (erito). For the god Lug (Mercury in interpretatio romana) and Rosemartha, Marcus Aditorius, in memory of the decurion of the city.

The inscription is accompanied by a low-relief representing the Roman interpretation of Lug on the right and Rosemartha, herself, on the left. The goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer to use this word, holds a purse in her right hand and an offering bowl in her left hand.

The inscription found in Wasserbilig, still in Germany, again combines Rosemartha with the god-or-demon Lug or at least with his interpretatio romana, Mercury, and relates her to the building of a kind of hotel.

DEO MERCURIO [ET DEAE ROS] MERTIAE AEDEM C [UM SIGNIS ORNA] MENTISQUE OMN [IBUS FECIT] ACCEPTUS TABUL [ARIUS VIVIR] AUGUSTAL [IS DONAVIT ?] ITEM HOSPITALIA [SACOR (um) CELE] BRANDORUM GR [ATIA PRO SE LIBE] RISQUE SUIS DED [ICAVIT 3] IULIAS LUPO [ET MAXIMO CO (n) S (ulibus)]

The inscription of Andernach in Luxembourg combines her with Mars. At Sarmizegetusa in Romania, she is combined with Mercury, Mars, Mithra, and Camulus.

In other inscriptions, all found in France, she is alone. They are these which were found in Champoulet in the Loiret department, Alise-Sainte-Reine in the Cote-d' Or, Vezelise in Meurthe-et-Moselle, Escolives-Sainte-Camille in the Yonne. In Lezoux in the Puy-de-Dome Department, she is mentioned with Rigani.

The other inscriptions, these which were found in Grand, Morelmaison, and Soulosse, in the department of the Vosges, Sion in Meurthe-et-Moselle, Langres in Haute-Marne, Magny-Lambert in Cote-d' Or, and Metz; combines her with a Celtic god-or-demon compared with Mars by Romans.

The inscription of Metz reads as follows: DEO MERCURIO ET ROSMERTAE MUSICUS LILLUTI FIL (ius) ET SUI (s) EX VOTO: for Lug and Rosemartha, Musicus son of Lillutius, offers this in bratou decantem (ex-voto).

Two other inscriptions probably referring to her were found in Genainville, in the department of the Val-d'Oise, and in Aix-en-Provence. In Aix the inscription calls upon also the Roman interpretation of Lug (Mercury) and combines Rosemartha, by equating , with another deity, probably Ussia (Rosemartha Ussia?).

A pair of statues found in Paris represents Lug (Mercury) and Rosemartha holding a horn of plenty as well as a fruit basket.

A bronze statue representing Rosemartha alone was also found in the Fins of Annecy. The goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer, sat on a rock apparently, she holds a purse, and her combination with Lug is evoked by the winged helmet she wears on her head. A similar statue also found in France in Clermont-Ferrand, shows us also Rosemartha wearing the winged helmet of Lug.

Rosemartha is consequently a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of sovereignty, as of plenty which goes hand in hand with it, she dispenser of the sacredness which is the mead (medus), equivalent of the Vedic soma.

Her name comes from the augmentative prefix “ro “and from the root “smert “meaning “to provide, to supply “. Rosemartha is therefore a great she provider, combined with the mead symbolized by the offering bowl she often holds in her iconography.

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The festival of Rosemartha in theory takes place with the new moon of Elembivos, around mid-August, the day of the end of the festivities of Lugnasade. Because it is indeed with this divine mother (and not with a simple Fir Bolg Gallic princess, therefore human, as opposed to what maintains the Irish legends) that Lug of the long arm was, after his birth, entrusted in “fosterage “. And it is therefore her who took care of his education until he is old enough to bear weapons, as we saw it.

The great festival in honor of this mopatis (theotoktos), instituted by Lug, in Lyons, and changed later by Romans into Concilium Galliarum, took place each August 1st; but her games began 15 days before and ended 15 days after, therefore around August 15th. At least according to certain texts of the Irish Book of Conquests: “The games were performed each year by Lug, a fortnight before Lugnasade and a fortnight after “.

Editor’s note. This Lugi Naissatis took place more exactly with the full moon of Elembivos in Coligny calendar; and the day of our mopatis (theotoktos) at the end of the first half of Elembivos, occurred during the night of Atenoux (at the time of the new moon) therefore roughly speaking around mid-August.

TALANTIO/TAILTIU.

Tailltiu, Tailte, Tailtinn, Tailtenn. Quite a mysterious Fir Bolg Gallic princess. Magmor means "large plain.” Her name is therefore one of the designations of the earth. Perhaps the ground farmed after the clearing of a plain (Mag-Mor). The mention of Spain is, of course, in this case an aberration unless his author wanted by the way making him a king of the next world. Talantio/Tailtiu would be in this case one of the goddesses worshipped by the Fir Bolg Gauls and with whom there was each year a ritual hierogamy on behalf of the kings having historically existed. Continental equivalent: Rosemartha. Rosemartha who is therefore the she-elemental of the farmed land or of countryside compared to wild nature made up by forests or uncultivated mountains.

Let us note nevertheless that the worship of this Talantio/Tailtiu seems definitely more localized than that of Rosemartha which is more generally used. Talantio/Tailtiu it is not the countryside or the cultivated earth in general , BUT A MUCH MORE LOCAL SOIL (a country a little in the meaning of terroir).

The name Tailtiu itself is enough to prove that it is a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if this term is preferred, of the earth, since the starting form is * talantiu; of the family of the word talam, which means “earth “in the languages of India.

Irishmen euhemerized the original panceltic myth which relates to her, by locating her at Teltown, a small town of the province of Meath (between Navan and Kells) which quickly became the main gathering place of the Uí Néill dynasty. A goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Rosemartha, among them, is there known as daughter of Mag Mor, a Gaelic name which means “large plain “. The etymology of her Gaelic name ultimately refers us to that of the earth, and the Irish epic makes her one of the incarnations of the country: she would have cleared the primeval forest to make in it a cultivable plain. On the Continent, the goddess-or-demoness or the fairy if you want, is a consort (shakti Hindus say) of Lug; the Irishmen, themselves, made her a princess wife of the last king of the Fir Bolg Gauls , Eochaid Mac Eirc, whose reign was famous for its justice and its prosperity. Her people, the Fir Bolg, having been overcome, she is taken as a wife by one of the winners and s the feeding mother of the god-or-demon Lug. She will undertake to clear the forest of Breg to make in it a cultivable plain and will die of exhaustion because of that. On her death, Lug will organize great ceremonies in her honor (oenach tailteann) at the time of the festival of Lugnasade. As for the forest of Breg, it will make way to a clover field, a plant from now on emblematic of this goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if this word is preferred, and therefore probably of her continental equivalent Rosemartha. Festival of Rosemartha on August 15th or not on August 15th, what is sure in any case, according to the French J. Loth, commentated by Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc'h; it is that Tailtiu is probably only a synonym of Trogan which gave her name to August. Trogan is one of the names of the earth in the very precise meaning of "producer,” and the link is obvious with the verb trogaim “to produce, to give rise “ known in Middle Irish. Trogan is therefore the producing one, the fertile earth , while talamh is the ground, the face of the earth. There is therefore no doubt that August was, among former Irishmen, the month devoted to the Mother-Earth.

And so much worse for the Marian worship of Catholicism!

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The Lugi Naissatis of 1st Elembivi was consequently exactly at the half-way point between two festivals of goddess-or-demoness or fairy. The first around mid-July, Atenoux Equi - Equi, word of the same family as Epona precisely, the month of Equi being the month of the horses - and the second one around Atenoux Elembivi in mid-August therefore, as we have just seen it. What confirms in his way , and for Ireland, Jan De Vries: the games instituted in the honor of the Mother-Earth were celebrated in Tara, in the county of Meath. People organized there every three years a great festival between July 15th and August 15th, which lasted seven days or more. This festival survived approximately a century after Christianization: it is witnessed for the last time in 558,560, or 569.

In short! Litavis is the mother earth as a stretch, or in her aspect kingdom of the dead.

Rosemartha the mother earth as a wild or farmed nature (forests, fields, etc.) provider of plenty, game or harvests.

Talantio the mother earth as a cultivated ground or plain. The Irishmen made her a princess of the human people of the Fir Bolg Gauls, in a way by euhemerization, but it is obvious that she a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, automatically pertaining to the Panth-eon (Pleroma) or to the mythology, just like Litavis. To make her a Fir Bolg Gallic princess was a mistake.

Unless wanting to say by the way that the development of agriculture in Ireland was the fact of Gaulish immigrants; and it is true that the Gauls were very good farmers; inventors of many techniques having formed a long time decisive progress (plow, marling of soils, barrels).

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MEDIEVAL SURVIVALS.

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THE MELUSINA OF THE PLANTAGENET HOUSE.

This princess of the people of Andernas (Fomorian or Fir Bolg, our Irish brothers would say); appears in a work criticizing the court of Henry II of England, entitled De nugis curialium; in which Walter Map tells the story of a young lord called Henno with the big teeth, who marries a dragon- woman.

In another well-known work of the time, Recreations for an emperor (Otia imperalia), written in the beginning of the 13th century by Gervase of Tilbury, Raymond lord of Rousset , near Aix-en-Provence, marries a woman whom he must never see naked. One day, he transgresses the prohibition, and his wife changes herself into a snake: she disappears in the bath water. The marriage under condition, the marital pact violated as well as the final disappearance of the wife, are a topic which is met in Indo-European mythology, in the person of the nymph Urvashi. In addition to the symbolism of the treason, particularly sensitive in a feudal society based on fidelity, the story of Melusina bears in it a definitely devilish characteristic, a snake woman or dragon woman, become wife and mother. In the 14th century, the structure of the story of Melusina is well established: a fairy agrees to marry a mortal but while imposing the respect of an interdict to him; the couple enjoys a bright prosperity as a long time as the human husband keeps his word; when the pact is violated, the fairy disappears at once and with her the prosperity she had brought in dowry. There is a little the same story with the Earl of Desmond called Gerald, in Ireland, in the 14th century.

Melusine is one of the princesses of the people of Andernas, Fomoire or Fir Bolg therefore, best known on the Continent. The French Henry Dontenville regards this wyvern as underground, and not like fishtailed mermaids , linked to the sea: “Melusine […] is underground, she does not belong to the sea people, she leaves the bosom of the ground like the wyverns “.

Melusina is also very known in Luxembourg, where the legend is very close, and dates back at the latest to the end of the 13th century (cf. an emblazoned seal dating from 1297).

At the end of the 14th century, two romances are devoted to Melusina: that of the writer Jean d’Arras, biographer of Melusina for the duke John of Berry and his sister Mary, duchess of Bar, in prose; and another work in lines of verse, composed by a bookseller of Paris called Coudrette.

King Elynas of Albany (i.e., of Scotland) married an unknown beauty met in the forest, Pressyne; in exchange for the promise never to see her when she gives birth or bathes her children. He betrayed his oath and Pressyne returns to Avalon Island (the Celtic Next World) with her three newborn daughters , Melusine, Melior and Palatyne. While growing, the three sisters are informed about the fault of their father and, to punish him, lock him in the middle of the magical mountain of Brandebois in Northumberland. They are punished in turn by their mother. Melusine changes every Saturday into a snake from the waist down. Moreover she will be able to escape the curse only if a man agrees to marry her without never seeking to see her on Saturdays.

Melusine meets Raimondin, son of the count of Forez and nephew of the count of Poitiers: the young man promises to the fairy never to betray her; they marry. The prosperity fulfills the couple: Melusine builds cities and castles and gives to Raimondin eight sons, all marked in the face by defects which come to point out their supernatural origin. The tragic outcome of the romance is caused by the brother of Raimondin: he encourages him to spy on his wife Saturdays. This rupture of the pact which determined her union with a mortal, causes the disappearance of Melusine: she flies away through a window of the castle in Lusignan.

In 1456, a Swiss diplomat, Thuring von Ringoltingen, translated her story into German language. It is this version of the tale which was the first to be printed, since 1474, by Jean Bamier, and which will be known in Germany as in North and East Europe until the 19th century. The text by Coudrette is also translated and printed into Flemish (1491), but it is the prose story by Jean d’Arras which is the subject of a Spanish edition in 1489. The first edition of the work of Jean d’Arras in French language is printed by Adam Steinschaber in Geneva in 1478.

In these first editions, the function of images is mainly narrative: they constitute series which will illustrate the various episodes of the novel, but their only reading makes it possible to follow the plot. However, they can occasionally deviate from the text, primarily in the representation of the supernatural: the Melusine of the novel is an ambiguous being, about which the reader must make his

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own idea. The images of early printed books do not convey this ambiguity, because they are less ambivalent and, thus, moderate the story. They impose to the readers a representation of Melusine, that of a beautiful young woman, a wife and a mother, and in no case that of a devilish being: Melusine, even changed into a serpent , is hardly alarming. In the same way, the defects which mark the face of her sons are reduced: engravings show valorous knights, just characterized, for some of them, by light physical characteristics which point out their marvelous origin.

Jean d’Arras made in his romance the adventures of Raimondin and Melusine alternating with these of their sons, in particular of Geoffrey with the big tooth. In 1517, the Parisian printer Michel Le Noir will untie this interlacing, thus releasing two new novels. The work of Jean d’Arras will be published from now on only in this form, divided into two distinct stories of which the family relationship, gradually, will tend to be erased.

We know fifteen Paris, Lyons and Rouen editions of this new novel of Melusina until the beginning of the 17th century and nine of the romance of Geoffrey with the big tooth. In the first half of the 16th century, all the editions present obvious analogies; some ones, however, like these which were printed in Lyonss by Olivier Arnoullet, seem neater than others. At the end of the century, several evolutions appear in Paris as in Lyons: some printers give up the bastarda gothic script for the Roman character , the texts are rewritten and their orthography modernized. Most part of these changes are, however, neither general, nor systematic, and the Norman editions of the beginning of the 17th century present particularly antiquated features. The frequent conservation of these archaisms is besides one of the factors which can explain the increasing discredit which will end up striking the medieval romances; these texts becoming little by little, at least in the mind of the well-read men, the exclusive reading of women, children or common people of the towns.

The alchemist Paracelsus, in the 16th century, bequeathed to the next generations a demonized image of Melusina which did much damage in our collective imagination : “The Melusinas are daughters of kings, desperate through their sins, Satan bore them away and transformed them into specters “.

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OTHER PARTICULAR EARTH ELEMENTALS.

ABNOBA/ABNOVA/ABNA. She Elemental of the Black Forest in Germany. Perhaps also a water elemental.

The first series of etymological explanations indeed cuts out her name in ab = water and noba = humidity. What is a little redundant. But noba can also mean “fog, cloud, mist “ which has more sense. Abnoba would be then “the one who is in the fogs, the one who causes fog “.

Another etymology brings closer the name of Abnoba to the name of the river called Avon in Great Britain and segments thus the name: Abn meaning water, and oba.

In short, Abnoba is in fact an elemental of ground water and plant coat (forest) which covers this area of Germany. Man found nine inscriptions relating to it.

Abnoba is also honored in Badenweiler in Germany where specialists found the mention Dianae Abnobae. The plural suggests that it was perhaps a triad. The inscription found in Muhlenbach compares her to the Roman Diana.

Pliny mentions this mountainous massif as being the one where the Danube has its spring.

“ Ister. This river rises in Germany in the heights of Mount Abnoba, opposite to Rauricum.....flows for a course of many miles beyond the Alps and through nations innumerable, under the name of the Danube “.

Tacitus, in his Germania, takes over the information, but uses the name of Danuuius. What proves the equating is really made between the two names, whatever the place of the river we speak (Germ., I, 3): “The Danube, poured from the easy and gently raised ridge of Mount Abnoba “.

The geography of Ptolemy (2.10) also mentions the mountain as spring of the Danube. This mountainous range is called Abnobaia Ora in the nominative , Latinized in Abnobaei montes.

Abnoba mounts would be even more precisely the plateau of the Baar, a fertile basin between the Black Forest and the Swabian Jura.

NR. B. For geographers, and unlike what we generally believe, the Danube does not rise in Donaueschingen, but in the spring of the longest of the two rivers, the Breg; which leaves the massif of the Black Forest above the small town of Furtwangen, 1100 m above the sea level.

CARMENTIS (Carman), Belg princess of a great beauty, whose sacrifice will guarantee for a long time to her three sons (Calmios/Calma: Skillful, Dubios/Dubh: Black, Olcos/Olc: Bad) life and freedom, facing the people of the great Goddess-or-demoness, or fairy (the Tuatha De). Carmentis was therefore perhaps a war goddess-or-demoness of the Fir Bolg Gauls, euhemerized by Irish medieval legends, which make them come from Athens (nonsense !) Carmentis having the power to destroy harvests, Lug, Aoi Mac Ollamain, Crichinbel and Be Chuille, will be responsible for stopping her, but only the latter will be able to do it. Carmentis/Carman is therefore taken prisoner , while her sons are expelled from Ireland. She will end up dying of a broken heart and it is Bregsos/Bres who will dig her grave in an oak grove, in Wexford. Festivals will be organized around her funerary mound every three years. At the time of the excavations of the mound of Curragh (County Kildare) in 1944, people found the corpse of a woman died between twenty and thirty years: it even seems that she was buried alive. Was the buried alive in Kildare a virgin personifying Carmentis?? That is difficult to say, the local myths speaking rather, as we could see it, of a great magician. All this information appears in one of the poems of the metric Dindshenchas, which specifies that she died in 600 before our era, what corresponds rather then to the Pictish settlement in Ireland, and not to the Builg or Hibernian settlement. The only thing sure, it is that on her death Carmentis is supposed to be buried in Wexford in a barrow, and that people instituted then horse races in her honor…

PERCERNES. In Vaison-la-Romaine an inscription was found dedicated to the percernes. NIMPHIS AVG PERCERNIBUS T. GENGETIUS DIONYSIVS EX VOTO. For the percernes nymphs, grateful T. Gengetius.

Specialists lose themselves in conjecture about the meaning of the word percernae. Some compare it with a former name of the oak (percunia) or with the forest known as Hercynian, others make these nymphs some oreads, i.e., some mountain nymphs.

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ARDUINNA/ARDUNNA/ARDBINNA. ARDUINNA.Kind of Continental Flidais.

Elemental of the wooded tops or heights, particularly of Ardennes, known by an inscription found in Rome, where she appears in the company of the Celtic god-or-demon Camulus, but also of the Roman god-or-demons Jupiter, Mercury, Hercules. From Celtic *arduo- (height) with a suffix in - inn and a feminine ending.

This Arduinna a statuette represents to us under the features of the Roman Diana, rides a wild boar: this one is therefore not victim, but rather the pet of a taming huntress.

The same divine entity is honored under the name of Ardbinna in Germany at Düren.

The worship of this she elemental seems to have survived until the 6th century in the area of Villers-devant -Orval in Belgium, according to the legend of saint Walfrey or Wulfilaic. He built a column not far away from the temple of this goddess-or-demoness of hunting and lived on its top many years, without anything to protect himself from winter rigors, so much so that the frosts made his nails themselves falling. Until the day when the bishop of the place declared to him: “' This way which you follow is not the right one, and a base-born man like you cannot be compared with Simon of Antioch who lived on a column. Moreover the situation of the place does not allow you to endure the hardship “.

According to the historian saint Gregory of Tours, Walfrey joined then the nearest monastery: “ since not to obey the bishops is called a crime.“ Then the bishop made the column destroyed. “I wept bitterly saint Walfrey become monk said to Gregory of Tours, but could not build again what they had torn down for fear of being called disobedient to the bishop's orders. And since then I am content to dwell with the brothers just as I do now. “(Life of saint Walfrey).

The animal combined with the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Arduinna, was the wild boar. The Romans made her a Diana the Huntress. She was represented also armed with a breastplate or a corselet, a bow in her hand, and accompanied by a hound.

VOSEGOS/VOSEGUS. The stele of Zinswiller enables us to see in Vosegus/Vosagos a god-or-demon of forests, mountains, waters, hunters, having the very name of the Vosgean forest. He is sometimes represented accompanied by a hound or a stag. It is the elemental of the Vosgean massif and of the forest which covers it, in the east of France, and particularly of the Donon, which is his religious top place. On the top of the Mount Donon (French department of the Bas-Rhin), a statue was found indeed representing a bearded and naked god-or-demon, accompanied by a stag. He has boots, a spear, a large knife and a kind of hooked hatchet; he holds fruits in a wolf’s skin thrown around his neck.

The same place delivered the dedication to the god-or-demon Vosegus (Vosagos, from which the name Vosges comes), armed with a bow. Most probable assumption is that this god-or-demon was originally anonymous, and that he would therefore have been the place god-or-demon,original, of the shrines of the Donon and of the Wasenbourg, dating to the Preceltic and Proto-Celtic early times. The first Celts arrived in the area during the Middle Bronze Age would have given him his name.

This elemental (or Teutatis?) was interpreted thereafter in Silvanus by the Romans, as the following inscriptions prove it.

Zinswiller, CIL XIII 6027: “Vosego Sil (vano) s (acrum). Adnamus. Nertomari fil (ius) v.s.l.m.

Dedicated to Vosegus Silvanus. Adnamus son of Nertomarus has fulfilled his vow freely and deservedly .

Goersdorf, CIL XIII 6059: “Vosego Sil (vano) Car (antus) Vin (dilli) v.s.l.m.

To Vosegus Silvanus, Carantus son of Vindillus has fulfilled his vow freely and deservedly.

The covered with deep forests Vosgian range , far from hostile, offered to the local population a refuge where all kinds of foods abounded, and the local druids therefore made the elemental of this place the first of their god-or-demon. Vosegos is consequently regarded there as a guard of the population, provider of abundance and wealth.

SEARBHANN. Searbhán Lochlannach in the legend of Diarmat and Grannia. Elemental of the forest of Dubhros in Ireland, in other words, the Black Forest of the district of Hy Fiachrach in the County Sligo. Its name means “bitter or surly “. It was a giant who lived in a hut arranged in the high branches of a magic sorb. He had very long teeth and had one eye in the middle of the face. A kind of cyclops therefore! He was almost indestructible, not being able to be either burned, neither drowned, nor wounded, by unspecified weapons. He could be killed in fact only by three blows of his own bludgeon, attached to his belt by a solid chain out of iron. What was precisely the case with Diarmat (cf the story

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of Diarmat and Grannia). This cyclops had the role of taking care of the magic sorb tree growing in the middle of the forest. It was come out from a berry fallen accidentally from the bag of one of the children of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer, Danu (bia). The unhappy one besides had been severely punished for that, since he was exiled from the heavenly world of the children of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Danu (bia), and ends up in the country of the giants. With the absolute prohibition to come back as long as he would not have found somebody to prevent that people misuse the power of the sorb from this magic tree.

Every aged person who ate its fruits, found again instantaneously his youth, every girl with a deformed body who ate three of these sorb became at once the most beautiful woman in the world. But Searbhan precisely accepted, after having tasted fruits of this mysterious sorb tree, which were sweeter than honey. The women of his country regretted him much, because in spite of appearances, he was a musician with very delicate fingers and who could play harp like nobody else.

Perhaps in Wales, we find this mythical figure in the tale of the lady of the fountain (Iarlles y Ffynon) which appears in the Mabinogi of Owein.

A man by the name Kynon ap Clydno tells to the Breton king Arthur as to his men, the strange adventure he lived one day. A noble lord who had received him at his place for the night, declared to him what follows.

“Sleep here tonight, and in the morning arise early, and take the road upwards through the valley until thou reachest the wood through which you came hither. A little way within the wood thou wilt meet with a road branching off to the right, by which thou must proceed, until you come to a large sheltered glade with a mound in the center. And you will see a black man of great stature on the top of the mound. He is not smaller in size than two of the men of this world. He has but one foot; and one eye in the middle of his forehead. And he has a club of iron, and it is certain that there are no two men in the world who would not find their burden in that club. And he is not a comely man, but on the contrary he is exceedingly ill-favored and he is the woodward of that forest. And you will see a thousand wild animals grazing around him. Inquire of him the way out of the glade, and he will reply to you briefly, and will point out the road by which you will find that which you are in quest of.'

"And long seemed that night to me. And the next morning I arose and equipped myself, and mounted my horse, and proceeded straight through the valley to the wood; and I followed the cross-road which the man had pointed out to me, till at length I arrived at the glade. And there was I three times more astonished at the number of wild animals that I beheld than the man had said I should be. And the black man was there, sitting upon the top of the mound. Huge of stature as the man had told me that he was, I found him to exceed by far the description he had given me of him. As for the iron club which the man had told me was a burden for two men, I am certain, Kai, that it would be a heavy weight for four warriors to lift and this was in the black man's hand.

And he only spoke to me in answer to my questions. Then I asked him what power he held over those animals. 'I will show thee, little man,' said he. And he took his club in his hand, and with it he struck a stag a great blow so that he brayed vehemently, and at his braying the animals came together, as numerous as the stars in the sky, so that it was difficult for me to find room in the glade to stand among them. There were serpents, and dragons, and divers sorts of animals. And he looked at them, and bade them go and feed; and they bowed their heads, and did him homage as vassals to their lord. "Then the black man said to me, 'See you now, little man, what power I hold over these animals?”

NOREIA. Very very old mother-goddess-or-demoness of the Celts. Known by inscriptions found in Austria, in Pulst, Kershbach (where she is combined with Mars and Britannia) as in Hohenstein and Feistritz, where she is compared with Isis by interpretatio romana. We also find traces of her in Belgrade, in Serbia, in Trojana and Celje in Slovenia, where she is honored with Jupiter and Celeia. An inscription mentioning this goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if it is preferred, was also discovered in Cherchell in Algeria. She gave her name to the Roman province of Noricum in Austria, which corresponds roughly today to Styria, Carinthia, parts of Bavaria as the areas of Vienna and Salzburg. Capital the current Neumarkt.

Norica was for a long time the southern outpost of the Celtic peoples, and therefore the starting point of their attacks on Italy. It is besides in connection with Norica that are evoked for the first time Celtic invaders. The research undertaken in particular in the cemeteries of Hallstatt, less than 70 km away from Noreia, showed that there was there a flourishing protohistoric civilization. These cemeteries contained weapons and ornaments ranging from the Bronze Age until the Iron Age. There were also important gold and salt mines; the rare plant called saliunca, Celtic valerian, or spikenard, grew there in abundance, and it was used as perfume. It grows starting from 1800 meters where the intense light

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and the fresh air confer force and freshness to it. Essential oils of its root have a spiced bitter, single and very characteristic, perfume. The name of Noreia means “Noble one “and it is therefore in a way the she elemental of the Alps area.

MOR MUMAN. She elemental of Munster. Besides her name means precisely “the great one - implied goddess-or-demoness, or fairy - of Munster “. It is probably a deity of the primitive Celtic people having given his name to Ireland, the Hibernians or Erainn, who lived in the country before the increase in power of the Gaels. She has certain characteristics belonging to the category of the sun goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, even of sovereignty; but also seems to have some relationship with the triple Irish Morrigan. The Middle Ages Gaels embroidered many stories about her. We find her particularly in the story entitled in Irish language MÓR MUMAN ocus AIDED CÚANACH maic CAILCHÉNI: The Great One of Munster and the tragic fate of Cuanu, son of Cailchin.

VINDOBARROS/FINNBHEARA/FINNVARR.

Galway’s elemental in Ireland.

About this deity, we hardly know more than what reports to us the Irish legend entitled “the nurture of the house of the two milk vessels (version V) “. It is a brother of Mabon/Maponos/Oengus and he will behave in an odious way with the beautiful and unhappy Etanna.

Finvarra, also called Finvara, Fine Bheara, Finbeara or Fionnbharr, is the high king of the Daoine Sidhe or people of the Sidh in the Irish folklore. In some legends, he is also regarded as being the king of the dead. Vindobarros/Finvarra is a benevolent figure which ensures good harvests, horses in good health, as well as a great wealth to those who believe in him.

He lives under Cnoc Meadha (Knockmaa) a hill located in the north of the town of Galway.

The Gaelic heresy, and by heresy, we want only to say the deviation which went a little too far, compared to the broad outlines of the ancient continental druidism, which is the reference druidism; makes him the last king of the god-or-demons. Vindobarros/Finvarra would have negotiated an arrangement with the human beings having overcome them (battles for the Talantio and battles of Druim Lighean); in order to be authorized to remain on the spot, with all those who would not agree to be exiled or concealed in the next world.

They would therefore have continued to live in great cities or fairylike palaces dug under ground, while persisting in intervening significantly in the businesses of the human beings living on the surface of the ground. This race was feared and respected until the modern time, and nobody in Ireland built something without to have requested their approval before.

Vindobarros/Finvarra also loved much horses. He therefore sometimes invited young people to come and ride with him and people often saw him on a spry black courser with red nostrils.

Although married to Oonagh (Onaugh, Una, Oona, Oonagy) most beautiful fairy in the world, he also had a reputation for being a seducer or a womanizer. He lured the young girls by inviting them to dance with him all night, and at daybreak people still found them in his bed. One of the many legends relating to him assures that a jealous husband would have succeeded, after two unsuccessful attempts, to force him to give him back his wife; by threatening him to dig a well in the hill under which he remained, in order to expose him in the sun light, by spreading salt on the hill, and by surrounding it with a fire circle.

THE TRIAD OF FAIRIES OF MATRES TYPE, PATRON SAINTS OF IRELAND.

Reminder.

As we already have had the opportunity to see, but repetere = ars docendi; the good fairies of the average Celt of Antiquity seem to be called upon in Narbonnese and Lyonss under the name of Matres and in the Rhenish provinces under the name of Matronae. There is nevertheless between the fairies of matres type and the fairies of matronae type, the same difference as between a father and a boss. In the first case there is a biological filiation, in the second case it is only a spiritual even social connection or subordination. The French historian Camille Jullian classes them in four main categories.

A) Those who are assigned to a detail of the nature, which can be a mountain or a forest, even some trees , but especially springs. The ending nehae indicates the watery nature of the fairies in question. We can thus regard as spring fairies the Matronae Cuchaeneae (C.I.L. XIII, 7923,24), Rumanehae

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(C.I.L. XIII, 7869-8027, 28), Vesuniahenae (C.I.L. XIII, 7850,54,7925), Albiahenae (C.I.L. XIII, 7933-36) in Rhenish countries; the Matres Gerudatiae (C.I.L. XII, 505), Almahae (C.I.L. XII, 330), Ubelnae (C.I.L. XII, 333) in Narbonnese; the Matres Augustae Eburnicae, in Lugdunense (Epigraphic Review III, page 49, No. 1220).

B) Those who protect the inhabited places, villages or towns. Their universality covers the entirety of the Celtic world, even Indo-European. It is for this reason they are regionalized in Roman zones: Matres Traverae: country of the Trevirians; Matres Vediantia: country of the Vediontes in Nice. They were Christianized thereafter as Our Lady.

C) Those who form the genies of the family, the fairies of matres mopates or nedsamae type, who are in a way some Madonnas with a child , and whose relationship with fertility, fruitfulness, or family, is obvious.

D)Those who preside over certain facts of the human life. Originally, moreover, it was a personification, of the neutral fate. But the fullness even of the great cosmic law of which they are the representation will prevent, thereafter, that people continue to identify them with the personified Universal Including of the popular worships. The fairies of matres type were also a limitation compared to the infinity , in spite of this personalization in the form of a triad “past-present-future “ of which we find trace almost everywhere.

As we have had already the opportunity to say it, a fairy of the matra or matrona type was seldom insulated, generally she is represented with two she companions, one on her right, the other on her left, but each one was to have her personality and could have her own worship. An inscription found in Carnoules and Pierrefeu in the French department of the Var was even dedicated to the third of the fairies of the local triad, Trittia.

IN IRELAND HERE WHAT THAT PRODUCED , BECAUSE IN IRELAND MANY OF THESE FAIRIES OF MATRES TYPE BECAME THE GUARDIANS OR THE PATRON SAINTS OF CERTAIN CLANS.

ERIU (or Erin, Eri, Eire, in Latin Hibernia) is a goddess-or-demoness; or fairy, sovereign of Ireland. A daughter of Delbaeth, and Ernmas, wife of Cetturo/Cethor known as Mac Greine, son of Cermat, grandson of the Suqellus Dagda Gurgunt. The name comes from the Proto-Celtic iwerion/iweriu, one of the names of earth. She was a member of the Tuatha De Danann.

It is it the goddess-or-demoness, or good fairy, patron saint of Ireland, just like her sisters Banuta/Banba/Banva and Votala/Fotla.

She will become the personification of this island which will take her name: Eire (the current name of the country comes from Eriu and from the Norse or Anglo-Saxon Land).

With her sisters Banuta/Banba/Banva and Votala/Fodla, Eriu belonged to the triad of matres or fairies reigning over the country and somewhat similar to those we see represented by three on the continent.

At the time of the arrival of the human beings called sons of Mil or Gaels by the legends, each of the three sisters of this triad of fairies of matres type, would have required her name be given to the land. It is Eriu who apparently was most convincing. She will solicit newcomers arriving on the hill of Uisnech that they promise to her, if they succeeded in being settled here, to give her name to the whole island. Their “wise man “named Amorgen therefore assured to Eriu that the land in question would bear her name well, and this one prophesied in return the entire country would belong from now on to the Gaels or Milesians.

The only problem is this Milesian legend, about the origin of the Gaels, is without serious base. It is in conformity neither with the History nor with the usual mythical framework of the Celtic world, and resembles rather what was then called “evocatio“ among Romans: a prayer in order to corrupt the god-or-demons of the enemy. The Romans indeed thought, like the majority of the peoples of the time besides, that the god-or-demons also have weak spots, in the image of Mankind, in other words, and that gods are therefore not perfect…

Dictionary of the religions. “The evocatio is a ritual of the Roman religious law which is presented in the form of a contract signed between the representative of Rome, and the god-or-demons of the enemy; to whom he offers better conditions of stay and support, if they agree to leave the ground of the adversary and to come to settle in Rome “.

N.B. The result of this strange attitude of the Romans was besides that their Panth-eon ends up including a certain number of god-or-demons taken from other peoples, imported, in a way some second-hand gods.

(Macrobius , Saturnalia III, 9,6.) “That deity, whether god or goddess, who is the guardian of the state of Carthage, that divinity I invoke, I pray and supplicate, that he will desert that perfidious people.

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Honor not with thy presence their temples, their ceremonies, nor their city, abandon them to all their fears, leave them to infamy and oblivion. Fly hence to Rome, where, in my country, and among my fellow citizens, you will have nobler temples, and more acceptable sacrifices; you will be the tutelary deity of this army, and of the Roman state. On this condition, I here vow to erect temples and institute games to your honor."

N.B. Let us remind that even Bonaparte had recourse to this kind of psychological tactic since, during the campaign ide of Egypt, he almost converted himself to Islam.

It is true that to convert to Islam is not a piece of evidence of intelligence, except if it is under duress as in the case of the Tulaqa (the fifth caliph his father, etc.). Just like knowingly persisting in remaining a Christian besides! Remained Christian and converted to Islam people are still on the same level regarding the intellectual level, that is to say on the ground zero of the faith and not on the level of reason, which is generally with CAMPAIGNING atheism the great absent one from the television sets.

The word "version" etymologically speaking means "to turn" "to change direction". But its clearest sense the one when it turns well is that of the well known military maneuver of turning if it is an army, with one of its extremities remaining fixed. As it is usually done in close formations it implies a lot of professionalism, not to say training, even if the final result is not always there, which was not the case for Alexander's companions in the battle of Gaugamela. The about turn of the heavy cavalry led by Alexander was indeed decisive.

As a reverse example we can mention the changes of religious orientation, the change of religion indeed never being a field where things are similarly clear and where people turn as well as Alexander’s companions accustomed to this kind of maneuver. They can go wrong. Or turn badly!

Depending on the case! And let's not forget that in converted there is "con"! Latin cum! A whole world! This prefix indeed enters the composition of many terms.

Muslims speak of apostasy when it does not turn in their favor, besides.

More mundanely, it seems well that Eriu is the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer to use this word, eponymous, of the first Irish settlement, the Hibernians or Erainn, tribe of the South of the island, but having dominated it a time. Eriu also appears as a queen, wife of Elatha and mother of the fallen king Bregsos/Bres.

According to Seathrún Céitinn (Keating), she would have worshipped the Bodua/Badb who is, also, known as daughter of Ernmas. Some specialists deduce from that, a little hastily perhaps, that it would be a single character. What is possible, on the other hand, it is that the crow is an animal associated with Eriu, as certain legends relating to her would tend to prove it.

She had indeed a reputation for passing at once from the state of a beautiful princess with large eyes to that of gray crow with a pointed nozzle.

As we already have had the opportunity to write it higher, Eriu will face the human beings called Milesians or Gaels by the legends, but were overcome by them during the battle of Uisnech, a hill located in Westmeath, traditionally considered as the center of Ireland and marked with a sacred stone (junction point of the borders of the four provinces) as by ritual fires.

VOTALA/FODLA/FODHLA/FOLA. Her name means under (vo) ground (tala). One of the three matres or good fairies taking care of Ireland. It is one of the queens of the Tuatha De. She is a daughter of Ermas and Delbaeth, and wife of Tetturo/Tethor known as Mac Cecht, son of Cermat, grandson of the Suqellos Dagda Gurgunt. When the first truly human beings, the pseudo-Milesians, also called Gaels, will land, each of the three sisters will require of them to give her name to the island; it is the name of Eriu which will be preferred, but that of Votala/Fodla will also be used as an allegory, like in the case of the name of Albion to designate Great Britain.

Votala/Fodla will have to also face the human ones at the time of the battle of Sliab Eibhline, after having met “the wise man “ Amorgen there, and will be overcome there. She will die a little later at the time of the final battle fought for the possession of Tailtiu Taillten or Tailtin (in old Celtic Talantio, one of the names of the earth, big undertaking Telltown in County Meath.

BANUTA/BANVA/BANBA (modern writing Banbha). Banuta, Banbha, Banva, forms, with Eriu and Votala/Fodla, the triad of good fairies taking care of Ireland, the triad of fairies having leant on its cradle in a way.

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If her name means “who has horns “; whatever is its interpretation: the horned one in the meaning of “who has horns growing on her forehead “or “who has a horn of plenty in her hand “; that makes her clearly a goddess-or-demoness, or good fairy, of plenty and fertility. Banuta appears then perhaps also in the Gallo-Roman statuary, for example in the case of the statuette discovered in Broye-les-Pesmes in France, and preserved today in the British Museum. What on this assumption would make her a consort (shakti in Hinduism) of the nemet Hornunnos. In the legend of Cessair, Banuta/Banba/Banva is the first queen or dominating person of the Isle of Ireland.

Another etymology of her name combines her with the wild boar or the pig like Arduinna the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the Belgian Ardennes.

This Irish deity being traditionally related to the family of god-or-demons known under the name of people of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer, Danu (bia), or Tuatha De Danann in Gaelic language; all that does not stick very well with the accounts showing us the god-or-demons landing later, very later. Unless Banuta was connected only later by the legends, and in an a little artificial way, to the people of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Danu (bia).

She is a daughter of Ernmas, and Delbaeth, and wife of Setros/Sethor known as Mac Cuill, son of Cermat, grandson of the Suqellus Dagda Gurgunt. Banuta/Banbha too will face the human beings, at the time of the battle of Sliab Mis in the Kerry, after having met “ the wise man “ Amorgen there, and will be overcome there. She will die a little later at the time of the final battle fought for the possession of Tailtiu, Taillten, or Tailtin (old Celtic Talantio) nowadays Telltown in the County Meath.

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HISTORICAL REMINDER ABOUT THE TRUE SETTLEMENT IN IRELAND.

We announced above the wrongfully historical nature of the Milesian or Gaelic invasion in Ireland, and therefore consequently of the majority of the events which refer to it in the Irish medieval heresy. Come to this point of our talk a short reminder of the facts is imposed.

The Bronze Age (2500 before our era - 700 before our era).

Bronze Age starts truly when some copper is alloyed with tin to produce objects out of bronze. In Ireland, which occurred around 2000 before our era, when some flat axes similar objects were manufactured in Ballybeg.

The previous period is called Chalcolithic or Copper Age, the majority of the axes of Ballybeg and Lough Ravel was produced at that time. Bronze was used to manufacture at the same time weapons and tools. Swords, axes, scraping knives, halberds, awls, goblets, trumpets, appear among the objects discovered in the sites of the Bronze Age. Irish craftsmen became particularly famous for their horn-shaped trumpets , manufactured by the wax relief method. We find some of them in whole Europe, and we can see a representation of one of them near the dying Gaul, a Greek sculpture ascribed to Epigonus.

Copper, necessary to the manufacture of bronze, was extracted on the spot, mainly in the South-east of the country, while tin was imported from Cornwall in Great Britain. The oldest copper mine known in these islands is located in the peninsula of Ross Island in the County Kerry. Mining and metallurgy were carried out on the spot between 2400 and 1800 before our era. Another of the best preserved copper mines in Europe was discovered on Mount Gabriel in the county Cork. It functioned during several centuries in the middle of the second thousand years. It is thought that the mines in Cork and Kerry did not produce less than 370 tons of copper during Bronze Age. As the unearthed objects account for only about 0,2% of this copper production, we can suppose that Ireland was one of the main exporters of this period.

Ireland was also rich in native gold, and Bronze Age practiced the first important utilization of this noble metal by Irish craftsmen. Of all Europe, it is in Ireland that the greatest number of gold treasures of Bronze Age was discovered. Ornaments made in Ireland were found as far as in Germany and in Scandinavia. In the early times of Bronze Age, these ornaments consisted of simple crescents or disks made with thin gold sheets. Later, the well-known Irish torc made its appearance. It was a necklace made of a loop shaped shaft or band out of twisted metal. Earrings out of gold, sun disks and lunulae (lunar crescents worn around the neck), were also manufactured in Ireland during the Bronze Age.

One of the most distinctive types of pottery, the bell-shaped ceramics, appeared in the island at that time. It differed much from the round bottom fine pottery of the Neolithic era. Specialists thought one moment this pottery was linked with particular people, the bell-beaker population, whose arrival would have coincided with the introduction of the metallurgy. But this theory is now hardly defended: there was no bell-beaker population, and metallurgy had been established in Ireland quite before the appearance of round-bottomed ceramics. The Irish variant of this pottery is of local origin, and its appearance is the piece of evidence of a foreign influence more than of a massive invasion.

Small wedge tombs continued to be built during the Bronze Age, but the imposing passage tombs of the Neolithic era were abandoned for ever.

Around the end of the Bronze Age, the first graves with cist appeared: they consisted of a small rectangular stone trunk, covered of a flagstone,buried at a shallow depth. Many stone circles were set up in this period, in Ulster and in Munster particularly.

During Bronze Age, Ireland‘s climate worsened, and massive deforestations were carried out. At the end of this era, the population had probably more than 100.000 people, reaching perhaps even the 200.000 individuals, that is to say hardly more than at the height of the Neolithic era.

The Iron Age of corresponds to the presence of a Celtic population. According to T.F. O'Rahilly, this population was distinguished from its predecessors by the use of iron, and shared a certain number of

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common civilization features with the other peoples of the Center and of the West in Europe. The relative importance of the massive invasions and of the slow civilization spread in the appearance of these similarities is still a matter of debate. It was thought traditionally that they were the Celtic invaders who brought them in Ireland the Celtic language; but recent genetic and archeological studies suggest now that the adoption of the Celtic language and civilization was a much more progressive process; moved by cultural exchanges with Celtic groups in the inland.

This field suffers from the fact that it belongs jointly to several university disciplines, and that the attempts at syntheses often give rise to controversies. The historical syntheses carried out several centuries ago, and based mainly on mythological and linguistic studies, are still frequently quoted as references; whereas more modern analyzes of same materials, lead to more general interpretations. Or whereas archeological even genetic evidence suggests other conclusions. What complicates the things still more, they are the complex links which exist between the interpretation of Irish prehistory, and the conception of the national identity.

The Celtic languages of Great Britain and Ireland can be divided into two groups: the Gaelic or Goidelic group and the Brittonic group. The appearance of the first writing in the 5th century revealed the use of the Gaelic language in Ireland, and of the Brittonic language in Great Britain. It was therefore natural to suppose, first of all, that Ireland had been invaded by Gaelic Celts, while Great Britain had been by Brittonic Celts. Today still, it is not rare to hear people maintaining that there was one true Celtic invasion in the Irish history, that of the Gaels. According to this theory, in 350 before our era, a group of people, called Sons of Mil or Milesians, would have introduced the Irish language in Ireland, and subjected the pre-Celtic populations, thanks to its superior armament and to its russet-red hair. But that falls more under the generally accepted idea or the act of faith.

The truth like always is more complex. The specialist in Celt language, T.F. O'Rahilly, proposed a model for the Irish prehistory, based on his study of the influences on the language, and a critical analysis of mythology as well as pseudo-history. His ideas, although still extremely influential, are no longer accepted without slight differences. T.F.O'Rahilly distinguishes four successive waves of Celtic invaders.

- Cruithne or Priteni (from - 700 to - 500).

- Builg or Iverni: Erainn (around - 500).

- Lagin, Domnainn and Galioin (around - 300).

- Goidels or Gaels (around - 100).

The writings known today in Ireland do not date back beyond 431. The Gaelic king of Tara, known under the name of Niall Noigiallach or “Niall of the nine hostages “ is the oldest historical figure, whose existence is disputed by nobody, and on whom we are a little informed. According to the existing records, his father, Eochaid Mugmedon, was king of Tara, and directed the kingdom of Mide.

Niall probably succeeded his father about the year 400, and he would have reigned during twenty-seven years. His reign consecrated the advent of Tara as dominant power in the country. Behind this power , there had been the conquest of Ulster: result of centuries of conflict between the Gaels of Tara and the Ulaid of Emain Macha. This conflict is evoked in the cycle of legends known under the name of Cycle of Ulster, which includes the Irish national epic : the Táin Bó Cúailnge or the cattle raid of Cooley.

N.B. The Gaelic conquest of Ulster was undertaken mainly by three of the sons of Niall, Eógan, Enda and Conall Gulban, who were rewarded by the constitution for three sub-kingdoms in the West for the lately conquered province.

After the death of Niall, his son, Lóegaire mac Néill, succeeded to him as king of Tara. It is during his reign that Christianity was officially introduced into the country.

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OTHER, PARTICULAR, ELEMENTALS OF THE GROUND: CONTINUATION.

AGNA/AINE. As we could see it, in Ireland, many fairies of matres type, became the guardians or the patron saints of certain families. Aine was the sister or the daughter of Eogabail, himself foster son of Belenos Barinthus known as Manannan Mac Lir. This goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, has ties with Omagh in the county Tyrone and with the Derry where there are wells which are devoted to her (Tobar Aine). In this county, the local legends tell besides that she was a mere mortal abducted by people of the next world, and that the family O'Corra would come from her.

Another of her residences is located at Dunany point (Dun Aine) in County Louth, there is a stone called besides Cathair Áine not far away. Three days of the year are devoted to her, the first Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, which follow Lugnasade (August 1st), and she claims a human life at this time.

Aine in fact is especially known as the queen of the fairies in the County Limerick. A cairn and three stone circles called Mullach an Triuir on the top of the hill of Cnoc Áine, not far away from the village of Knockainy (Cnoc Áine or Knockainy means besides quite simply “Aine’s hill “) a few kilometers away in the south-west of the Lough Gur Lake; are considered to be her residence or her palace. Not far away from there stands also Cnoc Finnine, the hill of the sister of Aine, linked with the fennel through a play on words. In the 19th century still, at the time of the summer solstice, people burned straw or hay in her honor, on the top of the hill (some people even affirm to have seen the goddess-or-demoness, or the fairy, to take part in the festival). And people then spread the ash of it on the fields or the cattle.

The healers of the time regarded her as mistress of the spark of life moving the bodies, and no bleeding was practiced this day, for fear of killing the patient. She was therefore supposed to be able to cure the diseases, what brings her much closer to the continental matres indeed. Her symbol was not the clover, but the queen-of-meadows or spiraea ulmaria. A perennial herbaceous plant of the family of Rosaceae, anti-inflammatory, diuretic, sudorific, astringent, tonic, antispasmodic, healing, painkilling, which has also digestive properties.

MEDIEVAL SURVIVALS.

The legend reports that Aine was abducted by the first king of Munster, Ailill Olom and that she became thus the ancestor of the kings of this province, but Ailill Olom had to undergo the consequences of that. He had his ear torn. Moreover Aine made him assassinated. She was also the guardian or the appointed patron saint of the Eoghanacht.

In the 14th century Maurice Fitzgerald, first earl of Desmond, is known as to have married her or to have had with her a child called Geroid or Gearóid . The earl had seen her combing or brushing her hair on the bank of the river, and had succeeded in seizing her coat. Other variants of the same legend say that Aine bathed well at this time and that the earl agreed to give back her coat to her only if she accepted to marry him. Other versions show us Aine taking the initiative to voluntarily charm the earl. All these stories agree nevertheless to tell what follows in connection with Geroid Iarla, in connection with the earl Gerald, known as the magician. Maurice Fitzgerald, his father, had promised to the fairy Aine never to be astonished by what their son could do, what that can be. But the latter, at the time of a banquet, defied by a young magician, having jumped in a bottle then having been able to come out from it without damage, in order to prove that he was well him the strongest; Maurice Fitzgerald could not prevent himself from letting appear his surprise. A cold and icy north wind then began to blow in the big reception hall, Geroid went away and walked one moment along the lake. Then, after having turned around to make a gesture of good-bye to his father, he entered water and was transformed into a wild goose. His father, with a broken heart, saw him leaving towards Garrett Island where he disappeared little by little in the distance. Some people say that he can be seen in the depths, awaiting for the opportunity to return to the world of men, when the water of the Lough Gur Lake is calm and quiet. Some people also tell his phantom emerges from the lake every seven years, riding a white horse with silver shoes, at the time of the nights of full moon, before going back there after having gone around it.

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As for goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Aine, made furious by this treason of the promise which had been made to her like in the case of the French Melusine, she set out again to live in Knockainy.

OIBELA/AOIBHEALL/AOIBHELL/AOIBHIL/AEBIL/AEVAL/EEVELL/IBHELL/AIBINN/EEVIN.

As reminded previously, many fairies of matres type, in Ireland, became the guardian or the patron saints of a certain number of clans. Aoibheall is an elemental of the North of Munster. Her name comes from the Proto-Celtic Oibela, which means literally “burning fire “. In Trier in Germany, an inscription mentions an “Obela “ and at Spring in Austria Obila is combined with Hercules. In France, on the Peutinger Map, an alpine resort is called Obilonna (the current hamlet of Arbine in the town of La Bathie in Savoy) and in Spain lastly , we finds Obila, Bilus, Obiledus, Obellianus.

Many legends were reported about her. According to Donal O'Sullivan (1893-1973) and his “Songs of the Irish “ she was the queen of the fairies in county Thomond, patron saint or guardian of the O'Brien. And her residence, Carraig Liath (Craigeevil) or Gray Rock, is a hill overhanging the Shannon approximately two kilometers and half above Killaloe, on the side of Clare.

In one of the songs collected by Seán Ó Seanacháin and entitled in Gaelic Buachaill Caol Dubh, Aoibheal appears to a young couple and offers to the man to put hundred fairies at his disposal as servants; if he agrees to give up his young wife to come in her bed. But he refuses, to the delight of the young groom, of course, and Aoibeal disappears at once.

Other legends show her to us accompanying Brian Bórama (Borou) to the battle of Clontarf in 1014, and falling in love with one of the men of Brian Borou, Dubhlaing ua Artigan. He had been exiled by the king, but had rejoined the Gael camp and had joined the men of his oldest son. Oibela/Aoibheall who has not been able to dissuade him from taking part in the fight, she cast on him a charm which made him invisible. But in vain. The young man rejected this facility, he found dishonoring, and Dubhlaing ua Artigan was killed in the company of the oldest son of the king. Oibela/Aoibheall gave a magic harp at once, that by which the hesus Cuchulainn had heard his own end made public , to the son of a man by the name Meardha, so that this last one announces to King Brian the heroic death of his son. It is a fairy of the same category as Aine or Cliodna, her great rival, who will end up changing her into a white she-cat.

Editor’s note.

The fairy Aoibheal, Aoibhioll, Aeval, is mentioned in the parody of Aeneid written by Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara (MacNamara. 1715-1810).

She was also staged by the great Irish poet Brian Merriman (1747 - 1805), in an astonishing poem entitled “the Midnight Court“ in Gaelic language Cúirt An Mheán Oíche.

It is, of course, a purely fictional work having nothing to do with a mythology, a Panth-eon (pleroma), or spirituality in the higher sense of the word. But the fact remains that this text is remarkable in more than one way and we advise highly the reading of it.

Here is the summary.

The poem begins by using the conventions of Aisling, or poem of vision. The poet, during a walk, lies down on heather and falls asleep. A fairy appears to him in a dream and asks him to follow her to Feckle, where the queen of the fairies, Aoibhioll, holds her court of justice.

It is held then a lawsuit, in which a young woman calls upon the fairy Aoibheall so that she takes actions against young people in Ireland who refuse to marry. An old man answers her. He deplores, first of all, the infidelity of his young wife, and, in a more general way, the dissolute life of the young women. He appeals to the queen to put a final end to the marriage institution , and to replace it by a system of free love. The young woman answers while making fun of the inability of the old man to satisfy the needs for his young woman. The young woman asks that an end is put to the celibacy of the clergy, in order to widen the field of the potential husbands.

After the hearing of these pleas for and against feminism, the queen delivers her judgment. Every man of virile age who is not married will have to be punished. As for those who are egoistic and hard with the women, the decision with regard to them is reserved for the next session. The poet who is not yet married although being thirty years old is brought at once to undergo, the first one, the effects of the new law. It is the young woman who, with the assistance of her friends, is responsible for giving him the beating. He is extended on the table; but at the time when his torment will begin, the young woman reckons relevant to note the date of the law. And, while she writes, the poet, at the height of anguish, awakes to realize that it was only a nightmare.

CLIODHNA.

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As we have had the opportunity to underline it, in Ireland many fairies of matres type became the guardians the patron saints of certain clans. Cliodhna is for example a fairy Matra kind (plural matres) or a goddess-or-demoness queen of the fairies in Munster. She has three magic birds (cranes or crows, according to versions of the legend), which are fed exclusively with enchanted or magic apples, and of which the songs have the power to cure the patients, or to get the eternal rest.

Cliodhna is known as to have left her residence of “Tir Tairngire “(Land of Promises - another name of the Sidh), by love for Ciabhán; a mere mortal who will perish, drowned by a gigantic wave sent by the god-or-demon Barinthus Manannan Mac Lir, in the port of Glandore. As for Cliodhna, who had then been plunged in a deep sleep, she will be brought back in the Land of Promises by the wave in question.

The tide bears from now on in this place the name of “Tonn Chlíodhna “: Cliodhna’s wave.

This story is quite similar to that of Conle, the son of King Conn Cetchathach, with whom a woman of the next world had fallen in love; and who will thus manage to pull him along in the universe parallel to ours that we designate under the name of hereafter, in spite of the efforts of the druid Corann.

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ELEMENTALS OF HEIGHTS OR SUMMITS.

The worship of heights, like that of water, was not invented by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht). We observe it in many former peoples . The worship of the mountains is for example dominating in the Pyrenees, where sacred peaks are met, some inscriptions dedicated to anonymous mountains (“to divine mountains “ therefore considered as animated by an elemental. Editor’s note). Unlike the lowlands, livened up by the feverish activity of men, the mountain erects the sterile and desert slopes of an intermediate world between Mankind and the higher Being.

Every mountain is a raising towards the sun and the sky, where the air god-or-demons sit imposingly. The clouds which float around it are torn and are reformed unceasingly, the flashes which strike it, these alternate interplays of light and shade, keep going an atmosphere of worrying phantasmagoria. Any height is a place of terrestrial dynamism, being a point of the ground raised by an internal power. The heights are the columns of the sky ; they are closer to the god-or-demons, who often appear there through lightning. People engrave effigies and messages there. They erect small stone altars there (called “autarets “in the Alps), statues are erected there.

POENINUS (Poeninus, Poininus, Pyninus, Penninos). From the Celtic penno “head “. Elemental of the heights or of the tops. Or then simple divine attribute of Taran/Toran/Tuireann. We find this name in that of the mountainous chain of the Pennines – known as “the backbone of England “- and which extends from the Peak District in the Midlands, to Cheviot Hills on the border of Scotland. Also known in Northern Italy through the writings of Livy and these of Maurus Servius Honoratus, who locates his temple at the Great St Bernard’s pass, and compares him to Jupiter. And by votive plates found in one of his temples located in the Valle d’Aosta. The top dominating it from its height was called Summus Poeninus. Pyninus is the variant mentioned in an inscription of the Great St Bernard, Poinnius in an inscription found at Tirnovo, in Bulgaria, where he is compared to the god-or-demon Sylvanus, by interpretatio romana.

ALISANOS. Alisanus. Known by three inscriptions, in Couchey in Cote-d’Or , as Vievy, but also in Aix-en-Provence (France).

The inscription of the offering bowl of Couchey.

DOIROS SEGOMARI

IEVRV ALISANV

Doiros son of Segomaros

Dedicated this to Alisanos.

The inscription of Vievy.

DEO•ALISANO•PAVLLINVS?

PRO•CONTEDIO•FIL•SVO?

V•S•L•M•

To the god Alisanos, Paullinus

for Contedius his son,

has fulfilled his vow freely and deservedly .

Perhaps an elemental of cliffs or rocks in general (in the past Palisanos). Some researchers make him an elemental of the wild service trees.

ALAMBRINA. She elemental of mount Alambre (Hautes-Alpes, France).

BAGINUS. Elemental of the mount Vanige, close to Besignan (Drome, France).

BAGINA. Female shape of the same deity.

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BERGIMUS. Elemental of the tops, known by inscriptions found in Brescia and Arco in Northern Italy. Like Brixianus and Brixia, it is a deity of the heights, and therefore probably the guardian god-or-demon of Bergamo (still in Italy).

GARRA. Elemental of the Gar Peak (Haute-Garonne, France).

VINTUR. Elemental witnessed by three inscriptions, discovered in Drome and Vaucluse in France. Elemental of the tops. It is him who gives its name to the Mont-Ventoux (unless it is the opposite).

GENITI GLINNE. Spirits of the valleys who, malefic in an episode of the Fled Bricrend or “Feast of Bricriu “ will attack three of our more valorous heroes: Loegaire, Conall Cernach and the hesus Cuchulainn. Only Cuchulainn will overcome them and will end up killing them (they are three times nine), without damage for him.

AMBIRENAE. She elemental known by two inscriptions discovered in Deutz in Germany. The first is an inscription dedicated to a whole series of deities among whom we note the name of Ambiorenesibus (Ambiorenses). i.e., those who live on both sides of the Rhine. It would be consequently a triad of fairies. The second one is a votive stone being addressed to Hercules Magusanus, but its reading is more dubious, matronis Abirenibus???

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ELEMENTALS OF PLACES ARRANGED BY MAN.

In other words, the god-or-demons or the goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies; guardian, guards of the village or fortress; the god-or-demons or the goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, protecting the ways and the roads.

NEMETONA. She elemental of the sacred clearings. From the Celtic *nemeto- (open-air sanctuary). Known by several inscriptions discovered in Klein Winternheim, Altripp (where she is quoted with Mercury), Trier (where she is also mentioned with Mercury) and Eisenberg (where she is quoted with Mars loucetios), in Germany. An inscription relating to her was discovered in Bath: PEREGRINVS SECVNDI FIL CIVIS TREVER LOVCETIO MARTI ET NEMETONA. Peregrinus, son of Secundus, a Trevirian citizen , to Loucetius Mars and Nemetona.

We also find his name in that of the Germanic tribe of the Nemetes.

NEMETIALES (she elementals of the sacred clearings or temples). The fairies of matres nemetiales type are known by one inscription (CIL XIII 2221) found in Grenoble in France [matris nemetialis].

NEMETIALIS. One of these three matres nemetiales. All these names come from the old Celtic nemeto designating a clearing in the forest, arranged in place of worship.

ARNEMETIA. She elemental of the entrance of temples. From the Celtic ar (in front of) and nemeton (temple in the wood). She was particularly honored in the thermal spa of Aquae Arnemetiae (Buxton in Derbyshire).

IALONOS. Guardian elemental of clearing (of the cultivated clearing, not of the sacred clearing), but therefore also by extension of the village (vicos). The consort (shakti in Hinduism) who accompanied this elemental was called IALONA of course. Around the domain of the other wood and forest elementals stretched.

CAGIRIS. Elemental of the enclosed fields. Known by an inscription found in Saint-Beat, in the Haute-Garonne, in France. From the Celtic *kagyo- (low wall, fence) and rix (king).

AGANNTO. The elemental of the borders or of the limits. This deification of the borders is proven by the inscription of Plumergat (district of Auray, Morbihan, France) which is dedicated to the Borders-Fathers: ATREBO AGANNTOBO.

CONAN. In the documents which bequeathed us the Gaelic heresy; and through this word we only intended to mean a deviation which went a little too far compared to the ancient continental druidism, which is the reference druidism; Conan, Conann, Conand, or Conaing, is a prince of the gigantic anguipedic wyverns, living in a tower built on the island of Tory off Ireland. He oppresses the people of the nemet Hornunnos, and he requires from them an unbearable tribute. From where their revolt and destruction of his tower.

RATIS. Elemental of the fortified places. Technique of the fortresses known by inscriptions found in the forts of the Hadrian's Wall.

The first, found in Birdoswald, Cumbria [RIB 1903].

DEA RATI VOTVM IN PERPETVO.

For the goddess Ratis, for ever.

The second, found at Chesters, in Northumberland [RIB 1454].

DEA RAT.

For the goddess Rat [is].

From the Celtic *rati, barrier, rampart.

Pilgrimage witnessed for example in the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in France May 24th and 25th, then recovered, of course, by the Christian religion.

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DUNATIS. Elemental of a fortified height.

THE TRIAD, TOWN, ROADS, CROSSROADS.

The places marked in a stable way by the human settlement were honored with a true worship. Is it necessary to see an influence of the classical civilization here, where following the example of Rome deified, the cities were worshipped in the form of the Tutela or of the Genie of the place? It is possible, although the Celts had for a long time some towns. However it is precisely from oldest of them than the eponymous god-or-demon receives worship.

Several inscriptions at least witness the worship practiced in the honor of a “deified“ town.

BIBRAX or BIBRACTE, eponymous goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, if it is preferred , of the town of Bibracte, formerly located on the Mount Beuvray, originally perhaps goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Beaver (Bebros), or a deified spring of the Mount Beuvray. It was a time the capital of the people of Aedui. (French Department of the Saone-et-Loire.)

VASIO, a local deity (Vaison-la-Romaine in France). The Roman inscriptions in which we meet the name of the town or of the inhabitants of Vaison, were rather numerous: we know of them already seven.In this matter, there are very few ancient cities in France which are as favored as Vaison. Below the eighth.

….NAE NR…

FIL. FLAMINIC

VAS. VOC. HERE

DES. CALLISTI

LIB. EIVS. PONEN

DAM. CVRAVER.

“(Dis manibus)… nae N… filiae flaminicae Vasionis Vocontiorum, heredes Callisti, liberti ejus, ponendam curaverunt “.

“To the manes gods of… daughter of N. priestess of Vaison of the Vocontii, the heirs to Callistus, his freed slave, took care to erect this stone “.

This inscription reveals a remarkable fact, the existence of a she flamen in the town of Vaison. The Ancients had habit to personify or to deify the majority of the towns, or at least to place them under the particular protection of a place deity. A similar use was not unfamiliar to the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht). Not to leave the province which occupies us, we will quote in support of this assertion the autonomous coins of Cavaillon, where two heads appear, of which one, having, on some coins, a wall crown, represents the city itself. We also notice the head of a woman crowned with towers, on a medal of Avignon in small bronze. It is therefore natural that the towns thus deified had priests and priestesses, just as the other god-or-demons or the great heroes who had received after their death the privilege of the apotheosis. The epigraphic collection of Gruter provides several examples of provinces and towns having flaminae who were peculiar to them. Such were,among others, the Narbonnese (CCCXXII, 9), Aix-en-Provence (CCCIII, 5), Nimes (CCCXXI, 9), Apt (CCCXXIII, 6), Vienna (XCVIII, 8, and CCLXXXIII, 6 and 7), and finally Die. Vaison therefore enjoyed the same prerogative; and its place goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, was perhaps distinct from the one who the nation of the Vocontii as such, as seems to indicate it one of the inscriptions. Goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, if you prefer to resort to this word, of Vaison, appears beside Mars in a votive inscription conceived in these terms: MARTI | AND VASIONI | TACITVS [Offered by Tacitus to Mars and to Vaison].

AXIMA. Today Aime-en-Tarentaise, or the Cote-d’Aime in the Alps. Located 680 meters above the sea level in the middle of the Tarentaise, between Bourg-Saint-Maurice and Moutiers. The part of this valley located upstream from l’Etroit du Siaix and from Villette, doubly supported by its climate and its relief, called the Berceau Tarin, for a very long time attracted men. Archeological excavations unearthed a zone of housing of the final Neolithic era and a 5000-year-old cemetery. The area is invaded by the Romans in - 24. Renamed Axima - name of the god-or-demon Aximus - the village becomes the capital of the Province of the Greek Graie or Graiae Alps. A procurator, representative of the Roman emperor settles there, with a garrison of 2000 soldiers. Aximus was combined with the worship of the fairies of Matrones type.

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SAMAROBRIVA (Amiens, France). The name means bridge on the river Sambre.

GISACUM. Commune of the Vieil-Evreux in Normandy. The name of Gisacum was given in the 19th century following the discovery of an inscription mentioning the god-or-demon Gisacus. A local scholar then made the comparison with a toponym mentioned in the life of saint Taurin, first bishop of Evreux. According to this life, written in the 9th century, the local Roman prefect Licinius resided in his villa of Gisai (Gisiaco villa), which symbolized then the paganism. Except the thermal baths, the city of Gisacum included some fana, a theater of 106 meters in diameter and being able to welcome at least 7.000 people, a forum and a portico. With a surface of 230 to 250 hectares, it was one of the largest in the country.

SENTONA. Elemental of the roads in general or goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if it is preferred, of travel. From the Celtic *sentu- (a path, way, road).

Man of formerly deified the passes, crossing points through the massifs, readily. He placed there simple stone altars, still maintained up to a recent time in the passes of the Alps, the “montjoies “ often baptized with a cross. But the guardian powers of the road were also particularly honored with regard to the crossroads: they were goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, called in Latin Biviae, Triviae, Quadriviae, according to the number of the ways which crossed there.

The traveler generally saw there an altar with an image of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer, sometimes a small lararium altar with its statue, sometimes a temple of modest dimensions. These places were then Christianized by the building of a chapel or the erection of a cross. When it is accompanied by an oratory, we guess it is substituted for a small pagan shrine in the honor of these modest goddess-or-demonesses or fairies, guardian angels of the travelers.

BIVIAE. Fairies or she elementals resulting from the crossing of two ways or paths.

TRIVIAE. Fairies or she elementals resulting from the crossing of three ways or paths.

QUADRIVIAE. Fairies or she elemental resulting from the crossing of four ways or paths.

It is difficult to attach to the fairies of Matres type these Celtic guardian angels of the crossroads called in Latin Biviae, Triviae, or Quadriviae, we see been reproduced on the Roman vases, in as many specimens as the roads of which they ensure the safety or the protection; and accompanied by the snake. But, however, that corresponds well to a druidic concept. The former name of the Swiss town of Carouge is for example related to this ancient notion.

The vestiges of two successive and parallel bridges on the Arve (around 100 before our era) indeed witness an old occupation of the site, and have to be put in touch with the rise of the Celtic hill fort of Genua, then of the Roman city of Genava. The bridge on the Arve, where end the roads from Seyssel and from Annecy, towards which other minor roads converge, confers to Carouge its road function which will be determining for its history. Archeological vestiges show the existence of two villae, oldest dating back the second half of the 1st century. The presence of a sanctuary and of workshops confirms the establishment of a vicus or village which will not cease developing until the Burgundian time. The traces of two successive enclosures, former the Burgundian time , protecting a vast surface, seem to confirm the presence of an important garrison. The piles of the outside wall, older than the vestiges of the inside ditch, date, according to the dendrochronology, back - 14 and confirm the strategic importance of the site as of the 1st century before our era.

Although Geneva was then one of the centers of Sapaudia, it is in the Quadruvio villa that Sigismund will be crowned king of Burgundians in 516, and not in the cathedral. This perhaps not to run up against those of his subjects not yet converted to Catholicism, and to perpetuate the tradition of the king acclaimed by his soldiers. The military position of Carouge therefore seemed still valid then, and we are unaware at what time the fortified town was demolished.

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ELEMENTALS OF PLANTS.

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toto

DUSES (singular dusios).

There was also in the ancient druidism fauns or satyrs. Or a somewhat similar concept. Dusii are indeed a category of elementals of which best known is the famous Puck or Robin Goodfellow (Welsh pwca, Irish puca) is. Their sexually very free nature, at least in the male, or female, phantasms, made that Christians demonized them with excess. The remarks of the Christian authors are unambiguous on this subject. Saint Augustine. The city of God (of God or of the Devil yes!) Book XV. Chapter XXIII.

WHETHER WE ARE TO BELIEVE THAT ANGELS, WHO ARE OF A SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE, FELL IN LOVE WITH THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN, AND SOUGHT THEM IN MARRIAGE, AND THAT FROM THIS CONNECTION GIANTS WERE BORN.

In the third book of this work, we made a passing reference to this question, but did not decide whether angels, inasmuch as they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women.... the same trustworthy Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only be seen, but also touched. There is, too, a very general rumor, which many have verified by their own experience, or which trustworthy persons who have heard the experience of others corroborate, that sylvan and fauns, who are commonly called "incubi," had often made wicked assaults upon women, and satisfied their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity is so generally affirmed that it were impudent to deny it. From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there be some soul/mind embodied in an aerial substance (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt by the body), and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but, of course, I could by no means believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said, "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, etc....”

Isidore of Seville. Etymologies. Book VIII.

Hairy ones are called Panitae in Greek, and incubuses in Latin..... The Celts call these demons Dusii,because they carry out this foulness continually.

!---------- ------------------------ ----------------- !

I hear from here the criticisms. Yes, but St. Augustine is not a reference, he knew absolutely nothing, this author was used to say anything! Very well! Let us try another approach then, because I also, like St. Augustine, I have doubts about some of the “exploits “ ascribed to these entities about which the Bible speaks also, without calling into question the very existence of them, of course, too respectful that I am of Scriptures. The Scriptures do nothing but tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth! The belief in the existence of not-human entities being able to fertilize women is therefore apparently universal, but there is a big difference between that and making them sex maniac like St. Augustine, lustful demons, there is a step which we will not cross.

In the 13th century, Gervase of Tilbury, in his Recreation for an emperor (Otia imperialia, III, 86) still referred to the beliefs according to which wild beings haunt certain regions. “Multi.......se vidisse Sylvanos et Panes, quos incubos nominant, Celti vero dusios dicunt “. “Many men.... saw Sylvans and Pans they call incubuses, and the Celts actually dusii “. The author specifies that these “demons “can have sexual intercourse with human beings.

In short, it sounds like some Muslim theologists dealing with jinns or ghouls.

The famous “Hammer of witches “of 1486 takes over this topic and the first part of the book deals with the nature of sorcery. A good part of this section explains why the women, because of their weakness and of the inferiority of their intelligence, by nature are predisposed to yield to the temptations of Satan.

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The Cartesian Nicholas Malebranche, in the 17th century, in his famous work “ The search after truth “ proposed a rational analysis of sorcery. Even if he still acknowledges that very rare cases of sorcery are possible, he thought that the vast majority of the cases evoked then were mere products of a “contagious “imagination. He uses for that three arguments, of three different types.

- Theological: Satan was overcome by God, and was relegated in the abysses of the world, from where he can do nothing on men. The sorcerers cannot therefore use powers he cannot give them.

- Rational: those who testify (in all sincerity) to have taken part in the Sabbath, do it only because they mistake the wakefulness with the dreams they had while sleeping at home. By telling it, they make that other people dream of it in turn the night, who will also confuse the wakefulness with the sleep, and so on. Moreover, such an extraordinary story captivates the ears and gives a certain prestige to who tells it, and boasts about it, was this even only for the who claims to know a true wizard.

- Pragmatic: to even suppose that there exist some cases of true sorcery, to track them so pitilessly does only multiply their descriptions. Not only through the petty denunciations, or under the effect of the Herostratus complex; which makes that, being gifted of nothing which can bring glory to us , we seek it in the nuisance and the destruction; but still because those their imagination transports and who do not distinguish wakefulness from the sleep, find confirmation of the possibility of sorcery in its institutional recognition. So Malebranche drew from it the conclusion it was better not to judge the alleged sorcerers in the Parliaments (the courts of the time).

The nub of the problem for the Christians seems to be, in fact, the male or female, sexuality, and the freedom or the pleasure of the women in this field. Particularly when it is the female partner who rides her male partner (equus eroticus), or practices other positions different from that which is known as “ missionary position.”

And since there is dusii, let us repeat here the position we have already developed in connection with the sexual freedom of the wife of Partholon, or of the Namnetes women according to Strabo. Sexuality as its use is as legitimate as breathing or fresh water (to refresh a legitimate thirst). The evil does not come from the fact that a woman is naked and or rides a man impetuously, but from the look we can have at a naked woman. And in this field thus, between consenting adults, all water glasses whatever their shape, are legitimate.

Let us return to our sheep. In any event, it should not be forgotten that these dusii are in reality in the beginning simple soul/minds of nature (of which sexuality, of course, forms a part, but without constituting the totality or the main thing of it). And in this respect, to the “hammer of witches “ we still prefer this splendid poem of the great French poet who was Rimbaud.

Among the foliage, green casket flecked with gold,

In the uncertain foliage that blossoms

With gorgeous flowers where sleeps the kiss,

Vivid and bursting through the sumptuous tapestry,

A startled faun shows his two eyes

And bites the crimson flowers with his white teeth.

Stained and ensanguined like mellow wine

His mouth bursts out in laughter beneath the branches.

And when he has fled - like a squirrel -

His laughter still vibrates on every leaf

And you can see, startled by a bullfinch

The Golden Kiss of the Wood, gathering itself together again.

An old text, ascribed to Porphyry by Papus, warns against the visits of such beings. If it is the Porphyry we know, we are very disappointed. He lacked in nuances. Reality, it is that the elementals do not have a human behavior, and can therefore also sometimes behave in an animal or incomprehensible way. Porphyry had to be influenced by the Indian idea of elementals (devas).

It is often a question of elementals in the literature of our friends of Findhorn, not under the name of “dusii “but under the name of “devas “. These dusii are on the going down arc of the evolution and are distributed in one of the four kingdoms, the vegetable kingdom (as regards the animal kingdom or human kingdom, people speak rather of egregore). Moving away gradually from the spiritual pole of the universe, they therefore live in increasingly material backgrounds. While entering the vegetable kingdom, their weak awareness, choked by the heavy physical matter, sinks temporarily in a deep lethargy. The spiritual aspect of their nature is eclipsed by its material aspect. From where the concept of duses (sylvans among Romans).

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The duses are embryonic beings. It would be consequently a mistake to regard them as gifted of a soul/mind similar to ours, and even to that of an animal. In reality they are only centers of forces. On their own they are without moral nature. Their life is not sufficiently differentiated so that they have such properties or tendencies. A dusios is only likely to be directed, in its movements, by human thoughts, which can, consciously or not, to give it a shape and up to a certain point, some intelligence.

We bathe in an ocean of elementals. Their world and ours interpenetrate, and consequently, the elemental world is eternally present in the human system. The elementals move with the speed of the thought. Through our mental activity, we attract of them constantly in all the more large number as our thought is stronger.

Their opened out and galvanized so to speak by our thought, awareness, reflects it and tends to intensify its power. Each elemental has affinities with thoughts of a certain nature. When a human being has such thoughts, the elemental can be attracted by him. It is there perhaps quite simply what St. Augustine wanted to say by comparing duses to incubi demons.

This ceaseless irruption in us of rudimentary beings, whose awareness is put into motion by ours, has for us enormous consequences. The elemental world mingles then closely with our emotional and mental life. While reacting on us, it influences us constantly, giving back thus exactly to us what we gave to it initially, and we have printed in it, with or without the knowledge of this process.

As a long time as Mankind will not have a nobler attitude, as long as the majority of the men will be still moved by rude feelings, the elementals called dusii will remain a force as a whole hostile to mankind. However, when certain men develop nobler feelings or friendship towards all the living beings; these elementals or dusii, according to Paracelsus 1) then take on with respect to them a favorable attitude, by returning to them the positive waves they spread around them. And it is there perhaps quite simply what St. Augustine wanted to say ultimately.

Apart from the thought shapes where they stay sometimes, the elementals have, of course, a material cover which is peculiar to them, since no entity could, in this world, exist without being endowed with a body. There is not, in the universe, pure spirit, i.e., being only made up of awareness. These soul/minds are not invisible, but as they have a body made of pure energy, of a quintessence very close to that of the light; they are able to be merged in their natural environment, of which they take on shapes and colors. It is for this reason it is so difficult to see them.

The elementaIs of the type “dusios “therefore do not have their own shape and, to try to describe what they are, it is preferable to say that they are forces centers having instinctive desires, but no awareness such as we understand it. From where it follows that their acts can be indifferently good or bad.

1) Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim , known as Paracelsus, who was a doctor and alchemist, published in the beginning of the16th century the first attempt at classification of the soul/minds of nature. It is therefore through him that was handed down to us the notion of elementary spirits or “elementals “ i.e., of soul/minds presiding over the various natural phenomena, living besides in them, and controlling them (water, earth, air, plants, but also moon, star, etc.). Paracelsus, thereafter, accentuated considerably the phantasms of all kinds on their subject (gnomes, goblins, elves, nixies).

For base Celticists, this shape could be either gigantic or tiny.

Reminder.

Generic name of the giants in popular ancient Celtic mythology: cavaroi. Generic name of their opposite in popular ancient Celtic mythology: corroi (Breton korriganed), lutoi, lutocorpanoi, (Irish leprechaun. Literally “small bodies “). All are closely related to the tylwyth teg or Welsh “fair folk “.

The giants are generally anthropomorphic and very tall creatures. Indo-European beliefs often make them primeval beings, combined with cosmogony and forces of nature. These giants characterized by

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their strength and their brutality are frequently besides in conflict with the gods, in particular in Greek, Scandinavian, and Ossetian mythologies.

They are known of the legends in the whole world since we find some of them even in the Bible what does not look very serious besides in a book which likes to think it is absolutely divine.

In addition to both Goliaths (the one killed by David and the one killed by Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim in 2 Samuel 21,19), there is also the Nephilim.

Genesis VI, 4: “The giants (Nephilim) were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God (the Elohim) came in unto the daughters of man and they bore children to them : these were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”

In fact, the sons who were born from this union were not Nephilim like their ancestors, but only some gibborim, “some mighty men .” The latter made a name for themselves. The authors of the biblical texts do not say to us on what grounds.

The non-divine and merely human giants, mixing little (not never but little) with the world of common persons in Celtic folklore, and living rather aside , in remote islands for example, we may suppose that those we find in these legends are in reality allegories or personifications of cosmic forces, taken out of their context (some druidic pedagogy, an effort of interpretation of the phenomena characterizing this world) by the bards eager to spice their tales. In the human history, indeed the fundamental myths are developed in legends, and the legends are developed in tales, never the reverse.

Condla Coel Corbacc rested on the island with his head against a pillar stone in the west and his feet against a pillar stone in the east ? and his wife ? combed his hair. When Condla heard the boat scrape against the land, he rose and took a deep breath and blew the boat back onto the sea. Immasai a anail arisi….

Then the giant answered , "Though you may be angry, great warrior who comes from afar, we do not fear you. It is not prophesied that this island will be destroyed by you. So come ashore and be welcomed.” (The exile of the sons of Doel Dermat: longes mac n-Duil Dermait).

Not having nothing, but only very few things, to say about the part of the giants in Celtic mythology, let us look at consequently a little as regards our Germanic cousins what occurs there.

The Jotunn are the giants of Scandinavian mythology. They have a big part in cosmogony since the first living creature, Ymir, is a giant created from the mixture of the ice of Niflheim and of the fire of Muspellheim. Ymir generated all the race of the giants, of whom some of them got married with gods. Odin and his brothers kill then the primeval giant Ymir and create the earth (Midgard) with his skin.

Certain giants are linked with the gods to the extent of joining the Scandinavian divine Pantheon (Loki, Skadi…), others are friends of the gods and have an almost-divine function (Aegir is the sea giant). Nevertheless, the giants are in general the sworn enemies of gods, they are characterized by their rough strength but some of them are also wise or crafty. Like certain gods, they are often capable of metamorphosis. The worst enemy of the giants is the Scandinavian god Thor, who defends the world of the gods (Asgard) against their attacks, and regularly fights against them victorious battles.

In the Scandinavian eschatology, a great battle is announced by the prophets, Ragnarok, where the giants and the other forces of chaos will fight against gods and men. Will survive this conflict only some gods and a couple of human beings. Enough to build a new world.

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VIRIDIOS/VIRIDIUS.

Viridios is a Celtic god-or-demon known by two inscriptions found at Ancaster in Lincolnshire.

The first [RIB 245 a] comes from a stone used again to build a church, and the text of this inscription is read as follows.

DEO VIRIDIO TRENICO ARCVM FECIT DE SVO DON (for the god-or-demon Viridius, Trenico made this arch, out of one's own pocket ).

The second inscription was also discovered at Ancaster, on the mount of a stone cist, in other words, of a grave intended to protect the last sleep of a Christian.

The text of this second inscription, however, reads as follows.

DEO VRIDI […] SANCTO […] to the saint god Viridius…

The name of Viridios is resulting from the Proto-Celtic vird, green, a word which produced the Welsh gwyrddni.

This rather animist (or ecologist before the word is invented) druidic view, of nature, is perhaps the cause of the iconographic tradition of the Green Man (Viridius) at our latitudes.

Specialists call “Green Man “ in the ornamentation of the friezes and of the ancient or medieval colonnades, this multiform figure which seems a head or a mask of leaves; we find on innumerable monuments, columns or Roman sarcophagi, to the temple of Sulis Minerva in Bath. It is combined with the Bacchic and Dionysiac worship in the viticultural areas of the Rhine and Moselle river, but also with the worship of the ocean. The Green Man is a symbol we find in sculptures and drawings. The pattern of the Green Man consists of a face or of a mask, generally of man, foliaceous. i.e., made or surrounded of leaves, even of branches and vines, which can leave the mouth, the ears or the nostrils. These shoots can bear flowers and fruits.

The Green Man is a complex figure, with very diversified facets, Kathleen Basford thinks, and his presence is the clue of an immense and ineradicable contradiction in the religious history of Europe.

The topic of the Green Man survived the collapse of ancient paganism, and even appeared again on the columns and the tympanums, or under the statues, of the Christian churches in the West. We have the samee kind of handing down in the Hortus deliciarum by Herrad of Landsberg.

For Hraban Maur, these leaves symbolized the sins of the flesh, and the representations of green men in the churches were consequently these of men or women doomed to eternal damnation, because of their lust.

Bernard of Clairvaux will deplore the use of these ludicrous representations in the ornamentation of the monasteries depending on Cluny.

What is interesting to note in these two great personalities of Christianity, it is the explicit link between nature and sin.

However, in the thirteenth century, Villard de Honnecourt, in his famous treatise on architecture, will draw many heads and foliaceous or grassy masks, and will recommend their representation on the architectural elements of the religious buildings. This example will be quickly followed by the Germans, who will make engrave a lot of leafy heads in the stone in Mainz, Maria Laach, Aschaffenburg, etc.

In the cathedral of Bamberg, a majestic and particularly enigmatic leafy mask, is represented for example on the bottom of a famous statue, called the Horseman. This mask would be the hidden part, the dark face of the horseman in question. For Kathleen Basford, this remainder of the pagan ornamentation reminds of the kings of the May, and the idea of a rebirth of nature after the Celtic Festival of Beltene, even the luxuriant eternity of fertile nature. But it is also the picturesque expression of the silva daemonium, in spite of its frequent use in Christian architecture.

Undoubtedly, there is indeed ambivalence: the green men are sometimes beautiful, luminous and spring, sometimes twisted, contorted and ugly. The choice of a carefully studied ugliness will end besides up overcoming gradually and we will see, over time, the grimaces and the distortions to increase, then virgins trampling underfoot these leafy masks like they trampled formerly the serpent. Kathleen Basford sees in this appearance of the virgins trampling underfoot the Green Man, the figure of the tempter, from the Tree of Life, crushed by the light of faith. And the leafy mask represents the nature, therefore well placed below the horseman , Christian light bearer. The Church thus developed

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many efforts to erase this memory of the former worships. But the drawings and the explanations of Villard de Honnecourt, the beautiful representations of leafy masks in Aschaffenburg, Ebrach, Mainz, Marburg, Bristol, Southwell… prove that this Green Man still had a great place in the Europe of the Middle Ages.

In the fourteenth century, when it becomes more contorted, more alarming for the imagination of the naive excessively pious people, or when he sticks out his tongue, like in Ely (close to Cambridge), in South Tawton, in Norwich, in Queen Camel; he gives evidence of the progress of the Inquisition and witnesses a deliberate offensive against the ancestral religiosity tinged with naturalism or pantheism, because we generally find representations of the Green Man in the churches or other ecclesiastical buildings of this type.

In Great Britain the foliaceous heads or masks are become again fashionable in the 19th century (it is a common pattern which decorates as many churches as signs of pubs). And this decorative motif again appeared on many buildings as well religious as civil. It was also in vogue among the Australian stone masons and we find many specimens of it on the religious or secular buildings. The American architects did likewise in that time.

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ELEMENTALS OF MEDICINAL HERBS.

Each “magic “ (sic) or medicinal plant, had its elemental. That the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) believed in the existence of these soul/minds of nature, results from the quotations of Pliny relating to the way in which they gathered certain plants.

“Similar to savin is the herb known as "selago." Care is taken to gather it without the use of iron, the right hand being passed for the purpose on the left side of the tunic, as though the gatherer were in the act of committing a theft. The clothing too must be white, the feet bare and washed clean, and a sacrifice of bread and wine must be made before gathering it: the plant is also carried in a new napkin. The druids of continental Celtica have pretended that it should be carried about the person as a preservative against accidents of all kinds, and that the smoke of it is extremely good for all maladies of the eyes. The druids, also, have given the name of "samolus" to a certain plant which grows in humid localities. This too, they say, must be gathered fasting with the left hand, as a preservative against the maladies to which swine and cattle are subject. The person, too, who gathers it must make pretense not to look it by gathering it, nor must it be laid anywhere but in the troughs from which the cattle drink “ (Pliny, Natural history, XXIV, 103-104).

Among the Romans there is no plant that enjoys a more extended renown than hierabotane, known to some persons as "peristereon," and among us more generally as "verbenaca."….There are two varieties of it: the one that is thickly covered with leaves is thought to be the female plant; that with fewer leaves, the male… The people in the Celtic provinces on the Continent make use of them both for soothsaying purposes, and for the prediction of future events but it is the magicians more particularly that give utterance to such ridiculous follies in reference to this plant. Persons, they tell us, if they rub themselves with it will be sure to gain the object of their desires; and they assure us that it keeps away fevers, conciliates friendship, and is a cure for every possible disease; they say, too, that it must be gathered about the rising of the Dog-star—but so as not to be shone upon by sun or moon—and that honeycombs and honey must be first presented to the earth by way of expiation. They tell us also that a circle must first be traced around it with iron *; after which it must be taken up with the left hand, and raised aloft, care being taken to dry the leaves, stem, and root, separately in the shade. To these statements they add, that if the banqueting hall [Latin triclinium] is sprinkled with water in which it has been steeped **, merriment and hilarity will be greatly promoted thereby. As a remedy for the stings of serpents, this plant is bruised in wine (Natural History, XXV, chapter LIX).

Upon this occasion we must not omit to mention the admiration that is lavished upon this plant by the continental Celts. The druids—for that is the name they give to their magicians— held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it, supposing always that tree to be the [oak variety quercus] robur . The [oak or quercus] robur is the tree of which are formed their sacred groves, and they perform none of their religious rites without employing branches of it; so much so, that it is very probable that the priests themselves may have received their name from the Greek name for that tree. In fact, it is the notion with them that everything that grows on it has been sent immediately from heaven, and that the mistletoe upon it is a proof that the tree has been selected by the god himself as an object of his especial favor. The mistletoe, however, is but rarely found upon the oak quercus robur; and when found, is gathered with rites replete with religious awe. This is done more particularly the day before every sixth moon [in Latin ante omnia sexta luna], the day which is the beginning of their months and years, as also of their ages, which, with them, are but thirty years. This day they select because the moon, though not yet in the middle of her course, has already considerable power and influence; and they call her by a name which signifies, in their language, the all-healing. Having made all due preparation for the sacrifice and a banquet beneath the trees, they bring thither two white bulls, the horns of which are bound then for the first time. Clad in a white robe the priest ascends the tree, and cuts the mistletoe with a golden voulge [in Latin falx], which is received by others in a white cloak [Latin sagum]. They then immolate the victims, offering up their prayers that god will render this gift of his propitious to those to whom he has so granted it. It is the belief with them that the mistletoe, taken in drink, will impart fecundity to all animals that are barren, and that it is an antidote for all poisons. Such are the religious feelings which we find entertained towards trifling objects among nearly all nations (Natural History XVI, chapter XCV).

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Commentary.

The mind of man is mobile, but not that of the plants. If you manage to be connected with a plant and to use it , then it can grant to you the permission to take from it a little of “living “. If a plant is torn off brutally, it withdraws its soul/mind from the part which is cut off thus and we have only deadwood in our hands. To get some living , we therefore need the permission of the plant in question, which then gives up a little of its soul/mind in the fragment of it we take. It is at least what we can by contrast deduce from this quotation of Pliny concerning the gathering of the plants called samolus and selago.

The magic has no anti-natural or contrary to nature order effects, because it is always only a use of elementary or elemental forces, ordering nature or depending on it.

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ELEMENTALS OF TREES.

“Thank God Almighty, the more than 150-year-old tree that people worshipped instead of God has been removed” (declaration of a Syrian or foreign jihadist of ISIL, in every case linked to Al Quaeda, on November 21st 21013, after having cut down with a chainsaw a splendid more than centenary oak which grew there proudly, in Atmeh, a village in the north of Syria at the Turkish border ( twitter account “Our call is our jihad”).

Frightened by the lack of intelligence or of comprehension of our common human nature, that such a misdeed reveals, by the incredible and heinous stupidity in the name of Allah of the religious fanatics * (what is not without pointing out the destruction of the famous gigantic stone Buddhas, in Bamiyan, carried out by the Afghan Taliban in 2001), some precise details in connection with the druidic point of view about the question because, without going as far as to espouse all the theses of our friends of Findhorn, we can nevertheless say this.

Trees and forest were the first children resulting from the union of the Celestial Fire and of the universal raw Material. The Earth owes them much since they absorb the carbon dioxide and reject the oxygen necessary to the advanced life which we know. Over and above the fact that their role of essential food for men as for animals, as their importance in phytotherapy.

Previously the tree was a symbol of connection between the physical world in which its roots are implanted , and the spiritual world (symbolized by the sky) towards which its branches go up. The ancient druids knew the trees in the deepest sense of the word, and dedicated to them a true worship as intermediaries with the celestial world. Before our civilization deforests the European continent massively, they recognized to each variety of tree specific properties or qualities.

The tree is the manifestation of a certain form of life. Its appearance and its growth, supported by water, the annual or continuous renewal of its foliage, the prolonged persistence of certain varieties, are as many phenomena charged with mystery. The trees, the magic forests, just like plants (sic) remained a long time in favor among Celts. In Ireland, each tribe has its “tree of the world “, planted in its center, where the victorious enemy will hasten to come to cut down it. Is it this tree that we see lying, on the warrior plate of the cauldron of Gundestrup?

In Lutetia, we see on a public building a tree to the branches of which cut heads are suspended. These naturist worships were extremely long-lived. Sulpicius Severus, in his Life of St Martin, reports back a miracle achieved at the time of the felling of a pine contiguous to a pagan temple. In the same way, we can read in the Life of saint Amator, bishop of Auxerre, that the future St Germain suspended to a pine of a great beauty the heads of the animals he had killed in hunting.

Here the texts in question.

Life of saint Martin of Tours (second half of the 4th century).

“Again, when in a certain village he had demolished a very ancient temple, and had set about cutting down a pine tree, which stood close to the temple, the chief priest of that place, and a crowd of other heathens began to oppose him. And these people, though, under the influence of the Lord, they had been quiet while the temple was being overthrown, could not patiently allow the tree to be cut down. Martin carefully instructed them that there was nothing sacred in the trunk of a tree, and urged them rather to honor God whom he himself served. He added that there was a moral necessity why that tree should be cut down, because it had been dedicated to a demon. Then one of them who was bolder than the others [a druid?] says, “If you have any trust in thy God, whom you say you worship, we ourselves will cut down this tree, and be it your part to receive it when falling; for if, as you declare, your Lord is with you, you will escape all injury.” Then Martin, courageously trusting in the Lord, promises that he would do what had been asked. Upon this, all that crowd of heathen agreed to the condition named; for they held the loss of their tree a small matter, if only they got the enemy of their religion buried beneath its fall. Accordingly, since that pine tree was hanging over in one direction, so that there was no doubt to what side it would fall on being cut, Martin, having been bound, is, in accordance with the decision of these pagans, placed in that spot where, as no one doubted, the tree was about to fall. They began, therefore, to cut down their own tree, with great glee and joyfulness, while there was at some distance a great multitude of wondering spectators. And now the pine tree began to totter, and to threaten its own ruin by falling. The monks at a distance grew pale, and, terrified by the danger ever coming nearer, had lost all hope and confidence, expecting only the death of Martin. But he, trusting in the Lord, and waiting courageously, when now the falling pine had uttered its expiring crash, while it was now falling, while it was just rushing upon him, simply holding up his

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hand against it, he put in its way the sign of salvation. Then, indeed, after the manner of a spinning top (one might have thought it driven back), it swept round to the opposite side, to such a degree that it almost crushed the rustics, who had taken their places there in what was deemed a safe spot. Then truly, a shout being raised to heaven, the heathen were amazed by the miracle, while the monks wept for joy; and the name of Christ was in common extolled by all. The well-known result was that on that day salvation came to that region. For there was hardly one of those immense multitudes of heathens who did not express a desire for the imposition of hands, and abandoning his impious errors, made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus. Of course, before the times of Martin, very few, nay, almost none, in those regions had received the name of Christ; but through his virtues and example that name has prevailed to such an extent, that now there is no place thereabouts which is not filled either with very crowded churches or monasteries. For wherever he destroyed heathen temples, there he used immediately to build either churches or monasteries” (Sulpicius Severus, Life of St Martin, 13; taken over in verses by Paulinus of Perigueux and Fortunatus).

You may, of course, remain extremely skeptic in connection with this miracle which seems completely to be “arranged “. Let us not forget that at the time Christianity having become State religion, Martin therefore often made himself “helped” by the legionaries of the Roman prefect of the province in question. All that resembles rather one of the innumerable aggressions of the Christian Taliban (Parabolans) against all those who did not think like them. Love religion has its limits nevertheless! In any case, a thing is sure, ecology was not the strength of saint Martin, either the tolerance! Idem for the future saint Amatre of Auxerre.

“Now there was a pine tree in the middle of the city, of a most pleasing delightfulness. On its branches Germanus used to hang the heads of the beasts caught by him, to win applause for his great hunting. Amator, the distinguished bishop of the same city, often used to urge him with the following utterances: "I beg you, most illustrious gentleman, stop pursuing this foolishness, which is odious to Christians and worthy of imitation by pagans. This is an act of idolatrous worship, not of dignified Christian tradition." And although the worthy man of God continued unceasingly, nevertheless Germanus was by no means willing to agree or to obey his advice. The man of the Lord again and again exhorted him not only to stop this evil custom which he had taken up, but also to destroy the tree itself, lest it be an object of resentment to Christians. But Germanus was to no degree willing to lend a kindly ear to Amator's advice.

Around the time of this attempt at persuasion, one day the aforementioned Germanus departed from the city to his own estates. Then the blessed Amator, waiting for the opportunity, cut down the accursed tree with its roots. Lest it serve as a reminder to the unbelievers, he at once ordered the tree to be burned with fire. What hung down and served as a reminder of his deeds or of a trophy of his hunt, as it were, he ordered thrown far from the city walls “(Stephen the African, Vita Sancti Amatoris episcopi Altisiodorensis, Life of St Amateur IV, 24).

Once again, same intolerant aggression from the Christian sect of which overall love doesn't bear much really and which feels offended by the simple continuation of practices or habits of the hunters of the time (to hang one’s trophies to a tree in front of one’s house instead of exhibiting them in one’s living room).

It is true that much is not necessary so that the Christians of this time, like the Muslims of today, feel “offended “(sic).

And the unlucky farmers attacked by St Martin to whom probably they had done nothing, but coming nevertheless to destroy their temple; of which kind of “offense “ (again-sic) they should have complained, themselves? The bishop of the Christian sect in Auxerre did nothing but deploy the same intolerance, the Christian slavish flattery towards the powerful ones of this world in addition, since the future St Germanus was then governor of the city: “O most illustrious gentleman, etc. “ he said then while speaking to Germanus.

* Abul al-Ala al-Ma'arri : “ The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: Those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains .” For the record druidicists are not men of one book but

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of 33 like the Fenians. They therefore have a brain and spirituality, among them faith is informed by reason (John Toland).

NOTES OF PETER DELACRAU FOUND ON A LOOSE LEAF BY HIS CHILDREN.

Several names of Celtic people are derived from a stem designating a plant: the names of the Eburones and Eburovices (Evreux) contain that of the yew, tree always green [even in winter, they prove that the blooming of Nature is invincible]; that of the Lemovices (city of Limoges) is attached to the name of the elm.

Ireland is not lacking in proper nouns of the same type: son of the Wood, Alder, Sorb Tree, Hazel Tree, Thorn or Holly.

Crowns in oak leaves in any case often accompany the figurations or the dedications to the Celtic “Mars “i.e., to the teutates of the tribes.

The elemental of wood in general is often compared to the Latin god-or-demon Silvanus (Sylvan).

In Saint-Beat in France (department of the Haute-Garonne) this god-or-demon is represented old, squat, bearded and with a mustache , dressed in a short sleeved double tunic; and holding with a hand a bill hook, with the other a pot or a purse. It is not there the aspect of the classical traditional Silvanus. The figure which is given here to Silvan is that of the average Celt.

- Bilios. Bile in Gaelic language is the Irish term designating a sacred tree but also by extension a great warrior. It is also the tree/axis of the world (s) like Irminsul among the Saxons. Irminsul was either a tree, perhaps an oak, or a totemic branchless trunk - to see French “bille and habiller“- or carved; analog with the simulacra or arcana (Sanskrit word meaning statue) of the mysterious forest described by Lucan in the surroundings of Marseilles (perhaps today the forest of the Sainte Baume).The Bilios is the tree of the world, which rises towards the sky and dances in the wind, while plunging its roots in the flesh of the earth and while being watered there with her water.

Rudolf of Fulda (dead in 865), to whom we owe most complete description of Irminsul, reports in the chapter III of his hagiography entitled “De miraculis sancti Alexandri “, what follows about it . They also worshipped as divine the trunk of a tree of no small size, set on high, calling it in their own language “Irminsul,” which in Latin means

“universal column,” as if it holds everything up. It is often reported besides that Charlemagne made fun of the belief according to which Irminsul prevented the sky from falling and that he saw thus a reason to attack it.

- Cranus. Elemental of the wood, known by an inscription found in Thetford (Norfolk) which makes it a faun: Faunus Cranus. Perhaps also endowed with divinatory capacities.

- Naria. The Lady. A she elemental of the forests. In fact, a triad. Known by two inscriptions. The first found in Muri in Switzerland, where a statuette of goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer to use this term, out of bronze, was discovered; the second in Neuveville, still in Switzerland, where she is combined with goddess-or-demoness or fairy, Nousantia.

NORIAE NOVSANTIAE T FRONTIN HIBERNVS: To the goddesses Norias Nousantias. Titus Frontinus Hibernius.

Nousantia was therefore one of the goddess-or-demoness of this triad, one of the three aspects of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Naria, and she had perhaps divinatory or oracular capacities, she too. From the Celtic *novio- (new), and *sanesso- (secret piece of advice).

- Narius. The Lord. An elemental of the forests. Known by an inscription found at Thetford in Norfolk. Thirty-three silver spoons were also discovered there. Many of these spoons were dedicated to the Roman god-or-demon Faunus, but three were dedicated to the god-or-demon Faunus Narius. He also appears in Mackwiller, in the department of the Bas-Rhin, in France where he is combined with the god-or-demon Intarabus. The equating of this Narius to the Latin Faun through interpretatio romana, makes him an elemental of the forests, endowed with of oracular capacities. From the Celtic *nario- (lord).

- Perta. Elemental of the coppices (a sacred grove?) known by an inscription discovered at Uchaud in the Gard department. From -qu old Celtic : kwert. Its name is found in that of Perth in Scotland (a temple had to be devoted to it in North Inch).

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More particular elementals.

- The elemental of such or such forest. There was often a mix-up, of course, between the elemental of the ground in question (mountainous massif, or other) and the elemental of the forest cover covering it. For example, in the case of the god-or-demon Vosegus/Vosagos. The Gallo-Roman inscriptions inform us that the god-or-demon Vosegus represents as well the Vosgian Forest as the relief of the massif.

- The elemental of the sacred grove.

A sacred grove can be deified under the literal name of “god Six-trees “. Latin sexarbores, Old Celtic suexprennes.

- The elemental of the poplar. A curious legend that the Greeks reported to us evokes the fairies or the nymphs of the poplars.

Variant of the expedition of the Argonauts according to Apollonius of Rhodes (book fourth).

“ And far on sped Argo under sail, entered deep into the stream of Eridanus; where once, smitten on the breast by the blazing bolt, Phaethon half-consumed fell from the chariot of the sun Into the opening of that deep lake; and even now it belches up heavy steam clouds from the smoldering wound.

No bird spreading its light wings can cross that water. All around the maidens, the daughters of the sun, enclosed in tall poplars,wretchedly wail a piteous plaint; from their eyes they shed on the ground bright drops of amber. These are dried by the sun upon the sand; but whenever the waters of the dark lake flow over the strand before the blast of the wailing wind, then they roll on in a mass into Eridanus with swelling tide. The Celts have attached this story to them that these are the tears of Leto's son, Apollo,

that are borne along by the eddies, the countless tears that he shed aforetime when he came to the sacred race of the Hyperboreans and left shining heaven at the chiding of his father, being in wrath concerning his son whom divine Coronis bare in bright Lacereia near the river Amyrus.

But no desire for food or drink seized the heroes nor were their thoughts turned to joy. But they were sorely afflicted all day, heavy and faint at heart, with the noisome stench, hard to endure, which the streams of Eridanus sent forth from Phaethon still burning; and at night they heard the piercing lament of the daughters of the sun, wailing with shrill voice; and, as they lamented, their tears were born on the water like drops of oil “.

It is, of course, completely false! Amber is not a product of the poplar. But the fact remains that it is a beautiful story.

- The elemental of oaks.

Dervonnai, Cassanai or Caxsanai (they are feminine plurals). Cf. inscriptions like Fatis or Matribus dervonibus [or caxsanibus. Editor’s note]. The dervones [fatae] or the dervonnae [matronae] are kinds of nymphs of trees in North Italy. The eating of acorns in order to be inspired at the time of dreams which follow goes in this direction (Lucan: Dryadae glandibus comestis divinare fuerant consueti). We know how much the trees - and particularly the oak - were revered among Celts. The famous account that Pliny made of the gathering of the mistletoe by druids, specifies that Celts see in the mistletoe a sign of the election of the tree by the god himself (Natural history, XVI, 249).

- The elemental of the sessile oak (Rouos).

We know close to Angouleme in France the existence of a worship of the sessile oak , under the Latin name of “deus Robur “.

- The elemental of the beech: Bagos.

But there is also the feminine plural Baginatiail > Baginaiiai. From where the name of the town of Bavay: Bagacon, Latin Bagacum, literally “Beech Grove “. The exact expression is “matres baginatae “. While coming closer to the Pyrenees, we find, on the other hand, several dedications for a beech god (“Fago Deo “in Latin).

- The elemental of the yew: Eburnicai (it is a feminine plural) matres (the inscription specifies, matres augustae eburnicae). To note. The Irish folklore mentions a Fer I or Yew Man. A divine harpist,

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remaining in a tree (a yew?) near or above a water fall. Brother (or probably son ) of Eogabal, and uncle (or probably father) of Grian and Aine. His music had the power to make people laugh, cry, or sleep, according to what he wanted.

- The elemental of the service tree? Alisanos/Alisaunus. Elemental of the service tree but not cliff elemental for certain authors. Alisanos is known by three inscriptions found in France. The first at Couchey in the Cote-d’Or, the second at Vievy still in the French department of the Cote-d’Or, the third in Aix-en-Provence.

- The elemental of the filbert or hazel tree. Callirius (coll in Gaelic language). Elemental of the wood, known by an inscription found in Camulodunum (Colchester). DEO SILVANO CALLIRIO D CINTVSMVS AERARIVS (for the god Silvanus Callirius, Decimus Cintusmus, bronze maker). The discovery of a bronze stag in the surroundings encourages thinking that it was to be also an elemental guard of the stags and stag hunters.

- The elemental of the apple tree. Abellio/Abelio. It is a somewhat solitary god-or-demon: we know to him neither partner nor companion. Caesar did not know his name. Many inscriptions relating to him found in the Upper Garonne valley. With enough of probability, Dyfed Lloyd Evans suggests that the name of Abellio is to be linked with apples, and that it would be therefore a god-or-demon of the type “Summer Lord “combined with apple maturity. Abalo meaning “apple “and aballo “the apple tree “. It is consequently possible to regard him as the Lord of the isle of Avalon, which we know the name means “apple orchard “ therefore to make him one of the many kings of the Celtic next world. Abellio is a god-or-demon of harmony in the broadest sense of the term, related to the named Afallach.

- The elemental of the willow: Salacea. Willow or water elemental known by an inscription found in Vienna in Austria, where it is honored in the company of Jupiter, Neptune, the nymphs, Danuvius and Agaunus. From the Celtic *salik-o.

- The elemental of boxwood. Buxenus. Known by an inscription found in Velleron in the French department of the Vaucluse: de [o] Marti Buxeno (for the god Mars Buxenus). Was to have also warlike aspects or at least in connection with war, since it was compared with Mars by interpretatio romana.

- The elemental of heather. Vroica/Uroica. The word will evolve then at the Roman time into *bruca, and will produce the word *brucaria (heather field). It is besides the latter word which will produce the French: bruyere (the place giving its name to the plant). The matres Vroicae/Uroicae are consequently a way of personifying the soul/mind of this plant, in the way of our friends of Findhorn (who would speak rather of deva in this case, it is true).

- The elemental of the malt to make beer. Braciaca. Stupidly combined with the god-or-demon Mars by Romans. Known by an inscription found at the castle of Haddon Hall, Derby, in Derbyshire: DEO MARTI BRACIACAE Q. SITTIUS CAECILIANUS… to the god-or-demon Mars Braciaca, Quintus Sittius Caecilianus…

The association with the god-or-demon Mars, through interpretatio romana, rises from the practices of time (euphoria of the fight, warlike fury, etc.): people drank much before going to the battle.

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PROGRESS REPORT IN THE SCALING OF OUR MOUNTAIN OF SACRED THINGS.

What we have just said of the elementals evoked above therefore shows that they are originally and quite simply, if we can say, expressions of Domna Litavis, the Mother-Earth. But the current of the History, according to a well-known upward mechanism, made them little by little going up from the bottom of the earth up to its surface, where they became the soul/minds of water and plants. The places of their epiphanies in general betray their origin clearly. They indeed generally appear on mountains close to cracks and torrents, on the innumerable fairies dolmens or in deepest of the forests, at the edge of a cave, of an abyss, a fairy chimney. Or close to a howling large river or at the edge of a spring, even of a well.

Obviously, this love of nature, rivers, and trees, the Christians, them, that annoyed them, they therefore did everything to eradicate it at our latitudes. Example: Council of Arles, 451 or 452.

“If in the territory of a bishop infidels light torches or venerate trees,fountains or stones, and he neglects to abolish this usage, he must know that he is guilty of sacrilege. If the director of the act itself, on being admonished, refuses to correct it, he is to be excluded from communion” . Until where religion will not go to tuck itself???

If we examine very closely tales and legends relating to the fairies, it appears well that this creature takes part in the supernatural one, because her life is continuous; and not discontinuous like ours, or that of any alive thing in this world. Here is the reason why Melusina, on Saturdays, leaves her human husband and asks him not to seek to see her, to respect her secret. It is necessary to her indeed, to leave human appearance in order to take that of a serpent, animal symbol of eternal life. Melusine is alternatively a woman and a serpent, in the same way the snake changes its skin to renew itself indefinitely. So the fairies appear only in an intermittent way, as through eclipses, although they remain in themselves in a permanent way.

Repetere = ars docendi. As Napoleon said it, repetition is strongest of the rhetorical figures. Since the Quran too often repeats itself, let us not hesitate to give again here what we already mentioned above of the fairies in the former druidism.

These good fairies of the average Celt of Antiquity seem to be called upon in Narbonnese and Lyonss under the name of Matres and in the Rhenish provinces under the name of Matronae. There is nevertheless between the fairies of matres type and the fairies of matronae type, the same difference as between a father and an owner. In the first case there is filiation biological, in the second case it is only a spiritual even social filiation or subordination. The French historian Camille Jullian classes them in four main categories.

A) Those who are assigned to a detail of the nature, which can be a mountain or a forest, even some , but especially of the springs. The ending nehae indicates the watery nature of the fairies in question. We can thus regard as spring fairies the Matronae Cuchaeneae (C.I.L. XIII, 7923,24), Rumanehae (C.I.L. XIII, 7869-8027, 28), Vesuniahenae (C.I.L. XIII, 7850,54,7925), Albiahenae (C.I.L. XIII, 7933-36) in Rhenish countries; the Matres Gerudatiae (C.I.L. XII, 505), Almahae (C.I.L. XII, 330), Ubelnae (C.I.L. XII, 333) in Narbonnese; the Matres Augustae Eburnicae, in Lugdunense (Epigraphic Review, III, page 49, n° 1220).

C) Those who constitute the genies of the family, the fairies of matres mopates or nedsamae type, who are in a way some Madonnas and child , and whose relationship with fertility, fruitfulness, or family, is obvious.

D)Those who preside over certain facts of the human life. Originally, moreover, it was a personification, of the neutral fate. But the very fullness of the great cosmic law of which they are the representation will prevent, thereafter, that people continue to identify them with the personified Universal Including of the popular worships. The fairies of matres type were also a limitation

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compared to infinity , in spite of this personalization in the form of a triad “past-present-future “ of which we find trace almost everywhere.

Lastly, a fairy of the type matra or matrona type was seldom isolated; generally she is represented with two she companions, one on her right, the other on her left, but each one was to have her personality and could have her own worship. An inscription found Carnoules and Pierrefeu in the French department of the Var, was even dedicated to the third of the fairies of the local triad, Trittia.

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ANIMAL OR HUMAN SOUL/MINDS (EGREGORES) KNOWN AS TEUTATES.

Toutatis or teutates is a word of Celtic origin, but it is by no means the case of the modern term of egregore which succeeded to it, of course: it has a Latin or Greek etymology.

Ex = outgoing from, gregs, gregis = herd, crowd, with ending - or. The egregore is therefore the active result, or the thing risen from the action, of a crowd. Alternative etymology: the Greek: “egregorein/egregoros “what means to watch/watcher has two meanings. It is on one hand the name of an angel fallen on the Mount Hermon in the Jewish legends, and, on the other hand, an occultist concept of which approximate definition is that of “collective being “.

The word referred then to a “personification “of non-supernatural physical or psychophysical forces. The word is often also synonymous with thought/shape. The egregore is a psychic emanation very close to the matter in which the individual can draw a certain force. It is a setting in vibration with a tuning fork, always the same one. Every gathering of individuals forms an egregore. Either it is human or non-human! And the egregore is a reality like it or not! It is an entity which exists actually but it very difficult to visualize.

N.B. We will use here the same word, teutates, and for animals and for men, because man is ALSO an animal (what Le Bon notes about the cruelty of crowd shows it amply).

And in any event the Celts, considering the totemist or ecologist streak of their spirituality, simply saw the animals as lower brothers. From animals to men, there were for their druids a continuum, and not an epistemological cut like in the case of the Judeo-Islamic-Christianity.

The Frenchman Gustave Le Bon defined in his work entitled “ Psychology of crowds “ what it is necessary to understand through egregore.

“In its ordinary sense the word "crowd" means a gathering of individuals of whatever nationality, profession, or gender, and whatever be the chances that have brought them together. From the psychological point of view the expression "crowd" assumes quite a different signification. Under certain given circumstances, and only under those circumstances, an agglomeration of men presents new characteristics very different from those of the individuals composing it. The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory, but presenting very clearly defined characteristics. The gathering has thus become what, in the absence of a better expression, I will call an organized crowd, or, if the term is considered preferable, a psychological crowd. It forms a single being, and is subjected to the law of the mental unity of crowds “.

The “Psychological crowd “can be made up only of some brought together people or of an entire nation, mentally united by a national event of prime importance. What makes the “psychological crowd “ it is a psychic shock which changes the individuals into a collective being endowed with a mental unity. The substrate of this unity is the “mental constitution “of the nation, “the soul of the race “from which the crowd is resulting; but “the soul of crowds “also varies “according to the nature and intensity of the exciting causes to which crowds are subjected “. These exciting causes are the number, the mental contagion, and finally the suggestion. The number gives to the individual as a crowd a feeling of “ invincible power which allows him to yield to instincts which, had he been alone, he would perforce have kept under restraint. He will be the less disposed to check himself from the consideration that, a crowd being anonymous, and in consequence irresponsible, the sentiment of responsibility which always controls individuals disappears entirely “.

The mental contagion is what urge the individual to make like the others, even if this behavior is obviously contrary with its interest. The suggestion comes under hypnotic phenomena. “The conscious personality has entirely vanished; will and discernment are lost. All feelings and thoughts are bent in the direction determined by the hypnotist, “. The influence of a suggestion can launch the individual as a crowd “ towards the accomplishment of certain acts with irresistible impetuosity “.

The individual as a crowd “is no longer himself, but has become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will, “. “Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian -- that is, a creature acting by instinct. He possesses the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive being “. The “Psychological crowd “is credulous. Like the women [sic, it is the opinion of Le Bon ] and the children, the “psychological crowd “ believes the most incredible things, it is that it thinks through images and that therefore it is its imagination it is necessary

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to impress. “ This is why it happens that it is always the marvelous and legendary side of events that more specially strike crowds. When a civilization is analyzed it is seen that, in reality, it is the marvelous and the legendary that are its true supports. Appearances have always played a much more important part than reality in history, where the unreal is always of greater moment than the real “.

The images most likely to impress crowds are the simple and strong images. “ Whatever strikes the imagination of crowds presents itself under the shape of a startling and very clear image, freed from all accessory explanation, or merely having as accompaniment a few marvelous or mysterious facts: examples in point are a great victory, a great miracle, a great crime, or a great hope. Things must be laid before the crowd as a whole, and their genesis must never be indicated. A hundred petty crimes or petty accidents will not strike the imagination of crowds in the least, whereas a single great crime or a single great accident will profoundly impress them, even though the results be infinitely less disastrous than those of the hundred small accidents put together.

This is why “given to exaggeration in its feelings, a crowd is only impressed by excessive sentiments. An orator wishing to move a crowd must make an abusive use of violent affirmations “. “To know the art of impressing the imagination of crowds is to know at the same time the art of governing them “.

It is necessary to proceed by assertion, to resort to the repetition, and to use one’s personal prestige.

It is necessary to distinguish homogeneous crowd from heterogeneous crowd, anonymous and non-anonymous crowd, as well as the electoral crowd.

The customers of a department store who rush towards the exit during the beginning of a fire, constitute for example an anonymous heterogeneous crowd; a jury of an Assize court a non-anonymous heterogeneous crowd; the religious or political sects homogeneous, anonymous or not anonymous, crowd ; electoral crowd, which is heterogeneous and anonymous, being characterized by the fact that it is not necessarily made up of individuals brought together physically in the same place.

Political realities.

“. It was improbable that a Galilean carpenter should become for two thousand years an all-powerful God in whose name the most important civilizations were founded; improbable, too, that a few bands of Arabs, emerging from their deserts, should conquer the greater part of the old Graco-Roman world, and establish an empire greater than that of Alexander; improbable, again, that in Europe, at an advanced period of its development, and when authority throughout it had been systematically hierarchized, an obscure first lieutenant of artillery (Bonaparte) should have succeeded in reigning over a multitude of peoples and kings.”

“Let us leave reason, then, to philosophers, and not insist too strongly on its intervention in the governing of men. It is not by reason, but most often in spite of it, that are created those sentiments that are the mainsprings of all civilization -- sentiments such as honor, self-sacrifice, religious faith, patriotism, and the love of glory.”

Editor’s note. People criticized this author much by making him a precursor of Nazism. It is true, of course, that he shared the prejudices of his time and of many people still nowadays, including in the rows of antiracism, about races.

What conditions the structure of the collective unconscious of a nation, its “mental constitution “ it is the “historical race “to which it belongs.

But for Le Bon , according to whom there are no longer pure races in the civilized countries, it is necessary to understand by race a common culture and traditions based on “hereditary accumulations “.

And “ in spite of all the difficulties attending their working, parliamentary assemblies are the best form of government mankind has discovered as yet, and more especially the best means it has found to escape the yoke of personal tyrannies“.

“ The parliamentary system represents the ideal of all modern civilized peoples. The system is the expression of the idea, psychologically erroneous, but generally admitted, that a large gathering of men is much more capable than a small number of coming to a wise and independent decision on a given subject “.

Le Bon is therefore not hostile to the vote for all, and gives even pieces of advice to the candidates.

“It is of primary importance that the candidate should possess prestige. Personal prestige can only be replaced by that resulting from wealth. Talent and even genius are not elements of success of serious importance. Of capital importance, on the other hand, is the necessity for the candidate of possessing prestige, of being able, that is, to force himself upon the electorate without discussion.”

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It is easy to understand that there exist egregores of all kinds (egregores or animal soul/minds, the egregore or soul/mind of a pack of wolves, the egregore of a group of human beings in prayer, the egregore of a Pakistani crowd demonstrating against blasphemy,and so on…) But an egregore is neither good nor bad, it is an energy of thought or feeling, that’s all.

See an egregore request a great capacity to visualize… the visualization can be done in two manners; or in groups, or alone. If it is done with several persons, the group must be very united, everyone must know oneself, and to rely perfectly on the other. There is to be rather strong bonds of friendship. Harmony is very important in group visualization, it is really necessary to be on “the same wavelength “to be able to succeed in doing one thing.

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ANIMAL TEUTATES OR EGREGORES.

As we have just seen it, an egregore or animal soul/mind is the presence of a powerful force, caused then supported by thought, desires, and emotions, of many individuals, brought together in a common intention. This alive force then has a certain form of autonomy and awareness. It is about an energy field at the same time mental, emotional, and instinctive. The members of the group generate the animal soul/mind in which they are melted, as it is formed. Le Bon showed the phenomenon very well as regards human beings. The action is consequently reciprocal: the individuals feed the animal soul/mind in question and the latter acts on them. The power of this animal soul/mind is depending on the number of individuals who keep it as well as on the intensity of their commitment in the common project. For example, the tracking of prey, or the escape in order to survive. Human egregores being besides, in this respect, only a variety of animal soul/mind.

General information about the animal teutates of the Celts.

Caesar wrote quite a strange thing in connection with Bretons: “They do not regard it lawful to eat the hare, and the cock, and the goose; but they breed them for amusement and pleasure “(B.G. Book V, 12).

At the beginning, totemism was a whole of prohibitions concerning the animals and the plants. The clans could have different totems, to which they were identified fully. A violated taboo could start a merciless war. Admittedly, the taboos were applied to the objects which became untouchable then, but it is towards the animals that they were without any doubt to be observed with the greatest rigor. In the cosmogony of the peoples of the forest, the animals (the animal kingdom) were the offspring resulting from the marriage or from the union of the tree of the world and of the earth. Therefore some brothers of the human beings. Lower brothers, of course, but some brothers nevertheless.

The primeval prohibitions of the totemism received only subsequently their mystical charges. The rigorous prohibitions like the defense to destroy, or to eat, were reinforced by justification myths the purpose of which was to integrate them into a tangible reality, like invocations for assistance and help addressed to ancestors. The worship of ancestors therefore sometimes mixes with totemic worships and this, in perfect harmony. The high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) guarantee the respect of prohibitions and the achievement of the rituals. But worship of ancestors and totemism are to be distinguished completely from the worship of god-or-demons, whether they are solar, lunar, or terestrial.

The clan relationship appeared through the idea of a divine punishment which would strike those who dared to face the prohibitions. Most common Judeo-Islamic-Christian reaction in this respect was always imprinted with condescension, contempt, even hatred. Totemism was regarded as a jumble of barbarian superstitions, quite worthy of the intellectual incapacity of the Primitive one. The Churches drew from there excellent pretexts for the destruction or the control of the nations which align themselves with their bonds to nature.

But those who made fun or who still make fun with totemic taboos and fetishes,forget the kneeling, the prostration, and the veneration , of the Christians in front of the cross, also fetish itself; and their blind belief in the presence of their god-or-demon in the meal of commensality called Lord’s Supper(one of the reasons why Christianity was so easily spread out of the Jewish world is that the host is a perfect example of the presence of occult forces in a fetish). Such an attitude of refusal and mockery towards druidism is all the more aberrant in that to baptize a child to wash it from an alleged original sin is nothing less than an act of pure magic; even a superstition! Just like in the case of the true idolatry with which Islam surrounds the person of Muhammad (isma) as well as the collection of paper sheets called “Quran “.

There exist three categories of egregores or animal soul/minds.

- The animals which bring or symbolize a superhuman power (bear, bull, and others). All the animals have powers, but those which return most often in the human imagination are those which seem to have more for the time: dangerous animals for mankind or able to live in very hard conditions, etc.

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- The animals which are intermediaries between the supernatural worlds and the natural world.

- The psychopompous animals. The stag is for example a frontier runner of soul/minds. It is a psychopomp, a mystical driver. Admittedly, the stag impressed much our ancestors, but at the same time, it symbolized the osmosis or the harmony with nature… The stag is, by its antlers which grow again each year, the symbol of the revival of nature. Why not make it a deity, a founding myth?

The wild animal inspires to men repulsion or terror, but also a certain attraction and a very deep respect sometimes. It is known that the first cultural and pertaining to worship events of the prehistoric man were dedicated to the animal. The oldest burials as the oldest rock paintings as well as the pictograms refer to the animals as sacred guides between our world and the world parallel to ours, which we designate with the name of hereafter. The animals have a clear awareness of their place in the world, as well as of their tasks, and the instinct which guides them in a secure way is not disturbed by intellect. They are closer to the nature, from which we moved away.

People often speak about “animal deities “in connection with druidism: it is too general a concept, which covers rather various facts.

People can worship an animal as a symbol or temporary cover of the deity (theriolatriy/animal worship), or as the reincarnation of an ancestor (metempsychosis), or as an ancestor or a relative of the group to which they belong (totemism).

Among Romans, animal does not appear really to have been worshipped strictly speaking: the she-wolf of Romulus, the Capitoline geese, are sacred animals, one legendary, the others still reappearing; they are not deities.

Among Celts, apart from the Bull with three cranes (Tarvos trigaranos), it seems well that the worship of a normal animal was a rare thing. It is necessary to rid oneself of a too simple idea of the Celts who, “primitive “and barbarians, would have worshipped at the beginning some animals, then semi-animal, semi-human demons, lastly god-or-demons similar to men.

In reality, in the second Iron Age, Celtic people have individualized the god-or-demons for a long time, living like us in society; because the Indo-European word deiwos, which describes these superhuman beings, exists in Celtic language in the form devo-, equivalent of the Latin divus “luminous, celestial, divine “.

Conversely, the animal demons, far from having given way to more anthropomorphic deities, are still alive beside them in proto-historic Celtica, and will not cease proliferating even at the Roman time . It is then well necessary to explain their vitality in a way other than their membership to a “primitive “people.

One and the other show in fact the coexistence, rather than the succession, of lower forms and more advanced aspects of the divinity sense among the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht). The reason of these naturist worships appears simple to us: Man fears, reveres and beseeches, the forces outside him, which exceed him, and on which his life depends. Various physical superiorities, instinct, fruitfulness or sense of smell of the animals. The latter fascinate the human being as of childhood by their alive presence, the mysterious safety of their behavior, their trick, their prudence, or their ingeniousness. With Egypt, of which the zoomorphic deities astonished the Greeks, the Celtic countries are the only ones of the ancient world which made to the animals such a place in their devotion. For the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), it was, undoubtedly superior brothers and even more. A certain number of facts, whether they are names of men or tribes: Tarbelli (bull calves or bulls), Matugenos (son of a bear), Boduognatos (son of a crow); Brannogenos (son of a raven), and others; or some coins: these which represent a helmeted man-headed horse, or a wild boar treated in the same way (with a human head), obviously prove the close bonds which linked man to animals in this time.

According to certain anthropologists, these double beings of the Celtic imagination (man-headed animals) rather incarnate the mythical ancestors whose shamans assume the role at the time of ceremonies where they appear masked to resemble to them.

What is certain, it is that they are hidden powers, which were viewed thus and honored; some anonymous powers since they were known only through the behavior of dumb beings, deprived of reason, but some powers superior to us, in that, sometimes, we can draw from them appreciable benefit, sometimes generally we have to defend us against them.

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Two series of coins of the countries of the Seine River show, one, a pediment building - a temple obviously – of which a big horse from side occupies all the frontage; the other, the same monument and a big eagle full face, spread wings, which masks it partly.

The link between the animal and a pertaining to worship locale is therefore in this case, obvious.

The animal thus deified does not represent a particular animal, but the whole of the species, from where its force (each animal of this species feeding with its energy, the egregore, or more exactly the soul/mind which constitutes the totem animal). The animal soul/minds can help man in many ways: by providing to him psychic and physical energy, by increasing his strength, by increasing his mental promptness.

These animals are therefore only the representation, in an animal shape, of a force or energy. The selected animal shape reflecting the characteristics of the aforesaid energy. These characteristics are these of the collective soul/mind of the animal specie represented.

Besides according to the French neo-shaman Jean-Paul Bourre, various rituals made it possible to man to collect in his favor a little of the energy of these animal teutates. This relationship between mankind and animal increased the magic (sic) power of man, since he was supported by the soul/mind of the animal which waked up in him. Examples with the wolves (uolcogenoi: sons of wolves) with the bears (matugenoi: son of a bear), etc.

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A. THE DRAGON TAURISCUS/TARASKOS.

TARASKOS. An inscription found in Tarascon, French department of the Bouches-du-Rhone.

“The populations living the edges of the Rhone River, in South France, then underwent the furies of a monster which afflicted the campaigns and devoured men and cattle downstream from Avignon. It was a long-tailed dragon , of which the mouth reminded that of the bull and of which the back was protected by hairs which made it invulnerable. It was called Tauriscus, and it was supposed to come from the sea, or from the river water perhaps. The inhabitants of the country, terrorized, dared no longer to approach the den of this tauriscus, and even worshipped the monster in a frightened way, when the rumor of the miracles achieved by the hero called Hercules among Greeks, came to their attention. They beseeched this Celtic Hercules at once, Camulus Smertrius, who agreed to free them, went towards the monster, brought down it at once with blows of his bludgeon, and brought back its skin downtown. Tauriscus then became the symbol of the town of Tarascon; its image is reproduced on the coat of arms of the city; is carved on the frontage of its town hall, is engraved on its seals and its former coins.”

A trace of this ignored exploit from the Celtic Hercules was preserved to us by a short allusion of Timagenes of Alexandria, in Ammianus Marcellinus, History XV, 9-12.

“The natives of these countries affirm this more positively than any other fact (and, indeed, we ourselves have read it engraved on their monuments), that Hercules, the son of Amphitryon, hastening to the destruction of those cruel tyrants, Geryones and Tauriscus, one of whom was oppressing the continental Celtica, and the other Spain; after he had conquered both of them, took to wife some women of noble birth in those countries, became the father of many children; and that his sons called the districts of which they became the kings after their own names “.

Such is, in short, the legend. It could not fail to excite the curiosity of the scholars and to cause varied interpretations. The ones accept the letter of it and take it for historical truth. The rationalists like us, seek, with more or less probability, the origin of this story, in the distortion of historical events.

Without entering the controversy, we will notice that the reality of the fight of this Celtic Hercules (Camulus Smertrius) and of Tauriscus, appears very little plausible. And, especially, that similar legends, being different only through the historical framework, the name of the actors or the circumstances of the fight, are found elsewhere.

We are in the presence of the multiple forms of a myth similar to that of saint George (Taranis bringing down the gigantic anguipeds). Popular imagination ascribes to all the great heroes like as to all the saints, the same victory over the dragon, and this power to dominate the monsters therefore becomes a normal attribute of heroism or of holiness. It is necessary to see there an allegory or a symbol without taking literally the marvelous details of the legend. We do not intend to say by the way that these accounts are pure fictions and some tales good to get to sleep the small children. A symbol is the physical expression of a metaphysical reality, as the geometrical figures are the visible expression of abstract ideas.

As for the monster, its dragon’s tail and its mouth of devouring bull, indicate enough its igneous nature as its mode of action; its armor means that it cannot undergo ravage of the human weapons or of the forces of the physical world. The philosophers will recognize in it the blind power which moves all the springs of the physical world, either towards the good, or towards the evil.

When a man is combined with an animal, this one often takes a monstrous appearance, and clearly represents the forces of the evil against which it is necessary to give battle. The monster is the feeding earth, it devours men and animals after their death, the ground becomes enriched thus with the substance of the corpses. The wild beast swallows its victims to acquire force like the ground is fed with the putrefaction of the corpses to reconstitute itself. This myth is to be brought closer to the practice which consisted in feeding the underground god-or-demons with the corpses of animal or human victims.

The myth of the sauroctonos is one of the great topics of universal mythology. The sauroktonos is literally, a “killer of lizards, of saurians “in Greek. In other words, an exterminator of dragons.

In Celtic land, Camulus Smertrius, by bringing down the (ram-headed?) snake ousts the dark forces and makes the light worship triumphing. This Celtic Hercules is the very type of the sauroctonos. These worthy heroes have a savage and warlike aspect, they fight the enemies of our search for happiness and balance, and drive out our bad instincts. We recognize them through their distinctive signs, torcs, weapons, hides. Smetrtrius, represented with the bludgeon, is an energy god-or-demon (his equivalent is the Tibetan Buddhist god-or-demon Vajrapani, holder of the vajra).

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This myth symbolizes the dark, brutal, underground, forces, controlled by the civilization progress. It can also, and at the same time, symbolize the fight against the natural threats (floods, epidemics…), which endanger the community. It is necessary nevertheless to underline that it is less a question of killing, eliminating the beast, than to control it. To put the stole around its neck and to make the dragon gentle and obedient like a lamb, to force it to plunge at the seabed or to remain hidden under a rock. Because the forces it represents, so negative they are, take part in the economy of the world. And they have a role to play there, provided that they remain in their right place, in the telluric dark depths, in dynamic balance with the upward and celestial forces.

Some topics are regularly found combined with the accounts concerning the man-eaters monsters or the dragons of the tarasque type: the beast has its den in wild, marshy, easily flooded, zones, at the foot of a hill where it finds a underground refuge; the hero who triumphs over it is assisted by a thief or a condemned person who, representing the people, thus wins by his sides his pardon and his salvation; the beast, rather than to be slaughtered, is often sent back into the field which is reserved to it: into the hereafter, under ground or water, with an injunction to leave it no longer. There is like the need for marking its boundaries, while recognizing that the animal holds forces, terrible undoubtedly, but which can be useful, and that its energy can be harnessed.

The popular or literary traditions handed down to us some figures of monster killers, starting with the Breton king Arthur himself. Tristan cuts down the Morholt, and it is by destroying the dragon of Volcano Island that the magician Maugis, in France, conquers the horse Bayard. In Greece, Hercules is another example of them: by overcoming the Lernaean Hydra with multiple heads. The god-or-demon of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob (Yahweh), himself, does not escape the genre according to Isaiah (27, 1). “In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword— his fierce, great and powerful sword—Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent;he will slay the monster of the sea “.

Besides several Romanesque capitals will develop the same topic in France: the head of a character disappears in the mouth of an animal in Lubersac; in the church of Arnac, thewide open mouth of the monster contains a man who seems to want to leave it; in Beaulieu and Allassac, a similar capital shows the torture of a man, lengthened across the cushion, suffering from the bites of infernal animals.

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MEDIEVAL SURVIVALS.

Reminder.

Our conviction to us nevertheless, high-knowers of the druidiaction of today, it is that the “through anus fire-spitting” dragon of which it will be a question was never a monster having really existed (a kind of hybrid gigantic skunk ?) but a symbol representing or synthesizing the ancestral fears of Mankind. From where the Celtic myth of Camulus Smertrius bringing down Tauriscus, the fire-spitting (its venom) bullheaded snake.

As for the Nerluc of the Christian (golden) legends, it is, of course, more a “Black Wood” than a “Black Lake,” a “Black Wood” perhaps similar to the mysterious forest of the surroundings of Marseilles described by Lucan. This forest also haunted by spitting-fire dragons having been also thereafter in the same way combined with Martha ( The Sainte Baume) it will be not without interest therefore to make a quotation about it also.

“Not far from the town stood a grove

Which from the earliest time

No hand of man had dared to violate;

Stood in the shade of a north-facing side

By its matted boughs entwined it clasped

Darkness and frozen shades.

No rustic Pans here found a home,

Nor sylvan nor even nymphs

But savage rites and barbarous worship,

Altars horrible on bleak mounds raised up;

Sacred with blood of men was every tree.

If faith be given to credulous ancient times,

No fowl has ever dared to rest upon those branches,

And no beast has made his lair beneath:

The wind never falls down in this grove

Nor lightning flashes upon it from the cloud.

Stagnant the air, unmoving,

Yet the leaves filled with mysterious trembling;

Dripped the streams from coal-black fountains;

Sinister effigies of gods [Latin simulacra],

Scarcely fashioned, appear on fallen trunk

And, pallid with decay, their rotting shapes

Struck terror.

Because the men fear less the deities

Of whom the effigies are them familiar,

So much adds to terror the fact not know the gods.

It was said that caves rumbled with earthquakes,

That the prostrate yew rose up again;

That fiery tongues of flame gleamed in the forest depths,

Yet were the trees not kindled;

And those dragons in frequent folds were coiled around the trunks.

Men flee the spot

Nor dare to worship near:

Even the priest

Or when bright Phoebus holds the height,

Or when dark night controls the heavens,

In anxious dread draws near the grove

And fears to find its lord” (Lucan)

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It is to be wondered if, in this legend of the Tarascon’s dragon , Saint Martha does not represent Christianity triumphing over paganism and this Christian Golden Legend is only perhaps a local adaptation of such a myth (our ancestors had much imagination).

There exist nevertheless authors convinced that there was well behind this history a monster having really existed.

Let us give them the floor.

“Pseudo-Marcilia “ “Speculum Historiae “ as “Golden Legend “ are the main medieval texts dealing with the subject. Our three texts are in conformity as for the pseudo-genealogy of the Beast. The dragon of Tarascon, according to them, would have been born from the coupling of the Leviathan and of a he (or she) Bonachus, a monster peculiar to Galatia, also called Bonachos or Onachum; what, in his “fantastic Bestiary of the South “ (Privat - 1990), Andre Rimailho naively translates by “Onager “.

The sauroctonos hero is this time a woman, Saint Martha, whose Jacobus da Varagine praises to us the gentleness, the charm and the beauty.

Accompanied by her sister, Mary of Bethany, of her brother, Lazarus, of people of their house (among whom perhaps a maidservant called Martilla or Marcella) and undoubtedly of some disciples of Christ; saint Martha probably arrived into Provence around the year 40. That is to say approximately twenty-five years before Joseph of Arimathea, guardian of the Holy Grail, and his companions, land in Great Britain. Such is at least what the Christians try to delude us into believing.

As soon as spread the news of the arrival of the saint one, the residents of the Rhone river ran to her meeting to require from her to release them from the Beast which devoured people and cattle.

Life of Saint Mary-Magdalene and Saint Martha, her sister (text ascribed to Raban Maur).

“There was that time upon the Rhone River, in a certain wood between Arles and Avignon, a great dragon, half beast and half fish, greater than an ox, longer than a horse, having teeth sharp as a sword, and horned on either side, head like a lion, tail like a serpent, and defended him with two wings on either side, and could not be beaten with cast of stones neither with other weapons and was as strong as twelve lions or bears; which dragon lay hiding and lurking in the river, and perished them that passed by and drowned ships. He came thither by sea from Galatia, and was engendered of Leviathan, which is a water serpent and is much fierce, and of a beast called Bonacho, that is engendered in Galatia. And when he is pursued he casts out of his belly behind, his ordure, the space of an acre of land on them that follow him, and it is bright as glass, and what it touches it burns as fire. To whom Martha, at the prayer of the people, came into the wood, and found him eating a man. And she cast on him holy water, and showed to him the cross, which anon was overcome, and standing still as a sheep, she bound him with her own girdle, and then was slain with spears and swords of the people. The dragon was called of them that dwelled in the country Tarasconus, whereof, in remembrance of him that place is called Tarascon, which before was called Nerluc, i.-e. the Black Lake, because there be woods gloomy and black “.

It is, of course, too good to be true as usual, and Christianity, alas, accustomed us to this kind of untruth; the text in question is an apocryphal text dating back to the 11th century, ascribed to a certain Syntyche and known of the exegetes under the title of “Pseudo-Marcilia .

“Pseudo-Marcilia “ “Speculum Historiae “ as “Golden Legend “ give all three a meticulous description of the Dragon of Tarascon; with a variant, however, the first to speak about six legs for this monster. But the passage “Senos pedes et ungens ursinas “(six legs and of bear claws), identical in Syntyche and Vincent of Beauvais, does not appear in Jacobus da Varagine.

The three texts indicated above report facts which are supposed to have taken place in the first half of the first century, and which, up to that point, had therefore been reported only by oral tradition.

However twelve centuries of oral tradition are largely sufficient to embellish an event; and even to make a third pair of legs growing to a Dragon, by nature a tetrapod.

Admittedly, that one of its parents is the Leviathan, uncontested king of all the sea dragons, and the other Bonachus, a monster of tellurian (even igneous) nature, could simply want to symbolize the amphibian nature of the Beast.

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But, incidentally, why the Bonachus? Why have they sought in the remote Galatia one of the parents of a dragon of the south of France? We could ask the same question in connection with the Leviathan besides; because to give for a parent to the dragon of Tarascon the most famous one of the sea monsters is about equivalent recognizing to the giant squid the paternity of a man-eater tiger.

On the purely animal level, undoubtedly. But it is advisable not to lose sight of the fact that the dragon of Tarascon belongs to the fabulous Bestiary of Christians, that it is by a saint woman who had rubbed shoulders with Christ that it was overcome as we saw it; and that, when this event was written down, some centuries later, it was done by authors shaped with Christian culture.

We cannot doubt it with regard to that of the “Pseudo-Marcilia “ since he went as far as moving aside behind a hypothetical maidservant of saint Martha.

As for Vincent of Beauvais or Jacobus da Varagine, they belonged both to the Dominican Order; the second was beatified besides in 1816.

To give to the Dragon in Tarascon as a parent the Leviathan, contributed to underlining the basic malignity of the Beast, because in the Bible the name of Leviathan does not designate only the sea monster. It also designates an embodiment of the Evil and, as such, is quoted in another part of the “Book of Job “(III, 7-8), in the “Book of Isaiah “(XXVII, 1) and in “Psalms “(LXXIV, 4).

Let us get rid immediately of the inevitable part of exaggeration and need for magic peculiar to the Christian religion; this magic was it scatological.

These were surely not its excrement that the Galatian Beast propelled with such a devastating effect; but more probably the contents of its anal glands.

Present in several groups of mammals, and in particular at the majority of the land carnivores, the anal glands are generally used for the purpose of giving territorial and sexual information.

They reach their greater development in the skunks, which also use them as weapons.

A skunk is able to project, with an astonishing precision, the contents of its anal glands, four meters away.

A man, reached by this secretion, in spite of repeated baths, will spend several days to be gotten rid of the stink of which he will be pervaded which can even cause very painful cephalgias as well as violent nausea.

The secretion, which remains without effect on a healthy skin, can appear very harmful if it reaches a wound and, if it touches eyes, to cause an intense pain with temporary blindness.

It is thus not excessive of speaking about weapons; the effects of the secretion of anal glands of skunks being comparable with these of the venom from spitting cobras.

Several herpetologists, handling spitting cobras without taking sufficient precautions, were reached in their eyes by a spurt of venom. Some were stricken of temporary blindness, but all stated to have felt an intense pain, comparable with a burn.

It was therefore some venom that anal glands of the Bonachus secreted; venom which was to have properties similar to these of the venom of spitting cobras. And the feeling of burn, perhaps described by people having had the bad luck to be reached in their eyes, is probably the cause of the fable of the Galatian Beast projecting excrement which ignited everything it touched.

Moreover, let us not lose sight of the fact that the power and the abundance of the spurt were to be proportional to the stature of the animal.

And, if a skunk, having about the size of a cat, is endowed with anal glands big like a pigeon’s egg, from which it can project the secretion four meters away; what performances was to carry out an animal big rhinoceros sized, of which anal glands, equipped with powerful “expeller “muscles, perhaps reached the proportions of an ostrich egg?

The skunks are divided into nine species. And each one of them adopts postures which are peculiar to it, during the expulsion of its secretions; spotted skunks going even as far as standing up vertically on their forelimbs.

Although we cannot envisage similar acrobatics for a Bonachus, of which the weight was to border two tons, it seems beyond dispute that itself also had to take a particular posture when it projected its venom.

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At the end of this tour which led us from the birthplace of Tartarin (Tarascon) to the Galatian kingdom in Asia Minor, and from the Christian Legendary to the Celtic mythology, let us return to our starting point: the Dragon of Tarascon in Provence.

A big sized predator, with the body covered of a scaly armor, semi-watery, which attacks men and cattle; and of which the biotope extended on the North Mediterranean coastal zones (with a rather deep penetration inside the land) from the Eastern coast of Spain to Greece.

The French historian Louis Dumont, in the chapter II of the second part of his monograph devoted to this subject, noted: “Much more than vis-a-vis a dragon, we are in the presence of a kind of gigantic carnivore, lion-headed , with a massive body… “. What obviously in this case would make the Beast of Tarascon , not a dragon, but a monster somewhat similar to that of Noves. Can the Beast of Noves, hideous monster with its claws stabbed in two blood running human heads (Calvet museum in Avignon) be regarded as the ancestor of the Rhone monster? (Noves is a little town located on the bank of the Durance River, not very far away from the confluence of this one with the Rhone River, and from Tarascon which holds its name from this fantastic animal.) Louis Dumont, however, does not think it, and considers rather the myth of the dragon in Tarascon does not go back beyond the 12th century.

What can finally mean well the gesture achieved using the girdle and what it hides?

The list is long of the saint men and women who subjugated a dragon while posing on its forehead or neck a part of clothing; girdle, scarf or stole, when it is a member of the clergy. Margaret Murray saw in the myths of this type (the God of witches) the confrontation of the old religion of the overcome peoples with that of the invading peoples ; and the authors of her School believed to detect in these traditions the allegory of Christianity triumphing over paganism, symbolized by the scaly Beast, devouring, man-eater and sometimes spitting fire.

And, for good measure, many versions add that before being overcome by a part of clothing tied with around its neck, the dragon had been sprinkled beforehand with holy water.

This interpretation could be acceptable if those who have one day accomplished this exploit (to overcome a dragon) had all be Christian. However it is far away from being the case. See for example the legend of Smertrios in Celtic land. The myth of the sauroktonos therefore goes further that this attempt of a manipulation of the minds through a rewriting of History.

The she enchanters of the Celtic world were also considered as having the power to make monsters inoffensive, by touching with their lips their rocky nose. This gesture, of a foolish bravery, in the poetic language of the medieval legends, has a splendid name besides; it was called “Daring kiss.“ It is therefore perhaps on this side that it is necessary to seek.

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B THE RAM-HEADED SNAKE.

(Same idea among Egyptians under the name of Apophis.)

Let us pass now to another monster of Celtic mythology (IF IT IS NOT THE SAME ONE….The ram-headed snake or more exactly the criocephalous snake with a tail like a serpent…

The only statement of a similar title underlines the strangeness of the monster there too that we will study below.

The horned snake that we see on certain coins, as on the basin of Gundestrup (Denmark), being an imaginary monster, has more chances than the other animals represented on the coins, to be itself also, of sacred, even semi-divine, nature. This composite animal, we know nowhere elsewhere than among Celts (the Scythians imagined, however, a ram headed and tailed fish) sometimes accompanies the great god-or-demon with stag horns (Hornunnos) sometimes the war god-or-demon. It is not certain that it is, rather than a demon [sic] an independent animal deity. The snake is the animal the most terrestrial,the most underground which is. Not only it touches the ground with all its body, thus living in almost ceaseless contact with the ground, but it also penetrates in its cavities, is inserted in its mud, its sand, and its water. Its skin dies and reappears every year, as the stag antlers. It is dreadful by its mortal venom, and if it big sized, by its very strength.

To tell the truth, we have only three documents, all Roman, which join together this triple nature: the body of a snake, the head of a ram, the tail of a fish. The tail fish expresses an undeniable relationship with water. Ten others present the body of a snake and the head of a ram, but not the fish tail.

The Celts therefore represented the egregore or soul/mind of the animal as a whole by a ram-headed snake (being reproduced on certain Sequanian coins in any case, and Boian coins). But the oldest known figuration of the ram-headed snake remains still that of Camonica Valley in the Italian Alps (- 5th century).

The head of a ram often decorates the fire dogs which surround a hearth; this use is very spread in the last century before our era, and remains at Roman time. The same object, made in reduced proportions, and consequently purely symbolic was also readily deposited in burials.

The monster with the body of a snake and the head of a ram, strong by its trick, its coils, and its horns, at the same time flexible and able to strike full-face ; is therefore a symbol of doubly aggressive force, of reproductive fruitfulness, and land prosperity. It appears to lead the procession of the warriors or to serve the stag-horned god-or-demon, on the cauldron of Gundestrup. It stands beside the war god-or-demon on the pillar of Mavilly (perhaps a tree trunk originally). It appears in the reverse of several types of Celtic coins in Central Europe.

This ram-headed snake in certain cases is a personification of the chaos and of the whole of the dark and negative forces trying to destroy the world. Daily, it leaves darkness in order to try to make run off the line, the order of a world that, however, it contributed to establishing. Several deities are therefore responsible for repelling its aggression: Camulus Smertrius and Hornunnos. It symbolizes Antichrist in certain manuscripts in particular of Apocalypse.

Editor’s note: the sculpture No. 22, of the museum of Meigle in Scotland, represents a bull-headed god-or-demon, with serpentlike legs also finishing in fish tail . Here still a beautiful enigma.

To note also. The gigantic snake of Germanic mythology called Jörmungand has itself also an unquestionable relationship with the ram since it is with a head of this animal that Thor lures it in order to try to fish it.

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C THE TERMAGANT/TERVAGANT/TERMAGAUNT.

The egregore of the livestock or of the most powerful animals.

The Bo Cuailnge (or cattle raid of Cooley) does not say to us precisely to begin to what bovine species the Brown bull of Cooley belonged. We will know only later what it is, a magic or supernatural bull, in other words, a termagant. Termagant is an antiquated adjective meaning originally something like powerful, strong, violent one, aggressive, combative. In the Middle Ages, this adjective was usually ascribed to a pagan god. Or Muslim (difficult to be more ignorant of true Islam, this last (religious) ideology bears in itself enough negative or dangerous elements not to invent others of them to it).

In the famous Canterbury tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, and more precisely in the tale of Sir Thopas, a gigantic knight called Sir Oliphant is also supposed to swear an oath on Termagant.

In the novel of the 15th century entitled “Sir Guy of Warwick,” where it is precisely question of a gigantic brown cow, a sultan is for example supposed to swear as follows:

“So help me, Mahoume, of might

And Termagant, my god so bright.”

From aggressive and combative this adjective, by shift in meaning, ended up designating a bad-tempered woman , for example in the time of Shakespeare of whom the Henry IV refers to a Scot Termagant.

N.B. My Parisian pen-friends point out me that we also find the same thing in the chanson de Roland where Tervagant forms with Abellio and Muhammad (sic) a kind of impious trinity (a triad?) and in accordance with their request therefore below their point of view on the tervagant.

Old French tervagan, Celtic tarvus trigaranus. The bull with three cranes. Celtic *taruo- (bull), *tris (three) and *garanu- (crane).

This “Termagant/Tervagan “is undoubtedly one of the most mysterious animal soul/minds of our ancient religion. A statuette representing a three horned bull was discovered in Maiden Castle in Dorset and another in Autun in France.

Two Roman monuments inform us about it. The pillar of the Parisian boatmen found in 1711, and the monument discovered in Trier in Germany, representing Esus cutting down a tree, in which there are a bull and three cranes.

The myth therefore joins together the following elements. A bull. Some birds (herons, cranes, egrets?? The egrets sometimes live in symbiosis with cattle. Cranes are birds of ill omen linked with death). A tree (a willow??)

The bull represents the ground, the crane the airs, the willow represents water, and the tree represents the life, the life, the death… and the rebirth (shoots always leave the stump of a cut-down willow) winter and spring.

Termagant/Tervagan appears particularly in various epics, as a deity worshipped by Saracens (sic) with Apollin (Belin?) and Muhammad (sic again). It is the song of Antioch.

It is also mentioned 4 times in the song of Roland, under the name of Termagant (Tervagan), generally combined with our lord Belin. Example: lines of verse 2712: Tervagan and our lord Apoline (Belin).

Another example: “Then Apollyn’s grotto they surround, and threaten him, and ugly words pronounce: “Aha! vile God, why must you shame us now? Why did you let disaster befall this king of ours? You are not a generous lord to faithful servant!”

Then they take off his scepter and his crown, by his hands hang him upon a column bound, among their feet trample him on the ground,with great cudgels they batter him and trounce.

Termagant gets his carbuncle torn out; Into a ditch they boot away Mahumet for pigs and dogs to mangle and befoul“(cf. lines 2578 to 2591).

No need to defame a religion in order to liberate or to preserve men from its more alienating aspects. The truth about it is enough. Our religion to us being a religion of truth, druids of today admit well readily that the 4003 lines of verse of the Song of Roland are obviously a monument of militant Christianity; but that this Christian under-culture, let-us say, “basic “ is founded on much ignorance (just like certain Irish legends relating the hesus Cuchulainn, it is true).

The Basque Christians ? victims of the troops of Charlemagne are equated there to an immense Saracen army. Nothing is clear about this obscure battle of Roncevaux Pass. And the true Saracens are perhaps, in this case, only not yet baptized pagans, of course. The prophet Muhammad finds

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himself equated with a stone statue (because he knew how to reinterpret some Arab pagan rites relating to the pilgrimage in Mecca?) And so on…

One loses oneself in conjecture about the exact meaning of this Termagant/Tervagan. It is perhaps a teutatis (an egregore or more exactly a soul/mind) of a powerful and combative animal, with frightening , violent and impetuous, charges. A thing remains, however, certain and whatever the origin of the word (an epithet of the divine Bull or of Lug) is: what implied thousand years before or thousand five hundred years before, the notion of Termagant or Tervagan (this symbol of rough but framed strength, still mentioned by the song of Roland therefore); that could be only an allegory of the warlike fury. The bull with three horns was probably a misunderstood warlike symbol. The third horn must represent what in Ireland we call the lon laith or luan laith, this species of light which spouts out from the head top of the hero at the height of the warrior excitation.

Individual opinion of the druid Jean-Pierre MARTIN.

We can grasp in remote Indo-European myths the contour of divine profiles which resemble those of the Celtic islands and of the continent. The case of the Bull with Three Cranes opens even strange horizons. Very beautiful bronze life size of Martigny, in Switzerland, shows its divine nature.

In the beginning of the 1st century, the pillar offered to Jupiter by the Parisian boatmen, in the reign of Tiberius (14-37) comprises two representations drawn from druidic mythology. Smert [rios] killer of snakes, first of all: it is, of course, one of the labors of this Celtic parallel of Hercules.

And, being spread out over two close panels, Esus cutting down a tree, the Bull-with-Three-Cranes behind another tree: that it is about the same forest, the stele of Trier testifies it.

The myth takes shape thanks to parallel elements provided by insular literature: pursuit of an enormous legendary bull which friendly birds guide in guardian woods.

Legend sufficiently representative of Celtic mythology so that the bull and its cranes are quoted in an Attic comedy, shortly after the passage in Greece of the Celts who were to threaten the sanctuary of DelphI: that of an author called Philemon.

The Bull has an epithet which, with its ending in - os, also belongs to the Celtic language (tri-three, garan = crane) and caused multiple interpretations. The epithet “with three cranes “would be thus already in the Grecized form trigeranon (variant trugeranon) in this comic author of Athens, in his play written shortly after the taking of Delphi by the Celts of Brennus (- 279).

The Seleucid king had sent to the Athenians of then a tiger: the poet proposes to send to him in exchange a trigeranon, animal with three cranes, whose presence among Celtic invaders, had undoubtedly come to the attention of the Athenians; an all the more spicy joke as the Seleucid underwent a little before a painful defeat before the Galatian troops.

The bull, the forest which withdraws it from its persecutor, the three birds which inform it successively about the danger, belong to the old collection of the oldest Celtic mythology; since the hero known under the name of Cuchulainn in Ireland, in his search for the Cows of Cooley, pursues a divine bull.

Hesus would play the part of Cuchulainn here; and the cranes that of the crows because of their vigilance, their combativeness, their piercing cry. In Lutetia, they are well cranes,namely designated by the inscription, and this wader, symbol of vigilance, find perfectly its place in a legendary pursuit. It is naturally excluded that the third horn is a simple element of artistic technique. We so often met the number three that we cannot doubt it has, here also, a religious meaning . In itself, the horn is, of course, the symbol of the violence of the bull, a triple horn exalts therefore this strength, and perhaps also its combativeness. In the writings of Shakespeare (Hamlet, Henry V) the word ended up designating an aggressive or quarrelsome nature.

D. The toutatis or animal soul/mind of the cattle.

FLIDAIS.Originally an egregore of domestic cattle. Confused wrongly with the elemental of woodland and wild animals.

It is a mythical figure in early Irish literature, including the Book of conquests, the Metrical Dindsenchas and the Ulster cycle. It is a shape-shifter goddess (a super heroinE having the gift of changing herself we could say), member of the clan of the children of the goddess Danu known by the epithet foltchain (beautiful hair).

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In the Book of invasions, she is said to have been the mother of the women farmer Arden, Be Chuille, Dinand and Be Teithe.

Lug is known as to have worn their coat at the time of the return of their raid of the children of Toran/Taran/Tuireann. Her two oxen were called Fea and Femen, from where besides the names of Plain of Fea and Plain of Femen.

In the Middle-Irish glossary known under the name of Coir Anman (fitness of names), she is said to have been the wife of the legendary king of the kings Adamair and the mother of Niad Segamain who, by his mothers’ powers, was able to milk deer as if they were cows. “Niad-Segamain lasa mbligtis diabulbuar .i. baî 7 elti. Flidais Foltchaîn a mâthair diambtar bâe elti.”

According to the Metrical Dindsenchas, she would have been the mother of Fand.

Flidais is the central figure in the Tain Bo Flidhais or Driving off of Flidais’s cattle, an Ulster Cycle work, where she is the owner of a magic herd of cattle, a lover of Fergus mac Roich. In this story she is known as to have a favored cow known as “the Maol” which can feed 300 men from one evening’s milking. The story which takes place in the barony of Erris (County Mayo), tells how Fergus carried her and her cattle away from her husband Ailill Finn.

7 doberat Flidais assin dún, 7 dobreth a m-bái di chethrai and .i. cét lulgach 7 secht fichit dam, 7 tricha cét di chethrai olchena.

7 toberat Flidais leo assin dun […] 7 oberat a m-bái di cethrib and .i. cet lulgach, 7 da fichit arc et do damaib, 7 tricho cet di mincethri olchenae […] Ba sé sin búar Flidais.

Another Ulster Cycle legend says that it took seven women to satisfy the sexual appetite of Fergus “unless he could have Flidais.” Her affair with Fergus is the subject of various oral traditions in County Mayo.

During the Tain Bo Cuailnge (cattle raid of Cooley) she sleeps in the tent of Ailill mac Mata king of Connaught and each week her herd supplied to him milk for the entire army.

Thurneysen makes her a woodland dear goddess , Flid Ois, patron saint of the wild animals in the forests or of hunting, reason why she is generally also compared in Ireland to the goddess Artemis of the Greeks mentioned by Arrian or to the Roman Diana, even to the Continental Arduinna (or Abnoba?)

As for the great French specialist Marie-Louise Sjoestedt she makes her, in her “ Celtic God and heroes,” in a purely gratuitous way, a woodland goddess reigning over the beasts of the forests and traveling in a chariot pulled by deer (sic).

All that does not resist the objective and scientific examination of the various texts.

Her name has nothing to do with that of the faun, it is a medieval invention. As for the name of Niad Segamain it has, of course, a very ancient etymology (Nerto Segomo) but has nothing to do with a story of milking does. It is still one of these frequent whimsical etymologies in the writing of the Irish well-read men of the Middle Ages.

In the Book of conquests, she is simply presented as being a daughter of Adamair. Adamair Flidais de Mumain .i mac Fhir Chorb. But in the sentence in question Flidais is only an epithet for Adamair.

It is therefore simply a goddess patron saint of the domestic animals that the Irish medieval literature combines with cows and cattle. And the cattle of which this egregore is the patron saint they are only cows and in any way deer and does.

DONNOTAURUS. The brown bull. Donn Cuailnge in Ireland. See the proper noun quoted by Caesar. The two sons of the prince of the Helvii (area of the Vivarais in France) Caburus, indeed had the first name and the nomen gentilicium of the benefactor of their family: Caius Valerius, to which a nickname was added: Donnotaurus for one, Procillus for the other.

The bull does not seem really to have had then a symbolic value combined with virility: it is not certain that its primary meaning is to be sought in the duality or the sexual opposition with the cow. The bull is indeed, in Ireland, the subject of especially warlike metaphors. It is undoubtedly the practice which has the bull to charge with impetuosity, which inspired symbolism of this kind. A hero or a king of great military value is often called “fight bull“. Moreover, the bull is a victim of what is called in Ireland the bull feast, first part of the ritual of the king election, such that the text of the sickbed of Cuchulainn tells it. People sacrifice the animal, a clairvoyant eats its meat, drinks stock to one’s fill , falls asleep and, in his dream, sees the candidate who must be chosen by the assembly of the noble ones. The second

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part of the ritual (which concerns the elected king) has as a victim the horse, but it is quite as warlike as him, and the sacrifice of the white bulls told by Pliny (Hist. Nat. 16,249) in connection with the gathering of the mistletoe is perhaps a former royal ritual, having lost every reason for existing in consequence of the Roman conquest or of the disappearance of any independent political life. Because the bull is, like the horse, a royal animal: Deiotaros = divine bull. This connotation refers directly to the team horse bull of paleolithic art (the couple bull horse always occupies the central place of the animal cave representations).

The bull is a primordial animal. In the account of the rustling of the cows of Cooley, where a brown bull and a white bull fight themselves to death, one represents Ulster and the other Connaught. To have them means to have the warrior sovereignty, more especially as one and the other have a human intelligence and voice. They were born from the metamorphosis of the two pig keepers of the kings of the South and of the North of Ireland and they passed by various states of the animal kingdom.

The robbery of cattle was probably in the center of many conflicts between various groups, and it plays a big role at the time of the festivals. A sacrifice of bull is represented besides on the famous cauldron of Gundestrup. In Celtic land, the bull is important in mythology and the daily life (cf. the driving off of the cows of Cooley).

For the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), the bull was sacred , as much and perhaps more than the stag. Of course, this word is found in proper nouns, for example Deiotarus (divine bull) and Donnotaurus, in the first part of which specialists believe to recognize * dom-no-s (judge, noble).

This stem is also found in geographical names; in Great Britain, there are Tarvedunum and Tarodunum. In the same way for the rivers: in Scotland, for example, the river Tarf , in France let us quote Tarva (current Tarbes), and Tarvanna (today Thérouanne).

The Dun Termagant of Cooley could mate with 50 heifers each day. They gave birth in the night and these which did not calve at least before the rising of the sun, burst under the pressure of their calf, so much was strong the seed of this bull.

One of the powers of the dun Termagant of Cooley came from the mooing that he gave out each evening while coming back to his cattle shed and his stable yard. It was so powerful, but so tuneful , that it alleviated or reassured everyone in the district of Cooley, from north to south and from east to while passing through the center. Another of the powers of the dun Termagant was that the bananaig, the bocanaig, and the valley spirits, never dared to appear where he was. Fifty children could play on his back.

E. The animal soul/mind or egregore of bisons: Visontius. Compared to Mars by the Romans of the town of Besancon in France (perhaps because of the strength of its charges).

F. the god-horse (the toutatis of horses): Rudiobus.

“ It is peculiar to this people to seek omens and monitions from horses. Kept at the public expense, in these same woods and groves, are white horses, pure from the taint of earthly labor; these are yoked to a sacred car, and accompanied by the priest and the king, or chief of the tribe, who note their neighing and snorting. No species of augury is more trusted, not only by the people and by the nobility, but also by the priests, who regard themselves as the ministers of the gods, and the horses as acquainted with their will” (Tacitus.Germania.Chapter X).

The representation of horse heads on some standing stones of the mound of Mane-Lud in France makes one think that they were supposed to have a guardian power, particularly that to repel demons (sic).

As we have had the opportunity to remind it, a series of coins of the countries of the Seine River in France shows a building with pediment - a temple of course – of which a big horse in profile occupies all the frontage, which proves well that he is worshipped.

The soul/mind of horses is represented on certain coins in the shape of a human-headed horse.

In a relatively early period, perhaps as of the end of the 3rd century before our era, appears indeed on Trevirian staters, faithful enough, obversely,to the prototypes of the coins from Philip of Macedon; on the reverse a horse with a human head which gallops towards the left, above a winged figure lying on his belly. It is also at the Trevirians, in Germany, that appeared, in the 5th century before our era, the man-headed horse of Reinheim.

Any action, the quivering of a branch, the fall of a leaf, the movement of clouds indeed can be a message from Fate or Tokad. Studying and then interpreting these messages was the great business of the former druids.

The type of the man-headed horse which gallops towards the right is very widespread on the Celtic coins of the West. These which are of a more declining style present on the reverse the same pattern,

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the androcephalous, but this time galloping backwards compared with the first one . On the reverse of a coin still of very good style (beginning of the 2nd century?), we see behind the galloping man-headed horse, a charioteer casting, at the end of an undulated line, a square flag crossed by its diagonals; symbol of the stormy power of Taranis (a labarum or labaron. Christian recovery: the cross of St. Andrew in Scotland or of St. Patrick in Ireland, symbolizing the voice or the word of the Fate).

More ambiguous are the votive horses out of bronze, stones and even terra cotta, which do not carry a rider. A statue horse out of bronze, discovered with other objects, in Neuvy-en-Sullias (French department of the Loiret) was supplied with a dedication to a god-or-demon Rudiobus.

The ones hastened to deduce that this horse was the representation of Rudiobus, and that we had there an example of god-horse. The others, fewer, pointed out that the horse could be a simple offering, chosen as pleasant to Rudiobus, an equestrian deity, but not an animal-shaped deity.

G. The goddess-or-demoness-bear (the toutatis of bears): Artio or Andarta.

Solitary, careful, crafty , this fond of fruits and honey carnivore, terrifying by his strength, but able to be trained by man, is the subject of one of the most original associations between animals and deities.

The toutatis of bears is represented by a goddess-or-demoness, the fairy Andarta (what means “super she-bear “). Andarta, among the Vocontii, is therefore a goddess-or-demoness, or good fairy, of bears, but her name reminds of that of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Andrasta, whose Queen Boadicea (Bouddica) asked for protection, in the year 61 of our era; before starting the fight against Romans in the plain of London.

The egregore or more exactly the soul/mind of bears is indeed also, like “termagant or tervagan “ endowed with a great power of fight or attack. Artaius was a divine attribute of Lug, symbolizing his strength or his warlike fury, and it became the name of the king of Bretons: Arthur. Among the Germanic people, berserker means besides literally “with the skin of a bear “and was used to designate the state of fury of warriors. It is therefore completely normal that men made it here or there a kind of war goddess-or-demoness. The teutatis of bears does not appear to us always in such a cruelly warlike shape.

In 1832, were found in Muri, close to Bern, in Switzerland, two bronze statuettes pertaining to a unit which, reconstructed, appears as follows: a base carrying the inscription deae Licinia Sabinilla; a woman sitting and dressed in the Roman way who holds a cup in her right hand, and at the left side of this woman a kind of altar is erected, crowned with a fruit basket, perhaps intended for the animal; facing them, an oak with short branches (what can mean this oak well? The tree of the world ?) from which seems to be gone down a big bear with open mouth, which approaches the woman-goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if it is preferred, relatively small. The lucky find must be brought closer to the fact that Bern is the city of bear and bears, and that there is there more than a fortuitous coincidence…

The only scientist who seriously and largely dealt with the meaning of the Celtic-Roman monument of this “Ursina “or lady with a bear, is the inhabitant of Basel J.J.Bachofen.

The group of Muri represents the Celtic continuation of a very antiquated European tradition of hunters, where bear played a paramount role, perhaps as a totemic animal . In the shamanic prayers and the Siberian cosmological myths, the underground soul/mind Erlik, itself represented like a bear, is indeed behind all the animals of this species, having formerly changed a man into a bear. According to the myths of these tribes, Erlik is regarded as the first man changed into soul/mind of the underground world, and in the prayers, he is often called Ada, in other words “father “… Several scientists confirm this observation of Dyrenkova : that bear is the representative or the messenger, of the lower world.

Willy Borgeaud and Raymond Christinger propose a different interpretation with regard to the female character, and see not in it a bear egregore , a she-bear goddess-or-demoness, but a maiden. They compare this scene to the ceremonies which seem to be able to be equated, directly or indirectly, with the scene proposed by the monument of Muri. Thus in the Eastern- Pyrenees (Arles-sur-Tech in Northern Catalonia), a bear, to tell the truth a sham bear, try to seize, or seizes, in spite of the hunters, a female figure called Rosetta. These two authors have therefore some difficulty to see in the bear of the monument of Muri a female, an animal representing one of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Artio. They see there a true he-bear, a kidnapper.

Here below two extremely important remarks of the great French folklorist Van Gennep.

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“There are two topics of marvelous tales which enjoyed in all our provinces or almost, of a great success. That of the Beauty and the Beast, which is always a bear, not a wolf nor a horse; and that of John the Bear, of an extraordinary strength, because he is the son of a bear and of a woman, that it abducted into its den. Exactly as the bear in the Pyrenees seizes, or tries to seize, Rosetta. “

The Roman monument of Bern (Muri) now appears to us to reveal all its meaning. Much bigger than the goddess-or-demoness, or than the fairy, the animal walks towards her, gone down from an oak. It looks to be the owner, the male. It does not come only to eat apples, really? Toutatis artaios the egregore of bears (soul/mind of bears called artaios Mercury in the Roman interpretation) gone down from the cosmic oak goes forwards in order to consummate is union with a Rosetta.

The oak of the monument in Bern, if we may compare it with the World Tree, therefore does not appear misplaced in an Indo-European context; since, in a Vedic anthem (a wedding song) people pray the Gandharvas and the Apsaras which live in the trees, to be favorable to the betrothed.

If Artio is not the animal soul/mind of bears then it has to be Matunus. The god-or-demon Matunus is indeed known by an inscription found in the temple of Bremenium, in High Rochester, in Northumberland. DEO MATVNO PRO SALVTE M AVRELI… BONO GENERIS HVMANI IMPERANTE G IVLIVS MARCVS] LEG AVG PR PR POSVIT AC DEDICAVIT A.C. CAECIL OPTATO TRIB.

Its name is also found in the Roman name of the town of Langres, in France: Ande-matunum. Andematunos means “Big Bear“ and Andematunum was therefore the fortress of the soul/mind of bears. To note: not far away is the spring of the powerful river which is the Marne, deified under the name of Matrona/Modron.

* We find a similar legend among the Indians of North America and particularly the Assiniboines.

H. The toutatis or animal soul/mind of wild boars: there exist several possible names unless, of course, than there are nuances between these three terms: trouyth, moccos, baco.

The toutatis of wild boars is represented on a coin ascribed to the Petrocorii in Perigueux.

The stone of Euffigneix (French department of Haute-Marne) representing a man with the chest covered by the image of a wild boar, also seems a figuration of this teutatis of wild boars.

This stone represents a character which we have only the head and the chest; the left eye is bulging, the neck adorned with a necklace called torc, and, on the chest, is spread out a full wild boar figuration, with very marked tusks. In the same city, a god-or-demon Moccus (from where the toponym of Mount of Moque), i.e., the pig or better, the wild boar, was interpreted as being a Mercury by Romans. But this Mercury of wild boars in question is perhaps the soul/mind or egregore of the species. The soul/mind or animal egregore of wild boars is also endowed with a big power of attack or charge, a little like the “termagant or tervagan “studied higher. And it is therefore completely normal that certain men thought of drawing strength from it.

Moccos symbolizes the rage to overcome, and this is why it is often reproduced on the warlike ensigns (the famous ensigns “with a boar” ). Following the example of the bull, the wild boar too is a combative animal, prompt to charge against an enemy. It is besides the reason why people used a wild boar as ensign (to think of the sculptures of the arch of Orange in Provence), while its tusks became amulets.

We find it in Wales under the name of Trwyth (Twrch Trwyth). This magic wild boar was, in Welsh mythology, a king having been changed into a white wild boar, because of his sins. Between his ears, he kept a comb, a razor and scissors. The recovery of these objects was one of the most difficult tasks inflicted by Yspaddaden to Kulwch, so that he agrees to his marriage with his daughter Olwen. Nobody could hunt the pig Trwyth without Drutwyn, the hound of Greit ab Eri; that people could not keep on a lead without the leash of Kwrs Kant Ewi; which could be hooked only on the collar of Kanhastyr Kanllaw; which could be connected only to the chain of Kilydd Kanhastyr. Moreover, Drutwyn could hunt only with Mabon/Maponos/Oengus, son of Modron, which had been kidnapped very early from his mother, and had thus disappeared. Moreover people could not hunt the pig Trwyth pig without Gwynn, son of Nudd. Lastly, this hunting was to be led by Prince Arthur personally. Let us add to close this chapter that only the giant called Gwrnach had a sword able to kill the animal. The quest lasted nine days and nine nights, and was finally victorious, but the wild boar nevertheless at the last moment escaped the king of Britain by plunging in the ocean. Some variants of the legend make

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this twrch trwyth a female boar accompanied by seven young wild boars Prince Arthur pursues unceasingly, but that he can neither capture, nor to kill, since she is immortal.

We find it in Ireland under the name of Triath (Torc Triath/Triath-ri-thorc); as in the myth of the wild boar without ears and tail, of the Peak of Bulben (Benbulben or Benbulbin, Gaelic Binn Ghulbain, in County Sligo) behind the death of Diarmat (cf. the romance of Diarmat and Grannia).

Torc or Orc Triath (Turcos tretios) but also Triath-ri-thorc (Troitos Rix Turcon) was, according to the Irish book of conquests, the king of wild boars, from where the toponym of Mag Treitherne (Magos Tretion).

I. The toutatis of wolves: Volcos or Blidios. Airitech in Ireland. A creature of the underground world of whom the three daughters took the shape of a wolf, but were overcome by the warrior called Cas Corach.

As we already have had the opportunity to see it; on a stele discovered in Belgium, and preserved in the Luxembourg Museum, in the upper part, in a triangular pediment between two masks of bearded characters representing the winds (therefore celestial spaces); appear a she-wolf devouring a little character. The animal is indeed disproportionate compared to the body of its victim. Opposed side, overlapping sheets. On the left side face, a squatted lion, turned towards the right. The stone is right-sided broken. Above each face, other overlapping sheets form a roof. On the funereray monuments, the she-wolf generally symbolizes the feeder or protective animal. But the animal is fatal at the same time as feeding. It gives life and can take it again. The Belgian craftsman, although working well off every adequate iconographic model, succeeded in expressing, using disparate elements, and not without some awkwardness , the symbolism of the wolf spirit.

[Unless, of course, that it is a cosmogonic myth about the end of the world as certain authors think it, who see in this she-wolf a creature at the same time devourer and dispenser, at the same time grave and genitor of mankind. By absorbing the being who lived, she bears udders swelling up with milk for those who will be born. But this is another story].

The famous “Tarasque “(sic) of Noves (currently in the museum of Avignon in France) is perhaps also, of course, a representation of this egregore, or more exactly soul/mind of wolves, called either Volcos, or Blidios.

This sculpture, which specialists allocate to La Tene II, represents an enormous man-eater carnivore, taking at the same time after a wolf… but also after a lion.

The animal, sitting on its hindquarters, devours its victim of whom the arm remains. The striking features will be noted: mouth with oversize teeth, genitals erected up as a sign of life, highlight of red stressing the expression. Its forelegs are pressed on two bearded heads with closed eyes, therefore, undoubtedly, some dead people.

This sculpture, aristocratic ornament, “ostentatious “ could we say, of a disappeared funerary monument, is only one of the interpretations of the same general topic: that of the carnivorous wild beast , symbol of death. It combines in fact two variants we find elsewhere treated separately. The animal is represented either absorbing a human being, or, generally, imposing on cut but also masked heads, as a sign of domination, the claws of its forefeet. Thus the lion of the Baux -de-Provence, preserved in this same museum of Avignon, and represented in the same posture as the monument from Noves. We can see besides in the museums of Avignon and of Arles other similar representations, more or less fragmentary, which all date back , it seems, to the beginning of the Roman epoch.

This statue shows how much the Celts were haunted by the feeling of the power of the animal egregores. Of this feeling, they gave here an at the same time fantastic and horrible expression: flat head of the monster, with the mouth largely open and furnished with triangular teeth, bearded heads of dead persons with closed eyes.

[Unless, of course, like said previously, that it is a cosmogonic myth on the end of the world as various authors think it, who estimate that certain details, among others the torc-shaped bracelet, show the adjustment to the Celtic designs relating to the life and death cycle. The eschatological message

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appears clear to them. If the demise is inescapable, the very apparent genitals are a symbol of revival and resurrection: synthesis, all in all, of the eternal cycle of life and death. But this is another story].

N.B. The particular technique of the mane, of which hair tufts were separate in masses delimited by curves, the deeply incised lines which furrow the sides and the legs of the animal and which evoke bones and sinews; are as many stylizations features characteristic of animal art.

The man-eater monster found in 1969 in Vienne-en-Val France is mutilated, it is missing there especially the victim (only the marks of his two feet pressed on the breast of the wild beast ). It gathers the characteristics of a dog: massive neck, short ears pricked up, but also these of a catlike: clawed legs and a long (disappeared) tail. It wears around its neck the torc characteristic of the Celts (what gives it a divine character).

Small bronzes coming from England (Oxford) and Charente-Maritime in France, ascribe the same role to wolves.

Like already considered higher, for certain authors, they are perhaps quite simply allegories of Death, but a death regenerating other lives. The general idea would be that Earth, symbolized by an animal, real or fantastic wild beast, but of underground nature, in which every achieved life resorbs, is at the same time bearer and feeder of a new life. What is not false either!

J. the toutatis or animal soul/mind, of dogs. Cunomaglus the big hound. A supernatural companion of Mabon/Maponos/Oengus, known by an inscription found in Nettleton Shrub, in Wiltshire. DEO APOLLINI CVNOMAGLO COROTICA IVTI [F]. For the god Cunomaglus Apollo, Corotica son of Iutus. From cuno dog and magalo big. Its combination by interpretatio romana, with the god-or-demon Apollo, arouses nevertheless problems. It is either a dog hunter, or a dog guard of the other world (or both at the same time of course). Known in Ireland under the name of “ dog head “: cunobennos.

K. The toutatis of he-goats and she-goats: Gabrus, Gebrus, Gebrinnius, Gebrinus. Soul/mind of caprids known by an inscription found in Strasbourg, in France where it is combined with the Roman god-or-demon Mercury. This animal soul/mind is also known in Bonn, in Germany, where it is called Gebrinnius, and again combined with the Roman god-or-demon Mercury. On another stone of an altar discovered in Bonn, its name is written Gebrinius. The caprine nature of this egregore or more exactly of this soul/mind is obvious in this case, since the god-or-demon has its hand posed on the head of such an animal. Known in Ireland under the name of goborchind or goat-headed people (gabropennos). Unpleasant cousins of the leprechaun.

The animal soul/mind or egregore of the he goats: Bugios. Known by an inscription found in Tarquimpol in the Moselle department as in Haegen in the Bas-Rhin department (France), where it is honored in the company of Nerius, deity of thermal springs. In Ireland Bocanaig or Boccanach (small goats).

Puca. Pooka in Ireland and pwcca in Wales. Puck in Shakespeare. Soul/mind of the he-goats or of the she-goats.

Kind of malign and mischievous imp or goblin which people also called Robin Goodfellow (or Robin Jolly fellow) or “hobgoblin” (little devil). He deceives the travelers, changes, frightens the maidens and pushes the old women.

Shakespeare makes him a character of a midsummer night’s dream. Puck is there in the service of Oberon, king of the fairies. Oberon sends him to seek the love-in-idleness’s flower: Puck must put the juice of it on the eyes of a young man “in Athenian garb “. Mistakenly he administers this charm to Lysander sleeping. He afflicts Nick Bottom with a donkey’s head, so that Titania, queen of the fairies, will thus fall in love with an animal and will forget her feelings for the Indian boy. Puck makes fun with the mix-up his blunders involve. Later he receives from Oberon the order to create a thick fog and to mislay the rival lovers there by imitating their voice, then to put an antidote to the eyelids of Lysander. At the end of the part, he explains his acts in a speech which is used to banalize the part itself, for the

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case where it would have offended the spectators. “Shades which we are, if we displeased, appear you only that you made only one bad dream “.

“If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.”

The Puck Fair, which takes place each year in Killorglin, in the County Kerry, during Lugnasade (on August 10th), commemorates the victory won by our Irish cousins over the troops of Cromwell in the 17th century. The legend has indeed that the village was saved by a wild goat come to alert the villagers who, consequently, had time to prepare, therefore to repel the enemy. The fair, however, existed already in 1603…

In Ireland, various legends also mention some puca having the appearance of a horse or of a bull, but is it quite logical??

L. the toutatis or animal egregore of the sheep, moltinus. An inscription found at Wilten in Austria, where it is called upon with Mercury and Cacus. In France in Macon, it is combined with Mars. The ram has, like the bull, the reproductive power and the combative strength of the male, richness of the herd. In the Irish Book of conquests, we also find Cirb (Cirpios), the king of rams, from where the toponym of Mag Cirb (Cirpiomagos).

M. The toutatis of the beasts of burden (of the mules??) : Mullo. Known by several inscriptions. Most important was found on the territory of Allones in France where a temple devoted to this animal soul/mind, or egregore, was discovered. In Nantes, was found a plate bearing the inscription: AVC MARTI MULIO TAVRICVS TAVRIF VSLM. For Mars Mullio Tauricus Taurif… Another inscription, found in Rennes, calls upon Mars Mullo and Mercury Atepomarus. In Mayenne, still in France, it is known under its name alone, without being compared to Mars.

Warning important. Some authors make him a war god having nothing to do with mules but rather in connection with an old Celtic word meaning heap (implied: of spoils). Cf old French “mulon.”

N. The toutatis of birds: Pipius

There exists a series of coins of the countries of the Seine River showing a full-face big eagle , wings spread, which catches or releases a snake, in front of or in a pediment building - a temple, of course. The link between the animal and a pertaining to worship locale is therefore in this case obvious. Of all the animals, the bird is perhaps nearest to the prestigious qualities of the supernatural beings: it sees from above and from far, day and night, and it towers over, quick like the thought. The importance of the birds is,like in other ancient religions, of the first rank. Inhabitants of the sky, close to the stars and the air god-or-demons, endowed with a speed of trip which makes men dream, carrying out sea crossings which take after wonder, as well as remote and mysterious migrations, legendary guides of victorious raids [the legend has that Bellovesus and Segovesus won their victories thanks to ravens]; able to give out alarming cries or attractive songs; to even imitate the human word; comfortable in the daytime and at night ; endowed lastly with an aggressive strength, sometimes frightening; they were the almost natural messengers of the god-or-demons.

In several places a deity, sometimes male sometimes female, is represented in the company of two birds; the sites are Alesia, Nevers, Compiegne, Mont-Auxois, in France, and Luxembourg. On the monuments in Nevers, this character is combined with the mallet god-or-demon. Like in Compiegne, Alesia, and Beaune, the birds are above the shoulder of the deity, towards whom they turn their nozzle.

On the statue in Compiegne, there is, in addition to the two birds which hold out the nozzle towards the ear of the god-or-demon, two others which are at his chest height. On the statue of Alesia, there is a male character between two birds; at his feet a dog is sitting. The same image is also in Switzerland on capitals: in Martigny the character is male, in the case of Avenches it is female. In 1932, the soil of “Fandrolle “ in France produced a more complete image: the god-or-demon, upright, is leaned to oak branches enriched with many acorns; his bearded head is covered by a bushel.

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It is often difficult to say which bird the craftsman wanted to represent. Generally, the sculptures are too coarse for that. The features of the deity are quite as vague; it is in general a god-or-demon, but who is either old or young. W. Deonna points out the monument of Sarrebourg, where the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you want, Nantosuelta, holds in her left hand a model house on which a raven is perching. Admittedly, it is not legitimate to draw from this image conclusions about the nature of the god-or-demon with two birds; but it is without a doubt that the raven too was, for the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), a sacred animal.

The two birds seem to whisper something in the ear of the god-or-demon, and we are unable to help thinking of the Scandinavian idea that the two ravens of Odin go all over the world daily, and land the evening on his shoulders to say to him of what they learned during the day.

The raven, capable of words, therefore had its part in oracles, some raven took part in the legendary foundation of Lugdunum and this raptor appears in the bottom of a stele dedicated to Suqellus and Nantosuelta. A wader speaks to the ear of a human being on a low-relief in Narbonne; some herons are reproduced on the Celtic shields of the arch of Orange.

The winged race of the time was many and varied in the forests or on the coasts of the Celtic West. In the insular legends, the swan played a large part , where the metamorphosis had its place (chained it symbolized a metamorphosed divine being). In France we find it, threatening, on the helmet with an owl of the Roman goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, in Kerguilly-en-Dineault.

Some (Veneti or Namnetes) Armorican coins represent a horse (driven by a charioteer) topping an “angel “lying down. How not to also count in the rank of the supernatural, if not divine, beings, the disheveled genies who appear to fly above the horse of which they hold the reins, these familiar phantoms the Celts substituted soon to the charioteer of the Macedonian chariot, these “monstrous driver “of a fantastic ride. It is clearly an allusion to a myth, alas, definitively lost for us.

The name of this egregore is known to us by an inscription found in Vallauris, in the Alpes-Maritimes, in France: Pipius. Or then etnosus, the one who has wings. An inscription discovered in Bourges (French department of the Cher). But it is there perhaps in this last case, the representation of a kind of Celtic angel (a god or a goddess temporarily changed into a bird) and not an egregore. N.B. The Bird-Man is also reproduced on one of the engravings of the Valley of Wonders, according to Emilia Masson.

O. the animal soul/mind or egregore of salmons: orcia. The egregore of salmons (or of pigs???), known by an inscription found in Zmov, in Serbia. From Celtic *orco (pig or salmon).

There exist many other teutates or animal soul/minds, but we will stop this list there, in order to simplify this study somewhat.

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TEUTATES OR FAIRIES OF THE MATRES TYPE (HUMAN EGREGORES).

The mass monolatries which are Judaism Christianity or Islam generally make fun with the multitude of intermediate beings the druidism believes to detect between the by definition higher being, the being of the beings, and the mere mortals.

In the same way they regard as paganism in the bestial sense of the word, according to them, the fact of recognizing that the nations or the political constructions have a soul (the Slavic soul, the Germanic soul, the soul of Ireland) and that it is to do quite a bad policy that to ignore it.

Nevertheless what do we find for example in the archetypal sacred book of the mass religions which are Judaism and Christianity?

Book of Daniel * chapter 10.

“In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, a revelation was given to Daniel.

On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris.

I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.

I, Daniel, was the only one who saw the vision; those who were with me did not see it, but such terror overwhelmed them that they fled and hid themselves….

Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.

But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia…Do you know why I have come to you? Soon I will return to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I go, the prince of Greece will come” (Book of Daniel, chapter 10,1-21)

Let us pass over the intellectual aberration, not of the transfiguration of the bodies by the light of the heroes (Gaelic luan laith Avestan xvarnah, with as result some bellisssamos bellissama bodies) in the next world, but of the resurrection of the dead on this earth to be judged there.

What intrigues us we uns druids who base our spirituality on reflection and not on revelations (on a faith informed by reason); it is this mention of the princes of Persia and Greece.

What designates exactly the term “sar = prince” in this case ?

Elementals of Persia and Greece as a geographical entity??

Egregores of the Persian people and of the Greek people as a nation speaking the same language?

The egregores of the Persian empire and the elemental of the geographical whole known as Greece, i.e., a peninsula and some islands?

To say the least, this vision of Daniel is not very clear and that detect in it especially an obvious ethnic political bias, an obvious assimilation with the evil forces in the Manichean sense of the word of Persia and Greece as political social ethnic units; a malevolent and in fact racist comparison strengthened by the later mention of the kings of the North and of the South.

Note in connection with the intermediate entities between the being of the beings and men according to Judaism. Maimonides teaches that there are two classes of angels, the “permanent ones” and the “perishable ones.” Idem for Yehuda Halevi (1085-1140), a famous Jewish poet and theologist of the 12th century, who differentiates the “eternal” angels from the angels created at a given time. He teaches indeed in his book entitled the Kuzari (part IV) that there were two classes or species of angels. “ Some angels are only created for the time being from fine elementary corpuscles, others are lasting, and are perhaps those spiritual beings of which the prophets speak .”

And he continues…

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“ Concerning the visions seen by Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, there is some doubt whether their objects were newly created, or of the number of those lasting spiritual beings .” What were they then? Saadia ben Joseph thought that they were only visions .”

* It goes without saying this Daniel is an artificial character and that his prophecies are foretelling after the event (vaticinium ex eventu). Therefore that from this point of view the entire book of Daniel is an imposture, a pseudepigraphy if you want to use this euphemism hardly used when it is about paganism, dating back to the 2nd century before our era.

THE BOOK OF DANIEL THEREFORE BEING UNABLE TO BRING TO US SOMETHING WELL USEFUL TO UNDERSTAND THE NOTION OF SENSE OF PLACE, NOR EVEN THE NOTION OF SOUL OF A NATION, LET US START OVER AGAIN COMPLETELY IN THIS FIELD.

The notion of egregore is known since earliest antiquity and is not an invention of the modern world. It was formerly translated, extremely imperfectly it is true, by the Greek or Latin words: conventus, amphictyony, koinon. The case of the worship dedicated to Lenus Mars in Germany (Trier and City of the Trevirians), as that of the federal sanctuary of the 60 Cities in Lyons, shows very well, as we will see it, that the concept of “koinon “was also known by Celts.

The word conventus has four different meanings in Latin language: 1° a big crowd of men brought together in a place there to make prayers or to give thanks to the gods . 2 ° conventus designates a multitude of men of all social classes joined together in the same place; 3 ° it means the assembly of the people summoned by the magistrates to provide justice; 4 ° to express that a man received the visit of somebody, the expression ab aliquo conventus est is used.

Amphictyony. The word is attached to a verbal stem which means to found then to inhabit. The prefix means in this case “around “. The word amphictyons mean therefore “who live around, neighbors “.

The word amphictyony took a religious and political senses formerly to designate peoples or cities which, living in the vicinity of each other, gather around a sanctuary; and form a religious association which plays, moreover, often, a political role. The word amphictyons designates the deputies the cities send to constitute an assembly called to deal with common affairs.

The most important amphictyony was that of Delphi and of Thermopylae, gathering twelve peoples of central Greece and northern Greece. It managed the matters of the temples of Apollo in Delphi, of Demeter in Thermopylae. It controlled the organization of the Pythian games in the honor of Apollo. The violation of the amphictyonic laws by some people caused wars.

The word koinon has a rather vague meaning . But the essential nature of these meetings will appear better still if we go back to their origins. The groupings of populations, in a shared interest, primarily religious, existed in Asia, as in Greece in the strict sense of the word, very early.

The koinon was in fact a union of cities which had roots much older than the Roman conquest. In the Hellenistic time, the koinon defined a true federal state, the Romans made it something a little different thereafter, because the cities yielded a part of their sovereignty to a central state. Even if there was no clear rupture, we deal no longer with a federal state at the imperial time, because Rome would not have agreed to have a true State among its provinces. The koina were thus associations of cities having a regional even ethnic nature, according to a diagram freely instituted by the interested parties, not by Romans.

Example: Inside the province of Asia, we know the koinon of the 13 cities in Ionia. This koinon is traditional, it is witnessed in the time of Herodotus. At the beginning it comprised only 12 cities, thereafter the town of Smyrna joined it. This koinon still existed at the Roman time.

The French historian Paul Monceaux, in his book written in 1885, examined all the manifestations of life of the koinon, and he met almost only, in his study, religious questions. He tried to reconstitute one of the meetings by grouping all the documents which bring back some echo of its activity to us.

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The provincial assembly does not make important decisions, because the government had not allowed it and that the delegates of the cities would probably not have agreed. These decrees therefore relate only to “The honors to be granted, the statues to be erected, the ceremonies to be celebrated.”

Sometimes, however, the koinon deliberates on the administration of the proconsul, on the expiry of his government, or that of the legates, quaestor, procurators. It is the only case perhaps where the occupations of the assembly lose their purely religious nature.

Promotions to the high priesthoods, honorific decrees, votes of homages to be paid to the sovereign, form the essential content of the Koinon remits and, as it is seen, proceed from the religious feeling or border on it; and especially, the provincial assembly has repercussion by what is done apart from it but on its occasion, the sacrifices, ceremonies and games, which accompany the sessions.

Let us risk now to propose another definition. As we saw it with the works of Gustave Le Bon, in the invisible one, out of the bodily perception of Mankind, artificial beings exist, generated by devotion, enthusiasm, fanaticism; that this author calls psychological crowd, and that we name egregores rather today.

An egregore have we said is a neutral thought form or key idea , which is flavored, for better or for worse, by the intentions of the group. According to the vibratory quality of the members, the egregore will enchain the latter to their restrictive beliefs, or will galvanize their creative potential and will untie them from all external influences.

It is like the accumulator of an energy having its own characteristics, and moved by the faith or the concentration of several people at the same time. An egregore is a form of thought caused by the desires, the aspirations, the dreams, the decisions, the commitments, the ideas, the will, of one or several human beings. While focusing oneself on an objective and while acting to give it life, a person is able to create an egregore likely to develop during an unspecified time. According to the intensity of the put forward idea and the number of people who will join this project, this time can range from a few days to several millennia.

Ancient druids compared these egregores to god-or-demons. They were soul/minds driving forces and creator of shapes. What we can withdraw from this metaphorical interpretation of the ancient high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), it is that the egregore has its own life, able to influence the human beings and the march of History. It draws its force from the psychic energy of each member of the association which feeds it. It is present everywhere, it floats above the heads, and in the hearts. It is a question of being connected to it by a simple mind opening: a thought, a meditation, a symbol, an emotion, a coincidence, a dash of creativity… The egregore gets inner peace, support and unconditional love, force and courage, union and solidarity, faith. Egregore reveals the reality of the soul/mind of each one and propels towards action and decision.

The acts, the emotions, the thoughts, as well as the ideals, of each individual, setting up the group, amalgamate, to build a coherent whole, a shape of which the components are of energy-giving or metaphysical nature. The egregore is as penetrating, even enveloping and perceptible, as a material feeling. The more it is fed, the more its radiation extends.

More the egregore spreads intensely and more the possibilities of the group will be increased. The egregore attracts to it the people being able to answer its vibratory note.

If certain men (professional clairvoyants or priests of such or such god-or-demon) seem more clear-sighted than others, it is because they are in connection with the egregore in question, they form part of it. The thought, the will, of the latter therefore, is also a part of the framework which strengthens the group egregore, is also outlined in it.

The transmission of the asset will be enriched, memorized, then conveyed by the egregore. The priest lives with the egregore, he thought much of the thing, he is not alone, some energies concentrate on him.

The energy made available by such or such method depends on the quality of integration of the individual to the egregore presiding over this way. But every flow has its ebb: what connects is also what enchains . What can be a help in a particular way, is also an obstacle for all those who want to deviate from it.

An example of human egregore: the religion… these men and these women who meet, who pray, who has faith in their god-or-demiurge, develop a gigantic energy unconsciously. And the manifestations of this egregore can be very numerous… We can also in the same way quote the communion of saints of Christians.

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The Muslim community is also an excellent example of these egregores. The faith of hundreds of million individuals (two billion?) in its dogmas, channeled by its Imams or its theologists, forms one of the most powerful egregores known in the world, very valued by politicians. These politicians are manipulators of energy completely conscious of what they do, they are “connected “ on the egregore of the Muslim community in order to benefit from its energy, from its votes, therefore to act according to their needs!

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Like Francisco Marco Simón, from the University of Zaragoza in Spain, says it, it could happen that theonyms do not refer to the place where the community which worshipped it lived, but to the social unit itself. Wheter it is an “ethnos “ a family group, or a simple individual (Guerra 2002). Two examples of such an ethnic combination are provided to us by an inscription found in the sanctuary of Panóias (Villa Real, the mention, “Omnibusque numinibus Lapitearum “ which we can translate by “for the soul/mind (numen) of Lapitas “; and the reference to Igaedus as a god of Igeditans.

Unlike what is previous, they are not therefore , in this case, places or foundation of a town, put under the auspices of such or such deities. The subjacent idea is that it is in a way the good fairy of such or such a human group, its soul or its national genius perhaps; in short an entity attached to the group itself as such, and not to the place.

The former high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) believed that every man had his own genius as of the moment of his birth. Cucullatus for men, sulevia for women. According to the beliefs of the time, each family and each people also had its own genius. The first then were called fairies of the type matres lubicae, or nessamae (Latin proxumae); the second ones, fairies of the matres types but also toutatis.

Look out nevertheless! The interpretatio romana which followed the conquest, involved a certain number of mix-ups. The genius lugduni or genius of Lyons is in any way a member of this category of egregores, since the genius lugduni in question, is, of course, the great god-or-demon Lug.

The Celts used to swear an oath (oito) on the goddess-or-demonessses, or fairies, of water and springs, but also on the national genius, the toutatis, of their tribe. And the violation of these oaths was regarded as the worst of crimes, punished with greatest severity, by the god-or-demons themselves initially.

These geniuses or egregores are mentioned in various inscriptions, majority in Latin, alas! In his observations on the geniuses such as they appear, Eckhel (1737-1798) says to us that they come after the god-or-demons and goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies.

Livy preserved us the memory of an emperor of the Celts named Ambigatus or Ambicatus; who joined together under his domination, around the end of the fifth century before our era, most of current Germany and Austria, France minus the basin of the Rhone River, and nearly two thirds of the Iberian peninsula. It is possible that the political unit was then supplemented among the Celts by a religious kind of amphictyony, and that the various Celtic nations recognized a higher god-or-demon guardian of the whole race. But when the empire of Ambicatus flew into pieces and that the bond which linked the tribes was slackened; the local god-or-demons, whose prestige had had to yield to the authority of panceltic god-or-demons, were again made recipients of bratou decantem (of ex votos), and of dedications.

What especially popularized the worship of the fairies of matres type, and of the teutates, in other words, of the egregores, in all the parts of the Celtica Litavia; it is that, on the one hand, they were ready-made deities for the communities of all kinds; and that in addition it became one of the shapes of the worship of the State tribes.There is no meeting, no political whole, no corporation, no class nor community, which did not place itself under the protection of a particular egregore; in the absence of a god-or-demon, and even preferably to a god-or-demon. Because the latter belonged to everyone, the egregore of the type matra or toutatis had the big advantage of bending to all the particular cases.

Like angels in Christianity of whom it was said that they are distributed on the nations and the cities, the egregores of the druidic polytheism called matres, or teutates, are everywhere; we have some of them for the villages (vici), for the countries (pagi), all the more reason for the towns and the peoples.

Last point finally. The former high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) well distinguished the genius (elemental) of a place, from the genius of a human community (egregore).

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Just like the former Romans besides, who distinguished the Genius Publicus Populi Romani well, from the Genius Urbis Romae, to whom a shield was devoted besides in the Capitol; with this mention, which points out the oldest worships in Italy: “sive deus, sive dea, sive mas sive femina “. But in the practices of the popular devotion, these two notions were somewhat mixed up.

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STATE OF THE QUESTION

LEFT BY INTERPRETATIO ROMANA.

Vocabulary.

Matres totales: egregores (guardian angels) of tribes or of nations. Equivalents of the princes of Persia or of Greece in the book of Daniel.

Matres veniales: egregores (guardian angels) of the family in the broadest sense of the term.

Matres lubicae, matres nessamae : egregores of the nuclear family.

Cucullati (men) matres suleviae (women): individual guardian angels.

We should not confuse the individual guardian angels of paganism who are the genii cucullati for men and the matres suleviae for women TAKEN INDIVIDUALY; and who are often triple in their representation, in order to show well that they act on the three levels: the safety of the body, the salvation of the soul, and that of the mind; with the fairies of the type Matres lubicae or nessamae (“Latin proxumae”) who are guardian angels OF FAMILY; the fairies of the type Matres veniales who are the guardian angels of the extended family = the clan; and the fairies of the type Matres totales = goddess-or-demonesses of the Tribe, or the Matrones who are the guardian angels of a very united human group, but not necessarily by blood relationships.

Also let us note that some egregores of neither male nor female group because including individuals of the two genders are nevertheless, like the rivers, seen and felt besides by the local populations as being, however, of the female gender or male gender. God knows why, I leave to the specialists the care to find a satisfactory psychological explanation to this giving out of a gender to the egregores. Perhaps that depended on the gender of the believers behind these demonstrations of their worship. Men rather view it as a male, women as a mother.

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I TEUTATES OR MATRES TOTALES THEREFORE (GUARDIAN ANGELS OF NATIONS).

The major error of historians until now, was to believe that there was a god (one god) called Teutatis among Celts. However this Teutatis is not a proper noun but a common noun having about the same meaning as the word behind the noun egregore, i.e. “group, troop, herd, hordes, etc. “

Therefore there is not a teutatis but some teutates. The teutatis of such or such tribe, the teutatis of such or such clan, the teutatis of such or such corporation or brotherhood, the teutatis of wild boars, and even of such precise herd of wild boars, the teutatis of bears and so on. That the Teutatis is not a single and well-defined god-or-demon, is proven besides by the text of Lucan and its commentators. While Caesar (without any doubt intentionally) gave to the Celtic god-or-demons Latin names, Lucan thought appropriate to show that he knows some Celtic names: Esus, Teutates and Taranis. In themselves, these names do not say much. Later anonymous commentaries, the Commenta Bernensia or Bernese scholia, tried to explain them; unfortunately, they contradict themselves, they identify, indeed, these teutates, in a place with Mercury, but in another place with Mars. Some specialists concluded from it this hesitation between Mars and Mercury proved in these “Teutates “the absence of a well-defined personality; such an uncertainty, they say, was precisely the characteristic of the primitive god-or-demons.

There were at least about sixty deities having been able to offer enough common features to melt itself under the patronage of the Latin god-or-demon, Mars. Therefore let us seek together which are the features common to all these entities.

Initially, the Preceltic indigenous Mars (sic) , were deities linked to sites and restricted human communities. They were probably initially aniconic and anonymous.

Some of them were to have soon, in consequence of various, religious, or political, circumstances, an influence exceeding their territorial boundaries. It is probably during the periods of Hallstatt and LaTene, that with the progress of the Celtization, some names were given to these pre-Celtic god-or-demons.

In other words, the teutates were at the origin anonymous god-or-demons, owners of human small groups, then with the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) there was regrouping, under a Celtic name, as tribal deities, of all these micro-egregores. The name Teutates has as a root the noun “tribe “(teuta, then touta and tota). Teutatis is therefore etymologically the “god of the tribe “ i.e., the guard of the tribe. The term seems a general term, and, rather than a proper noun, a common noun or an adjective used as a noun: “the tribal (god) “. Each people preserve the possibility of designating him by a particular quality, from his multiple aptitudes, or from some physical characteristic of the landscape where the nation resides. The fact remains that each nation has its collective soul/mind, its genius which, as a spiritual guardian god-or-demon represents it and defends it.

Assistants of the fate united with collective beings, these teutates defend and control furtively men, cities, nations, or the most various societies (corporations, colleges, and so on). Among Celts indeed, these god-or-demons called “teutates“ were the invisible managers of human communities. These teutates of nations, peoples or cities, are the personification of an own, autonomous, will, acting in the duration. Although immaterial, this reality is rather easily comprehensible. This concept of nation or tribe as collective personality or soul /mind, referring to an energy symbolized by the teutates; led the ancient druids to a well understood universalist view , not excluding every conflict, but every racism of monotheist type, of the Christian type, Muslim type, or others.

There exists soul/minds controlling and governing most various communities, at least in the higher species.

The druidic polytheism legitimated the plurality of collective personalities and of god-or-demons in front of the Tokad (as assistants of the Fate), thus establishing the base of a true ecumenism of religions. Christianity, itself, did not meditate or did not look further sufficiently into this concept of collective soul/mind, from where the control and the destruction of the nations which followed.

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N.B. The end of the Middle Ages is perhaps the only moment when the topic of the soul/mind of the nations found some visibility; with the veneration of Saint George, guardian of the kingdom of England, or Saint Michael, guardian of the kingdom of France (see the case of Joan of Arc). Alas, too late!

But let us leave there the sheep of Joan and let us return to our sheep to us! The Teutates are egregores we have said. But what is an egregore in this case? It is important here to remind it it in order to make us understood well on this subject.

Each group of living beings acting with a common aim generates a collective soul/mind the druids of today name “egregore “(phenomenon observed in the animals, particularly in the pack of wolves hunting). But as we will see it, a clan, a tribe, and even a nation, also emit an egregore. Because a community is not only an amount of individuals, but a whole of values, experiments, memories, lengthily built, which generates an identity from generation to generation.

Egregores ( Latin grex: herd) they are therefore the soul/minds or the collective geniuses of the various human, even animal, communities. The most powerful egregore for the human beings is that which is generated by a group of monks in meditation or prayer, our Buddhist friends say. That generated by a crowd excited by a politician speaking in the name of God or in the name of one of his substitutes provided by the dominant ideology, Gustave Le Bon says. Example a Pakistani crowd angry at a “blasphemy” Peter DeLaCrau says.

With a name (teutates) pertaining to the restricted group of the three great god-or-demons quoted by Lucan as being members of the Celtic Panth-eon or Pleroma, such as it had been worked out by the druids in the 6th-5th century before our era; this type of druidic deities was largely multifunctional, and joining together the functions of god-or-demon of the tribe, in wartime as in peacetime. It was undoubtedly closely linked , by myths, with the god-or-demon of Nature and of Dead.

There are mainly male divinities, often combined with female consorts called, like themselves, sometimes with an indigenous name, sometimes with a Roman name), presenting the following characteristics. They are multifunctional, correspond to a socially organized human group, they are strongly established in the ground and the social environment. These deities, dating back to the technological and sociological revolution of the final Bronze Age (between 1000 and 800 before our era) survived with their dominant characteristics during the following periods. Thanks to the separation of the civilizations and to the long survival, in certain areas, of the traditions of final Bronze Age. These god-or-demons at the Roman time will be the recipient of a dulia worship under the generic name of Mars. As the pre-Celtic Mars was largely multifunctional, the Romano British or Gaulish Mars will cumulate consequently on his head a great number of very diverse functions that the Roman interpretation in classical Mars will be far from exhausting. We will therefore use, for more ease, the Roman names (Mars, etc.) or Romano British even Gaulish , of these god-or-demons. But, as we have just seen it, the now unanimous opinion of the historians of druidic religion is that these imports are only the dressing of local deities. And it is well what shows through in our catalog.

Tertullian (Apologeticum 24,7) reminds well to us besides that each area had its god-or-demon. Mars therefore, especially, covered with many indigenous parallels or, at least, received in many places a nickname that the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) gave readily to the deity. These names are not always of so warlike look; and their great number confirms well the feeling that this “Roman“ Mars replaced in many place the local god-or-demon of the tribe, chief of the army in wartime and guard of the territory in peacetime. The Roman Mars put on the dress of a large number of local teutates , either that, designated by name, those would have given up their name as nickname for him; or still that, designated by this only common noun “god of the tribe “ (toutatis), they did not even have to transmit an indigenous nickname to him. Toutatis Mars, “tribal Mars, Mars of the Tribe “. Only his nicknames and the contents of the dedications inform us about their own nature, because their represented aspect always remains that of the Roman god-or-demon. There exists no image of which we can say with certainty it is that of a toutatis. The column of Mavilly, proposed by the great French historian Paul-Marie Duval, on which we see a warrior armed with a lance and a shield, as well as a woman and the ram-headed snake; cannot without other indications being ascribed to a Toutatis. Other identifications (a warrior armed with a lance, a god-or-demon accompanied by a dog) are quite as arbitrary. The reality, it is that we are unaware of how these “Teutates “were represented. The equating with mars of the tribal egregores called teutates in Celtic language is confirmed many times, in the clearest way, by the inscriptions. This bringing together appears in several manners. Sometimes the god-or-demon looks as the deity of a tribe, which pays a total homage to him: it is the case of Mars Camulus among the Remi (Rheims), of Mars Segomo at the Sequani (Jura Mountains); sometimes,

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and more often, they are the inhabitants of a subdivision of the tribe (pagus) who meet to grant to him a true worship of dulia and Mars becomes then, in the strictest sense of the word, the guard of the tribe. He is the same in the Rhenish country, where the dedications are excessively expressive (see further what will be said of Lenus Mars). Let us add that, extremely often, the signatories of dedications are designated as being the supreme magistrates of the city, acting, apparently , in the name of their fellow citizens. Is this the god-or-demon who gave his name to the village or rather the people of the village who placed themselves under the protection of an eponymous god-or-demon? What imports is to take note of this mystical community established between the population of the village and the deity.

As we have just said it, the teutates or human egregores therefore were generally translated into “Mars “by Romans. There exist nevertheless some exceptions to this rule. In certain cases the Romans, who understood nothing there, compared the teutates with their Mercury.

A text of Pliny the Elder reviews various colossi of the ancient world. On this occasion, we are informed that the city of the Arverni had formerly made a gigantic statue of Mercury carried out, of which the proportions exceeded all that had been seen hitherto; this masterpiece was due to the Greek Zenodorus, who had spent ten years making it and had claimed wages of 40 million sestertia for that. Pliny gives no specification on the place where the aforementioned statue was erected. Many historians think that it sat at the top of the Puy-de-Dome.

Others went further; they claim that the statue was from 100 to 120 feet high, that is to say about forty meters; some go even as far as feeling that the god-or-demon was represented in the squatted posture, sitting cross-legged “like a tailor “(pose known as “Buddhist “), as if a representation of the standing god of a similar size had not been rather imposing yet!

The best proof of the incredible importance attached by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) to the national deified soul/mind, therefore remains still this statue set up by the Arverni on the top of the Puy-de-Dome.

It was ascribed to Mercury by the interpretatio romana, but it is obvious that it was in reality the tribal or national god-or-demon of the Arverni, their egregore, and not Lug or the true Roman Mercury.

The list of the personalities or of the public figures having expressed, seems it with brilliance, their devotion with regard to the worship of the indigenous Mars; their military and civil titles, the fact that several of them proclaim themselves flamines of Mars, and one, gutuater of Mars, druidic priestly title equivalent to that of flamen; all is enough to prove the official nature of this dulia worship, which obviously was the main reason for the right to make a will in favor of his sanctuaries (Ulpian, Digest XXII, 6).

But this indigenous Mars was perhaps not the only druidic god , to whom somebody could bequeath certain goods.

We would in vain seek a god-or-demon whose dedications would be signed also often by politicians of an equivalent stature: decurion among the Aeduans, duovir and quattuorvir among the Allobroges and Sequani. Religious leaders (some druids?) are not less assiduous.

In the Three Provinces, the more prominent priesthood is the priesthood of the altar of Rome and Augustus, at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone river.

However, five times at least, we see the high priest paying homage to Mars [i.e., in fact to a Teutatis. Editor’s note] by outlining his title. The name of a Senonian public figure is read on a monumental dedication, in Sens, and the same character erects an altar to Mars (i.e., once again, let us repeat it, for a Teutatis) at the sacred confluence in Lyons.

A high priest from Aeduan origin lengthily attended the Mars sanctuaries of Antre, in Villards d'Heria (Jura). A Sequanian sacrifices to Mars Segomo on the altar set up with at the confluence in Lyons. Two high priests of Armorican origin are the signatories of a dedication in Rennes. In the Narbonnese, the title of flamen of Mars is spread, while, in “long haired“ Celtica the indigenous title of “gutuater “of Mars (intercessor?) survives. It is not less remarkable to observe than the worship of dulia performed in the honor of these indigenous Mars, is almost always public. Sometimes the dagolitoi or believers have the feeling to constitute a brotherhood, sometimes they are civil colleges who meet for a collective homage. But the most widespread case is that of the political groupings. We quoted some examples, among many others, of administrative districts, corresponding to the territories of the old tribes, which are placed under the protection of Mars. The case of the Romano-British cities, which

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worship a determined “Mars “is not different, because the “Cities“ are almost always federations of tribes, which joined to form a State. This prerogative of tribal god-or-demon, admitted for “Mars “is perhaps the reason why the sanctuaries of this god-or-demon enjoyed the single privilege to have the legal personality and to be entitled to receive heritages [memory of the time when the land was a collective property of the tribe. Editor’s note].

“We cannot appoint any of the gods our heirs, except those whom we are permitted to appoint by a decree of the Senate, or by the imperial constitutions; for instance, the Tarpeian Jove, the Didymaean Apollo of Miletus, the Mars of Celtica, the Trojan Minerva, Hercules of Gades, Diana of Ephesus, the Sipylenian Mother of the gods, the Nemesis worshipped at Smyrna, and the heavenly Goddess * of the salt flats of Carthage .”

“Deos heredes instituere non possumus praeter eos, quos senatus consulto constitutionibusque principum instituere concessum est, sicuti Iovem Tarpeium, Apollinem Didymaeum Mileti, Martem in Gallia, Minervam Iliensem, Herculem Gaditanum, Dianam Efesiam, Matrem deorum Sipylenen, Nemesim, quae Smyrnae colitur, et Caelestem Salinensem Carthagini .” A fragment extracted from the Tituli ex corpore Ulpiani, which is perhaps not by Ulpian in spite of its heading, but which dates back to the same time. XXII.6.

It is thus well in this assignment that the basic originality of the Celtic “Mars “ resides. An owner of the tribe, he corresponds strictly to the meaning of the Celtic Teutatis. Admittedly, when the tribe was committed in a defensive or offensive armed struggle, and that freedom was in danger, some intended for Teutatis supplications went up, to get the victory or at least the safeguard of the sovereignty. In the event of success, the dedication of a part of the spoils to the deity was a normal thing. The worship of the national teutates was in this case closely combined with the worship of the heroes, in a way “fallen for their country “.

The shrine of Dhronecken in Germany is interesting in two respects: it shows the link between the worship of Mars the guardian of the community, and that of the particularly distinguished died warriors. But that could in no case to make these teutates simple war god-or-demons, of war and of it only, because they also had the power to cure. A Graeco-Latin text dedicated to Lenus, the egregore of the city of the Trevirians, proves it.

[C]orporis adque animi diros / sufferre labores // Dum nequeo mortis pro/pe limina saepe vagando // servatus Tychicus divino / Martis amore // hoc munus parvom pr[o] / magna dedico cura.

Here is the translation.

“While I am unable to bear the dire pangs of body and spirit, wandering forever near the edges of death,

I, Tychicus, by Mars’s [ in other words the teutatis called Lenus] divine love, am saved. This little thanks-offering I dedicate in return for his great caring “.

We could not wish a more explicit document. The bratou decantem or ex-voto we have just read is that of a very sick patient who suffered much, bodily and morally, and who recovered health by calling upon Lenus Mars, the national god-or-demon of the Trevirians. The reasoning of the patient is easily understood. The radiance of the tribe could result only from an increase in vitality from the god. The primordial, permanent, help, that people expected from the teutatis, was therefore the granting of a little of this vitality.

The weapons express with naive images the power of an invincible god-or-demon. The overpower which is that of “Mars “ makes it possible for him to contain the action of the evil Forces, which, unceasingly, watch for the moment to disturb the harmony established in the world. The sword of the Celtic Mars, the lance, the helmet, and the body armor, evoke a super earthly duel, that of Light against Darkness, Order against Disorder, Good against Evil. Of course, these teutates could naturally be also known outside of their soil of origin, by the means of various emigrations/immigrations: merchants, mercenaries, and others, as the inscription of Behrens nº 11 (CIL XIII, 11818) proves it. The inscription Marti Camulo sacrum Fronto T… oni d.d…. once more proves the tendency of certain regional Mars (Camulos is the nickname of the indigenous Mars of the Remi), to overflow from their area of origin. The following inscription found in Great Britain, but concerning the national egregore of the Trevirian, Lenus: “Deo Marti Leno Ocelo Vellauno “ proves it also.

If the indigenous Mars are attached to a sanctuary and are established in their human grouping of origin; a certain number of them, probably in consequence of the influence of the origin sanctuary, therefore became abstract deities, called upon for their general powers and apart from their initial framework.

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II TEUTATES OR VENIALES MATRES.

The egregores of pagus (of a small tribe or clan, in short, of “county sized country “).

It happens that the tribal god-or-demon is designated by a name of the same root as the name of the people concerned, as if the inhabitants recognized in him a kind of shared father. Mars Caturix is literally “the king of the Caturiges “ a people in the valley of the Durance in Provence. Cf the former name of Chorges in the Alps: Caturimagos. This relationship between the tribal god-or-demon and the tribe was so intimate that modern toponymy had kept the memory of it. In France always, the name of the former “country or county “of Royans is derived from Mars Rudianus (cf. for example the determiner of the villages of Pont-en-Royans and Saint-Jean-en-Royans).

In the same way, the country or county of Albion (former pagus Albionensis, in 960); of which the memory remains, in the name of the villages of Le Revest-d'Albion and of Saint Christophe d’Albion; probably owes its name to this Mars Albiorix (“king of Albion “), guard of the Albiovicoi, the former confederation allied of Massilia (Marseilles) dissolved by the Romans. The name was from then on born only by the small tribe of the Albiovicoi, Latinized in Albici, located in the north of Apt .

As for Corsolt , regarding him (old Celtic Coriosolitis), it is the teutatis of the tribe of the Coriosolites, whose name remains in that of the town of Corseul, close to Dinan (in Brittany). We found besides in the antique Corseul the traces of the temple dedicated to this teutatis (Fanum Martis). He still appears in the Middle Ages, in the epics of the cycle of Guillaume d’Orange (in the form of a giant king of the Saracens).

These tribal egregores (teutates) interpreted as Mars Rudianus by the Romans and as Saint Michael by the Christians, at Saint Michel de Valbonne in the Drome and at Aignay-le-Duc in the Cote-d’Or; symbolize the irresistible Forces of Good , which start the fight against the Forces of Evil; and of which the renewed triumph guarantees at the same time the maintenance of the divine order and the happiness of Mankind.

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III MIXED CASE.

The egregore or koinon of a big tribe (or small nation): Lenus Mars. We already spoke about this egregore but as an example intended to illustrate our general information on the subject.

Lenus is the Teutatis, the protective god-or-demon of the tribe as of the federation of the tribes which constitute the City of the Trevirians. And it is in the capital of the Trevirians, in Germany, indeed, that Lenus Mars had his main temple. We say well Lenus Mars and not Mars Lenus as certain scientists write it. The nuance is important, because the invariably kept primacy to Lenus conveys the force of the resistance of the indigenous denomination.

According to this expression, used in the about ten known inscriptions, without it is a question only once of Mars Lenus, it is therefore not Lenus which is being the “nickname “ like it is said a little thoughtlessly ; it is the Latin term, which did not succeed in upstaging the indigenous name.

In the middle of the 2nd century, and partially built on the site of the previous sanctuaries, was built the great temple of Lenus Mars, which presents, from the architectural point of view t, a synthesis between the temple of imperial type and the indigenous temples with colonnades.

This temple opened onto a vast yard and a broad avenue leading to the Moselle River. In edge of this way, we found several units of three stone benches, laid out in niches which looked at the avenue. Opposite each niche and in the axis of this one, stood an altar with a statue, so that the characters sitting on the benches therefore had before their eyes the image of their national deity.

The use of these niches is clearly indicated by the inscriptions engraved on the higher circumference of the benches.

Each of the three units bears a dedication to “Lenus Mars and Ancamma “ or, what comes to the same thing , to “Lenus and Ancamma “; moreover each inscription mentions a “country or county “of the city of the Trevirians, different. It results from this layout that we deal with reserved seats, intended for the public figures of each district, who were to occupy them at the time of solemn meetings. In the life of the city, it was undoubtedly a very a great day, that when the delegates, flocking from their respective districts, came to take their place in their armchairs, in order to deliberate about the best interests of the Tribe-State. In front of the statue of the savior god-or-demon, they were in communion in the feeling of a kind of national solidarity.

We therefore have there a open-air counterpart of what Rudolf Egger extremely precisely called “the House of Representatives “ of the shrine of Magdalensberg in Austria. A series of lucky finds, coming from Carinthia, indeed specifies the value of these deductions. In the sanctuary of the Magdalensberg, the last excavations carried out by Mr. Egger or under his direction at least, revealed that the temple was in connection with a spring probably considered as divine. And that the sanctuary was flanked in the west of a building being used as meeting room by the delegates from the Noric cities.

In the main room, that Rudolf Egger therefore calls “House of Representatives “ archeologists found, on a high back armchair, a mosaic representing a horse on a boat. The horse is the “ savior sign “of the guardian warrior god-or-demon. This sign, of which Mr. Egger establishes the Northern (?) origin, constitutes it alone an effective protection. The (Roman) interpretation into (classical) Mars is not able to explain the true nature of the indigenous deity in question.

A) BRITANNIA. Around - 340 - 325, the Marseilles explorer Pytheas transcribed in Greek language in the form Prettanike the name of this land that Diodorus of Sicily changed thereafter into Pretannia. What seems to indicate that the inhabitants of this island were called themselves Pretani or Priteni. Britannia was therefore a Romano-British guardian goddess-or-demoness, or fairy. The proper nouns Bretannos, Britus, Britto, Brutus/Britan, Brython, Prydain, even Cruithne, are perhaps related to her.

In the reign of the emperor Hadrian, a temple was built in the honor of the goddess-or-demoness, or good fairy, Britannia, in the town of York. Inscriptions dedicated to this egregore were also found in London and Balimundy, in Strathclyde, a Roman fort of the Antonine Wall. An inscription in Winchester, in Hampshire [RIB 88] MATRIB ITALIS GERMANIS GAL (lia) BRIT (tannia) ANTONIVS LVCRETIANVS BF COS REST, also mentions her, in the company of some other fairies of the type totales matres. The inscription can be translated as follows: to the Italic, Germanic, Gallic, British,mothers, the consular beneficiary, Antonius Lucretianus, restored this temple.

Many coins or medals minted in the reign of the emperor Hadrian, also mention this egregore. And in particular several coins representing a female figure, personifying the (Great) Britain bearing the

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legend “Britannia “. She usually sat on a rock, holding a lance, with a shield beside her. On other coins, she is represented sat on a sphere above the waves. What by no means wanted to say, with due respect to the modern Englishmen of today, that Britannia ruled over the seas, but that Britannia was located at the end of the known world. Similar coins were issued by Antoninus Pius (138-161) and Commodus (177-192).

B) GALLIA. The Marseilles explorer Pytheas is perhaps one of the first navigators having gone around this land circa - 340 - 325. Some authors affirm that he never passed through the Pillars of Hercules. The Pillars of Hercules were then in the hands of the Carthaginians. Pytheas would therefore have got on a boat to Narbonne or Agde in the South of France, then would have moved onto the tin road. Along the banks of the Aude river, he would have arrived in Carcaso (Carcassonne), then further, Tolosa (Toulouse).

Then, by going down the course of the Garonne river, he would have reached in two weeks the town of Burdigala (Bordeaux) and from there he would have organized the continuation of his voyage in boat. The only thing of which we are sure is the following one: Pytheas described the cape Kabaion (the farthest point of the Raz), and Uxisama “ being three days’ sail “ as well as the Ostimians. All the historians recognize the Armorican Peninsula in the cape Kabaion, but is it really necessary to sail three days after in order to arrive in the waters of Ushant, if this island is well Uxisama, since it is of it we speak?

Strangely enough, this goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if you prefer, was worshipped as far as Great Britain, since we found an altar being dedicated to her in Vindolanda, and bearing the following inscription.

CIVES GALLI

DE GALLIAE

CONCORDES

QUE BRITANNI.

What we can translate as follows: the Celtic citizens from the Continent, to the goddess-or-demoness or fairy, Gallia, in full agreement with the British.

Another example of “entente cordiale” before the expression was invented, the inscription of Winchester, in Hampshire [RIB 88].

We already examined it higher but don’t deprive us of the pleasures of producing it again below.

MATRIB ITALIS GERMANIS GAL (lia) BRIT (tannia) ANTONIVS LVCRETIANVS BF COS REST, which mentions it in the company of some other fairies of the matres totales type. The inscription can be translated as follows: for the Italic, Germanic, Gallic, British, mothers, the consular beneficiary Antonius Lucretianus restored this temple.

C) ALLOBROX. Toutatis of the tribe of the Allobroges. Known by an inscription (CIL XII, 1531) found in Montsaleon (Hautes-Alpes, France). Pompeia Lucilla Allobrog (i) v (otum) s (olvit) l (ibens) m (erito). Pompeia Lucilla, for Allobrogis, has fulfilled her vow freely and deservedly . Egregore of the Allobroges or of the immigrants? It belongs to each one to see!

D) TRICORIA. Toutatis of the Tricorii tribe. Known by an inscription (CIL XII 4225) found in Beziers (French department of Herault).

E) VEDIANTIAE. Toutatis of the tribe of Vediantii. French Riviera. Known by two inscriptions (CIL, V, 7872 and 7873) dedicated to the matronis Vediantiabus of the area of Nice . This egregore therefore forms perhaps part of the matres veniales considering the size of the concerned human group.

F) Some other examples of egregores (teutates or Matres) recognized by the former high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht).

- The egregore of the inhabitants of Tournai in Belgium. The Louvres Museum indeed has a vase of the early times of the Christian era, dedicated to the genius of the inhabitants of Tournai (genio Turnacensium).

- The egregore of the inhabitants of Tongobriga (genio Toncobricensium). An inscription of the 1st century discovered in Freixo, Marco de Canaveses (Portugal).

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- The egregore of the inhabitants of Le Châtelet de Gourzon, French department of Haute-Marne: Ouniorix. Mentioned as “a deus “in an inscription of the first or second century (CIL XIII 11399).

- The egregore of the Belgian tribe settled in the north of Spain close to Ponferrada. An inscription found in Cacabelos. The egregore of this tribe is compared there to a “guardian “(tutela) by Romans: Tutela Bolgensis.

- The egregore of the people of Baniensis (Genius Civitatis Baniensium: Mesquita Moncorvo, Portugal).

- The egregore of Laquiniensis. An inscription discovered in Sao Miguel das Caldas de Vizela in Portugal. Equated by Romans to a “genius“.

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G) VARIOUS REMARKS ABOUT THE MOTHERS.

These fairies of Matrae or Matronae type resemble each other and are hardly nuanced personifications of the ancient Mother-Earth, but each social group claimed to speak to defined Good mothers, more suited than all others to answer the aspirations of their believers.

Merging or hierogamy, of type fire in water (“one day will prevail only fire and water “. Strabo IV, 4), symbolized by various types of divine couples uniting teutates and fairies of the matres type, like in the case of the couple Lenus and Ancamma among the Trevirians in Germany.

The same conclusion imposes itself in connection with the guardian genies of a group, the pagus (which, under a Latin name, indicates the Celtic canton or county) or the tribe itself. At Helvetii in Switzerland, theTarbelli, Leuci or Arverni, in France, we know worships honoring these national genies. It is well necessary to put them on the same level, in the indigenous devotion, that the undoubtedly national fairies of Matres type of the Trevirians in Germany, or other “cities “. We can associate to them the Nervinae of the Nervians (perhaps, moreover, some fairies of matres type too, they also) in Belgium.

These collective [ or alone, editor’s note] and various goddess-or-demonesses, frequent in the ancient world, are something very Celtic, very Germanic also, unless in Germania even, they constitute a contribution of the Celts. Their name, indeed, are Celtic as much as Latin, in its various forms: mater is a Latin term, but its use in the plural to designate goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, is not Roman; matrae (especially in Narbonnese), matronae (especially elsewhere) are Latinized Celtic forms, resulting from the Indo-European name of the “mother “. [Editor’s note.: there seem to be nuances between these two terms, matres, matrae, or matronae, which was therefore not strictly synonymous].

The nicknames these goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies if this term is preferred, have, are indigenous for the majority. Celtic finally is, their grouping by two, and especially by three, on the low-reliefs, where each one, moreover, has her attitude and costume [symbol therefore of unity in diversity. Editor’s note].

This plurality characterizes less than the presence of the infant the worship of the Good Mother. What is this, here, that the “mother “? The Earth or the Nature, forces creating every life; the Woman as a mother of men; in short the idea of maternity in all its width. Sometimes these goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, bear the symbols of land prosperity, fruit basket, horn of plenty, or feeding offering bowl ; sometimes they are represented in strictly maternal function, like on the low-relief of Vertault (French department of Cote-D'Or), where one of them takes care on her knees of a swaddled infant, the second unfolds a diaper (? see notes), the third holds a container and a sponge. Represented alone, the Mother often has in her arms a child she breast-feeds unless he rests in a cradle on her knees: it is neither the Roman Terra Mater nor the Phrygian Cybele. These Good Mothers generally have a nickname, in most cases local, sometimes older than the Celtic occupation. Just as you called upon the anonymous genie of the place (genius loci) on the inscriptions, in the same way you placed yourself under the protection of the Good Mothers who took care of the area. Fairies of Matres type known as Namausicae in Nimes, Glanicae in Glanum (Saint-Remy-de-Provence), Treverae among Trevirian , in Germany, Vediantae among the Vediantii in Nice and so on….

!------------------- -------------------------- -------------------------!

The nymph of the underground spring and of the river, the Lady of the forest, owner of the trees and of the game, Arduinna in the Ardennes in Belgium, Abnoba in the Black Forest in Germany, the favorable or malicious Fairy of the deserted top places; are only various hypostases of the primeval maternal great deity, the Earth.

Some elementals were viewed as male entities and not as goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), as the inscription of Plumergat in France, dedicated “to the Borders-Fathers “: Atrebo Aganntobo, proves it.

Corroi or corrigans (dwarves), leprechaun, gnomes or giants (cavaroi), are the elementals of the ground, caves, sanctuaries. They are the archetypes of the servants (forces) of the Mother-Earth and of her wealth, from where their part in the work of metals, or of agriculture. Their Celtic names: corroi, lutoi, lutocorpanoi (Irish leprechaun) approximately mean “soul/minds of the ground “.

Many toponyms are also theonyms in the pantheistic universe of druids. Nemausus, Boruo, are at the same time names of springs, names of god-or-demons, and names of conurbation. Most of the time

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nevertheless, the high-knowers of the druidiaction combined rather all these ideas with the notion of femininity.

These multiple female deities, linked to the ground, to the streams, to elementary social structures [the clan for example in the case of the fairies of Matres Lubicae, or Nessamae type, called in Latin language Proxumae. Editor’s note] have to date back to an indistinct prehistoric past, former to Bronze Age.

Their origin is lost in the mists of time; their level is difficult to specify, but matches, of course, a period of final settlement, which could vary according to the places.

It is not impossible besides that some of them made their appearance during various times, some of them even tardily, according to a process inherent to human soul.

The inscriptions present two remarkable forms: that of Matra in the south of France, which dates back to a Celtic Matra (Matris or Matrabus in the plural dative). That of Mairae, known especially among Lingones (Mairabus) and still badly explained, can be only a synonym of the preceding one. The fifth zone of great density in pieces of evidence is the Rhine Valley in Germany, rich as well in figurations as in inscriptions. Quite before the arrival of Berecynthia or Cybele, people called upon the Mothers to get fertility of the fields.

The Mothers are generally designated with the word of Matrones (Matronae), word it is necessary not to regard as a borrowing from Latin language, but as a derivation of the Celtic form Matra.

Sometimes the Mothers form a group of two goddess-or-demonesses. Or of two fairies if you prefer to use this word.

This type is largely represented among the Santones (Western France). There exists in Burgundy a second type of the two mother-goddess-or-demonesses, much rarer. It is goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, sitting on a chariot trailed by two horses.

A specimen invincibly makes us think of the well-known text of the “Passion“ of saint Symphorian, that which reports a pagan festival, celebrated below the walls of Autun in the honor of “Berecynthia “; goddess-or-demoness or fairy who seems a dressing-up (a romana or graeca interpretatio) of the Mother of Celtic and Preceltic times. The two mothers of the source of the Armançon River, sitting in state in their chariot, prefigure this procession indeed.

In addition to a basket or a heavily loaded horn of plenty, these fairies of matres type frequently pour towards the ground the contents of a libation offering bowl. This cup, from where the share of the earthly benefits runs out which returns to the god-or-demons to come back to Mankind unless it is a sacred mead somewhat similar to the Haoma or Soma of Indo-Iranians.

In Vertault, still in France, they appear very obviously ready to achieve the intimate and daily gestures a newborn demands: to wash it then to change its diaper. And the bared breast that each one of them shows indicates their occupation of nurse clearly. But they are goddess-or-demonesses or fairies if it is preferred , and they wear a diadem on their hair. In this series of triads, the faces have individualized ages: average or mature age for the one who, always placed in the center, rolls out the volumen (papyrus roll) , while the one who holds the infant is always younger. It is not by chance. Don't old age, maturity, adolescence, seem to designate the three key periods of the life of the woman and, by extension, the three great periods of the earthly life of the child?

Those of Naix show objects, as to indicate that they are there to serve the chapel devoted to goddess-or-demoness or to the fairy (a jug and a two handled vase) or more mundanely to maintain the building (a ring with four keys to open and close the door of the temple). As for the young maiden slightly placed in the background on the left of the goddess-or-demoness or fairy of Chatonrupt, her gesture remains far away from every solemnity or from every symbolism. She passes her right arm under the wrist of the goddess-or-demoness or of the fairy, to seize furtively a fruit put on the knees of the deity.

As we saw it, there is between Epona and the Mothers a close resemblance. The reason for it is very simple. The Mothers are as local and particular applications of the same druidic concept as that of Epona, i.e., ultimately of the notion of Mother-Earth.

We find the innumerable mother-goddess-or-demonesses, Matrones, Tutelae, Proxumae, Fairies, of the Romano-Celtic, Romano-British or Gallo-Roman, world, illustrated sometimes under the features, familiar still today to the Catholic worship, of the mother pampering her baby. Alone or, more often, grouped by three, they hold in their lap children or small of animals, or flowers and fruits. There are reasons to think that they were also funerary and psychopompous goddess-or-demonesses; sometimes, specimens of their statuettes were found inside the graves.

In Ireland the mothers are Eriu (Ireland, name derived from Iveriu) Banuta or Banba/Banva (the wild sow or the horned one) Votala (the underground one. Fotla in Gaelic language). They personify this

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country, and particularly Eriu of course, but also Banuta/Banba/Banva to a certain extent, a little as Albion symbolizes Great Britain.

There exist in short four main categories of fairies of matres type.

A) Those who protect the occupied places, villages or towns. Their universality covers the entirety of the Celtic, even Indo-European, world. For this reason they are regionalized in Roman area: Matres Treverae: country of the Trevirians Matres Vediantiae: country of the Vediantes in Nice. They were Christianized thereafter as Our Lady.

B) Those who constitute the genies of the family, the fairies of matres mopates or nedsamae type, who are in a way some Madonnas and child, and whose relationship with the fertility fruitfulness or the family is obvious.

C) Those who preside over certain facts of the human life. Originally, besides, it was a personification, of the neutral fate. But the fullness even of the great cosmic law of which they are the representation will prevent, thereafter, that people continue to identify them with the personified Universal Including of the popular worships. The fairies of matres type were also a limitation compared to the infinite, in spite of this personalization in the form of a triad “past-present-future “of which we find trace almost everywhere.

D)Those who are assigned to a detail of nature, which can be a mountain or a forest, even some trees, but especially some springs.

!------------------- ---------------------------------------- ----------!

In reality, as we have had already the opportunity to say it, these various classes of elementals have rather fuzzy , rather vague, borders; and do not represent much apart from the shape any soul /spirit takes when it is called upon, what is by definition its nature.

For Jung the existence of a "completely other" is not defined as the transcendent God because it escapes all grasping. The "completely other" on which men feel they depend is what Emile Durkheim highlighted in his famous 1912 essay entitled "the elementary forms of the religious life," namely the basic elements of religion that our friend Jung took up under the name of "numinous" while associating it with his notion of archetypes (gods?)

“If we are going to look for the most primitive and simple religion which we can observe, it is necessary to begin by defining what is meant by a religion ; for without this, we would run the risk of giving the name to a system of ideas and practices which has nothing at all religious about it [like Islam], or else of leaving to one side many religious facts, without perceiving their true nature......

These definitions set aside, let us set ourselves before the problem. First of all, let us remark that in all these formulae it is the nature of religion as a whole that they seek to express. They proceed as if it were a sort of indivisible entity, while, as a matter of fact, it is made up of parts ; it is a more or less complex system of myths, dogmas, rites and ceremonies. Now a whole cannot be defined except in relation to its parts. It will be more methodical, then, to try to characterize the various elementary phenomena of which all religions are made up, before we attack the system produced by their union. This method is imposed still more forcibly by the fact that there are religious phenomena which belong to no determined religion. Such are those phenomena which constitute the matter of folklore. In general, they are the debris of passed religions, inorganized survivals ; but there are some which have been formed spontaneously under the influence of local causes [ ????].

All known religious beliefs, whether simple or complex, present one common characteristic : they presuppose a classification of all the things, real and ideal, of which men think, into two classes or opposed groups, generally designated by two distinct terms which are translated well enough by the words profane and sacred \ (profane, sacré). This division of the world into two domains, the one containing all that is sacred, the other all that is profane, is the distinctive trait of religious thought."

We may nevertheless consider that there exists another category of divine entities, at the same time elemental but also egregore or more exactly animal soul/spirit, the guardian god-or-demons or goddess-or-demonesses (or fairies), protective, or mothers of certain places; without we are able to really distinguish if this entity is proven only linked to the place in question (like the fairies of springs or rivers for example); or related to the human group which settled there (its soul or its national genius in a way).

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Note in connection with the mysterious diaper held by such mothers-goddess-or-demonesses (the great French historians that are Emile Thevenot and Paul-Marie Duval are not of the same opinion on this subject).

The Mother too , confers luck, wealth and happiness. However, her benefits are not sullied with arbitrary; they are granted with a conscious benevolence. An exhumed relief from the grounds of the Bollards in 1965, confirms this iconographic relationship between Mother and Fortune: it shows the same globe, lying on the ground, between a goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, with the horn of plenty and the mallet god-or-demon.

Very often a distribution of the roles is noted. One of the goddess-or-demonesses holds for example the offering bowl and the horn of plenty, symbols of wealth and happiness, another deploys on her knees some fabric or parchment, another has in her arms an infant. The position of the three goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies if this term is preferred, is not immutable. Specialists generally recognized in these triads some nursing or “mopates “ Mothers , even some goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies, of motherhood. The attribute unrolled on the knees was identified with a “diaper “. But the identification of a diaper is not easily plausible with respect to the two groups discovered in the station of the Bollards, close to Nuits-Saint-George (French department of the Cote-d’Or), and of which the supplementary iconography is instructive. In the most meaningful triad, it is the central Mother who spreads out over her knees this enigmatic attribute. The partial assimilation of the Mothers with the Parcae (or with the Norns. Editor’s note) encourages recognizing, in the hands of the central deity, the book of the destiny, represented, as usual, in the shape of a roller (volumen), where is written the lot of the newborn.

Here there the small human being who opens the eyes on the world. He is at once the subject of assiduous care. The horn of plenty symbolizes the chances of happiness which are offered to him. However, this life is limited in time; hardly he is born that the man moves into a way of which the term is envisaged. Parchment in hand, the powerful mother takes care of the irreversible course of days and years. When the fatal roller comes one day to exhaustion, then will sound the ultimate hour, then will begin the voyage towards the hereafter that the boat already put under the foot of the goddess-or-demoness, or of the fairy, enables us to foresee. If this term is preferred. In a striking short cut, it is therefore the whole mystery of the birth of man, of his short passage in this world, and of his survival in the parallel to ours other world we call the hereafter; that the triads of the Bollards propose to us.

These Mothers are at the origin of the medieval notion of “fairies “or “good fairies “ leaning on the cradle of the children, or of the three Bethen in Germanic countries, but this belief in the fairies of matres type will be then deteriorated by 2000 years of mixtures of memories under the leadership of the triumphing Christianity : to the image of the Mothers of nature, these of the human or animal Teutates were added.

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IV (MORE LIMITED) VENIALES MATRES OR TEUTATES.

The fairies of the matres or matrones type are deities or egregores who were made recipients of a true worship among Romanized Celts and the Germanic people upon contact with Roman Empire. It is witnessed by the existence of more than one thousand votive stones or altars which are dedicated to them, ranging from the 1st to the 5th century; and located on the lower Rhine, in the North of Italy, in England, and, of course, in Gaul.

These fairies of matres or matrones type can be represented only, by two or, generally, three. It is then possible to see there a representation of the daughter, mother and grandmother (who are characterized not only by their bodily appearance, but also by the fact that the virgins have their hair loose). The fairies of the matrones type hold horns of plenty, fruits or cereal baskets. They hold or nurse sometimes a child (matres mopates).

They are therefore not only dispensers of the fertility of the ground, but also she guardians of marriage and maternity.

More than one hundred names or nicknames of these fairies of matrones type are listed. Those which can be interpreted sometimes refer to a tribe or a territory (suebae: “Suevians “), sometimes to their functions (many names derived from *gebo: “to give “ such as gabiae: “those who give “).

These good fairies of the average Celt of Antiquity, seem to be called upon in the Rhenish provinces by the name of matronae, in Narbonnese or in Lugdunensis by the name of matres. There is nevertheless between the fairies of matres type and the fairies of matronae type, as we already had the occasion to say it, the same difference as between a father and an owner. In the first case there is a biological filiation, in the second case it is only a spiritual, even social, filiation or subordination.

A fairy of the matra or matrona type was seldom isolated; generally we see her represented with two partners, one on her right side, the other on her left side, but each one was to have her personality, therefore could have her own worship. In the field of micro-toponymy (on the level of the locality or of the simple domain), the fairies of the type “Good mothers “ therefore merge quite naturally with the basic level of the teutates.

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V THE SOCIO-PROFESSIONAL TEUTATES OR MATRONAE.

The egregores of socio-professional groups.

The teutates can also be those of various nontribal , nonethnic, nonclannish, groups. The Roman name of “Mars “is charged with ambiguity, as well as the figurations of these helmeted, armored, “Mars “ which evoke instinctively the idea of war, are misleading; whereas it is by no means what characterizes primarily the teutatis. We indeed know Gallo-Roman “colleges “which call upon through the name of Mars the help of their collective genius; their patron saint the Christians say (if memory serves me well ) or giving thanks to him for granted benefits.

- Ulatis (Greek Oulatias) is an egregore known by an inscription (written in Greek characters) found in Collorgues in France (RIG I, G-184). It seems to be the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, of the Ulidians or Ulatti in the Alps, a anthroponym comparable with that of the Ulaid in Ireland, and which means “lords, princes, those who have the power and the sovereignty “. Ulatis is therefore the egregore of the class of the lords.

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VI FAMILY GUARDIAN ANGELS OF PAGANISM: MATRES LUBICAE OR MATRES NESSAMAE.

(The fairies of matrae , matrai, mairae, matres, type, and other non-professional matronae).

From this marriage of the teutates (egregores) and of the fairies of matres type is left the idea of the fairies of matres lubicae or nessamae (Latin proxumae) type, she guardians of the family, even of the individual.

In other words, the exact equivalent of the Latin Penates or Lares. This kind of egregores is seldom made the recipient of a collective worship in shrines which are peculiar to them. The place of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy if it is preferred, was on the contrary in all the homes, because it is a domestic deity (“domestic Mothers “certain inscriptions say precisely), to whom people ask for a constant protection.

People could have said, “teutates nessami “instead of “matres nessamae “ but it is through the name of “matres nessamae “and not under that of “teutates nessami “that the Celts paid homage to this basic druidic notion.

The fairy of the type Matra lubica or nessama (Latin proxuma) helps in a way the human being to achieve his destiny. The relationship between the domestic nessamae fairies and men, is theophanic and personal, or at most family. In the druidic spirituality, the individual is never alone. He has a family and in addition to his ancestors (principle of the communion of the dead and the living *) therefore a god or soul/mind guardian of the group, female, called Matra lubica or nessama (Latin proxuma).

By renewed prayers and sacrifices, the human being must keep this familiar presence going near him, because it protects him.

Our ancestors therefore called, as we have just seen it, matrai lubicai or nessamai then matrae proxumae, these kinds of guardian angels of the families. The fairy of the type Matra nessama it is the energy which guarantees the cohesion of the family, its vital fire, its destiny.In short its good fairy.

NB. The ancient Celts thus often entrusted their prayers to these fairies of the type matres nessamae who helped them in their daily life. Kind of family awareness, of spiritual personality shaped by the thoughts, the words and the acts, the matra “nessama“ guides and also accompanies the soul/mind of the family member who has just died; and leads it in the Next-World as all self-respecting good fairy.

The suleves are an entity known by inscriptions discovered in Rome, in Trier and in Alzey in Germany, Vienne-en-Val, as in the Loiret, in France. In Collias in the Gard, the suleve is combined with Minerva and the she river elemental, named Idennica (Eyssene) : Suleviae Idenniace Minervae. In Marquise, still in France, we find her in the form Sulevis Junonibus, Sulevis Domesticus in Cologne in Germany and Sulevis Montanis on another inscription.

This entity will also be honored in the shape of a triad of fairies (Matres Suleviae) in Bingen in Germany; Budapest in Hungary, Carlsburg in Romania, Cologne in Germany, Ladenburg in Germany, Nassenfels in Germany, Nijmegen in the Netherlands, Strasbourg and Lyons, Velleron and Venasque, in France.

In Great Britain inscriptions mentioning these guardian angels of paganism were found in the temple of Colchester: MATRIBVS SVLEVIS SIMILIS ATTI F CI CANT. For the Suleve fairies , Similis son of Attius, from the City of the Cantiacorum.

An inscription found in Bath [RIB 192]: SVLEVIS SVLINVS SCVLTOR BRVCETI F. To the Suleves, Sulinus Scultor, son of Brucetus. Name perhaps in connection with that of the great goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, in Bath: Sul or Sulis. Or then from the Celtic *SU- (good, very) and *loudia- (to lead).

They were sometimes compared with Juno, Diana, Ceres or Cybele, Venus or Minerva, but they really do not resemble the matching classical goddess-or-demonesses or fairies, of the Greco-Roman world.

In spite therefore of this incredible cultural colonialism, literally without precedent, made possible by the total lack of pride, dignity, honor, of too many Celtic people of the time, the worship of the mothers survived; as the many terra cotta figurines here or there discovered prove it.

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Archeologists discovered in the hill fort of Argentomagus in France many figurines making it possible to note that in the Roman time, many Celts of then still kept strong ties with their ancestral deities, and in particular with the worship of mothers.

They are of two types. Either out of stone, sitting in an armchair and holding a horn of plenty full of fruits (fruitfulness goddess-or-demonesses or fairies); maybe out of terra cotta, sitting in an armchair and breast-feeding their babies (feeding, protective of children, goddess-or-demonesses or fairies). These figurines of white terra cotta mother-goddess-or-demonesses are found everywhere, and therefore show importance attached, by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), to the motherhood, the family and the home.

Archeologists also found in the excavations of Argentomagus, innumerable white terra cotta statuettes representing a pseudo-Venus, pseudo-Venus protecting with her coat 5 children differently years old , what shows the popularity of this type of goddess-or-demoness, or of good fairy if you want, in families. These clay figurines therefore are witnesses of designs or view of the presence of the divinity still largely widespread in the Roman time.

In the Europe of Middle Ages, this worship of the female sacred continued in the shape of the Black Virgins, or for example in the form of various saints. Like those venerated in Worms in Germany (the three Bethen), whose iconography is identical to that of the fairies of the matronae type of the time of the Roman Empire having been previous to them.

Their memory was also preserved in the form of an annual ceremony, still used in Rhineland and England during the Early Middle Ages. The night of the Mothers, or Modranecht, Mutternacht, which took place in the night from December 24th to 25th. See on this subject the witness statement of the Venerable Bede.

“ They began the year on the 8th calends of January [25 December] when we celebrate the birth of the Lord. That very night, which we hold so sacred, they used to call by the heathen word Modranecht, that is, "mother's night,” because (we suspect) of the ceremonies they enacted all that night “.

A table was laid, people left there three empty places for the mothers, and feasted all night long. What was thus celebrated, it was the passage of the mothers from this world in the other, and people thought to welcome them by the way, to offer them something to drink and to eat in order to comfort them. It is besides here the origin of our Midnight supper.

* * Especially evident on the day of Samonios, of which Christians made their All Saints'Day.

Note of PeterDeLaCrau found by his heirs in a cardboard box.

This concept was also developed on the strictly individual level this time, under the names of “genius cucullatus “or “Matra sulevia “.

The Christians represent their guardian angels as simple servants of God, strictly individual and remaining outside their person. The Celtic genii cucullati or matrae lubicae or nessamae seem rather at the same time the good fairy of the human being, his prototype, his heavenly pole, his spiritual mentor or his soul’s friend (anamocaros).

This being of light (with a body made bellissamos or bellissama by the luan laith called xvarnah in Avestan language) prefigures in a way the human being of the hereafter. The cucullatus or the suleve is not only the part of divinity who accompanies the soul/mind in its passage in this world here below , it is also the heavenly or psychic pole of each family member.

This heavenly double that is the cucullatus or the sulevia, is at the same time a model, a protective and intermediate power, and a psychopomp as we saw. The cucullati or suleviae make it possible to make visible for the soul/mind of the family members what the opacity of the tangible world makes invisible for them. The duality of the cucullatus or of the sulevia and of the soul, results from this personal relation. The being of light that is the genius of the cucullatus or sulevia kind in fact, agree to be deprived of a part of his lon laith or xvarnah , in order to guide the man in this life , so that he becomes himself, completely.

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The unperceivable and continuous, presence, in each one, of the cucullatus or of the sulevia, appears in any action which commits man or woman on the straight and narrow. To revere the gods, to be courageous and to abstain from wrongdoing . The geniuses or the beings of light with a bellissimos body of the cucullatus or sulevia type can act on the imagination of man, particularly to appear to him in a kind of domestic theophany, of course, a little like the Lady of the lake appearing to the king of Bretons (Arthur).

These inner geniuses or these goddess-or-demonesses, have to be like some familiar ones or good fairies leaning over our cradle, we should learn to attend. It is necessary to endeavor to feel them, invisibly present to our life, and to love them.

The real story of this basic druidic notion perhaps lies in this intimate relationship between the cucullati genii or the good fairies of sulevia type and the man or the woman of whom they are the true good fairies or good influence: the human being.

The cucullati or suleviae are the spiritual models of the human beings defined thus, their transcendent personality from which human individuality is temporarily separated, but who endeavors to help it during its travel on this earth. To find the Grail, it is initially to interiorize one’s genius cucullatus or one’s sulevia, to know to recognize in oneself the transcendent immanent personality of this good fairy or of this good influence, to actualize it but also to make it shine.

This notion of genius of the type “cucullatus “or of fairies of the type “sulevia “ as a heavenly pole of the families or perfect prototype of the individual members of the family, is also communal to Mazdaism and Shamanism.

It can therefore be used for a beginning of spiritual ecumenism since Judeo-Christians and Judeo-Muslims have taken it over. NB. On the druidica or graeca interpretatio, see our analysis of the parable of Ogmios reported by Lucian of Samosata.

The geniuses of the type “cucullatus “and the good fairies of the type “sulevia “are very widespread “deities “. A little secondary, of course, and very basic, but as the poet said it, the great deities of independent Celtica they are perhaps these at the same time anonymous and myrionymous deities, people did not name, and who had hundred epithets,like Isis.

This basic druidic and even predruidic notion survived a long time within the common people in spite of the Romanization and the incredible world cultural colonialism which resulted from it. A cultural colonialism founded, on the one hand, on an unbelievable contempt of the innate right to be different; and, moreover, on a not less large servility of many people, with regard to the powers of money. Completely similar to the situation that the Englishmen as well as the Frenchmen not forgetting the Spaniards and the Portuguese, imposed in their colonies in the 19th century besides. The servility of men and women with regard to the dominant powers (of money) will never cease to astonish. There was never a lack of public figures having accepted, at the time, in Celtic land, to sell their soul, as well as the soul of their country or of their civilization; in exchange for some crumbs of power or of 30 deniers.

End of the note of Peter DeLaCrau found by his children.

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DOLB AND INDOLB.

The concept of human beings followed through life by a guardian is very ancient. Our gentle lord of Muirthemne, the hesus Cuchulainn, defended one day a ford with the assistance of two invisible alter egos, Dolb and Indolb, against a former comrade in arms named Ferdiad (Tain bo Cuailnge).

Our friend Rodney C. Mackay notes on this subject that the extremely important individuals could have up to three of these invisible guardians. In which case we could, of course, think the common run of people had only one of them.

Our Canadian correspondent thinks that Dolb and Indolb were the equivalents of the Scandinavian Norns (“some are of the race of the gods, but others are of the race of the elves; and the third of the race of dwarves” (according to Eddas). They assisted at the birth of eminent people, bestowing gifts of good or evil, even sometimes foretelling the future of the newborn.”

We don’t agree completely with this equating, which seems to us to be a mix-up with the role of the matres or of the fairies, leaning over the cradle of newborn babies.

More interesting, on the other hand, seems to us the remark of the neo-druid who observes that the word “elf,” appears in the form “alp” in many Germanic proper names such Alphart or Alprich, but were replaced after the coming of Christianity by the word engel (“angel”) such as for example in the case of Engel-hart or Engel- rich.

Our opinion is that the name which is given to these entities (elf, genius, or cucullatus) as their number (1,2, or 3) does not matter. What is important is to know if it is initially an entity external or inner to the human being.

According to Rodney C. Mackay Christians and men of the North thought that such entities came from the outside of the human being. Christianized Irishmen also apparently.

But our conviction to us is that they were in all these myths forces coming from the deepest part of man, and that they were sometimes represented in a triple form corresponding to the three ages of the human being: children adults and seniors.

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FROM THE GENIUS OR GOOD FAIRY OF THE FAMILY…

TO THE GENIUS OR THE GOOD FAIRY OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

CUCULLATI OR MATRES SULEVIAE

(INDIVIDUAL GUARDIAN ANGELS OF PAGANISM).

There exists many other human egregores, including conceived in a male shape by the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) and particularly this true guardian angel of the individual who is the Celtic genius cucullatus or telesphorus.

More logical than the Judeo-Islamic-Christians, the Celts,as for them, had indeed guardian angels of the male gender for the men (the cucullatus) and guardian angels of the female gender for the women (the sulevia). But the Celts had a strange design of this personal or individual guardian angel of the men. For them, such a guardian angel could sometimes be triple, perhaps to be appropriate for the three great ages of the life of any man: the boy, the adult , and the old man.

And former druids also had a strange design of this personal or individual guardian angel of the women. For them, such a guardian angel could sometimes be triple, to perhaps be appropriate for the three great ages of the life of any woman: the young girl, the mother, and the old woman.

We therefore find this guardian angel of the women according to the druidism, mentioned either in the singular (sulevia) or in the plural (suleviae).

The etymology of the name (- su-levia) makes think of a meaning of the kind “the one who guides - levia - su - well -. But perhaps not in the warlike military or political meaning of the world. What is certain in any case it is that this word is frequently associated with births or newborn babies. As they are guardian angels of the women, the temples dedicated to these suleviae are indeed often near fountains or of thermal springs.

The plural form (when you speak to these guardian angels of women, in a collective way, for example in a prayer sent to the guardian angels, of the female gender) is witnessed in Rome (in the Capitol) in the shape of dedications to the matribus sulevis (several inscriptions: at least 9).

As we have had the opportunity to specify it above, but it is not useless to point out it, more than 40 inscriptions mentioning several of these guardian angels of the women, exact equivalent thus of the Roman “juno “ were found in Romania (Alba Iulia), Hungary (Budapest), Netherlands (Nijmegen), Switzerland, Italy, and so on.

In Marquise (French department of the Pas-de-Calais. CIL XIII, 3561) these guardian angels are called upon under name Sulevis Iunonibus.

Sulevis Iunonibus sacr (um) L (ucius) Cas (sius) Nigrin [.

In Cologne in Germany (CIL XIII, 12056) they are designated with the name Domesticae, what incontestably brings them closer to the protective good fairies of the family of the type matres proxumae or others.

Sule [v] is Domest [i] cis suis Fab [i] Ianarius [et] Bellator [et] Iullus l[l] m.

In Collias (French department of the Gard), such a guardian angel is combined with Minerva and the river she elemental named Idennica (Eyssene).

But that we already saw it.

What teaches us now the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by Daremberg and Saglio in connection with this religious concept in the Roman world (in the writings of J.A. Hild).

[FIRST CONTACT POINT WITH THE DRUIDIC RELIGION].

In the old Latin language, the same genius was used to explain all the events of the life: one had it guiding or evil in turn: propitium, iratum, sinistrum habere. It was born with each man, it died with him, i.e., it returned within the universal soul of which it was an emanation. It is the doctrines which Horatius expresses in the verses below:

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Scit Genius, natale comes qui temperat astrum.

Naturae deus humanae, mortalis in unum

Quodque caput, voltu mutabilis, albus et ater.

The genius is ultimately the religious personification of the secret and mysterious power (vis abdita quaedam) which takes the place of the deity in the epicureanism of Lucretius; in the literature, which was necessarily influenced by much philosophy, this genius plays the same part as the demon of the Greeks: it expresses what there is more subtle in the conception of the divine being. For the popular faith, it is used to make the divine being present at all the levels of the reality, with the double nature of a creator and preserver; preservation being only a successive creation, as the action in the individuals is only the demonstration of their inner force.

The first pieces of evidence relating to the worship of the Genius in the Roman religion do not go back beyond the Second Punic War and there is any of them in which the influence of the Greek ideas on the demon and soon that of the stoical doctrines is not felt. It is not less certain than Genius formed part, with the Lares, the Penates and the Manes, of the most ancient deities of Latium. Often confused with these soul/minds * of Latin and Roman substance, it seems to indicate a genus of which they are the species, the general notion of which they detail the various aspects. Etymologically, the Ancients linked the name of genius to gens, geno or gigno sometimes (by an error of linguistics which is not without interest for the explanation of the role of the genius) to gero. It is the strength which fathers at the starting point and which preserves in their own individuality until their destruction, and the being of the man and the beings of reason that man had created in his own image (the gods)…

The genius is especially the divine strength which fathers: genius nominatur qui me genuit; he is the progenitor of the race of men, generis nostri parens. The first manifestation of his action dates from the union of the genders; the bridal bed is under his special protection, this is why he is called genialis. Every damage to the holy matrimony is a crime against the genius…

Through this identification of the genius with every good and pleasant act, one explains the use of the word genius at the comic authors, who associate the mention of him with that of a happy meeting; of a friend for example whom found again in an unforeseen way. There is here as a homage to the influence which gets buoyancy, at the moment even when it is felt; in these cases the intervention of the Genius is similar to that of Fortuna.

After being itself applied initially to the bridal bed, to the ideas as to the persons of whom this bed suggests the idea; the adjective genialis applies to the god-or-demons [since our Christian friends followers of the god of love make them also demons, the piece of evidence is here] which means abundance, joy, prosperity; to Bacchus, to Ceres, to Saturn, to the seasons when man tastes in peace the fruits of his work, to all that in the life is happy, fertile. It is through there that as of Antiquity, genius, just like the adjective genialis, and even, in certain cases, ingenium, came to mean the plenitude of intellectual faculties, the happy easiness of mind to give birth to beautiful and original designs.

The genius, who presided over the act of the generation, appears especially the birth day. It is him which determines the individual nature of the being which comes to the light; who will be at the same time the guiding principle of his acts, the guard of his existence, and the ideal explanation of what is reserved to him of happiness or of opposite.

In these various capacities , the genius natalis reminds, down to the smallest detail , of the demon of the Greeks. It is difficult to say, in the greatest number of the cases, if the authors who make him intervene, draw on the source of the genuine Roman beliefs; or if they adapt, according to the Greek ideas, a notion much vaguer of the old popular religion. It seems; by the use that comic authors had made of the genius, and more particularly Plautus, the most Latin of them, for whom the genius is simple and single; that the increase in the number of the individual genii, varying according to one man or another, and double at each one of them, is due to the influence of the Greek literature and philosophy.

Lucilius first, therefore following in that the ideas of Euclid the Socratic philosopher, admitted for each man two genii, one good, the other evil one; who explain, each one for his part, what is happy or unhappy, virtuous or guilty, in the existences.

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Even more so it is no longer the same genius which spreads on all the men an equal influence; the genius is done individual, and also varying in energy or moral quality; there are genii more powerful the ones than the others and, in the fight of the rival ambitions, it is their respective strength which explains the result; thus an Egyptian priest informs Antony that it is his genius which yields in front of that of Octavius. The two genii appear to the emperor Julian, one, expression of his good luck, before his accession to the throne; the other, looking despaired, even looking terrifying, after his raid against Persians. Brutus and Cassius received both, before their fall, the visit of the evil genius in whom was incarnated their disastrous fate.

Note of Peter DeLaCrau. The ancient Persian religion (zoroastrianism mazdaism) knew already the notion of guardian angel (fravashi). We are astonished, on the other hand, by the notion of guardian demons which apparently does not seem coming from Zoroaster but seems Greek and Roman. And therefore perhaps also druidic. But in this case and contrarily to Zoroastrianism it was to be a very relative dualism. Remain obviously the assumption that it is an umpteenth verbal delirium of the Christianity which has the annoying mania to call a demon in the very pejorative meaning of the word any superhuman power which does not come from its small tribal god (or more exactly from twelve tribes, the god of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob. Same thing besides with the Allah of Muhammad who in the beginning was only the main god of Mecca).

[SECOND CONTACT POINT WITH THE DRUIDIC SPIRITUALITY].

The genius is a male soul/mind, he appears only in the existence of the men, what proves once more that he was originally the divine principle of the generation: tutela generandi. The role which he performs with respect to the man is played for the woman by the individual Juno, who must be considered as the tutela pariendi; it is only all in all an application to every particular case, of the idea of Juno Lucina, who presides over childbirth. For all the rest, Genii and Junones are similar. The Juno was called natalis like the Genius, and a woman explained the misfortunes of her existence while referring to her irritated Juno (Junonem iratam habere).

This individual genius was the beneficiary of a very simple worship which left many traces, thanks to the votive inscriptions set up in his honor. It was customary to sacrifice to him, at the birthday; the offerings which were intended to him had the characteristics of a pious simplicity; since they did not comprise any bloodshed.

They consisted especially in wine, a symbol of cheerfulness of joy and strength, in flowers, image of the beauty which passes over, in cakes; the sacrifice was followed by dances. Horatius associates the worship of the genius with the pastoral rejoicings by which the former plowmen of Latium celebrated the end of work as well as the winter rest; while Tellus receives the sacrifice of a pig, and Silvanus that of milk, Genius, which knows how much the life is short, is honored by flowers. Elsewhere, however, it is a question of the sacrifice of a kid or of a pig, in his honor: it is obvious that these two victims point out his nature of god-or-demon of the generation.

Specialists also signal the recourse to small wine amphoras, symbolizing blood, which one gave up as is , or from which was poured the contents in a place adapted, after having opened them, or to have ritually broken their neck. Perhaps by a gesture similar to that which consists in “cracking open” a champagne bottle, nowadays.

In the ordinary life, it was sworn on the genius, either on his own, or on that of a friend or of a mistress. The oath by the genius was done by touching his brow, box of the intelligent force which presides over life .................

The Juno of the woman is painted with the Genius of the husband in the lararium of a house in Pompeii. It is in the vague notion of the survival of the human personality after death that the genius borders on soul/minds generally considered as distinct from him; on the Manes, the Lares and the Penates, which has over him the advantage of representing more precise personifications…

Specialists also signal tombstone inscriptions where the idea of Genius redoubles that of the Manes: Genio et Manibus. During the Parentalia one honored the genius of the ancestors, just like Aeneas venerates that of his father Anchises, by offering them garlands of flowers, seeds brewed in wine, salt and violets. Ovid, speaking about Larentinalia, says these festivals are welcome for the genii: geniis accepta. On a sepulchral lamp, a character dedicates his genius to the underground god-or-demons: Helenius suom geniom sdis in feris mandat. In the calendars of the end of the Empire, Feralia are called Genialia, and the games celebrated in the honor of the dead, genialici…

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Within the Roman family, the lar remains more especially the divine soul/mind where a race is incarnated; the genius is the particular guardian of the individuals who renew it. As for the Penates, it seems that this word is only a simple epithet designating sometimes Lares, sometimes the Genii, in their function of providers of the pantry. Inscriptions in the honor of the Genius domus, domus suae are even intended for the Penates. It happens, however, that they are distinguished, as in the verses where Horatius calls them to witness: Quod te per Genium dextramque deosque Penates obsecro and obtestor.

We already said that the genius of Latin people has all the variety of aspects of the daemon of the Greeks; this identity of nature undoubtedly contributed much to introduce into the literature, and through it in the practice of the life, uses and beliefs which were not native in Italy. Rather singular thing! Cicero, to whom had been offered many occasions to speak about the genius, does not even pronounce the name of him; when he must translate the Greek word daïmôn, he uses the word lar; but, after him, it is well genius which is used for that. Just as daïmôn is not only associated in the language with tychê, but that, often, he replaces her; thus Genius is sometimes identical to Fortuna: we could say that the tychè of each man is his genius. In certain inscriptions Genius plays with Fortuna the part of the male god with the female deity, like the good Daemon with Agathè Tychè.

A characteristic which distinguishes the genius of Latin people of the demon of the Greeks, it is that he is put by piety among the ranks of the personal god-or-demons; he represents, through a kind of refinement, the ideal deity, opposed to their anthropomorphic expression. This form of the worship of the genii is even rather old in Italy, witness the inscription of year 38 before our era in the Jupiter Liber temple, in Furfo; the Jupiter genius is distinguished there from Jupiter himself. Arnobius quotes us the passage of a former scholar, probably Caecina, the friend of Cicero, where the genius of Jupiter, Genius Jovialis, is quoted among the four Penates of Etruria; it is one of the documents according to it one believed relevant to ascribe to Etruscan civilization, belief in the genii, that one finds among Latin people; however the genius of the god-or-demons is ordinary and really popular at the latter. Inscriptions and texts mention the genii of Jupiter, Juno Sospita, Apollo, Mars, Aesculap, Priapus, the Sleep and even of moral personifications like Fama, Virtus and Virtutes.

This distinction of the genius of a god-or-demon and of his personality was especially convenient for the Romans in foreign country; it was used to them to prepare the identification of the exotic deities with those of the national religion, to reconcile, in practice, the Roman worshipping of the genius, with the homage they were keen to pay back to the god-or-demons of the overcome people. Thus we have inscriptions in the honor of the genius of Mercurius Alaunus, or Jupiter Dolichenus, which are Celtic deities. An inscription, found in the French department of the Indre, and that one must make go back to the reign of Augustus, is in the honor of the imperial divinity and of the genius of Atepomarus Apollo. NUM WITH (G) AND GENIO APOLLINIS ATEPOMARI.

This inscription is interesting in two ways ; in what the epithet given to the Roman god-or-demon is still new; and in what the homage, paid at the same time to the divinity of Augustus and to the genius of Apollo, points out the legend of the emperor resulting from the mysterious snake which would have had sexual intercourse with Atia.

It appears well, through these various evidences, that the genii of the great god-or-demons are another thing that a weakened emanation of their divinity; another thing that messengers or servants, responsible for performing among the mortals the works in which their majesty was not to be associated; what the propoloi daimones of Greeks are. This last opinion encounters this characteristic fact that, even if the personified deities are taken in the plural like the Forinae or the Virtutes, the genius is always in the singular. One could not admit more than the genius of the god-or-demons is only their located numen, thanks to a kind of extension of the notion of genius loci. The genius of the god-or-demons was considered, absolutely like that of the men, to express, in a shape more linked to their anthropomorphic personality than the numen, their moral action; it is their ingenium. Such is the meaning of the genius of Priapus at Petronius, of that of Fama in Martial.

It could not be denied, however, that the processes of localization did not play a part, when piety, always in search of new food, did one's utmost then to separate the genius from the god-or-demon himself…

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Before the very times of the religious syncretism, the genius came in this way to be been used as a hyphen between the world of the god-or-demons, and the nature of the human ones. Aufustius, an archeologist contemporary of Cicero, called it: deorum filius et parens hominum. But it is there a point of view where the religious speculation falls into pure philosophy.

This one, besides, could not fail to make the most of the idea of the genius, just like the Greeks used the daemon, to give itself a look of orthodoxy, and to subject to rationalist interpretation the popular ideas about the god-or-demons. Varro, after having placed the genius among the dei selecti, between Saturn and Mercury, made him the reasonable soul of the man (his mind), in contrast with lower faculties and passions…

Above all these particular genii, often named with them, glides the genius of the emperors, associated since Augustus with the worship of public Lares. When he gave again in honor the festival of the Compitalia, he made being placed in each chapel of a district (there were 265 of them), between the two Lares, the image of his own genius; and the Senate issued that in all the houses, at the beginning of each meal, one would make libations in the honor of the genius of the Emperor, like the Greeks made some in honor of the good daemon. Then also began the use to swear on the divinity (numen) or the genius of the sovereign, what the Greeks translated by his tychè; it was vainly that Tiberius preferred to brace oneself against this form of apotheosis. The practice of this oath and the homage to the imperial genius became obligatory; those who contravened this use were punished by the drubbing. J.A. Hild.

Here now what says to us this same Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by Daremberg and Saglio about the cucullatus, or more exactly about his Greco-Roman equivalent, Telesphorus.

I MYTHOLOGY. A secondary deity of the entourage of Asklepios and Hygeia, appearing only at the end of the Hellenistic time. Literary, epigraphic, sources, and illustrated monuments of Telesphorus, date, taken together, of the time of the Roman Empire. The rare ancient authors who speak about Telesphorus say us neither in which time, neither in which country, nor following what circumstances, was formed the worship of Telesphorus; nor for what reasons also it was so closely combined with that of Asklepios and Hygeia. Modern scientists do not seem to have succeeded in explaining in a satisfactory way the name of Telesphorus by the Greek etymology. For the ones, it is the genius of convalescence, an idea several scientists still share. For others, it is a deity who gives the health or who preserves from diseases which threaten it. Some specialists also regard him as a genius of magic medicine, a demon of healing dreams, or a god-or-demon of the sleep, similar to Greco-Roman Hypnos [somnus]. Some critics, invoking the opinion of Aristides the rhetorician, and of Pausanias, regard Telesphorus as a god-or-demon from Pergamon, or as the Akesis of Epidaurus; others, as originating in Asia Minor; others still believe him from Celtic origin. Salomon Reinach, being based on the misleading nature of the Greek etymology of Telesphoros, on the northern source of his costume, and on a clever interpretation of a text by Pausanias; which indicates, according to him, the adoption of worship unfamiliar to Pergamon, on order of an oracle; feels Telesphorus is a deity from Barbarian origin who, perhaps come from Thrace or from Illyria, was introduced at a recent time into the Greco-Roman Panth-eon. At all events, it is in Pergamon that the worship of this deity took, in the 3rd century of our era, a considerable importance. It is also from this city that the oldest text which mentions him, comes. The rhetorician Aelius Aristides, in his sacred discourses, regards Telesphorus as the colleague of Asklepios. He appears in dreams to the patients, with the medicine god-or-demon. The attendant of Aristides, Neritos, saw twice, he says, Asklepios, with Telesphorus, appearing to him in dreamS. He received a balm with some instructions about the way of using it. Telesphorus is not restricted nevertheless to play this part of colleague of Asklépios; he too applies in dream a personal influence on the patients. At the time of another vision, he appears only to Aristides himself, by projecting in front of him a gleam comparable with the light of the sun. The philosopher Proclus has a similar vision. These various apparitions show the main characteristics of incubatio visions. The deities appear to the patients in a beautiful and youthful appearance, surrounded by a mystical gleam, and disappear in a sudden way…

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III ILLUSTRATED REPRESENTATIONS. The oldest representation of Telesphorus would be that which appears in the reverse of a coin of the Segusiavi (from 58 to 27 before our era) where some people believe to recognize him with Hercules, if it were certain that it is his image there. It is a man wearing a long tunic, but without hood and barefoot.

The reverse of a coin of Nicaea (Bithynia), minted when Antonin the pious was emperor, shows us Telesphorus under the aspect of a small standing character, dressed in a loose coat with hood raised on the head. His face only remains visible, his arms are hidden under the coat. The reverse of a small bronze of Aegae in Cilicia, dating back to the reign of Philip the father, of Otacilia and her son, shows to us Telesphorus between Asklepios and Hygeia, grouped on the frontage of a hexastyle temple. Specialists proposed several assumptions to determine the origin of the hooded coat of Telesphorus. The ones believe it from Asia Minor, others from Celtic or Thracian countries [cucullus]. It is also considered as the clothing of the convalescent, or a symbol of the magic mysteries of medicine, even as nightwear.

On an ivory diptych of the British Museum, we can notice on the left of Asklepios a Telesphorus reading a developed roll. The Telesphorus of the group of the former Strangford collection, in the British Museum, wears around his neck a kind of box which can contain a good-luck charm or an amulet. On a copper coin of Pergamon, Telesphorus holds the branch of a tree. The beautiful marble statue of Telesphorus of the former Foucault collection, as that of red marble of the Torlonia museum (Rome) show him wrapped in his coat to semi-legs; the hood leaves uncovered only the face. Mr. D. Vaglieri very recently discovered, in Ostia, a terra cotta statuette of Telesphorus sitting on a base. On each side we can notice a kind of altar; on one is a pig; specialists believe to distinguish on the other some corn ears, undoubtedly symbols of the Demeter’s worship, of which we can note the close relationships with the worships of Asklepios and Telesphorus. We designate perhaps wrongly under the name of Telesphorus some Gallo-Roman bronze statuettes found in various French localities. GASTON DARIER.

Below what points out to us Dyfed Lloyd Evans in connection with the Genius Cucullatus or the Genii Cucullati (hooded genii).

One designate under this name a whole series of images known in the old Celtic provinces of the Roman Empire. The name comes from a discovery carried out in the ruins of a temple located at Wabelsdorf in Austria, and excavated by Rudolf Egger. Two great altars had been installed there, which represented a figure wearing a hooded coat, with a Latin inscription “genio cucullato” (= to the hooded genius). Name obviously referring to the clothing worn by this character (cucullus). Similar representations found in Great Britain and in Gaul were therefore called thus.

They seem to represent either some giants (cavaroi) or some dwarves (corroi) and some wear a phallus outgoing from the open coat.

In Great Britain, cucullati always have a small stature, and go by three. They are all similarly covered with the same coat. They have obvious sexual symbols: eggs or purses. For as much, such symbols are not unknown in the Continent, since one finds eggs on a wood sculpture discovered in Geneva, and the purses on a representation found in the temple of the Xsulsigiae in Trier.

In Great Britain as on the Continent, these deities are often represented holding some parchments or roll-shaped books, perhaps to evoke medical science (see the specimen found at Reculver in Kent) or any accountancy.

They have an undeniable phallic appearance in general, although the gender of these genii (male or female) is in certain cases not very obvious. Some specialists maintain they are all male, but in the case of the specimens found at Housesteads, only the central figure is undoubtedly male. Two others being more or less female. It is perhaps a question, like in the cases of the triads of fairies of matres type, of representing the various ages of life. The central figure shows us a mature man and the two other figures some young teenagers.

One of the noticeable differences between Telesphorus and the genius cucullatus, is the fact that, in the majority of the cases, the telesphorus does not wear shoes. As regards Great Britain, the Celtic origin of these triple representations is undeniable. It does not go in the same way on the Continent where the genii cucullati, in a triple form, were found only in a single case: a clay tablet discovered at Kärlich in Germany.

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All the other finds or discoveries, concern, not genii cucullati in a triple form, but isolated individuals.

Waldemar Deonna in his essay entitled: From Telesphorus to the “gray monk,” upholds the thesis that there was interpretatio romana and comparison therefore between a druidic concept and a Roman or Greek god-or-demon. An exemplary case of this comparison is the representation found in Nimes. The genius cucullatus is barefoot like Telesphorus, but the rest of the iconography is clearly Celtic, and completely comparable with the genius cucullatus found at Netherby, Cumberland, along Hadrian's Wall.

The deposits of small engraved cucullati in the graves mean perhaps that this deity had a psychopompous role, in addition to his links with fertility or health. And that it was a guard of the human being, from his conception to his death.

N.B. We should not confuse the almost individual guardian angels, of paganism, who are the genii cucullati, for men and the fairies of matres suleviae type for women; with the fairies of Matres lubicae or nessamae (“Latin proxumae”) type, who are the guardian angels of the family; the fairies of Matres veniales type who are the guardian angels of the widened family (= the clan); and the fairies of Matres Totales type (= goddess-or-demoness, or good fairies, of the Tribe); or the Matrones who are the guardian angels of a human group narrowly united but not necessarily by blood ties.

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APPENDIX No. 1.

THE SOUL OF MANKIND?

Psyche is a mythological character who appears in the novel of Apuleius, the Metamorphoses, episode probably inspired from a Greek original. A personification of the soul, she is represented in her form of human woman seeking to find the love of Eros, or then in her shape of a goddess, with wings of a butterfly, allegory of the soul.

And well we have the same thing in Ireland with the history of the beautiful and unhappy Etain/Etanna.

Etanna is a mythological character who appears in several Irish legends, of which the Tochmarc Etaine (the wooing of Etaine), the Fled Bricrend (the Feast of Bricriu) and the Lebor Gabala Erenn (the Book of conquests of Ireland);

probably inspired by a former pan-Celtic myth. A personification of the soul, she is represented in her form of human woman seeking to find the love of Mabon/Maponos/Oengus, or then in her shape of a goddess, with the wings of a butterfly, allegory of the soul.

Note of Peter DeLaCrau on a loose leaf and inserted by his heirs into this place of the manuscript under the title of their choice.

Etanna, in the Irish legends, is a primordial goddess-or-demoness, or fairy,whose name means “poetry “. Also known under the names of Etan and Etaine, she appears in several mythical stories, of which one very Christianized, and entitled “The Nurture of the Houses of the Two Milk Vessels” (Altrom Tige Da Medar).

She is the daughter of Diancecht (or Riangabair according to certain sources), the wife of the king Eochaid Airem on earth, and of the god-or-demon Medros/Midir in the sidh (the Next World of the Celts). Through jealousy, Vocusmnaca/Fuamnach, the first wife of Medros/Midir, changes her it into a water pond by touching her with a branch of sorb (a magic wand), then into fly, that a magic wind carries in the airs during seven years. She becomes lastly a tiny midge and falls into an ale cup. In this form, she is swallowed then “brought again into the world “ by the wife of the king of Ulster, Etar.

Etanna marries Eochaid Airem, the king of kings or Ireland , but Medros/Midir, who wants to recover her, proposes to the king a game of chess or more exactly of tablut, of which the stake is his own wife. Eochaid loses, but does not keep his word and drives out the god-or-demon from his capital, Tara. Medros/Midir manages nevertheless to come back in the city and the palace, then joined Etanna. Both are changed into swans and fly away. The king pursues them in all the sidhs of the country, but the god-or-demon will use his magic to deceive him : he changes fifty maidens into doubles of Etanna, and asks Eochaid to choose one of them. The king complies and, sure of his choice, sleeps with the girl, who is revealed to be her own child, Etain Og. From this incestuous intercourse will be born a girl, Mes Buachalla, origin of a whole dynasty of kings, and particularly of Conaire Mor.

In the admirable Gaelic story entitled “the nurture of the house of the two milk buckets “(Altrom Tige Dá Medar) Etanna symbolizes the human soul/mind or more exactly the soul/mind of Mankind, torn about between Christianity and paganism. In the Irish legend, the victory will belong to St. Patrick, but it will be quite a strange victory since the unhappy one will die from that almost at once, and this to the large displeasure of all those who loved her, whether they are Pagans or Christians.

The soul/mind of Mankind therefore seems well personified by Etanna in Ireland. But it is without any doubt more despaired of the cases of the early Irish literature. Something able to cause the damnation of the most skilled of the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht). In what concerns us, we could find an about coherent explanation to it only by referring us to the work of C.G. Jung (Metamorphoses of the soul and its symbols).

Etanna is therefore a symbol of the soul/mind. Or a goddess/demoness of the soul/mind? But what is this therefore that the soul or the mind? And besides Jung says to us about the soul?

The soul is a traveler between two worlds: the subject but also the world of the spirits, the earthly one and the supernatural one, the ego and the self. The soul, for Jung..............................................................................

.............................................................................................................................................................

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Definitions limit and divide. Let us prefer to them the amplifications which widen and connect. The soul/mind, people say in various sources; has something to do with heart, consciousness, mystery, thought, secrets, breath, spirituality, transcendence, life, the essence of the being, the inner companion, wisdom, friendship, the divine Mother… In certain traditions, it is represented by a bird, a ribbon, a cord, sometimes a flame. Among Egyptians, during the weighing of the soul/min (anaon), it must be as light as a feather… In certain stories, it is possessed by the Devil or is sold to this one… For others, the soul is in a way the female face of God. It is spoken today, in the circles leading the intellectual fashion, of web noosphere. Our ancestors were not there about that, and they personified the egregore or soul/mind of Mankind in their way.

End of the note of Peter DeLaCrau on a loose leaf and inserted by his heirs into this place to the manuscript.

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APPENDIX No. 2.

FROM THE WORSHIP OF GREAT ANCESTORS TO THAT OF THE SPIRITS.

Although extremely widespread throughout the world, and present in many civilizations, the worship of ancestors, great heroes or anatiomaroi (great initiates), DIED, in short of the great soul/minds (since such is ultimately the meaning of the word anatiomaroi) OF THE PAST, is not a universal phenomenon. Judaism and Islam are for example resolutely against. Christianity, with its Purgatory, its All Saints' day, and its innumerable saints, having a more moderated position in this field.

Such worship exists among several Indo-European peoples of Antiquity, particularly among the Celts, the Germanic tribes, and the Scandinavians. The worship of the ancestors is present, also in the Roman world, where the manes, particularly dreaded representations of the late ancestors, belong to the deities venerated within each home. We also find it in Asia, especially in China and in Vietnam and, to a lesser extent, in Japan, through Shinto religion.

The worship of the ancestors or the great LATE heroes is based on a belief shared by many peoples, according to which the body cover of any individual houses an immortal soul. After the death, this soul/mind continues to live its existence in a universe parallel to the real world. People attribute to these invisible beings which are the soul/minds of dead (anaon) supernatural powers, as that to act on the daily life of the men, in a positive or negative way, or to predict.

The venerated ancestors are most of the time family members. It happens, however, that people worship great figures of the past (for example, a hero or a anatiomaros = great initiate of the area, the founder of the village or of the clan). This veneration is usually accompanied by praises addressed to the deceased person and by the account of his life, even of his deeds, that the oral tradition made lasting over the generations.

The behavior of the ancestor, during his earthly existence, is important as an example for his descendants or his spiritual heirs, who do not regard themselves as isolated individuals, but have on the contrary a very strong feeling of membership of a line.

In the Celtic world, the bards who surround the chiefs of clans or tribes have thus the function to remind their genealogy, because it testifies their legitimacy. The writing down until our time of the Irish epics shows the important role the heroic accounts in the mythology of the Celts had. These heroes are ancestors, chiefs of clans or tribes, who won fame with their war deed or their wisdom. Having entered the legend during their life, these heroes were even deified after their death.

This system of social organization goes hand in hand with the filial devotion, as with a great respect or a large place granted to the elderly in the daily life. The words and the will of old persons are regarded as examples of wisdom, and cannot be discussed by young people.

In the daily life, man must always act in the respect of the memory of his ancestors, and worry to be worthy of uprightness and the value they embody. A bad behavior indeed would result in tarnishing the image of the whole family, and therefore that of the future generations. The worship of ancestors, therefore plays in a sense, a part of social regulator. The ancestors represent the guards of a certain ethical code or rules which structure a given society.

To come into contact and to communicate with the living, the ancestors can appear to them in a dream. According to Regis Boyer among the descendants of the Cimbri and Teutons the hamr designates also the guardian genie/genius of a clan, hamingja, linked to its chief and his successors, but this hamr is likely to escape from its body envelope to defy the usual space-time categories in order to carry out the desires of his possessor, Regis Boyer specifies, who even mentions the case of a future bishop in Iceland (Gudmundar died 1237). Nevertheless, in many societies, they are Shamans who make it possible for the living to dialog with the dead. This contact is sometimes performed by means of the trance into which these characters , initiated to the dialog with the world of the

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soul/minds, go. Other times, those practice divinatory rituals , the signs of which seem as messages sent to the living by the deceased persons.

In many civilizations, the domestic altar is also an altar erected in honor of the ancestors within each dwelling, and prayers are frequently addressed to them, at the same time as to the family deities (Celtic matres veniales). Sanctuaries or temples are even sometimes erected in their honor. It is then heroes or anatiomaroi having left their mark on the group.

Hence the inevitable concept of a communion of the living and the dead in the same solidarity or mystical union, culminating in the feast of Samonios on November 1. The prayers of the living, the attention paid to their dead by the living, can influence their fate after death, particularly by accelerating their return to the big whole, by wearing down everything that individualizes them. In a circuit of souls that has nothing to do with the one imagined by Lucan, the worst interpreter of Druidism who have existed.

As for the intervention in return of the dead in the world of the living, Regis Boyer about the Vikings only rediscovered what was known to the Celts before them, long before them, and especially among the Irish people.

!------------ -------------------------- ----------------- !

Life is a huge vibration which fills up the universe or bitos and of which the epicenter is in the Being God. Each soul or tear of fire detached from the divine center becomes, in turn, an epicenter of vibrations which will vary, or will increase their amplitude and intensity, according to the level of superiority of the being. Every soul/mind therefore has its particular and different vibration. Its movement, its rhythm, are the representation of its dynamic power, of its intellectual value, of its moral elevation.

When a person dies, it is, first of all, necessary to make him able to reach the world of the dead by performing the funerary rituals scrupulously. What was the role of the vates and of their songs formerly for the souls of the warriors killed in action according to Lucan *.

The ancestor status is officialized only once performed out these rites of passage towards the world parallel to ours we call hereafter. They have length as well as form, very variable according to the civilizations. Once the late one thus got this ancestor status, he is the subject of a large range of ritual practices: propitiatory rituals, supplications, offerings (in particular of foods and drinks), sacrifices, dances… The prayer also plays a large part. In many beliefs, for example among Hindus, the observation of the rituals in the honor of the ancestors also guarantees warm welcome of the living in the country of dead the day when they will die.

In all the civilizations which have worship specially dedicated to them, the ancestors appear as feared and respected figures. People commonly ascribe a great authority to them, people endow them with many powers, as that of turning the tide or that of guaranteeing the wellbeing of their descendants. The protection of the family is one of their main remits and they are often also considered, as some intermediaries between the deities, worshipped in parallel, and the men (of the group). In this system of thought, it is advisable never to offend the ancestors, not to neglect their memory, to pay homage to them and to venerate them.

The worship of the ancestors is particularly revealing of very great value granted to the family in many societies. It also underlines the importance of the bridges between present and past, which are established daily in a large number of civilizations. The beliefs and the practices attached to this worship make it possible to keep a world-class place to the family entity, to make the traditional social and political structures lasting, and to encourage the respect of old people.

According to the areas and the times, the worship of the ancestors has two different aspects, according to whether it is addressed to the whole of the ancestors or to a hero in particular : mythical ancestor, dispenser of the elements of a civilization (culture hero), organizer of social institutions. Being attached to an even more spread worship, that of the dead, the worship of the great ancestors

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has the aim of making the deceased person (and, often, the whole of the dead) the intercessor (or the intercessors) of the living to the deity; to even bring closer all and sundry, as if death had not caused the least split. On the festival of Samon(ios) among Celts to see our booklet on the rituals.

A grave occupying the center of a sanctuary can be only that of a chief whose history or legend is related to the holy place. The hero whose burial merges with a sanctuary or a temple of the god-or-demons, receives his share of homages; and the difference which separates in the beginning the hero from the god-or-demon, grows blurred over time.

* And you, vates,whose martial lays formerly made immortal the powerful souls/minds [Latin animas] of those who died in the war.

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APPENDIX No. 3.

SEMNOTHEI OR GOD-MEN.

Individual opinion of the druid Jean-Pierre Martin.

Certain god-or-demons of druidism are not immortal ones, but some deceased mere human beings, even if they are released today from the existential or earthly contingencies.

There is undoubtedly an ultimate echo of this ancient druidic design in the Irish legend of the voyage of Snedgus and Mac Riagla.

Some outlaws condemned to the exile for having revolted against their king, find themselves in the company of Elijah and Enoch, these two prophets of the Old Testament, ascended to Heaven without to having experimented death. Honorius of Autun thus evoked this island in one of his books. “ Somewhere in the ocean lies an island named Lost Island. In charm and fertility, it surpasses all other lands, but it is unknown to man. From time to time, one can come across it by chance. But if you look for it, you will never find it. That is why it bears the name of the Lost Island. It is said that St. Brandan landed there “.

For various reasons (variable according to the Schools) these anatiomaroi or deceased great initiates, are no longer, or not yet, melted in the Big Whole called Pariollon (Parinirvana in Buddhism) and have preserved an individuality or a personality.

Their role in the next world is to help the poor human beings we are (endowed with feeling therefore having thus the possibility of suffering); to overcome the obstacles preventing us from making in turn our individual erdathe (Return to the BIG WHOLE called PARIOLLON). We may compare them with professors who, having acquired and mastered all their lesson, decide not to retire, but to devote their time to distribute their knowledge. Some of these great soul/minds are of type “warrior hero “ like Setanta Cuchulainn others of the type “anatiomaros “(“great sage or great initiate “) in Plutarch’s way

The anatiomaros or great initiate (semnotheos in Greek) was the one who during his life had been liberated from any species of desire, from any species of pain. Released of everything through a deep meditation about the destiny of Mankind, he had conquered after a hard fight against himself , the great science which enlightens (imbas forosnai); he knew everything and could perform everything, he had already a foot in the next world of the god-or-demons (Sedodumno). It was therefore a mental state reached on the Earth by a living being. He could continue to be driven among the men, but he belonged already no longer to the world of the illusion or of the relative one, kingdom of the fata Morgana, he had already a foot in the Eternity.

On his death, he therefore directly entered the Big Whole which is beyond the place of stay of the god-or-demons, or if we prefer, the accomplished place of stay of the god-or-demons (Sedodumnon to the power 10). Not through the square “reincarnation in a parallel next world of heavenly nature “.

N.B. Strangely enough it is a Muslim author who still best described the psychological process leading to the deification of certain human beings deceased for a long time.

Hisham Ibn Al Kalbi, Kitab Al-Asnam 45 e; 46 ac; 46 e; 47 b. Wadd, Suwa, Yaguth, Ya’uq and Nasr, were righteous people who died within one month of one another, and their relatives were grief-stricken over them. Then one of the children of Cain addressed their relatives saying,

"O ye who are bereaved! Shall I make unto you five statues after the image of your departed relatives'? I can readily, although I cannot impart life to them."

Thereupon he carved unto them five statues after the image of their departed relatives, and erected them over their graves. Then it came to pass that a relative would visit the grave of his brother, uncle, or cousin, whatever the case might be, pay his respect to it, and walk around the statue for a while. This practice lasted throughout the first generation. The statues were made during the time of Jared the son of Mahalalel the son of Kenan the son of Enos the son of Seth the son of Adam. Another generation followed during which people venerated and respected those statues more than they did during the first generation. Then a third century followed, and the people said, "Our forefathers venerated these statues for no other reason than the desire to enjoy their intercession before God." Consequently they worshipped them, and became far game in disbelief (this was therefore the Muslim point of view on the question).

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APPENDIX No. 4.

SEMNOTHEOS OR THEIOS ANER ?

One of the words sometimes used by Greek authors to speak about druids was “ semnotheos” as in the case of Abaris for example. The word being undoubtedly more or less synonymous with theios aner, below what we can say about it.

The word theios implies not only this individual has preternatural powers but also that he is not subjected to death like each and everyone (what refers us besides back to the applied also to certain druids notion, of semnotheos).

Every society includes some of these men, or of these women, become masters in the knowledge of the material or immaterial things and venerated for their great wisdom. They are called clairvoyants, shamans, magicians, wizard, or saints. They make a difference, control the elements, recite the forgotten past, speak of the travel of the souls after death, describe the future, modify the shape of the objects thanks to the universal sympathy which links the things. Their mind is therefore rich of a complex “science” which makes doubt their status of man.

The expression theios aner is commonly used by the authors of Antiquity, relayed then by the researchers (philologists and historians who try to reconstruct the profile of these divine men starting from a material mainly bookish), in order to designate a type of character, having lived in different places and times, to whom would be ascribed the names of magus, philosopher , prophet, inspired man, soothsayer, individual endowed with some charismata …

Let us specify immediately that in our view in the Greek world this designation of theios aner applies especially to shamans of the kind Abarix or Olenus of whom we will speak again. As perhaps to legend characters like the Nemet Hornunnos in Ireland.

We also will use much in this opuscule devoted to the druidic Pleroma, the word “Hesus” (old Celtic “vesus”).

Its best translation in Greek is the word “theios aner” but with this remark that it would be a martial……theios aner. A chivalrous and specialist of martial arts theios aner. A little like the Muhammad dear to our Muslim friends. Because it was necessary indeed after 6 centuries of Christianity to await the public commitment of Muhammad to discover again what the druids had always known, namely that warlike life and spirituality could very well go together.

Althoughl, as his master Sencha had taught him (a great people never violates the rules of fir fer with a stranger) Setanta Cuchulainn had as his motto or trademark "Nád bia etir, ar ní gonaim aradu nó echlachu nó áes gan armu dáig níbá miad nó níba maiss leiss echrad nó fuidb nó airm do brith óna corpaib no marbad". (See not the Quranic sura devoted to booty but the account of the rustling of Cooley's cattlen).

Perhaps - what our rapid panorama will not deny – that the theios aner is, in part, and in what regards the Greek world, a kind of abstract construction, worked out by the modern ones starting from texts composed mainly between the 2nd and the 5th century of our era, which, however, are attached to a very old tradition.

It will not be denied either that a certain number of biographical accounts, implementing many processes present in the literature of late Antiquity depict divine men. The divine man therefore does not seem to us to be a modern “invention.” If it is not abusive to also see him working in Christian tradition, nothing prohibits to wonder if he does not play a part in the Lives of philosophers, some works resulting from intellectual circles nourished by prevailing Hellenistic spiritualism.

The Life of Apollonius offers a beautiful illustration of one of these colorful characters. Didn't Philostratus indeed take as a starting point these emblematic figures of the wisdom to paint the portrait of his hero as a divine man, thus keeping him safe from the ambiguities of magic?

This “druidic experiment of the limits,” several generations of inspired beings (semnothei) lived it in the Greek world; apparently (cf. the cases of Abaris and Olenus) ; since some people carried out the direct narration of it (of which we preserved some fragments resulting from the works of Parmenides and Empedocles), others having left some vague traces only in the memory of their disciples, who undertook to spread the word, the actions of the teacher. These remote memories in turn could be

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gathered by enthusiastic biographers during late Antiquity. Philosophical sects claiming to be representing the teaching of these “fathers of wisdom” were thus formed around their personality.

In spite of many difficulties related to the Latinism of our sources - a voluntary terseness on behalf of the authors who often take the ways of esotericism in order to surround their hero of a veil of mystery -, falling under a more or less mythical literary tradition, it is possible for us to identify some of these representatives of the supernatural (for example Abaris, Olenus), to determine their personality, to paint a portrait of the philosopher as a magus, because from one figure to another their traits overlap or are complementary.

The characteristics common to these individuals, picked out by exegetes, make us able to gather them in an intermediate category between men and gods, a kind of brotherhood of chosen people that J. - P. Vernant describes in the following way: “they are divine men, theioi andres who during their live are promoted from the mortal condition up to the status of imperishable beings.”

Abarix and Olenus, haloed that they are by their legend, are regarded as the leaders of these outstanding individuals who are made recognize by two essential components: a practice of asceticism and the topic of the itinerant soul ( ecstatic trips and reincarnations?) As we have had the opportunity to say it, the Nemet Hornunnos in Ireland perhaps formed part of them.

The word theios aner, applied to pagan world, but also Christian, therefore was a great success. A certain number of authors even criticized the inflationary use which is made of it, particularly in the case of the Nazarene Yeoshua bar Yosef known as Christ (by some of our human fellows).

The former authors being singularly verbose on the subject, we can highlight a certain number of descriptive features making us able to release a standard profile of the divine man according to the Greeks, i.e. without the “Muhammad” streak.

* It goes without saying nevertheless that we are by no means followers of the Muslim dogma of isma which does so much devastation in the minds of our Muslim brothers.

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APPENDIX No. 5.

GREAT INITIATES OR ANATIOMAROI.

The name of Man in the Celtic languages (gdonios, donios) is of the same linguistic family that the Greek “chthonian” and refers to the notion of hollow or hole (dumnos). The donios, it is the divine being having hit rock bottom by definition. That one who is in the ground up to one’s neck. It is therefore with him that we will begin this short talk.

When the great initiate or anatiomaros succeeded in getting rid definitively of his devouring energy obsessions, but that he continues to live, he can then reach directly during his life but intermittently, the world of the god-or-demons. The anatiomaros or great initiate of the type Abarix, Olenus, Fintan or Tuan Mac Cairill in Ireland (or bodhisattva 1) in the Mahayana Tantric Buddhism, see Vajrapani or Hercules, or Zeus *), is a man who, having reached highest summits that the soul/mind can consider; sacrifice nevertheless his wellbeing to that of the others and prefers to remain in this world in order to hand down his knowledge; rather than to melt itself with the other souls in the Big Whole.

The word anatiomarus (Greek semnotheos) therefore designates persons having been able to reach the next world, but who refused to remain there to come to the assistance of the others. To help the whole of the men to open out their soul. In this meaning, semnothei , or anatiomaroi, purely altruistic beings, and who think only of the others, are opposed to the combennones of the third or fourth function, who aspire only to their own salvation.

Having arrived to a level higher than that of the mere mortals, they therefore have a power larger than them and many more possibilities, but strictly speaking they are not of another nature.

And since they have powers exceeding by far these of men, it is logical to resort to their assistance for all that precisely relate to… the life in this world (luck, etc.).

And in that, Buddhism joins druidism. Besides many passages of the Pali Buddhist canon ask to venerate them. They can consequently be the subject of all the quests of all the research or of all the possible and conceivable travels (in distant islands, remote castles, etc.).

The clearest text with regard to them is still that of Plutarch:

“ Some of these islands bore the names of deities or heroes. He himself, by the emperor's order, had made a voyage for inquiry and observation to the nearest of these islands which had only a few inhabitants, holy men who were all held inviolate by the [Great] British. Shortly after his arrival there occurred a great tumult in the air, and many portents; violent winds suddenly swept down and lightning flashes darted to earth. When these abated, the people of the island said that the passing of someone of the mightier being had befallen. "For," said they, "as a lamp when it is being lighted has no terrors, but when it goes out is distressing to many, so the great souls/minds have a kindling into life that is gentle and inoffensive, but their passing and dissolution often, as at the present moment, fosters tempests and storms, and often infects the air with pestilential properties **" (Plutarch. De defectu oraculorum 18).

This detail provided by the text of Plutarch concerns probably only the definitive death to this world, of the anatiomaroi, and not their first provisional disembodiment . This detail provided by the text of Plutarch does not relate to the simple death of the anatiomaroi, but to their final disappearance/melting in the Pariollon or the big whole called Parinirvana by Buddhists. When these great initiates (anatiomaroi, or semnothei in Greek language ) definitively leave this world at the end of a certain time (100 years 1000 years 10.000 years??) well there, their disintegration starts indeed disasters.

This 2nd stage of the process of reintegration in the big whole of the great initiate is more radical still than death, it is the complete extinction of his individuality in the Pariollon 1) or big whole called Parinirvana in the Far East: He will never be again embodied . It is what we call individual erdathe.

* Hercules, Zeus. Let's be clear. We are not saying that they are Bodhisattvas. We only point out that there was a Buddhista interpretatio of these Greek gods in the Greek art of Central Asia and Gandhara (Afghanistan Pakistan) from - 300 to + 400. At least if we believe Richard Foltz and his book on religions of the Silk Road (New York 2010). The first iconic representations of Buddha indeed appeared in the 1st century in Gandhara and Mathura. The Buddha wears a pallium there as Greek

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philosophers were to wear it, and some of his representations resemble statues of Apollo, the sun god associated with royalty in the Homeric poems. In addition Vajrapani is represented there in Hercules. But there was also Greek influence in the north-west of India with the conquests of Demetrios I in - 200. Under the Kushan empire, we will observe a real syncretism between the Greek deities and those of Yuezhi.

** Christianity Catholic variant admits the opposite but always based on the same, though reversed, principle: the odor (of sanctity).

But let us return to our druidic Bodhisattvas or great initiates. Avalokitesvara, Manjusri, Maitreya, Lokesvara, Amitabha, are their names in Buddhism. Not forgetting Vajrapani or Hercules even Zeus in the interpretatio graeca which spread in the Graeco-Buddhist art after the death of Alexander the Great or in the Kushan Empire according to Richard Foltz and his book about the religions of the Silk Road (New York 2010).

As regards druidism they are Uiscias, Esras, Surias, Abarix, Olenus, but also Fintan or Tuan Mac Cairill in Ireland.

The hyperborean islands in the north of the World are, in druidic mythology, sacred or mythical places, from where the god-or-demons are originating before their landing , on the feast day of Beltene. These three islands (but this triad is extended to four in Ireland) are directed each one by a primordial druid. It is there “ the people of the tribe of Danu (bia) “i.e., the god-or-demons of druidic mythology, got acquainted with druidism (spirituality, law, wisdom, poetry…). A true worship was therefore paid to the principal anatiomaroi of whom lists below.

UISCIAS. Uiscias was the master of the island of Abalum (Findias in the Irish tradition). It is from there that the sword of the king Noadatus/Nuada/Nodons/Lludd, came. Nobody could escape it or resist it when it was drawn from the sheath of Bodua (of Bodb), and the one it had reddened with blood, would it be only with one drop, could flee no longer after that.

ESRAS. Esras was the master of the island of Gorre (Gorias in the Irish tradition). It is from there that came the poisoned lance which belonged to Lug. No battle could be won against the one who had it in his hand.

SURIAS. Surias was the master of Ogygia the green island (Murias in the Irish tradition). It is from this island that the talismans of the Suqellus Dagda Gurgunt came, the cauldron represented by an olla on the Continent. People went away from it only satisfied or with a full stomach. And the bludgeon.

Editor’s note. Irishmen changed this triad into a tetrad and arranged in this category the character named Morfessa (Old Celtic Marovesus) and the island of Thule (Falias). Apart from for Ogygia, equated to Ireland by Roderic O'Flaherty (Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh), all these islands are, of course, imaginary and the characters who were the great masters of them were to be the subject only of a dulia worship in the former druidism.

ABARIX. On the surface, Abarix looks more a Greek than a Celtic shaman, particularly in the eyes of the non-believer, but he is, in fact, an anatiomaros become a symbol of the energy of fully opened out soul/mind (anaon). Abarix is represented riding an arrow which perhaps symbolizes the sun, and which shows with what force he solves in the darkness of the illusion.

OLENUS. Delos also had, like Delphi, its religious cantors. Olen, the most famous one, according to the legend, was a Hyperborean (or Lycian?) i.e., born in a country where Apollon liked to remain. Olenus was considered as the author of the anthem in the honor of the virgins Opis and Arge, she companions of Apollo and Diana. He came, people said, from Hyperborea, or from Lycia, to Delos, and it is him who had composed the most part of the old anthems which were sung in this island. People also allocated to him some nomes. It was probably, a kind of very simple stanza, combined with certain fixed tunes, and suitable to be sung in the round dances of a chorus. Lastly, it is to Olenus that some people ascribe the invention of the heroic verses or dactylic hexameter. If this opinion was somewhat based, Olenus would be then even former to the Thracian aoidoi bards about whom we spoke higher; because the line of verses which were spread under their name are precisely

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hexameters, and prove, genuine or not, it was a metric they had had to use. But it hardly seems possible to base a chronology on words as vague as these of the priestess Boeo, quoted by Pausanias. If Olenus existed, he therefore has to be placed around the 8th century before our era. Some authors claim that he was one of the Hyperboreans who founded the oracle of Delphi, and that he was there the first priest of Apollo; i.e., that he gave an answer to those who came to consult him, in hexameter line of verses.

But now, by the way, who are these Hyperborean?

For many authors, they are supernatural characters. They live up to thousand years, without work, without war, in the most total euphoria. Pindar removes from them nothing of these simple characteristics. Herodotus is more precise. Hyperboreans, from immemorial times , sent each year some offerings to Delos. These offerings, they had initially entrusted them to maidens but one day two of these virgins died in Delos in conditions remained rather mysterious. Herodotus claims to have seen their grave. Since that day, Hyperboreans had kept their maidens and forwarded their offerings through intermediaries. Most incredible, it is that the two graves were found. They were Cretan!

The Hyperboreans still remain for us not easily graspable characters. The historians and the archeologists wonder whether it is necessary to make the Hyperboreans a people of beyond Boreas/Bora/Gora = mountains, people of beyond the mountains; or some celestial beings, quite simply. Boread/phero = I carry, people who make presents being carried to the god-or-demon Apollon (cf. the account of Herodotus). Where did they live then? We lose ourselves in conjectures.

What is certain, it is that Apollo was undoubtedly not from Greek origin. Specialists did not find for his name a suitable etymology. The Greeks themselves besides, regarded Apollo as a recent deity.

Apollo is an air god-or-demon. It is the god-or-demon of the herds, of the wandering shepherds come from North. The swan is also an attribute of Apollo. It is a northern bird. Another symbol of Apollo, amber. This assumption is based on the tradition which links Apollo to the Hyperboreans and makes him come from an unspecified place in North, where he had been found. Nothing simple therefore in this god-or-demon: he has a contradictory personality.

Daniel E. Gershenson sees in Apollo a god-or-demon of Indo-European origin, whose principal attributes would be summarized in the expression Apollo Lykeios: “Apollo wolf-god “. By the way, it is necessary to understand, not the worship of the animal in itself, but of its symbolism of a mythical wolf, which would not be another thing than the wind, considered as much in its beneficial virtues as in its destroying ones. The winds, like the Zephyr, can be favorable to the seeds, but are also considered as resulting from the cave of Aeolus, and this underground origin put them in touch with the Hells. The wind is thus like a passing between chaos and cosmos.

That explains the role of this deity as a tutor of the ephebes, these young warriors who achieve their adult initiation; his function of a guard of the sown grain; lastly, his status of god-or-demon of prophecy, who reveals mysteries and initiates musicians or poets. Apollo Lykeios, the wolf-god, would be the master of the rites of passage, the god-or-demon who transforms the chaotic forces of the brotherhoods of werewolves of adolescence, by leading them to the adulthood; who reveals, through the prophecy of the Pythea, the hidden world.

Gershenson presents many accounts in the European world which could show that this wolf-god and wind-god date back to a period former to the break-up of the peoples who entered Central and Southern Europe. His deductions were confirmed later by a French specialist, Bernard Sergent, who underlined the link of Apollo with the wolves and his part played in initiations, like his Indo-European origin. Apollo is particularly combined with Boreas, the northern wind. Lug, his Celtic equivalent, is besides a “storm rider “.

The great French specialist in comparative mythologies thinks that it is a god-or-demon in fact Greek-Celtic. He would date back at least to the separation of the ancestors of the Celts and of the Greeks, in the 4rth millennium before our era, and he would have come “all in one piece “ to Greece: it is therefore not a composite deity. He has counterparts in the Germanic (Wotan) or Indian (Varuna) field.

B. Sergent compares one by one each known characteristics of Lug and Apollo and notices many common points. A little too perhaps besides, according to us, but well…

They are both luminous, young, handsome, tall, but sometimes polycephalous and hermaphroditic, god-or-demons, performing epiphanies, some fast gods having a striking down power, some really great “druids “some warriors, guards of the herds, masters of harvests, combined with trees, some

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masters of time, doctors, masters of the foundations, persons in charge of the clearings and of the ways, some guards of assemblies, masters of initiations, some bad guys, crafty ones, masters of techniques, some masters simply, some god-or-demons of the top places and of the big stones.

Their common attributes are throwing weapons, stringed instruments, crow, wren, “the oak with a rotting eagle“, swan, cock, heron and crane, dog and wolf, deer, wild boar, snake and tortoise, bear, dolphin, seal, fish, horse, apple and feeder branch, the numbers 3, 7 and 9, round dance on one foot, rot??????

They are also attached to common myths, like birth, murder of the one-eyed giants, inheritance of the Earth (Gaia or Themis in Greece, Tailtiu in Ireland) or the foundation of games.

In addition, according to B. Sergent, Greeks could make “puns “ between the name of Lycia (Lukia in Greek) and the epithets Lukeios, Lukios, Lukegenes of Apollo, which refer to the wolf (lukos), one of the attributes of Apollo, or to the light (luke). It would be Luke-genes , as Iliad says, because he “would have been born from the light “and not “born in Lycia “.

It is especially in Delphi that the complex nature of this god-or-demon appears, in his role of an inspirer of the Pythea and of men.

Apollo is also a land and agrarian god-or-demon. It is an aspect under which he can take primitive external forms. His attribute is the bow, weapon a hunter god-or-demon, god-or-demon of a tribe which lives on hunting. Later, he is found god-or-demon of wood and caves. It is to this aspect that the legend of a wolf-god Apollo refers. We see by the way the passing from a way of life of the hunter type to a pastoral lifestyle. Apollo protects the herds and the shepherds. He is worshipped with Pan and nymphs.

God-or-demon of herds, music and medicine: the three things are closely dependent. The crook and the lyre always go hand in hand. The shepherd appears to be also healer and musician. God-or-demon of trees, god-or-demon of rivers, Apollo also becomes a frankly agricultural god-or-demon, a god-or-demon of farming, with the settlement of the peoples who worship him. It is he who makes the harvests germinate then bear fruits. In Delphi, in Delos, he receives the first fruits of harvests. Several cities offer golden ears to him. This harvest, while it matures, is threatened by various enemies: rust, mice, grasshoppers. All these evils are entreated by the higher purifier. Apollo receives in this case the qualifying of Sminthios, the one who entreats the field mouse. People celebrate festivals in his honor before the harvest. In Delphi, he also becomes the one who deals with food.

Hyperborea, it is also perhaps Thule. This land is described as an island at six days' sailing north of Great Britain, near the frozen sea. Strabo is still there to give us a clue: “ Pytheas added there his story about Thule and about those regions in which there was no longer either land properly so-called, or sea, or air, but a kind of substance concreted from all these elements, resembling a marine lung [ in Greek pleumon thalattíōi ] ; a thing in which, he says, the earth, the sea, and all the elements are held in suspension; and this is a sort of bond to hold all together, which you can neither walk nor sail upon. Now, as for this thing that resembles the marine lungs, he says that he saw it himself, but that all the rest he tells from hearsay.“

Another passage of Strabo gives us astronomical information: “ Pytheas of Massilia tells us that Thule, the most northerly of the Britannic Islands, is farthest north, and that there the circle of the summer tropic is the same as the arctic circle“.

But he also adds that Pytheas was a great forger.

A text of Geminus of Rhodes, in his treatise on astronomy, Introduction to the phenomena, is very interesting for us in this respect: “ To these regions the Massalian Pytheas also seems to have come. He says in his treatise, “On the Ocean”: “the Barbarians showed us the place where the sun goes to rest. For it was the case that in these parts the nights were very short, in some places two, in others three hours long, so that the sun rose again a short time after it had set.”

Thule therefore is an island of six days' sailing north of Great Britain. But of which place of Great Britain? Is this the cape Orcas or the Shetland Islands? Certain authors like Geminus think that Pytheas went well to the polar circle. But while going towards the North-East, we reach Norway.

In short, Pytheas therefore approached the shores of the island of Thule after six days’ sailing towards north; an island which, normally, was to be too cold to live there. And, however, surprisingly, people live there.

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What he could not know, it is the existence of the Gulf Stream, this warm current which gets its benefits beyond the polar circle. In Thule, Pytheas is brought face to face with a problem. The day traditionally is divided in two equal parts twelve hours each one. But, since he goes up towards north, he notices that the twelve hours of the night are quite different and much shorter. And utterly surprising for him, in Thule, there is no longer night at all , therefore twenty-four hours last twelve hours? Difficult to admit it. Isn't it more logical to consider than the hours have a fixed length? Thus in Thule the summer days last twenty-four hours, but there is no night. The problem is solved!

In any case according to Irish tradition, it is from this city of Thule (Falias) that was brought a famous a lingam, the stone of Falias (Lia Fail). They are the god-or-demons themselves who brought this stone, of knowledge and sovereignty, this land has from it its third name, i.e., Valimagosia: the Plain of Fal. The one under whom it shouted, when he sat down above it, was king; until the best friend of Mankind, the great and faithful dog of Culann (the hesus Cuchulainn), strikes it; because it shouted neither under him nor under his foster son, Lugaid/Lugidos, son of the three Vindas of Emania - of the three Find of Emain -. Since, it remained dumb.

It is, however, not the Fate which is the cause of all that, but the birth of Christ (who broke the power of idols).

Others say that what remained of the Stone was transported to Ireland, then to Scotland, in Scone, and finally to England. Others still say that the stone of Fal is still in Tara but hidden.

Here the verse that a bard composed about it:

“Inicia Valios was called thus

Because of the stone which is under our feet.

Stone of Fal is its name

But its other name is

Stone of Destiny “[Latin saxum fatale].

1) The Sanskrit word Bodhisattva designates human or divine, beings (sattva), who reached the state of awakening (bodhi). They should therefore bear the name of Buddha (“enlightened one“) logically and appear forever liberated from the existential contingencies. Buddhism, however, especially in its form “Great Vehicle “(Mahayana), teaches that certain Buddhas adjourn, through compassion for their fellow citizen, their entry into “nirvana “and take care of men a little in the way of guardian angels. It is appropriate nevertheless in this case to pay them only worship of dulia.

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APPENDIX No. 6.

HEROES OF THE TYPE VERCINGET KINGES OR DEMIGODS *

* Warriors often promoted to the rank of gods or equated.

The druidic faith in the survival of the “lower“ soul (localized in the cranium) supported the development, during the southern Iron Age , of pertaining to worship manifestations around relics of ancestors. The valorization of most remarkable of them resulted in making them a true interface between men and divine world.

The great heroes or heroines are not really god-or-demons (neither goddess-or-demonesses, nor fairies). At the beginning, they are only simple human beings, but the fact these simple human achieved extraordinary deeds, made them worth of a true worship of hyperdulia; a little like in the case of the saints in Christianity besides, even more. The high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) venerate them as deities after their death. Various myths worked out for the peoples (on the simplified level of the religion kind popular Christianity or Islam for example) make them even some avatars of more important pan-Celtic god-or-demon. Such are for example the cases of the hesus Cuchulainn, an avatar or son of Lug, in Ireland, but also of Vindos/Finn, an avatar or son of the Celtic Hercules called Camulus, still in Ireland. Some of these exceptional men or women are supposed being born from the union between a god-or-demon and a mortal, what therefore makes them half-god-or-demons (or half-goddess-or-demonesses, or fairies) in popular imagination, what they are besides well, in a sense .

The idea suggested thus by the bards authors of these accounts being that it was really men or women with an exceptional soul/mind. But in the case of the Irish heresy, people perhaps went a little too far in this direction.

N. B. By heresy, we want to only say a deviation a little too pushed compared to the broad outlines of the ancient continental druidism.

There are two kinds of heroes, heroines, or half-god-or-demons, even of half-goddess-or-demonesses. Or of fairies if this term is preferred.

- Great heroes of pan-Celtic origin, common to all the Celts.

- Various heroes specific to certain corporations or particular groups, for example, the avatar of the Pan-Celtic god-or-demon Camulus, called Vindos in Ireland (Finn and the Fenians).

- Heroines having achieved memorable deeds. Talantio/Tailtiu for example in Ireland, at the beginning a simple princess of the Gallic people of Fir Bolg.

N.B. Allow the today druid I am, to think that, in this case, there was nevertheless mixture between a genuine heroine at the beginning, and an elemental of the large plain farmed in this place, in Ireland.

As we have had the opportunity to note it in preamble, on the strictly religious level, the great ancestors fulfill functions clearly different from one culture to another according to the place which is allocated to them in the hierarchy of the spiritual beings. The community of ancestors seems a kind of transcended hypostatized collective awareness ; it forms the invisible universe of the community of the living . Bound to the ground by their grave, the dead therefore have power on the fruitfulness of the soil; the animals and the men. That is particularly obvious in the Celtic tradition where worship and abode of the god-or-demons are often combined with prehistoric mounds like Newgrange in Ireland, or Hochmichele in Germany. There exists a second category of anatiomaroi (of great initiates), those of vercinget or kinges type (the warriors who succeeded, by forcing themselves , to get exceptional powers, thanks to their daily drill, a kind of Celtic berserker in a way). These anatiomaroi or great initiates of Vercinget or Kinges type, are often represented in Buddhist pose (or in yoga pose) i.e., sitting cross-legged. Case for example in France of the statue in Bouray (the sculpture was made of six adjusted pieces of metal). We also find representations out of stone of anatiomaroi or great initiates of vercinget type or kinges type in the South of France (Roquepertuse, Velaux and Entremont, Glanum), sometimes combined with the worship of cut heads ( particularly in Entremont, last stronghold of the resistance of the Salyans against Romans).

The destruction of the heads and of the hands of these representations of Kinges, evokes obviously the destiny that awaited our unfortunate Cuchulainn in the Irish legend.

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One of the characteristics of these vercingets or kinges, of these Celtic berserkers , is the lon laith or luan laith, ,the aura emitted by the head of the hero when his soul/mind (anaon) is poured out for an instant, thus revealing all the light (xvarnah in Avestan language) which is in him. Let us note, however, that in this case their body is not "bellissimos / bellissama but horribly distorted (cf. Cuchulain and his riastrads).

How these heroines or these valorous heroes are honored?

The worship of these heroines (or of these heroes) is related in the beginning with the existence of the grave which becomes the subject of the worship of hyperdulia. People venerate these men or these women like deities, with some little differences. The offerings and the prayers are addressed in the evening because they are members of the world of human late (for the god-or-demons, it is in the morning). For the heroes the victim is sacrificed on a low hearth, their head bowed towards the ground, so that blood runs out drop by drop in a pit; the flesh must be entirely consumed by fire (for the god-or-demons on the other hand, people burn only grease and bones, the meat being eaten by the dagolitoi - believers - at the time of banquets of commensality with the god-or-demons).

With regard to these animal sacrifices in the part Old Testament of the Bible, see chapter VII of the Leviticus.

Regulations for the priests: the guilt offering.

“Regulations for the guilt offering. The animal is to be slaughtered in the place where the burned animal is slaughtered, and its blood is to be splashed against the sides of the altar. All its fat shall be offered to the Lord: the tail and the fat that covers the internal organs, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the lobe of the liver, which is to be removed with the kidneys. The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering presented to the Lord. It is a guilt offering. Any male in a priest’s family may eat it, but it must be eaten in the sanctuary area; it is strictly reserved for God. The same law applies to both the sin offering and the guilt offering: They belong to the priest who makes atonement (sic) with them “.

People can also celebrate festivals for famous dead or for most important heroines (case of that which was established by Lug in memory of his foster-mother Talantio/Tailtiu for example, or Rosemartha according to other versions of the original panceltic myth). In the Irish deviation, she is the daughter of Mag Mor, what means, of course, large plain, but often also “next world “(what would make her an elemental therefore???) ; as well as the wife of the last king of the Fir Bolg Gauls, Eochaid Mac Eirc, whose reign was famous for its justice and its prosperity. She is present in the mythical text of the Lebor Gabala Erenn (Book of Conquests of Ireland) where, having survived the “First battle of the pillars plain “; which is the place of the defeat of the Fir Bolg human beings (some Gauls), overcome by the tribe of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Danu (bia)??? She will become the foster mother of the god-or-demon Lug. She clears the forest of Breg, to make it a cultivable plain, which makes her die through exhaustion. As a funeral ceremony, Lug will organize ceremonies in her honor (Oenach Tailteann) each August 1st.

Here what the website of the French government in connection with the small town of Entremont in Provence says to us.

The human nature of the hero makes him nearer to the living of his community of origin than local deities , always remote and unforeseeable.

The first carved expressions of the Iron Age will be devoted to these honored individuals, more especially as the representation of the god-or-demons, in an anthropomorphic shape does not have yet a meaning in the spirituality of the Celts.

At the end of the first Iron Age , our heroes sitting in Buddha posture, hieratic, in prayer, and with richly brocaded clothing; are laid out in a background of symbolic expressions of the world and of the powers of the world parallel to ours we call Hereafter . In the Bouches-du-Rhone, at Roquepertuse, the statues are supplemented by a naturalist or fantastic bestiary, which is a part of the druidic cosmological or eschatological speech. In the center of this visual teaching the notion of survival of the lower soul, that which resided in the skulls of the ancestors, present in the shape of relics, has to culminate. Such shrines were, of course, oracular places, as the practices reported by Nicander of Colophon circa 150 before our era suggest (quoted by Tertullian, De anima, 57).

“ But we are met with the objection that in visions of the night dead persons are not infrequently seen, and that for a set purpose. For instance, the Nasamones consult private oracles by frequent and

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lengthened visits to the sepulchers of their relatives...and the Celts, for the same purpose, stay away all night at the tombs of their brave chieftains, as Nicander affirms… “

Besides Ireland also experimented the thing according to the account reporting to us in what conditions the legend of the cattle raid of Cooley was found.

“The veledae of Ireland were one day called together by Senchan Torpeist, to know if they remembered the cattle raid of Cooley (the Tain Bo Cuailnge) in full. They said that they knew of it but fragments only. Senchan then spoke to his pupils to know which of them would go into the country of Letha to learn the story of the Tain which the sage had taken eastwards in exchange of the Cuilmenn (the large parchment). Emine, Ninene's grandson, set out for the east with Senchan's son Muirgen. It happened that the grave of Fergus mac Roich was on their way at Enloch in Connacht. Muirgen sat down at the gravestone of this hero, and the others went looking for a shelter for the night. Muirgen chanted an incantation to the gravestone as though it were Fergus himself..... then a great mist suddenly formed around him - for the space of three days and nights he could not be found. Fergus appeared to him put on with magnificent clothes, in a green cloak and a red-embroidered hooded tunic, with a gold-hilted sword and bronze sandals, as well as a head of brown hair. And he recited him the whole story of the Tain, such as it had been originally composed, from the beginning to the end. “

In Entremont, the great heroes, armed warriors, surrounded by their trophies, are in the center or near the representation of the members of their aristocratic lineage, some minor lords accompanied by their families. The realism in the expression goes to the details of the jewels, torcs with ball terminals and laced up leather boots. The characters are no longer connected with the base of presentation like before, what lets suppose the use of specific supports (some massive pillars?) to show them in elevated position. Around our heroes, real or mythical, the head relics of the ancestors have disappeared, to give way to living families or to their close ancestors.

The former spiritualistic atmosphere of the shrines was changed into a less timeless and more realistic expression (Archeological website of the Entremont hill fort).

Note in connection with the worship of dead among the Hebrews in the Bible found by the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau.

La Rochelle on May 2, 2009.

Teraphim, sometimes spelled Terapim, is a Hebrew word drawn from the Bible, we find only in plural form, and of which the etymology remains unknown. Some specialists affirm Teraphim would be a kind of mummified human skull, but the excavations in Jericho did not reveal the use of this type of relics. The discoveries of the archeologists in Mesopotamia - in Nuzi, ancient city in the east of the Tigris River and the south-east of Niniveh which was excavated from 1925 to 1931 - indicate that the possession of the teraphim had an impact on the rights concerning the family heritage. According to a tablet found in Nuzi, the possession of the domestic god-or-demons could, in certain circumstances, authorize a son-in-law to appear before a court to claim the goods of his deceased father-in-law. It is therefore possible that Rachel, having borne that in mind, has thought that she has the right to take the teraphim since her father had used fraud towards her husband Jacob (see Genesis 31,14-16). The importance of the teraphim as regards heritage could also explain why Laban worried so much to recover them, to the extent of taking his brothers with him and to pursue Jacob on a distance being equivalent to a seven-day march (Genesis 31,19-30). According to the Bible, the teraphim disappeared when Jacob buried under the big tree which was close to Shechem, the foreign god-or-demons the members of his household (Genesis 35,1-4) had given to him. In the book of Samuel, Michal misleads the men of Saul while making them believe that a Teraph in his bed is David. In the same account, we also learn that in each home, there was a place reserved for the Teraphim.

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APPENDIX No. 7.

MARICCUS THE PROPHET AND DEMIGOD HERO (+ 69).

The reading of the booklet by Auguste Dupont on the subject, published under the title “Essay on the religious Revolution tried by the Boian Mariccus in the country between the Loire and the Allier River evangelized by Saint Patrick “ (in 1870) left us thoughtful…

It is true that some people made this hero of the Celtic independence a kind of saint; because men call sanctity (sanctitas) in the Romano-British and Gallo-Roman world, in Narbonnese particularly, the charismatic relation (divine patronage) being able to exist between the sovereign god-or-demon (Taran/Toran/Tuireann = Jupiter) and kings or chiefs. This notion of divine patronage expressed by the Latin term of sanctitas, is a at the same time Latin and Celtic religious concept. Our friend Regis Boyer would also add Cimbric or Teuton since, according to him, the hamingja was (I quote): "an abstract energy that brings power and strength to live, similar to oriental chi, oceanic mana or Hindu prana. A combination of life force and magical or spiritual power, an energetic digest of each person. As a double of ourselves, the hamingja usually takes the form of a luminous halo or an animal. This concept is similar to that of the power animals among Native Americans: the power animal abandons the individual when he or she goes against his or her destiny, causing illness and bad luck.

It is in any case an entity that is not external to us, it is our extension. The hamingja accompanies us during astral or shamanistic journeys. Contrary to the fylgja which leaves us at our death, the hamingja does not disappear, but is transmitted from generation to generation.

The second definition links the hamingja directly to an entire family (or a clan, group, etc.), it can be considered as a family’s reputation. In this case, it does not tend to take a particular form. From a mystical point of view, the hamingja may be considered as an amalgam of souls, the souls of the family. All the souls influence the central core by their conduct. It is considered that each family is a descendant from a deity and each individual is an extension of that deity. If the children of a family did not have children themselves and the family came to an end, the hamingja would come to an end also.

In both cases, hamingja is often translated as "luck" or "fortune" or even "fate." Luck or misfortune that animates the individual or the family. The values, lifestyle and conduct of the individual or individuals affect hamingja for better or worse. A good or bad deed influences this reputation for several generations.

The Celts indeed also experimented a particular form of relationship between their god-or-demons and their leaders, conveyed well by the fact that they thought to be of divine origin (descendants of Ogmius, or Herakles for the Greeks, even descendants of Belin/Belen/Belenos, said Apollo in interpretatio graeca). It was therefore relatively easy to them to think that this “sanctitas “ or “harmingja” or divine force going down from the god-or-demons to the great political leaders and warriors was applicable to the case of Mariccus.

The panegyric of Maximian by Mamertinus, a particularly important text because expressing the ideas of the Celtic rhetoricians of the time, begins with the following expression, “ille siquidem Diocletiani auctor deus… “ What means: “ The god-or-demon founder, or father, of the race of Diocletian… “ We therefore deal in this precise case with an example of Romano-Celtic syncretism. The Latin noun sanctitas being used to express a druidic idea: a certain form of mythical ancestry , or of divine patronage, of the great Celtic god-or-demons, and mainly of Taran/Toran/Tuireann.

The same process took place with saint Ceneri and Saint-Leonard-des-Bois, some chiefs of bagaudae reigning on the borders of the future French Sarthe and Orne departments, in the 3rd century, according to Maurice Bouvier (the emperors…)

N.B. The thesis of this French historian is acceptable on the condition of specifying well that there would have been then melting or confusion of these legends with later historical characters having similar names in the 6th and 7th centuries.

Besides we find this druidic concept in the use of the expression numinibus augustorum, met in several inscriptions, and therefore which refers to the imperial worship. The numen of the emperor, it is his inner, almost divine, power, which helps him to decide then to act, in the right direction, his sanctitas. This impersonal force is essential to the good emperor to preside over the destinies of the Empire.

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The high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht) of today do not hold only from mythology alone their knowledge. The believers of the unfortunate Mariccus having survived have handed down to the following generations, either what they learned from his mouth, by living with him, and by seeing him acting, or what they then understood in light of his unfortunate example. Because the unhappy example of Mariccos shows us how the divinized man can make peace with animals and nature, by the emission of positive vibrations. But also that policy is a thing (which can be commendable) and spirituality another (his kingdom was not intended to be of this world). It is therefore necessary there too to give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s (life in society, social conformism, everyday life) and to reserve for the gods what is gods’ (spirituality, private life, freedom of thought).

The druid Mariccus was therefore PERHAPS the last reincarnation (or avatar or envoy) known, of a Celtic god-or-demon.

With him we deal with a personality of the Muhammad type, i.e., an extraordinary combination of spirituality allied to a powerful effort of national liberation (Ambicatusian ver sacrum). Mariccus was to and just like Muhammad surrounded during his life by a whole isma almost bordering idolatry. But attention, in his case this ver sacrum in the way of Ambicatus (who fights on the two sides) is to be compared to the small jihad of Muslims and not to their great jihad (the struggle...against oneself) . And the isma which must be dedicated to Mariccus has to be an isma of dulia even hyperdulia type but, of course, not a latria worship.

Lecture Notes on the life and the death of the great prophet, that the new generations sold to the occupants (without this treason, they could not have captured him). Some authors went as far as thinking that they are the Christians who delivered him to Romans. According to Christians themselves, Christianity had indeed been able to reach these regions as of 1st century, with various missionaries sent by the apostles themselves, and particularly St Peter.

“The Apostles would have sent seven of their disciples, or even a much greater number, to found the Churches of Gaul and of the Rhine. Valerius in Trier, Martial in Limoges, Austremoine (Stremonius) in Clermont, Gatian or Gratian in Tours. People mention in the same way for the Rhenish lands, in Trier, Eucharius, of whom Valerius seems to have been only the successor, Crescens in Mainz (or in Vienne in France), Maternus in Cologne, Clement in Metz. People also make dating back to the apostolic age the Church of Auxerre, like that of Perigueux, with Bishop Saint Front.

On the apostolate of Saint Lazarus [in Marseilles and Autun. Editor’s note] of Saint Magdalene , and Saint Martha in Provence [in Tarascon more precisely for Saint Martha. Editor’s note] see Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte fur Studierende. Franz - Xaver Kraus. Volume I. (Translation without prejudice, my 4 years of German are far away.)

Duchesne, in his Christian Origins, chap. XXVI notes besides quite judiciously: “Saint Pothinus is the first Gallo-Roman bishop whose name was preserved. That does not mean for all that he is the most former bishop or this country did not receive the light of the Gospel as of the time of apostles. Known facts are a thing, real facts another one. Christianity has to be as old in this country as in the countries of similar geographical location, Africa for example “.

If we understand the various traditions on this subject well (particularly the treatise on the Trinity, De mysterio sanctae trinitatis, ascribed today to Saint Caesarius of Arles), there would have been Christians on the spot therefore as of the end of the 1st century of our era. “ Civitas Arelatensis discipulum apostolorum sanctum Trophimum habuit fundatorem, Narbonensis sanctum Paulum, Tolosana sanctum Saturninum, Vasensis sanctum Daphnum. Per istos enim quatuor apostolorum discipulos, in universa Gallia ita sunt ecclesiae constitutae, ut eas per tot annorum spatia numquam permiserit Christus ab adversari occupari. The city of Arles had Saint Trophimus, a disciple of the apostles, for its founder, that of Narbonne Saint Paul, that of Tolosa Saint Saturnin, that of Vaison Saint Daphnus. These four disciples of the apostles founded Churches in all the country, so that their see was never occupied by heretics “.

But as usual with Christians, the truth is out there! Through the deficiency of the texts, it is more probable to suppose than Christianity was introduced into the country by Eastern ones and Greeks. It entered the area by going up the Rhone. But the completely foreign nature of these first proselytes, and particularly the fact that they spoke rather Greek language, slowed down its spreading. The latter accelerated really only at the beginning of the 4th century, with the support of Emperor Constantine…

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It seems therefore not very probable that the Christians of Autun could play an active role in the final arrest of Mariccus, even with the assistance of those of Lyons.

What is likely, on the other hand, it is that first Christians did nothing to oppose it, did nothing to denounce this scandal, even between them. They were from the start in the Roman camp, instead of being on the side of this unfortunate bagauda.

Emperor Claudius had wanted “ to Romanize “ the Celtic aristocracy in the territory. He tried to do it by prohibiting the practice of druidic worship. Resistances appeared, uprisings occurred, while in Rome even, after the assassination of Nero, generals competed for the power.

Here how the French historian Maurice Bouvier (yes, yes, as Jacqueline Kennedy) presents the things in his book especially devoted to the emperors.

Druidism was in full revival at the time when Roman Capitol flamed, disastrous omen for the Empire.

Druids and bards who had survived persecutions, started to call for resistance, in exalting Mariccus, the predestined man chosen by the god-or-demons, descended from the heaven to liberate the country from the foreign yoke. Rome was taken by the Celts, but, the temple of Jupiter being remained intact, the Roman Empire survived. The fire - which devastates it now - is the sign of the heavenly anger. The Empire of the earthly things will now pass to transalpine peoples. There is what druids - and therefore Mariccus - sang (sic) at the time.

In short, the high-knowers of the druidiaction (druidecht), being based on various popular beliefs, prepare the uprising of their people around + 69; gathering from eight to ten thousand men around Mariccus who, to guarantee his recruitment, promised the freeing of the slaves and the right to live shielded from the abuses of Roman exactions.

Soon he controlled part of the land and especially the forests, occupying half of the current French department of Allier. [It was therefore about one of the very first bagaudae. Editor’s note].

So that the rebellion extends and becomes irrevocably effective, it had been necessary the Aedui join Mariccus, but in one century, the Roman influence had already deeply modified the behavior of their youth, especially considering the previous suppressions. Moreover, interests attached them to Rome. Also, either during a fight, or through treachery, Mariccus fell into their hands. They gave him up to the emperor Vitellius who sentenced him at once to be thrown to wild animals. In the middle of the arena, Mariccus, the Boian, looked at the starving wild animals pouncing on him, then to stop, to look up, to smell the air, and finally to move back then to come to lie down at his feet. Was this man with an attractive glance, a natural tame? On the steps the people prepared to applaud him, astonished or happy to see Mariccus showing that his invulnerability was not a legend.

Such a new development evoked indeed, for the crowd present on the spot, the old druidic myth of the deity taming animals. It is him we see, on the cauldron of Gundestrup, to hold at bay the elephants and to reduce to powerlessness the devourer carnivore.

But the emperor Vitellius understood the danger at once and ordered to his soldiers to cut the throat of Mariccus who, struck to death, collapsed in the arena where his blood was spread. This execution was more than the death of a man: it was the end of an ideal [that of the Bagaudae of this time. Editor’s note].

The Aedui and the troops of Vitellius disbanded the Boians and removed from History their city, Gergovia “Boïorum “ the Gergovia of Boians, of which the site still today comes under the field of the conjecture.

Below the exact text of Tacitus (Hist. II, LXI).

“ Amid the adventures of these illustrious men, one is ashamed to relate how a certain Mariccus, a Boian of the lowest origin, pretending to divine inspiration, ventured to thrust himself into fortune's game, and to challenge the arms of Rome. Calling himself the champion of Celtica, and a god (for he had assumed this title), he had now collected eight thousand men, and was taking possession of the neighboring villages of the Aedui, when that most formidable tribe-state attacked him with a picked force of its native youth, to which Vitellius attached some cohorts, and dispersed the crowd of fanatics. Mariccus was captured in the engagement, and was soon after exposed to wild beasts, but not having been torn by them, was believed by the senseless multitude to be invulnerable, till he was put to death in the presence of Vitellius“.

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CONCLUSION. Mariccus was therefore a kind of Celtic Orpheus and he fascinated because it was seen well that a god-or-demon lived him. He was the author of sacred anthems or magic incantations. The entire nature seemed to react to his voice, he always had a good explanation to give to the quivering of trees and by hearing him even wild animals lay down at his feet.

NOTES AND REMARKS.

Reminders of the point of view of the druids of today on certain particular points of the belief of the former ones : the signs of the fate (former druidism).

Elementals being responsible for each phenomenon (wind, rain, mineral world, vegetable world…) they were therefore compared to deities by the ancient druids. Trees in the forest bring serenity, water of the Ocean the patience and the truth of this world, since the Ocean is the memory of everything. The winds themselves can bring information if they are questioned in a fitting way. Go in the wood and speak with the sky, the earth , the rocks, the rivers and the brooks. All united, they form the soul /spirits of nature. And nature is neither good nor bad, it is what it is and there is only it.

That being said coincidences are part of the life. The human beings have a comprehension and knowledge generally limited enough of probabilities, we do not understand the laws relating to the large numbers, and we succumb easily to the selective memory and to the subjective validation: this tendency to remember the positive correlations and to forget the greatest number of cases where nothing meaningful happens. The only common point in reality of all these coincidences is our desire to explain them. However coincidences, as remarkable as they can sometimes appear, are not at all surprising. In fact, most are only events with no meaning . Unusual events become highly probable when enough individuals are involved. This lifts the cover of mystery surrounding certain phenomena and leads quite simply towards the scientific reflection.

The real meaning of odd coincidences can be understood and explained by what is called the law of the very large numbers. This statistical law establishes that with a sufficiently large sample, even most improbable becomes probable, and therefore becomes “supernatural.”

1. Mariccus druid and even “high druid “?

Nothing proves it and nothing contradicts it. The only historian who mentions him says him to be “a Boian of the lowest origin “ therefore of the 3rd function, but he could have been a clandestine druid very well. In any event, considering the tone of the text of Tacitus (systematic racist denigration) everything is possible.

2. Did the Christians influence Aedui who sold him to the Romans? The sending of missionaries in Gaul by the Apostles is hardly probable. The first Christian missionaries arrived perhaps fifty years later, around the end of the first century. The Christian community in Autun is not known before the 2nd century (mission of Andochius or Thyrsus among the Aedui).

3. Memory of Mariccus in Bourbonnais, because native from Neris? Neris belonged to the city of the Bituriges, far enough from the Boian settlement area. Neriomagos was the chief town of a “pagus minor “of the Bituriges Cubi, whose name was preserved as Narzenne < Nericiana, covering roughly speaking the southern point of the current department of Cher and the western and southern zones of the district of Montlucon; therefore far from the Boian area in the circle of Aeduan influence (between the Loire and the Allier River in the Nievre, and between the Allier and the Aubois River in the Cher). Guerche upon Aubois is probably not the Gergobia of the Boians : its name comes from the Germanic wirkia > guircia. Saint Parize is more probable, but not certain either.

4. Mariccus “man of the inextricable Pontiniacensis Sylva “(sic)? A forgery, it is too far from the Boian area!

5. True reasons of the non-support of Aedui for the cause of Mariccus. They are, basically, easy to guess given History. The Aedui since nearly one century had boasted about being “friends of the Roman People “ even to the detriment of the interests of their compatriots. We find the same cosmopolitan and mercantile, anti-national, mentality, today, in this unfortunate country, because if the French are known for their left in policy, they are also known for having two types of right wing: the national right wing and the businesses right wing, both having not much to do together. Their national right wing jumped on the bandwagon of the victory of Vercingetorix at Gergovia in - 51 (before our era) and supported the revolt of Sacrovir in 21. What brought to them besides a wild suppression in the second case.

Forty-eight years after they were hardly in a hurry to start again, the more so as the popular movement of Mariccos prefigured Bagaudae: at the same time hideouts of resistance fighters and country revolts. This second aspect was not cut out for rallying the possessing class whose kids like Saint Symphorian formed the elite teens of Augustodunum (Autun) become capital of the Aedui instead of Bibracte.

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6. The witnessed deity of the Between-Loire and Allier river, country of the Ambivaritoi where the Boians had found refuge, was Sinquatis, eponym of the current town of Saincaize.

APPENDIX No. 8.

ON SOME DRUIDIC DEMIGODS.

Bible and Christianity clearly condemn the very idea of unions of the gods (of the angels) with some daughters of mankind (Genesis, 6,1-4; I Corinthians 11,2-16), etc.

Their fruits are always monstrous: some giants carriers of death called Nephilim.

Genesis chapter VI. When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. ….The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown, the Gibborim.

The same applies to the Aryans who admitted well always the level of being corresponding to the half-god-or-demon.

Among Celts, it is nevertheless difficult to speak about half-god-or-demons in the same meaning as in Judeo-Christian or Greek mythology. Besides , in Ireland, as soon as it is a question of legendary or pseudo-historical characters having a certain dimension, all occurs on the level of the myth, and the distinction between the human one and the divine one lose its interest. Nevertheless they are not god-or-demons, because they do not have a place in the Panth-eon, and legend in general assigns a chronology relating to their existence, with a birth, a youth, a full life and a heroic and violent death. But they are not either common persons, since they have access to the Next World, and that the least one of their deeds is out of reach for a normal human being.

All occurs contrary to Judea or Greece, not as if the god-or-demons went down on earth to beget demigod-or-demons by loving fortunate mortal women; but on the contrary like if an appreciable fraction of human society, priestly, royal and military , had been carried abruptly on the floor of the god-or-demons and of their possibilities.

Another distinction between the “god-or-demon “and the “hero “is located on the functional level. His active warlike quality prevents the hero from participating in one way or another in the practice of sovereignty. The relations of the hesus Cuchulainn and of the Morrigu, Irish war goddess-or-demoness but also sovereign goddess-or-demoness, are for example, difficult and strained (in other words, his Kingdom is not of this world).

Some god-or-demons of the druidic Panth-eon or Pleroma are in reality only deceased anatiomaroi (great initiates) , having reached what our Buddhist friends call the status of Bodhisattva. It is obvious for example that Vindosenos/Fintan and Tuan Mac Cairill are anatiomaroi or great initiates of the Bodhisattva type. Progress of research makes some others leave the shadow little by little. The semnotheos in this case is the exact opposite of the bacuceos, bacuceos or seibaros = phantom (siabair/siabhradh in Gaelic language), having escaped the ices of the before heaven (andumno or anwn); illustrated by the popular imagination relating to the kingdoms of Tethra or Donn (Donnotegia). It is voluntarily that he remains on the first levels of the other world or that he embodies again on earth in order to come to the assistance of the others (like the nemet Hornunnos for example).

The problem is that what preserved to us the Irish heresy in connection with Vindosenos/Fintan and Tuan Mac Cairill, is so muddled that it is quite difficult to see clearly in it.

N.B. By heresy, we want to only say, a little too pushed deviation compared to the broad outlines of ancient druidism.

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APPENDIX No. 9.

VINDO-SENOS/FINTAN (WHITE-ELDER).

Worship of dulia.

In Gaelic, Fintan mac Bochra, or still Ruanus in the writings by Gerald of Wales (Topographia hibernica, Distinctio III, Cap. III). Two theses clash about him.

For the ones it is only a fictional character, in short a literary device in conformity with the artistic traditions of the bards. Vindosenos therefore was duplicated or geared down in Ireland, what produces, according to the manuscripts, Fintan, or Ruan (us), etc.

For the others it is a semnotheos or great initiate in a way before time , having really passed through all these metamorphoses, but too premature to have developed an influence comparable with that of Hornunnos.

The least it is possible to say nevertheless is that the oral transmission of the myth of Fintan was strongly Christianized, during its transcription, by learned people during the Middle Ages. The reference to the Flood and the relationship of Cessair with Noah were added in it particularly because Fintan mac Bóchra, in Irish mythology, is theoretically linked with the epic of the people of Cessair and the Flood. What is historically impossible, of course, or at least shows the deep disorganization of the mythical outline induced by Christianization.

Whereas Noah prepares the Ark before the Flood submerges the earth , Cessair takes the command of a troop of fifty women, accompanied by three men: her father Bith, Ladra and Fintan. They embark for a seven-year voyage which will carry out them in Ireland. The three men marry all the women, seventeen for Bith, sixteen for Ladra. The seventeen women of Fintan are Cessair, Lot, Luam, Mall, Mar, Froechar, Femar, Faible, Foroll, Cipir, Torrian, Tamall, Tam, Abba, Alla, Baichne, Ebliu and Sille. From all these unions, he has only one son, Illann. On the death of Ladra, then of Bith, he marries their widows.

The members of the people of Cessair perish all drowned, except for Fintan, who is changed into a salmon. He remains thus a whole year under water, having settled his residence in a cave. He survives during 5.500 years, while transforming himself in turn into an eagle, into a falcon, for lastly taking again a human form.

At the time of Cath Maighe Tuireadh (first battle of the plain of mounds), he will be alongside the king of the Fir Bolg Gauls, Eochaid Mac Eirc, during the invasion of the god-or-demons of the goddess-or-demoness, or fairy, Danu (bia). In the story entitled Suidigud Tellach Temra (The Settling of the Manor of Tara), it is him who defends the organization of the land in four provinces or kingdoms, with a fifth in the center: Meath, of which the capital is Tara, residence of the king of the kings or emperor. What is a traditional druidic idea we find even in Turkey in the Galatian constitution (tetrarchy and drunemeton).

He is supposed to have left the earthly life in 5th century, once Ireland converted to Christianity.

The invention does not date from the time of Keating, nor of that of Gerald of Wales: it was integrated into History quite before the first legendary registration. We will therefore refrain from any initiative in the disassembling or the analysis of the literary processes of this Irish mythological invention, insofar as there is “invention “ and we will not claim more to found or restore a historical truth. It is enough to read again or to mull over the hesitations and prudence of Keating.

The history is, in the medieval Celtic field, an accident, sometimes a disguise of mythology, it is never the essence of it. It is necessary each time to analyze well a data according to its context, and to understand each account in the senses of its own coherence and meaning.

We deal with mythological corpus which, from one text to another, undergoes modifications, final improvements of detail; but of which the structure remains immutable through all the possible analyzes and behind all the Christian constructions or dressing, of which Irishmen themselves liberally overloaded it. Considering all these constructions and this dressing , each one of these duplicates of the medieval Irish literature ended up getting a peculiar originality. The legends relating to Fintan, for

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example, were much more Christianized than these which speak about Tuan (from where the total disappearance of the facts of metempsychosis in the accounts relating to him whereas these phenomena are still mentioned in the stories relating to Tuan Mac Cairell). One of the passages in the legend of the Settling of the Manor of Tara, a legend which stages Fintan, there refers nevertheless still discreetly, when it evokes the death “without undergoing further change of form “of our hero; what proves well that there was also, at the beginning, before Christianization, some metempsychosis or metamorphoses in the life of Fintan.

Moreover, in this whole jumble of legends, one lived 430 years and the other 5000. The Irish legend of the settling of the manor of Tara, in spite of its extreme interest, gives us nevertheless only a very partial view of the personality of Vindosenos (Fintan), that which justifies the existence of the highest kingship. And if he is the main character of this apocryphal text, he is it in a way only through delegation from the god-or-demon called Trefuilngid in the text (Suqellus??? Taran/Toran/Tuireann?? The identification is difficult). In Ireland in any case, it is especially the nature of their missions which separates our characters. Tuan hands down the memory of all the events to which he could attend, whereas Fintan, who was a witness of all these events, remains, in addition, of the traditional organization. The one attends the saints and the other advises the king of the kings, in the defense and the maintenance of the most famous institution.

The Christian purpose of Fintan joins, on the scale of Ireland, that of Tuan Mac Cairill as regards Ulster [the celebrity of Fintan is indeed national, whereas that of Tuan is only provincial]. But, unlike the story of Tuan, the account of the settling of the manor of Tara does not justify the past events of the history of Ireland by Christianity; it affirms the legitimacy of the kingship of Tara, which remains intact, through and in spite of Christianity. In spite of all the layers of Christian veneer which covers it, this kingship therefore remains that of the god-or-demon nicknamed Trefuilngid. To identify with certainty the god-or-demon in question is difficult, but a thing is sure, however: Vindosenos (Fintan) himself, was not divine, but human. Vindosenos was a semnotheos (a great initiate or anatiomaros during his life) of course, but not a god-or-demon: the Irish Tuan and Fintan indeed give up their ghost to God in odor of sanctity or almost, both.

The Irish legend entitled “Fingen’s night watch “ (Airne Fingein) gives us specifications about the tree of Fintan. It is at the same time the tree of Life, the tree of the Next World, and the first tree in Ireland.

In the process of Christianization, it became the Tree of Paradise, feeding and protecting its people. It was already a question of it in connection with Fintan.

In the complete enumerations, the supernatural trees are five, at a rate of one per province; but the texts describing most famous reduce this number to three, without we always know exactly what species of tree it is, oak, ash or yew; but the produced fruits are always, independently of the species of the tree in question: acorns, hazelnuts, apples or sloes. From where we may conclude, of course, these sacred trees are oaks, hazel trees, apple trees or blackthorns.

Most probable is that each tree considered separately is the projection or the repetition of the single tree, without age, with imprecise species; and which, for this reason, can be described only as being endowed with qualities or dimensions bordering the spectacular even the fantastic.

The destiny of the tree is also dependent on that of Fintan: hidden since the flood, it is revealed to the men of Ireland the night even when Fintan awakes from his long sleep. Fintan guarantees by his waking up the royal destiny of Conn, just like he already guaranteed, in the previous story (the settling of the Manor of Tara), by his teaching and his decisions, the seniority, legitimacy as well as the perenniality of the kingship of Tara. The Christianization, very little evangelical besides, was led to its ultimate term and, here like in the story of the settling of the manor of Tara the facts of metempsychosis are overlooked. The monastic censorship, however, was neither rather effective, nor advanced enough, so that we do not know, through additional texts (the colloquy with the hawk of Achill ); that Fintan was subjected to animal transformations like Tuan Mac Cairill; and that he was before a high-ranking druid.

It is said: a high-ranking druid. Therefore a semnotheos (a great initiate or anatiomaros during his life), perhaps especially attached to the worship of Ogmius considering his name in old Celtic language (Vindosenos) and the circumstances in which he finds again his whole eloquence, at least in the Irish apocryphal text in question.

The name Vindo-senos means “gray-haired old man “; and the recovered eloquence of Fintan, thanks to the sun beams of the envoy of the god-or-demon in question (quite a funny angel indeed) is compared with seven chains starting from the tip of his tongue. Like in the case of the Ogmius described by Lucian of Samosata.

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The relation was degraded by a length and intensive process of Christian absorption. However, it is still discernible and, such as it is, this beginning of a file deserves to be given to our readers.

APPENDIX No. 10.

TUNOS CARILLIGENOS/TUAN MAC CAIRILL.

Worship of dulia.

Tuan Mac Cairill represents the safeguarding of knowledge by a giving from generation to generation.

In Gaelic mythology, Tunos Carilligenos or Tuan Mac Cairill (Tuan son of Cairill, his name means “quiet “), is the only survivor of the disaster which decimates the people of Partholonians, another Irish settlement which is a problem. He is the nephew of Partholon.

According to Lebor Gabala Erenn (Book of Conquests of Ireland), the Partholonians (of the name of their chief Partholon) came to Ireland, 312 years after the Flood (what is already, of course, a data of which the aberration is due to Christianity); on the feast day of Beltene (May 1st). Their reign will last 5000 years, legends ascribe to them the invention of druidism, farming, breeding, metallurgy. In parallel, they must fight against the gigantic anguipedic wyverns that the Irish tradition calls Fomorians (Andernas on the Continent).

Tuan is at the same time a primordial Man and a druid. He owes his survival only to successive animal metamorphoses, for finally coming back into a human state, in order to give his science. In the reign of Partholon, he is a man during hundred years; then at the time of the Nemet Hornunnos, a stag during three hundred years; he is a wild boar (or a billy goat) in the reign of Semion during two hundred years; he is a raptor in the reign of Beothach during three hundred years. Lastly, during hundred years in the reign of Mile (what is completely impossible, the Milesian invasion being an invention of the bards of the Middle Ages), he will have the shape of a salmon. In this form, he is caught by a fisherman who offers him to the queen Cairill, wife of Muiredach Muinderg. She eats him and he becomes again human under the name of Tuan Mac Cairill.

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APPENDIX No. 11.

VINDOS/FINN.

Worship of dulia again.

Vindos Camulogenos. Fingal, Finn, Finn mac Cool, Finn mac Coul, Fine mac Cumhail, Finn mac Cumhal, Finn McCool, Fionn, Fionn mac Cool, Fionn mac Cumhail, Fionn mac Cumhal. A warrior hero very known in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. The adventures of Vindos/Finn and of his companions, the Fenians, constitute the Ossianic Cycle or Cycle of the Fenians. They are supposed being mainly reported by the son of Vindos/Finn, the famous warrior poet called Ossian. The Brotherhood of the Fenians has its name from this myth.

The name of Vindos (Fionn or Fin) is in fact a pseudonym which means “fair (by reference to the color of his hair), white, beautiful, or of good race “. His childhood first name was Demne, which means deer, and several legends tell how he changed his name when his hair became precociously white.

Vindos/Finn is the son of Camulos/Cumhal, founding chief of the Fenians, and of Miren/Muirne, a daughter of the druid Tadg mac Nuadat (who lived under the hill of Almu in the County Kildare, at least according to the Irish tradition). Camulos/Cumhal abducted Miren/Muirne after her father had refused her hand to him. Tadg appeals to the king of the kings, the emperor Conn of the Hundred Battles, who declared him an outlaw. The battle of Cnucha opposed Conn and Camulos/Cumhal. The latter was killed by Goll mac Morna, who took control of the Fenians.

Miren/Muirne being already pregnant, her father rejects her and orders his people to burn her but Conn could not accept. He placed her under the protection of Fiacal mac Conchinn, whose wife, the “druidess“ Bodhmall was the own sister of Camulos/Cumhal. In the house of Fiacal, she gave birth to a son, whom she called Deimne.

Miren/Muirne left the child under the protection of Bodhmall and of a warlike fairy, Liath Luachra, who raised him both secretly in the middle of the forest of Sliab Bladma, while teaching to him the art of war and hunting.

The young man meets , one day, the poet called Finegas, close to the Boyne River, and the latter became his tutor. Finegas - also called Finneces - had for seven years tried, but in vain, to capture the Salmon of wisdom. The one who would eat in first from this fish was to have all possible knowledge. And Finegas indeed will end up catching it, but it was Finn who swallowed in first a piece of its flesh, accidentally, just by sucking his thumb burned by the cooking water. He discovered then how to be avenged for Goll, and was thereafter able to reach each time the knowledge of the magic salmon, only by sucking his thumb, or more exactly only by putting his thumb under his wisdom tooth (N.B. This story resembles much the Welsh tale of Gwion Bach).

Each year since nearly a quarter of century at Samon (ios) , the evil spirit called Aillen deceived the men in Tara, while sending them to sleep by means of a mysterious music, before burning their palace to ashes. The Fenians, directed then by Goll mac Morna, were unable to prevent him from doing that. Vindos/Finn went to Tara, provided with the crane bag containing the magic weapons of his father. He kept himself waked up while jabbing himself with the tip of his own spear, and killed then Aillen with it. After that, he was accepted as the chief of Fenians, and Goll, somewhat compelled and forced by events, swore to him obedience and allegiance.

Vindos/Finn then claimed for damages for the death of his father – attributable to Tadg his grandfather - by threatening him to wage a war or to face him in singular combat if he refused. Tadg therefore gave the hill of Almu up for him, his residence, as a compensation.

Finn met his wife, Sadbh or Sadv, changed into a hind, whereas he hunted. She had been metamorphosed in this way by a “druid“ called Fer Doirich. The hounds of Finn, Bran and Sceolang, who had been also men before, smelt at once she was human, and Finn spared her. She became again then a splendid young woman. After their wedding she was quickly pregnant. But Fer Doirich surfaced and again changed her into a hind. Sadbh disappeared.

Seven years passed before Finn ends up finding in wood their son, Ossian, who became later too one of the Fenians.

In one of the most tragic love stories of all time, Cormac Mac Airt, Ard ri Erenn (emperor or king of the kings in Ireland), promises to Finn, become widowed, his daughter, Grannia. But the lady-love

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becomes enamored of another Fenian, Diarmat Ua Duibhne. The couple flees with the assistance of Mabon/Maponos/Oengus, the foster father of Diarmat. Vindos/Finn ends up forgiving the two lovers, but a few years later nevertheless, will be avenged for the latter following an unfortunate hunting accident: Diarmat is seriously wounded there by a diabolical wild boar, on Ben Gulban. Vindos/Finn had the power to cure every person drinking some water in his hands, but he deliberately let it escape before the least drop reaches the lips of Diarmat.

The account of the death of Vindos/Finn varies. According to some versions besides, he would not have died, but would sleep in a cave, ready to awake to defend his country when needed . What resembles much the dormition of King Arthur in the island of Avalon. Another legend claims that Vindos/Finn, his wife and his son, were changed into stone pillars, in the crypt of the cathedral of Lund, in Sweden.

In Ireland, people attribute to Vindos/Finn many geographical characteristics. It is he for example, who would have built the giant’s Causeway in order to go to Scotland without getting one's feet wet. Vindos/Finn also gave his name to the Fingal’s cave, in Scotland, which lets see the same hexagonal basalt characteristic as the Giant’s Causeway. He would have, on another occasion, snatched a part of Ireland to cast it on a rival. The piece of rock thus propelled would have landed in the Irish Sea, from where the Isle of Man; the open hole left behind in Ireland becoming the Lough Neagh.

In 1761, a Scottish private tutor named James Macpherson took as a starting point these adventures to compose various poems which were however only counterfeits. This trickery a little similar to this of the Welshman Iolo Morgannwg, had nevertheless a considerable influence on men like Goethe, Bonaparte, or the young Walter Scott.

Finn Mac Cumaill is still very present in the modern Irish literature. He appears there on several occasions, and even in a song of the Dropkick Murphys, published in their album Sing Loud Sing Proud.

It is possible that Vindos/Finn has an equivalent in Wales in the character of Gwynn ap Nudd, Nudd corresponding to the grandfather of Vindos/Finn, Nuada in the Irish tradition.

Gwynn ap Nudd is one of the sovereigns of Anwyn, the other anteroom of Heaven, of the Welsh legends. He is the son of Nudd and the brother of Yder and Bebhinn.

He has a psychopomp role since one of his functions is to drive the soul/minds of the dead towards Anwyn, accompanied by a pack of supernatural dogs : the Cwn Annwn.

In the Arthurian tale Kulhwch and Olwen, Creiddylad, daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint, the most beautiful girl in all the country, flees with a man called Gwythyr, son of Creidawl. But before they could consummate their union, Gwynn abducts the maiden. The lover raises an army, but the kidnapper is victorious and makes many warriors prisoners. All these noble lords will be released only on intervention of the king of Britain (Arthur), who decides that Creiddylad will remain in the house of her father, without neither one nor the other may approach her. Since then, every year, at the calends of May, Gwynn and Gwythyr fights for Creiddylad, and it will be thus until the day of the last Judgment.

Gwynn ap Nudd also takes part in the mythical hunting of Arthur against the wild boar called Troit/Trwyth. What is reminiscent of the tragic episode of the death of Dermot, killed by the wild boar of Ben Gulban, in the Irish version of the adventures of Vindos/Finn or Fingal.

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APPENDIX No. 12.

MONGAN.

Worship of dulia still.

King Mongan is theoretically a historical character signaled by the Annals and whose death is placed by Tigernach in 625, at the time of a battle against the Welsh: “ stricken with a stone by Artur “.

But this date has nothing certain, because the Chronicon Scottorum makes him a contemporary of events which occurred in 544. Leinster’s book gives us some historical details, moreover, on Dublacha and her mother Cuman Dub.

King Mongan is, in spite of his some human weaknesses, undoubtedly entering the myth. We have with him an additional example of what the Irishmen made their History being used. The History disappears, replaced by Myths, which depict and which regulate, which coordinate and classify on a hierarchical basis, the relations of god-or-demons, and of men; or even of the men between them under the guidance of the god-or-demons. Unlike the Romans, who placed the legend within the framework of History, the Celtic storytellers placed History within the framework of the legend.

The few contemporary commentators who have looked into his case sought his trace at the same time in the History and in the Myth, without marking always well the boundary line between the two fields; the boundary line which, in simple chronology, is Ireland’s conversion to Christianity, but which, in the facts, is made indistinct or discontinuous by the adaptation of the myths to evangelical or biblical standards. Mongan was or became a great king and it is normal that he and his wife profited from a place in the long genealogical lists and the didactic poems. It is not abnormal either that people made him discuss with Saint Columba of Iona. These facts are epiphenomena of the written handing down of an oral tradition, and they depend on the historicization of a king or of a legendary hero. Conchobar, mythical king of Ulster, and Cûchulainn, a mythical warrior of the same province, were not dealt with, differently.

In the legend of Mongan the main event it is not the battle of Degsastan against the Saxons or the battle against the warriors of the king of Scandinavia, it is the conception and the birth of Mongan. The birth of Mongan belongs to the traditional topic, and almost worn out, of the love of a god-or-demon and of a mortal woman. In the case of Mongan, the union of the queen and of the god-or-demon is the price or the condition of a warlike help. Transaction, deal or convention, which, if it is well in the legal spirit of Ireland, is incompatible with the Christian morals of marriage. And the incompatibility will be still worsened by the attitude of the husband who, not only does not feel insulted, but accepts the intervention without seeing anything reprehensible in the behavior of his wife. The very circumstances of the conception and of the birth of Mongan secure him and therefore immunize him against any approach of Christianity. The matter of the story being to affirm clearly, without ambiguity nor uncertainty , the divine filiation of the child; the divine origin of Mongan, future king of Ulster, will be made obvious by the decision of Belenos Barinthus Manannan, to take him along, as of the third day of his life, in the Next World, to tutor him there. Fiachna is only a supposed father and the case is similar to that of Cuchulainn who, supposed son of Sualtam, if it is not of the king Conchobar, is in fact a son of the god-or-demon Lug.

Some Irish legends make Mongan a reincarnation of Vindos Camulos. It is an uncommon heresy. By heresy, we want only to say a remarkable deviation compared to the broad outlines of the ancient continental and even center-European, druidism.

In this, in any event apocryphal , legend, the name of Mongan appears once, and only once, in complete formation: Mongân Find mac Fiachna Finn: “Mongan the fair, son of Fiachna the fair “; the adjectival nickname Find or Finn (in more recent writing form) also means “white “. One fragment of this story, all in all , says to us that Mongan is Find, son of Cumall. It is the second, in its title and in paragraph 6 alone, without excessive clearness. Cailte, the ghost, speaks to contradict Forgoll.

Bâmârni latsu Find ol in t-oclach (I was then with you, i.e., with Find, the warrior said) and Bâmârni Ia Find trâ ol se dulodmar di Albae (I was with Find and we were coming back from Scotland). That can be understood as an unambiguous allusion to the raid of Fiachna Find in Scotland.

Then, in paragraph 7, we read, “ba hé Find dano inti Mongân acht nad leic a forndisse… “(It was then Find who was this Mongan, although he did not allow it was said).

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Would not be there confusion of the nickname of Fiachna Find and of Mongan Find with the name of Find mac Camulos?

APPENDIX No. 13.

ENDS AND LIMITS OF THIS STUDY.

In Ireland and Great Britain, the legends concerning certain historical characters also contain many elements falling under mythology. But these characters being by no means superhuman (neither great initiates nor demigod-or-demons) and the deeds we have ascribed to them generously being in an obvious way borrowed from external mythologies, not from a strictly historical biography; we will not speak about them in this essay, but in another book. Some examples, however, to illustrate our matter.

The Irish king Conn Cetchathach (of the hundred battles), son of Deiflimid Rechtmar, son of Tuathal Techtmar, son of Feradach Findfechtnach, son of Crimthan Nia Nair, wire of Lugaid Riabh nDerg… we could not better attach the origins of a sovereign or a prince to traditional mythology. The kingship of Tara is not explained and is not justified apart from this mythology.

The life of this king is literally chock full of wonders more mythical the ones than the others, but the fact remains that it is indeed at the beginning a historical character. The Gaelic manuscript entitled Airne Fingen (Fingen’s night watch) has the aim of enumerating or celebrating the wonders which accompanied, according to the tradition, the birth of Conn.

These wonders are indicated here by the name buaid, plural buada, word which strictly means “victory, success, triumph “ and is often used in the almost mystical meaning of extraordinary and marvelous exploit.

This extract of the legend of the great king Conn, such as it is presented to us, is much closer to mythology than folklore, but it is rather typically Irish to be no longer universal. Such a legend illustrates a Celtic and Indo-European design of the ideal kingship , rather than a fact or a series of popular superstitions. And because it is ideal, this kingship of Conn plunges without transition in mythology, according to a quite Irish method. The historical man who is Conn, even if the Annals of the Four Masters make him rule from 122 to 157 of our era, is only, as such, a paltry pretext. The precision must be brought straight away , without what we are placed at risk to be mistaken seriously on the content of the story. Because there is much more real mythology in the history of Ireland when it refers to her origins than tangible traces of history in the myth.

Conn is not a god-or-demon, not even a demigod-or-demon, but he is located by the story on the same level as the god-or-demons become kings of Ireland, through a late, Christian and surface, euhemerization. It is therefore for this reason that the wonders of the night of his birth interest us.

Same thing for Art and Conla the red (his brother) or for Cormac Mac Art. No Irish sovereign, so historical he is - and they are all generally very little in the mythological or epic texts - escapes the control of the god-or-demons of the Next World.

Some also thought that the sovereign of Munster called Curoi Mac Daire too, was more or less, a god-or-demon, at the origin, because of his gigantic size and of his savage opposition to the Hesus Cuchulainn.

Let us not forget either Ailill and the Queen Medb , considering their role in the dream of Oengus (Aislinge Oengusso).

And even Ossian, Oscar, Caletios/Cailte, Diarmat (Dermot) and Grannia. They all are semi-legendary semi-historical characters, and their legends (the adventures of Cormac, etc.) contain many elements falling under druidic mythology.

Ditto for the aislingi (visions) like that of Tundale (Tungdal) and that of Adamnan or the Purgatory of Saint Patrick, not forgetting the Elucidarium of the Irish monk Honorius Augustodunensis (12th century), which contain, they also, many eschatological elements. Distorted considerably it is true, by the ignorance of the original context of which they were unfortunately abstracted.

A separate work will be therefore devoted to them later considering their importance in the development of the Christian ideas about hell.

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AFTERWORD IN THE WAY OF JOHN TOLAND.

Pseudo-druids with fabulous initiatory derivation (the famous and indescribable or hilarious perennial tradition) having multiplied since some time; it appeared us necessary to put at the disposal of each and everyone, these few notes, hastily written, one evening of November, in order to give our readers the desire to know more about true druidism.

This work claims to be honest but in no way neutral. It was given itself for an aim to defend or clear the cluto (fame) of this admirable ancient religion.

Nothing replaces personal meditation, including about obscure or incomprehensible lays strewing these books, and which have been inserted intentionally, in order to force you to reflect, to find your own way. These books are not dogmas to be followed blindly and literally. As you know, we must beware as it was the plague, of the letter. The letter kills, only spirit vivifies.

Nothing replaces either personal experience, and it’s by following the way that we find the way. Therefore rely only on your own strength in this Search for the Grail. What matters is the attitude to be adopted in life and not the details of the dogma. Druidism is less important than druidiaction (John-P. MARTIN).

These few leaves scribbled in a hurry are nevertheless in no way THE BOOKS TO READ ON THIS MATTER, they are only a faint gleam of them.

The only druidic library worthy of the name is not in fact composed of only 12 (or 27) books, but of several hundred books.

The few booklets forming this mini-library are not themselves an increase of knowledge on the subject, and are only some handbooks intended for the schoolchildren of druidism.

These simplified summaries intended for the elementary courses of druidism will be replaced by courses of a somewhat higher level, for those who really want to study it in a more relevant way.

This small library is consequently a first attempt to adapt (intended for young adults) the various reflections about the druidic knowledge and truth, to which the last results of the new secularism, positive and open-minded, worldwide, being established, have led.

Unlike Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which swarm, concerning the higher Being, with childish anthropomorphism taken literally (fundamentalism known as integrism in the Catholic world); our druidism too, on the other hand, will use only very little of them, and will stick in this field, to the absolute minimum.

But in order to talk about God or the Devil we shall be quite also obliged to use a basic language, and therefore a more or less important amount of this anthropomorphism. Or then it would be necessary to completely give up discussing it.

This first shelf of our future library consecrated to the subject, aims to show precisely the harmonious authenticity of the neo-druidic will and knowledge. To show at which point its current major theses have deep roots because the reflection about Mythologies, it’s our Bible to us. The adaptations of this brief talk required by the differences of culture, age, spiritual maturity, social status, etc. will be to do with the concerned druids (veledae and others?)

Note, however. Important! What these few notes, hastily thrown on paper during a too short life, are not (higgledy-piggledy).

A divine revelation. A (still also divine) law. A (non-religious or secular) law. A (scientific) law. A dogma. An order.

What I search most to share is a state of mind, nothing more. As our old master had very well said one day : "OUR CIVILIZATION HAS NO CHOICE: IT WILL BE CELTISM OR IT WILL BE DEATH” (Peter Lance).

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What these few notes, hastily thrown on paper during a too short life, are.

Some dream. An adventure. A journey. An escape. A revolt cry against the moral and physical ugliness of this society. An attempt to reach the universal by starting from the individual. A challenge. An obstacle fecund to overcome . An incentive to think. A guide for action. A map. A plan. A compass. A pole star or morning star up there in the mountain. A fire overnight in a glade?

What the man who had collected the core of this library, Peter DeLaCrau, is not.

- A god.

- A half god.

- A quarter of God.

- A saint.

- A philosopher (recognized, official, and authorized or licensed, as those who talk a lot in television. Except, of course, by taking the word in its original meaning, which is that of amateur searching wisdom and knowledge.

What he is: a man, and nothing of what is human therefore is unknown to him. Peter DeLaCrau has no superhuman or exceptional power. Nothing of what he said wrote or did could have timeless value. At the best he hopes that his extreme clearness about our society and its dominant ideology (see its official philosophers, its journalists, its mass media and the politically correct of its right-thinking people, at least about what is considered to be the main thing); as well his non-conformism, and his outspokenness, combined with a solid contrariness (which also earned to him for that matter a lot of troubles or affronts); can be useful.

The present small library for beginners “contains the dose of humanity required by the current state of civilization” (Henry Lizeray). However it’s only a gathering of materials waiting for the ad hoc architect or mason.

A whole series of booklets increasing our knowledge of these basic elements will be published soon. This different presentation of the druidic knowledge will preserve nevertheless the unity as well as the harmony which can exist between these various statements of the same philosophical and well-considered paganism : spirituality worthy of our day, spirituality for our days.

Case of translations into foreign languages (Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, etc.)

The misspellings, the grammatical mistakes, the inadequacies of style, as well as in the writing of the proper nouns perhaps and, of course, the Gallicisms due to forty years of life in France, may be corrected. Any other improvement of the text may also be brought if necessary (by adding, deleting, or changing, details); Peter DeLaCrau having always regretted not being able to reach perfection in this field.

But on condition that neither alteration nor betrayal, in a way or another, is brought to the thought of the author of this reasoned compilation. Every illustration without a caption can be changed. New illustrations can be brought.

But illustrations having a caption must be only improved (by the substitution of a good photograph to a bad sketch, for example?)

It goes without saying that the coordinator of this rapid and summary reasoned compilation , Peter DeLaCrau, does not maintain to have invented (or discovered) himself, all what is previous; that he does not claim in any way that it is the result of his personal researches (on the ground or in libraries).

What s previous is indeed essentially resulting from the excellent works or websites referenced in bibliography and whose direct consultation is strongly recommended.

We will never insist enough on our will not be the men of one book (the Book), but from at least twelve, like Ireland’s Fenians, for obvious reasons of open-mindedness, truth being our only religion.

Once again, let us repeat; the coordinator of the writing down of these few notes hastily thrown on paper, by no means claims to have spent his life in the dust of libraries; or in the field, in the mud of the rescue archaeology excavations; in order to unearth unpublished pieces of evidence about the past of Ireland (or of Wales or of East Indies or of China).

THEREFORE PETER DELACRAU DOES NOT WANT TO BE CONSIDERED, IN ANY WAY, AS THE AUTHOR OF THE FOREGOING TEXTS.

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HE TRIES BY NO MEANS TO ASCRIBE HIMSELF THE CREDIT OF THEM. He is only the editor or the compiler of them. They are, for the most part, documents broadcast on the web, with a few exceptions.

ON THE OTHER HAND, HE DEMANDS ALL THEIR FAULTS AND ALL THEIR INSUFFICIENCIES.

Peter DeLaCrau claims only one thing, the mistakes, errors, or various imperfections, of this book. He alone is to be blamed in this case. But he trusts his contemporaries (human nature being what it is) for vigorously pointing out to him.

Note found by the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau and inserted by them into this place.

I immediately confess in order to make the work of my judges easier that men like me were Christian in Rome under Nero, pagan in Jerusalem, sorcerers in Salem, English heretics, Irish Catholics, and today racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, person, while waiting to be tomorrow kufar or again Christian the beastliest antichrist of all the apocalypses, etc. In short as you will have understood it, I am for nothingness death disease suffering …… By respect for Mankind , in order to save time, and not to make it waste time, I will make easier the work of those who make absolutely a point of being on the right side of the fence while fighting (heroically of course) in order to save the world of my claws (my ideas or my inclinations, my tendencies).

To these courageous and implacable detractors, of whom the profundity of reflection worthy of that of a marquis of Vauvenargues equals only the extent of the general knowledge, worthy of Pico della Mirandola I say…

Now take a sheet of paper, a word processing if you prefer, put by order of importance 20 characteristics which seem to you most serious, most odious, most hateful, in the history of Mankind, since the prehistoric men and Nebuchadnezzar, according to you….AND CONSIDER THAT I AM THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF YOU BECAUSE I HAVE THEM ALL!

Scapegoats are always needed! A heretic in the Middle Ages, a witch in Salem in the 17th century, a racist in the 20th century, an alien lizard in the 21st century, I am the man you will like to hate in order to feel a better person (a smart and nice person).

I am, as you will and in the order of importance you want: an atheist, a satanist, a stupid person, with Down’s syndrome, brutish, homosexual, deviant, homophobic, communist, Nazi, sexist, a philatelist, a pathological liar, robber, smug, psychopath, a falsely modest monster of hubris, and what do I still know, it is up to you to see according to the current fashion.

Here, I cannot better do (in helping you to save the world).

[Unlike my despisers who are all good persons, the salt of the earth, i.e., young or modern and dynamic, courageous, positive, kind, intelligent, educated, or at least who know; showing much hindsight in their thoroughgoing meditation on the trends of History; and on the moral or ethical level: generous, altruistic, but poor of course (it is their only vice) because giving all to others; moreover deeply respectful of the will of God and of the Constitution …

As for me I am a stiff old reactionary, sheepish, disconnected from his time, paranoid, schizophrenic, incoherent, capricious, never satisfied, a villain, stupid, having never studied or at least being unaware of everything about the subject in question; accustomed to rash judgments based on prejudices without any reflection; selfish and wealthy; a fiend of the Devil, inherently Nazi-Bolshevist or Stalinist-Hitlerian. Hitlerian Trotskyist they said when I was young. In short a psychopathic murderer as soon as the breakfast… what enables me therefore to think what I want, my critics also besides, and to try to make everybody know it even no-one in particular].

Signed: the coordinator of the works, Peter DeLaCrau known as Hesunertus, a researcher in druidism.

A man to whom nothing human was foreign. An unemployed worker, post office worker, divorcee, homeless person, vagrant, taxpayer, citizen, and a cuckolded elector... In short one of the 9 billion human beings having been in transit aboard this spaceship therefore. Born on planet Earth, January 13, 1952.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE BROAD OUTLINES.

As regards the bibliography of details see appendix of the last lesson because, as Henry Lizeray says it so well, traditions that must be interpreted. It is there the whole difference which exists between former druidism and neo-druidism.

Lebar Gabala or The Book of Invasions. Paris 1884 (William O'Dwyer)

Base of the druidic Church. The restored druidism. Henry Lizeray, Paris, 1885.

National traditions rediscovered. Paris 1892.

Aesus or the secret doctrines of the druids. Paris 1902.

Ogmius or Orpheus. Paris 1903.

CONTENTS.

Predestination Page 004

MAGIC OF LIFE.

Regarding the nature of the gods of druidism Page 006

The five-leaf clover of gods Page 010

The druidic pleroma Page 014

The interpretatio celtica Page 016

The interpretatio romana Page 018

Limits and problems of this interpretatio romana Page 019

Collection of the principles mistletoe (development) Page 022

THE (CHTHONIAN) LOWER (UNDERGROUND OR AIR) GODS OR DEMONS.

The other magic of life Page 025

From naturalness to supernatural one through the preternatural Page 027

Defense and reinstatement of animism Page 033

Talismans Page 038

The magic of places: the elementals (individual opinion of the druid Jean-Pierre MARTIN) Page 043

Balaros or Toutadis Ater? Page 045

Ariomanos/Arawn Page 049

Donnos/Donn Page 051

The elementals called Andernas on the Continent, Fomoire in Ireland Page 054

Fairies of Good mothers, maires, or matres, type Page 060

Medieval survivals Page 064

Medieval and contemporary survivals Page 068

Our Lady of Life Page 069

Our Lady of Lourdes Page 070

The first of the two large families of god-or-demons:

The elementals (reminder of the thesis by the druid Leonorios about the subject) Page 071

Season elementals Page 072

Wind elementals Page 074

Sun moon and stars Page 078

Fire in water Page 080

Sulis Page 082

Grannus Page 085

LIR CLANN

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Lero/Lir/Llyr Page 089

Water elementals by Jose Maria Blasquez Page 093

Water elementals: continuation 1 Page 103

Water elementals: continuation 2 Page 118

Other water elementals Page 128

A special case: Damona Page 130

The Lady of lakes Page 139

The worship of lakes by Jose Maria Blasquez Page 142

The underground and chthonian forces or the main elementals of the earth Page 145

Domnu/Domna/Nerthus Page 147

The triad Litavis, Rosemartha, and Talantio Page 152

Medieval survivals: Melusina Page 157

Other particular, earth elementals Page 159

Historical reminder about the true settlement in Ireland Page 166

Other particular earth elementals : continuation Page 168

Elementals of heights and tops Page 171

Elementals of places arranged by man Page 173

The triad town-road-crossroads Page 174

Elementals of plants or dusii Page 177 Viridios/Viridus Page 181

Elementals of medicinal herbs Page 183

Elementals of trees Page 185

Conclusion Page 190

Animal or human (egregores) soul/minds known as teutates Page 192

Animal teutates or egregores Page 195

A. The dragon Tauriscus/Taraskos Page 198

Medieval survivals Page 204

B. The ram-headed snake Page 205

C. The Termagant/Tervagant/Termagaunt

D. The egregore of cattle (Flidais and Donnotaurus)

E. The egregore of bisons

F. The egregore of horses

G. The egregore of bears H. The egregore of wild boars

I. The egregore of wolves

J. The egregore of hounds

K. The egregore of goats

L. The egregore of sheep

M. The egregore of the beasts of burden

N. The egregore of birds

O. The egregore of salmons

Teutates or fairies of matres type ( human egregores) Page 215

Status report left by the interpretatio romana. Page 220

I Teutates or matres totales (guardian angels of nations) Page 221

II Teutates or matres veniales (guardian angels of the small nations or tribes) Page 225

III Mixed cases (example). Page 226

Various remarks on the mothers. Page 229

IV (More limited) teutates or matres veniales Page 233

V) Socio-professional groups egregores Page 234

VI) Family guardian angels in paganism Page 235

Dolb and Indolb Page 238

279

From the genius or good fairy of the family… to the genius or the good fairy of the individual Page 239

APPENDICES.

1 Etanna or the soul of Mankind Page 246

2 From the worship of the ancestors to that of the spirits Page 248

3 Semnothei or God-men Page 251

4 Semnotheos or theios aner Page 252

5 Great initiates or anatiomaroi Page 254

6 Heroes of the type vercinget kinges or demigods Page 259

7 Mariccus the prophet and demigod hero (+ 69) Page 262

8 On some druidic demigods Page 267

10Tunos Carilligenos/Tuan Mac Cairill Page 269

11 Vindos/Finn Page 270

12 Mongan Page 272

13 Ends and limits of this study Page 273

Afterword in the way of John Toland Page 274

Bibliography of the broad outlines Page 277

BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

1 Quotations from the ancient authors speaking about Celts or druids.

2. Various preliminary general information about Celts.

3. History of the pact with gods volume 1.

4. Druidism Bible: history of the pact with gods volume 2.

5. History of the peace with gods volume 3.

6. History of the peace with gods volume 4.

7. History of the peace with gods volume 5.

8. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 1.

9. Irish apocryphal texts.

10. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 2.

11. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 3.

12. The hundred paths of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 1 (druidic mythology).

13. The hundred paths of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 2 (druidic mythology).

14. The hundred ways of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 3 (druidic mythology).

15. The Greater Camminus: elements of druidic theology: volume 1.

16. The Greater Camminus: elements of druidic theology: volume 2.

17. The druidic pleroma: angels jinns or demons volume 1.

18. The druidic pleroma angels jinns or demons volume 2

19. Mystagogy or sacred theater of ancients Celts.

20. Celtic poems.

21. The genius of the Celtic paganism volume 1.

22. The Roland’s complex .

23. At the base of the lantern of the dead.

24. The secrets of the old druid of the Menapian forest.

25. The genius of Celtic paganism volume 2 (liberty reciprocity simplicity).

26. Rhetoric : the treason of intellectuals.

27. Small dictionary of druidic theology volume 1.

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28. From the ancient philosophers to the Irish druid.

29. Judaism Christianity and Islam: first part.

30. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 1.

31. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 2.

32. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 3.

33. Third part volume 1: what is Islam? Short historical review of the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

34. Third part volume 2: What is Islam? First approaches to the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

35. Third part volume 3: What is Islam? The true 5 pillars of the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

36. Third part volume 4: What is Islam? Sounding the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

37. Couiro anmenion or small dictionary of druidic theology volume 2.

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Peter DeLaCrau. Born on January 13rd, 1952, in St. Louis (Missouri) from a family of woodsmen or Canadian trappers who had left Prairie du Rocher (or Fort de Chartres in Illinois) in 1765. Peter DeLaCrau is thus born the same year as the Howard Hawks film entitled “the Big Sky”. Consequently father of French origin, mother of Irish origin: half Irish half French. Married to Mary-Helen ROBERTS on March 12th, 1988, in Paris-Aubervilliers (French department of Seine-Saint-Denis). Hence 3 children. John Wolf born May 11th, 1989. Alex born April 10th, 1990. Millicent born August 31st, 1993. Deceased on September 28th, 2012, in La Rochelle (France).

Peter DELACRAU is not a philosopher by profession, except taking this term in its original meaning of amateur searching wisdom and knowledge. And he is neither a god neither a demigod nor the messenger of any god or demigod (and of course not a messiah).

But he has become in a few years one of the most lucid and of the most critical observers of the French neo-druidic or neo-pagan world.

He was also some time assistant-treasurer of a rather traditionalist French druidic group of which he could get archives and texts or publications.

But his constant criticism both domestic and foreign French policy, and his political positions (on the end of his life he had become an admirer of Howard Zinn Paul Krugman Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore); had earned him moreover some vexations on behalf of the French authorities which did everything, including in his professional or private life, in the last years of his life, to silence him.

Peter DeLaCrau has apparently completely missed the return to the home country of his distant ancestors.

It is true unfortunately that France today is no longer the France of Louis XIV or of Lafayette or even of Napoleon (which has really been a great nation in those days).

Peter DeLaCrau having spent most of his life (the last one) in France, of which he became one of the best specialists,

even one of the rare thoroughgoing observers of the contemporary French society quite simply; his three children, John-Wolf, Alex and Millicent (of Cuers: French Riviera) pray his readers to excuse the countless misspellings or grammatical errors that pepper his writings. At the end of his life, Peter DeLaCrau mixed a little both languages (English but also French).

Those were therefore the notes found on the hard disk of the computer of our father, or in his papers.

Our father has of course left us a considerable work, nobody will say otherwise, but some of the words frequently coming from his pen, now and then are not always very clear. After many consultations between us, at any rate, above what we have been able to understand of them.

Signed: the three children of Peter DeLaCrau: John-Wolf, Alex and Millicent. Of Cuers.