Celtic mythology Celtic mythology is the body of myths belonging to the Celtic peoples.Cunliffe, Barry, (1997) ''The Ancient Celts''. Oxford, Oxford University Press , pp. 183 (religion), 202, 204–8. Like other Iron Age Europeans, Celtic peoples followed ...

, Taranis (

Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly reconstructed through the comparative method. Proto-Celt ...

: *''Toranos'', earlier ''*Tonaros'';

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

: Taranus, earlier Tanarus) is the god of thunder, who was worshipped primarily in

Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only durin ...

Hispania Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: His ...

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

, and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, but also in the

Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhineland ...

and

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , ...

regions, amongst others. Taranis, along with Esus and

Toutatis Toutatis or Teutates is a Celtic god who was worshipped primarily in ancient Gaul and Britain. His name means "god of the tribe", and he has been widely interpreted as a tribal protector.Paul-Marie Duval (1993). ''Les dieux de la Gaule.'' Édition ...

, was mentioned by the Roman poet

Lucan Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November 39 AD – 30 April 65 AD), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), in Hispania Baetica. He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial ...

in his epic poem '' Pharsalia'' as a Celtic deity to whom human sacrificial offerings were made. Taranis was associated, as was the Cyclops Brontes ("thunder") in

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of ...

, with the wheel. Gundestrup C

Many representations of a bearded god with a thunderbolt in one hand and a wheel in the other have been recovered from Gaul, where this deity apparently came to be syncretised with

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandt ...

Name and etymology

The

form of the name is reconstructed as *''Toranos'' ('Thunder'), which derives through metathesis (switch of sounds) from an earlier *''Tonaros'', itself from the

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

(PIE) stem for 'thunder', *''(s)tenh₂-''. The original, unmetathesized form of the name is attested in the dative form ''tanaro'' (

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

, 154 AD), found on a votive altar dedicated by a Roman officer from

Clunia Clunia (full name ''Colonia Clunia Sulpicia'') was an ancient Roman city. Its remains are located on Alto de Castro, at more than 1000 metres above sea level, between the villages of Peñalba de Castro and Coruña del Conde, 2 km away f ...

(modern Burgos Province), and in the Gaulish hydronym '' Tanarus'' ('thundering' or 'thunderous'), an ancient name of the River Po (northern Italy). Similar European hydronyms have also been proposed to belong to the same root. The PIE ''s''-initial seems to have been retained in Celtiberian ''steniontes'', ''stenion'', and ''stena''. In the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, ...

context, the Proto-Celtic name *''Tonaros'' is identical to the

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bran ...

Thunder-god ''*Þun(a)raz'' (cf. ON ''Þórr'', OE ''Þunor'', OS ''Thunar'', OFris. ''Thuner'', OHG ''Donar''), and further related to the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...

''stánati'' and

''tono'', both meaning 'to thunder.'' According to scholar Peter Jackson, the Celtic–Germanic

isogloss An isogloss, also called a heterogloss (see Etymology below), is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Major ...

*''Þun(a)raz'' ''~ *Tonaros'' may have emerged as the result of the fossilization of an original epithet (or epiclesis) of the

thunder-god *'' Perk^wunos''. The later form *''Toranos'' is attested in the Gaulish divine names ''Taranis'' and ''Taranucnos'', as well as in the personal name ''Taranutius''. The name '' Taran'', which appears in the prehistoric section of the Pictish King-List, may also be interpreted as a euhemerized god. The Hispano-Celtic ''tar(a)nekūm'' could mean 'of the descendants of Tar(a)nos'. Additional cognates may also be found in medieval Celtic languages, such as

Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...

''torann'' ('thunder, noise'), Old Breton ''taran'', Old Cornish ''taran'', or

Middle Welsh Middle Welsh ( cy, Cymraeg Canol, wlm, Kymraec) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 15th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed directly from Old Welsh ( cy, Hen ...

''taran'' (' eal ofthunder, thunderclap'). The

Gaulish Gaulish was an ancient Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerl ...

word for 'thunder' has been preserved in Gascon ''taram''.

Association with the wheel

The wheel, more specifically the

chariot A chariot is a type of cart driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, dated to c. 2000&nb ...

wheel with six or eight spokes, was an important symbol in historical Celtic polytheism, apparently associated with a specific god, known as the wheel-god, identified as the sky- sun- or thunder-god, whose name is attested as Taranis by

. Numerous Celtic coins also depict such a wheel. The half-wheel shown in the Gundestrup cauldron "broken wheel" panel also has eight visible spokes. Symbolic votive wheels were offered at shrines (such as in Alesia), cast in rivers (such as the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plate ...

), buried in tombs or worn as

amulets An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protect ...

since the Middle Bronze Age. Such "wheel pendants" from the Bronze Age usually had four spokes, and are commonly identified as solar symbols or " sun crosses". Artefacts parallel to the Celtic votive wheels or wheel-pendants are the so-called ''

Zierscheibe ''Zierscheibe'' (German for "ornamental disk") in archaeology is the term for a kind of metal jewellery dating to the European Iron Age. They are found in graves and are thought to have been worn as pendants attached to the tunica, or as part of ...

n'' in a Germanic context. The identification of the Sun with a wheel, or a chariot, has parallels in Germanic, Greek and Vedic mythology (see

sun chariot A solar deity or sun deity is a deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it. Such deities are usually associated with power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. The ...

). File:Stone Wheel from Santa Tegra.jpg, Stone wheel representation from the Santa Tegra hill-fort (

A Guarda A Guarda is a municipality in the province of Pontevedra in the autonomous community of Galicia, in Spain. It is situated in the ''comarca'' of O Baixo Miño. Demography Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.7) ...

Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...

). Museo arqueolóxico do castro de Santa Tegra File:Rouelle d or Balesme Haute Marne.jpg, Golden Celtic wheel with symbols, Balesme,

Haute-Marne Haute-Marne (; English: Upper Marne) is a department in the Grand Est region of Northeastern France. Named after the river Marne, its prefecture is Chaumont. In 2019, it had a population of 172,512.Musée d'Archéologie Nationale The National Archaeological Museum (French: Musée d'Archéologie nationale) is a major French archaeology museum, covering pre-historic times to the Merovingian period (450–750 CE). It is housed in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the ...

Later cultural references

In 2013 a British combat drone system developed by defence contractor BAE Systems was named Taranis in reference to the Celtic god. Taranis and

are often mentioned by characters of the ''

Asterix ''Asterix'' or ''The Adventures of Asterix'' (french: Astérix or , "Asterix the Gaul") is a '' bande dessinée'' comic book series about a village of indomitable Gaulish warriors who adventure around the world and fight the Roman Repub ...

'' series. Taranis and other Celtic gods are often referred to in the EPIX television series

Britannia Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Gr ...

MacG Racing have developed a racing car called th
Taranis
racing in th
British Endurance Championship
ref>

Footnotes

References

* Ellis, Peter Berresford, ''Dictionary of Celtic Mythology'' (Oxford Paperback Reference), Oxford University Press, (1994): * * MacKillop, James. ''Dictionary of Celtic Mythology''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. . * Wood, Juliette, ''The Celts: Life, Myth, and Art'', Thorsons Publishers (2002):

External links

Celtic Gods and Associates
* {{Authority control Gaulish gods Gods of the ancient Britons Thunder gods Jovian deities