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Celtic polytheism

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Also known as Celtic religion, Celtic paganism

religion practiced by ancient Celtic people

Wikidata facts

Subclass of
religion
Has part
Wren Day
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OpenStreetMap tag
denomination=celtic
Commons category
Celtic religion
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Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
Sources (1)

via Wikidata · CC0

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Model reconstructing the Pillar of the Boatmen in the Musée de Cluny, Paris. After 14 AD. Ancient Celtic religion, commonly known as Celtic paganism, was the religion of the ancient Celtic peoples of Europe. Because there are no extant native records of their beliefs, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts (some of them hostile and probably not well-informed), and literature from the early Christian period. Celtic paganism was one of a larger group of polytheistic Indo-European religions of Iron Age Europe.

While the specific deities worshipped varied by region and over time, underlying this were broad similarities in both deities and "a basic religious homogeneity" among the Celtic peoples. Widely worshipped Celtic gods included Lugus, Toutatis, Taranis, Cernunnos, Epona, Maponos, Belenos, and Sucellos. Sacred springs were often associated with Celtic healing deities. Triplicity is a common theme, with a number of deities seen as threefold, for example the Three Mothers.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Celtic polytheism” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.