Taranis
In Celtic mythology Taranis was the god of thunder worshipped essentially in Gaul, the British Isles, but also in the Rhineland and Danube regions amongst others, and mentioned, along with Esus and Toutatis as part of a sacred triad, by the Roman poet Lucan in his epic poem Pharsalia as a Celtic deity to whom human sacrificial offerings were made .[1] He was associated, as was the cyclops Brontes ("thunder") in Greek mythology, with the wheel.
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.[2]
The name as recorded by Lucan is unattested epigraphically, but variants of the name occur in inscriptions, including the forms Tanarus, Taranucno-, Taranuo-, and Taraino-.[3] [4] The name is continued in Irish as Tuireann. His name is likely connected with that of the Germanic god of thunder, Norse Thor (Anglo-Saxon Þunor, German Donar), Tiermes of the Nordic Sami people,[5]
Taranis is likely associated with the Gallic Ambisagrus (likely from Proto-Celtic *ambi-sagros = "about-strength"), and in the interpretatio romana with Mars.[citation needed]
Etymology
The reconstructed Proto-Celtic form of the name is *Toranos "thunder".[6] In present day Welsh taranu and taran means 'to thunder' and 'thunder' (taraniñ and taran in Breton), and in present day Irish Tarann means 'thunder'.
Taranis, as a personification of thunder, is often identified with similar deities found in other Indo-European pantheons. Of these, Thor/Thunor and the Hittite god Tarhun (see also Teshub) contain a comparable *torun- element. The Thracian deity names Zbel-thurdos, Zbel-Thiurdos also contain this element (Thracian thurd(a), "push, crash down").
Association with the wheel
The wheel, more specifically the chariot wheel with 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 Lucan.[7] Numerous Celtic coins also depict such a wheel. It is thought to correspond to a sun-cult practiced in Bronze Age Europe, the wheel representing the sun.[who?]
The half-wheel shown in the Gundestrup ""broken wheel" panel also has eight visible spokes.
The wheel of the year has eight spokes which connects it to the eight major divisions of the Celtic year. The longest and shortest day and the equinoxes are the four Albans. The other four are Samhain, Brigantia, Beltane and Lugnassadh. These are called the Fire Festivals. The Albans are the oldest, this is why some older wheels only have four spokes. [dubious – discuss]
Symbolic votive wheels were offered at shrines (such as in Alesia), cast in rivers (such as the Seine), buried in tombs or worn as amulets since the Middle Bronze Age.[8] Such "wheel pendants" from the Bronze Age usually had four spokes, and are commonly identified as solar symbols or "sun cross". Artefacts parallel to the Celtic votive wheels or wheel-pendants are the so-called Zierscheiben 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).
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Stone wheel representation from the Santa Tegra hill-fort (A Guarda, Galicia). Museo arqueolóxico do castro de Santa Tegra. -
Golden Celtic wheel with symbols, Balesme, Haute-Marne. Musée d'Archéologie Nationale.
References
- Ellis, Peter Berresford, Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (Oxford Paperback Reference), Oxford University Press, (1994): ISBN 0-19-508961-8
- MacKillop, James. Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-280120-1.
- Wood, Juliette, The Celts: Life, Myth, and Art, Thorsons Publishers (2002): ISBN 0-00-764059-5
Works cited
- ^ M. Annaeus Lucanus. Pharsalia, Book I.
- ^ Paul-Marie Duval. 2002. Les Dieux de la Gaule. Paris, Éditions Payot.
- ^ Nicole Jufer & Thierry Luginbühl. 2001. Répertoire des dieux gaulois. Paris, Éditions Errance.
- ^ Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, ch. 8: "Now with this Donar of the Germani fits in significantly the Gallic Taranis whose name is handed down to us in Lucan 1, 440; all the Celtic tongues retain the word taran for thunder, Irish toran, with which one may directly connect the ON. form Thôrr, if one thinks an assimilation from rn the more likely. But an old inscription gives us also Tanarus (Forcellini sub v.) = Taranis. The Irish name for Thursday, dia Tordain (dia ordain, diardaoin) was perhaps borrowed from a Teutonic one."
- ^ Scheffer, Johannes (1674). The History of Lapland. Oxford.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Green 1992, p.117
- ^ Green 1995, p.45