page_title: Celtic animism
section_title: Spirits of the weather and the skies
hierarchical_section_title: Celtic animism / Spirits of the weather and the skies
caption_attribution_description: The Corryvreckan whirpool, between the islands of Jura and Scarba
context_page_description: According to classical sources, the ancient Celts were animists. They honoured the forces of nature, saw the world as inhabited by many spirits, and saw the Divine manifesting in aspects of the natural world.
context_section_description: Meteorological patterns and phenomena, especially wind, rain and thunder, were acknowledged as inspirited and propitiated. Inscribed dedications and iconography in the Roman period show that these spirits were personifications of natural forces. Taranis's name indicates not that he was the god of thunder but that he actually was thunder. Archaeological evidence suggests that the thunder was perceived as especially potent. Inscriptions to Taranis the 'Thunderer' have been found in Britain, Gaul, Germany and the former Yugoslavia and the Roman poet Lucan mentions him as a savage god who demanded human sacrifice.
  In the insular Celtic lands, Lugh is seen as a god of the storms, as are the Cailleachan – Scottish storm hags – and the Cailleach herself, who brings the first winter snows to the land by washing her great plaid (Gaelic: féileadh mòr) in the Whirlpool of Coire Bhreacain. This process is said to take three days, during which the roar of the coming tempest is heard as far away as twenty miles (32 km) inland. When she is finished, her plaid is pure white and snow covers the land.
  From the early Bronze Age, people in much of temperate Europe used the spoked wheel to represent Taranis. The Romans imported their own celestial god, Jupiter, to continental Celtic lands by interpretatio Romana, and his imagery was merged with that of a native deity to produce a hybrid sky-deity who resembled the Roman god but who had additional solar attributes. Altars decorated with wheels were set up by Roman soldiers stationed at Hadrian's Wall, and also by supplicants in Cologne and Nîmes.
caption: The Corryvreckan whirlpool (Scottish Gaelic: Coire Bhreacain - 'cauldron of the plaid') washtub of the Cailleach
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