Today we will discover the secrets of the Celtic god Taranis. A powerful deity who can strike you with his thunderbolts.
Taranis and his legend
In Celtic mythology, Taranis was the mighty god of thunder. In Welsh and Breton, the word for thunder is “taran“. Taranis is not as famous as Thor, the Norse god of thunder, Perun, the Slavic god who is also associated with thunder, or Indra, the Vedic god who is often depicted holding and using vajra, a terrifying, light-throwing thunderbolt.
1. Who is Taranis?
Taranis is a powerful Celtic deity who was one of three mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan in the first century A.D. The other two were Esus (“Lord”) and Teutates (“God of the people”). According to later commentators, the sacrificial victims of Taranis, whether human or animal, were placed in large wicker images, which were then burned.
Taranis was symbolically represented by the wheel and the lightning. Sometimes he was shown riding on a great serpent-footed monster, representing a divinity or a gigantic power of some unknown importance.
2. Taranis as Celtic god of thunder
However, ancient Roman inscriptions reveal that Taranis was once worshipped by the Celts as a deity with authority over the weather and the sky in general. He was identified with the ancient Roman god Jupiter, who was associated with thunder, lightning and storms. In addition to this, there is evidence that Taranis was also the Celtic wheel god.
Taranis – The Celtic god of the wheel and thunder resembled the Roman god Jupiter.
According to archaeological findings, it has been established that Taranis was worshipped not only in Gaul, Britain and Ireland, but also in regions such as the Rhineland and Danube.
It is difficult to determine the importance of Taranis, but Lucan, the first Roman poet, considered him one of the three most dominant Celtic deities. Unfortunately, there are few surviving inscriptions and those that have been found are geographically spread out, making it difficult to say how much attention the Celts paid to Taranis.
“At Tours and Orgon (both in France) dedications to ‘Thunder’ were probably intended as references to this deity. The same probably applies to dedications to ‘Thunderer’ at Bockingen and Godramstein (West Germany) and also at Scardona (Croatia).
3. Altars of Taranis
It seems strange, if we look at Irish or Welsh myths, that there seems to be no god of thunder like Thor. However, among the Celtic peoples of continental Europe, we find the god Taranis, whose name means “thunder” and who sometimes wields a thunderbolt.
Three altars dedicated to him come from France (Thauron, Orgon and Tours), two from Germany (Bockingen and Godramstei), one from Croatia (Scardona), two from Amiens in Belgium and one from Brittany (Chester). (There is also an incised bone fragment from Tesero di Sottopendonda in Italy, which says simply “Taranis”, though this may be someone’s name).
The Chester altar is interesting because it syncretizes Taranis (spelled Tanarus) with Jupiter Optimus Maximus, or Best and Greatest, the Roman god in his most imposing and official form. As it seems, Jupiter and Taranis were often paired.
4. Meanings of the name Taranis
While Jupiter (and Zeus) have names that essentially mean “god“, Taranis, like Thor, Donar and the Baltic Perkunas, simply means “Thunder“. His name comes from a Celtic root taran, meaning “thunder, thunderstorm” and is related to taran, Welsh, Breton and Cornish thunder. Its name goes back to Indo-European roots.
5. Jupiter and Taranis
Although Jupiter was the king of the gods, with a correspondingly important cult, Taranis does not seem to have had the same status in Celtic religion.
Julius Caesar does not mention a thunderer in his description of Gallic religion, one would think that if there were a local equivalent of Jupiter, he would have said so. Mercury seems to have been a much more important god in Gaul, based on the number of altars and art, and the richness of those altars compared to those of Taranis.
For a long time, scholars of the Roman Empire tended to think that the Romans came along and interpreted the local deities to suit themselves. Certainly, an inscription to Jupiter Taranis suggests Roman influence.
But in the last 20 years, scholars have changed this idea, studying Celtic interpretation, or how locals interpreted Roman deities to match their own. Perhaps Jupiter was the closest thing the Romans had to a thunder god.
6. Taranis and the wicker man
Taranis, along with the Gallic gods Esus and Teutates, is reputed to desire human sacrifice. A verse by the Roman poet Lucan helped propel this image:
“And those who pacified with blood, cursed wild Teutates, the hideous shrines of Hesus and the altars of Taranis, cruel as those loved by Diana, the goddess of the north 2”; Lucan ( Pharsalia , Book 1).
The 9th century Berne of Scholia, which is an annotated version of the Pharsalia, expands on this, saying that Teutates (Mercury) demanded drowned victims, Esus (Mars) preferred hanging while Taranis (Jupiter) liked burnt offerings. Since both Julius Caesar and Strabo described the Gauls burning victims on a “wicker man,” it has been assumed that Taranis was the god to whom they sacrificed.
7. God of the wheel
A Celtic symbol often associated with the cult of Taranis is the wheel. Images of him holding the wheel are common enough that some have identified the bearded god on the Gundestrup Cauldron with it. Votive offerings of small wheels are common throughout Celtic areas in the Bronze Age, and have been found in a shrine at Alesia on the Seine and buried in tombs.
You may wonder why a wheel, as they are generally identified with the sun. Taranis could also have been a sun god like Apollo, or a sky god in general, though neither fits well with his name. Miranda Green argues that the thunder god and the Wheel god are separate beings, since the wheel must be a solar symbol.
8. Association of the Wheel with Jupiter
Others have argued that Taranis and the Wheel god are the same, citing the fact that both are combined with Jupiter, and that this god occasionally also holds a wheel. (The statuette above shows him with a wheel and an additional supply of S-shaped objects, which could be additional spokes.) The wheel and the thunderbolt often occur together in Gallic religious art, suggesting that the two have something in common.
Germanic tradition said that the noise of the thunder was caused by Thor’s cartwheels and the lightning bolts were sparks that struck as they moved forward.
The thunderbolts also took the form of a wheel
The Indian epic Mahabharata has a wheel that spits out thunderbolts as it spins, and a fiery disk with a pole in the center, probably a form of the Sudarshana Chakra. In Slavic folklore, the “thunder marks,” rather like the hexadecimal marks is of the Pennsylvania Dutch, include a circular one symbolizing a ball lightning bolt.
To come at this from another angle, perhaps by Roman times, the Bronze Age wheel symbol had become a kind of general Roman symbol of good fortune and blessing, so it would not seem incongruous in addition to a thunderbolt. Thor’s hammer was a Norse symbol of thunder and blessing, so perhaps the Gauls meant to indicate something similar by linking the two.
The image of Taranis is contradictory
The wheel and thunderbolt could indicate a “benevolent” deity, and his assimilation to Jupiter suggests a majestic god, but written sources say he was a “master of war,” who could be assimilated to Dis Pater as well as his celestial brother, and desired human sacrifice.
The latter may just be Roman propaganda, and perhaps it would be better to think of him as a benevolent warrior armed with a thunderbolt, like Jupiter striking the Titans, who are described as “struck down by lightning.”
