Ancient Civilizations in Credo: Celtic Mythology

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
In Celtic religion, the goddess of poetry, crafts, prophecy, and divination. She was equivalent to the Roman Minerva and the Greek Athena and substantially the same as the northern British goddess Brigantia. She was one of three daughters of Dagda, all named Brigit, the others being associated with healing and the craft of the smith. Some of the lore surrounding Brigit was transferred to the 5th-century Irish abbess St. Brigid.

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
In Irish mythology, a leader of the mythical Tuatha Dé Danann and father of the three Brigits and of Maponos. His name means “good god,” referring to his many powers rather than to his moral character. The Dagda had an enormous appetite for food and sex and may have been associated with fertility. He possessed a cauldron that was never empty and a club that could kill men and restore them to life.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
In Celtic mythology, the mother-goddess and land-goddess.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable
(also Ethniu or Eithne). In Irish mythology, the daughter of Balor of the Evil Eye, who is kept from the sight of men shut up in a crystal tower on Tory Island by her father to prevent the fulfilment of a prophecy that he would die at the hands of his grandson.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable
The Irish Neptune, Manannan MacLir ('Manannan son of Lir'), or Manawydan ab Llyr, in Celtic myth, who can drive his chariot over the waves and change his shape like the Homeric Proteus. A great lover of women, he uses the latter facility to visit them at night, often in the shape of a heron. Always seen as a handsome warrior, he has a self-propelled ship called Wave-Sweeper and lives with his wife Fand in Tir Tairnigiri (the Land of Promise), a country beyond the waves.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
The chief goddess of war and slaughter, synonymous with ghastliness in the Celtic pantheon. She favoured the form of a raven or a carrion crow, giving those birds an evil reputation.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
The son of the hero Fionn Mac Cumhail. The name signifies ‘fawn’, a reminder that his mother Sadb was for a time a deer. He marries a fair-haired stranger called Eibhir.

From The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales
The story of Branwen, daughter of Llŷr, in the second branch of the Mabinogi (see Mabinogion, The), relates that by consent of her brother Bendigeidfran, king of the Isle of the Mighty, she is given in marriage to Matholwch.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
The Welsh goddess of poetic inspiration.

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
In Celtic religion, the leader of one of the two warring families of the gods.

From The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales
Legendary material about Merlin, or rather, Myrddin, has been preserved in a series of vaticinatory, or prophetic, poems attributed to him in The Black Book of Carmarthen.

From The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales
A character in the first and third branches of the Mabinogi (see Mabinogion, The) whose name derives from the Celtic Rīgantōna (Divine Queen). In the first branch, Rhiannon becomes the wife of Pwyll, prince of Dyfed.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
or Taliessin (both: tălēĕs'ĭn), 6th cent.?, Welsh bard, whose Book of Taliesin is one of the great Welsh poetic works. The book exists only in a 13th-century form, but tradition places Taliesin in the 6th cent., as a contemporary of the battles his poems celebrate. One theory about Taliesin is that he was an ancient Celtic mythical character, about whose name have collected a series of traditional poems.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable
A semi-historical high king who probably reigned in the 3rd century and about whom many myths accreted. In these he is a patron of the Fianna and the father of Grainne.

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
In ancient Irish Gaelic literature, a powerful warrior and the central character in the Ulster cycle.

From The Macmillan Encyclopedia
Irish Gaelic tales and ballads of the Fianna, a legendary band of warrior-poets named after their leader, Finn MacCool.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable
In Irish mythology, a band of superlative warriors led by FIONN MAC CUMHAIL and said to date from 300 bc.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Legendary Irish hero, the best-known character in the hero-tales of Ireland, identified with a general who organized an Irish regular army in the 3rd century.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable
In Irish mythology, a magical obligation superseding all other laws and moral imperatives.

Title given to a collection of medieval Welsh stories. Scholars differ as to the meaning of the word mabinogion.

From Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable
The inhabitants of the fairy OTHERWORLD, who in Irish folklore have frequent congress with mortal man. They were also called the Good or Gentle Folk.

From Brewer's Britain and Ireland
The best of the otherworlds in Irish mythology, where the gods of the Tuatha Dé Danann (the Sidhe or fairies) and the most blessed of mortals stay for ever young.

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
In Celtic mythology, a race inhabiting Ireland before the arrival of the Milesians, the ancestors of the modern Irish. Skilled in magic, they were banished from heaven because of their knowledge and descended on Ireland in a cloud of mist. They were thought to have disappeared into the hills when overcome by the Milesians. They were regarded as actual people by native historians up to the 17th century. Representative of the Celtic pantheon, they have become associated in popular legend with the numerous fairies still said to inhabit the Irish landscape.

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
In Celtic religion, a deity worshiped as “lord of wild things.” He wore stag antlers and sometimes carried a torque (sacred neck ornament). He was worshiped primarily in Britain, but there are also traces of his cult in Ireland. He is probably the source for the horned god that appears in Christian medieval manuscripts as a symbol of the Antichrist.

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Horse goddess of the ancient Celtic religion. Associated with kingship and fertility, she was known as Epona in Gaul, Rhiannon in Wales, and Macha in Ireland. Her cult was found throughout the Western Roman empire and was spread by members of the Roman army, especially cavalry units.

From The Macmillan Encyclopedia
One of the principal Celtic gods. In Ireland he was called Lug and was skilled in many fields.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
In Celtic mythology, a goddess associated with increase and fertility, often depicted carrying a basket of fruit, purse, or cornucopia.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
In Celtic mythology, god of the sky and thunder. His emblems are lightning and the wheel.