r. _Vita S. Mart._
457.

[685] Grimm, _Teut. Myth._ 76; Maury, 13, 299. The story of beautiful
women found in trees may be connected with the custom of placing images
in trees, or with the belief that a goddess might be seen emerging from
the tree in which she dwelt.

[686] De la Tour, _Atlas des Monnaies Gaul_, 260, 286; Reinach, _Catal.
Sommaire_, 29.

[687] Pliny, _HN_ xvi. 44.

[688] See p. 162, _supra_.

[689] See Cameron, _Gaelic Names of Plants_, 45. In Gregoire de Rostren,
_Dict. francois-celt._ 1732, mistletoe is translated by _dour-dero_,
"oak-water," and is said to be good for several evils.

[690] Pliny, xxiv. 11.

[691] Ibid.

[692] Ibid. xxv. 9.

[693] See Carmichael, _Carmina Gadelica_; De Nore, _Coutumes ... des
Provinces de France_, 150 f.; Sauve, _RC_ vi. 67, _CM_ ix. 331.

[694] O'Grady, ii. 126.

[695] Miss Hull, 172; see p. 77, _supra_.

CHAPTER XIV.

ANIMAL WORSHIP.

Animal worship pure and simple had declined among the Celts of historic
times, and animals were now regarded mainly as symbols or attributes of
divinities. The older cult had been connected with the pastoral stage in
which the animals were divine, or with the agricultural stage in which
they represented the corn-spirit, and perhaps with totemism. We shall
study here (1) traces of the older animal cults; (2) the transformation
of animal gods into symbols; and (3) traces of totemism.

1.

The presence of a bull with three cranes (_Tarvos Trigaranos_) on the
Paris altar, along with the gods Esus, Juppiter, and Vulcan, suggests
that it was a divine animal, or the subject of a divine myth. As has
been seen, this bull may be the bull of the _Tain bo Cuailgne_. Both it
and its opponent were reincarnations of the swine-herds of two gods. In
the Irish sagas reincarnation is only attributed to gods or heroes, and
this may point to the divinity of the bulls. We have seen that this and
another altar may depict some myth in which the bull was the incarnation
of a tree or vegetation spirit. The divine nature of the bull is
attested by its presence on Gaulish coins as a religious symbol, and by
images of the animal with three horns--an obvious symbol of
divinity.[696] On such an image in bronze the Cimbri, Celticised
Germans, swore. The images are pre-Roman, since they are found at
Hallstadt and La Tene. Personal names like Donnotaurus (the equivalent
of the _Donn Taruos_ of the _Tain_) or Deiotaros ("divine bull"),