ere small and isolated, and each had its
own peculiar gods and observances, although the mould of each faith
was somewhat similar. Hence there were varieties of religious customs
among the Goths, Swedes, Saxons, and Angles."[153]

[Illustration: ALTAR DEDICATED TO THE FIELD DEITIES OF BRITAIN
FOUND AT CASTLE HILL ON THE WALL OF ANTONINUS PIUS]

Now if there was no state there could be no state religion. What
existed of worship and religion was tribal. These are the historical
facts, which have been neglected by students of myth and saga. I
shall have to point out in greater detail presently what these tribal
conditions mean to studies in folklore, but the word of warning and
protest must come here, for it is unconsciously the conception of a
Celtic state religion which gives even the semblance of possibility
for Celtic mythology to be found in every hero-legend. It is, in
short, the neglect of this among other historical facts which has led
the folklorist into error of a somewhat magnificent kind. He attempts
to create out of the myths of a people a mythology which provides gods
to be worshipped, faiths to be organised, and beliefs to be the
standards of life and conduct. Thus, as I have pointed out
elsewhere,[154] Sir John Rhys has, in his acute identification of the
worship of the water-god Lud on the Thames and of Nod on the
Severn,[155] introduced the idea of a great Celtic worship established
on these two great rivers as parts of a definite system of Celtic
religion, whereas examination proves that the parallel faiths of two
perfectly distinct Celtic tribes, the Silures on the Severn and the
Trinovantes on the Thames, were welded into a common worship of the
god of the waters by the masters of Celtic Britain, the Romans. There
was no Celtic organisation which commanded both Severn and Thames
until the Romans occupied the country, and occupying the country they
adopted into their own religion the native gods and, fortunately for
us, recorded their adoption in the pavements of their houses or their
temples.[156]

Mr. A. B. Cook goes much further than Sir John Rhys. He attempts to
dig out the European sky-god from all sorts of queer places, all sorts
of forgotten records, thereby producing a wealth of folklore parallels
for which every student must be profoundly thankful. But he does not
make it anywhere clear that this universal god was gloriously apparent
to his worshippers. There is no established connection bet