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16 Celtic Gods and Goddesses: Ancient Celtic Pantheon | History Cooperative
When we look into the Celtic pantheon, there are some gods that garner more attention than others. Celtic gods and goddesses like Dagda, Danu, the Morrigan, Lugh, and Brigid are the ones whose names may come up more than any others. While they may have been the major Celtic gods and goddesses, that does not cancel out the importance of other deities of Irish mythology, like Bres or Medb, or Epona.
In Irish folklore, it is often difficult to differentiate between their gods and their heroes. The ancient Irish kings of the Tuatha de Danann also form part of the Celtic pantheon. And one has to wonder whether they were real mortals or just myths and legends. The Celts believed that the ancient Celtic gods were their ancestors and myth and ancient history have become inextricably linked in the Irish imagination.
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Different Types of Celtic Gods and Goddesses
When we speak of Celtic deities now, we refer to the Gaelic deities that the Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland and parts of Scotland worshiped. Of these, the most important subgroup worshiped in pre-Christian Ireland was the Tuatha de Danann. Prominent members of the Tuatha de Danann were:
Danu and the Tuatha de Danann
According to Irish folklore, the Tuatha de Danann, which means ‘Tribe of Danu’ was a race of supernatural creatures. These ancient Celtic gods, who made up most of the gods and goddesses of Celtic mythology were also considered the ancestors of the Celtic people.
These deities live under the patronage of the goddess Danu and are supposed to reside in the Otherworld or Tír na nÓg. They are an almost perfect version of humans, with various gifts and magical skills granted to them by the goddess Danu. They are associated with certain places in Ireland or Scotland, specifically burial mounds or tombs, which were seen as passages to the Otherworld.
These Celtic gods were neither fully human nor completely ethereal, as was the case with many pagan pantheons. They were exiles, fallen from the Celtic idea of heaven, and considered to be the people in between man and god. They had superhuman powers and abilities but were still not so far apart from us as to be beyond our understanding.
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