Celtic

1VIythology
Proinsias
MacCana
Hamlyn
Above
The Gaulish Hercules who was evidentlv
identical with the god Ogmios. Musee
Granet, A ix-en-Provence.
Right
Silvanus with dog, Rheinisches Landes-
museum, Bonn.
Saer, ' Gobban the Wright', he was al-
ready renowned as a wondrous builder
in the earliest period of written Irish
literature, and under the modem form.
an Gobdn Saor, he is remembered
affectionately in folktales as the master
of all masons who bests rivals and
enemies by his ready wit and resource.
Gaulish Ogmios-Hercules: Irish Oghma
According to Lucian, who wrote during
the second century A. D., Hercules was
known to the Celts as Ogmios. He des-
cribes a Gaulish picture of him armed
with his familiar club and bow but
portrayed uncharacteristically as an
old man, bald and grey, with skin
darkened and wrinkled by the sun,
more like Charon than Hercules, and
drawing behind him a joyful band of
men attached to him by thin chains
which linked their ears to the tip of his
tongue. By way of elucidation, Lucian
quotes a Gaulish informant who ex-
plained that his fellow Celts did not
identify eloquence with Hermes, as did
the Greeks, but rather with Hercules
because he was much the stronger. The
existence ofOgmios is further confirmed
by two defixiones, inscribed tablets on
which he is besought to wreak a curse
on certain individuals.
If these few materials are to yield any-
thing of their original total significance,
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'
The god with the mallet in Roman style.
M us> d' Avignon.
it seems essential that they be con-
sidered in conjunc tion with the Irish
traditions of the god Oghma, sometimes
quali fied as grianainech, 'of the sun-like
countenance'. It is not at a ll certain
that the form Oghma is the regular Irish
reflex of a Celtic Ogmios, but. never-
theless, the consensus of opinion is that
the two names must be ident ified in
terms of mytho logy and some have re-
solved the linguistic problem by assum-
ing that Oghma is a borrowing from
Gaulish Ogmios rather than a cognate.
Not merely is Oghma known as a
trtinfher, 'champion. literally 'strong
ma n. but he is also credited with the
invention of the Ogham letters. a system
of writing based upon t he La tin alpha-
bet and consisting of strokes and not-
ches cut upon wood or stone; in its
attested form it came into use about the
fourth century A.D., but almost certainly
it continues an older system of magical
symbols.
Much has been written and many
theories formula ted about Ogmios and
Oghma, especially with reference to the
enigmatic vignette by Lucian. But all
one can say with certainty is, first, that
Lucian's Ogmios appears to govern by
the power of the spoken word, and,
secondly, tha t his identification with
Hercules- together with the character
of the Irish Oghma- marks him out as
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Bronze statue of the god with the mallet,
from Premeaux. This is the deity who is
sometime:; named Sucellus, 'The Good
Su .er .
the divine champion. Beyond this one
must risk the errors of speculative inter-
pretation if one is to come cl oser to the
patterns of thought represented for the
Celts by Ogmios-Oghma. Perhaps the
most interesting and, despite its highly
speculative character, the most per-
suasive of the interpretations so far ad-
vanced is that Le Roux,
which has the considerable merit that it
is based on a close analysis of a wide
range of early Irish material. According
to Mile. Le Roux, Ogmios-Oghma is
the god who binds, like the Indian
Varuna, a character which manifests
itself for example in Lucian's descrip-
tion and in the binding force of the
magic ogham symbols as used by Cu
Chulainn in Tciin 130 Cuailnge to stay
the advance of the Connacht army. She
also accepts the older view of Ogmios as
a psycho pomp leading souls from this
world to the other. This rests mainly on
Lucian's testimony, though one should
perhaps add that divinities of death are
commonly conceived (like the Indian
Yama) as binding gods: in other words,
they bind and carry off the dead.
Gaulish 'Dis Pater': Irish Donn
Following his brief commentary on the
principal gods of the Gaul s, Caesar
then refers to their belief, as taught by
the druids, that they were all descended
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