times, and the fashion may have been a later one, which, like other
fashions, spread after it had once begun. The relationship in some cases
may have been regarded as that of mother and son, in others that of
brother and sister, in others that of husband and wife, the data are not
adequate for the final decision of the question. Of these associated
pairs the following may be noted, Mercurius and Rosmerta, Mercurius and
Dirona, Grannus (Apollo) and Sirona, Sucellus and Nantosvelta, Borvo and
Damona, Cicolluis (Mars) and Litavis, Bormanus and Bormana, Savus and
Adsalluta, Mars and Nemetona. One of these names, Sirona, probably meant
the long-lived one, and was applied to the earth-mother. In Welsh one or
two names have survived which, by their structure, appear to have been
ancient names of goddesses; these are Rhiannon (Rigantona, the great
queen), and Modron (Matrona, the great mother). The other British
deities will be more fully treated by another writer in this series in a
work on the ancient mythology of the British Isles. It is enough to say
that research tends more and more to confirm the view that the key to the
history of the Celtic deities is the realisation of the local character
of the vast majority of them.




CHAPTER VI--THE CELTIC PRIESTHOOD


No name in connection with Celtic religion is more familiar to the
average reader than that of the Druids, yet there is no section of the
history of Celtic religion that has given rise to greater discussion than
that relating to this order. Even the association of the name with the
Indo-European root _dru_-, which we find in the Greek word _drus_, an