Lugus (deity)

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Lugus (a U-tribe; also plural form Lugoves ) was a deity who was worshiped in large parts of the Celtic-speaking world during antiquity. His name is poorly documented from inscriptions, but due to its frequent appearance in place names and ethnonyms , it can be concluded that he held an important position within the Celtic pantheon. Further clues for its importance are Gallo-Roman dedicatory inscriptions as well as the stories recorded over the course of the Middle Ages about his island Celtic descendants, the Irish Lug mac Ethnenn and the Welsh Llew Llaw Gyffes .

Inscriptions

The name Lugus appears in Gallo-Roman dedicatory inscriptions as the plural Lugoves (for example in Aventicum and Osma ) or as Lucubo , Locobu and Lucubo (s) in inscriptions from the Iberian Peninsula. A lead tablet from the French Chamalières contains the words luge dessummiíis , which can possibly be translated as “I am preparing them for Lugus”.

Appear in place and person names

His name is based on numerous place names, especially in compound words in dūnon , Gaulish Lugdūnon or Lugudūnon , "fortified settlement of Lugus". More recent theories, according to which these place names are not a direct derivation of the god's name, overlook, among other things, the connection to Lugus in the cult festival Lugnásad from Irish mythology , which was celebrated on the same day ( August 1st ) as the festival of Mercurius Augustus and the Maia Augusta in Lugdunum (Lyon), a main festival of the Gallic tribes adapted by Emperor Augustus as a Roman state cult.

The Roman administration often used an ethnonym for the places called Lugdunum in order to distinguish the various places of the same name from one another. But there were also numerous smaller towns with this name, even in Germanic areas:

Other derivatives from later times include Luguvalium at the location of today's Carlisle (documented from the 3rd century), probably a derivation from the personal name * Luguvalos , or LLeuddiniawn (medium Kymrian ), today's Lothian .

Personal names formed on Lugus are also quite common. In Ogham -Inschriften appear inter alia Lugudec ( Old Irish : Lugaid ) or Luguaedon (Old Irish: Lugáed ); Older Gaulish inscriptions contain the male name Lugurix ("Lugus-King"?) and the female name Luguselva ("Lugus' own").

etymology

The etymology of the Lugus name is extremely controversial. A derivation of the Indo-European root leugʰ- / lugʰ- ("oath, swear") is just as possible as an interpretation as "bright, radiant" based on Kymrisch lleu ("light", compare ancient Greek λευκός - "bright, clear, white") .

A hint from Pseudo-Plutarch suggests that the ancient Gauls declared the name of Lugus to be "raven". In today's island Celtic languages, however, reflexes of such a word in the meaning of "raven" or "bird" are completely absent, although the name itself still exists in the forms Lugh (Irish) and Llew (Welsh). The fact that the city of Lugdunum (Lyon) was already associated with ravens in antiquity results from the founding legend mentioned by Pseudo-Plutarch, in which ravens played a central role, as well as from the iconography on the city's coins. A possible etymology for a " raven god " Lugus would be the Indo-European root pleugʰ- (compare German to fly ), which is usually reconstructed as pleuk- .

Functions and Attributes

A precise determination of its functions in the Gallic pantheon is made difficult by the scarcity of ancient information and the common practice of the Interpretatio Romana . The resulting overlaps with other god names as well as the Celtic tendency to think of gods in triads make a clear description of Lugus a largely hypothetical undertaking. In particular, the multiple use of the plural of his name ( Lugoves ) suggests that various other names can be assigned to the figure of Lugus. However, it can only be said with certainty that Lugus had an association with birds, especially ravens. On the basis of the Irish and Welsh parallels, one can probably count the spear as well as a kind of magically effective one-eyedness among its attributes.

Functionally, Lugus was probably a kind of craftsman god, which is based on the one hand on his presumed equation with Mercury, on the other hand on an inscription from the Spanish Osma in which the shoemaker's guild gives the Lugoves a consecration gift. This is supported, among other things, by the epithets sam-ildánach (roughly "the one gifted in many arts") and llaw gyffes ("with the skillful hand"), which are documented from the island Celtic tradition .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CIL 13.5078
  2. ↑ CIL 12, 3080

literature

  • Helmut Birkhan : Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7001-2609-3 .
  • Ludwig Rübekeil : Diachronic studies on the contact zone between Celts and Teutons. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7001-3124-0 .