In a message dated 3/11/97 8:30:12 PM, Heather wrote:
<<Ok, that's what I would like to see clearly plotted. How many and which Gods do transcend locality and what are the names in each Celtic language? Also which local gods have so much in common, with other local Gods, that we could surmise an earlier, necessary, underlying God form, or basic God duties, within the Celtic cosmology of the spiritual universe? I can see, that they might adopt just one patron God for each local shrine. But, did they only recognise their local patron God? How I would love to see a concise orderly breakdown, that didn't either cheat by oversimplifying, or claim it's impossible, by focusing too hard on territorial, details of difference.>>
Because today most of our exposure to mythology takes place through the literary creations of the Greeks and Romans, we're conditioned to think of it in a literary way and to demand of it a degree of internal logic and consistency which living mythological traditions usually don't have (or which they approach differently). Trying to use the Irish and Welsh "mythologies" as the basis for a consistent Celtic theology is ultimately fruitless, because they were never designed to be functioning religious systems, but are literary creations elaborated long after the religion in which they had originated had ceased to be practiced. Like the Arthurian mythos, they become more internally consistent as time passes (ie, as they become more self-consciously literary and less in tune with religious concerns), but the different story traditions also grow farther apart from each other.
I think a better approach is to look at how the gods would have fit into actual religious practice. Who worshipped them, and why? Here's one way of looking at it:
I. Tribal Divinities:
1. Gods of your immediate kin-group (ueni/a). These would primarily be ancestral spirits, and their worship would be confined to the home.
2. Gods of your occupational group (kerd/a). These would be gods who serve as archetypes for your occupation, as well as goddesses who give energy to that occupation (I know it sounds sexist, but that's the way it was!). The worship would take place partly in the home, and partly in a guild shrine if your guild is rich enough to afford one.
3. Gods of your larger tribal area (tout/a). This would include your own tutelary tribal god, often in conjunction with intertribal divine figures of IE origin which are seen as upholding the tribal order. This is coupled with worship of the sovereignty goddess of the Land you live on, usually identified with the main river that flows through your territory.
II. Land Divinities
The Land itself is full of fertility divinities that are chaotic and independent of the concept of tribal order. They are nevertheless necessary to the tribe's survival and have to be propitiated (or tamed) as a part of the agricultural cycle.
The "intertribal" divinities are too numerous to discuss fully in this post but we can list the main ones. One can see them going in and out of "fashion" during the Iron Age, with some gaining in prominence while others fade away (exactly like what we see happening in Hinduism after the Vedic period). I'll use the names of the 'interpretatio Romana', not because I think the Romans had the right idea, but because they're consistent!
1. The Celtic "Mercury". His rise in prestige is spectacular during the later Iron Age, until he becomes one of the main figures (if not *the* main figure) in the pantheon everywhere. He is usually called 'Lugus' ("Lightning Flash" -- the name of the comic book hero is actually a pretty close fit!) or a name similar in derivation and meaning (like "Loucetios"). He is a warrior, but also a master of all the crafts and skills necessary to society, and as such becomes a protector of society as a whole -- a role he exercises most fully at the beginning of the Harvest, when he wrests control of the fruits of the soil from the Land Spirits, who are also his kin. His weapon is the spear, which is the lightning-flash and also, metaphorically, the flash of inspiration and intuition. His principal animals are the raven, the horse, the lynx, and the wren (part of his myth is that he is a "little" god who outwitted all his rivals). He is the divine sponsor of human sovereigns, and as such his main consort is the sovereignty goddess who presents sovereignty as an intoxicating drink; but as master of crafts he also works with the Celtic "Minerva", whose festival period balances his within the structure of the Celtic Year.
2. The Celtic "Mars". He is the god who sets the boundaries of the civilised world and protects them by force of arms. His weapon is the sword and his animal is the dog. Although as a warrior he is a giver of death, the mysteries of death are seen as being closely related to the mysteries of rebirth and healing, so his main shrines are healing shrines. The story in which he loses a hand or arm and has it replaced by a silver one is doubtless ancient, though it's hard to tell how widespread it was in the Iron Age.
3. The Celtic "Jupiter". He is the sky god who rules the weather and brings rain. Thunder is caused by the rolling of his wheel across the sky, and his usual name is 'Taranis' ("Thunderer"). He is particularly present in mountainous regions. Over time his worship dwindled until he became a mere helper of "Mercury", who like him was associated with storms and high places. In fact, Sulpicius Severus tells us that Gallo-Romans found it easy to turn away from his worship because he was "stupid" ('hebetus'), while they found it harder to give up their affection for "Mercury".
4. The Celtic "Silvanus" or God With Antlers (Karnonos/Cernunnos). He is the god who crosses boundaries, and the god of change. He is the interface between Tribe and Land and between our world and the Otherworld. Through him goods can be passed from one realm to another (hence his association with money), and valuable things can be gotten from raw Nature. He also manifests change as adaptability, as expressed by his antlers that drop off and grow back according to the season. Because some of his functions overlap with those of Celtic "Mercury" they are often shown together, although neither replaces the other, since their basic characters are quite different.
5. The Celtic "Minerva". Because in Celtic thought goddesses are primarily seen as sources of energy (equivalent to the Hindu concept of 'shakti'), the distinctions between them tend to blur and to be less clear-cut than in the case of the gods, as many writers on the subject have remarked. But the one that represents *all* forms of energy and provides them not only to the growth functions in the Land but to all forms of human activity and creativity is usually well characterised. Her name usually contains the element 'brig' "high, exalted, rising, energetic", although it can take other forms as well. Her animals are the cow and the oystercatcher (and by extension all things in nature that are black, white, and red). Her flower is the dandelion. Her experience with marriage and childbearing is usually unhappy (as with most IE "culture goddesses"), so she is often portrayed as a "virgin".
6. "Sucellos" ("Good Striker"). usually portrayed as a mature man with a mallet, the head of which is actually a barrel or cauldron (ie, giving death with one side, life with the other). This is evidently the same god-type that became known as the "Good (=Efficient) God" in Ireland. He is often chosen to represent the trifunctional tutelary god of a tribal territory ('toutatis'). His consort is the territorial river goddess. In southern Gaul he was sometimes interpreted as "Silvanus" (both he and Cernunnos had cauldrons).
7. "Maponos" (meaning "Superboy", essentially!). This god is associated with youth, vigour and growth, and particularly the power of the waxing Year as the days grow longer, which sometimes led him to become an "Apollo" in the 'interpretatio Romana', although the usual "Celtic Apollo" is a different god. Originally he was closely associated with hunting and the Land. He was invoked as a source of energy and quick growth, as illustrated by the Chamalie\res inscription. His animal is the swan, and waterfowl in general.
In the later literary tradition his name appears as 'Mabon' in Welsh and as Aengus' title 'in Macc /Oac' in Irish.
8. The Divine Twins. The only literary survival of these important IE divinities consists of Nisien and Efnisien in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi. But they were evidently an important part of early Celtic religion, as the proliferation of temples and dedications to "Castor and Pollux" attests. As in most other IE systems, one twin was truly divine and the other was flawed. They were associated with horses, good fortune and the protection of travellers.
9. The Celtic "Apollo". A healing god of light and warmth and the power of sight, particularly invoked for eye problems. He also seems to have been associated with dreaming and prophecy. His healing shrines -- which he shared with a goddess-consort -- were important centres of pilgrimage in the early Celtic world. Although there's no direct evidence of it in the sources, I strongly suspect that the god/goddess pair here were brother and sister (rather than married consorts as in most other cases), and were related to the cult of a brother/sister prophetic and healing pair that spread across Europe (from Central Asia, apparently) in the early Iron Age (and best known as Apollo/Artemis).
Alexei
In a message dated 3/14/97 2:34:52 PM, Alexei wrote:
<<His [Maponos] animal is the swan, and waterfowl in general.>>
I should add that the other animal specially related to Maponos (as hunter) is the boar, and it is through his participation in the ancient mythic device of the "Cosmic Boar Hunt" that the Light and Dark halves of the Year are defined (he dies at the threshold of the Dark half, of course). His consort is the Flower Maiden: his marriage to her marks the apex of his career of "growth".
Alexei
In a message dated 3/14/97 3:28:39 PM, Searles wrote:
<<I have always seen Aengus as an alternative form of The Dagda. The Dagda goes to him for advice on certain things and he goes to The Dagda for advice of his own. In this, they are very much the archetypal Father/Son relationship. There are many other ways that they share characteristics (in the matter of the Brugh for instance, NTM matters of love) Your description of Maponos has elements of Llew, Fionn, and Aengus within it. Are they all three to be considered different versions of (or tales relating to) the same god? >>
That's why the Maponos is always young and the Sucellos is always old. The young god of the Light half of the year replaces the old god in the position of authority by his wedding on Bealtaine, but the old god is back at the helm after Samhain (when the young god has been killed). The relationship is cyclic, as are so many other things in Celtic religious practice. The same pattern clearly also applies to Cernunnos (whose "cuckold" horns come on and off with the season), which explains why he and Sucellos were confused in the 'interpretatio Romana': they were probably regional variations of the same concept, one trifunctional, the other purely third-function.
Alexei
In a message dated 3/15/97 10:28:05 AM, Ian wrote:
<<Where are the continental Ogmios sites? Could it be that Ogma, Nuada and Dagda were various tribal names for the same Power, folded into 5th century storytelling?>>
Apart from Lucian's description (which would have referred to southern Gaul), no shrines or dedications to Ogmios have ever been found, except for two leaden curse-tablets from Bregenz (Switzerland) which ask Ogmios for help in killing someone. He's not exactly a well-documented god. Some scholars (Jan De Vries, for instance) have suggested that what Lucian was looking at was a Hellenistic allegorical painting, and that the Celtic bystander he quotes was simply providing his own personal interpretation of it in terms of a native divinity. Maybe, maybe not.
Many scholars (with better reason) now think that Ogma in Irish literature was a direct borrowing from Lucian's passage: he would have been put in by a Classical scholar showing off his erudition. Of course, there could have been a similar deity in native Irish tradition -- but not with that name.
Alexei
In a message dated 3/16/97 6:45:39 PM, Searles wrote:
<<The reason I say Lugh looks like he comes from a later tradition is that the function that he seves is already filled by The Dagda and the sons of The Dagda. Lugh is not necessary to the cosmology. Either Angus, Bodb Dearg, Ogma or The Dagda can fill his role (though I'm sure that Midir would love to do the job). Seems like a foreign introduction to me (after all, he is the grandson of the God of Medicine and part Fomorii to boot). >>
L/ugh fills an essential role in the cosmology: he brings in the summer thunderstorms that mark the beginning of the harvest season, and it is his nature as an "outsider" that allows him to deal successfully with the conflict between Tribe-gods and Land-gods. He does this on the feast that bears his name, and his role in that specific ritual context is obviously ancient. However, this role was perceived as so important and his character in myth and story was so appealing that his position in the divine hierarchy kept rising, and eventually he absorbed the attributes and roles of other divinities. What happened to him is very similar to what happened to Vishnu in India: in Vedic literature Vishnu is simply the "little god" who saves the day for Indra and the gods in their fight against Vrtra when it is discovered that he has the power to create Space with his leaps (L/ugh does something very like this in L/unasa ritual, by the way). Over time this world-preserving act was seen as so significant that Vishnu grew in stature to become one of the principal deities (for some, *the* principal deity) in Hinduism. I think something very similar was happening to Lugus in the later Iron Age, and continuing in Ireland.
Alexei
In a message dated 3/18/97 6:36:13 PM, Alaron wrote:
<<In the paragraph about Sucellus, Alexei refers to "the trifunctional tutelary god of a tribal territory." What three functions are we dealing with here? I always thought of tribal gods as multitalented, but this seems to imply that they have three primary roles/talents. Which would be?>>
Three functions reflected in the three major classes of society. First function: those who set and guard the values that bind the society together: clergy, legal specialists, poets, sacred rulers, etc. Second function: those who defend the society against threats from outside: the warrior class. Third function: those who feed the society and take care of its material needs: farmers, merchants, healers, most "female" occupations, etc. So the tutelary god representing a whole tribe would have to be at one and the same time a poet, a warrior, and a provider of abundance.
>>Now, my more philosophical question. According to Alexei's article, and many other sources I've encountered, your typical Celtic tribe will worship an indigenous god and goddess, the god that give structure & meaning to life, and the goddess who gives power and perhaps life itself -- in terms of names and probably personalities, this pair can vary considerably from tribe to tribe. As a neo-Celt living in midwestern North America, I see two options here for my own spiritual practices.
I could perceive my "tribe" as the non-geographical collection of people amongst whom I live and move, explicitly, as other Celtic pagans. As our ways and means of living are somewhat different from those of the people physically around me, it seems fair to say that the god who orders my world is in fact a Celtic god -- say, Belenos, probably in my case -- and that the goddess who is the source thereof would be the goddess I could most easily perceive as the source of all Celtic thought and spirit, Don/Dana. I could draw my "tribal god" and "soveriegnity goddess" from the essentials of Celtic spirituality, as it were, adopting the larger Celtic world as my "tribe."
>>>But then it seems to me that a major part of thinking like a Celt is understanding that the land has its own needs, and that place A is not necessarily place B. I'm not living in the British Isles or anywhere else that Iron Age Celts lived. I'm living on the banks of the Mississippi river, in the northern foothills of the Ozark Mountains, and this land is dear to my heart in the extreme. It's the only home I've ever had, and its "feelings" matter to me. While I have not explored this at length yet, I find it quite easy to believe that the Mississippi has its own goddess, unknown to the ancient Celts, and that there is a "tribal god" of this beautiful area, whose personality influences the moods and values and priorities of Missourians just as other gods did the Brigantes or Parisi or Ulstermen or whatever.
I suppose, then, my question is this: do I worship as my Celtic ancestors did (in a generalized sense), or as they might have, had they been where I am now? Is my tribal god a Celtic god, or is he indigenous to my homeland, with the very fact that I care to worship him being the Celtic ingredient?<<<
The proliferation of local divinities in the Celtic world shows that attention to "spirit of place" was a very important part of the religion. When Celtic tribes moved into new areas they imported their native theological system but they also made contact with the new Land-divinities. The goddess of the new territory, for instance, would usually be identified with the main river in the area, and would be given a name and a character that described her (in my own native home in the old territory of the Aedui the goddess of the river Saone was given the affectionate name of 'Souconna' (which means "Muddy" in Gaulish!)). Divinities would also be discovered in remarkable features of the landscape (mountains, forests, caves, marshes, etc). All of these local figures can easily be fitted into the *pattern* of Celtic theology. I don't see the situation in the New World as being any different: someone sensitive to the Land will quickly discover the nature and character of the local river-goddess (and perhaps other local powers as well) and be able to approach them ritually in the Celtic manner, perhaps giving them appropriate names as part of the process. The "intertribal" divinities who embody concepts that transcend local conditions have no trouble adapting to New World conditions, either.
I would, however, caution against disrespectful dabbling in "Native American" imagery for "local colour" (as some have done). Either one should seriously learn and practice the path of a Native American culture, or one should stick to the Celtic path (or practice both separately): there's been enough pillaging and foolish Romanticising of Native American traditions not to make CR guilty of it as well! Besides, Land-spirits, by definition, don't care much about culture: they're willing to speak the language of any culture at all, provided you're willing to speak their own subtle language of rhythm and change,
Alexei
In a message dated 3/12/97 4:29:51 PM, Templar wrote:
<<One question... would Epona, Rhiannon, and the other Mare-Goddesses fall under the "Celtic Minerva" heading? Or are They a separate category?>>
Because horses played such a large part in the Celts' military successes in Europe, the horse was a symbol of sovereignty and political power (as opposed to cattle, which were a symbol of the Land and of material wealth). Thus the goddess who gave legitimacy to the power of the tribe was portrayed as riding on a horse, or as a mare herself. This (Epona, "Great Mare") was a particular aspect of the sovereignty goddess, distinct from, say, Rosmerta, who gives rulers the intoxicating drink of flaith/wlatis. The Celtic "Minerva", on the other hand, was a more general representation of goddess-energy, who could be invoked in a far greater range of situations: she gave the energy of rulership to rulers, but also provided every other kind of energy wherever it was needed.
The Hindu model can be very useful in helping us understand the Celtic view of goddesses, which was quite similar. For Hindus goddesses are sources of energy, and they are often referred to collectively as simply Shakti (which can be personified as Durga, the supreme virgin goddess who is the source of all energy in the universe). But when the energy is applied to a specific purpose, the goddesses become differentiated: as Sarasvati (culture and creativity), Lakshmi (fertility and wealth, material comfort) or Kali (destruction and rebirth). In the same way, virtually all the Celtic goddesses can be said to be sovereignty goddesses, Land-goddesses, etc, but they take on different names and attributes when required by specific circumstances.
Alexei
In a message dated 4/14/97 4:40:41 AM, Saphire Mann wrote:
<<It would be interesting and valuable to see the same, or analogous, treatment applied to Celtic goddesses.>>
As Searles remarked, it would be difficult to do at the same level (ie, using documentation from actual Pagan Celtic practice), because the evidence from that source does show the goddesses as not very well differentiated. There are very many goddess-names, but they don't refer to the well-defined functional "types" we find among the gods. They're either titles of the supreme energy-goddess (the Celtic "Minerva", who *is* well-defined and characterised), or name land-goddesses of specific areas (like Arduinna, the pig-goddess of the Ardennes, or Artio, the bear-goddess of the Berne region in Switzerland). It's a basic theological presupposition of the Celtic world that social functions are represented by gods and the energy that is put into those functions is represented by goddesses. This shouldn't be seen as belittling the role of the goddesses, since the energy is Primal and the gods would be nothing without it. It was also obvious that women are the source of the society's survival, that there would be no future generations without them, and that although male institutions hold political authority they would collapse without the sustaining role of women. This was expressed by the important protective role of the triple Mother-goddesses (Matronas), especially in eastern Gaul.
Another field where one might see mythological differentiation of the goddess-energy is the living Celtic ritual cycle, where the Land-goddess takes on various aspects in relation to changes during the agricultural year.
I would characterise the roles as the following:
1. Virgin Mother (Imbolc-Bealtaine)
2. Flower Maiden (Bealtaine-L/ughnasadh)
3. Harvest Queen (L/ughnasadh-Samhain)
4. Queen of the Underworld (Samhain-Imbolc)
Alexei
In a message dated 4/14/97 10:45:31 PM, Erynn wrote:
<<The fact that the Godesses are not necessarily well differentiated shouldn't equate in people's minds to "all Goddesses are one Goddess." I submit that there is a distinct difference between a pig-Goddess and a bear-Goddess, a fire-Goddess and a land-Goddess. And I doubt that the worshippers of Arduinna and Artio would have said that they were the same, despite the fact that they were both land-Goddesses. Fuzzy boundaries between things don't mean that all things are the same.<<
You're forgetting that my original post was in response to a query about "intertribal" deities --ie, deities whose function would have been recognisable throughout the Celtic world, not tied to a specific place. My observation was that relatively few goddess-types fit into this category: goddesses that deal with sovereignty, and the all-purpose goddess that gives energy to all cultural endeavours (and who can appear in more specific roles as the inspirer/energy-giver of specific functions, bearing appropriate names/titles when thus employed). These were the only goddesses that I could fit into a pan-Celtic typology. Of course there were plenty of other goddesses in the Celtic environment, but they tended to be identified with specific locations, and thus were not "pan-Celtic". Arduinna was the concern of some of the Belgae and Artio the concern of some of the Heluetii, not of the Celts as a whole.
>>>> Another field where one might see mythological differentiation of the goddess-energy is the living Celtic ritual cycle, where the Land-goddess takes on various aspects in relation to changes during the agricultural year.
>I would characterise the roles as the following:
>1. Virgin Mother (Imbolc-Bealtaine)
>2. Flower Maiden (Bealtaine-L/ughnasadh)
>3. Harvest Queen (L/ughnasadh-Samhain)
>4. Queen of the Underworld (Samhain-Imbolc)
Can you give some concrete examples of this? Are we talking about the same Goddess who fills all these roles, or are we talking about different Goddesses, with different names and attributes who fill these different roles? And what about Goddesses who don't fit into any these four categories, like Brighid, who is a Goddess of crafts and wisdom, or other Goddesses who are not strictly land-Goddesses, like the Morrigan? The impression that I've always gotten of the Morrigan is that she's a young warrior woman who has the ability to shapeshift into anything she wants (including an old woman if it suits her purposes) but that her energies are largely youthful.<<<
>1. Virgin Mother (Imbolc-Bealtaine)
Br/id in the Gaelic-speaking world. Her role here is to provide the energy to promote both the growth within the Land and the human activity that will culminate in a successful harvest. Fire-imagery dominates, because the energy is "waxing".
>2. Flower Maiden (Bealtaine-L/ughnasadh)
She has different floral names in different areas. Her role is to marry the Maponos at the height of his powers (much of Bealtaine ritual is concerned with this) and ensure the fertility of the crops (flowers bringing fruit).
>3. Harvest Queen (L/ughnasadh-Samhain)
In Ireland she's usually Eithne, L/ugh's mother. Her role is to take L/ugh's side (and our own) and give "sovereignty" over the harvest to the human tribe (this is a major part of L/ughnasadh ritual). Water-imagery dominates, because the energy is "waning".
>4. Queen of the Underworld (Samhain-Imbolc)
The generative power of the goddess is removed to the Otherworld, and all that subsists of her in our realm is inimical and frightening -- sometimes in the shape of a Hag, sometimes in animal form.
Whether these figures are distinct individuals or aspects of the same being is unclear, and I suspect it wasn't clear to the Celts themselves. In local mythologies the explanations vary: either the Hag turns into Br/id *or* Br/id is a prisoner of the Hag and gets freed. It only further illustrates the "fuzziness" of the boundaries between goddess-types.
Br/id is far more than a "goddess of crafts and wisdom" -- she is the source of all energy, not only in human society, but in the Land and the Sun!
There's no doubt or speculation about this, since the tradition of her worship is a fully living one!
The Morr/igu is the energy-giver (or -withholder!) of the second function. Since physical youthfulness is a boon to warriors, it makes sense that she would be a youthful energy. I think she is related to the sovereignty-goddesses in their more ecstatic, frenzy-inducing form.
Alexei
In a message dated 4/15/97 4:16:49 PM, Searles wrote:
<<Let's not forget that she was married to Bres, who was noted for his lack of hospitality while she was the epitome of home and hearth.>>
This is part of a widespread pattern governing IE "culture" goddesses, who either successfully avoid marriage (like Athena) or who contract a "disastrous" marriage from which they must be freed (like Sarasvati). Of course she's not married *permanently* to Bres: he represents the "bad" influence from which she is ritually freed as part of the yearly cycle. The many folk versions of this story throughout the Celtic world (which often echo the "armless maiden" theme) make this pretty clear. Because they are primarily identified with the raw energy of nature, Celtic goddesses are always on the Tribe/Land, Nature/Culture, Gods/Antigods cusp, and there is always a mythological/ritual device needed to ensure that they come down on "our" side.
Alexei
In a message dated 4/15/97 11:00:36 PM, Kami wrote:
<<Alexei said:
>primarily identified with the raw energy of nature, Celtic goddesses
are
>always on the Tribe/Land, Nature/Culture, Gods/Antigods cusp, and there
is With you so far, more or less. Always?>>
As far as I can tell. There are no "tame" goddesses, only successfully propitiated ones.
>always a mythological/ritual device needed to ensure that they come down on
Please elaborate...
>>In most Celtic seasonal ritual there's a differentiation between the "dangerous" side of the Land-goddess (which must be exorcised -- in the shape of a hag, a dragon, a dangerous female beast,etc) and her "friendly" side (which must be propitiated). Some feminist commentators (like Mary Condren) have interpreted the goddess-conquest stories as mementoes of patriarchy putting down goddess-power. But if you put these stories back in their ritual context (beside their propitiatory complements) you can clearly see that they reflect the dual nature of the Land-power, which can work both for and against human endeavour. By differentiating between the positive and negative aspects you can hope to neutralize the one and enhance your relationship with the other.
Alexei
In a message dated 4/15/97 5:13:27 PM, Erynn wrote:
<<Would you care to elaborate on what you know of their roles [Grannos and Sirona]>>
Grannos and Sirona were worshipped as very powerful healing divinities virtually throughout the ancient Celtic world, though their most prestigious shrines were in the Rhineland (eg, Bitburg). Grannos ("the warmer") was always identified with Apollo in the _interpretatio Romana_. Sirona (which seems to be a development of 'Stirona' "the great starry one"; the name appears as 'Tsirona' in Armorica) was represented with a snake coiling up her right arm, a starry diadem on her head, and holding out a plate with three eggs : a linking of heavenly and chthonic elements (she seems particularly involved in the process of birth). The pair's healing shrines were usually at hot springs and specialised in treatment of eye ailments, but also featured chambers for incubating prophetic dreams. The nature of their relation isn't specified, and most scholars refer to them as "consorts" and seem to take it for granted that they're a married pair, but in my view the nature of their cult is strikingly similar to that of the Eurasian brother-sister healing pair best known in the West as Apollo/Artemis [the Romans thought so too, obviously!], and makes it extremely likely that they're the Celtic expression of those divinities. The existence of the Irish myth of Miach and Airmid, which is demonstrably pre-Christian in structure and origin, provides added confirmation.
Alexei