Perhaps the goddess Damona was an animal divinity, if her name is derived from damatos, “sheep,” cognate to Welsh dafad, “sheep,” and Gaelic damh, “ox.”  Other divine animals, as has been seen, were associated with the waters, and the use of beasts and birds in divination doubtless points to their divine character.  A cult of bird-gods may lurk behind the divine name Bran, “raven,” and the reference to the magic birds of Rhiannon in the Triads.

3.

Animal worship is connected with totemism, and certain things point to its existence among the Celts, or to the existence of conditions out of which totemism was elsewhere developed.  These are descent from animals, animal tabus, the sacramental eating of an animal, and exogamy.

(1) Descent from animals.—­Celtic names implying descent from animals or plants are of two classes, clan and personal names.  If the latter are totemistic, they must be derived from the former, since totemism is an affair of the clan, while the so-called “personal totem,” exemplified by the American Indian manitou, is the guardian but never the ancestor of a man.  Some clan names have already been referred to.  Others are the Bibroci of south-east Britain, probably a beaver clan (bebros), and the Eburones, a yew-tree clan (eburos).[730] Irish clans bore animal names:  some groups were called “calves,” others “griffins,” others “red deer,” and a plant name is seen in Fir Bile, “men of the tree."[731] Such clan totemism perhaps underlies the stories of the “descendants of the wolf” at Ossory, who became wolves for a time as the result of a saintly curse.  Other instances of lycanthropy were associated with certain families.[732] The belief in lycanthropy might easily attach itself to existing wolf-clans, the transformation being then explained as the result of a curse.  The stories of Cormac mac Art, suckled by a she-wolf, of Lughaid mac Con, “son of a wolf-dog,” suckled by that animal, and of Oisin, whose mother was a fawn, and who would not eat venison, are perhaps totemistic, while to totemism or to a cult of animals may be ascribed what early travellers in Ireland say of the people taking wolves as god-fathers and praying to them to do them no ill.[733] In Wales bands of warriors at the battle of Cattraeth are described in Oneurin’s Gododin as dogs, wolves, bears, and ravens, while Owein’s band of ravens which fought against Arthur, may have been a raven clan, later misunderstood as actual ravens.[734] Certain groups of Dalriad Scots bore animal names—­Cinel Gabran, “Little goat clan,” and Cinel Loarn, “Fox clan.”  Possibly the custom of denoting Highland clans by animal or plant badges may be connected with a belief in descent from plants or animals.  On many coins an animal is represented on horseback, perhaps leading a clan, as birds led the Celts to the Danube area, and these may depict myths telling how the clan totem animal led the clan