Meaning of Name: Pretty much all authorities are agreed that the name means “Thunder” 1
Pronunciation: Tuh-RUN-is.
Other Names and Epithets: Olmsted gives us Tanaros and Taranus as alternate forms. Green identifies him with different forms of the Celtic Jupiter, among them Bessirissa, Brixianus, Ladicus, Parthinius, Poeninus, and Uxellinus. 2
Indo-European Equivalent: Serith equates him to Perkwūnos, the Indo-European Thunder God. I think he also shares much with Dyēs Pter, the Indo-European Sky God. Olmsted implicitly supports this by terming Taranis a “Sky Father”. 5
Realm: Ueronados/Upper World God, par excellence.
Iconography: The most important symbols of Taranis are the thunderbolt and the wheel, which he often bears as a shield. Kevin Jones has performed a useful analysis of the Celtic wheel symbol in his dissertation, A Consideration of the Iconography of Romano-Celtic Religion with Respect to Archaic Elements of Celtic Mythology. According to Jones, Celtic wheels come with various numbers of spokes, but the highest numbers statistically have four, six, eight, and twelve. Jones is able to use this distribution to get at the meaning of the different wheels, showing that the Celtic wheel symbol is a symbol of the turning heavens, and therefore of cosmic law and truth. 6
Significance: Taranis is the Sky-Father and the Thunder God. As Jones shows us, he is the protector of cosmic law, and of the cosmos itself. He represents Truth and Virtue, which were conceived of as a kind of fiery power. The Jupiter-Giant columns, a kind of Romano-Gaulish monument found in the Rhineland, show us a kind of dragon-slayer myth, in which Taranis kills a giant, often depicted with serpents for arms and legs. Calvert Watkins, in his seminal book on Indo-European poetry and dragon slayer myths, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics, unpacks the Indo-European versions of this myth, and lets us see its elements. He is also able in an appendix to present one Irish version that gives us a good idea what the Gaulish myth must have looked like. From this, it is possible to see that the myth represented the victory of order over chaos, Truth over falsehood, the Upper World over the Underworld, Samos over Giamos, and so on. Given its representation in the form of great monuments, it was clearly a myth of central importance in understanding the Gaulish soul. 7
Green, Dictionary, p. 205-206; Kondratiev, Basic Celtic Deity Types; Olmsted, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, pp. 40-42; Mackillop, p. 402 ↩
Olmsted, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, pp. 40-42; Green, Dictionary, p. 127 ↩
Kondratiev, Basic Celtic Deity Types; Olmsted, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, p. 40-42; Green, Dictionary, p. 206; Jean-Louis Brunaux, The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites, Sanctuaries, p. 69 ↩
Olmsted, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, p. 40-42 ↩
Serith, Deep Ancestors, p. 53; Olmsted, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, p. 40-42 ↩
Olmsted, Gods of the Celts and Indo-Europeans, pp. 40-42; Green, Dictionary, pp. 205-207; Serith, Deep Ancestors, pp. 53-54; Kondratiev, Basic Celtic Deity Types; Jones, A Consideration of the Iconography of Romano-Celtic Religion with Respect to Archaic Elements of Celtic Mythology↩
Green, Dictionary, p. 127-129; Calvert Watkins, How to Kill A Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics, pp. 441-446; Jones, A Consideration of the Iconography of Romano-Celtic Religion with Respect to Archaic Elements of Celtic Mythology↩
