GALLIC MYTHOLOGY. 75 
P1138, fig. 21, is supposed to be a representation of Hercules Saxanus, 
of whose office or character thus far nothing satisfactory has been dis- 
covered. . 
» The other gods known to us as worshipped by the Gauls were evidently 
introduced by the Romans. 
The first is Jupiter (jig. 17), who was worshipped in Gallia as Zaran or 
Taranis: Nothing is known of him with certainty, except that human 
beings were sacrificed at his altars, and that the lofty oaks were considered 
as his emblems. Roman authorities inform us that he was considered as 
the lord of heaven. /%g. 18 is another representation of this god somewhat 
different from the previous one. Here he is seen but partially clothed with 
a cloak, holding in his left hand a lance, and accompanied by the eagle, 
who was sacred to him. 
Next to Jupiter, Apollo was worshipped by the Gauls, under the names 
of Belin, Belen, and Abeloo ( jig. 23, the first left hand figure). He appears 
to have been a particular object of worship to the sick at watering-places, 
and he had a temple near a warm spring, which was dedicated to him as 
the giver of recovery. Apollo had also his oracles in Gallia, which were 
consulted: chiefly in cases of sickness. The henbane, called after him 
Velinuntia and Apollinaris, was sacred to him. The Gauls dipped their 
arrows in the juice to make the wounds of the deer more surely mortal. 
As late as the 11th century we meet with a superstitious custom connected 
with this herb. When the country suffered from a prolonged drought, the 
women and young girls were wont to assemble together and elect the 
youngest and most innocent among them for their queen. She had to 
undress and proceed in a state of perfect nudity at the head of all her sub- 
jects, to a field to seek for henbane. When a plant had been found, she 
had to dig it out by the root with the little finger of her left hand, and then 
fasten it to the little toe of her right foot. Each of the rest then armed 
herself with a branch of the plant, and the procession directed its course to 
some rivulet, the queen carefully dragging the henbane after her. When 
arrived at the water she was immersed, and the rest sprinkled her also with 
their branches moistened from the rivulet. They then returned to the place 
from which they had started, the young queen being compelled to retrace 
her steps backwards. 
In many districts Vulcan was also another object of worship, as the god 
of fire, and the inventor and protector of the arts which were carried on by 
the os of fire. In pl. 18, fig. 19, he is represented as standing with a 
hammer in his right hand ou a pair of tongs in his left. Jig. 28 shows 
him seated between four other figures; the same symbols of his profession 
are in his hands. 
The goddesses of Gaul were chiefly Venws Anadyomene (pl. 12, fig. 19), 
she who had ascended. out of the sea; she was the goddess of lan Isis 
(fig. 20) and Diana (pl. 18, fig. 22), a Matres Auguste. In this capacity 
the latter was the symbol ’ nature, the all-supporting mother, who mani- 
fests herself in all creatures. She was represented as a three-fold female 
figure, with her backs leaning against a pillar and in her hands the cornu- 
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