Celtic Gaulish God Alaunus

The reconstructed lexis of the Proto-Celtic language as collated by the University of Wales suggests that the name is likely to be ultimately derived from the Proto-Celtic Alaunos. This Proto-Celtic word is believed to connote the semantics of ‘shining one’. This apparent semantic connotation in Celtic has led Dr. John Koch at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies to suggest that this personality may well personify “Brilliance” and so may be another name for Belenos or Dagda-Sucellos. This theory, if it is correct, would account for the associations with the sun and the apparent mental brilliance of the ability to heal and tell the future. Theo Vennemann compares this god’s name with Basque arau ‘order, regularity’, which he asserts is from Proto-Vasconic Alaunu meaning ‘order.’ This view is not widely held The deity pictured here with the club on the Gundestrup Cauldron is the Dagda, with the wheel symbolizing either his great wealth or his power.

In Celtic mythology, Alaunus was a Gaulish god of the sun, healing and prophecy. A major branch of Celts called this God Fin.

If the theory is correct that Alaunos is in fact a personification of ‘Brilliance', this allows one to draw parallels with such beings in the mythology of other cultures as Coeus, Polus, Hyperion, Lucifer, Zeus.

• Ellis, Peter Berresford, Dictionary of Celtic Mythology(Oxford Paperback Reference), Oxford University Press, (1994): ISBN 0-19-508961-8
• Wood, Juliette, The Celts: Life, Myth, and Art, Thorsons Publishers (2002): ISBN 0-00-764059-5