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Rh great figure according to Gaulish ideas, and his associate was apparently of smaller consequence in their sight: did the insular Celts reverse the relative position of the Plutonic pair? When the facts are duly weighed it will be found that there is no evidence to that effect. This view is countenanced by the all but complete absence of any statements as to the nature or attributes of the goddess: she looms darkly in the background as the mother of the gods, and any further predicate about her is to be reached only as a matter of inference. The prominence, on the other hand, given to her name in connection with those of her descendants is to be accounted for, it seems to me, as a survival of the custom of describing persons as the children of such and such a woman, without making any reference to the father's name: other instances of the same kind are not numerous in the mythological tales of Wales; they are more frequently met with in those of Ireland; while in Scotland, that is to say, among the Picts, it was the rule that the father was absolutely of no account in the succession.

To return from this digression to Cernunnos, he has, so far as we have gone, been treated as a horned god; but it would not be right to dismiss him without calling attention to another peculiarity of his figure, as shown by some of the representations of him. Thus, a statuette found at Autun, besides giving him one principal face, has on either side of the head a spot, above each of his ears, fashioned into a small face; so that the god was enabled not only to look forward, but also to see on both sides. Some monuments give his three faces the