Taranis The Celtic God Of Thunder

Taranis is a powerful Celtic deity that was one of the sacred triads along with Esus and Toutatis.

He was worshiped primarily in the Gaul, Britain, and Ireland regions. Taranis is portrayed wielding a lightning bolt and a Celtic solar wheel, which represent both the passage of time and the movement of the sun. The Celts do not have a written language at the time, thus the mention of Taranis can only be found from Roman sources.

The Romans came into many religions that they knew nothing about during their conquest of the European continent, while the foreign gods were unfamiliar to the Romans, their concepts often mirrored similar Roman deities. The Romans compared the foreign gods to their own, believing that the foreign gods were the same deity under different names, Taranis was one such case, he was compared to the Roman Thundergod Jupiter based on their similar abilities and the choice of using thunderbolt as a weapon.