Names of Zeus: Beli

Beli Mawr (“Great Bel”) appears in many Welsh texts as an ancestral figure of all rulers of Britain. His name also appears in medieval Welsh poetry, sometimes linked to light, kingship, and the heavens, reinforcing an identity as a God of light and the skies. In Gaul, Zeus was also known as Taranis, a God of thunder and the wheel, whose integration into Roman religion is more clearly understood.

THE CELTIC ISSUE

British and Welsh mythology was heavily Christianized from an early date. To add to this obscured state of affairs, even the infamous Druids of history communicated through complex oral codes rather than writing much down—similar to the ornate verbal symbolism of the Pythagoreans. It was even forbidden to write down or elaborate on what the divine verses meant:

Julius Caesar also mentions that Dies Pater is the ancestor of all Celtic peoples and was actively regarded as such. The primary word for ‘God’ in Welsh is Duw (Old Welsh: Diow), related to Dio of Zeus, Día in Irish, Deus in Latin, and possibly Dumn in Romanian.

The genealogies begin with the paternal and maternal pedigrees of King Hywel Dda and extend back to Beli Mawr, highlighting his significance in the royal lineage of Gwynedd—particularly the most powerful Welsh state. Beli was known to be either the father or husband of Don, known as Danu in Irish. In the Old North (Scotland to Cumbria), heroes such as Urien Rheged, Gwenddolau, and Llywarch Hen traced their lineage to Beli through the ancestor Coel Hen. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history of the British monarchs claims he ruled the throne for forty years—the most holy number of Zeus.

BELENOS AND THE SERPENT

This ancestor figure is an evolution of the God Belenos, a God associated with thunder, serpents, and fate. Another scholar, Posedonius, says the Celts of Galatia would organize all military matters in the Sacred Oak Grove—the Drunemeton.

Various references to the serpent occur with this figure in the poem Kein Gyfedwch:

Kein Gyfedwch:

Ry yscrifyat
Virein ffo racdaw.
Ar lleg kaw
Mwyedic uein
Dreic amgyffreu.

Translation:

It is written:
A maiden flees before him.
And the grey stallion
Is greater in strength,
A serpent coils around it.

Beli is said to watch with a serpent’s qualities over “the places of the drinking vessels,” as his people “drink in golden horns, golden horns in the hand, a hand in foam.” He is said to rule over a blessed island bestowed with golden horns—a symbolic reference to the life force and activated witchpower.

He resides in “a strong fortress” within the island and rules over two lakes—a reference to the dual functions of Zeus as the active expression of Truth. He is also called the “Guardian of the Paths.”

Another poem references his qualities:

This references the invigoration of the soul through Beli’s powers, with the shield of light representing similar concepts to the themes of Zeus in mythology.

Another cryptic message occurs in the forty-second verse of the medieval Englynion y Clyweid (“Stanzas of the Wise Sayings”), a collection of 72 ancient sayings of ancestral figures put into verse:

The symbolism of Beli to Odin and other figures who underwent transformation of the soul through death should be obvious from this message.

It is said in the inherent text The Mabinogion and in other works that Beli was totally driven out by Maxientius, who is hinted to have imposed Christianity strongly on Britain—paralleling the casting out of the serpent by St. Patrick in Ireland. The process of Christianization in post-Roman Britain was extremely thorough and extended even into the most remote parts of society.

Many Welsh elaborations of poetry share highly cryptic symbolism; they are clearly designed around the repetition of codes and themes, reflecting the need for secrecy. This ties into the known fact that Celtic religion was transmitted orally and not easily revealed. In one dialogue, the sister of Merlin, Gwenddydd, asks him who could replace the best of rulers:

Another facet is the connection to the great hero Alexander the Great. The Celts were strongly aware of his image. Several poems by Taliesin and others are dedicated to his memory, including one that references his alignment with the lord of the sky. The southern tribes of Britain and Gaul used coinage bearing his image, clad in ram’s horns, on nearly all extant coins.

Coin of Sequani Gauls

There was also a solar aspect to Belenos, named Apollo Belenus, who was worshipped prolifically in Roman Gaul and in parts of Italy previously inhabited by the Celts. This entity represented the powers of the being we know as Amon Ra, rather than Zeus.

Many visual similarities appear to exist between the Phoenician representations of Baal and the Celtic variations, often clad with axes and hammers. In many sources, including Welsh poetry, references to Tyre and Carthage are prominent. It is also known that the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus had spread far and wide into Britain by Roman times.

BELTANE

Beltane is one of the four major fire festivals of the ancient Celtic calendar, celebrated primarily in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Marking the transition between spring and summer, Beltane was historically associated with fertility, protection, and the renewal of life. Although Beltane is referenced in Irish manuals, the Welsh called this festival Cyntefin, meaning “beginning of the summer.”

The solstice was an essential festival in pre-Christian Britain. It signified the agricultural cycle, the movement of livestock, and communal rituals aimed at securing prosperity. It also marked the end of spring, which Zeus inaugurates.

According to the 17th-century Irish historian Geoffrey Keating, each Beltane at the hill of Uisneach in medieval Ireland included celebrations where a sacrifice of food was made to a God named Beil. Subsequent excavations of the site have supported his claims. For many years, this assertion was equated with the Baal from the Bible, showing a certain subconscious understanding.

From ancient times, it was known that the Druids lit bonfires and sacrificial flames in groups of nine men—a tradition that continued well into the 1830s in some parts of Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. The first maypole recorded, from the 1300s by Gruffudd ab Adda ap Dafydd, is a known description of this type of celebration. By the time of Geoffrey Chaucer later in the century, it seems to have either already been present or had spread into areas of England.

TARANIS

Taranis (from Gaulish taran, “thunder”) was worshipped in Gaul, Hispania, and the Rhineland as a God of thunder and storms. Roman writers (like the poet Lucan in the 1st century AD) list Taranis alongside Teutates and Esus as the chief deities of the Gauls. Taranis was explicitly identified with Jupiter by the Romans. In the interpretatio Romana, they saw the Celtic thunder-god as essentially the local Jupiter.

Indeed, many Celtic sanctuaries to Jupiter (Jupiter Optimus Maximus) in Roman Gaul show assimilation of Taranis’s symbols—most notably, the wheel and thunderbolt. Carvings and altars depict a God holding a wheel in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other, merging Celtic and Roman iconography. The wheel, a common Celtic solar symbol (perhaps representing the sun’s course or the wheel of heaven), was associated with Taranis as a sign of the sky and cyclic time.

Jupiter columns erected in Romanized Gaul often depict Jupiter on horseback, holding a thunderbolt and trampling a serpent or giant, with a celestial wheel displayed. This is a syncretic image: Jupiter in heroic pose combined with Taranis’s wheel.