In the legends of the Celtic races, even in historic times, the pig, and especially the boar, finds an honoured place.

In addition to the animals aforementioned, the ass, too, was probably at one time venerated in one of the districts of Gaul, and it is not improbable that Mullo, the name of a god identified with Mars and regarded as the patron of muleteers, mentioned on inscriptions (at Nantes, Craon, and Les Provencheres near Craon), meant originally 'an ass.' The goddess Epona, also, whose worship was widely spread, was probably at one time an animal goddess in the form of a mare, and the name of another goddess, Damona, either from the root _dam_=Ir.

_dam_, (ox); or Welsh _daf-ad_ (sheep), may similarly be that of an ancient totem sheep or cow.

Nor was it in the animal world alone that the Celts saw indications of the divine.

While the chase and the pastoral life concentrated the mind's attention on the life of animals, the growth of agriculture fixed man's thoughts on the life of the earth, and all that grew upon it, while at the same time he was led to think more and more of the mysterious world beneath the earth, from which all things came and to which all things returned.