he stories of Cormac mac Art, suckled by a
she-wolf, of Lughaid mac Con, "son of a wolf-dog," suckled by that
animal, and of Oisin, whose mother was a fawn, and who would not eat
venison, are perhaps totemistic, while to totemism or to a cult of
animals may be ascribed what early travellers in Ireland say of the
people taking wolves as god-fathers and praying to them to do them no
ill.[733] In Wales bands of warriors at the battle of Cattraeth are
described in Oneurin's _Gododin_ as dogs, wolves, bears, and ravens,
while Owein's band of ravens which fought against Arthur, may have been
a raven clan, later misunderstood as actual ravens.[734] Certain groups
of Dalriad Scots bore animal names--Cinel Gabran, "Little goat clan,"
and Cinel Loarn, "Fox clan." Possibly the custom of denoting Highland
clans by animal or plant badges may be connected with a belief in
descent from plants or animals. On many coins an animal is represented
on horseback, perhaps leading a clan, as birds led the Celts to the
Danube area, and these may depict myths telling how the clan totem
animal led the clan to its present territory.[735] Such myths may
survive in legends relating how an animal led a saint to the site of his
church.[736] Celtic warriors wore helmets with horns, and Irish story
speaks of men with cat, dog, or goat heads.[737] These may have been men
wearing a head-gear formed of the skin or head of the clan totem, hence
remembered at a later time as monstrous beings, while the horned helmets
would be related to the same custom. Solinus describes the Britons as
wearing animal skins before going into battle.[738] Were these skins of
totem animals under whose protection they thus placed themselves? The
"forms of beasts, birds, and fishes" which the Cruithne or Picts
tattooed on their bodies may have been totem marks, while the painting
of their bodies with woad among the southern Britons may have been of
the same character, though Caesar's words hardly denote this. Certain
marks on faces figured on Gaulish coins seem to be tattoo marks.[739]

It is not impossible that an early wolf-totem may have been associated,
because of the animal's nocturnal wanderings in forests, with the
underworld whence, according to Celtic belief, men sprang and whither
they returned, and whence all vegetation came forth. The Gallo-Roman
Silvanus, probably an underworld god, wears a wolf-skin, and may thus be
a wolf-god. There were various types of underworld