Category · not a tradition
Celtic Traditions
Not a source tradition. The filed line says there is no single Celtic cosmogony, and that Irish, Welsh, and Gaulish lists are not the same. Those three are separate records. Nothing here is a Celtic doctrine.
Records
How we know
Where the evidence comes from, and how far it is from the people it describes. The labels are not a score. They do not rank traditions. A manuscript year, a tradition’s own claim, and a date from the ground are kept apart on the timeline.
The only substantial pre-Christian Celtic writing is short: inscriptions, and the Coligny calendar (2nd century CE), which is a calendar, not a myth. Caesar’s Gallic War is an outside account of druids. Irish and Welsh stories survive in medieval Christian manuscripts, the Táin in copies from the 12th century and later, the Mabinogi in 14th-century manuscripts.
Those medieval tales may preserve older oral material. They do not say so on the page in a way that dates the story to the Iron Age. Gaulish, Irish, and Welsh evidence is not one archive. A druid textbook does not survive. The roots of “Celtic religion” as a single system are unknown, because no contemporary source sets one out. That is the finding, not a temporary blank.
Original evidence → transmission / copy → translation / documentation → modern interpretation
01
Original evidence
Contemporary artifact or inscription
Inscriptions, the Coligny calendar, and sanctuaries are contemporary evidence for pieces of practice. They are not a narrative canon.
02
Transmission / copy
Outside account
Greek and Roman reports, especially Caesar, are outside accounts with Roman purposes. They are not druid books.
03
Translation / documentation
Later religious or traditional text
Medieval Irish and Welsh literature is later traditional narrative, written by Christians. Translation into English is a further step. A Victorian retelling is not the manuscript.
04
Modern interpretation
Unknown / insufficient surviving evidence
A pan-Celtic theology, world-tree, or druid system is a modern reconstruction or an invention. It is not labeled here as an ancient text, because that text is not extant. The chart’s cells keep the gap.