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Gogmagog

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All I'm saying is that we have to take care and I think the assumptions that have been made have often been incorrect. Ogmious for example was NOT portrayed as a warrior god - he was dressed up as Heracles since the Gauls wanted him to occupy the same place in their pantheon.

Later interpretations have decided that the club is therefore a sign of Ogmios, it is not, it is a dubius construct probably applied to many gods and when used in a Roman context must mean that this is Heracles we are seeing, linked with some local god, not necesarily Ogmios - for ogmios we must look for the ear-mouth links.

Since Ireland was never Romanised we must assume that if they did worship Ogmios he will not have had the club and was not a warrior god during the 2nd century. If we now say that Ogham/Ogma may be a derivative based on the similar name we must also think that this derivative may not reflect the "heart" of Ogmios but may just encompass some peripheral similarities.

Too many researchers have been very keen to find very tenuous links between these and other gods. For example, all the images of Cernounos - how many other gods had horns? Which type of horn would a god called "the horned one" have?

Sorry BN, that was a cut and waste excercise!

What I meant to do:

"If we now say that Ogham/Ogma may be a derivative based on the similar name we must also think that this derivative may not reflect the "heart" of Ogmios but may just encompass some peripheral similarities."

That depends on whether one considers the 'heart' of a god of language to be 'language', or to be a cultural interpretation of language. This is confusing as hell to me. As for the similarities in representation, all i can say is "I've been done guv",

bah to books. Thanks old chap for the clearing up.

"he was dressed up as Heracles since the Gauls wanted him to occupy the same place in their pantheon"

Doesn't this just beg the question of why they wanted him to occupy the same place in their pantheon? There must have been some similarity. I don't think the Gauls would have been so random, there must have been a reason for wanting Ogmius as Heracles.