of a local British god. At Wardale in Cumberland there occurs on an inscription,[1] the name of a god Ceaiius, but the connexions of this name are entirely unknown. At Martlesham in Suffolk, there occurs an undoubtedly Keltic name Corotiacus,[2] identified with Mars, and probably a British local god. The name Marriga or Riga, which occurs on an inscription at Malton in Yorkshire,[3] is likewise probably that of some local deity identified with Mars. The name Matunus,[4] found on an inscription at Elsdon in Northumberland, may be a derivative of the Keltic "matis" (meaning good), and, as it occurs nowhere else, it may well be a local name. There is an inscription, too, at Colchester (c. A.D. 222-235), set up by a Caledonian (Caledo), which mentions a god Medocius, identified with Mars, and clearly this can hardly have been a foreign deity. On the other hand, the name Mounus,[5] which occurs on an inscription at Risingham, is probably a contraction of Mogounus, the name of a god who is identified on an inscription at Horberg in Alsace with Grannos and Apollo, and who is probably unconnected with Britain. One of the clearest instances, however, of the occurrence of the name of a British god on an inscription of Roman times, is in the case of the god Nodons or Nodens, whose name is identical with the Irish name Nuada and the Welsh name Nudd. The Irish name Nuada forms the element -nooth in the name Maynooth (the plain of Nuada). The form Nodens or Nodons (in the dative case Nodenti or Nodonti) occurs four times[6] on inscriptions at Lydney Park, a place on the Severn near Gloucester. It is possible that the name Lydney itself comes from a variant of Nodens, or from the name of a cognate deity Lodens, which has given in Welsh the legendary name Lludd. The name Arvalus, which occurs on an inscription at Blackmoorland on Stainmoor, Westmoreland, is most probably the name of a local deity of Brescia, inscribed by a soldier from that region, and there is some doubt, too, as to the British character of Contrebis (identified with Ialonus), though both names are undoubtedly Keltic, found at Lancaster[7] and Overborough,[8] inasmuch as Ialonus occurs also on an inscription at Nimes.[9] The name Contrebis probably means "the god of the joint dwellings," and Ialonus, "the god of the fertile land."
Another Keltic name, found on inscriptions in Britain as well as in Gaul, is that of Condatis ("the joiner together"), identified with Mars, and occurs on an inscription at Piers Bridge, Durham[10] as well as at Chester-le-Street and Allonne, Sarthe, Le Mans. Even when inscriptions were set up in Britain by foreign troops, it must not be too hastily assumed that they paid no deference to local British gods, since the name Mapŏnos, an undoubtedly Keltic name of a British deity, occurs on an inscription[11] found at Ribchester, Durham, for the welfare of
