Help with Medieval Celtic setting

Hello! I'm trying to recreate what the Celtic world would look like if it had kept on being "Celtic" instead of heavily christianised, saxonised, romanised, etc.

I'm especially curious about two things:

- What do you think religion would have become (politheistic religions scattered around cult centers, organised druids, animist sects or maybe even generalised animism, perhaps the creation of platonic-like "churches" in which many gods are just faces of the only Divinity, in this case very connected to the idea of Mother Earth).

- What animals would dominate in heraldry? My thinking is stags, vegetal motiffs and antropomorphic figures (even though ancient Gauls didn't represent their gods in human forms, they ended up adapting this Graeco-Roman tradition) representing the gods they worship the most...

I'd like to have some more ideas on the matter, if you would be so kind. Thanks!
 
Where does this story take place? Britain (Prydain)? Gaul?

Both. Rome never sails off, the Etruscans keep locked on petty warring city-states, the Hellenistic world lives on creating his own hellenistic-punk technology and the Celtic world faces only the menace of the Germanic invasions, the Huns and some Basque empire in the VIIth Century that rapidly disappears. Goths settle in southern France and Franks in the Low Countries, but most of Gaul and Britain are still Celtic (or Brythonic in the Isles).
 
I can't answer your first question because religion could go any which way - there might be some other Transcendentalist religion that is transmitted across the Mediterranean and takes root in Gaul; we could be looking at an almost Hindu-style polytheism, or just sticking with animism.

For the second question, I know that Gauls favoured the Boar quite often in their heraldry.
 
Hello! I'm trying to recreate what the Celtic world would look like if it had kept on being "Celtic" instead of heavily christianised, saxonised, romanised, etc.

I'm especially curious about two things:

- What do you think religion would have become (politheistic religions scattered around cult centers, organised druids, animist sects or maybe even generalised animism, perhaps the creation of platonic-like "churches" in which many gods are just faces of the only Divinity, in this case very connected to the idea of Mother Earth).

- What animals would dominate in heraldry? My thinking is stags, vegetal motiffs and antropomorphic figures (even though ancient Gauls didn't represent their gods in human forms, they ended up adapting this Graeco-Roman tradition) representing the gods they worship the most...

I'd like to have some more ideas on the matter, if you would be so kind. Thanks!

The rise of the Roman Republic is aborted between the 5th-3rd centuries BCE, leaving the Carthaginians and the Greek Syracusans as the two top maritime forces in the western Mediterranean. Macedon, maybe, recovers some of its prestige by dominating Greece, parts of the Balkans and maybe some of western Anatolia. Probably locked in a struggle with a Pergamon, Pontus, and the Seleucids.

Italy remains, past the Third Century BCE, a concoction of culturally distinct city-states and tribal confederations, with Celts to the north, Etruscans and Samnites in the middle and Greeks to the south.

Gaul, left largely to its own devices, has one of its major kingdoms/tribal confederations expand into a feudalistic realm. This would have to involve a Celtic entity in control of a large territory with a lot of gold and silver mines and the trade-routes from north to south. Especially control of parts of the southern coastal cities and accommodating Punics and Greeks.

The Arverni, whose territory was centred around Auvergne, which was named for them, are located between the Mediterranean regions and the north, so could be the odds-on favourite for a future Celtic empire in Gaul. Second to them could be the Aedui, who, allied with the Carnutes, politically dominated northern Gaul.

The Gaulish city of Cenabum (Orleans) was recorded as being the centre of religion in Gaul and where many druids would meet yearly to discuss the laws and religion. With this incorporated into the power-structure. Making Cenabum, a city within the territory of the Carnute tribe, the equivalent of Rome for Medieval western Christendom in OTL. A well-developed empire founded in Gaul may begin resembling Medieval France or the Holy Roman Empire. The druids might independently develop sects that evolve into church-like institutions and part of the bureaucratic framework of a centralized state, as the OTL Christian church did for many post-Roman kingdoms. Theology might remain polytheistic, seeing as some deities were more honoured than others in specific regions. But a coherent theology, or numerous attempts at such harmonisation, would be performed by generations of druidic theologians. Despite the prohibition against writing down anything about religion, the Celts certainly employed writing for other purposes, so a shift in cultural practices may occur.

Another powerful state could develop in eastern Europe, either founded upon the Boii confederation in what would later become Bohemia, or the multi-ethnic Scordisci confederation, composed of Celts, Thracians and Illyrians, based in what are now Serbia and Hungary. Either of these two may face challenges from the predominantly Thracian Getae kingdom in Romania and Bulgaria.
 
Brythonic culture would depend to a great extend on the political arrangment in the Isles and how it came about - the tribes were quite diverse so changes would be noticeable. Continental influence in the south would probably happen - mainly with Gaul as Rome isnt a trade target any more.
 
Top