In a little temple of typically Celtic style at Wabelsdorf in Carinthia, two large inscribed votive altars unearthed in 1930 were dedicated genio cucullato — ‘to the Hooded Spirit’ (Egger 311). Throughout Roman Britain and Gaul, both stone altar pieces and small votive figures in rock and bronze have been found, male or indeterminate in gender, wearing a cloak with a hood (see Figs. A - E). Although these sculptures resemble those of the Greco-Roman deity Telesphorus, hooded attendant of Asclepius — and were considered to be mere extentions of this cult by R. Egger, who made the first report of the two altars in 1932 — since the argument for the native Celtic nature of the cult by Fritz Heichelheim in 1935, the genius cucullatus has been considered a figure peculiar to the Celtic cultures of Britain and Gaul.

The genius cucullatus has been interpreted as derived from popular tradition, a lower deity connected with the earth, with agriculture, and with healing, and worshipped mainly by the lower classes. Although there are a number of articles about the genius cucullatus, they present a fairly unified interpretation of the cult after the matter of the origin of the cult was settled. In his 1955 monograph on hooded supernatural beings, which is representative of the scholarship both before and after him, Waldemar Deonna notes that since the cucullus is a garment of the people, it should not surprise us that it is not worn by the great gods, but by minor gods, demons, and spirits, nor should it surprise us that these spirits specialize in the homely daily needs and preoccupations of the common people (149). He observes further that the lowly nature of these little deities is clear from their apparent lack of grand statues in sanctuaries or other public monuments; rather se contentent de ‘they are pleased by’ figurines placed in homes or in tombs, and by their images on ordinary objects such as lamps and containers (150).

The lowly religious position of the genius cucullatus has been extended to the interpretation of his size. Deonna asserts that the cucullatus is usually a child or a dwarf, more rarely an adult of normal height (150), and other scholars both before and after him have considered the cucullati to be dwarves. However, an examination of photos and sketches of the figures themselves allows one to wonder what evidence there is for such a conclusion. While those figures for which dimensions are published are indeed small, ranging from a maximum of sixteen inches down to 1 3/4 inches in height, with the majority between six and twelve inches, there is no evidence that they depict individuals who are vertically challenged. The genii cucullati most often appear alone in Gaul, and in trios in Britain (Ellis Davidson 111); since in these cases no other individuals are present, there is no standard for comparison. Since their bodies are usually enveloped by their cloaks, in these sculptures there is no way to tell if their bodily proportions are abnormal. In the cases in which their limbs are exposed, they are in normal proportion to body height; indeed, because of the stylization of their depiction, it is difficult to tell whether they are meant to be adults, children, or dwarves from their representation alone. However, in two British cases from Cirencester, three cucullati are represented together with a mother goddess (Fig. F). In these compositions, all four deities are of the same size, attesting the full — or bigger than life — dimensions of the cucullati.

In the absence of any proof, why has the scholarly tradition assumed that the genii cucullati whistle while they work? The humble size of the artifacts themselves is not a compelling argument. Two factors may explain this scholarly prejudice. First, Telesphorus, whom the cucullati admittedly resemble, is indeed often depicted as a child: this is apparent both from the skill with which the pieces are executed and from the regular composition of Telesphorus with other figures, where he is miniscule compared to the others (Fig. G). Since the scholarship of the genius cucullatus has been intimately bound up with that of Telesphorus, it makes sense that the scholarly view of the cucullatus would be influenced by the association.

But far more importantly, the cucullati so resemble the dwarves, gnomes, and brownies of Märchen fame that it would be surprising if they had not ended up being identified with them, even being consigned with them to the realm of the so-called lower deities. For example, in "Hooded Men in Celtic and Germanic Tradition," Hilda Ellis Davidson attempts to shed light on the genius cucullatus by relating this figurative tradition to Germanic and Celtic narrative, tracing it to minor deities of the earth who today exist in reduced form as brownies and other household spirits. Ellis Davidson’s medieval evidence is purely Germanic, not Celtic, consisting of selections from various Icelandic sagas and Landnámabók; her modern evidence is folklore from England, Scotland, and Ireland, so that its "Germanic" or "Celtic" derivation is mixed. In all Ellis Davidson’s data, the "cucullatus" type is a lower deity, a spirit intimately connected with the land. She concludes:

But while the genius cucullatus may in some way be continued by these little creatures, there is no evidence they were the same height. Another hooded man from medieval Irish narrative tradition, who appears once with not one hood but seven, many shed a different light on the genius cucullatus. The Dagda, with names such as Eochaid Ollathair ‘Eochaid the Great Father’ (Bergin 402, Macalister §313, Stokes §151) and Rúad Rofhessa the ‘Mighty One of Great knowledge’ (Bergin 402, Stokes §152), seems to have little to do with these humble fellows. Indeed, the general scholarly attitude toward him is also hardly reminiscent of the genius cucullatus.

Called "chief god of the Irish" by Mac Cana (33), the Dagda is at times a leader of the Túatha Dé Danann, and is regularly depicted as a king. As king, he combines many functions. His two special attributes are a cauldron from which no company ever goes away unsatisfied, and a club, one end of which kills the living while the other revives the dead (Watson ll.628-633, Bergin 404-406). He is also called a god of druidry, and even calls himself the same: dagdia druidechta Túath Dé Danann (Bergin 402). The combination of this power along with his power in war and the fecundity apparent in his cauldron shows him to be the ideal king who embraces all three Dumézilian functions. Although the Dagda, as summarized above, seems to bear no resemblance to the humble genius cucullatus, the two extended descriptions of him extant depict him wearing a cochall, the Irish borrowing of Latin cucullus, a borrowing apparently transparent to the medieval Irish, since it is noted in Cormac’s glossary (Meyer §262).

In Cath Maige Tuired (The Second Battle of Moytura), after the Dagda’s negotiation of a treaty with the Fomoire, and after his consumption of the excessive meal Indech, King of the Fomoire, offered him in mock hospitality, the Dagda appears, hooded, although this element of his dress is obscured in the published translations:

Although Elizabeth Gray translates cochline as ‘cape’, it is actually a ‘small cochall,’ (the diminutive of cochall), which may signify either a hooded cloak or an independent hood or cowl, and not a cloak or cape alone (DIL s. v. cochall). Thus, the translation should read "...he had a small cowl to the hollow of his elbows..." Here, the Dagda sounds as humbly dressed as we are told the genii cucullati are, and no doubt looks very much like the peasants whom we are told were their only worshippers. He clearly sports a cochall, and the resemblance between this description and the portrayal of the genius cucullatus in the scholarship is unmistakable.

The other description of the Dagda is from Mesca Ulad (The Intoxication of the Ulstermen) and is one in a long set of descriptions given by Cromm Deróil to Cú Ruí, Medb, and Ailill, as the Ulstermen assemble at Temair Lúachra. The translation below is based on the glossed edition by Watson:

The Dagda’s appearance is wondrous, his cloak splendid. Unlike the humble cucullati, he cuts a grand figure indeed, or so it seems. But in what manner is his figure grand, and just what is being depicted here? The cloak and the colors seem easy to understand, to see in one’s mind while reading, but not the cochaill. Are the seven hoods up or down? How can a being with only one head — it is probably safe to assume that had the Dagda more than one, Cú Rui would have let us know — wear more than one hood? It sounds like a multi-layered garment, but the overdetermination of hoods may reflect the same narrative tendency of elaboration as do the multiple pupils of Cú Chulainn’s eyes.

In the published translations of this passage, the image of the Dagda is grand and confusing; how does it relate to the genius cucullatus? He definitely wears a cochall—or rather, not one but many— but the Dagda seems to be perceived as grand within the narrative, rather than lowly. However, the same description of "upper and lower garments" is used in another text, where the context makes the social placement of the person being described far more explicit than that of the Dagda in Mesca Ulad. In Aislinge Meic Con Glinne (The Vision of Mac Con Glinne), Mac Con Glinne goes to meet Cathal, disguising himself as a satirist, and doing things "not fit for an ecclesiastic"; he is described as follows:

Both passages utilize the same idiom: Aislinge Meic Con Glinne has girru cach n-uachtarach lais 7 libru cach n-íchtarach, while Mesca Ulad has girri cech n-úachtarach, libru cach n-íchtarach. The precise translation of the idiom remains slightly opaque, since Mac Con Glinne seems to be wearing but two garments, rather than the Dagda’s seven. Although there are differences in the descriptions of the clothing —while Mac Con Glinne wears a gerr-étach and the Dagda does not, the Dagda has seven hoods to Mac Con Glinne’s apparent one— the descriptions seem to describe comparable clothing, and from what we know from Aislinge Meic Con Glinne, the idiom used in both passages likely describes ragged, or at least lowly, clothing. A remaining element of the description, however, still seems irreconcilable with the lowly status of the satirist: the Dagda’s cloak (bratt) is described as sár-. The sár- has been taken as an honorific of the cloak: Hennessy translates sárbratt ‘splendid garment’ (229), and Ganz ‘splendid cloak’ (206), while in the glossary of the MMIS edition, Watson glosses the compound as ‘a fine cloak’ (101). The DIL does give ‘exceeding, excellent, very’ for sár in composition, but ‘outrageous, excessive’ are equally possible, and the word, when not found in composition, is almost uniformly negative in connotation: ‘outrage, insult, humiliation, discomfiture, defeat, act of excelling’ (DIL s. v. sár). Likewise, Medb’s reaction to the description of the Dagda, Is ingnad in tuarascbáil, has consistently been translated as honorific, "The description is wonderful." DIL gives the range for ingnad as ‘strange, wonderful, remarkable, unusual, unfamiliar’ so that, rather than remarking on the grandness of the description of the Dagda, Medb may be remarking on its strangeness. Departing from tradition, I would translate the portions of the description just discussed as follows:

Although the description of the Dagda in Mesca Ulad has usually been taken to be grand, perhaps due both to Medb’s reaction and to the translators’ previous knowledge of the Dagda, the Dagda seems to be here dressed in an excessive manner comparable to Mac Con Glinne’s guise as a satirist, a trade whose members are known for their lowly dress.

Not only does Cath Maige Tuired link the Dagda to the genius cucullatus by means of his hood, but also by what he’s got under it. In the passage cited above, the description of the Dagda continues:

In her edition of the text, Gray notes that Slicht Loirge an Dagdai may also have the meaning of "The Track of the Dagda’s Penis" since lorg can also mean ‘penis’ (Gray 99-100). Thus, the Dagda’s member may be exposed not only because the clothes are excessively short, but also because it is excessively long. Perhaps the "Dagda’s Club" leaving the track is not his attribute, but the club most intimately connected with him. The grotesque sexual encounter with Indech’s daughter which immediately follows hardens the association.

Most of the scholars writing about the genius cucullatus note his often phallic nature. When the cucullatus is not completely enveloped by his cloak, he is usually naked underneath: his phallus sometimes pokes out through an open cloak, or is obvious beneath a closed one (Figs. H-J: in fig. J, the hood can be removed, with the cucullatus himself becoming a phallus). In the literature concerning the cucullati, this attribute is connected to their role as "the spirits of earthly and agricultural fertility, of human fecundity" (Deonna 131, also Ellis Davidson 114-115, Ross 187).

Another detail from the encounter with Indech’s daughter further connects it with the genius cucullatus tradition. During his encounter with Indech’s daughter, the Dagda is twice depicted defecating:

The Dagda’s massive consumption of food, and his subsequent sexual encounter and bowel movement, has been labeled as Rabelaisian, but while Gray has discussed the significance of his massive consumption of food, scholars have avoided discussing the meaning of the natural consequences of his indulgence. A series of images which Deonna has connected to the tradition of the hooded spirit, which extend from ancient to modern times, may shed some light on this detail (Fig. K.). A number of apotropaic reliefs guarding against the evil eye, and amulets as well, depict a hooded man relieving himself: Deonna groups defecating figures with those with exposed genitals, saying that they have a parallel function, each guarding against evil influences (93-94).

There are several possible ways in which to explain the apparent similarity between these two representations of the Dagda and the also-Celtic genius cucullatus. First, the most traditional sort of explanation: that both traditions represent the same Celtic god, with the Dagda remaining relatively grand in his Irish isolation, while the cucullatus was humbled under Roman influence and reduced to a deity of the lower classes. Alternatively, the genius cucullatus is not humble after all, and, despite his humble demeanor, represents an important deity or set of deities in Britain and Gaul. Third, the genius cucullatus was humble after all, and the Dagda, as king figure, embodies all levels of society and nature, including what the genius cucullatus represents.

The first explanation is naïve and is easily discounted. Since bona fide Celtic deities were syncretized with those of the Roman pantheon both in Britain and on the continent, there is no reason to suppose that the genius cucullatus had fallen on hard times by the Roman period. But this sort of argument does point out what seems to be a fallacy in the logic of the scholarship about the genius cucullatus. The assumption that because the figures themselves are small, the cults must be minor, is pervasive throughout the scholarship, and seems to be an argument by analogy from the archaeology of the Classical civilizations. Yet this assumption should be questioned, since Celtic religion was fundamentally aniconic before Roman influence brought a figurative tradition related to the gods, as noted by Paula Powers Coe. Perhaps the genius cucullatus was not so humble to the Gauls and the Britons as he has been to twentieth century scholars, steeped in the grandeur of Greece and Rome.

Could the genius cucullatus represent the same tradition as the Irish Dagda, under very different circumstances? This possibility can neither be easily dismissed, nor easily answered. While the genius cucullatus may be an important deity, he does not seem to be an all-important one, as some scholars have claimed for the Dagda. Had he been, it seems likely that he would have been syncretized with a more important Roman personage, rather than with the humble Telesphorus, or with no Classical figure at all. If an identity exists between the genius cucullatus and the Dagda, scholarly assumptions about the Dagda must be called into question. He cannot be the most important god of all in Ireland — which is after all another naïve view — unless this is an odd Irish development. After all, it is a simple minded idea to think the same god can appear in two related traditions without both representations undergoing vast change. While we may posit that the genius cucullatus deserves a more important place in the Celtic religious system than he has been given by scholars, he cannot be confidently equated with the Irish Dagda.

The third possible solution to this problem seems the most sensible. We are told by Cú Rui in Mesca Ulad that the Dagda has many guises: Is ilrechtach in tí ’sa tuarascbáil ‘Many-shaped (many-guised) is that one whose description it is’ (Watson l. 635), an observation which may mean that he incorporates diverse aspects. As discussed above, his attributes, and his actions within the narrative tradition, link him to all three Dumézilian functions. He is presented as a king at many points in the tradition: perhaps he truly is the king par excellence, incorporating levels of society below the many usually assigned to him, including that traditionally associated with the genius cucullatus. Thus, the cucullatus may be but one aspect of a complex divine figure.

The association of the Romano-British and Gaulish genius cucullatus with the Irish Dagda does not inform us specifically about the cult attached to the artifacts, but this association calls into question the scholarly tradition about the cucullatus, along with the assumptions that formed that tradition. It calls into question the validity of the assumption that deities can be divided into upper and lower orders; although this model was clearly operative in Classical civilization, and exists in many East Asian cultures today, these categories may not obtain in northern Indo-European traditions. Likewise, it reminds us that Celtic cult should not, cannot, be measured by Greco-Roman standards. We cannot measure the importance of the genii cucullati by the size of the artifacts, nor can we prejudge their role by their apparent similarity to familiar figures from modern folklore. The genius cucullatus can therefore stand as a warning to scholars to be ever aware of our biases, and not to be too quick to assume continuity between artifacts of the past and the modern associations they evoke.