Celtic Gods: The Gaulish God, Tincus (Tench)

Tinco
A Gaulish God: Tench

Tilenus is a Gaulish god known from a single inscription found at Crevola d'Ossola, Italy, where he is invoked as an epithet of the pig-god Moccus. He may represent the psychopomp aspect of Moccus and is named after the river fish, the Tench.



Synonyms:
Gaul: Tench

Tinco is a god known from a single inscription found at Crevola d'Ossola, Piedmont, Italy (what used to be Cisalpine Gaul). The inscription itself [CIL V 6650] reads: Tinco Mocc(o) d(edicatum) (dedicated to Tincus Moccus). Thus Tincus would seem to be an epithet of the Gaulish pig-god Moccus.

Unfortunately none of Tinco/Tincus' attributes have survived, though Moccus himself may have been a psychopomp or at least had some link to and with the underworld. The name Tinco/Tincus has proved difficult to interpret, yet a close examination of Celtic names reveales a related form in the name of Tincomarus, a leader of the Belgic Atrebates tribe of southern Britain. The first element of his name, tinco- has been interpreted as being Celtic for a king of fish; most likely a tench (cf the Latin tinca and Cymric tens). Thus the name of the deity Tinco also probably means 'tench'. Fish, of course, were aquatic animals and water, to the Celts, were mirrors and doorways to other worlds. Thus it is entirely possible that Tinco Moccus was a god of the otherworld; a cognate possible of Arawn of the Cymric Mabinogi.



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