Tarvos Trigaranus


Tarvos Trigaranus or Taruos Trigaranos is a divine figure who appears on a relief panel of the Pillar of the Boatmen as a bull with three cranes perched on his back. He stands under a tree, and on an adjacent panel, the god Esus is chopping down a tree, possibly a willow, with an axe.
In the Gaulish language, taruos means "bull," found in Old Irish as tarb, in Modern Irish/Gaelic as tarbh and in Welsh as tarw. Garanus is the crane. Treis, or tri- in compound words, is the number three.
A pillar from Trier shows a man with an axe cutting down a tree in which sit three birds and a bull's head. The juxtaposition of images has been compared to the Tarvos Trigaranus and Esus panels on the Boatmen monument. It is possible that statues of a bull with three horns, such as the one from Autun are related to this deity.