Alisanos

In the ancient/epigraphic record Alisanos (Latinized Alisanus) appears on two dedicatory bronze paterae recovered at Couchey and Visignot (a hamlet of Viévy) in the Côte-d'Or; these votive inscriptions attest veneration of a named local divinity tied to place. Etymological discussion links theonym to Gaulish alisia, variously interpreted as 'rock/rocky height' (cognate with Old Irish ail), as a tree-name ('whitebeam' / alisier, related to alder), or possibly to a river-name Alisos; most Celticists traditionally favor the 'god of the rock' reading and view Alisanos as an expression of Celtic animism. Separately, in contemporary fantasy fiction Jennifer Roberson uses the name Alisanos for an animate, predatory deepwood — a literary reinvention not attested in the ancient cultic sources.

The ancient epigraphic attestations supply no physical description of Alisanos; the evidence is limited to the theonym on two votive paterae. In Jennifer Roberson's modern novels the name is applied to a non‑humanoid deepwood: a sentient, predatory forest that functions as an animate environment rather than an anthropomorphic deity.

The inscriptions record dedication to Alisanos but do not enumerate powers or behaviors for the historical deity. In the literary use (Jennifer Roberson) Alisanos is described as sentient and predatory, home to demons and other hostile beings, capable of shifting its boundaries unpredictably to engulf human lands, and of transforming those it takes.