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Sacred to Celtic numerology were the number three and its compound number, nine. One of the common features of the Celtic world is the importance given to triplicities. Some Celtic goddesses come in clumps of three and the Welsh Triads preserve traditions by means of terse, mnemonic triplicities of information, from which a bard could relate several complex tales. The triple spiral or triskel is the basis for much Celtic ornament and is a central symbol for the three-fold nature of the soul. Three elements are frequently invoked as witnesses to oaths: earth, sea and sky.

The number nine is prominent in Celtic lore, composed of the sacred three, times three. Nine waves demark the sovereignty of any coastline and to go beyond nine waves indicates exile; nine maidens (see below) kindle the cauldron of the Underworld; the Beltane fire was kindled with nine sticks from nine different trees and lit by nine men.

A Nine-fold Sisterhood of dedicated women act as inspirers, foster-mothers and teachers, their blessing maintaining the sacred order in the Celtic world. Sometimes called 'the nine witches' their function is a sacral one, for they act as the maintainers of the sacred flame, they initiate children into knowledge and, as the Nine Guardians of the Cauldron of Annwn, are the original faery godmothers who imbue each living soul with innate gifts. In his description of Insula Pomorum, Taliesin speaks of them by name:

That is the place where the nine sisters excercise a kindly rule over those who come to them from our land. The one who is first among them has greater skill in healing, as her beauty surpasses that of her sisters. Her name is Morgen, and she has learned all the uses of all plants in curing the ills of the body. She knows, too, the art of changing her shape, of flying through the air, like Daedelus, on strange wings...They say she had taught astrology to her sisters - Moronoe, Mazoe, Gliten, Glitonea, Gliton, Tyronoe, Thiten and Thitonea.

This Celtic sense of the ninefold possibly influenced the manner in which the rosary is prayed : special needs are petitioned in a series of nine daily invocations of the rosary called a novena.

It is from the magical waters of the nineth wave that Blodeuwedd is formed by Math and Gwydion in their attempt to find a wife who is not of mortal race for the unfortunate Llew Llaw Gyffes. The British Otherworldly fortress of Caer Nefenhir (Castle of the Highest Heaven), which appears in both Culhwch and Olwen and Cad Goddeu, is said to have nine natures.

The number twenty-seven also appears frequently in Celtic lore since it is composed of three nines, a threefold tripling of the sacred number nine. There are traces of a nine night week in ancient tradition, perhaps making up a lunar month of twenty-seven nights. War-bands and royal retinues were often composed of twenty-seven people, making twenty-eight with the chieftain or warlord.

"Three things that ruin wisdom : ignorance, inaccurate knowledge, forgetfulness"
Celtic Proverb

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