In Gaul, the idea of a goddess envisaged in triple form might be echoed in the name of the goddess Trittia meaning ‘Third’, related to Gaulish tritos, ‘third’.⁴¹¹ The goddess Trittia is mentioned in three inscriptions discovered in the Var - in Fréjus: Trittiae L(ucius) Iul(ius) Certi f(ilius) Martinus v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito), ‘To Trittia, Lucius Iulius Certi, son of Matinus, paid his vow willingly and deservedly’ ;⁴¹² in Pierrefeu: Trittiae M(arcus) Vibius Longus v.s.l.m., ‘To Trittia, Marcus Vibius Longus paid his vow willingly and deservedly’ ;⁴¹³ and possibly in Carnoules, but the dedication is very damaged: Tritt]i(a)e Iu[lius?] Tenci[-] v.s.l.m. ⁴¹⁴ Olmsted and Anwyl suggest that Trittia is the eponymous goddess of the city of Trets, situated near Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), which Albert Grenier and Jules Toutain refute, pointing out that the inscriptions were not found precisely in the area of this town. They add that the ancient name of Trets, which is Tritis or Tretis - sometimes Trecis, then Treds - , was never written with two ‘t’s.⁴¹⁵ The fact that the inscriptions were not very far from Trets may, however, be relevant, and the duplicated ‘t’ in Trittia may be an effect of the personification of the place. The conundrum can perhaps be best solved by considering that the town was called after the goddess Trittia, whose name in the sense of ‘third’ would more properly be written Tritia. Significantly, an inscription discovered in Duratón, Segovia, Castilla y León, in Celt-Iberia, alludes to the trinity concept of the Matres and to their potency, as their epithet Termegiste (‘the Three Almighty’) indicates: Matribus termegiste v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito), ‘To the Three Almighty Mothers (the dedicator) paid his vow willingly and deservedly’.⁴¹⁶

If the female triadic groups are widely represented in the iconography with the Matres, there are yet very few three-headed or three-faced goddesses. One of the few surviving examples is the small statue of a goddess in bronze discovered in 1890 in Cébazat, near Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme), whose head is triplicated (fig. 18).⁴¹⁷ According to Jean-Léopold Courcelle-Seneuil, the goddess wears a diadem decorated with a plant, possibly artemisia, which was devoted to Diana.⁴¹⁸ It is worth noting that the idea of triple-headed female supernatural beings is encountered in an 11th-century legend belonging to the lore of the hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill. In this story, entitled Finn and the Phantoms, the hero, along with his companions Caoilte and Oisín, rode to a hillock called Bairneach south of Killarney on his new black horse, won in a horse-race at Clochar (Co. Limerick).⁴¹⁹ In the evening, they decided to stop in a mansion to have some sleep, but they rapidly realized that the place was gloomy and inhabited by weird frightening creatures, such as a grey churl, a headless man with a single eye on his chest and a hag with tri cind for a caelmuneol, i.e. ‘three heads on her scrawny neck’.⁴²⁰ A terrible fight broke out between the macabre supernatural beings and the three warriors which lasted until dawn, when the three creatures suddenly disappeared. The 13th-century legend Bruidhean Chéise Corainn [‘The Mansion of Keshcorran’ (Co. Sligo)] also tells of a visit of Finn mac Cumhail to the otherworld. He encountered three otherworld ugly sisters, who played sinister tricks on him and his comrade Conán Maol to punish them for hunting and sleeping on the hill of Keshcorran which belonged to their father.⁴²¹ Interestingly, the concept of a threefold goddess also survived in the Welsh 12th-century Trioedd Ynys Prydein [‘Triads of the Isle of Britain’], Triad 56, which mentions that there were three Queens Gwenhwyfar at the court of Arthur:⁴²²

According to Rachel Bromwich, Triad 56 is the only Welsh source which alludes to three Queens Gwenhwyfar; all the other texts mentioning only one Gwenhwyfar, daughter of (G)ogfran the Giant.⁴²³ In her view, the threeGwenhwyfars are a reminiscence of Welsh and Irish traditions, which offer many examples of triple goddesses.

Fig. 18: Three-headed goddess in bronze from Cébazat (Puy-de-Dôme). Courcelle-Seneuil, 1910, pl. X.

As the iconography and literature show, triadic groups of female figures were widespread and common to Irish, British and Gaulish peoples. Threeness undeniably had a strong magico-religious dimension for the Celts, who, in triplicating their deities, dignified them and emphasized their potency and magnificence.⁴²⁴ Those divine trios are generally understood as the emanation and multiplication of a single deity, rather than as three distinct beings.⁴²⁵ They are thus seen as ‘three-in-one figures’. However, one cannot say that divine triplism is peculiar to the Celts only, for the concept of triadism is shared by many other ancient religions of Indo-European origin.

In Hinduism, for example, the trimūrti, meaning ‘trimorphic’ or ‘three forms’, is the triple aspect of the supreme being, symbolized by a triad* of primordial gods, that is Brahmā, the creator of the world, Visnu, the preserver of nature, and Shiva, who destroys the world at the end of each age.⁴²⁶ In Slavic mythology too, the primary god is called Triglav, literally ‘Three-Headed’.⁴²⁷ He represents the unity of three gods, called Svarog, Perùn and Dažbog - later Veles or Svetovid. He also reigns over three realms. His first head indeed presides over the Sky, his second head over the Earth and the third one over the Under-World, symbolizing thus the three powers of the universe: expansion, retention and balance. A three-sided god governing the same three worlds is also found in the religion of the Toba-Bataks of Sumatra in Indonesia,⁴²⁸ while in the religion of ancient Iran, triads of gods are also found, such as Mithra, Ahura Mazdâh and Anâhita, or Zervân, Ohrmizd and Mihr.⁴²⁹

Three-fold goddesses are also widely represented in Classical mythology. As we will see, the goddesses of Fate, the Roman Fatae and Greek Moirai are generally represented three in number. Similarly, the Nymphs, who are the embodiment of Nature, appear as a trio of goddesses. Such is also the case of the Greek Graces, who are generally depicted as three women symbolizing beauty, gentleness and friendship, sometimes bearing the names of Aglaia, Charis and Pasithea.⁴³⁰ The Greek goddess of the dead, Hecate (‘she who has power far off’), is also represented as a three-faced or three-bodied figure in the iconography.⁴³¹ She is, besides, usually called ‘the Triple Hecate’. Moreover, the terrifying snake-haired and fanged Gorgons are three sisters, called Medusa (‘Ruler’), Stheno (‘Strength’) and Euryale (‘Wide-Leaping’), who turn into stone whoever meets their eyes.⁴³² They are related to the three grey-hairedGraiae (‘Old Women’), named Enyo (‘Furious’), Pemphredo (‘Waspish’) and Deino (‘Dreadful’), who live in Atlas’ cave and possess a single eye and a single tooth which they lend to each other.⁴³³ Even though the Muses are generally said to be nine in number, they were originally envisaged as a trio of goddesses, presiding over music, dance, fine arts and above all poetry.⁴³⁴ On Mount Helicon, in the region of Thespiai, in Boeotia (Greece), the Muses Melete (‘Practice’), Mneme (‘Memory’) and Aoede (‘Song’) inhabit two springs, the Aganippe and the Hippocrene, while in Sicyone (Peloponnese) and in Delphi they personify the three strings of the ancient lyre, as their respective names Nete (‘Bottom’), Mese (‘Middle’) and Hypate (‘Top’) show.⁴³⁵

From all of this, it follows that triplism is a typical characteristic of Celtic deities but is not specifically a mark of Celticity, threefold dieties being found in many other ancient mythologies. Divine triplism actually goes back to Indo-European times, but it is significant that it survived so strongly in Welsh and Irish literatures and in Gallo-British iconography.