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Goddesses in Celtic Religion
par BECK Noemie
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2009
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Université Lumière Lyon 2
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Acknowledgments
Introduction
I) Historical Background
A) Who were the Celts?
B) Celtic tribes
C) The Gallo-Roman and Romano-British Periods
II) Sources
A) Gaul and Britain
1) Classical texts
2) Votive Epigraphy
a) Sources
b) Dating
c) Dedicators
d) Etymology of divine names
3) Places of devotions and religious offerings
4) Iconography
B) Ireland
1) Irish medieval literature
2) Mythology and Folklore
III) Outline
Chapter 1 The Matres and Matronae
Introduction
I) Etymology of their generic name
A) Matir and materem (‘mother’): Plomb du Larzac
B) Matrebo (‘to the Mother Goddesses’): Nîmes and Glanum
C) Matron (‘belonging to the Mother Goddesses’): Istres
II) The Epigraphic Evidence
A) The forms Matres – Matronae
1) Differences
2) Equivalence in meaning?
3) Some Celtic dedicators
B) Celtic epithets: general approach
C) The ‘Mothers’ in Britain
III) Germanic and Celto-Germanic Mother Goddesses?
A) A list of Goddesses bearing Germanic epithets
B) Some indications on the meaning of the Germanic epithets
C) Celto-Germanic Goddesses?
1) Celtic root + Germanic adjectival suffix –henae
2) Goddess names in gab-
IV) Iconography
A) Classical attributes
B) The Nursing Mothers or Nutrices
V) Triplism: a mark of Celtic tradition?
VI) Mother-Goddesses with Roman epithets
A) The Junones
B) Roman Parcae/Fatae
C) The Nymphs
D) The Proxsumae and the Domesticae
E) The Campestres
Conclusion
Chapter 2 Nature and Bounty
Introduction
I) The Goddess as the Embodiment of the Land
A) Gaulish Litavi (‘the Earth’)
B) The Isle of Ireland: Ériu, Banba and Fótla
C) The Land as the Body of the Goddess
D) The Gaulish Goddess Nantosuelta
1) Epigraphy and Iconography
2) Etymology of her name
3) Interpretations of her attributes
E) Some remarks on Aericura
II) The Land-Goddess as a Purveyor of Riches
A) Solitary Rosmerta (central and north Gaul)
1) Etymology of her name
2) Inscriptions
3) Iconographical devices combined with an inscription
B) Atesmerta
C) Cantismerta
D) The Divine Couple: Rosmerta and Mercurius
1) Inscriptions
a) North-east of Gaul
b) Germania Superior
c) Romania
2) Iconography with inscriptions
3) Mercurius and other female partners
a) Mercurius and Maia
b) Mercurius and Fortuna
c) Mercurius Visucius and Visucia
d) Mercurius with a nameless female consort: Rosmerta?
F) Conclusion
III) Goddesses embodying Particular Natural Elements
A) Animal Goddesses?
1) Artio (‘the Bear’), Andarta (‘the Great/Powerful Bear’)
2) A Celtic Deer Goddess?
B) Goddesses of the Plant Kingdom
1) The ‘Cosmic Tree’: the Axis of the World
2) Oak Goddesses: the Dervonnae
3) Yew Goddesses: the Eburnicae
4) Beech Goddesses?: the Baginatiae
5) The Duilliae and the Vroicae
6) The Black Forest: Abnoba (Diana)
C) Goddesses of ‘High Places’
1) Arduinna (‘the High One’)
a) Inscriptions
b) Etymology of her name
c) The boar-goddess statue: Arduinna?
2) Bergusia / Bergonia (‘the Hill’)
3) Goddesses in Brig- (‘the High One(s)’)
4) Andeis (‘the Great One’?): Plateau of Plech
5) Alambrima: Mont-Alambre
6) Soio: Plateau of Malpas
Conclusion
Chapter 3 Territorial- and War-Goddesses
Introduction
I) Tribal- or Territorial-Goddesses: Protection and Sovereignty
A) Gallo-British Ethnonyms*
B) Irish Sovereigns
1) Mythological accounts
2) Folk survivals
II) Irish War-Goddesses: Gallo-British Counterparts?
A) Divine Crows of War: Badb, Cathubodua and Cassibodua
B) The ‘Queen’ Goddess: Irish Mórrígain, Gallo-British Rigana, Welsh Rhiannon
C) Functions: Warrioresses or Witches?
1) Battle Sorceresses
a) Druidic Magic
b) Metamorphosis
c) The Shriek
2) Harbingers of Death
a) The Seer
b) The ‘Washer of the Ford’
D) Survivals of the Death-Messenger in Folklore
1) The bean sí (Banshee)
2) Aoibheall
III) Gallo-British War-Goddesses?
A) Gaulish Sanctuaries devoted to War-Deities
B) Figurations on Coins: Human or Divine Warrioresses?
C) Celtic Women at War?
D) Divine Goddess-Names related to Protection and War
1) Protection
a) Anextlomara (‘the Great Protectress’)
b) The ‘Fortress’ Goddessses: Dunisia and Ratis
c) Protection of the City
d) Protection of the Tribe: Brigantia
2) Martial attributes: Strength, Courage and War Fury
a) Belisama (‘the Most Powerful’?)
b) Exomna (‘the One Without Fear’)
c) Vercana (‘Fury, Rage’)
d) Noreia (‘the Courageous One’) and Veica (‘Combat’) (Austria)
3) Goddesses of Victory
a) Segeta (‘Victory’)
b) Segomanna (‘Victory Giver’)
c) Boudina/Boudiga (‘Victory’)
d) Camuloriga (‘Queen of the Champions’)
e) [T]ricoria/Ricoria (‘Great Warrioress’ or ‘Liberating Queen’?)
f) Coriotana (‘Mistress of the Troops’?)
Conclusion
Chapter 4 Water-Goddesses
Introduction
I) The Divinisation of Water
A) The deposition of votive offerings in watery places
B) Numinous rivers or springs: deva, divonna, banna
C) The Lady in the water in Irish tradition
II) River-Godddesses
A) Irish River-Goddesses: Drowning and Wisdom
1) The River Boyne: Bóinn and the River Shannon: Sionann
3) The River Inny: Eithne
4) The River Érne / Lough Érne: Érne
5) The River Odras: Odras
B) Gallo-British River-Goddesses: Mothers and Healers
1) The River Seine: Sequana
a) The campaigns of excavations
b) Etymology of her name
c) Epigraphy
d) Iconography
e) Votive offerings and Sanctuary
f) Survivals?
2) The River Marne: Matrona
a) Epigraphy and Sanctuary
b) The ‘Mother-River’ Goddess
c) The Tomb-Boat in the River: Funerary Dimension
3) The River Saône: Souconna
4) The River Yonne: Icauni
5) The River Wharfe: Verbeia
III) Gaulish and British Healing Spring-Goddesses
A) Fountain-Goddesses
1) Acionna and the Fountain l’Etuvée (Loiret)
2) Icovellauna and the Spring of Le Sablon (Moselle)
a) The inscriptions and the Nympheum*
b) Etymology of her name
3) Mogontia (Le Sablon?)
4) Coventina’s Well at Carrawburgh (Northumbria)
B) Healing Spring-Goddesses
1) Damona (‘Cow Goddess’)
a) Bourbonnes-les-Bains (Haute-Marne)
b) Bourbon-Lancy (Saône-et-Loire)
c) Chassenay (Côte d’Or)
d) Alise-Sainte-Reine (Côte d’Or)
e) Saintes (Charente)
f) Conclusion
2) Bormana (‘the Bubbling One’)
3) Stanna / Sianna (?)
4) Bricta (‘the One who Exercises Magic?’)
a) Etymology
b) Inscriptions
c) Thermal baths and Votive offerings
5) Sirona (‘the Heifer’ or ‘the Star’)
a) Etymology
b) Inscriptions and Places of worship
Conclusion
Chapter 5 Goddesses of Intoxication
Introduction
I) Definition of ‘Sacred Intoxication’
A) The Opening to the Divine World
1) Intoxication and Trance: making contact with the divine world
2) Intoxication to establish a ‘dialogue’
a) The ‘Listening Goddesses’: Clutoiθa and the Rokloisiabo
b) The Fulfillers of Prayers
B) Contexts of Ritual Intoxication
C) The Holders of the Sacred Knowledge
D) Absorbing the ‘intoxicating plants’
1) Fumigation, Inhalation
2) Ingestion: Acorns and the Matronae Dervonnae
3) Ointments
4) ‘Intoxicating’ Containers: Yew and the Eburnicae
5) Decoctions / Fermented Drinks
II) Mead: the Ambrosia of the Celts?
A) The Purveyors of Intoxicating Drinks
1) Irish literature: Medb
2) Ogam inscription: Meduva?
3) Inscriptions from the Continent
a) The Comedovae (Matrae, Dominae)
b) Meduna
4) Britain
a) Latis (‘Intoxicating Drink’)
b) Braciaca(‘Beer Goddess’)
B) The Sacredness of Mead
1) The Complex Fabrication of Mead
2) Mead and Immortality of the Soul
a) Symbolical approach
b) Anthropological approach
C) The Cauldron of Hochdorf and the Cauldron of the Dagda
D) The Feast of Goibhniu and the Feast of Samhain
1) The Feast of Immortality: Mead?
1) Samhain and Mead
III) Celtic Goddesses of Intoxication: Essence and Functions
A) Intoxicating Goddesses as Healers?
1) Intoxicating Goddesses related to Healing Waters?
2) Curative virtues of honey and mead
3) Oracular incubation
B) Intoxicating Goddesses related to War?
1) ‘War frenzy’: the divine possession
2) Welsh Literature: Y Gododdin
3) The Gundestrup Cauldron
C) Intoxicating Goddesses conferring Sovereignty?
1) Medb: the Emblematic Figure of Sovereignty
2) Intoxication and Sovereignty
Conclusion
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
I) Abbreviations of textual references
A) Epigraphy
B) Periodicals / Books
II) Primary sources
III) Secondary sources
Appendix 1: Classical Texts
I) Plants, rituals and taboos*
A) The gathering of the selago
B) The gathering of the samolus
C) The gathering of the mistletoe
D) The gathering of the verbena
II) Yew used as a poison
III) Honey as a poison
IV) The Crow as a divine augur
Appendix 2: The Ogam Alphabet
Appendix 3: The Otherworld Feast
I) Greek mythology: Ambrosia and Nectar (Mead?)
II) Vedic mythology: Amrita
III) Scandinavian mythology: Mead
Appendix 4: The Four Celtic Feasts
