Ancient Celtic Goddesses Author(s): E. Anwyl Source: The Celtic Review, Vol. 3, No. 9 (Jul., 1906), pp. 26-51 Published by: Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30069895 Accessed: 23-11-2015 23:24 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Mon, 23 Nov 2015 23:24:25 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 26 THE CELTIC REVIEW ANCIENT CELTIC GODDESSES Professor E. ANWYL THE extant remains of the Celtic forms of religion afford abundant testimony to the great variety of divine names which were associated therewith. No student of Celtic religion can fail to be impressed with the number of Celtic deities, who appear to have been local or tribal in character. Even where a certain deity appears to have become non-local, it will generally be found on investigation that the sphere of the extended worship has fairly well-defined areas and centres. We cannot take as our first guide for the classification and grouping of Celtic gods a Pantheon like that of Homer, behind which there is a long history of religious development, and upon which there is the impress of a literary tradition. Patient archmeologicalinvestigation has thrown light on the local character and history of many of the deities of the Hel- lenic world, and in the Celtic world likewise we find the more rudimentary local divinities, which, had the fates so willed, might, under a civilisation like that of Greece and in the hands of Homer and his forerunners, have developed into as elaborate a Pantheon as that of Greece. As it is, however, we can only observe the scattered elements out of which, under other circumstances, a Pantheon might have been con- structed. This is not altogether a misfortune, since it enables us to see in Celtic lands actual parallels to the hypothetical stages of development, which lie behind the more advanced religious systems of more highly civilised and literary coun- tries, such as Greece and Rome. Religious development always stands in some correlationwith the social development generally, and the civilisation of the Celtic world, in its various forms and in its several localities-a civilisation that at best was but rudimentary comparedwith that of the Greeco-Roman world-had as the religious concomitants of its culture, concep- tions and divinities of a correspondingcharacter. Some of the This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Mon, 23 Nov 2015 23:24:25 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ANCIENT CELTIC GODDESSES 27 names of Celtic deities, too, fortunately bear in their very forms unmistakable evidence as to their original character,so that we have an insight not only into the religious conceptions of the later and more developed stages of civilisation, but also into the earlier ideas from which they sprang. It is possible, also, to see in this way how variation in the degree of civilisation both locally and temporally is reflected in the forms of religion. In dealing with the religion of the Celtic world, it is of prime importanceto bear in mind at the outset that Celtic civilisation was very far from being homogeneous in character, and that we must expect to see this absence of homogeneity reflected also in the religious evolution. Unfortunately, the inscriptional evidence that has come down to us is associated almost entirely with districts that were highly Romanised. This, however, is not such a serious drawback as might at first have appeared, since we are thus enabled to see what districts during the Empire were those in which the conceptions of certain deities had been so developed as to make it possible to identify them with the gods of Rome. These, too, were the chief districts of trade and commerce among the Celts, and, though the earlier and the later trade-routes through Gaul, for example, were not the same, yet the routes which were important in Roman times had already risen into some prominence in the earlier period. Archaeology cannot render greater service to the study of Celtic religion than by mapping out the distribution of Celtic civilisation. The religion of the rich is never quite the same as that of the poor: that of the farmeris never abso- lutely identical with that of the sailor: that of the townsman always differs in some degree from that of the countryman: the merchant and the craftsman do not usually worship quite the same gods as the soldier. The gods of fashionablehealth- resorts vary no less than their worshippers, and the study of the forms and degrees which civilisation assumed in Celtic lands may help to bring these variations more and more home to us. In the present paper the larger problem of the Celtic This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Mon, 23 Nov 2015 23:24:25 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 28 THE CELTIC REVIEW deities, both male and female, will not be discussed. Atten- tion will be directed only to the Celtic goddesses in the vari- ous districts from which evidence concerning them has come down to us. It may here be stated at the outset that there are great gaps in the available evidence concerning the god- desses in question; for example, our information from the western part of Gaul is extremely slight, while from the dis- trict of the Pyrenees, though the names of gods abound, practi- cally no names of individual goddesses have survived. These facts will become clearer, when we take the various inscriptional zones in order, as follows: (1) The Pyrenees, (2) Gaul south of Lyons, (3) Gaul between Lyons and the lower Rhine, (4) other districts of Transalpine Gaul, (5) Cisalpine Gaul, (6) Britain, (7) Noricum and the Celtic zone of the Danube. 1. The Pyrenees district.-The only goddesses with a dis- tinctive name known from inscriptions in this district are the Niskai of the Amdlie-les-Bains tablets in the Pyrendes Orien- tales in the ancient territory of the Sordones. These tablets are eight in number, and were found by Col. A. Puiggari in 1845. They were unfortunately lost in 1849, but a copy of them had been made by their discoverer. The curious reader will see an account of them in Nicholson's Keltic Researches (p. 154), together with a very ingenious attempt at their interpretation. Some of the words, such as kantamus, roga- mus, sanate, omnes, non, amiki, illius, quidquid, si, are clearly Latin, but there are other words which are apparently in some form of Celtic speech. One of these words, peisqi, raises problems similar to those raised by the Coligny Calendar and the Rom tablets. Mr. Nicholson's identification of Niskas with the root contained in the English 'nixies'= water-sprites, following as it does the word kantamus, is not at all improbable. The river-name Vernodubrum from this district is undoubtedly Celtic, but the names Iliberris and Caucoliberris seem to be of a non-Celtic form. It may be noted further that, in the territory of the Sordones, we are not far from the district of Southern France, where grouped goddesses are frequent, the nearest to the Sordones being the This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Mon, 23 Nov 2015 23:24:25 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ANCIENT CELTIC GODDESSES 29 Menmandutseor Menmandutimof the neighbourhoodof Narbo. From the Pyrenmeandistrict west of the Sordones no distinc- tive names of grouped goddesses have come down to us.' The Menmandutoeare commemoratedon an inscription at Bdziers, Hdrault (CILxII 4223), where their name occurs in the dative on a votive tablet. A somewhat similar but unexplained name,' Minmantiis,' has been found on an inscription at Pdri- gueux (CILxIII, 940). 2. Gaul, south of Lugdunum (Lyons).--In this district, in which the territory of the Sordones ought, strictly speaking, to be included, the names of goddesses are frequent. They fall naturally into two main types, those of grouped goddesses and those of individuals. The formerare often termed Matres or Matre. With this name may be compared one of the Welsh names for the fairies,' Y Mamau' (the mothers), a name which survives in the expression 'Bendith y Mamau,' the blessing of the mothers, used of fairy benefactions, and in that of' Y Foel Famau,' the hill of the mothers, the highest point of the Clwydian range in Denbighshire. In the zone in question we find the Eburnicaematroe at Yvours, on the Rhone, near Lyons (Orelli, 5935), on the inscription restored as Matr[i]s, au[g(ustis)] Eburnici[s], etc. These appear to have been the local tutelary deities of Yvours. The nearest grouped goddesses to the north of these that are recorded on inscrip- tions are the Mairm of the neighbourhood of Dijon (Dibio), but to the north of these, again, no other grouped goddesses called Matre or Matres are mentioned, until we reach the neighbourhood of the Rhine, where several groups are re- corded. The nearest specifically designated groups to the south of the Eburniceo Matrae are the Obelenses Matres at Crossillac, between Ville-Dieu and Villeneuve-de-Berg, d6p.