The Germanic goddess Frigg comes across as the ideal wife and mother in most accounts – Norse myth focuses on her grief for Baldr and her wfely strategems for getting Odin to favour her side in disputes. However, there are two stories that show Frigg in a very different light – were they attempts by Christian writers to discredit her, or is there more to the story?
Unfortunately, life got in the way of my second post on Frigg, but here’s something on the *other* queen of the Britons, Cartimandua. She doesn’t get as good of a press as Boudicca, but she should be better known.
The times of the Roman invasion of Britain are shrouded in mystery, and only accessible from Roman accounts or archaeology. From the little we know, Cartimandua was Queen of Brigantia, the area that is today Yorkshire, and allied with the Romans, growing rich as a client state.
For more, click here.
The image of Malham in Yorkshire is by
Historically, Elen of the Hosts was a real woman who lived in the 4th century, but in British legend and Welsh and Celtic mythology, may go back even further. She appears to have been a woman of many roles that have grown and evolved over the centuries to the present day.
Read more at Folklore Thursday.
The Irish god Nuada is known for three things: his magical sword, his sliver arm, and losing the kingship twice. HIs losses, however, define him in ways that show his quality.
In my post on a possible birch goddess, I mentioned Dea Vercana. Since this goddess and her companion, Meduna, are so neglected, it seems mean not to pass on what I’ve learned about her.
Unfortunately, that’s not much. While it seems likely that she had a cult, even if only locally, all we know about her comes from the fountain bowl and altar inscribed with her name. The altar also mentions Meduna, who is as little-known as her companion.
In my first post on Rosmerta, I focused on her as a goddess in her own right. This time around, I want to examine the ideas put forth in Michael Enright’s thesis Lady with a mead-cup, which argues that the cult of Rosmerta and Mercury was the basis for the later cult of Odin and various prophetic, mead-serving goddesses (and others) associated with him.
We are used to the idea that the Celts took up Roman gods and equated them with their own. (Or that the invading Romans renamed them.) However, the process could just as easily go the other way.
The best-known instance of this is the Gaulish horse-goddess Epona, who became very popular first with the cavalry units of the Roman army, then with the Roman populace, who took her into their homes and stables. She was the only Celtic deity with a holiday in the Roman calendar: December 18th. The Romans don’t seem to have had an indigenous horse-deity (except perhaps Neptune, who had other things to attend to), but the Celts were horse-mad.
This post is a bit of a swizz – the name Rigantona is actually a hypothesis, a reconstruction by linguists of the origins of the name Rhiannon. There are no images, inscriptions or literary references to Rigantona.
There are, however, a few inscriptions to a goddess Rigana (whose name would be cognate to Latin Regina). Sometimes these goddesses are associated with Juno or Minerva (Jufer & Lughinbuhl: 13), other times they appear on their own.
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