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The Religion of the Ancient Celts

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Rachel Dearth
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« Reply #150 on: May 05, 2010, 01:22:51 pm »

In some cases forests were ruled by goddesses--that of the Ardennes by Dea Arduinna, and the Black Forest, perhaps because of the many waters in it, by Dea Abnoba. 3 While some goddesses are known only by being associated with a god, e.g. Rosmerta with Mercury in Eastern Gaul, others have remained separate, like Epona, perhaps a river-goddess merged with an animal divinity, and known from inscriptions as a horse-goddess. 4 But the most striking instance is found in the grouped goddesses.





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Rachel Dearth
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« Reply #151 on: May 05, 2010, 01:23:00 pm »

Of these the Deæ Matres, whose name has taken a Latin form and whose cult extended to the Teutons, are mentioned in many inscriptions all over the Celtic area, save in East and North-West Gaul. 1 In art they are usually represented as three in number, holding fruit, flowers, a cornucopia, or an infant. They were thus goddesses of fertility, and probably derived from a cult of a great Mother-goddess, the Earth personified. She may have survived as a goddess Berecynthia; worshipped at Autun, where her image was borne through the fields to promote fertility, or as the goddesses equated with Demeter and Kore, worshipped by women on an island near Britain. 2 Such cults of a Mother-goddess lie behind many religious, but gradually her place was taken by an Earth-god, the Celtic
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« Reply #152 on: May 05, 2010, 01:23:10 pm »

Dispater or Dagda, whose consort the goddess became. She may therefore be the goddess with the cornucopia, on monuments of the horned god, or Aeracura, consort of Dispater, or a goddess on a monument at Epinal holding a basket of fruit and a cornucopia, and accompanied by a ram's-headed serpent. 3 These symbols show that this goddess was akin to the Matres. But she sometimes preserved her individuality, as in the case of Berecynthia and the Matres, though it is not quite clear why she should have been thus triply multiplied. A similar phenomenon is found in the close connection of Demeter and Persephone, while the Celts regarded three as a sacred number. The primitive division of the year into three seasons--spring, summer, and winter--may have had its effect in triplicating a goddess of fertility with which the course of the seasons was connected. 4 In other mythologies groups of three goddesses are found, the





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« Reply #153 on: May 05, 2010, 01:23:20 pm »

Hathors in Egypt, the Moirai, Gorgons, and Graiæ of Greece, the Roman Fates, and the Norse Nornæ, and it is noticeable that the Matres were sometimes equated with the Parcæ and Fates. 1

In the Matres, primarily goddesses of fertility and plenty, we have one of the most popular and also primitive aspects of Celtic religion. They originated in an age when women cultivated the ground, and the Earth was a goddess whose cult was performed by priestesses. But in course of time new
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« Reply #154 on: May 05, 2010, 01:23:31 pm »

functions were bestowed on the Matres. Possibly river-goddesses and others are merely mothers whose functions have become specialised. The Matres are found as guardians of individuals, families, houses, of towns, a province, or a whole nation, as their epithets in inscriptions show. The Matres Domesticæ are household goddesses; the Matres Treveræ, or Gallaicæ, or Vediantæ, are the mothers of Trèves, of the Gallaicæ, of the Vediantii; the Matres Nemetiales are guardians of groves. Besides presiding over the fields as Matres Campestræ they brought prosperity to towns and people. 2 They guarded women, especially in childbirth, as ex votos prove, and in this aspect they are akin to the Junones worshipped also in Gaul and Britain. The name thus became generic for most goddesses, but all alike were the lineal descendants of the primitive Earth-mother. 3
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« Reply #155 on: May 05, 2010, 01:23:41 pm »

Popular superstition has preserved the memory of these goddesses in the three bonnes dames, dames blanches, and White Women, met by wayfarers in forests, or in the three fairies or wise women of folk-tales, who appear at the birth of




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« Reply #156 on: May 05, 2010, 01:23:49 pm »

children. But sometimes they have become hateful hags. The Matres and other goddesses probably survived in the beneficent fairies of rocks and streams, in the fairy Abonde who brought riches to houses, or Esterelle of Provence who made women fruitful, or Aril who watched over meadows, or in beings like Melusine, Viviane, and others. 1 In Gallo-Roman Britain the cult of the Matres is found, but how far it was indigenous there is uncertain. A Welsh name for fairies, Y Mamau, "the Mothers," and the phrase, "the blessing of the Mothers" used of a fairy benediction, may be a reminiscence of such goddesses. 2 The presence of similar goddesses in Ireland will be considered later. 3 Images of the
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« Reply #157 on: May 05, 2010, 01:24:05 pm »

Matres bearing a child have sometimes been taken for those of the Virgin, when found accidentally, and as they are of wood blackened with age, they are known as Vierges Noires, and occupy an honoured place in Christian sanctuaries. Many churches of Nôtre Dame have been built on sites where an image of the Virgin is said to have been miraculously found--the image probably being that of a pagan Mother. Similarly, an altar to the Matres at Vaison is now dedicated to the Virgin as the "good Mother." 4

In inscriptions from Eastern and Cisalpine Gaul, and from the Rhine and Danube region, the Matronæ are mentioned, and this name is probably indicative of goddesses like the Matres. 5 It is akin to that of many rivers, e.g. the Marne or Meyrone, and shows that the Mothers were associated with rivers. The Mother river fertilised a large district, and






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http://sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/rac/rac06.htm
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« Reply #158 on: July 06, 2010, 03:45:14 pm »

Quote
This book, which appears for the first time on the Internet at sacred-texts.com, is one of the best scholarly treatments of the ancient Celtic religion. Written early in the 20th Century, Religion of the Ancient Celts includes extensive treatment of that perennially fascinating subject, the Druids.

There is very little documentary evidence to go on. In particular, we have no actual sacred texts of the ancient Celts, as their texts were transmitted orally only to initiates, and disappeared forever when the last Druid died.

this is one of the major limitations of archaeology and is one of its weakest points. it cannot discover all the evidence it needs to present a true picture of the past.

another weakness and limitation is that archaeologists will discover a monument or a mss.  talking about religion of one man or a small group of men and they extrapolate that to all the people of that time. life doesn't work that way and that is just too simplistic of a method to use to research the past.

that method is like saying all the people of america were hare krishna simply because a few of their religious sites and writings were discovered in washington d.c.
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Dever is wrong, archaeology is not an unedited glimpse into the past.
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