Apreoccupation with fertility symbolism was an entirely natural phenomenon in a society whose everyday survival depended upon the behaviour of the earth, the seasons and the fecundity of crops and livestock. As an essentially rural, farming people, the Celts shared this preoccupation with the other non-industrial societies of past and present. The reproductive capacity of flocks and herds and the crop-yield was of primary concern; the success or failure of the earth’s fecundity meant very immediate prosperity or hardship – literally life or death.
Fertility rites must have dominated Celtic cult activity and we have evidence that a number of deities possessed primary or ancillary fertility associations. It is interesting that whilst the Mediterranean civilisations of Greece and Rome possessed goddesses of wisdom, love, war and the sky, the majority (if not all) of the Celtic female divinities appear to have been strongly associated with the reproductive cycle and prosperity, in addition to any other functions. In this chapter, we are particularly concerned with deities whose principal sphere was procreation. Our main evidence is archaeological, specifically iconographic, but this is supplemented by the vernacular tradition of Ireland which supports the material evidence of the pre-Roman and Romano-Celtic world.
The divine fertility-element in Celtic society is most obviously and clearly seen in the various types of Mother-Goddess whose presence and worship is represented archaeologically during the Romano-Celtic period, especially in Gaul and Britain. Images of a goddess associated with life and abundance are physical manifestations of a community endeavouring to control the behaviour of the seasons and to appease and propitiate the forces who imposed the cycle of life and death. We will see that the Celtic Mother was a complex being, like the great fertility deity of Neolithic Europe, in that her cult possessed connections inextricably intertwined between the living and the dead. The divine Mother is represented with the symbols of life and abundance, but her images were buried in tombs with the dead, and moreover, she has a destructive element in having very direct associations with warfare. The Celtic Mother may well, like her Neolithic predecessor, have been the product of a sedentary, perhaps matrilinear community and, while we have insufficient evidence to be able to argue this with confidence, some points of evidence do support this suggestion. First, we know that women occupied an extremely powerful position in Celtic society. The evidence comes from Iron Age tombs, such as those of Reinheim in Germany and Vix in Burgundy – which were very obviously rich female burials belonging to the highest stratum of Celtic aristocracy – and from literary evidence. We know from the writings of classical historians on Britain that powerful Celtic women existed, with political autonomy in their own right: two British queens, Boudica of the Iceni and Cartimandua of the Brigantes, were monarchs who created more fear and havoc among the Romans conquerors than any male British opponent. We know also that women were important in Insular Celtic society. Queen Medb of Connaught for instance was far more powerful than her husband Ailill and the wedding of territorial nature-goddess to mortal king is a commonplace in Irish tradition. In the Irish and Welsh sagas, there is mention of descent being traced through the female line; the Welsh god Mabon (Divine Youth) is referred to in the Mabinogion as son of his mother Modron – not of his father; likewise the Irish divine race, called the Tuatha Dé Danann were the immortal people of the goddess Danu or Anu, and there is parallel mythology associated with the Welsh goddess Don. This Mother-Monarch (or dynasty-founder) association is interesting. Irish literature tells us that sovereignty depended very much upon land-fertility. King Bres in the sagas was deposed not only on account of his meanness but also because, under his rule, the land became barren. In Ireland, as we will see, a number of goddesses combined the functions of fertility and prosperity with the character of a territorial, topographically-defined deity. In this capacity, such a divinity may also be involved with warfare, presumably in protection of the land. We will meet this war-aspect to the Mothers again, together with abundant archaeological evidence for the topographical association.
Some final introductory points may be made concerning fertility symbolism. One is that though the overtly maternal aspects of Celtic worship are the primary concern here, there are a number of associated deities or images whose attributes indicate a link with fecundity, prosperity and well-being, even if procreation is not obviously portrayed. Thus we will discuss a wide range of Celtic god-forms. Another is that the preoccupation with fertility is evidenced in classical and vernacular literature in contexts other than those directly concerned with the Mother-Goddess cult, demonstrating the fundamental importance given to such powers. We know from Pliny that the Druids were responsible for fertility-ritual; he gives us a graphic description of the mistletoe-cutting ceremony which took place on the sixth day of each month and involved bull-sacrifices and invocations to the gods. Mistletoe thus harvested and consumed could make the barren fertile. Cunliffe points out that the Coligny Calendar with its evidence for auspicious and inauspicious days, could be used to calculate the best times for planting and harvesting crops, slaughtering beasts in winter and sending them out to graze in summer. Finally, Insular evidence for the great Celtic festivals of Samain, Beltine, Imbolc and Lugnasad indicate an association with the various parts of the seasonal cycle. Samain on the First of November was tied up with the rounding up of livestock and the choice of which would be killed off and which kept for breeding; Imbolc on the First of February is thought to be linked with the lactation of ewes; Beltine on the First of May marked the beginning of open pasturing; Lugnasad was connected with the harvest in August. Thus, all the main festivals were linked with seasonal events and essentially with fertility.
The later prehistoric, specifically Celtic, periods in Britain and Europe have yielded very little overt evidence for the worship of female fertility deities. Nevertheless there is indirect evidence during the first millennium BC of fertility symbolism and veneration of a power concerned with the seasons and with resulting prosperity or hardship. Indeed, from the Neolithic onwards – when settled farming became the norm – it would be surprising if the invocation of such supernatural powers did not take place. The Neolithic phase does present very clear evidence of a mother-goddess in Europe. Although some millennia earlier than the period with which we are now concerned, it is interesting to glance briefly at the cult and its manifestations. Gimbutas has traced the cult of the Mother in Europe from circa 7500 BC to 3000 BC, a period spanning the later Mesolithic and earlier Neolithic. In France during the later Neolithic, schematic depictions of a maternal goddess appear on cave-walls and in tombs, as in the Valley of Petit-Morin. Here her prime function appears to be that of protectress of the dead. There is virtually no evidence from Neolithic Britain save one depiction – a crudely fashioned figurine made from a small chalk block and found at Grimes Graves in Norfolk. The figure comes from a probable ritual deposit at the end of one of the flint-mine galleries: that a mother-image is intended is suggested by the gravid belly and heavy breasts. At the beginning of the Bronze Age, ‘statue-menhirs’ – such as those of the Tarn and Aveyron areas of southern France which depict roughly hewn female figures with small but definite breasts – are seen by some scholars as the beginning of the mother-goddess tradition of Celtic Gaul.
During the Bronze Age proper in western Europe, there is little indication of a female fertility-cult. But, as Gimbutas points out, the imagery of water-birds and bull-horns in Central and East Europe does incorporate implicit fertility-symbolism. In Late Bronze Age Scandinavia, goddesses became important; women’s items were more commonly deposited as sepulchral offerings. Such rock-carvings as that from Slänge, Sweden depict a meeting of the solar god and earth goddess.
Iron Age evidence for a mother-goddess cult is sporadic but interesting. To the Hallstatt phase belongs the cult-wagon from the grave-mound at Strettweg near Graz in Austria, probably dating to the seventh or sixth century BC. The emphasis (size and centrality) of the central female figure carved on the wagon suggests that she must be divine; she carries a ritual bowl or cauldron and is surrounded by mortal retainers. The importance of mortal females during the later Hallstatt period is indicated by such finds as the sixth century Vix (Châtillon-sur-Seine) barrow-burial, surely that of a Celtic princess. A plank-built chamber contained a dismantled funerary wagon; the lady was buried with a huge bronze Greek krater weighing 210 kg and was accompanied by such valuable items as a massive gold diadem worn round her head, an Attic bowl and an Etruscan bronze jug.
As de Vries, Grenier and Szabó have pointed out, the mother-goddess cult, so dominant in Gaul and Britain during the Romano-Celtic period, must have its origin during Celtic prehistory, simply because of its occurrence almost entirely in Celtic territory. The evidence for prominent females in Celtic society is relevant here. The British queens Cartimandua and Boudica, recorded by classical writers, must have been part of a tradition of autonomous and influential women. Classical writers say little concerning Celtic goddesses, although Dio (LXII, 2) refers to a war-goddess Andraste in Britain. But such writers as Ammianus Marcellinus (XV, XII) comment on the valour, indomitability and sheer physical strength of Gaulish women, who were just as formidable in war as their husbands. As remarked in Chapter One, there is little extant anthropomorphic iconography in the Iron Age and very little of this depicts female deities. The female head from the oppidum at Entremont in Provence, probably of third or second century BC date, could conceivably be that of a mother-goddess, as may be the first century BC female stone figure from Bourges (Cher). Occasionally, wooden sculptures, probably of pre-Roman date, portray females who may be mother-goddesses. The pre-Roman and Romano-Celtic sanctuary at the Source des Roches de Chamalières (Puy-de-Dôme), a healing thermal shrine, has produced a stylised wooden female figure with aureoled head. At Ballachulish in Argyll, an oak female figure was found in peat in circumstances suggesting its context within a wattled-wall structure, possibly a shrine. It is undated but may be first century BC or earlier. The figure is crudely carved, but it is naked with an emphasised pudenda which suggests its sexual/fertility symbolism. Of greatest interest, in terms of iconography, is perhaps the goddess-imagery on the Gundestrup Cauldron. On outer plate (e) and inner plate (B) (after Olmsted 1979) are female busts, the sex indicated by small, distinctive breasts and pigtailed hair. On plate B the goddess is flanked by ‘rosette’ wheels and the author suggests the interpretation that the goddess is being carried in a wagon. If this were so, a parallel is suggested with such burials as Vix and the Irish literary tradition of the Connaught Queen Medb being driven in her chariot around her camp before battle. In this context, Olmsted also cites the first century BC Danish votive bog-deposits of two Gaulish cult-vehicles at Dejbjerg, dismantled and placed in a mound with a cremation-burial; there was a throne-like construction in the centre of each, clearly non-functional, wagon, and the finds imply that the burial was female. There is a parallel, too, with Tacitus’ description of the Teutonic earth-goddess Nerthus who rode in procession through cities. This imagery recalls to mind the Strettweg cult-wagon with its female figure and, also, later Romano-Celtic mother-goddess portrayals in chariots. That pre-Roman territorial goddesses existed in Gaul is evidenced for example at Bibracte, the hillfort predecessor of Autun. The eponymous goddess Bibracte, patroness and spirit of the Iron Age town, continued to be venerated after the abandonment of Mont Beuvray: an inscription records the devotion of a sevir of Autun to the goddess, but the cult was not simply transported to the Roman town. A shrine was built on Beuvray itself after the Conquest and was frequented until the fourth century AD.
In addition to the evidence of specific mother-goddess forms during the Iron Age, there are other indications of a reverence for fertility powers. Rock-carvings, like those at Mont Bego in Liguria in southern France and Val Camonica in North Italy, portray numerous iconographic motifs, in the case of the Camunian site extending back as far as the Neolithic. Amongst the motifs and images at Mont Bego during the Iron Age are both ploughs and oxen depicted with solar symbols. In the Bronze Age at Camonica (period III) the stag, fertility and sun are associated; and in the Iron Age (Period IV) the stag-god, an emblem of strength and potency, assumes major importance. Certainly, southern France and North Italy both came under Celtic influence during this period. Of interest in this connection also is the evidence from Spanish rock-carvings where the solar disc is associated with the sexual act and fertility, a composition which may be paralleled on Scandinavian Bronze Age portrayals.
Finally, a potentially significant British occurrence is attested at South Cadbury, where the burial of young domestic animals, especially newborn calves, could be interpreted as fertility sacrifices. Twenty such burials were found in a narrow zone beside the approach to a small shrine. This is but one example of what must have been a common Celtic Iron Age practice of invoking the supernatural by means of appropriate sacrifices, to ensure the continued prosperity of land and livestock.
As with so many Celtic cults, physical representation of mother-goddess worship manifests itself in full and mature form only during the period of Roman influence on Celtic lands. In terms of material culture, we possess both written dedications and iconography, generally in stone or clay but more occasionally in metal or bone. This evidence may be used to answer a number of questions: the form of worship; method of physical representation; the type of dedicants and above all the real function of the cult. The Mothers are a homogenous group and share many iconographical features which establish their essential identity. I shall look first at the different types of representation, attitudes, attributes and associations.
Triplism as a basic phenomenon of Celtic religion is discussed in detail elsewhere (Chapter Seven). The mother-goddess is perhaps the commonest type of Celtic divinity treated in this way and the triadic form appears to have played an important role in her worship and cult-expression.
The three mothers or Deae Matres, as they are frequently called in inscriptions, were known also as Matronae, especially in Cisalpine Gaul (North Italy) and Lower Germany. We know more about the cult of the triple mothers than of some other cults of Celtic origin simply because they are often named and bear descriptive surnames which give clues to their identity. By far the majority of these epithets is linked to locality, thus asserting their essentially territorial character. Some are regional, embracing a large area or even a province – like Gallicae or Britannicae. A dedication from Winchester mentions the Mothers of Italy, Germany, Gaul and Britain. A York inscription invokes the African, Italian and Gaulish Mothers. Others refer to the Mothers of the Homeland or Overseas. Many, however, tie the Mothers to a specific locality: the Nemausicae only occur at Nîmes and are really spirits of that city; the Treverae were worshipped solely among the Treveri around Trier. The Matres Glanicae belonged only to Glanum in Provence, worshipped with a local god Glanis. What is interesting is that topographical surnames did not occur in Britain, suggesting perhaps that they were not indigenous but rather were imported from Gaul. The Rhineland mother-goddesses are distinguished by the number (and outlandish nature!) of their epithets. Thus we find dedications Maronis Assingenehis; Matronis Mahlinehis; Aufanibus and many others, always expressing locality. These ‘land’-names may refer either to the birthplace of the dedicant or to the location of the altar. The Matronae Aufaniae, local to the Bonn area, are associated with the Matres Domesticae found in Britain and several dedications and representations are recorded from Bonn itself. Apart from topographical surnames, others attest specific roles for the goddesses. The epithet Comedovae at Aix-les-Bains refers to health or healing. The Suleviae, known in Hungary, Rome, Gaul, Germany and Britain (at Bath, Cirencester and Colchester, the latter associated with an apsidal shrine) are linked with healing and the sun. The Iunones were protectors of women (the Latin epithet being adopted as a surname for the mothers in Treveran territory. At Castleford, Yorkshire, a depiction of three crude female heads, with an inscription to the Nymphs found below the courtyard of an early second century building in the vicus, endorses the healing water association alluded to earlier. Again, at Carrawburgh, the shrine of Coventina, a local goddess of springs has produced one depiction of a trio of Nymphs, presumably a version of the deity herself.
Inscriptions can give us some idea about worshippers. Henig stresses the evidence for wealthy, romanised dedicants in Britain, citing such invocations as that of an arcarius, probably a municipal treasury official, at Chichester and the York dedication by Audens, the Ship’s Pilot of the Sixth Legion. Certainly corporate worship is attested at London where an inscription refers to the restoration of a shrine by a district, but the majority of dedicants may well have belonged to the peasant classes. That Celts were involved in British dedications is attested by such instances as that of the sculptor Sulinus, son of Brucetus who set up shrines to the Suleviae in Bath and Cirencester. It is at first glance surprising that many dedicants were military and therefore male, but women were frequently involved in Gaul and Germany; the Rödingen altar to the Mothers of the Gesationes (a Rhineland tribe) for instance was dedicated by a man and woman jointly. Haverfield makes the point that of the many dedications by soldiers, most were of low rank.
The iconography of the three Mothers gives us valuable information as to how they were looked upon by their devotees. The vast majority are seated side by side, fully draped. But within this framework, there are many variations, all of which stress the maternal, nourishing and fertility role of the goddesses. The commonest attributes are baskets of fruit, cornuacopiae, loaves, fish and children. In some instances the Mothers actually suckle infants and one breast may be bared, as at Alesia. Swathing bands and baby-bathing materials are indicated at Vertillum (Côte d’Or). An Autun group depicts the Mothers with a child, patera and cornucopiae respectively. A stone from Trier depicts the deities, one with swathing band and the other two with distaffs, as if here the Mothers take on the role of Fates, spinning out men’s lives. This, and the association with Fortuna or Good Luck, is interesting and understandable in divinities whose role was essentially concerned with well-being and prosperity. The silver ‘feather’ or ‘leaf’ plaque from London shows the three Mothers seated on a bench, each with a branch or reed and a patera. It is suggested that the former could represent a palm-leaf and therefore a Victory symbol. One or two other features are noteworthy: dogs not infrequently accompany the Mothers, as at Ancaster and Cirencester. A recently discovered London carving apparently shows four Mothers, but it is possible that the intrusive one may represent a deified empress as a Dea Nutrix.
It is quite clear from the attributes of the Mothers that they represent primarily fertility and general prosperity, whether in the directly maternal manner of infant-association or through portrayals of the earth’s fecundity. The carefree attitude of the Cirencester relief – where the goddesses sit chatting as if they were human mothers at a coffee morning with children playing and lap-dogs – is exceptional. More frequently they sit rigidly, staring straight in front of them. However, their basic benevolence is clear. Some of the Rhineland groups are interesting in that, as at Bonn, a young woman with long, free-flowing hair is flanked by two maturer women in large circular bonnets. This apparent age-difference may symbolise different stages of womanhood and, by implication, the seasonal progression. One interesting point concerns the iconography of triadism itself. Sometimes, as in the Côte d’Or region, each goddess is identical, with exactly the same attributes: here the significance of triplism seems to be intensification – a triple avowal of devotion. In many instances, as described above, the deities are treated differently: thus, at Cirencester and Maryport hairstyles or stance may differ or attributes may vary. At Cirencester, for instance, the Mothers hold a dog, fish and fruits respectively, and at Carlisle a knife, fruit and flower are each held by a different Mother. Here, in addition to straightforward intensification of the image, fecundity-symbolism is enhanced by the encompassing of different aspects of fertility.
DISTRIBUTION, CONTEXT AND ASSOCIATES OF THE TRIPLE MOTHERS
The cult appears to have belonged exclusively to certain parts of western Europe, specifically within the Celtic world. The proliferation of topographical surnames in the Rhineland and in parts of France and their absence from Britain, argues for Gaul as the original homeland.
The Mothers were worshipped as domestic, private deities by individuals, as is evidenced in Hungary by quantities of pipe-clay and lead figurines, and perhaps at Backworth in Durham where a silver skillet and one of the gold fingerrings found inside was dedicated to the Mothers. But the monumental character of much of the evidence suggests some element of public worship, in shrines. Even small portable items, like the silver plaque from London, may have been set up on a shelf against the wall of a shrine. There is substantial direct and indirect evidence for mother-goddess shrines. Temples were common in the Rhineland where they were sometimes important religious centres, as at Bonn where the Matronae Aufaniae were worshipped. At Pesch a third-century shrine was dedicated to the Vacallinehae (a topographical name for the Mothers), invoked mainly by soldiers of Legion XXX Ulpia. At Trier, a curious group called the Xulsigiae, possiby a type of Mother associated with local springs, but whose name may be linked with the Suleviae, were invoked in a small chapel in one of the lesser Lenus-precincts. The association of mother-goddesses with springs and water was important at, for example, Aix-les-Bains and Gréoulx, a thermal shrine in the Durance Valley, where the Mothers were called Griselicae. Nemausus of the Nîmes Spring was male but the Nemausicae were local Mothers (see Chapter Five).
In Britain temples were associated with forts on Hadrian’s Wall, such as Housesteads, where important cult-remains occur, or Castleheads, where a centurion rebuilt a shrine to the Mothers. There may have been more than one temple in London where an inscription actually refers to the restoration of a temple probably during the third century, and two monumental sculptures survive.
We will examine below the significance of other deities in relation to the mother-goddess cult – whether the Triple Mothers or other versions of the fertility-goddess. Here, it is interesting simply to mention direct associations in epigraphy or iconography between the Matres in their distinctive plural form and other god-forms. What one might term direct associations are those where the Mothers are linked on dedications with other cults, or where they actually share imagery on a given item of iconography. Indirect association, where a shrine may yield a number of diverse religious objects, may or may not be significant in that if the Mothers and, say, Mercury are clearly dominant, as at Bonn or Baden, this means something in terms of cult. On the other hand Celtic temples often housed a number of deities who may have little or nothing to do with each other.
The association in the Rhineland between the Mothers and a (presumably) Celtic version of Mercury has been mentioned. Such a link is supported by such iconography as that from Trier, where a fragment of sculpture depicting the Mothers bears also a three-headed god, frequently identified in Gaul with Mercury. At Wellow in south-west Britain, a relief of a now headless group depicts a nude god with Mercury’s purse associated with two out of three surviving Mothers. At Cirencester an altar is dedicated to Mercury and the Mothers. This link with Mercury makes sense in the context of his role as commercial/prosperity god and it is a small step from there to see him as adopted by the Celts as a general god of well-being. Indeed, countless Gaulish reliefs depict the god associated with fertility- and prosperity-emblems and, at Tongres, Mercury is triple-phallused. We shall see later that he was frequently linked with a Celtic consort, Rosmerta, who is quite clearly herself a type of mother-goddess. In addition to Mercury, the Mothers are on occasion linked to a number of other god-forms. Fortuna is sometimes present herself, as on an inscription at Glanum, to the Mothers Glanicae and Fortuna Redux or the Mothers themselves assume Fortuna’s attributes. Epona herself also a mother-goddess is linked to the Matres cult, and there are many others, all with an enhancing well-being function.
The cult of the Deae Matres or Three Mothers is sufficiently distinctive in its plurality to justify separate treatment. There remain other, single goddesses, sometimes with names but more often anonymous, with the same attributes of children, fruit, bread, cornuacopiae, dogs, paterae and other symbols of human or earthly prosperity. Where single representations are particularly interesting is in their evidence for a personal, individual cult expressed by small relatively cheap votive objects, usually white pipe-clay though occasionally bronze.
Few inscriptions mention single mothers by name. Whilst Ross and Cunliffe would argue that all Celtic goddesses embody a fertility-element, I prefer to classify as Mothers only those portrayals which carry an intrinsic fecundity-association. Thus Celtic goddesses known only from inscriptions, such as Icovellauna at Trier and Metz and Ritona at Trier, who are water-goddesses (see Chapter Five), may or may not be linked to the cult. However, one goddess, Aveta, from a Trier shrine is associated with several pipe-clay depictions of a nursing goddess. Rarely, as at Daglingworth, Cirencester, the name itself ‘Cuda’, referring directly to prosperity and inscribed on the base of a mother-goddess carving, has essential fertility connotations.
Stone depictions of isolated mother-goddesses usually take a form similar to the Matres in being seated, draped in a long robe, with cornuacopiae, patera or fruits. At Naix, a mother has a dog and fruit and is associated with acolytes or suppliants. At Crozant in Gaul a single mother stands with three children – the number here is probably significant. A parallel exists at Cirencester where a single mother bears three apples. At Trier, outside a chapel in the Altbachtal religious precinct, a statue of a mother bears a deep fruit-basket and a dog; the statue had been deliberately decapitated, possibly by fourth-century Christians. It is interesting that at Trier the single mother version seems to have been chosen rather than the triple form, whilst, for example, at Cirencester both types co-existed. A particular kind of depiction is present in the Luxembourg area, around Dalheim where single mothers frequently sit in stone aediculae, perhaps representing household shrines. A distinctive type of mother-goddess occurs also in Holland where two shrines to Nehalennia, at Domburg on the Isle of Walcheren at the mouth of the Rhine, and Colijnsplaat on the East Scheldt Estuary have been identified. The Domburg sanctuary has been known from dedications and sculptures since 1647; the East Scheldt one was discovered in 1970, when fishermen recovered altars from a depth of eighty-five feet. Over 120 altars and sculptures have been recovered since then from the sea. What seems to have happened is that a temple on the banks of the river which, from epigraphic data, had its floruit around AD 200, later sank into the sea. The mother-goddess represented here is interesting for several reasons. First, we know her name, Nehalennia. Second, prolific finds suggest her cult to have been an important one. Third, inscriptions tell us details of her worshippers, for she was a native goddess invoked also by Romans and romanised Gauls. Tradesmen and seafarers dedicated altars to her in her temple out of gratitude for safety at sea and prosperity granted by her. Fourth, her images are remarkably consistent and she sits usually with baskets of fruit and frequently associated with cornuacopiae. Most important, however, is the fact that she invariably appears in company with a dog. We have already noted the occurrence of mothers with dogs, but this is normally sporadic. What we have here is essential identification with an animal similar to that of Epona with her horse. The symbolism of the dog is important here: if we use the mythology of the Graeco-Roman world, the beast could represent either healing or death, both of which are functions of the mothers. In the context of dogs and healing, the presence of a mother-goddess image at Lydney, Glos. is relevant. The temple here was primarily associated with the healer god Nodens, whose zoomorphic attribute (abundantly represented here) was the dog (Chapters Five and Six). One or two other stone images of single mothers are worth mentioning. The stylised and schematic figure from Caerwent is interesting in its exaggeratedly large head, its grasp of a palm-branch (similar to the mothers on the London silver plaque) and perhaps its aquatic context, being found at the bottom of a well. This last supports the water/thermal spring connections noted for instance at Aix-les-Bains and at Bath. Seemingly the most curious British context for a mother-goddess is that of the anteroom of the Carrawburgh Mithraeum, but this is paralleled at Dieburg and may well represent the popular female alternative to Mithras, suggested for Epona on the Limes.
We may turn now to small personal offerings to the mother-goddess, the most frequent occurrences being those of white pipe-clay, manufactured in Rhineland and Central Gaulish officina or factories. These, termed Deae Nutrices or nursing goddesses, depict a goddess seated sometimes (in the Central Gaulish ones) in a high-backed wicker chair, nursing one or two infants (one in the Rhineland workshops, two in Gaul). They occur frequently in Gaulish shrines as at St Ouen de Thouberville (Eure), at Trier (associated with Aveta) and among the Mediomatrici of Alsace, as at Sarrebourg. At Dhronecken near Trier, a shrine was apparently devoted to this goddess, represented not only by numerous statuettes of a nursing goddess, but by busts of children – presumably envisaged as being especially protected by the deity. At Alesia, a shrine yielded a pipe-clay mother with two infants in an oppidum with other, monumental, evidence for a mother-goddess cult. At a ‘lararium’ at Rézé near Nantes, standing pipe-clay figures with fruits and stamped solar signs are recorded. But their personal nature is shown by their occurrence in graves, as at Ballerstein and Hultenhause and Hassocks, Sussex (though their presence in British graves is rare). The sepulchral context of some pipe-clay mothers is interesting, especially since they sometimes appear with dogs, as at Canterbury, Titelburg, and in the Aveta-shrine in Trier. The dog-association could be connected with the Underworld or, indeed, as suggested, with healing. Some deae nutrices, as at Trier, are linked with healing-cult establishments.
One or two other individual cult-objects may finally be examined. The raven-attributes of a bronze seated goddess with cornucopiae, from an unprovenanced Gaulish location may embody death and underworld symbolism. A bronze seated female figure from a probable villa-site at Dawes Heath, Thundersley (Essex), nurses what may be a dog on her left knee. Other British bronzes are known, for example from Culverhole Cave in Gower and Owmby, Lincs. Finally, a unique wooden mother-goddess from Winchester sits holding a key, which could be an otherworld motif, the key to heaven. Keys are uncommon attributes, but an example occurs on an Epona-depiction from Gannat in the Allier area of France.
Associations of isolated mothers are interesting. Leaving aside divine couples as a separate issue one or two other direct links from Britain are worth examining here. At Kingscote, Glos. an enthroned female bearing an object (possibly fruit or bread) in her lap, is accompanied both by a devotee pouring a libation onto an altar, and by a horseman-god, perhaps a type of Mars (see Chapter Four). This is interesting because there is some suggestion of a war-element in Celtic fertility cults. In the Cirencester area single mothers are frequently associated with Genii cucullati, hooded dwarves, occurring often as triads in Britain, especially on the Cotswolds and on Hadrian’s Wall. At Daglingworth near Cirencester three cucullati accompany a mother-goddess: one seems to be offering or receiving something from her. The goddess herself is called ‘Cuda’. Another relief from the same place portrays a seated mother holding a cake or fruit with sword-bearing cucullati, again showing a war/protective element. A cucullatus, from Cirencester accompanying a mother, holds an egg, whilst she carries fruit. This egg-bearing characteristic is repeated, for example at Wycomb, Glos, where two triads of cucullati hold eggs. Toynbee definitely links these hooded gods both with fertility and with death. The former is self-explanatory (the association with the mothers and with eggs) but she would argue that death-symbolism is demonstrated by the hooded, shrouded heads suggestive of the Otherworld and the mystery of death. Certainly cucullati share many characteristics of the mothers. Even where they do not occur on the same carving, they have a very similar distribution and they too inhabit therapeutic spring-sanctuaries – like Bath and Springhead (Chapter Five).
EPONA
Epona is first and foremost a patroness of horses, and thus will be examined in detail in Chapter Six. However, many features of this goddess associate her with the fertility and prosperity role of the mother-goddesses. As is the case with the mothers, many dedicants were soldiers but, appropriately, usually cavalry. Epona is essentially connected with horses: her Celtic name is etymologically linked with the beast, and she invariably appears riding side-saddle (more rarely astride a horse) or in company with horses and/or foals. Her inanimate attributes are the same as the mothers – cornuacopiae, fruits and corn. Magnen & Thevenot describe her as a specialist mother presiding over Gaul’s most important beast. Her association with dogs and birds and with healing springs (as at Allerey, Côte d’Or, and Luxeuil) demonstrate close kinship with the mothers. At Thill Châtel a third-century soldier invoked Epona, the mothers and a local genius together. A monument at Jabreilles (Haute-Vienne) has on one surface Epona and a mare and the Triple Mothers on another. At Santenay Epona appears with a mare and a suckling foal, in image of maternity, and Epona sometimes feeds a foal from a patera – showing her function as a nourishing goddess. The Mothers and horses are linked for instance on a relief from Armançon (Côte d’Or) where the goddesses sit in a cart drawn by two horses, perhaps riding round the fields to ensure fertility; and this representative type appears again at Essay (Côte d’Or).
Again, like the mothers, Epona is associated with graves and death at such cemetaries as La Horgue au Sablon. Of particular interest is the triple Epona from Hogondange (Moselle), treated exactly like the Deae Matres, and at Varhély in Dacia a dedication to ‘the Eponas’ is recorded. As Thevenot points out, the great majority of monuments show Epona to have been worshipped in rural, domestic contexts. Linduff has made a study of the Epona-cult, and has a number of interesting arguments concerning its interpretation. She comments that the Celts used horses, primarily mares, as work-animals on farms. Linduff is of the opinion that Epona was specifically concerned with the craft of horse-breeding and was associated with the qualities of the domestic, pastured beast where the protection and fertility of the horse itself is clearly emphasised on iconography, for instance where mares and foals are depicted. The fact that the Celtic horse-deity was female is significant. Plant and beast-tending activities may well have been in the hands of women ‘as is the case in most agricultural warrior-groups’ (Friedl 1975) so that women may have been seen as great earth-mothers who nouished and protected as well as simply produced. Linduff explains the popularity of the cult among the mounted soldiery of the Celtic provinces in terms of its personal, beneficent nature which, unlike Mithraism, imposed no restrictions and offered protection both for the cavalryman himself and his horse.
THE CELTIC ‘VENUS’
The pipe-clay seated figurines of nursing mothers described above appear to share context and function with another type of clay figure made in the officina of Central Gaul and the Rhineland, namely the so-called ‘Venus’, consisting of nude statuettes resembling the Graeco-Roman goddess of Love. Despite their appearance, it seems as though the figures portray a domestic/protective fertility deity and this is a view supported by a number of scholars. Linkenheld argues that the cult of Venus in monumental form is so rare in Gaul that the pipe-clay figures cannot represent a true Venus-deity. Certainly their context seems to demonstrate their domestic nature, and they occur in quantities in houses, shrines and graves – as at Verulamium – and at many cemeteries and sacred springs, including Vichy in Gaul and Springhead in Kent. Their water/healing association in Britain – at the Kent shrine, at Bath and possibly the Walbrook Valley – reflect their very strong link with thermal sanctuaries in Gaul (Chapter Five). The Gaulish ‘Venuses’ would appear to have represented a domestic cult favoured by the lower echelons of society, such items being offered by a frequently feminine clientèle, for the restoration of good health and fertility. The goddess was invoked by women to aid them in conception and to protect them in childbirth and against disease. Indeed, the goddess here represented may herself have represented health, abundance and fecundity. The classical Venus herself was originally a deity of the fertile soil and she may well have been the conceptual as well as the physical inspiration for this Celtic cult. The essentially Celtic character is demonstrated not only by context but by, for instance, the alien accompanying images of cosmic bodies and the sun.
DIVINE COUPLES
Very often a Celtic goddess is portrayed in company with a god of Roman or Celtic origin. It is difficult to establish who is the main deity and who the consort, but we should perhaps recall the Irish vernacular evidence (Chapter One) that the territorial goddess took a mortal sovereign as mate. This may be the origin of the presence of Celtic divine couples, even though, as is the case with Mercury and Rosmerta, she adopts his attributes of caduceus and purse. Sometimes a couple may simply represent the masculine and feminine elements in a given cult-concept or image.
Many indigenous couples are recorded, and the combined presence of god and goddess may itself imply divine marriage and therefore consequential fertility. Among the Gaulish tribe of the Aedui an anonymous couple is a dominant iconographical type: the goddess here usually has a cornucopiae and patera as badges of her prosperity-role, and sometimes the god also carried a cornucopiae. Epigraphy gives us a number of couples, some of whom are tied to locality. Thus we have Luxovius and Bricta at Luxeuil; Bormo and Damona; Ucuetis and Bergusia; and Sucellus and Nantosuelta. These last two are enigmatic but important: the god, who often appears on his own, is characterised by a long-shafted hammer, and is called ‘the Good Striker’. In southern Gaul, he is associated also with the emblems of the woodland/fertility god Silvanus as peasant-protector of harvest and cattle, and in the Moselle area he seems to have dominion over the local wine-trade and, by implication, the fertility of the vine. The goddess, Nantosuelta, has varied attributes but, in the land of the Mediomatrici of Alsace, she often bears the image of a house on a long pole, emphasising her essentially domestic function. The couple have other attributes such as pots and barrels and this may reflect the wine-protection alluded to just now. The goddess’s name ‘Winding River’ demonstrates water-symbolism which is not unknown to the Mothers, and her repeated association with ravens may suggest underworld symbolism. British representations are rare: possible evidence comes from East Stoke, Notts., and a silver ring to Sucellus comes from York.
Of divine couples, the most interesting for Britain are Mercury and Rosmerta. The phenomenon of Celtic female and Roman male name alluded to in Chapter One occurs here – as if the goddess were the indigenous, territorial deity. Mercury, we have already seen, had associations with the Mothers, and Rosmerta may well be a version of the Celtic fertility goddess. Her name means the ‘Good Purveyor’, a prosperity-title. She frequently appears with a basket of fruit or Mercury’s purse and it is apparent that the trading (hence prosperity) function of the Roman god is here adapted to a Celtic context. The British evidence forms an interesting group: at Bath the couple share a relief with three Genii cucullati and a ram – both fertility symbols, and the former at least linking them directly with the Mothers. Three reliefs come from Gloucester, where there must have existed at least one temple dedicated to the couple: the Bon Marché site stone is significant in that Rosmerta’s head is bigger than Mercury’s, as if she were the more important, and the couple are associated with Fortuna who is sometimes linked with the Three Mothers. Rosmerta’s bulging bag on another Gloucester stone denotes her prosperity-function, and on a third she holds a patera over a bucket – perhaps a similar symbol of plenty to the Celtic cauldrons of Irish and Welsh tradition. The relief of Mercury and Rosmerta from Nettleton Shrub is fragmentary but the goddess holds a basket, fruit or cake, and the item is noteworthy in coming from an important temple-complex, perhaps associated with healing (Chapter Five).
MALE FERTILITY ASSOCIATES
Several male Romano-Celtic deities possess links with the Celtic fertility cult. Mercury – or a Celtic god disguised in the art-form of the Roman god – has been cited already as having strong and specific associations with the Mothers. The Celtic Mercury has other aspects connecting him firmly to an indigenous, territorial divinity similar to the goddesses; thus, like them, he frequently possesses topographical surnames, for example Arvernus or Visucius in Gaul. A bronze statuette from Tongres portrays Mercury with triple phallus, as we have seen. It should be remembered that in Roman religion, too, Mercury had a fertility function – as evidenced by his animal emblem of the ram – and it need not surprise us that this was adopted and developed in a Celtic environment. Mars too had a fertility role, probably from his original Italian function as an agricultural and storm-god. He sometimes bears geographical names – such as Condatis, and was associated particularly with healing and thermal sanctuaries (Chapters Four and Five).
Perhaps the most curious associate of the Mothers and fertility was the Celtic sun-god (Chapter Two), linked in the Roman period with the sky-god Jupiter. The Rézé ‘lararium’ with its standing goddess bearing solar symbols has already been mentioned. At Clarensac a fragmentary altar is dedicated . . . et Terrae matri and bears the wheel-sign of the Celtic sun-god. At Trier Jupiter and the Mothers are associated. A curious find from Toutenant in Gaul, which could possibly have significance, is a bronze statuette of Jupiter discovered under the roots of an old oak-tree nicknamed the ‘oak of three daughters’.
The association of the Celtic celestial god and the Mothers is interesting. If, as generally conceded, the pipe-clay figurines of ‘Venus’ are in reality representative of a domestic fertility cult, then there is a definite and homogeneous body of evidence to associate the two cults of fecundity and sky, in that a number of these ‘Venus’ figures bear solar signs. The sun-god cult shows other signs of fertility associations, as we have seen in Chapter Two.
FERTILITY AND THE HUMAN HEAD
A strange phenomenon in Celtic iconography is the link between the symbolism of the phallus and the human head. Phallic symbolism is common in Mediterranean Europe, and is certainly by no means exclusively Celtic. But the apparent link between the human head and the phallus is interesting, since we know that the Celts venerated the head, and practised head-hunting, frequently also representing their deities by the images of the head on its own. Since the head was regarded as particularly important, it is logical that it was also, on occasions, endowed with potent fertility properties. Presumably ‘phallic’ heads, like those from Eype in Dorset and Broadway, Worcs. represented local gods; the same may be true of the recent find from a small Romano-British settlement at Guiting Power, Glos., which consists of a crude human figure, itself phallic in shape and the head of which forms the glans. The figure is possibly horned, thus increasing its potency even further. Head/phallic symbolism is associated in a different but related way at Colchester, where a face-pot bears an applied phallus and goat-horns. Finally, the curious bronzes from Silchester and Icklingham should be mentioned: here heads of bulls rather than humans are presented but with the features replaced by male genitals. Once again horns, head and phallus are linked, this time associated with the bull, a powerful Celtic emblem of strength and virility.
The prominence of women and goddesses in Irish tradition is very striking. The territorial, nature/fertility goddess is supreme, and mates with a mortal sovereign to ensure the continued prosperity of Ireland. Triplism is extremely important: the triadic goddesses of Ireland Ériu, Fódla and Banbha personify the land itself. The three Machas were associated with war and fertility, and in one legend Macha is connected also with horses when, on the verge of giving birth to twins, she is forced to run in a race against the horses of Conchobar, King of Ulster. War seems to be an aspect important to fertility-symbolism in Ireland in that the Mórrígan, a trio of war-goddesses, have pronounced sexual characteristics. Like all Irish war-goddesses, they influence the outcome of battle by magical means. The Mórrígan indulge in nerve-racking shape-shifting before bewildered soldiers, changing in an instant from hag to beautiful girl to death-crow. Ériu, Fódla and Banbha are also involved with war and shape-shifting, as is Badb who confronts the Ulster hero Cú Chulainn in battle and unnerves him by changing into ‘Badb Catha’, a crow, harbinger of death. The Irish fertility goddesses combine features of war, maternity, youth, age, monstrosity, all as part of a fundamental life/ death/protection symbolism.
Welsh tradition is not so forthcoming, but we know of a mother-goddess Modron, and it is interesting that Rhiannon in the Mabinogion is linked with horses, especially mares, fertility, sorcery, destructive power and the underworld.
It is possible to see that the mother-goddesses in the Celtic world had a complex and varied series of roles, and indeed pervaded very many aspects of life. Cunliffe, as we have seen, states that all Celtic female deities were associated with fertility. Life and death, war, maternity, good-luck, prosperity and protection all come within their sphere of responsibility. Maternity and prosperity are overtly indicated by the images themselves and their attributes. Death and the underworld are indicated by the sepulchral context of some mothers and perhaps the animal-symbolism of the dog and the crow. But the dog may also represent healing (as in the classical imagery of Aesculapius) and health was certainly important to the mothers. Water is a life-source, associated also with healing, the underworld and fertility, and thus provides a common element for much of the mothers’ activities. But the main image projected is that of the fecundity and well-being of human beings, beasts and the earth. The war-element, so prominent in Ireland, may arise from land-protection, and the sword-bearing cucullati from Gloucestershire may symbolise the triumph of fertility over barrenness or disease rather than war itself. Toynbee suggests that the Mothers were goddesses of fertility both in this and the otherworld.
The Matres cult is especially interesting because of its evidence for the popularity of a relatively homogeneous and widespread Celtic cult. It grew to full maturity only in the Roman period but it was absolutely foreign to the Roman world, especially in its triadic form. Inscriptions demonstrate that the cult was popular throughout the Roman period and devotees of the mother-goddesses were setting up altars from the time of Gaius (AD 37–41) to that of Gordian (AD 238–244). Style is sometimes interesting: sometimes it is romanised and naturalistic but, as at Nyon and Bath, it may be schematic and abstract, as if craftsman and patron owed little to Roman tradition (Chapter Seven). A few other points may be made. In nearly all cases the maternal rather than the sexual aspects of the female image are projected – indeed the goddess is invariably clothed – the sexual parts of the body are not emphasised. Instead, the images rely for their symbolic power on accompanying attributes including animals (a powerful fertility/nature symbol in themselves (Chapter Six)) and, sometimes, on the power of triplism or plurality. Perhaps of most interest is that the cult appealed not only to women but to soldiers, merchants and even Roman officials. Essentially maternal characteristics were employed to visualise and worship a deity whose sphere developed from that of simple fertility to protection and well-being in all aspects of life.