Part 4

by A.C. Fisher Aldag

The Pagan Gods – Old, New and Otherwise:

Gerald Gardner was one of the first popular authors to connect the practice of witchcraft with the worship of the old Pagan gods. In an interview, Gardner stated that while Wicca promoted belief in a supreme being, primitive people weren’t quite capable of understanding the notion. Instead they revered a pair of lesser deities, personified as a God of the Hunt and a Goddess of Fertility, who were aspects of the higher power. He also wrote that his belief in the gods was as a "personification of cosmic power". Although this sounds like a typical anthropology lecture, to the mostly Protestant upper-class English society of the 1950s, this idea was probably quite shocking.

Gardner’s novel A Goddess Arrives was published in 1939, and though it wasn’t actually about goddess worship as we know it today, some of the concepts in the book seem to be the precursor of Wiccan ideals. This includes reincarnation, spirit communication, and a goddess who is related to the phases of the moon. Gardner first made reference to a "triple goddess" in The Meaning of Witchcraft, published in 1959, prior to the inception of the feminist movement. In the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, ritual consecrations are performed in the name of Cernunnos and Aradia, and these deities are included in the "Eko eko" chant. (The rest of this poem may be from the Basque language, or it may be an incantation from a 13^th century grimoire.) Gardner equated "our Lord, the Horned One" with the "dread lord of the shadows" ruling the underworld. The goddess as "Mother of us all" is invoked for Lammas. Cerridwen is summoned in the Charge, the spring equinox ritual, and in summer and winter with her magical cauldron. In other ceremonies, the goddess is invoked as Arianrhod, Diana, and Aphrodite. This belief in a duality of Goddess and God, or a pantheon of pre-Christian gods, is now widely accepted among neo-Pagans and Wiccans.

Much of Gerald Gardner’s material concerning the practice of witchcraft in Europe and the horned god Cernunnos came from the research of Dr. Margaret A. Murray. This eminent archaeologist and anthropologist was an expert on ancient Egypt, and wrote several books about the Egyptian civilizations. Dr. Murray became a professor of Egyptology at the University College of London in the 1920s, a time when few women held a graduate degree. Murray also had an interest in witchcraft, pre-Christian traditions, and the British witch trials. She published two books on the subject, The Witch Cult in Western Europe in 1921, and The God of the Witches in 1933. In these books, Murray proposed that witchcraft was the remnant of the primary religion of Europe, surviving until the times of persecution. At the time they were published, Murray was ridiculed by other scientists and vilified by the Christian church. The God of the Witches was re-issued in the 1952 by the Oxford University Press, and became a best-seller. Although several of her ideas have been discredited, Murray’s books have been one of the primary influences on the modern neo-Pagan movement.

As any researcher does, Dr. Murray proposed theories, then presented evidence to support her conclusions. She speculated that widespread organized pre-Christian fertility "cults" (belief systems) existed in Europe until the late 1600s, and that many people killed during the witch trials were actually members of an "underground nature movement". Many of Dr. Murray’s scholarship methods were solid. She compared the documents, artwork and artifacts of various time periods, including woodcut pictures of "devils" which strongly resemble pre-Christian deities such as Cernunnos or Pan. One print shows a "witch" figure surrounded by "demons" with stag antlers. These closely resemble the stag figure in an illustrated Medieval manuscript about mummers or street actors, which in turn resembles cave paintings of antlered men. Dr. Murray also studied transcripts of the witch trials held throughout Europe as a possible source of information about genuine religio-magic systems. She read the accused witches’ testimony and analyzed it as "ethnographic data", which means looking at all the statements and checking them for common elements. Her findings lead her to believe that a number of the accused witches were actually practicing an ancient folk religion, although Murray did not call it Paganism or Wicca.

Today, it has become popular to claim that Dr. Murray was a fraud, or that she faked evidence. Some of her theories and conclusions were found to be without merit. Other parts of her material have been supplanted by later research. There wasn’t really any organized pre-Christian religious movement surviving in Europe up to Medieval times. However, Murray did draw several valid conclusions. Many Pagan religious societies were actually based on the worship of nature and the belief in magic. Authors including Carlo Ginzburg have pointed out the similarities between shamanic practice and statements made by prisoners during the witch trials. Archeologists following in Murray’s footsteps have compared prehistoric artifacts to modern non-Christian representational art. Forms of witchcraft were practiced in Europe up until modern times, as documented by numerous scholars. And the deity called Cernunnos really does resemble cave images of horned entities, as well as the Stag character of folklore.

Dr. Murray’s books on Egyptology are still used by universities and professional archeologists. I suggest that you read Murray’s works about witchcraft, look at the evidence, read her critics, read the critics of her critics, and judge for yourself.

Some scholars question the authenticity of the Goddess of Wicca for various reasons. Testimony taken during the witch trials seldom mentions any goddess or female deity. In some of Gardner’s writings, the goddess seems to be a rather sketchy background character; in other works, she has the attributes of the average 1950s housewife. Historians point out that Doreen Valiente added material to Wicca to balance the horned god with feminine divinity. One of Valiente’s major contributions is "The Charge of the Goddess", in which the deities of several pantheons are invoked. Not all of these goddesses have comparable qualities. A similar poem is found in Leland’s Aradia. Other Wiccan rituals can be traced to Aleister Crowley, including the "Descent of the Goddess into the Underworld", which may be based on the legends of Inanna, Persephone, Isis, or the story of Pwyll from the Mabinogion. Much of the wording of the "Drawing Down the Moon" ritual is taken from Crowley’s work. Some authors suggest that Crowley or members of the Golden Dawn used the principles of Tantra or shamanism to develop the concept of sexual polarity, purely as a way to raise and channel energy for use in ceremonial magic. It has been suggested that Gardner may have borrowed from these philosophies to create the Goddess of Wicca.

Gardner may have gotten some of his information about a mother goddess from Robert Graves, a poet and student of myth structures. Graves’s The White Goddess, subtitled "A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth", was written between 1920 and 1940, and published in 1948. Graves wrote over 140 other works, including the historical fiction books I, Claudius and The Greek Myths, both well received by the academic community. In The White Goddess, Graves suggests that religious legends are based on archetypes, and that all myths evolved in the same manner within pre-literate societies. He proposed that the Christian religion was actually founded on Pagan themes. Graves theorized that most European female deities, including the Virgin Mary, were derived from a Great Goddess of love, birth, motherhood and death, represented by the phases of the moon. Her son or lover usually represents sacrifice and rebirth, including Osirus, Tammuz and Jesus. Graves blamed the suppression of the mother goddess on monotheism, particularly Judeo-Christianity. At the time, these notions were quite radical. Since The White Goddess was published fully ten years before Gardner’s non-fiction witchcraft books, Robert Graves likely had an influence on the formation of modern Wicca.

The White Goddess does not actually have much of a historic basis. Graves wrote his views about myth structures based on his familiarity with poetry and his knowledge about the evolution of language. Like James Frazer, Graves compared the legends of various cultures. He drew conclusions about the effect of symbols on the human psyche, and theorized that there were universal iconic themes. He also speculated about the Ogham alphabet, and its relation to the calendar, the veneration of trees and the use of magic. Later, Graves’s girlfriend claimed that she was a witch, and that much of the material written in The White Goddess was actually her work. Some of Graves’s writing has been challenged by scholars, especially his theories about Ogham and the universal nature of a mother goddess. I suggest that you wade through The White Goddess yourself, then decide what you believe.

Since Gardner’s A Goddess Arrives pre-dated Graves’s book, it’s possible that Gardner borrowed his concept of a moon goddess from another source, such as The Sea Priestess by Dion Fortune (Violet Mary Firth). One of the original members of the Golden Dawn occult society, Fortune extensively studied various pantheons and ceremonial magic, and wrote about the power of feminine energies. Her books may have given Gardner the idea for a triple goddess, or the notion of one universal great goddess. Around 1930, Fortune advanced the theory that Isis was the prototype for all other mother goddesses, including those of Europe. Her books may have influenced other writers, including Doreen Valiente.

Although Valiente’s work had a profound impact on Wicca, later authors and Craft leaders were actually responsible for rise of the feminist spirituality movement. Pagan writers such as Anne Forfreedom, Zsuzsanna Budapest and Starhawk (Mariam Simos) helped to shape the current Goddess culture in America. Much of their material is based on the research of Dr. Marija Gimbutas, a major advocate for prehistoric goddess worship. While several of her ideas have been called into question, and a few of her theories have been debunked, many of Gimbutas’s conclusions have been substantiated.

Dr. Gimbutas was an archeologist, anthropologist, ethnographer, folklorist and linguist. She was a Fellow at Harvard University, where she made a comprehensive study of the etymology of words in Indo-European languages and researched various societies’ myths and religious practices. As an archeologist, she discovered and cataloged countless relics of Neolithic (new stone age) civilizations. Gimbutas compared prehistoric societies to one another and to those of surviving Pagan cultures. She wrote many scholarly papers on her findings, proposing hypotheses about the worship of goddesses in ancient Europe. Books by Dr. Gimbutas include The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, The Living Goddesses, The Language of the Goddess, and The Civilization of the Goddess, all of which incorporated years of field research. In several of her works, Dr. Gimbutas traced references to goddess worship from the Neolithic period to modern ritual and folklore in Europe. (More on her later.)

Dr. Gimbutas may have based some of her theories on the work of Charles Darwin, who speculated about humanity’s "matriarchal stage" in his paper, On the Origin of Species, published in 1856. She may also have read about similar ideas in the book Das Mutterrecht or "The Mother Right", written by the Swiss-German academic Johann Jakob Bachofen in 1861. Bachofen’s premise was that motherhood was the foundation of all civilization, including morality, law, and religious training. He was one of the first scholars to write about mythology, archetypes and their relation to human development. Bachofen also believed that the remnants of ancient Goddess worship could be seen in the modern reverence for the Virgin Mary. Later authors who were likely influenced by Bachofen include Robert Graves and Margaret Murray. In Murray’s last academic book, The Genesis of Religion, she writes about prehistoric goddess worship as the possible source for the "witch cult". All of these authors may have had an impact on Gimbutas, and thus on modern feminist spirituality.

I’m going to take a stab at identifying some of the sources or "monomyths" for the popular neo-Pagan and Wiccan gods and goddesses, and make guesstimates about their age and authenticity. However, I’m still suggesting that you study the works of the above-mentioned writers, then read the theories of those authors who disagree. As before, please weigh the evidence, then draw your own conclusions.

Herne or Cernunnos:

In her book God of the Witches, Dr. Margaret Murray theorized that a horned deity was revered by the people of Europe up to the time of the Renaissance, and perhaps into the modern era. This image of a beast-man formed the basis for the Christian accusation that witches worshipped Satan, a horn-bearing mythological character. As evidence, Dr. Murray used ancient artifacts, woodcuts from the Medieval period depicting an antlered or horned figure, and she also found many descriptions of a horned deity or beast-man in her ethnographic studies of the witch trials. Recently, Murray’s assertions have fallen into disfavor. Gerald Gardner may have gotten some ideas for the God of Wicca from Murray, or from James Frazer, who made comparisons of various European gods to those of classic literature. While some of his material has held up under scrutiny, Frazer’s notion of a universal "sacrificial king" or harvest lord has been disproven. So, was there really a Horned God venerated by the Pagans of ancient Europe? Did his worship survive into the present day?

There are numerous archeological and literary references to a horned god / demigod / hero / beast-man found throughout the European territories. They include the cave painting of an antlered figure called "the Sorcerer" in the Trois Freres cave in Ariege, France; the petrogliphs found at Val Camonica, Lombardy, Italy; the silver-plated Gundestrup Cauldron found in Denmark; the Germanic legend about the wild man of the woods; the statues of a horned man discovered with Roman artifacts in France; British coins bearing his image; and the Welsh legends of Gwyn ap Nudd and the Boucca. A carving of an antlered man is still visible on a Neolithic dolmen in Ireland. A bronze amulet with the head of a moose and body of a man was found in Russia. A horned figure was discovered in a Roman fortress in Durham, Northumberland in England, believed to be Celtic and created sometime between the 4^th and 6^th centuries. All of these images pre-date the Christian legend of Satan as a horned anti-deity.

Other artifacts bear evidence of our ancestors’ reverence for the stag or beast-man figure. Although the famed Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is "only" 950 to 1,200 years old, an excavation of a Mesolithic settlement in Star Carr, Yorkshire, England was discovered to contain hollowed stag skulls, with antlers intact. These skulls had holes drilled in them to contain thin rawhide straps, to make them wearable as a headdress. There are carvings of a horned or antlered male figure in several churches in western Europe dating from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. An image of a man with curling ram’s horns was discovered in the basement of Notre Dame Cathedral. A wooden mask with bull’s horns, familiarly called the "’Ooser" was used in ritual folkplays and as a figure of punishment for spouse-abusers in Dorset up to the late 1800s. Some archeologists believe that the antlered images represent a hunting deity, while the horned men were depicted after the invention of agriculture and the domestication of animals.

The archetype of the Horned God seems to be quite universal. East India has a legendary Lord of the Beasts called Pashupati or Rhudra who looks amazingly similar to the European deity. In Bhutan and Mexico, stag dancers enact a symbolic ritual sacrifice. A deer Kachina is revered by the Navajo. Found in a Viking hoard was a golden statue of a man with deer’s hooves. The Lapp people have a forest god called Radien Kiedde, pictured as a man with reindeer antlers. There is even a wooden mask of an antlered man from a Native American culture discovered in Oklahoma. If Pan, the Faunus and Dionysus are included, the horned or antlered beast-man can be said to be a worldwide phenomenon.

The word "Cernunnos" likely came from the Roman invasions of the Gaulish lands. This inscription exists on only one written source, the fresco of a man with ram’s horns found under Notre Dame in Paris. There are similar spellings of the name in other locations, including one in Greek, which may refer to the same entity. In Latin, Cernunnos simply means "horned one". In one Romano-Gaulish carving, a man with horns is standing beside the Roman gods Mercury and Zeus. Since these figures are deified, it’s quite probable that the horned man is also considered to be a god. The more recent English name Herne may derive from the Latin "Corn", or old French "Cern", meaning horned. The word "Cornucopia" means "Horn of Plenty". A ceremony called the "Kirn Supper" was held during the Harvest Home ritual, which involved harvesting grain and baking and eating bread. The Welsh version of Santa Claus is "Sion Cern". Cerne Abbas is home to the famous chalk carving of the priappic giant above the Cerne River. The original name for Cornwall is Kernow, both of which may refer to a horn. There is a Herne Hill in London and a Herne Bay in southern England. In fact, in Britain alone, there are over sixty references to Herne in place-names, most believed to be pre-Christian. Many people in the U.K. bear the surname Hearn, Herne, O’Hern, Trehern, Hernden, Hobson, Hod or Hood. These latter appellages may come from Robin Hood, hoodening, or ol’ Hod, another name for the Christian devil. Hoodening is also spelled "hodening", and the word "hod" may also refer to a horn, such as the container used to keep coal.

The horned man, man-deer, man-horse or beast-man is a figure of lore and legend as well. St. Patrick is said to have transformed himself and his companions into deer to hide from his enemies. In one King Arthur tale, Merlin rode a stag into the middle of a wedding celebration. Perhaps these stories originate from an older pre-Christian ritual or legend. The Woodwose, or wild man of the woods, was a popular figure on the coat-of-arms of Norman nobility and in churches found in the British Isles and on the continent. He is sometimes depicted as half-man, half-beast. Some speculate that the name of the horned Dorset ’Ooser mask came from "Grand Wooser", or woodwose. The beloved tales of Robin Hood include a fight with Guy of Gisborne, a man wearing a whole horse-hide as a hooded cloak. Saint Cornelly, the patron of wild animals, is sometimes shown wearing antlers, and may be a Christianization of Herne or Cernunnos. In recent times, the metaphor of a man wearing stag’s horns meant that his wife had been unfaithful, perhaps an allusion to an earlier fertility ritual. Of course, we all know the colloquial meaning of the word "horny".

In some aspects Cernunnos is the god of death and the underworld. The legends of the Wild Hunt still exist throughout Britain and Germany, in which a horned huntsman and his riders chase souls of the dead. The hunt was sometimes called the "Family of Herlechinus" or the "Hosts of Herlething", possibly references to Herne, although these names have also been attributed to the Biblical character Herodias. Sir Walter Scott wrote a poem about a huntsman named Herne who worked for King Richard II. This hunter was grievously injured. He was healed by tying a stag’s antlers to his head. After Herne’s eventual death, his ghost appeared in Windsor forest, still wearing the horns. William Shakespeare refers to this same Herne in "The Merry Wives of Windsor". As with much of the Bard’s work, the play might have a precedent in Celtic mythology. The Horned God may have taken his name from these stories, or it is possible that his identity dates back to a much older Pagan legend.

Anthropologists speculate that pre-Christian shamans wore antlers and animal hides in a ceremony to imitate hunting, thereby attracting deer to their tribal lands. Some believe that these rites were performed as a spirit journey, perhaps to commune with a totem. The original Herne may have represented this concept. Up until the 1920s, Siberian shamans practiced similar rituals, and photographs were taken of them wearing antlered hoods. One of the paintings in the Lascaux cavern in France is of an entity with a bison head and human feet, who appears to be carrying a short hunting bow. He was discovered in 1940. A similar image was etched on a bone found in 1928 in the Pinhole Cave in the Creswell Crags of Derbyshire, England. And let’s not forget the famous "Sorcerer" of Les Trois Freres. These images strongly resemble the masked figure of the stag, bull or horse in many English mummers’ plays and hoodening rituals. These folk customs, documented from the Medieval period onward, could not possibly have used the cave art for inspiration, as the prehistoric carvings and paintings were not re-discovered until much later. Hoodening rites and the cave images existed independently of each other, leading me to conclude that wearing animal skins was an authentic Pagan ritual, etched in primal human memory, which survived into the modern day. The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, the Derby Tup, the Mari Llwyd, the ’Ooser, hoodeners and the stag accompanying some Morris dances may all have derived from the ancient hunting or shamanic practice of a man wearing an animal skin for ritualistic purposes. These customs may also suggest an image seen while in a trance state, or it might represent transformation into an animal. Perhaps hoodening rites were originally intended to mimic a human "becoming" a totem.

The "stag-pole" or "ermula" of Saxon Europe may be a ritual tool which was used for a parallel ceremony. A stag-pole is the skull of a male deer, or a set of antlers, which are affixed to a long wooden staff. It may represent male fertility, a boundary marker, a warning to potential invaders, or an insult to enemies. It could have been used as a grave marker for an important individual such as a shaman. The modern Cornish pellars’ staff or "gwelen" is used as a magical implement. There are still several Stagpole Inns and Stackpole Streets in Britain today. In the late 1800s, a few taverns in the Highgate region of London required customers to swear an oath of fealty on a set of antlers. This custom, called "swearing on the horns", was perhaps the remnant of an older fraternal rite practiced by huntsmen.

So, was Herne / Cernunnos the original "God of the Witches"? We have no way of knowing for certain. The Horned Lord appears often enough in folklore, artwork, legend, ritual dances, place names, surnames and artifacts to believe that he was and is revered by many civilizations. He often appears as a mystical figure related to hunting and death. He was also a character of buffoonery, sexuality and fun, as portrayed by the Greek god Pan, the Basque Basa-jaun and the Roman faun or satyr. Some Wiccans and feminist neo-Pagans believe that the Horned God is the "consort" of the Goddess, but Herne has seldom been connected with any feminine figure. While the Gundestrup Cauldron displays female images, the horned male entity sits alone.

As an amateur historian, I personally believe that hoodening rites and the ritual use of animal skins, skulls, horns or antlers are the "missing link" which connects pre-Christian ceremonies to the modern Pagan worship of the Horned God. Perhaps seekers might try making an excursion to the woodlands to invoke Cernunnos for themselves!

The Great Mother, the Triple Goddess:

Some Wiccans and neo-Pagans may believe that one single Mother Goddess was universally revered throughout history. They might insist that an Earth-based, matrifocal, pacifistic society survived in western Europe up to the Neolithic era, before it was destroyed by a male-dominated warrior culture. Some believe that veneration of a Great Mother continued after the invasion, although in a less powerful form, until goddess worship was deliberately repressed by the Catholic Church. This was considered an intentional way to subjugate women’s power and defeat matriarchal rule. Only a few defiant witches maintained secret underground covens to preserve the feminine spiritual tradition. These priestesses handed down their lore, ritual and magic to their initiates until Gardner and his protégés revealed the Wiccan religion to the general public in the twentieth century.

Some scholars claim that no female deity was actively worshipped in Europe after the middle ages, when Christianity had replaced all other religions. These individuals may insist that the Great Earth Mother of Wicca and neo-Paganism was wholly created by Murray, Graves, Gardner or modern feminist thealogy. Authors have theorized that the only remnant of maternal veneration to continue until modern times is the Roman Catholic ideal of the Virgin Mary, or perhaps the reverence held for various female saints. Others believe that the Triple Goddess with maiden, mother and crone aspects was invented in the twentieth century and was never actually a figure of Celtic worship.

As before, the truth is contained somewhere in between these viewpoints. It is an indisputable fact that maternal and earth-based goddesses have been venerated since at least the Bronze Age in Europe. In the course of my research, I found plenty of references to European goddesses in legend, folklore, artifacts, place names, art, music and popular culture. These include Celtic deities who were revered in the British Isles, Ireland and on the continent. Several of them were triform, or taking on a threefold aspect. In some cases, the classical Greek or Roman goddesses had supplanted the native deity. Most Celtic goddesses weren’t portrayed in artwork until Roman times. Few artifacts relating to Celtic female deities were dated after the Roman withdrawal, as Anglo-Saxon goddesses replaced them. However the legends of the Celtic goddesses survived up to the 12^th century, when many of them were written down.

Some scholars believe that goddess worship was transferred to reverence of the Mother of Jesus, and that many formerly Pagan rituals were thusly sanctioned by the Catholic Church. There are hundreds of books and websites devoted to the possible pre-Christian origins of the Virgin Mary. Often the history of a Catholic saint or legendary heroine could be traced to a local deity, including St. Bridget or Maeva of Ireland. It’s possible that the era of chivalry has its roots in the veneration of Our Lady, who was formerly the maiden or mother aspect of the divine female. The romantic tales of Gwenevere and Morgan le Faye in the Arthurian cycles may have originated in Pagan religious legend, although the Medieval versions were adapted to Christianity.

During the Renaissance, goddess figures often took the form of metaphor, such as Ceres as the spirit of agriculture representing harvest bounty. Some goddesses survived only in the guise of a frightening myth, such as the Mailte y Nos (old woman of the night) of Wales or the Cailleach Bheur of Ireland and Scotland, who may be the precursor of the modern stereotype of an ugly, scary old witch. Perhaps the public adoration of such historic women as Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria can be attributed to a need for devotion to a powerful maternal figure. After the Reformation, goddesses become mostly symbolic, such as Mother Nature or Lady Liberty. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, with the rise of the women’s suffrage movement, a fascination with goddesses resurfaced. However, a reverence for a female deity was not really connected to witchcraft until recent times. So, did a pure form of historic goddess worship actually exist in the British Islands until the present day? Or did Gerald Gardner and the authors who promoted feminist spirituality actually re-invent the feminine divine?

A prehistoric "great mother" theme is well represented in artifacts found throughout Europe, from the Paleolithic era right up to the Bronze Age. These include the famous "Venus" or "goddess" figures, such as the Venus of Willendorf, Austria or the Lespugue Goddess discovered in Garonne, France. Similar statuettes have been discovered in Wales. Some of these figurines of well-endowed ladies were created over 20,000 years ago. Other prehistoric artwork features feminine images, including cave paintings, carved standing stones, and petroglyphs, all similar enough to conclude that they have a common basis. Dr. Marija Gimbutas was one of the first modern scholars to make the connection between these female figures and religious veneration. Gimbutas theorized that the prehistoric statues, carvings or drawings of full-figured women, sometimes called "matrikas", were actually religious icons, because several of these images were found in sacred places such as tombs. Other figurines were discovered with similar objects of religious significance. The Willendorf statuette was painted with red ochre, a substance used in pre-Christian funeral rituals, possibly to represent blood. It may also signify menstruation or childbirth. The Venus of Laussel in France, carved into the wall of what is thought to be a hunting shrine, was originally painted red and holding a bison horn. Gimbutas speculated that these artifacts showed a relationship between reverence of women and a Goddess-centered matriarchal civilization.

Dr. Gimbutas theorized that a matrifocal society had been established on the European continent in prehistoric times. She believed that up to the Neolithic (new stone age) era there was very little warlike activity or murder, basing her assumption on the discovery of many female images in statuary and cave drawings, and the presence of few weapons or murder victims. Gimbutas claimed that an aggressive Indo-European culture, which she called "Kurgan", had usurped the peaceful matriarchal societies of Europe about two thousand years B.C.E. She based this idea on the progression of Indo-European languages throughout history. Gimbutas made a comparison of artifacts from cultures that she believed came from pre-invasion times, contrasting them to archeological findings from the era after the languages changed. The result was her "Kurgan Hypothesis".

An earlier theory of a peaceful matriarchy was proposed by Cambridge scholar Jane Ellen Harrison at the turn of the twentieth century. Harrison wrote that a single Mother Goddess with three aspects had been worshiped by a prehistoric matrifocal civilization in Europe, although she believed that the dominating patriarchal culture had originally come from the north, possibly Russia. These ideas were later used by feminist Wiccans and neo-Pagans as a basis for some modern Goddess traditions, including the all-female Dianic Wiccan path.

Harrison, Gimbutas and their adherents may have believed that a matrifocal society would have naturally resulted in a peaceful, nurturing environment. However, more recently documented prehistoric artifacts tell a different story. There are weapons used in warfare which date from the Mesolithic age onward, found throughout Europe. Prehistoric settlements have evidence of fortification. Archaeologists have discovered ancient tombs with bodies that were clearly murder victims or combat casualties, and there is physical evidence to support the theory that our predecessors used capital punishment. Several of the "bog bodies" found in Ireland were strangled, decapitated or dismembered. Hero tales describe warlike activity from time immemorial. The only possible "peaceful matriarchy" that may have existed was on the island of Malta, and I’m going to argue that this wasn’t likely a true self-supporting "society", but a training center for a priest/ess-hood similar to the Druid college which was thought to be located on Ynys Mon / Anglesey in Wales.

There is no real proof of any solely matriarchal society in Europe, either. There were egalitarian societies, in which women had political and economic power, but no civilizations ruled exclusively by women. In artwork from the Neolithic era to the Bronze Age, images of both genders are nearly equal in number. Artifacts with religious significance relate to both male and female entities. There are male and female deities associated with the hunt, including Diana, Artemis, Ullr and Cernunnos. There are numerous goddesses of war, including the Morrigan or Maeva of Ireland, the Roman Minerva and Athena of Greece, all of whom were revered by both women and men. Kali, the East Indian goddess of death, required blood sacrifices and was often depicted surrounded by victims. Many of the older legends contain males and females in roles of equality. Both women and men owned property and worked at trades in Celtic society. There were Celtic and Germanic women warriors, as well as religious leaders, in oral literature and documented by the Caesars, Pliny the Elder and Geoffrey of Monmouth. The legendary Germanic Valkyries are associated with combat. This evidence rather spoils the notion of any peaceful matriarchy, as well as the idea of a male-dominated Indo-European or "Kurgan" society.

Like most academics, Dr. Gimbutas made mistakes, and some of her findings were later discredited. However, many of her theories really do hold water. Gimbutas discovered dozens of artifacts, catalogued them, and made significant contributions to the study of prehistoric civilizations. She showed that ancient people honored and revered women, fertility and parenthood, as evidenced by the "goddess" figurines and the artwork featuring pregnant women. She traced many of the myths, customs and legends of European culture to a few common sources, and was recognized as an authority on the evolution of language. Her work is still used in university anthropology and linguistic departments today. Following Dr. Gimbutas, many modern scholars believe that the worship of female deities can be verified through studying pre-historic artifacts, cultural practices and myths, and by observing intact Pagan civilizations.

Many archeologists now dispute the idea that there was one single Mother Goddess who was universally revered throughout history. Although Stone Age artifacts depict a well-endowed female figure which may represent a maternal deity, most of the subsequent Bronze Age artwork and legends relate to a pantheon or family of gods. There seems to be many goddesses, but not one Great Goddess that everyone worshiped. Perhaps the "one goddess" did not survive past the Neolithic era. She may have given birth to her subsequent sisters and daughters around the time agriculture was invented. The goddesses of these sacred families are roughly equivalent in most civilizations – some are mothers, but many are maidens, warriors, scholars or workers. Often they are attributed to the sea, herdsmanship, textiles, farming or smithcraft. Some historians believe that polytheistic worship began with the specialization of tasks performed within a society. Others believe that animism played a big part, and that the spirit of the wind or soul of a tree later evolved into sacred figures with human characteristics. It’s interesting to note that almost every culture with a pantheon of gods revere a pair of deities representing parental figures, a mother and father of the other gods and sometimes of humanity.

Folklore and cultural practices relating to these pantheons of deities or families of spirit beings existed in Britain, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, and on the European continent, right up to the modern area. It’s possible that such writers as Bachofen, Harrison, Frazer, Graves and Murray were aware of nineteenth- and twentieth-century rituals with a basis in ancient goddess worship. Dr. Gimbutas certainly knew about them, because she documented numerous modern Pagan religious rites from eastern Europe, including her own homeland of Lithuania. Goddess worship continued in several northern cultures right up to the 1940s, when they were persecuted by the Nazis or Stalin’s communist regime. As an amateur folklorist, Gerald Gardner was likely familiar with surviving earth-based traditions, and may have obtained some of his information about goddess worship from looking at artifacts, observing pre-Christian rituals, and speaking with hereditary British Pagans.

Several Gardnerian Wiccan ceremonies relating to women may have their roots in older Pagan customs. While not specifically oriented to the goddess, these rituals might be traced to working-class women’s mysteries. In Gardner’s second-degree initiation ceremony, a new female witch swears an oath on her mother’s womb. This type of vow has a precedent in religious legends and folktales, so it may be based on an older practice. A woman or priestess serving as an altar is found in the third degree Gardnerian initiation. Using a naked woman for an altar was an accusation made during the witch trials, supposedly as a link to pacts with Satan. In Medieval times it was considered blasphemous, but it may have been a holy rite salvaged from an earlier period. Louis the XIV of France kept a mistress, Madame de Mountespan, who employed a practicing witch named Catherine la Voisin. De Mountespan and la Voisin created both love spells and poisons using de Mountespan’s nude body as an altar. When imprisoned, la Voisin told her captors that only another "goddess like me" could understand her motive.

Gardner referred to the cauldron of Cerridwen in several holiday celebrations, including his Midwinter ritual. Perhaps he got this idea from the Welsh Mabinogion, or from a custom such as wassailing, blessing an object or person with apple cider, or "saining", purifying a child with water. He may have been simply referring to a symbolic womb. The dramatization of the Charge, as performed in the second degree initiation, may have come from watching British folk plays. The Descent of the Goddess may have been inspired by fairy-tales in which a heroine went "under the hill" to dance or mate with the Sidhe, the Gentry or the King of the Fey. Many of the spells and healing rites in Gardner’s Book of Shadows are authentic, including the use of unguents, herbal remedies, hypnosis and positive suggestion. These practices likely derived from "granny magic", as women’s medicine was called in those days. While none of this is conclusive evidence of antiquity, it must be noted that the Book of Shadows was not originally intended for public consumption. Gardner would have had no need to promote these rituals as ancient, as he did with his published writings.

There may be a reason that the goddess-related liturgy and ceremonies are somewhat incomplete in Gardner’s original works. Like his contemporaries, Gardner belonged to several lodges, fraternities and magical societies. Most of them were male-dominated, such as the Masonic order. Gardner gained access to their secrets by becoming a member, then very probably borrowed some of their rites and applied them to Wicca. This may be why so many of the original Gardnerian rituals are rather male-oriented, and why the goddess sometimes seems like a minor character. This might be true of Gardner’s folklore studies, as well. His research on the feminine divine may have been limited by cultural constraints. Because he was male, Gardner may not have had much access to women’s ceremonies or traditions. Rituals associated with midwifery, herbalism, and "moon lore" were commonly passed from woman to woman within families or small groups. Even if Gardner’s female contemporaries knew about Pagan women’s mysteries, they may not have shared them with their male coveners.

As I did with the Horned God, I searched for legends, artwork and customs which may have shaped the modern belief in the Great Mother. I also looked for Pagan traditions related to goddesses which were still practiced in Britain up to the last century. This proved a bit of a challenge. Because women were mostly centered in the home, their rituals were not as public as the men’s ceremonies. Legitimate healing practices and household lore were dismissed as "old wives’ tales" by the educated classes. Because the monotheistic religions were male-dominated, the rites of women received scant attention by those who wrote history. Goddess legends might have been ignored by the monks who chronicled pre-Christian sagas. While Catholicism may have incorporated some of the female Pagan deities as saints, the Protestant religion in England did not recognize them and also marginalized the Virgin Mary. Some goddess lore and customs may have been lost during this era. Yet I still found plenty of information!

The Moon Goddess: The idea of a goddess linked to the moon phases is undoubtedly much older than Gardner’s Wicca, or even Graves’s white goddess. Many cultures revere moon deities, including Selene, Artemis, and Nakomis. Arianrhod, a Celtic goddess whose name in Welsh means "Silver Wheel", may be symbolic of the moon as a silvery disc in the sky. Diana, a Roman goddess who was brought to the British Islands by soldiers, is often symbolized by the moon. Her Latin name was "Diana Triformus", meaning a single entity with three forms, probably relating to the waxing, full and waning moon phases. The sickle-shaped new moon is sometimes called "Diana’s bow". (More about Diana later.)

Hecate, a Greco-Thracean goddess, was brought to Europe by Romans who created artwork depicting her as a triform image. Several Hecate statues have been discovered with three distinct images, or one central figure with two profiles facing outward on either side. One of these is framed by a symbolic moon. Hecate was adopted by witches in Medieval Europe, perhaps because of her association with sorcery and the dark moon phase. This viewpoint may have been prompted by Shakespeare using her as goddess of magic in MacBeth. Hecate is referred to as a "witches’ goddess" or "queen of the witches" several times in English literature. Although she is mostly linked to the darker aspects of witchcraft, Hecate is sometimes shown holding midwifery implements and babies, intimating that she was viewed as a mother figure, as well.

It is well documented that the moon affects women’s menstrual cycles. During the witch trials, women were accused of using menstrual blood as an ingredient in their potions. This actually has a precedent in older rites such as standing in a field while menstruating to fertilize the crops, using moon blood daubed on talismans or poppets, and the presence of menstrual blood in witches’ bottles. Moon blood was supposedly used to "baptize" new witches or as an anointing substance when a witch was accepted into a coven. A few written love spells from the eighteenth century used moon blood to "mark" a potential mate. This lore may have a basis in the ancient use of red ochre, a pigment made from powdered iron ore, to anoint bodies during funeral rituals. Ochre was also used to decorate the prehistoric goddess figurines, perhaps symbolizing birth or menstrual blood. There is ochre anointing the hunting shrine goddess at Lascaux, who holds an instrument shaped like a horn with thirteen notches. This might represent the thirteen full moons in one year on an instrument shaped like the crescent moon. As women have reclaimed goddess culture, the menstrual cycle has become less of a taboo and viewed as a time of strength and magical power.

It is also a scientific fact that the moon controls the tides, which would be important to a seafaring people. Spells and rituals relating to safe voyages, and lore about the moon’s effect on ocean travel, were documented from several Scots and Manx coastal villages from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The Morien, a sea entity rather like a mermaid, was said to cavort under the full moon in Welsh legend. The moon has also been proven to affect the growth of plants, which may be why almanacs advocate sowing seeds on the waxing moon, and harvesting crops during the waning moon. Sap rises during the period from new moon to full, and pruning to discourage growth can be done during the dark of the moon. Such lore likely had sacred connotations in ancient times, and may have contributed to the lore about moon blood and fertility deities.

The full moon in British folklore is called the pregnant moon, while the new moon is sometimes named the daughter moon. A full moon seen in the water of the well supposedly had the power of bewitchment or was used for divination. Of course, Medieval witches were believed to perform their rites during the full moon, with ecstatic dancing, feasting and copulation. Fairies dancing in a ring under the moon, and the picture of Mother Goose as a witch flying on a broomstick across a full moon, may be cultural remnants from an earlier civilization which honored a moon goddess. Mother Goose is believed to have arisen from the legends of the Germanic Frau Holt, Old Dame Hulda, Hilde, Hilda, Holla, Brunhilde or Mathilde, who was originally a mother goddess called Holda, Holle or Heartha. Mathilde is still a figure of dark legends about the wild hunt, said to occur on the full moon. She is sometimes called Mathilde of the Night, and may have gotten her name from the Mailte y Nos of Wales – or vice-versa. The name Holt means "forest home" in the Saxon language. The Brunhilde of sagas may have given rise to the comic image of witchy Broom Hilda. This goddess icon of Holda, transformed by literature into Mother Goose on her broom, may be one more precursor of the Halloween witch, silhouetted against the full moon astride her flying broomstick.

More Triple Goddesses: A threefold goddess seems to have quite a precedent in Europe, not just as a copy of the Holy Trinity of Christianity. Her worship had been around for years prior to the Christian incursions. St. Augustine denounced the concept of a triple goddess as blasphemous. Many legends, artwork, and lore relate to a triform or threefold female deity, much of it surviving into modern times. For instance, the Lithuanian sun goddess Saule has two daughters, the morning star Ausrene and the earth Zerne. All three are associated with a stag bearing nine horns or tines, similar to the entity found in Celtic myth.

A classic example of the triform goddess is the representation of Brighid, who appears as a young woman, mother and elderly lady. This goddess of Celtic legend was believed to have two sisters, both also named Brighid. She / they have triple characteristics representing fire, poetry and smithcraft. In her youthful aspect, Brighid is associated with healing and fertility. As a mother, she is the matron of agriculture, particularly cattle and dairycraft. One Romano-Celtic fresco depicts her milking a cow. As an older woman, Brighid represents warriors and battle, often shown holding a sword, spear or rod similar to the Gardnerian magical staff. There are legends of Brighid as a mother mourning the death of her son, as a young woman ashamed of being too beautiful, and as an elderly nun, serving her congregation as a teacher and healer. She is said to be a wife of several different husbands, perhaps all at once. Brighid or St. Bridget was extolled as a daughter of a druid, the midwife of Jesus, an abbess of a convent, and a Pagan woman who out-witted the Christians by asking for as much land as her mantle would cover, then magically enchanting the cloak to spread for miles. The holy well dedicated to St. Bridget at Kildare has two breast-like fonts gushing water, likely symbolizing Brighid’s earlier image as a nurturing mother goddess. On Imbolc, many Irish women still create "Bridey" dolls from straw collected during the harvest. These dolls are kept for three years and called the Maiden, Mother and Grandmother. Brighid was undoubtedly a model for the Wiccan image of maiden, mother and crone.

A deity believed to be related to Brighid is Brigantia or Brittannia, the goddess symbolizing the land of Great Britain. She was thought to have been worshipped by Boudicca of the Iceni tribe, but she may have been an invention of the Romans – or another Romanized Celtic goddess. There was a tribe called the Brigantes which occupied most of what’s now Northern England prior to the Roman invasions, who may have taken their name from the deity. One Romano-British statue of Brighid or Brigantia has three female images stationed around a central pillar, with a bowl for offerings on the top. All three figures wear crowns resembling flowers. One goddess bears a sword, and one holds tongs, perhaps to signify war and the craftsmanship of the forge. Brittania was depicted on 2^nd century C.E. English coins with a sheaf of grain representing abundance, as well as bearing a sword. Some scholars believe that she isn’t much older, and that she was invented at this time to represent the land. Her image could also be seen on the twentieth century fifty-pence piece. On other artwork, Brittania is shown holding a sword, scroll or book. In later times, she may gradually have become the icon of liberty and justice on a courthouse wall or in New York harbor.

Worship of Brighid has continued into the present day in the form of veneration of St. Bridget of Ireland, St. Fraid of Wales, and as a goddess of the sacred springs throughout Europe. Hundreds of wells dedicated to Brighid or St. Bridget survive into modern times, adorned by clooties and votive offerings. Proper names of women in many European lands include Brigitta, Brea, Brittany, and Bergitte – pronounced "bear-zheet", as well as many different spellings of Bridget, which means lofty, exalted, high one or shining one. Nicknames include Biddy, Birdie and Bridey, and the word "bride" may have come from Brighid, originally pronounced "breed" or "bree-id". (More on Brighid and sacred wells appears below; also please refer back to the subject of Imbolc.)

Other Celtic goddesses have triple aspects, but they seldom appear all together in the same legend. The Morrighan of Ireland has three images associated with war, sometimes called the Badb and Macha. The three goddesses of Ireland are sometimes called Eriu, Banba and Fiodla, whose names are associated with the land. The latter may vary, with different names given in different legends. They are further attributed to cattle and sovereignty. Some Celtic female deities are described as a maiden in one story and a mother in another, such as the Welsh Rhiannon. Others appear as a mother and elder, such as Cerridwen. The older Arthurian legends tell of three Gwenenveres, possibly sisters, all of whom were married to the king. The three Norns, Wyrds or Fates of the Anglo-Saxons, brought to the British Islands during the invasions, may be where Shakespeare got his idea for the three Weird Sisters in MacBeth. While the latter are not considered actual goddesses, they may have been deified in the distant past.

The Romans also brought their own threefold goddesses to Britain, or co-opted deities who were already there. The three Matres or Matronae were revered in Europe from at least the first century C.E until the fifth century. The Matronae are believed to have originated in Celtic cultures, although they weren’t depicted in artwork until Roman times. Several statues of these goddesses have been discovered or preserved on the European continent. Some of them have one bare breast, as do the Roman images of Diana. The Matronae occasionally appear as a maiden, mother and older woman, as well as a trio of matrons. In Britain, more recent art depicts them with cornucopias, sheaves of grain, or baskets of fruit or fish. Others are shown holding small children. A triple goddess fresco commonly called "The Three Matrons" can be found near a natural spring in Cirencester, Glouchestershire, England, which was once the second largest town in Romanized Britain. The three matrons are seated, holding baskets of grain and a baby. In Lincolnshire, a Romano-British triple goddess statue called "the Three Mothers" survives on what is now St. Martin’s church wall at Ancaster, which translates as "Anna’s encampment". This site was originally a Pagan shrine. Each seated goddess figure is holding bread, a basket of apples, and piglet or lamb. Unfortunately the statue has been damaged, and the middle head is missing. Another triple deity image called the "Matres Domesticae" can be seen in Chicester.

Similar threefold goddess icons have been found in London and in the north of England near Hadrian’s Wall bordering Scotland. Other triple deity statues may be attributed to Coventina, another Romanized goddess believed to have British origins. An excellent carved relief survives at Coventina’s Well, which was originally located in a temple in Northumberland. Three female figures hold vessels in one hand and pour water with the other, rather like the "Star" tarot card in triplicate. Dedications in Latin are etched into the stone wall nearby. (More on Coventina below, under "sacred wells".) The Matronae and triple Coventina statues are sometimes referred to as the "Witches Three".

The original name for the Matronae is not known for certain; the Latinized "matronae" means "important mothers" or "venerated ladies". A similar mother goddess exists in legend and place-names as well. The River Marne in France was named after the Gaulish deity Dea Matrona, a single earth-mother figure who was revered throughout the southernmost Celtic lands. She is called "y Mamau" in Welsh, which simply means "the mother". "Benedyth y mamau" is translated as "the mother’s blessing", which is also a generic term for the fairies of Wales. Madrone of the Welsh legends may be a precursor of the Matronae. Up until the eighth century, the day before Christmas was called "Madron nect" in the Germanic languages, which means "Mother night". While this holiday was later attributed to the Virgin Mary, it very likely arose from worship of a mother goddess. The single earth-mother entity or trio of dieties are likely the source of the English word "matron". All of these images or legends may have inspired the belief in the triple goddess or mother goddess as Robert Graves, Dion Fortune and Gerald Gardner wrote about in their books.

As previously mentioned, the Romans also brought their threefold goddesses Diana Triformus and Hecate Triformus to Britain, where they were accepted by the common people as representations of witchcraft and magic. Originally from Thrace, the worship of Hecate spread to Greece, where artwork depicted her as a single entity, a trio of voluptuous ladies, or as one woman with three faces. Gazing in different directions, she was a goddess of three-way crossroads. Some legends tell of Persephone as the daughter, Demeter as the mother, and Hecate as the wise elder goddess. Hecate herself was depicted in triplicate up until the year 400 C.E. in Greece, Rome and on the European continent. She sometimes had three animal heads including a horse, dog and serpent. One Greek marble relief now housed in the British Museum shows Hecate standing with a dog, placing a wreath on a horse’s head, perhaps associating her with the hunt. Although she is not depicted as an old woman or crone in artwork, legend sometimes portrays her as an elder figure. In Britain, she was usually related to the night, the waning moon, sorcery and mystery. Literature tells us of Medea, the priestess of Hecate and keeper of her accumulated wisdom. And popular tales hold that Hecate is the goddess of witches, the queen of ghosts, and the matron of all darksome magic. Reverence for Hecate survived into the modern age, in the form of written spells, invocations and rites of protection found in individual grimoires.

Although these goddesses are frequently depicted as a triform entity or triple deities, this is not always true. Some Romano-Britons referred to their goddesses as symbolizing the four seasons. Many Roman, Celtic or Germanic goddesses were the members of large extended families. And some forms of the Goddess may have existed alone, as a Great Mother figure, just as modern neo-Pagans suggest.

Goddesses in Literature and Legend: It is difficult to separate the history of Goddess worship in Britain from the belief in fairies and association with the "Queen of Elfhame" sometimes referred to in the witch trials. Volumes have been written about the Fairy Faith, fairy doctors, folktales labeled "fairy stories", fairy lore, and geographic locations with a relationship to the fair folk. Sacred wellsprings dedicated to a fairy, sprite, water nymph or other supernatural being are common throughout the British Isles. There are many land sites such as hills and lakes related to fairies, shee or shea, especially in Ireland. Anyone with the surname O’Shea, McFee, MacVay or Sheehan is said to be descended from the shee (sidhe), fey or fair people. Fairies were sometimes called "The Lady’s Own" by the Scots. The Picts, an original ethnic group of Scotland, were believed to trace their lineage through their female relatives. The word "pixies" probably came from the Pictish people. As mentioned previously, fairies in Wales are sometimes called "benedyth y mamau", or the mother’s blessing. Offerings are set out for fairies in Ireland and Wales to the present day. Some historians believe that this belief in fairies was the basis for witches accused of consorting with "demon" familiars during the witch trial era. Dr. Eva Pocs, a Hungarian scholar, wrote extensively about the fairy faith and its relationship to the accusations of witchcraft. Many writers have linked goddess worship to the ancient belief in fairies or elves, which survived throughout Europe up to modern times.

Although some scholars disagree, there is a great deal of literary evidence for a working class belief in goddesses long past the rise of Christianity. Common folktales, legends and oral literature referencing goddesses were inscribed by monks from the 7^th century until the late Middle Ages. Some of these tales may have been altered by the authors’ own patriarchal beliefs, giving women and goddesses less social standing than they originally held. For instance, it is commonly believed that the Lady of the Lake from the Arthurian legends was originally a goddess figure associated with water, such as Coventina. Some of the more brutal stories may represent the takeover of Celtic culture by the Romans, Saxons or other invaders, or perhaps even the Celtic suppression of earlier civilizations. Quite a few of these narratives indicate rape, forced marriage, and ill treatment of women, including the tales of Deirdre, Macha, Rhiannon, Isolde, Muirna and Branwen. Tales where the heroine is rescued by a nobleman, such as Arthur recovering Gweneviere from a kidnapper, might represent that particular aspect of history, or may show a hope of rescuing the land from the conquerors. Other stories show capable women who were vilified for their strength, such as Maeva of Connaught. Many literature professors agree that these tales may reflect an earlier belief in a goddess, or at least a revered female with leadership capabilities, who was reduced by time and misogynistic writers to a shrew, harridan or slut. Folklore was called "old wives’ tales" in a demeaning manner by patriarchal scholars, and "granny stories" were those which had no credibility. Perhaps these terms were used to denigrate women’s wisdom. In their original form, such literature and folk belief was probably held in high esteem by the working class, especially women.

Some folklorists believe that the older songs and nursery rhymes may also show a hidden reference to goddesses. For example, the fine lady upon a fine horse of Banberry Cross may represent the goddess Rhiannon or Epona, and Mary quite contrary with her garden of silver bells and cockle shells may be symbolic of a goddess, with the pretty maids all in a row as her priestesses. The old women who lived under the hill or in a shoe may actually be a witch or fairy who dwelled in the "fairy mounds" or prehistoric underground homes and passage tombs. Robert Graves wrote extensively about his theory that Maid Marion and Robin Hood represented a forest goddess and god. These stories were originally told in ballad or poetic form. Medieval metaphysical song-poems such as "Vertue" by George Herbert, with its line about "a bridall of the earth and skie" may refer to the sacred marriage of god and goddess. "I Sing of a Maiden" ostensibly refers to the Virgin Mary, but the tune may have its origins in goddess worship. And the three maidens fair may be another representation of the threefold goddess.

Some goddesses of the Roman period have come down to us in the form of iconic images, as was previously discussed, with Brittania transformed into Lady Liberty or into a representation of the land. Another example is Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture, who was called Ceres by the Romans, and brought to Great Britain by settlers and soldiers. Shrines to Ceres dotted the countryside during the Roman era, with votive offerings of grain and fruit. Ceres is most often remembered today for the food named after her – cereal. Venus, Minerva and Diana were the inspiration for many classical statues. Justina, the goddess of justice, can still be found on numerous public buildings. And of course the nine muses inspired many a poet.

The penitential writings of the Middle Ages mention a belief in goddesses including Hecate, Diana and Frau Holda. These books were written by lower-level clergy as a list of thoughts or actions considered to be sinful by the Catholic Church, and suggested measures for redemption. They also noted a belief in fairies and other supernatural entities, including the Three Sisters or Fates. Goddesses graced the pages of fiction books, poems, and stage plays, sometimes altered from their original form. Mab the Queen of the Fairies is mentioned by Renaissance authors Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare. These writers likely drew upon the folk legends of working-class people. (More on Mab can be found in a subsequent listing.) Shakespeare’s Titania may have been based on the "Queen of Elphame", and his characters such as Lady MacBeth might reflect older Celtic figures, including Macha or Maeva. Right up to the modern era, poets including Yeats, Browning and Shelley wrote paens to goddess figures. These writers may not have actually worshipped a goddess; however, it is likely that they referenced the legends and folklore of people who did.

In the mid-1800s, an interest in folklore experienced a revival, and authors such as the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen reproduced the tales of their native lands. Many of them included good queens, wicked witches and fairy godmothers, who either granted magical boons or cast spells to harm the protagonists. While intended to entertain children, the "Mother Goose" tales often had a basis in pre-Christian legend. One has only to read a book of Irish or Welsh fairy tales to find a recent belief in goddesses, witches, and "supernatural" beings including fairies, elves, and water nymphs. Some of these stories closely resemble the legends transcribed by monks, although there are slight differences, suggesting that changes were brought about by an oral recollection passed down through the generations. Others have nothing in common with the Medieval scripts, which leads me to conclude that these stories were still in circulation, yet not written down until recently.

Earth Goddess: As Gerald Gardner wrote, many British and Irish goddesses were worshiped by individual tribes, and were unique to a particular location. Others were more widely accepted, including the Teutonic Heartha or Holda; the Celtic Danu, Anu or Don; and the Basque Mari, who actually predated the Virgin Mary. Several of these personifications arose on the continent and came to Britain with settlers. Some may be aspects of the same deity, including Brighid, Brigantia and Brittania. There are place names, proper names, and sacred sites identified with Celtic, Roman and Germanic goddesses throughout the British Islands. Goddesses have given their names to European land features including mountains, hills, lakes, rivers, standing stone monuments, and even caves.

For instance, the old name for Scotland was "Caledonia", from a Pictish tribe called the Caledonii, who possibly took their name from the goddess Don, Danu, Donu, Dana, Dannuia, Donia, Danann or Danand. The mountain range called Snowdonia in Wales may have a similar origin. "Donia" in Latinized Welsh means either "the endowed one" or "dark-skinned", which may be a metaphor for the earth. The Irish goddess Danu possibly derived from an Indo-European source, similar to the Danu mentioned in the East Indian Vedas, who is associated with water. The Danube of eastern Europe, the Don River of the Ukraine, and the Donau river in Austria are likely named for the goddess Don or Danu. The Dane Hills of England may have taken their name from this deity, or from Danish invaders. The Tuatha de Danann, people of the goddess Danu, are mentioned frequently in old Irish literature as fairies, supernatural beings, gods or a race of people who proceeded the Celts. A mountain range in County Kerry, Ireland is familiarly called the "Paps of Anu", because they are shaped like breasts. In Gaelic this land feature is termed Dhá Chíoche Dhanann, or Danu’s Breasts. A more obscure Irish and Cornish sea goddess is called Domnu, Christianized as St. Domnu, for whom a sacred well is named. European women’s names including Donna, Dana, Danuta, Donia, Danica, Danae, Anne, Anna, Aine, Anja and Ana might have derived from these sources. Men’s names including Donald, Donal, Dane, Dana, Duane or Dwaine and the surnames Donner, O’Donnal and Donelly may also reflect an older reverence for the earth goddess of Europe.

The old Brythonic word "guern" is possibly the origin of the word queen and the place-name Guernsey. This term also lends itself to a dialect unique to that channel island, called Dgèrnésiais or Guernésiais, which arose from a combination of Breton and Norman French (or possibly the original Gaulish language). There are two prehistoric goddess statues called "the Gran’meres", which means grandmothers, and numerous female-shaped dolmens on Guernsey, showing that a woman-based culture was once revered there. As late as the 1930s, these monoliths were garlanded with flowers on Mayday. Although some sources have translated the word guern as "swamp" or "alder", which is a tree often found growing in wetlands, it is very likely that "guern" also denoted a female ruler or priestess. Its Indo-European root means "leader". In the Arthurian legends, "Yguerna" is the original name for Igrainne. This possibly came from "y guern", the queen, or the name of another goddess, the Irish Grainne or Grania, associated with the sun. The word "grain" may have come from either source.

Some modern place-names are associated with aspects of the goddess, as well. There is a Maiden Lane in London, as well as Maiden Stones in a dolmen monument. A small town in Cornwall near Penzance is called Madron, a word which likely has the same root as Madrone or Matrona. The name is also given to a nearby sacred wellspring. There are hundreds of Bride’s wells in Ireland, Scotland and Britain, probably named for Brighid, and countless Lady wells, including the Brideswell and Ladyswell of London. These wells named for Our Lady may make reference to the Virgin Mary, although quite a few are believed to be older than the Christian incursions. There are several Anne’s wells or granny wells found throughout the British Isles. These may have been named for St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, and thus the grandmother of Jesus. However, Ancester or Anna’s encampment was a Roman fortification likely named before the Christian incursions. (More about sacred wells appears below.)

The Goddess in Art: As was previously mentioned, numerous examples of artwork showing a symbolic image of women were created during the Megalithic and Neolithic periods (middle and new stone ages). Dr. Marija Gimbutas was the first archeologist to theorize that the small figurines of well-endowed ladies, now called "matrikas", may have been objects of reverence. Although no one can say for certain that these female statuettes are representative of a goddess, signs point to their use as an image of worship. Several of the figurines were daubed with red ochre, a pigment made from iron ore which was often used to adorn bodies in elaborate burials. Other matrikas were found in places considered to be sacred, such as a hunting shrine or tomb. Many of the female images were interred with personal items such as a dead hunter’s bows and arrows or jewelry.

Although one recent historian has claimed that no matrikas have ever been found in the British Isles, this is not true. Three spindle-shaped "goddess" figures with clearly delineated hips and breasts were carved from deer and horse bones, probably around 26,000 B.C.E. These statuettes were discovered in the grave goods of a skeleton painted with red ochre in Goat’s Hole Cave, near Paviland on the Gower Peninsula of southern Wales. The body was mistakenly called the "Red Lady of Paviland" although it was actually a young male. He was decorated with seashell and bone necklaces, hunting tools, and other items giving evidence of reverential burial. The Paviland hunter is the oldest human remains found in Britain, and is probably the oldest ceremonial burial in western Europe. A "Venus" figure was found in Grimes Graves in Norfolk, England, possibly dating from the Neolithic (new stone age) period. This image, made of chalk, was discovered in a flint mine used by prehistoric hunters to make arrowheads and tools. The matrika was found on a stone altar with a phallic-shaped wand, also made of chalk. Although efforts to determine the statue’s date are inconclusive, some archeologists think the statue and wand are fakes. In Nab Head, Pembrokeshire, Wales, a figurine made of clay representing a squatting woman, possibly giving birth, was dated from the Mesolithic area. This matrika closely resembles other artifacts found throughout old Europe, and is considered to be authentic. There are also feminine images etched into cave walls and dolmens which may represent a goddess figure, including the Gran’meres of Guernsey. If you count all the "holey" standing stones, woman-shaped monoliths and carved spirals, this shows that the female form was an object of artistic worth throughout the British Isles.

A few modern writers have tried to explain away the matrikas and their possible use as sacred objects by saying that they were merely implements used for breaking a young woman’s hymen or children’s dolls. Okay, I see a couple problems with this theory: 1.) If you’ve ever cared for a toddler, you’d know not to give them any small object they can swallow, or poke themselves in the eye with, or break into sharp pieces. Most of the "Venus" statues have sharp points, are made of substances like stone, clay or bone, and are small enough to become lodged in a toddler’s throat. Just as we do in our culture, pre-industrialized people gave their children soft, plushy stuffed toys to play with. Older children didn’t often use dolls, as they were involved in caring for their smaller siblings. 2.) If the matrikas are just prehistoric dildos, wouldn’t they be more, ahem, dildo-shaped? I can believe that the phallic wands were used for that purpose, but not small, sharp-edged bone or limestone statuettes. 3.) Many of the "goddess" figurines have holes drilled in them, probably to be used as jewelry or an amulet, and 4.) Several of the matrikas are carved into a wall, difficult to use for either doll or dildo.

Some historians believe that the female figurines weren’t intended for sacred purposes, but were simply "gynecological" implements, used as a ritual object during childbirth. Well, how much more sacred can you get than bringing forth life? Many pre-Christian cultures believe that giving birth is a holy experience, and have designed ceremonies, songs, lore, talismans and other reverential items used exclusively by mothers and midwives. This theory also doesn’t take into account the many matrikas discovered within hunting shrines, or found with stashes of grave goods including weapons and jewelry. Several of the female statuettes were deliberately broken and interred with male corpses. Some anthropologists believe that these "Venus" figurines may symbolize a ritual sacrifice, a return to the mother’s womb, or even a marriage in the afterworld. Breaking the matrikas may have been intended to release their spirit, or to render them useless to thieves. This pattern resembles the ritually sacrificed items of later periods, such as the swords and vessels of the Bronze Age, which were broken and cast into rivers and swamps or buried in the earth.

While I think we can rule out child’s doll or adult sex toy as a use for the ancient matrikas, we can’t unequivocally state that they are an image of the Great Mother Goddess, either. The artists who created them may have been representing a goddess, a lesser spirit being, an individual woman, an effigy of an ancestor, or a fishing lure, for all we know. However, there are enough of these figurines found throughout Europe, similar in appearance, to believe that they have a common purpose. We may never discover what that might be.

The Celts of the Bronze and Iron Ages did not usually depict their goddesses as physical entities. Instead, the Irish, Welsh and Britons composed poetry, songs and inspiring tales of holy women. (The ancient Celts did not create many images of the male gods, either.) Most Celtic goddesses that survive as carvings or statues were crafted after the Roman incursions. Of course, there are always exceptions. One Welsh goddess is shown carrying a load of stones in her apron, likely symbolic of a burden. A wooden statue of a female figure with a crystal stone placed in her vaginal area was discovered in a bog with other sacrificed items. Goddess images appear on the Gundestrup cauldron. Bronze castings of Brighid decorate a tablet and an ewer (water vessel). These images pre-date the holy women shown on Roman statuary and later Romano-Celtic artwork, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Perhaps the most enigmatic female symbol found in the British Isles is the Sheila-na-Gig, (also spelled Sheela or Síle). These stone carvings portray naked women with exposed genitalia, often holding their vulvas wide open, and are thus labeled "exhibitionist" figures. Many of the Sheilas have the blocky head and thin limbs associated with Romano-Celtic artwork. Yet most historians believe that the Sheila-na-Gigs weren’t created until long after the Celts were assimilated with Anglo-Saxon culture. There are hundreds of Sheila-na-Gigs surviving in Ireland, Britain, Wales, Scotland and on the continent. Others were destroyed, removed or defaced from the Reformation years to present times. Many are held in public museums or private collections. Around ten different Sheilas can be found in basement storage in the National Museum of England. Historians, artists, and anthropologists have debated whether the Sheilas depict a certain goddess, or if they represent scary old witches, beloved priestesses, or simply an intangible concept such as fertility. Some speculate that the carvings are a parody of womanhood. Others think that the exhibitionist figures are merely a generic protection symbol, placed on old buildings for good luck. Still others argue that the Sheila is a Christian image, a proscription against the sin of lust, because she is carved on so many Norman churches near male figures which possibly represent avarice.

In fact, most of the Sheila-na-Gigs can be found on small rural Catholic churches. With few exceptions, the Sheilas date to the Romanesque period of the Middle Ages, long after the Christianization of Britain and Ireland. Many resemble elderly women, with haggard features and grimacing expressions. This leads some scholars to believe that the Sheilas were created by Christian artisans, perhaps to represent a witch who was tried and executed at the church. Another theory is that the exhibitionist figures were intended to scare away the devil by displaying their womanly attributes. Some believe the elderly or anguished Sheilas are a warning against promiscuous behavior. A few exhibitionist figures are portrayed as young and beautiful. They are sometimes posed as acrobatic contortionists or smiling cheerfully, such as the Sheila-na-Gig on the Kilpeck Church in southwestern England. Some historians think these figures may symbolize a supernatural being. Others speculate that the carvings may represent the "sinful" nature of women, the theatre, and acrobats or other performers. And many suggest that the Sheilas may be a remnant of goddess worship, placed on the churches by hereditary Pagans.

After looking at hundreds of Sheila-na-Gigs, my conclusion is that she is a representation of an ancient holy woman or goddess, who predated the Christian religion and survived into the Middle Ages. Many of the Sheilas resemble similar figures of Kali and the Yoni found in temples in East India and Malaysia. They have also been compared to the "Baubo" figurines of old Europe. Although the Sheila appears most often on Catholic churches in the British Isles, she is also found in public buildings, castles, inns, and on outdoor pillars or freestanding stones. While some of the Sheilas are placed right over the front door of a church, others are hidden out of sight, high up on an exterior wall or indoors near the ceiling. Several of them were even concealed inside a wall. This fact negates the theory that the carvings represent a warning about witchcraft or a proscription against sinful lust, because the church congregation may not have been able to actually see them. Many Sheilas are composed of a different material than the stone and mortar surrounding them, and likely came from another location. Some of the exhibitionist figures are believed to be older than the buildings that contain them, and several may predate the Christian incursions. This evidence leads me to believe that the Sheila-na-Gigs were not originally a Christian symbol.

In the eighth century C.E., Pope Gregory ordered the construction of Catholic churches on the sites of older Pagan temples. Perhaps the Sheilas survived the transition, and they could have been transferred to church buildings in an effort to preserve them. Or perhaps artisans created new exhibitionist figures, based on images from the older shrines. Since many of the carvings are quite difficult to see, my theory is that Pagan craftsmen may have placed the Sheilas so the common people knew where to find them, so they could continue to worship their own deity while in church. The elderly Sheila may be a portrayal of the Cailleach, or the goddess in her crone aspect, ready to receive the souls of the dead for rebirth. The younger Sheila may represent life-affirming sexuality, or be a talisman to increase fertility, or she may just be "mooning" the patriarchal new religion. One theory that I found amusing: the exhibitionist figures may have originally represented the temple of a sacred prostitute. Perhaps they were placed on churches to rebuke the Christians for profaning the sexual nature of women.

There is quite a bit of folklore regarding the Sheila-na-Gig. In Ireland, women still rub the vulva of an exhibitionist statue or take rock dust from the vaginal opening with the intent of using it for healing magic or fertility energies. Many of the carvings are worn down from centuries of rubbing. Another folk custom is using the Sheila as a sympathetic figure for a painless childbirth. The exhibitionist carvings are also believed to bring good luck or scare away evil. Parallel traditions include the magical use of stone monuments which resemble female genitalia. Near Edinburgh, a monolith shaped like a vulva is called the Witches’ Stone. Young women slide down the rock with the intention of enhancing their fertility. Similar customs include passing a child through the center of the vagina-shaped Mean-an-Tol stone in Cornwall, with the goal of creating magic for good health, or women crawling through the opening to ensure conception. These practices may have pre-dated the Sheila figures.

The meaning of the name Sheila-na-Gig is lost to obscurity, but it likely comes from the old Gaelic language. It may mean "Sheila of the breasts", although few of the carvings actually have discernable breasts. Another possible translation is "Sheila on her hunkers" because many appear to be squatting. "Gig" is pronounced "gee" in Gaelic, and may be a reference to a woman’s genitalia. In Australia, a "sheela" is a slang term for a woman. A British colloquialism for the sex act is "gigging". Sheila is a common name for women in Ireland, England and America, as well as in East India, so it was very likely considered a positive word at one time – mothers probably did not name their daughters for an object of ridicule. Sheila may be a feminization of the word sidhe or shee, another name for the fairy folk of ancient Ireland.

The Goddess of the Sacred Wellsprings: Water wells or natural springs have been revered as holy places in Europe for thousands of years. Many of these have survived into the present day. Several sacred wells are merely a pile of tumbledown rocks surrounding a trickle of stream, or exist in rather obscure locations, or have been lost all together. Yet there are hundreds of holy wells still in existence throughout the British Isles. Many of them are still used, not only for a source of water but as a place of religious reverence. Some have elaborate fountains or buildings placed over the pool. England alone has over 300 sites identified as free-flowing water springs, many of which were once dedicated to a goddess, spirit, fairy, water nymph or other magical entity. In the 1800s, Scotland boasted over 600 holy wells on a topical map. Hundreds of sacred springs can be found in Wales and Ireland. There are Queen’s Wells, Lady Wells, Maiden Wells, Mother Wells, Crone Wells and Granny Wells, which may have been named after a specific individual, or which might originally have been dedicated to aspects of the Goddess.

Some sacred wells are believed to have originated with a Christian religious figure, such as the Virgin Mary. Others may have initially been associated with a Pagan deity, then were rededicated in the name of a Catholic saint. Many of the holy wells currently bear the name of a male, such as St. Patrick or St. Nechtan. Others are attributed to the mother of an important male figure, such as St. Non’s Well. However, quite a few of the springs were named for a female saint or holy woman who was, at one time, likely worshipped as a goddess. Other sacred waters were, and remain, shamelessly Pagan.

Several of the holy wells of the U.K. are quite famous. Ireland’s font dedicated to St. Bridget at Kildare attracts thousands of tourists, pilgrims, and worshippers from around the world each year. As previously mentioned, this well has two breast-shaped fountains that distribute water. Objects of reverence, including prayer cards and Brighid’s crosses are frequently left at the site. An evergreen clootie tree stands sentinel nearby, its branches thick with ribbons and prayer rags. There are several other Bridget’s Wells, Brighid’s Wells and Brideswells found throughout the U.K., which at one time were believed to be dedicated to the Goddess Brighid or St. Bridget. Some of them fully acknowledge their pre-Christian history. Many of them are covered in votive offerings which may have both Christian and Pagan connotations. The well at Kildare also boasts a set of five small Neolithic standing stones believed to represent virtues, which exist right alongside the Stations of the Cross.

In the course of my research, I found that several of the other saints who had wells dedicated to them very likely pre-dated Christianity. Some were never actually beatified by the Catholic Church at all. Others were originally Pagan heroines, spirits, or Goddesses, who were later canonized. These figures are called "ahistorical saints", or saints without a history in the Church. Among them is St. Domnu of Cornwall, whose holy well water is believed to cure rickets in children. It is debatable whether St. Domnu was actually male or female; however, there is an Irish deity called Domnu who was a goddess of the sea. The name is similar enough to Danu or Donn to conclude that St. Domnu might once have been a version of this goddess. St. Madron has no actual history within the Catholic Church, and often the saints Madron, Modron, Madrone or Mabyn are given both genders. Yet the name is similar to the Madron or "mother" in the Welsh Mabinogion. At St. Madron’s well in Penzance, Cornwall, women’s undergarments are sometimes left as clooties (prayer cloths), and the water is said to enhance female fertility. St. Winifred of Wales has a holy well which was believed to have sprung up from the earth as a result of sacred powers (or as revenge for an assault). This wellspring was actually named after a woman called Gwenfyd, said to have magical abilities, who later became a saint. St. Alkelda, Kelda or Kilde of Scotland never existed at all, even though she has her own holy well. The name Alkelda very likely comes from a Saxon word for water spring. St. Keyne or Kane was never formally canonized. Her name may have come from the Welsh Cain or Ceinwen, which means shining white in old Welsh. She has wells in Wales and Cornwall which honor her. The well dedicated to St. Vivian likely predated her beatification, and her name may come from the Arthurian legend about the Lady of the Lake. Wells named for St. Anne may be honoring the Goddess Anu or Danu, as two of these springs pre-date the onset of Christianity in Britain.

There is considerable folklore surrounding the sacred wells of Great Britain, including their magical attributes. Many waters are believed to have esoteric powers including healing, prophecy, purification, and even cursing an enemy. During certain nights of the year, including Beltane, Midsummer and Samhain, several of the wells are used for communication with the dead. Some of the springs are places of divination or vision-questing, as memorialized in the epic Piers Plowman. Other waters are said to have the capability to alleviate diseases such as infertility, epilepsy, women’s troubles, blindness and insanity. To be healed, it was often required to drink from a sacred pool, bathe in its waters, or use a rag to wash the afflicted area. According to legend, rags must be torn, not cut, from a garment worn by the individual, and no iron may be used. The cloth was then tied to a nearby clootie tree, cloutie tree or raggy bush. As the cloth rotted, the symptoms were believed to dissipate. While this ritual is still practiced today at holy wells dedicated to saints, it is believed to have originally been a pre-Christian custom. The trees were often yews or hawthorns, believed to have magical properties. Clootie trees can be found throughout Great Britain and on the European continent, and also in India, China and Tibet.

The modern practice of tossing a coin into a wishing well or fountain may have come from the belief in the magical powers of sacred water. Ritually throwing a votive offering into a body of water is an older custom, and may have originally served the purpose of honoring the spirit of a wellspring, river, lake or ocean. Objects discovered within sacred wells by archeologists include clay or metal effigies, tablets, buttons, beads and of course coins, especially those made of silver. Related lore states that silver offered to a water-spirit promotes healing or grants a wish. Some of the ritual objects found in the wells had been deliberately broken, perhaps as a sacrifice. Many holy springs were found to contain sewing pins, often bent into a V-shape, which according to legend are intended to avert evil. In other locations, bent pins symbolize casting an evil spell on an enemy. This may be where the saying "see a pin, pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck" got its start.

Some of the votive customs related to water are genuinely ancient. Bronze-age figurines cast in lead were found in one English spring. The sacred pools at Bath contained objects judged to be at least 7,000 years old. Archeologists also found lead "curse tablets" written in Latin, probably left by Roman soldiers. Coins discovered in wells or fonts range in age from the Roman era, to English sovereigns, to shillings and pence pieces, to modern currency. Coventina’s well is thought to have received some of its offerings over 10,000 years ago. White stones, especially moonstones, were also used as votive objects, perhaps because of their association with lunar deities. A more recent Irish custom is leaving a moonstone at a sacred well for a period of time, possibly to absorb energy, then later mailing the stone to a relative who’d emigrated. In recent times, worshippers leave items at sacred wells such as crutches or bandages, as a sign of faith that the individual expects to be healed. Photographs of loved ones are also placed at a holy well for a blessing.

Many ritualistic acts are associated with sacred wells, such as approaching a spring from the east, or timing a visit to coincide with dawn, dusk, or midnight. Some wells had to be approached at dark, and worshippers were required to leave before dawn, perhaps a remnant of the times of persecution. Circumnavigating a font, usually three times, usually deosil, was called "doing the rounds" in rural Derbyshire and Yorkshire, England. Healing wells, and springs used for divination or spirit communication, require visits only on certain days, including the holidays now known as the Wiccan sabbats. The waters’ magic is not believed to work at other times. Worshippers would often speak certain words, recite specific poems, or were bidden to keep totally silent. For prophecy or healing, the faithful would bathe a certain number of times, make a wish while facing away from the pool, or carry water away in a ceramic vessel. Dressing wells with rowan or hawthorn branches or flowers was a springtime custom, as was making lovely pictures from flowers pressed into clay tablets. Dancing around wells or lighting fires on nearby hilltops were rituals documented by numerous historians. These ceremonies were believed to activate the power of the well, or possibly to capture the water spirit’s attention. However, desecrating a holy spring would incite the wrath of the deity or fairy who lived in the water.

Some holy wells contain human-made symbols of the womb or female genitals, which I believe to be a clear association with the feminine divine. Many of the springs are enclosed in buildings which have doorways or grottoes that resemble a vulva or womb. Some were purposely designed to represent a woman’s genitalia. One shrine built over a sacred well has a Sheila-na-Gig carved over the entrance, her legs arched around the doorway. Visitors appear to be entering a vaginal opening. These pools often were believed to have the ability of helping to alleviate birth pain or to increase fertility. Other springs have natural features such as reddish water from iron deposits, and were thusly associated with menstruation or birth blood. One example is the famous Chalice Well of Glastonbury, whose rust-tinged water is sometimes called the Red Spring or Blood Spring. This sacred place, referred to in some modern Arthurian legends, has long held a place of magical significance. It later became the site of Christian worship, when a monastery was built nearby. Several other red springs exist in the British Islands, all of which have some history of being a site of reverence.

As was previously mentioned, one of the most famous "triple goddess" designs can be found at the Well of the Coventinas, which were re-discovered in 1876. The spring is near Hadrian’s Wall on the border of Scotland and England, not far from Chollerford. There is extensive evidence that this wellspring was used by Romans as a place to make votive offerings, including copper coins, altars, vases, rings and other jewelry. Inscribed tablets were also found within the pool, indicating that prayers were made to the goddess or spirit of the well called Coventina. She is not known to exist in any other pantheon, which leads scholars to believe she is a Latinized version of a local entity. Her worship seems to have died out after the Roman occupations, although the well was used as a site of worship for over ten thousand years previous.

Another famous Romano-British water goddess was Sulis, or Sul Minerva, whose sacred pools are in Bath, Avon, England. Her name is only inscribed at this single location. Originally called Aquae Sulis, these hot springs average 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and were used as a communal bathing facility as well as a temple of worship. Objects found in the springs include lead "curse tablets" asking the deity for revenge against enemies. There are Latin inscriptions made by Roman and German soldiers on altar stones nearby and on pillars which originally supported the buildings. Historians speculate that Sulis may have originally been a Germanic goddess or water nymph, who was later equated with the Roman goddess Minerva. She may have been brought to Britain by German soldiers conscripted into the Roman armies. Artwork at the shrine shows both Celtic and Roman influences, including a monument to Sul Minerva with an elaborate coiffure, and statues representing the goddess Diana. The spring was believed to have been used for over 7,000 years, although the buildings caved in after the Roman withdrawal.

Although the worship of Coventina and Sulis petered out after the Saxon invasions of England, the customs of reverence and the practice of magic at sacred wellsprings survived throughout western Europe. In the fifth century, Saint Augustine proscribed worshipping water or using sacred wells for healing and cleansing rituals. Some historians theorize that the custom was then transferred to the practice of Catholicism and the reverence for saints. During the Protestant Reformation, the use of holy wells was forbidden as a Papist religious practice, and thus many of the grottoes were pulled down and the wells were capped off. Some of the springs naturally dried out or became marsh land. Some were filled in as a precaution against typhoid fever. Others were co-opted as town fountains for a community source of drinking water. Modern Perrier and Evian bottled waters are named for these cities, where sacred wells were once revered. In Germany, the town of Baden-Baden, which means bath, was once called Aquae Aurelia for a Pagan deity. One wellspring survives in the middle of a London public building. Others have been paved over, yet still run underground. But many sacred waters still survive, intact.

Nobody knows for certain how or why certain wellsprings or bodies of water came to become sacred in Europe. A reverence for water is more understandable in locations where it’s a scarce commodity, and thus more precious to humans. Although water is quite plentiful throughout the British Isles, it is still an object of veneration. Parallel customs include the religious rituals practiced at the River Ganges in India, the cleansing Mikvah bath practiced by Jews, and of course the Christian rite of baptism. All of these traditions may have arisen from a reverence for the water itself. Perhaps they came into being because the waters were the site of some miraculous event. Or they could have become sacred purely as a symbol of a particular deity.

Other holy water sites exist in Europe besides the sacred wells, including many rivers named for goddesses such as the Shannon, Marne, Don, Danube, Boyne, and Tyne Rivers. The Severn in Wales is believed to have represented the entity called Sabrina, while the Seinne in France was likely named after the goddess Sequana, for whom the Sequani calendar is also named. In the late Neolithic to Bronze Age, offerings were thrown into rivers and lakes, including weapons, helmets, coins, statues and the human remains. Considerable folklore also exists about various water deities or spirits. Breaking a bottle of wine over the helm of a boat was originally considered a sacrifice to Taltha, a Scots river goddess. Lakes and wells are often believed to be entrances to otherworld. Besides female spirits, well guardians include fish, snakes, birds and deer. In Ireland, the elderly "Washer at the Ford" was dangerous omen for warriors, including Cu Cullain. Seeing the Washer laundering her bloody linen was believed to foretell a death. Mermaids or morwen; fairies; water sprites or nixies; and selchies, roan, or seal-women are all mystical beings associated with water. The customs of throwing wreaths into the sea at Beltane, garlanding ships’ prows with flowers, calling boats "she" and giving them female figureheads, and the Scots tradition of making a bargain over running water such as a stream, all likely came from the religious veneration of sacred water or its related holy women and goddesses. Some of these practices endure into the present day.

Like the custom of hoodening links prehistoric hunt ceremonies to the modern Pagan worship of Cernnunos, my conclusion is that the sacred wellsprings also connect the past to the present. I believe that the practice of leaving tokens at a pool dedicated to a saint, goddess or spirit, and performing magical rites using holy water, is the "missing link" between ancient religious traditions and the contemporary worship of the Goddess. Although some water rites have a thin veneer of Christianity, I believe that many of these rituals survived intact, right up to the present day. Many of the holy wells of yesteryear are now being renovated, and their attendant rituals are undergoing a revival. Yet some of them were used continually from ancient times until today.

For more information and pictures on the topic of Goddess traditions worldwide, including those of the British Islands, I strongly encourage you to check out Max Dashu’s "Suppressed History Archives". This feminist independent scholar and artist has compiled a fascinating look at women’s culture and history, goddess spirituality, the witch trials of Europe, and Pagan folk religions. And if you want to commune with Goddess for yourself, She may have some interesting things to tell you!

Diana:

Originally a Roman goddess, Diana was brought to the British Islands by the invaders and quickly accepted by working-class people. This may be because the Celts already worshipped a female hunting and war deity in the form of Maub. This goddess and heroine also appeared in legend and literature as Mabh, Mabb, Babh, Bedhbh, Maeva, Maude, Mag, Mari, Maire, Macha, Madrone, St. Modron, St. Mabyn, and Mab the Queen of the Fairies. In East India, Mab is the goddess of heat, and in Ireland, she is Medb, the goddess of mead. In some older legends, Maub or Maeva was considered a fierce deity whose appearance foretold battle. Others list her simply as a maiden or mother. A figure said to be Mabh in her chariot appears on the Gundestrup cauldron. Shakespeare wrote of Mab as a midwife to the fairies, who drove her tiny chariot across a sleeper’s forehead, bringing dreams. Other tales say that Mabh set sail in a teacup, or rode a butterfly as a steed. Another legend tells of Maub’s prowess as a hunter, and refers to her as one of the leaders of the Celtic diaspora to the British Isles. This may be where the name of the "Mabinogion" came from, a Welsh collection of legendary tales, although others ascribe it to the word for male child or son. Some legends link Maire or Mor to the sea. She may be a form of Mab, or a different deity entirely. A standing stone monument is called "Queen Mab’s Throne". One of the moons of the planet Uranus is named for Queen Mab. The goddess may be remembered in modern times simply as a caricature in the "Molly" of folkplays, the elderly Malkin in stories, and the Mailte y Nos of darker fairy tales. The veneration of Maub seems to have faded out after the Roman occupation, perhaps supplanted by reverence for the Goddess Diana.

Like Maub, one of Diana’s aspects is a goddess of the hunt, and she is often depicted carrying a bow and quiver, accompanied by a faithful hound, pursuing a deer. Diana was also considered the queen of the fairies in some locations. Oak trees were sacred to her. She was also seen as an aspect of the moon, and the first sliver of new moon in the sky is sometimes called "Diana’s bow". There are statues and artifacts related to Goddess Diana in Britain dating back to the early Roman incursions. As mentioned previously, literature and statuary make reference to "Diana Triformis", a Romano-Celtic representation of the threefold goddess, perhaps relating to Diana’s association with the phases of the moon. A temple dedicated to Diana in London survived until being pillaged by the Saxons in the 7th century. St. Paul’s Cathedral was later built on the site. A transcript of a Church canon law from 906 C.E. described women who rode on the backs of beasts with "Diana, a goddess of the pagans, or with Herodias" and that on certain nights "they obey her commands as though she were their mistress". Right up to the 1300s, priests were specifically instructed to ask their parishioners about worship of Diana in the confessional. During the Victorian era there was a resurgence of interest in "classical" writings, including the legends of Diana. Gerald Gardner possessed a gold necklace charm bearing the image of Diana as a moon goddess, which has been dated to mid-1700s Italy. It is currently for sale on e-Bay. Diana is a popular woman’s given name in Europe, especially in Greece and Italy. And of course, the Goddess Diana is revered by neo-Pagans and Wiccans today.

Diana is mentioned in two different forms in "The Charge of the Goddess". In several of their written works, Gerald Gardner, Aleister Crowley and Doreen Valiente made reference to "Herodias", possibly the Greek form of Diana. This name may also be a contraction of the Roman goddesses Hera and Diana. In the Bible, Herodias was the wife of the man who beheaded John the Baptist, and a Jewish queen that plotted John’s death. Mr. Gardner also wrote about a witchcraft goddess called Aradia, which may be a Romano-British pronunciation of the name Diana. Or perhaps Aradia may have come from Ariadne, or be an Italian pronunciation of Herodias. "Eko, eko Aradia" is one of Gardner’s most popular chants, although he originally spelled it differently. Aradia’s name is also used to ritually consecrate water. Gardner sometimes tended to combine legends of Diana, Aradia, Brighid, Cerridwen and the Matronae in his ceremonies. The Roman representation of Diana Triformus may be have inspired Robert Graves’s poetic image of a triple goddess associated with moon phases, which in turn might have influenced the modern neo-Pagan representation of Maiden, Mother and Crone.

Many of the current legends about Diana most likely come from Charles G. Leland’s Aradia, Gospel of the Witches, published in 1899. Mr. Leland, a folklorist and author from the USA, went to Italy to study mythology and folktales. While he was there, he is said to have encountered a woman named Maddelina, who over the course of twelve years gave him parts of a manuscript that Leland believed to contain the rituals and religious stories of a native Italian witchcraft tradition. Aradia has references to an "Old Religion" which was still practiced. The book has instructions for making talismans, a ritual for consecrating food, "conjurations" or spells, and other magical topics that pre-date modern Wicca. Leland was also the first contemporary writer to use the word "sabbat" as a term for a witchcraft rite.

The manuscript states that Aradia was the daughter of Diana and Lucifer, a god of light who was not considered evil. Cain was listed as Aradia’s consort. Although the god names are the "bad guys" of Christian mythology, they have no negative connotation in this book. Aradia does not have a threefold law or rede, and makes no bones about cursing or poisoning an enemy. Aradia also contains a poem very similar to Doreen Valiente’s "Charge of the Goddess", including the advice to be "naked in your rites". Of course, Diana or Aradia are both referred to as "Goddess of the Witches".

There is some controversy about Aradia, including the accusation that Mr. Leland invented the legend and forged the manuscript. Maddelina was said to have "disappeared", leaving no written record of her encounters with Leland. However, a modern author, Raven Grimassi, traced her immigration to the United States where she was listed in records at Ellis Island. Grimassi wrote several books about Stregheria, a hereditary Pagan tradition of Italy, which he believes to have come from the Etruscan civilization and which exists to the present day. Charles Leland edited the Philadelphia Bulletin and wrote several other scholarly books and pamphlets, including a history of the legends and customs of the Algonquian Indians native to the Eastern United States. He also wrote about Romani or Gypsy folklore and fortune telling. Several of his works are still used by university anthropology departments. Several modern authors have made comparisons between British witchcraft and Stregheria, and some historians have suggested that Gerald Gardner borrowed heavily from Leland’s Aradia.

Today, Dianic Wiccens and neo-Pagan feminists have embraced Goddess Diana as representing the divine feminine. Some practice a form of monotheistic witchcraft, featuring Diana as their only deity. Others believe that Diana is one of many goddesses in a complete pantheon. And some honor the Maiden, Mother and Crone as universal aspects of the one Goddess of Wicca, the matron of Witchcraft.

The Green Man:

Nearly every ancient civilization had some representation of a fertility god, who may have symbolized death and rebirth, or the cycles of the sun and the growth season. Some of these deities take on the aspects of plants, including Dionysis with his wreath of grapevines, or Saturn whose head was cut off and sown in a field. The green fertility god likely gained prominence after the invention of agriculture, but he might also represent forests and the natural world. Sir James Frazer theorized that the agricultural rituals popular in olden times were symbolic of the death and rebirth of a fertility king or deity. While some of these god forms were believed to die and be repeatedly reincarnated, several of them seem to represent the permanence of Nature.

The "Green Man" figure may be once such entity. The Lady Raglan first used the name Green Man in 1939 for the image of a male face surrounded by or constructed of leaves, which can be found in many British buildings. The term soon came to mean any nameless icon of a human or animal face composed of foliage, vines, and fruit. Some images of the "Woodwose", or wild man of the woods, depict the entity as half-man, half-plant. Robert Graves and other modern writers made the connection between the image of a leafy Green Man and various legends of a pre-Christian god who died and returned to life. Others viewed him as a representation of wild, untamed nature. Gardner wrote that he believed the Green Man was carved into the woodwork of church buildings by Pagan artisans as a connection to their Old Religion. Many scholars agree that the Green Man is likely a Pagan symbol, although there are few European representations that pre-date Christianity.

Countless foliage-face images can be found throughout western Europe, as well as in East India and Indonesia. Probably the oldest is carved on the Goar Pillar of Germany, which was created during the 5^th century B.C.E. However, most Green Man figures date from the 12^th to the 15^th century C.E. and are located in Catholic churches. Images of the Green Man can be seen on Exeter Cathedral in England, St. Giles Cathedral in Edinborough, and in Notre Dame in Paris. There are over a thousand stone frescoes or wooden carvings representing the Green Man in churches across the British Islands. There are over seventy Green Men in Canterbury Cathedral alone. Besides the images found in Christian shrines, the Green Man is carved on public buildings, castles, banks and "chapter houses" throughout Europe. There are also several Green Man taverns, pubs and inns which date to the same period of history.

Anthropologists have several ideas about why the Green Man appears most often in Catholic churches. Some agree with Gardner, theorizing that stonemasons and craftsmen retained their original pre-Christian religious heritage, and carved the figures so that people could continue to worship the old Gods while in church. Others believe that the foliate images were put there to entice Pagans to attend Christian services. Since Canterbury Cathedral was built on the site of an older Pagan shrine, the artisans may have been trying to reclaim their holy ground. Some scholars think that the images may have symbolized punishment for the sin of avarice, as several of the Green Men spew foliage from their eyes and mouths, and resemble the victims of torture. I don’t subscribe to this theory, as there are far more smiling, cheerful Green Men than grimacing images. Other historians believe that the Green Man had lost much of his earlier veneration, and that he was simply used as a symbol to represent nature or prosperity.

The Green Man can be found in ritual, music and literature as well as in art. The oldest song in the English language, "John Barleycorn Must Die", is believed to be a reference to a god of the harvest. Green George, Jack-in-the-Green, Robin Goodfellow, and Sir Gawain’s Green Knight may be metaphors for an agricultural deity or forest lord. Graves proposed that Robin Hood, the king of the merry Greenwood, was a symbol of a woodland spirit or nature god. Many mummers’ plays contain a Robin Hood character. The Wiccan ritual involving the Oak King and Holly King likely comes from an older legend, perhaps of the Celts or Saxons, about the lords of winter and summer fighting for dominance. The story of King Arthur playing a board game with King Owain may parallel these seasonal ceremonies. Middle English legends and songs about holly and ivy (or holly and oak) representing male and female, winter and summer, show that awareness of foliage symbolism existed long after the rise of Christianity. Several Medieval tapestries depict the images of holly, ivy, and oak, along with other items of Pagan significance. Bringing greenery indoors at Midwinter, decorating building facades with green boughs on Mayday, and adorning trees or bushes with trinkets or ribbons may hearken back to worship of forest deities or nature spirits.

Several pre-Christian rituals honoring agriculture or revering nature survive to the present day in Britain. "Bringing in the May"; wearing crowns or costumes of wheat, straw, grapevines, leafy twigs or flowers; playing harvest games such as grain-cutting and threshing contests; creating Brighid’s crosses, bickle dogs, wheat weavings, and corn dollies or other effigies from the last sheaf harvested; and making wreaths out of green boughs to decorate the home were all documented by Frazer’s Golden Bough, Robert Chambers’ Book of Days or more recent anthropologists and folklorists. Skeklers wearing straw costumes at Halloween were photographed in the Shetland and Orkney Islands and Ireland in the early 1900s. The "straw bears" of Scotland, England and Germany, men covered in straw who march through the streets, may be a parallel to this custom. The Furry Dance of Cornwall involves garlanding buildings in greenery, and young men and women wearing green leaves or flowers, older traditions which persist until the present day. A parallel image of Jack in the Green exists in Sweden, where a man draped in pine boughs and greenery appears as "Naturklaus" or the Wild Man during winter festivities. In one recent ceremony, the Green Man is beaten with green sticks and splashed with water, likely to propagate the growth of the crops, although it had somewhat disintegrated into a drunken brawl over the last several decades. The Burry Man, a figure covered with cockleburs, is paraded through towns in the north of England and in Scotland each summer. Anthropologists speculate that this modern buffoonery has roots in ancient times.

While several of the Gods and Goddesses revered by Wiccans have their origins in Celtic or Anglo-Saxon Britain, others come from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and India. Some appear as an individual deity, others are worshipped in triplicate, and some traditions revere a pantheon or family of sacred entities. So, were the Father God and Mother Goddess of Wicca fabricated by Gardner? Perhaps a more spiritual explanation is required. I believe that the Goddess and God appear to different individuals in varying forms, in such a way as to appeal to their particular culture. Many of the legends about the gods are quite similar. Yet the religious rites, images and worship of the various deities are different enough to satisfy the needs of diverse people in civilizations throughout the world. As for Gardner’s concept of duality, I agree that the Goddess appears in every woman, just as the God is personified by every man.