The Celtic Goddesses Healer
Introduction
The evidence for ahealer-goddess in Celtic Europe during the early first millennium AD is basedalmost entirely upon iconographical and epigraphic evidence. Certain conceptsneed to be introduced here in order that the role of the Goddess as healer maybe better understood.
First, there is a strong linkbetween religion and medicine: this is something that is evidenced both in theclassical and in the Celtic world. Sick people in antiquity relied upon thehealing skills of the supernatural powers at least as much as upon empirical medicine.Indeed, at many therapeutic sanctuaries in Gaul and Britain, doctors werepresent as well as priests, for example at Fontes Sequanae and Bath; it is evenpossible that the two roles were sometimes combined in the one individual.
Second, the perception of thenuminous in water is important. There is abundant evidence in non-MediterraneanEurope from at least the later Bronze Age—say around 1300 BC—that water was acentral focus of ritual activity. During the later Iron Age this activity beganto manifest itself in the development of healing sanctuaries on the sites of thermalsprings, a phenomenon which burgeoned in the Romano-Celtic phase in theRhineland, Gaul and Britain.
Third, the evidence for healingcults in Celtic Europe demonstrates a very close link between healing,regeneration and fertility, which may account for the fact that many Celticdivine healers were perceived as female, and for the strong association betweencurative cult establishments and the mothergoddesses. There is evidence thatmany devotees of healing-deities were women; the fact that most stone altarswere dedicated by men probably does not reflect anything other than economic orsocial factors. Women may not normally have had the means to erect expensivestone monuments as readily as their male counterparts. However, the cult ofApollo Vindonnus at Essarois in Burgundy seems—from the exvotoes— to have beenpatronized by women. The lady wearing a torc whose wooden image was dedicatedat the thermal shrine of Chamalières in the first century AD was probably adevotee, but it is just possible that she may have been the goddess herself.There is a small amount of evidence for the association of women with thehealing professions: at Grand in the Vosges, a stone of Romano-Celtic datedepicts the inside of a chemist’s shop with a female chemist at work withmortar and herbs. An inscription and image on a tombstone at Metz betray thepresence of a female doctor in the first century AD.
Fourth, we must be wary ofpositing theories- about the status of women in Celtic society from theimportance of the Goddess. Having sounded this note of caution, it is, however,interesting that classical literary references to Celtic women contain manyallusions to the contrast between their status and that of their more lowlyMediterranean sisters.
Sequana Of Burgundy
Sequana was a water-spirit, thepersonification of the River Seine at its source, Fontes Sequanae. Here, in thevalley of the Châtillon Plateau, a spring of fresh, pure water wells up fromthe ground and was the focus of religious devotion from the later first centuryBC. The spring is pure but it contains no genuine mineral properties. Sequanais special in that she is not paired with any Roman goddess; her name is knownfrom about ten inscriptions, and there is a bronze cult-statue of Sequana herself.In 1963, during the excavation of buildings dating to the Roman period, morethan 200 wooden votives were discovered in water-logged ground, apparentlypre-dating Roman levels and originally set up perhaps around the sacred pool.The pre-Roman activity centered upon the pool itself; there is no evidence ofpermanent structures at this time. Shortly after the Roman occupation of theregion the sanctuary was monumentalized and the spring canalized. It was now anextensive religious complex, containing two temples, porticoes, a dormitory andreservoirs, still centered on the sacred spring and pool. The votive imageswere now of stone. In common with the activities at classical healing shrines,sick pilgrims visited the sanctuary bearing offerings—possibly bought at theshrine shop—bathed, slept, and asked for a cure with gifts of models ofthemselves or their afflictions. Eyes, chest, genitals, limbs—these were just afew of the complaints represented by the votives. The eye problems so prevalentat many shrines could have been due to poor hygiene or malnutrition: a lack of animalfat can cause night-blindness. The votivemodel breasts in bronze andsilver may denote milk deficiency, a serious problem for child-rearing inantiquity. Sequana was not a specialist: she healed all afflictions.
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Sequana |
Sirona And Her Peers
There is a group of continentalhealer-goddesses who have a common characteristic: namely, the possession of amale partner. It is the case with the healers, as with other divine coupleslike Mercury and Rosmerta, that the native goddess seems often to possess awider variety of functions and concernsthan her consort and, inaddition, is the less influenced by Graeco-Roman traditions. These goddessesusually have completely native names, and symbolism which is less influenced byGraeco-Roman art forms than their male companions. In addition, they showevidence of independent identity: they are not mere female ciphers attached tothe cults of male divinities.
Sirona
Sirona
Sirona is the divine partner ofthe Celtic healing Apollo, normally called Apollo Grannus (a native epithetassociated with Grand in the Vosges). But she occurs alone, for example atCorseul in Brittany, where she is called Tsirona; her high rank is shown byinscriptions where she is linked with the spirit of the emperor. Sirona wasvenerated alone also at Baumburg in Noricum (Austria). Her cult was widely distributedand may well have pre-dated the Roman occupation of Gaul and elsewhere. Sironawas at her most popular among the Terveri: the main cult-centre was at Hochscheid,a spring sanctuary in the Moselle Basin, to which we shall return. But,elsewhere among the Treveri, Sirona was invoked at Nietaldorf, Bitburg andSainte-Fontaine, and among the neighbouring Mediomatrici at Sablon, Metz.Sirona’s spring-cult is evidenced at Wiesbaden, Mainz and Luxeuil and even atBrigetio in Hungary, where, in the third century AD, a temple was set up toApollo Grannus and Sarana. In the second century AD a temple was erected atHochscheid, on the site of a spring whose waters supplied a cistern. Theevidence of coins suggests that this building replaced an earlier shrine,perhaps of wood. Pilgrims offered presents of coins, figurines, etc. It seemsto have been a wealthy shrine for so remote a region, perhaps a personalendowment by a prosperous trader or villa-owner who had occasion to be gratefulto the guardians of the spring.
The imagery here is interesting and Sirona’s isthe more informative. There were large stone statues of Apollo and Sirona; heis entirely Classical, but Sirona is represented as a woman in a long robe anda diadem, a snake round her right forearm, and a bowl of three eggs held in herleft hand. The serpent/egg symbolism is essentially regenerative as well ascurative. The snake’s skin-sloughing habit gives it symbolism of rebirth andperhaps also the idea of sloughing off disease. Clay figurines brought to theshrine as gifts show Sirona seated, like a mother-goddess, with a small lapdog,which is perhaps indicative of healing. There is an Irish historical linkbetween women and lapdogs which is suggested by Cormick as being possibly associatedwith the use of these animals as ‘hot-water bottles’ to comfortperiod pains. The imagery of thecouple in bronze at Malain in Burgundy is essentially similar to that atHochscheid: this group has a dedicatory inscription beneath the images. Onother sites, the fertility aspect of Sirona’s cult is evidenced by the imagery;for example, at Sainte-Fontaine, where thegoddess bears corn and fruit,and at Mainz and Baumburg where she is accompanied by ears of corn. Thissymbolism of the earth’s abundance bears out the association between healingsprings and the mother-goddess cult. Sirona’s name is interesting: it isphilologically related to ‘star’, so perhapsassociated with night anddarkness. There could be a link with the moon, the female menstrual cycle andthe darkness of the womb.
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Sirona and Apollo |
Ancamna and Damona
These two continental goddessesare distinctive in their apparent polyandry, changing partners from site tosite. Ancamna is known only from epigraphy. She was a Treveran deity, partner ofLenus Mars at Trier. But at Moehn, a rural sanctuary where Lenus was alsovenerated, Ancamna was coupled with Mars Smertrius, another native version ofthe Roman god. Is this the same deity with two names, or are they separateentities? Mars’s association with healing is common in the Celtic world, wherehis war role was transmuted into that of a guardian-protector against disease,as at Mavilly, where he appears (with a goddess) dressed as a warrior, butaccompanied by a ram-horned snake, symbol of regeneration. Mavilly wasparticularly renowned for the cure of eye disease. Damona’s name means ‘divinecow’ or ‘great cow’, and this may reflect her role as a goddess of wealth andfertility. But first and foremost she was ahealer, worshipped especially inBurgundy; she had a number of partners, but her main sanctuary was at Alesia,where she was coupled with Apollo Moritasgus. The two were venerated at ashrine with a pool in which sick pilgrims bathed in the hope of a cure. Noimage of Moritasgus survives but there is a fragment of Damona’s statue,showing a strong link between her iconography and that of Sirona: a carvedstone head is crowned with corn-ears and a hand entwined with a serpent’scoils. At Bourbonne-Lancy, Damona’s consort was Borvo, another spring-god, andan inscription from the curative shrine relates toDamona’s association with thetherapeutic sleep enjoyed by pilgrims seeking a healing dream or vision fromthe divine healers. The names of both Borvo and Moritasgus mean ‘bubbling’ or‘seething’ water.
At another Burgundian shrine, Arnay-le-Duc, Damona’s partneris yet another god, Abilus. Again a fragmentary image of the goddess representsher with a stone snake curled round a human arm. It is worth remembering that theGraeco-Roman healer-god, Asklepios, is often depicted with a coiledserpent. The polyandrous natureof Damona’s cult supports her status as an independent native divinity whoseidentity was not based on her association with any one god. Her rank is furtherenhanced by epigraphic evidence from the curative sanctuary ofBourbonne-les-Bains, where Damona wasworshipped alone.
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Ancamna and Mars Smertius |
Other Gaulish Spring Goddesses
Many other spring-goddesses are recorded only oninscriptions, often again associated with male partners: Bormana and Bormanuswere venerated in southern Gaul; Luxovius and Bricta at Luxeuil. Others werelone goddesses: Telo was the eponymous spring-spirit of Toulon in the Dordogne;Januaria at Beire-le-Châtel in Burgundy is mentioned on a statue of a figureplaying pan-pipes. We have little clue as to Januaria’s precise function,though she was worshipped at a curative shrine. The musical instrument mayindeed be a symbol of healing sleep, just as in vernacular myth healing deitiessuch as Cliodna were associated with music—this time with singing birds. Thename of the Treveran goddess Icovellauna may be linked with water-imagery: she wasvenerated at Trier and at the thermal springs of Sablon, Metz. Aveta was aspring goddess of the Treveri, to whom pilgrims at Trier offered small clayfigurines of mother-goddesses with baskets of fruit, with dogs or with babies.
Sulis: Healer And Avenger
The site of Bath, Aquae Sulis, was sacred before the Romanperiod: this is implied by the presence of eighteen Celtic Iron Age coins from thelowest levels. Early in the Roman period—just fifteen years or so after theoccupation—a great temple, baths and a huge religious precinct were constructedaround the great spring, which pumps out hot water beside the River Avon at arate of a quarter of a million gallons a day; a huge altar was set up in frontof the temple, and a reservoir containing the main spring enclosed by a low stonewall. This was a great Neronian or Flavian building programme using Romanengineers.
There were major alterations c. AD 200, which argue for anew slant to the cult: the temple was enlarged but the reservoir, which hadbeen visible all over the precinct, including the baths, was enclosed in a hugevaulted hall, restricting both physical and visual access to it, and making thewater more remote and mysterious. Pilgrims could now only approach the springthrough a dim passageway—does this imply Otherworld symbolism?
The goddess at Bath was Sulis, a native deity, but she was equatedwith Minerva, which seems a curious conflation. If Sulis really is a healer-goddess,as her presence at the hot spring implies, then she may be linked with Minervabecause the latter was perceived as goddess of the craft of medicine. But inaddition there is a philological link between the name Sulis and the sun—thesun and healing were closely linked in the Celtic world. Indeed the solar association may have comeabout at least partly because Sulis’s springs were hot.
The cult of Sulis flourished until the mid-fourth century AD.The springs have genuine medicinal properties which are good for such ailmentsas arthritis and gout; this must have gained Sulis a reputation for being ableto cure everything. There were many devotees who donated ivory and bronze modelbreasts, spindle-whorls and jewellery. But unlike—say—Sequana’s shrine, veryfew anatomical votives have been found. Pilgrims visited the shrine perhaps fora physical cure, or perhaps more often for spiritual refreshment. Immersion,purification, imbibing the water and thus the spirit of the goddess, thehealing sleep, sacrifice, festivals and prayers all must have taken place here,as well as the offering of gifts. The spring appears to have been the focus ofpersonal contact with the goddess, to whom prayers, vows, requests and thankswere made. Stone altars record gratitude for Sulis’s help. Money, rings,brooches and combs as well as other personal offerings were cast in, some bywomen, perhaps sometimes on impulse.
Ritual activity is represented at Bath: a priest of Sulis,Calpurnius Receptus, died here aged 75. A haruspex (literally ‘gut-gazer’) mayhave been present in a personal rather than an official capacity. Part of ahead-dress was found, suggesting liturgical regalia. About 12,000 coins comefrom the reservoir.
This seems a large quantity but it works out as only anaverage of c. 24–48 coins a year. The presence of silver, pewter and bronze vesselscould represent a ritual purpose (the drinking or pouring of the sacred water), but they could also have been offerings.
The question needs to be asked as to whether the assumptionthat Sulis is primarily a healer-goddess is valid. The only real evidence isher presence at the site of a major thermal spring. The third-century Romanwriter Solinus refers to Bath having springs ‘furnished luxuriously for humanuse …over them Minerva presides’. There is no mention of healing. Theinscriptions dedicating altars to the goddess do not specifically mention thecuring of disease, whilst this does occur at Fontes Sequanae. Most importantly,there is a significant lack of anatomical votives, which are such clearindications of healing cults elsewhere. Certainly, I think, we have toreconsider Sulis’s role, even though the hot springs must have played a genuinepart in the establishment of the cult.
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Sulis / Minerva |
The diversity of Sulis’s cult is nowhere shown more clearlythan in the extraordinary group of 130 lead and pewter curses or defixionesfrom Bath found in the reservoir where they had been cast by vengeful devotees. This aspect of the goddess’s nature and powers isseemingly at variance with the role of benevolent healer. Sulis was clearlyperceived as an avenger of wrongs. Water and curses have a well-established link; as late as the nineteenth century inWales, a man was imprisoned for inscribing a curse on a lead sheet and throwingit into a well. In a sense the named or unnamed malefactor was being symbolicallysacrificed to the goddess. The ‘fixing’ was an important element of thedefixio, so that the curse would not rebound on the curser. The choice of leador pewter is significant both practically and symbolically. The curses are veryharsh, associated with fertility, sleep, blood and internal disorders.
So there is a strong link with disease in this negativeaspect of Sulis’s cult: Docimedes has lost two gloves. He asks that the personwho has stolen them should lose his mind and his eyes in the temple where sheappoints. Docilianus, son of Brucerus to the most holy goddess Sulis. I cursehim who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether man or woman, slave or free, thatthe goddess inflict death upon him, and not allow him sleep or children, nowand in the future, until he has brought my hooded cloak to the temple of herdivinity.
The cult of Sulis, whatever its precise nature, was popularand successful, attracting people over a wide area and over long periods oftime—nearly four centuries. If we are right to interpret her cult as primarilythat of a healer, then the reversal of benevolence and vengeance isinteresting. What the goddess could give she could also take away, especiallyif the evil deed was perpetrated within her sacred space.
Healing And The Mother-Goddesses
The symbolism of the divine female healers has alreadydemonstrated a close link between curing, fertility and regeneration. Themother-goddesses themselves, often in their distinctive triadic form, appear atthermal spring-sanctuaries, presumably as healers themselves. There is a naturallink between the mother, childbirth and women’s health before, during and afterpregnancy.
The Mothers were perceived as protectors and nourishers ofchildren. Good examples of mother-goddesses at springshrines include those atVertault and Bath. At Aix-les-Bains, pilgrims at the curative shrine worshippedthe Matres Comedovae, the med element perhaps referring specifically to health.The Matres Griselicae were the eponymous healers at Greoulx, the Glanicae atGlanum, and the
Nemausicae at Nîmes, all in Provence. At Arrington inCambridgeshire, a recent discovery consists of the burial of an infant who diedof hydrocephalus: he was placed in a coffin on top of which was a group of clayfigurines, including a mother-goddess of distinctively Rhenish type. Was sheplaced in his grave as a symbolic mother but also as a healer, so that he wouldbe whole in his life in the Otherworld?
The association between mothers and healers is enhanced bycertain aspects of their symbolism, notably the presence with them of suchanimals as dogs and snakes. Dogs were associated with self-healing, and therewere sacred dogs at the great healing sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus inGreece. In Britain, images of dogs were notable occurrences at the healingshrine of Nodens at Lydney. We have seen the association between dogs, Sironaand Aveta. Snakes were potent symbols of rebirth and fertility, againassociated with healing.
-Conclusion
From our own experience in modern times we know that healthfigures prominently in, for example, governmental responsibility and spending.Health is a fundamental concern to humankind and must always have been so. In antiquity,many diseases that to us are commonplace and curable were neither understood nor capable of effective treatment. So the godsplayed a crucial role in the physical and spiritual well-being of thecommunity.
In the Celtic world, we know of many great healing-cultswhich were more or less influenced by the imagery and belief-systems of theClassical world. But I think it fair to say that some of the most interestingcults were those centred upon the goddesses; Sulis, Sequana, Sirona and theirsisters in healing all presided over important popular sanctuaries to whichpilgrims were attracted from far afield, drawn by the successful reputations ofthe goddesses.
The links between healing and fertility are interesting, andthese appear to be specific to the female healers. Perhaps more fascinatingstill is the reversal of beneficence and malignancy in Sulis’s cult, wherecuring and cursing were both under the goddess’s jurisdiction.
The healing deities may have played a large part in people’slives not only because they attended to their physical well-being but alsoperhaps because they offered spiritual renewal. This is not usually evidenced archaeologically but it is more than likely that pilgrimsprayed to these divinities for many and complex reasons other than those ofpure health.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the healing-goddesscult is the manner in which it has survived into modern Christianity all overEurope. There are numerous instances of shrines to the Virgin Mary as a healerto whom pilgrims have come in recent years as suppliants, bearing gifts identicalto those found in such sanctuaries as Fontes Sequanae. I will give just oneexample, from Malta, where Melleiha Bay, a subterranean shrine to Mary, cutinto the rock, is associated with a natural spring. The gifts which decoratethe walls include wax or silver models of limbs, hearts or eyes, baby clothes,shoes, crutches, plaster-casts, X-rays, pictures of children, even crash-helmets:all offered to Mary in hope or thanksgiving. There is a legend that the statueof Mary was often moved to a more respectable place within the main churchlater built above the original shrine but that, during the night, she alwaysmoved back down the forty steps to her old position by the spring. Thededications have been taking place for more than two hundred years and probablymuch longer; the shrine itself is said to be eight hundred years old. The linkbetween divine female presence, spring-water and healing, shown here, isindistinguishable from perceptions of pagan Celtic pilgrims in the early firstmillennium AD.
Miranda Green, The Concept Of The Goddess, Chapter Two.
