The story of King Arthur tells of how he received his sword from the Lady of the Lake, and how on his death, it was his faithful companion, Bedevere, who returned it to the water, only to see hand reach out and take it. This mediaeval story gives powerful echoes of a belief that stretches back into the Old Stone Age, that rivers, pools and lakes were sacred to a female deity. Echoes of the past resonate through the landscape and folklore all across this ancient land.
Votive Offerings
As children we all wanted to throw a coin into a wishing well, and if you look into a fountain you might find some coins lying at the bottom, thrown there for good luck. I have even seen coins thrown into waterfalls. This is an echo of an ancient cultic practice of offering valuable objects to a water deity. This deity was almost certainly a goddess. Note that nymphs in Greek mythology were water deities and Aphrodite emerged from water. In various fens [marshes] of the British Isles, for example Flag Fen in Eastern England, bronze objects, all broken or distorted to make them useless to humans , were deposited in the waters, where they were rediscovered millenia later. Breaking them rendered them out of daily and into sacred use. The water did not need to be clear: a dark pool was quite enough.
At Lindow Common in Cheshire a sacrificed man was found, his body preserved in the mummifying peat. Lindow, whose name derives from Llyn Dhu, the Welsh for Dark Lake, was such a pool. The man who had been garroted and killed with a blow to the head was probably sacrificed to the goddess of the pool, the Lady of the Lake. We must not think that people saw her as a gentle being. She accepted human sacrifice as part of her cultus, and there are bog bodies that have been found across North west Europe and Britain, each of them sacrificed to the deity.
The Deity
We must not think of British culture as being unique, as it belonged to the wider culture that spread across Europe and Western Asia. For example, Hindus still talk of Mother Ganges, as they regard the river as sacred to the goddess Ganga, a personification of the great goddess, whom they call Sri, Kali or Lakshmi. We must note that regarding the river as a female deity is not only an Indian practice. Two rivers in Britain are named Dee, from the Latin Dea [goddess]. Yet other rivers have names which suggest a female deity. These river names start with a dental, D or T, and their next consonant is a nasal, M or an n. These rivers include: Thames, Tame, Tamar, Teem, Tyne, Tone and Don. All are etymologically related to the word dame. Note that the h in Thames is not ancient, but was added in more modern times to make the name look more classical. The great goddess in Ireland was known as Dana, a version of this name
Sul Minerva
At Bath in South West Britain the Romans made use of a thermal spring sacred to the goddess Sul and identified her with the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva. Identifying Roman with local deities helped the Romans make sense of a rapidly expanding pantheon and enabled them to take part in a host of local cults.
Coventina
A popular goddess was Coventina, whose cultus probably gave rise to the name Coventry, one of England's largest cities. Coventina was a deity who was thought responsible for women in childbirth, a role that made her very popular with women. Inscriptions to Coventina have been found on Hadrian's Wall, whose soldiers may have prayed to her when their womenfolk were suffering in childbirth. Coventina is a goddess associated with springs and wells, and it is possible that the memory of her cultus gave rise to the image of the Lady of the Lake.
The Stone Age Goddess
The cult of the great goddess originated in the Old Stone Age. The picture here shows the statue of the Venus of Willendorf, a stone figurine found in Austria. Note that she has a rotund, motherly figure, a far cry from the superslim model figure popularised in our time. The reason for this is that she represents the ice age ideal of woman. The slim model girl of today would not have survived ice age winters. The ideal woman at that period was full-bosomed, with enough fat to survive and to bear and breast feed children in freezing times.
Black Virgins
Several statues still found in Europe, for example at Czestochowa in Poland, and at places in southern France, represent Mary the mother of Jesus as black. but these statues are far more ancient than Christianity. They are ancient statues dressed up as Mary, statues of the old goddess reinterpreted in terms of the newer, Christian cultus. Their black colour is significant. They represent a deeply rooted folk memory that the goddess was black,a memory of the time when the foremothers of Europeans were black women, before white skin evolved some time in the ice age.
Conclusion
Old religions do not fully die. They leave traces in their successors, the new cults that follow them, in folk traditions and in the landscape. Grasping this idea enables us to understand our landscape in greater depth and enjoy it all the more.
Bibliography
The Myth of the Goddess, Baring and Cashford, Penguin Books, 1991
The Cult of the Black Virgin, Ean Begg, Arkana, 1985
Flag Fen, Francis Pryor, Tempus, 2005
Francis Beswick - Religion, history and horticulture are my three great interests and I spend much of my time on them.
Join the Conversation