Gaelic Folklore (35): The Celtic Goddesses Healer

The Celtic Goddesses Healer

Introduction

The evidence for a healer-goddess in Celtic Europe during the early first millennium AD is based almost entirely upon iconographical and epigraphic evidence. Certain concepts need to be introduced here in order that the role of the Goddess as healer may be better understood.

First, there is a strong link between religion and medicine: this is something that is evidenced both in the classical and in the Celtic world. Sick people in antiquity relied upon the healing skills of the supernatural powers at least as much as upon empirical medicine. Indeed, at many therapeutic sanctuaries in Gaul and Britain, doctors were present as well as priests, for example at Fontes Sequanae and Bath; it is even possible that the two roles were sometimes combined in the one individual.

Second, the perception of the numinous in water is important. There is abundant evidence in non-Mediterranean Europe from at least the later Bronze Age—say around 1300 BC—that water was a central focus of ritual activity. During the later Iron Age this activity began to manifest itself in the development of healing sanctuaries on the sites of thermal springs, a phenomenon which burgeoned in the Romano-Celtic phase in the Rhineland, Gaul and Britain.

Third, the evidence for healing cults in Celtic Europe demonstrates a very close link between healing, regeneration and fertility, which may account for the fact that many Celtic divine healers were perceived as female, and for the strong association between curative cult establishments and the mothergoddesses. There is evidence that many devotees of healing-deities were women; the fact that most stone altars were dedicated by men probably does not reflect anything other than economic or social factors. Women may not normally have had the means to erect expensive stone monuments as readily as their male counterparts. However, the cult of Apollo Vindonnus at Essarois in Burgundy seems—from the exvotoes— to have been patronized by women. The lady wearing a torc whose wooden image was dedicated at the thermal shrine of Chamalières in the first century AD was probably a devotee, 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 the healing professions: at Grand in the Vosges, a stone of Romano-Celtic date depicts the inside of a chemist’s shop with a female chemist at work with mortar and herbs. An inscription and image on a tombstone at Metz betray the presence of a female doctor in the first century AD.

Fourth, we must be wary of positing theories- about the status of women in Celtic society from the importance of the Goddess. Having sounded this note of caution, it is, however, interesting that classical literary references to Celtic women contain many allusions to the contrast between their status and that of their more lowly Mediterranean sisters.

Sequana Of Burgundy

Sequana was a water-spirit, the personification of the River Seine at its source, Fontes Sequanae. Here, in the valley of the Châtillon Plateau, a spring of fresh, pure water wells up from the ground and was the focus of religious devotion from the later first century BC. The spring is pure but it contains no genuine mineral properties. Sequana is special in that she is not paired with any Roman goddess; her name is known from 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, more than 200 wooden votives were discovered in water-logged ground, apparently pre-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 of permanent structures at this time. Shortly after the Roman occupation of the region the sanctuary was monumentalized and the spring canalized. It was now an extensive religious complex, containing two temples, porticoes, a dormitory and reservoirs, still centered on the sacred spring and pool. The votive images were now of stone. In common with the activities at classical healing shrines, sick pilgrims visited the sanctuary bearing offerings—possibly bought at the shrine shop—bathed, slept, and asked for a cure with gifts of models of themselves or their afflictions. Eyes, chest, genitals, limbs—these were just a few of the complaints represented by the votives. The eye problems so prevalent at many shrines could have been due to poor hygiene or malnutrition: a lack of animal fat can cause night-blindness. The votive model breasts in bronze and silver may denote milk deficiency, a serious problem for child-rearing in antiquity. Sequana was not a specialist: she healed all afflictions.

Sequana

Sirona And Her Peers

There is a group of continental healer-goddesses who have a common characteristic: namely, the possession of a male partner. It is the case with the healers, as with other divine couples like Mercury and Rosmerta, that the native goddess seems often to possess a wider variety of functions and concerns than her consort and, in addition, is the less influenced by Graeco-Roman traditions. These goddesses usually have completely native names, and symbolism which is less influenced by Graeco-Roman art forms than their male companions. In addition, they show evidence of independent identity: they are not mere female ciphers attached to the cults of male divinities.

Sirona

Sirona

Sirona is the divine partner of the Celtic healing Apollo, normally called Apollo Grannus (a native epithet associated with Grand in the Vosges). But she occurs alone, for example at Corseul in Brittany, where she is called Tsirona; her high rank is shown by inscriptions where she is linked with the spirit of the emperor. Sirona was venerated alone also at Baumburg in Noricum (Austria). Her cult was widely distributed and may well have pre-dated the Roman occupation of Gaul and elsewhere. Sirona was 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 and Sainte-Fontaine, and among the neighbouring Mediomatrici at Sablon, Metz. Sirona’s spring-cult is evidenced at Wiesbaden, Mainz and Luxeuil and even at Brigetio in Hungary, where, in the third century AD, a temple was set up to Apollo Grannus and Sarana. In the second century AD a temple was erected at Hochscheid, on the site of a spring whose waters supplied a cistern. The evidence of coins suggests that this building replaced an earlier shrine, perhaps of wood. Pilgrims offered presents of coins, figurines, etc. It seems to have been a wealthy shrine for so remote a region, perhaps a personal endowment by a prosperous trader or villa-owner who had occasion to be grateful to the guardians of the spring. 

The imagery here is interesting and Sirona’s is the more informative. There were large stone statues of Apollo and Sirona; he is entirely Classical, but Sirona is represented as a woman in a long robe and a diadem, a snake round her right forearm, and a bowl of three eggs held in her left hand. The serpent/egg symbolism is essentially regenerative as well as curative. The snake’s skin-sloughing habit gives it symbolism of rebirth and perhaps also the idea of sloughing off disease. Clay figurines brought to the shrine as gifts show Sirona seated, like a mother-goddess, with a small lapdog, which is perhaps indicative of healing. There is an Irish historical link between women and lapdogs which is suggested by Cormick as being possibly associated with the use of these animals as ‘hot-water bottles’ to comfort period pains. The imagery of the couple in bronze at Malain in Burgundy is essentially similar to that at Hochscheid: this group has a dedicatory inscription beneath the images. On other sites, the fertility aspect of Sirona’s cult is evidenced by the imagery; for example, at Sainte-Fontaine, where the goddess bears corn and fruit, and at Mainz and Baumburg where she is accompanied by ears of corn. This symbolism of the earth’s abundance bears out the association between healing springs and the mother-goddess cult. Sirona’s name is interesting: it is philologically related to ‘star’, so perhaps associated with night and darkness. There could be a link with the moon, the female menstrual cycle and the darkness of the womb.

Sirona and Apollo

Ancamna and Damona

These two continental goddesses are distinctive in their apparent polyandry, changing partners from site to site. Ancamna is known only from epigraphy. She was a Treveran deity, partner of Lenus Mars at Trier. But at Moehn, a rural sanctuary where Lenus was also venerated, Ancamna was coupled with Mars Smertrius, another native version of the Roman god. Is this the same deity with two names, or are they separate entities? Mars’s association with healing is common in the Celtic world, where his 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, but accompanied by a ram-horned snake, symbol of regeneration. Mavilly was particularly renowned for the cure of eye disease. Damona’s name means ‘divine cow’ or ‘great cow’, and this may reflect her role as a goddess of wealth and fertility. But first and foremost she was a healer, worshipped especially in Burgundy; 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 a shrine with a pool in which sick pilgrims bathed in the hope of a cure. No image of Moritasgus survives but there is a fragment of Damona’s statue, showing a strong link between her iconography and that of Sirona: a carved stone head is crowned with corn-ears and a hand entwined with a serpent’s coils. At Bourbonne-Lancy, Damona’s consort was Borvo, another spring-god, and an inscription from the curative shrine relates to Damona’s association with the therapeutic sleep enjoyed by pilgrims seeking a healing dream or vision from the divine healers. The names of both Borvo and Moritasgus mean ‘bubbling’ or ‘seething’ water. 

At another Burgundian shrine, Arnay-le-Duc, Damona’s partner is yet another god, Abilus. Again a fragmentary image of the goddess represents her with a stone snake curled round a human arm. It is worth remembering that the Graeco-Roman healer-god, Asklepios, is often depicted with a coiled serpent. The polyandrous nature of Damona’s cult supports her status as an independent native divinity whose identity was not based on her association with any one god. Her rank is further enhanced by epigraphic evidence from the curative sanctuary of Bourbonne-les-Bains, where Damona was worshipped alone.

Ancamna and Mars Smertius

Other Gaulish Spring Goddesses

Many other spring-goddesses are recorded only on inscriptions, often again associated with male partners: Bormana and Bormanus were venerated in southern Gaul; Luxovius and Bricta at Luxeuil. Others were lone 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 figure playing pan-pipes. We have little clue as to Januaria’s precise function, though she was worshipped at a curative shrine. The musical instrument may indeed be a symbol of healing sleep, just as in vernacular myth healing deities such as Cliodna were associated with music—this time with singing birds. The name of the Treveran goddess Icovellauna may be linked with water-imagery: she was venerated at Trier and at the thermal springs of Sablon, Metz. Aveta was a spring goddess of the Treveri, to whom pilgrims at Trier offered small clay figurines 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 Roman period: this is implied by the presence of eighteen Celtic Iron Age coins from the lowest levels. Early in the Roman period—just fifteen years or so after the occupation—a great temple, baths and a huge religious precinct were constructed around the great spring, which pumps out hot water beside the River Avon at a rate of a quarter of a million gallons a day; a huge altar was set up in front of the temple, and a reservoir containing the main spring enclosed by a low stone wall. This was a great Neronian or Flavian building programme using Roman engineers.

There were major alterations c. AD 200, which argue for a new slant to the cult: the temple was enlarged but the reservoir, which had been visible all over the precinct, including the baths, was enclosed in a huge vaulted hall, restricting both physical and visual access to it, and making the water more remote and mysterious. Pilgrims could now only approach the spring through a dim passageway—does this imply Otherworld symbolism?

The goddess at Bath was Sulis, a native deity, but she was equated with 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 Minerva because the latter was perceived as goddess of the craft of medicine. But in addition there is a philological link between the name Sulis and the sun—the sun and healing were closely linked in the Celtic world.  Indeed the solar association may have come about 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 ailments as arthritis and gout; this must have gained Sulis a reputation for being able to cure everything. There were many devotees who donated ivory and bronze model breasts, spindle-whorls and jewellery. But unlike—say—Sequana’s shrine, very few anatomical votives have been found. Pilgrims visited the shrine perhaps for a physical cure, or perhaps more often for spiritual refreshment. Immersion, purification, imbibing the water and thus the spirit of the goddess, the healing 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 of personal contact with the goddess, to whom prayers, vows, requests and thanks were made. Stone altars record gratitude for Sulis’s help. Money, rings, brooches and combs as well as other personal offerings were cast in, some by women, 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’) may have been present in a personal rather than an official capacity. Part of a head-dress was found, suggesting liturgical regalia. About 12,000 coins come from the reservoir.

This seems a large quantity but it works out as only an average of c. 24–48 coins a year. The presence of silver, pewter and bronze vessels could 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 assumption that Sulis is primarily a healer-goddess is valid. The only real evidence is her presence at the site of a major thermal spring. The third-century Roman writer Solinus refers to Bath having springs ‘furnished luxuriously for human use …over them Minerva presides’. There is no mention of healing. The inscriptions dedicating altars to the goddess do not specifically mention the curing of disease, whilst this does occur at Fontes Sequanae. Most importantly, there is a significant lack of anatomical votives, which are such clear indications of healing cults elsewhere. Certainly, I think, we have to reconsider Sulis’s role, even though the hot springs must have played a genuine part in the establishment of the cult.

Sulis / Minerva

The diversity of Sulis’s cult is nowhere shown more clearly than in the extraordinary group of 130 lead and pewter curses or defixiones from Bath found in the reservoir where they had been cast by vengeful devotees. This aspect of the goddess’s nature and powers is seemingly at variance with the role of benevolent healer. Sulis was clearly perceived as an avenger of wrongs. Water and curses have a well-established link; as late as the nineteenth century in Wales, a man was imprisoned for inscribing a curse on a lead sheet and throwing it into a well. In a sense the named or unnamed malefactor was being symbolically sacrificed to the goddess. The ‘fixing’ was an important element of the defixio, so that the curse would not rebound on the curser. The choice of lead or pewter is significant both practically and symbolically. The curses are very harsh, associated with fertility, sleep, blood and internal disorders.

So there is a strong link with disease in this negative aspect of Sulis’s cult: Docimedes has lost two gloves. He asks that the person who has stolen them should lose his mind and his eyes in the temple where she appoints. Docilianus, son of Brucerus to the most holy goddess Sulis. I curse him who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether man or woman, slave or free, that the goddess inflict death upon him, and not allow him sleep or children, now and in the future, until he has brought my hooded cloak to the temple of her divinity.

The cult of Sulis, whatever its precise nature, was popular and successful, attracting people over a wide area and over long periods of time—nearly four centuries. If we are right to interpret her cult as primarily that of a healer, then the reversal of benevolence and vengeance is interesting. What the goddess could give she could also take away, especially if the evil deed was perpetrated within her sacred space.

Healing And The Mother-Goddesses

The symbolism of the divine female healers has already demonstrated a close link between curing, fertility and regeneration. The mother-goddesses themselves, often in their distinctive triadic form, appear at thermal spring-sanctuaries, presumably as healers themselves. There is a natural link between the mother, childbirth and women’s health before, during and after pregnancy.

The Mothers were perceived as protectors and nourishers of children. Good examples of mother-goddesses at springshrines include those at Vertault and Bath. At Aix-les-Bains, pilgrims at the curative shrine worshipped the Matres Comedovae, the med element perhaps referring specifically to health. The Matres Griselicae were the eponymous healers at Greoulx, the Glanicae at Glanum, and the

Nemausicae at Nîmes, all in Provence. At Arrington in Cambridgeshire, a recent discovery consists of the burial of an infant who died of hydrocephalus: he was placed in a coffin on top of which was a group of clay figurines, including a mother-goddess of distinctively Rhenish type. Was she placed in his grave as a symbolic mother but also as a healer, so that he would be whole in his life in the Otherworld?

The association between mothers and healers is enhanced by certain aspects of their symbolism, notably the presence with them of such animals as dogs and snakes. Dogs were associated with self-healing, and there were sacred dogs at the great healing sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus in Greece. In Britain, images of dogs were notable occurrences at the healing shrine of Nodens at Lydney. We have seen the association between dogs, Sirona and Aveta. Snakes were potent symbols of rebirth and fertility, again associated with healing.

-Conclusion

From our own experience in modern times we know that health figures 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 gods played a crucial role in the physical and spiritual well-being of the community.

In the Celtic world, we know of many great healing-cults which were more or less influenced by the imagery and belief-systems of the Classical world. But I think it fair to say that some of the most interesting cults were those centred upon the goddesses; Sulis, Sequana, Sirona and their sisters in healing all presided over important popular sanctuaries to which pilgrims were attracted from far afield, drawn by the successful reputations of the goddesses.

The links between healing and fertility are interesting, and these appear to be specific to the female healers. Perhaps more fascinating still is the reversal of beneficence and malignancy in Sulis’s cult, where curing and cursing were both under the goddess’s jurisdiction.

The healing deities may have played a large part in people’s lives not only because they attended to their physical well-being but also perhaps because they offered spiritual renewal. This is not usually evidenced archaeologically but it is more than likely that pilgrims prayed to these divinities for many and complex reasons other than those of pure health.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the healing-goddess cult is the manner in which it has survived into modern Christianity all over Europe. There are numerous instances of shrines to the Virgin Mary as a healer to whom pilgrims have come in recent years as suppliants, bearing gifts identical to those found in such sanctuaries as Fontes Sequanae. I will give just one example, from Malta, where Melleiha Bay, a subterranean shrine to Mary, cut into the rock, is associated with a natural spring. The gifts which decorate the 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 statue of Mary was often moved to a more respectable place within the main church later built above the original shrine but that, during the night, she always moved back down the forty steps to her old position by the spring. The dedications have been taking place for more than two hundred years and probably much longer; the shrine itself is said to be eight hundred years old. The link between divine female presence, spring-water and healing, shown here, is indistinguishable from perceptions of pagan Celtic pilgrims in the early first millennium AD.

Miranda Green, The Concept Of The Goddess, Chapter Two.