This blog was originally posted August 26, 2015. You can read the original comments here.
Artio, Celtic Goddess of Wild Life, Transformation, and Abundance, is one of the more obscure goddesses in the Celtic pantheon. She is often shown with baskets of plenty and surrounded by animals. Artio is frequently depicted as a bear. Her name comes from the old Celtic word for bear, arth(e), which the Romans Latinized to artos.
Artio arrived in western Europe with the Helvetii a Celtic tribe who migrated to Switzerland around 450 BC. They worshiped Her as the “She-Bear”.
But Her origins could be even older than that. Some feel that the bear is the oldest European deity as bones and skulls of bears have been found lovingly arranged on niches found in caves across Europe. In 1840 in Ireland, during the restoration of Armagh Cathedral, ancient, small stone carvings of bears were found.
Continue reading “From the Archives: Artio, Celtic Goddess of Wild Life, Transformation and Abundance by Judith Shaw”
Boann, Celtic Goddess of Poetry, Fertility, Inspiration, Knowledge and Creativity was one of the Tuatha De Danann (People of Danu). She was associated with the 70 mile long river Boyne in Northeast Ireland and its source, the Well of Segais. Some bards say that long, long ago when the world was young and wild places were everywhere, Boann initiated that spring by walking counter-clockwise around stones found there, causing the water from under the earth to spring forth with great strength and rush down to the sea. The pool formed by the spring was encircled by nine sacred hazelnut trees, whose nuts could impart knowledge when eaten. The salmon of wisdom swam in the waters of this hidden pool from which the river Boyne flows.
Blodeuwedd, also known as the Ninefold Goddess of the Western Isles of Paradise, was a Goddess like no other in the manner of her birth. She is one of the main figures in the Mabinogion, the Welsh cycle of stories of the early Celtic Goddesses and Gods. But to understand Blodeuwedd, her short life, her actions, and her death we must look back to the story of Arianrhod, Celtic Sky Goddess.
Feminism and Religion 