As I stood in my lonely corner,
banished from the society of my four-footed colleagues and deciding on a
bitter revenge on them the next morning as soon as I had eaten my roses
and become Lucius again, I noticed a little shrine of the Mare-headed
Mother, the Goddess Epona, standing in a niche of the post that
supported the main beam of the stable. It was wreathed with freshly
gathered roses, the very antidote that I needed. Lucius Apuleius, The Golden Ass, III. 17, tr.
Robert Graves
Then I being thus handled by
them, and driven away, got me into a corner of the stable, where while I
remembred their uncurtesie, and how on the morrow I should return to
Lucius by the help of a Rose, when as I thought to revenge my selfe of
myne owne horse, I fortuned to espy in the middle of a pillar sustaining
the rafters of the stable the image of the goddesse Hippone, which was
garnished and decked round about with faire and fresh roses: then in
hope of present remedy, I leaped up with my fore feet as high as I
could, stretching out my neck, and with my lips coveting to snatch some
roses. Lucius Apuleius, The Golden Ass, in the 1566 translation by
William Adlington; note the goddess's name here is the Latinized 'Hippona'
[L. hippus = horse]
Epona (‘mare goddess’,
known also as Edain) had two main celebrations: June 13 and the Festival of Epona on
December 18. The latter was a Roman
commemoration, the only major one in which the Romans honoured a Celtic
deity. When Julius Caesar conquered
Gaul in the
Gallic Wars
(58 BCE -
49 BCE), he allowed the Gauls to retain their religion and did not discourage the
Roman religion
from adopting and adapting Gallic mythology to its own purposes. His cavalry adopted Epona, giving her the name
Bubona, and worshipping her as the goddess of horses and cattle.
The horse was vitally important in the Celtic/Gallic world. The great
chieftain of the
Arverni,
Vercingetorix
(72 BCE -
46 BCE), who led the great
Gallic revolt against the
Romans in
53 - 52 BCE, in his last stand against the Roman army, sent the horses behind the lines and his army faced the Romans on foot rather than risk the slaughter of the beasts.
Lucius Apuleius (c. 124 CE - c. 180) in his Latin novel
Metamorphoses, better known as The Golden
Ass (Asinus Aureus), mentions Epona and provides some insight into her cultus.
In Celtic
mythology, too, she was the goddess of horses and cattle, and moreover of
donkeys,
mules, oxen, springs and rivers. She was also a
psychopomp, accompanying souls to the land of the dead. Possibly more inscriptions, statues, and shrines dedicated to this goddess have been found than those dedicated to any other Celtic deity. Throughout the Roman Empire, her statues can be found alongside other Roman gods and goddesses. She is often shown riding a horse (frequently side-saddle, or lying on the horse’s back), seated with horses around her or else with foals eating out of her lap.
Her flower is the rose and stables and shrines dedicated to her were
bedecked with roses, especially on her feast days, as Lucius notes.
The origin of Epona was
Gallic and had fertility connotations. The cult lasted from about 400 BCE
until Christianisation spread, in approximately 400 CE. This feast day
commemorated healing and fertility of domestic animals. The cult probably
originated from Alesia in the heartland of resistance and location of
Vercingetorix’s final stand against Julius
Caesar.
Epona was arguably the only Celtic goddess to be
worshipped in Rome itself; she was also popular throughout the empire. She
is often depicted with mares and foals, and holding cornucopiae(suggesting fertility),
sheaves of corn, and fruits. Sometimes Epona is linked with birds and
dogs. At thermal springs she appeared naked in images in which she
resembles a water nymph. Her symbols include
the key to the underworld, as well as the nappy (diaper in US) of a baby,
indicative of her role as guardian of the life cycle.
Diane Stein (The
Goddess Book of Days, Llewellyn Publications, St Paul Minnesota,
USA1989)sees her as congruent
with Leukippe, Rhiannon,
Demeter, Saranyu, the centaurs and unicorns, Pegasus, the Valraven and
Vesta – but this book tends to conflate deities without explanation. There may,
however, be associations.
She is almost certainly
associated with the Welshdeity,
Rhiannon,
who appeared to her husband-to-be (one of several), Pwyll, lord of Dyfed, as a
beautiful woman in dazzling gold on a white horse. When he first saw her,
although she rode at a leisurely pace, neither Pwyll nor his servant, no
matter how fast they rode, could catch her. Epona is believed to also have
associations with the Irish goddesses, Macha.
It has been conjectured that Lady Godiva is a
version of Epona. Some consider the White
Horse of Uffington, a white mare cut
out of the turf on the chalky upper slopes of
Uffington Castle, UK, to be related to devotion to Epona, but this is by
no means certain (for
centuries, local people have maintained that it is a portrait of the dragon slain
by St George on the nearby Dragon Hill).
On this day, grooms
would decorated Epona’s shrines in the stables, and working animals such
as horses, mules and oxen were allowed a day’s holiday.
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