Nehalennia: Dutch, Germanic, or Celtic Goddess?
I promised to write this article (using various sources) a few months ago, I just wrote it, enjoy.
Because i am half Zeelandic (Zeêuws in Zeelandic, Zeeuws in Dutch) i wanted to write a article about the Goddess Nehalennia, i have one book about her, its a very small book (12 pages) that mostly talks about the stones, statues and temples that where discovered, there is also a 119 page book from the archaeologist Dr. P. Stuart, he closely had been involved in the storage work in the Oosterschelde where most of the stones where found.
In 2001, he published the scientific expenditure of these finds. (only in Dutch).
From what i read is that her worship dates back at least to the 2nd century BCE, and who flourished in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, she was the goddess of fishermen and other people on the sea.
She is associated with the afterlife, but probable she was also a goddess of fertility.
She is represented generally sitting with a dog, sometimes interpreted as a symbol of faithfully, with fruit or apples, which can be understood as a symbol of fertility.
A dog has the grim role of hellhound and guardian of the underworld within the indo-European mythology.
In Roman sources the savage North sea was described at one occasion as infested with dogs. Apples refer in the European mythology several times to other-worldly (afterlives ?) harbours such as the apple country Avalon and the garden of Hesperia.
Several inscriptions inform us that the votive altar was placed to show gratitude for a safe passage across the North Sea, and we may assume that other altars were dedicated for the same reason. (Of course, this does not mean that all pieces were erected after a safe passage.) An example of a typical inscription:
To the goddess Nehalennia,
on account of goods duly kept safe,
Marcus Secundinius Silvanus,
trader in pottery with Britain,
fulfilled his vow willingly and deservedly.
Hilda Ellis Davidson describes the votive objects:
Nehalennia, a Germanic goddess worshipped at the point where travellers crossed the North Sea from the Netherlands, is shown on many carved stones holding loaves and apples like a Mother Goddess, sometimes with a prow of a ship beside her, but also frequently with an attendant dog which sits looking up at her. He was on thirteen of the twenty-one altars recorded by Ada Hondius-Crone (1955: 103), who describes him as a kind of greyhound.
Davidson further links the motif of the ship associated with Nehalennia with the Germanic Vanir pair of Freyr and Freyja, as well as the Germanic goddess Nerthus, and draws a connection between the loaves of bread that appear on some depictions Nehalennia with oblong, shin-bone shaped loaves of bread baked in the shape of a boar at the time of Yule in Sweden. Davidson further states that customs in Värmland, Sweden "within living memory" describe grain from the last sheaf being used to bake a loaf into the shape of a little girl, as well as examples of elaborate loaves being used for religious festivals, for fertility of fields in Anglo-Saxon England, and examples from Ireland.
The name "Nehalennia" is a Latin transcription of a non-Latin language, and thus the real name would probably have lost much of its local vocalization. Various etymologies have been proposed. According to some theorists, because the name Nehalennia is not known to be either a Celtic or Germanic name, it must be quite old, at least from the 2nd century BCE. In phonetic comparisons with other names in the region, Jacob Grimm discussed how Neha- is also used as suffix for plural females (for example -nehis and -nehabus), possibly meaning something like "nymphs" or "mothers".
The goddess has also been adduced as evidence of a controversial non-Celtic non-Germanic Indo-European Nordwestblock culture.
The goddess Nehalennia was equated by the Roman Tacitus (± 200-276) with the goddess Isis and we see agreements with the triple mother goddess of the Celts and Germanics. Both the goddess Nehalennia and the triple mother goddess can be seen with a fruit basket and a cornucopia.
From what i can tell two hundred stones where found in 1970 by K.J. Bout, from the two hundred stones four or five where statures, only one was found with a head, parts of a temple was also found.
Most stone monuments that where found by him where altars, but not regular altars but decorative altars, another source says the two hundred stones where votive stones (if i translate it correctly), a votive stone is a stone table with inscription, sculpture or painting which appears that a promise is fulfilled.
In the year 1647 near Domburg parts of another temple where found, two more altars where found in Keulen but where destroyed by the bombardment during the second world war.
There is a remade temple of Nehalennia in Zeeland:
http://www.nehalennia-tempel.nl/
For visitors, if I am right its closed most of the time but the door is made of glass so you can look inside.
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Originally Posted by Neophyte
Netherlands & Flanders
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