Brigantia, the Tutelary Deity of the Brigantes

 As many of my readers will be aware, the tribe known as the Brigantes was a major Britonnic tribal confederation located in the northern part of England, between the rivers Tyne and Humber, which corresponds to the ancient Anglian kingdom of Northumbria. The Brigantes were also resident in Ireland in the modern counties of Wexford, Waterford and Kilkenny, and on the continent in the Alps. Their capital in England was named Isurium Brigantum (modern day Aldborough, near Boroughbridge in the old West Riding part of present day 'North Yorkshire'). Isurium is taken from the Latin name for the River Ure, the Iseur.

The Devil's Arrows standing stones are located on the outskirts of Boroughbridge. This is one of the many places I lived at with my parents as a boy but my birth town is Darlington, County Durham, which is on the Durham bank of the river Tees, a border town between Durham and Yorkshire. As an aside, I have genetic evidence of being descended from the Brigantes and I have always had a strong affinity with the Devil's Arrows stones.

The name Brigantes shares the same Proto-Celtic root as the goddess, known as Brigantia, meaning 'high, elevated'. This may refer to physical human height, topographical height or metaphorical height. The Germanic Burgundi share a related term and both probably relate back to the Proto-Indo-European *bhergh.

Famously or infamously, the Brigantes were known to be allies of Rome. The defeated anti-Roman resistance leader, Caratacus, the chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe, was betrayed to the Romans by Cartimandua, the queen of the Brigantes in 51 CE. This heinous act of betrayal strengthened her influence with the Romans. Her degenerate moral character was further demonstrated by the divorcing of her rightful husband, Venutius and her taking of his armour bearer, Vellocatus to be her consort. Despite attempts by Venutius in waging war against her, the Romans defended their client queen with military support, keeping her in power.

It is not known whether the goddess Brigantia was named after the Brigantes, or the Brigantes named after Brigantia. There is evidence for the cult of Brigantia in Gaul, Britain and possibly in Ireland (Brigid). The Romans identified Brigantia with their own goddess, Minerva, who was likewise a goddess associated with warfare and also with Victoria, the divine personification of victory. 

John Moss, writing in his The Celtic Tribes. Origins, Ancestry and the Warrior Class, 2024 hypothesises that she is the same deity as the goddess, Britannia but offers no explanation for his theory. I am not convinced that they are one and the same beyond a slight similarity with their names and the fact that they are both tutelary deities. Britannia is purely a divine personification of the British Isles and may be linked to the Hitto-Phoenician goddess Barat or Brihat who features on Lycaonian and Carthaginian coins, according to Professor L.A. Waddell in his Phoenician Origins of Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons Discovered by Phoenician and Sumerian Coins, 1924. See: Britannia, Aryan Tutelary Goddess of the British Isles

A bronze statue in fragments, dating back to the first century CE and housed in the Museum of Britanny is believed to depict Brigantia in her Roman aspect of Minerva. A head and shoulders image is shown below, and one can see the superficial resemblance to Britannia as depicted on pre-decimal British coins.

Museum of Brittany, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BrigitteCelt.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/BrigitteCelt.jpg

Below is an image of a pre-decimal British penny, which ceased to be legal tender on 1 September 1971. The last pennies for general circulation were minted in 1967, although souvenir pennies were also struck in 1970. One can see the image of Britannia on the reverse of the penny.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_pre-decimal_penny_1967_reverse.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/British_pre-decimal_penny_1967_reverse.png

Scan: Retroplum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Britannia, Aryan Tutelary Goddess of the British Isles

 The following is the resposting of an old article originally published on my now defunct Celto-Germanic Culture, Myth and History blog which I have edited and tidied up. My reason for doing so lies in the recent awakening of the Germanic and Celtic peoples of the British Isles, most especially here in England where thousands of England flags now fly from lamp posts on most housing estates.

As a child, I was often fascinated by the imagery on old English coins and in particular the figure of Britannia on pennies, ha'pennies and farthings. This imagery continued with decimalisation in the early 1970s.

It is commonly believed that the concept of Britannia as a tutelary Goddess began with the Roman invasion but this is not the case. Although she is equated with the Roman Goddess Minerva, Her history and origins precede the Romans.

Professor L. Austine Waddell in his remarkable and fascinating The Phoenician Origins of Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons Discovered by Phoenician and Sumerian Inscriptions in Britain by Pre-Roman Briton Coins (1924) makes it very clear that She originated with the earliest Aryan invaders of the British Isles. In Professor Waddell's works he establishes that the Phoenicians, like the Sumerians, and the founders of Egyptian civilisation, were originally Aryans. They did of course rule over other peoples, namely Semites who later became associated with the term Phoenician but originally they or their leaders were Aryan.

Professor Waddell was also one of the first scholars to recognise the Hittites to be Aryan civilisation. This is today now commonly accepted but this was not the case in the 1920s. Modern science is beginning to validate this great man's theories and his books, over recent years, have reached a new generation of racially aware Indo-Europeans.

Professor Waddell identifies ancient Phoenician coins from Lycaonia in the 3rd century CE  that also bear the image of this deity, but holding a cornucopia rather than a trident. Some of the coins also feature a shield with an equilateral Sun Cross, marking Her to be a solar deity.

"These coins, with others of the same type elsewhere, are of immense historical importance for recovering the lost history of the Britons in Britain and in their earlier homeland, as they now disclose the hitherto unknown origin of the modern British marine tutelary 'Britannia', and prove her to be of Hitto-Phoenician origin."(Waddell) 

Professor Waddell draws a link between the ancient ruling Aryan clan, the Barats and the name of Britain and hence of this Goddess. Studies of Her portrait show Her to be both graceful and beautiful, a notable Aryan physical aesthetic.

"Usually the head only of this goddess is figured on Phoenician coins, and it is a fine Aryan and non-Semitic type; see for example the Phoenician `Barat` coin from Carthage, and Phoenician coins generally. In these coins of Lycaonia the general resemblance to Britannia will be noticed-Britannia hitherto being supposed to have been first invented by the early Romans in Britain in the 2nd century A.D. in practically the identical  form still surviving on our modern British penny." (Waddell)           

Britannia, or more correctly in this context, Barat is featured on the Lycaonian coins as seated on a chair of a ship amidst the waves. In some coins She holds a cornucopia and in others possibly a sceptre or a cross. In Her other hand She holds the tiller of a rudder. The shield beside Her chair features the Sun Cross, likened to a St. George Cross within a Sun Disc. On modern pre- and post-decimal coins this cross is now the eight spoked Union Flag. The eight spokes like the four are significant and relate to cardinal and ordinal directions and the wheel of the year. Some shields portray instead the rayed sun so the solar implications of Her cult are obvious.

          "Her proper name is now disclosed by the Vedic hymns of the Eastern branch of the Aryan Barats to have been Barati, meaning'                          'Belonging to the Barats.' She is also called therein 'Brihad-the Divine' (Brihad- diva)..." (Waddell)

Britannia's association with the trident draws a link with the Roman Neptune or the Greek Poseidon, who many will know was the founder and tutelary deity of Atlantis.

          "In these Vedic hymns all the attributes of Britannia are accounted for; her tutelarship of the waters and of  hips, her lighthouse on the                  sea, her Neptune trident (as well as the origin of Neptune himself and his name), her helmet and shield, her Cross on the shield as well                as the cornucopia, which she sometimes bears upon the Phoenician and Greco-Roman coins, taking the place of the corn-stalk on the                 Briton coins." (Waddell)  

Rig Veda 2.35  is devoted to the 'Son of Waters', whom the Indo-Aryans called Napat. Napat may be the origin of Neptune.

           "The Son of Waters, gathering strength in waters, shines for his worshipper to give him treasures."(Rig Veda 2.35.8)                   

Often deities who were originally female were subsequently replaced by male ones. An obvious example from Germanic mythology is the Nerthus referred to in Tacitus' Germania, worshipped by the Angles and six other tribes in northern Germania. Later Njord became prominent amongst the Scandinavian peoples and the root of Njord is to be found in Nerthus. Some speculate that they simply formed a divine pair as did their offspring Freyr and Freyja.                         

"In the Vedic hymns she is called 'The Great Mother' (Mahi) and 'Holy Lady of the Waters' and is hailed as 'First-made mother' in a hymn to her son 'Napat the son of the waters' who has a  horse (thus disclosing the remote Aryan origin of the name and personality of the old Sea-god, Neptune, and his horses, and accounting for Neptune's trident in her hands). She is a 'Fire-Priestess' and `shows the light' (thus accounting for the Lighthouse on the older British coins with Britannia). She is personified Fire and sits upon the sacred Fire (thus accounting for the St. George's Cross which, we shall find later, symbolises Fire of the Sun). She is associated with the twin horsemen of the Sun (Aswin or Dioscorides), represented on the British coins, and coins of Syracuse (an ancient Phoenician colony) etc." (Waddell)

The concept of fire on or in water reminds me of Odin's eye (the sun) being hidden in the waters of Mimir's well. Professor Waddell also finds a connection between Barati and Bairthy, the Egyptian Goddess of the Water. Their functions are identical.

                          "Thus the tutelary Bairthy of the Ancient Egyptians and Assyrio-Babylonians appears to have been designated by them as 'The                               Warrior Water-goddess of the Sailor Phoenicians of the Land  of the Fire-drill cult.'" (Waddell)

A link may also be drawn between Neptune and the Celtic sea-God Manannan mac Lir who also was associated with horses, an Aryan totemic symbol. He is the tutelary deity of the Isle of Man, whose flag consists of a three-legged triskelion, a clear solar symbol.

                           "The Poseidon of the Tuatha De Danann Pantheon was called Lir, but we hear little of him in  comparison with his famous son,                             Manannan, the greatest and most popular of his many children." (The Mythology of the British Islands, Charles Squire) 

Barati was also the tutelary Goddess of Crete, Brihad-the-Divine, the divine daughter of Phoinix, the King of Phoenicia, thus demonstrating the Aryan origin of Cretan civilisation via the Aryo-Phoenicians. There may also be an association with the Irish Goddess Brigid, the daughter of The Dagda of the Tuatha De Danann. She also was a solar deity as evidenced by the rather interesting Swastika-like Solar Cross associated with Her.

Royal Mint's African 'Britannia'

 To my great disgust and consternation I encountered the following 2021 news article from Vogue magazine, when carrying out some research on the Britannia divine archetype, a subject which I have written about before, and which I will return to in a future article on this blog. Here is a link to the news article which I am referring to: https://www.vogue.co.uk/news/article/britannia-woman-of-colour

So it would seem that it is not only the BBC ('Bastardising of British Culture' Corporation) and the educational establishment which is attempting to rewrite British history, but now the Royal Mint! To quote from the article: 

 “It is a huge step change for us,” says Anne Glossop, the first female Deputy Master of the Mint. “Our work is at the core of representing society and the heritage of a nation, and we need to reflect that.”

No, Miss Glossop, your role is to mint British coins, not attempt to rewrite British history or make 'right on' political statements! The 'heritage' of the United Kingdom is not African! Britannia is not merely a symbol of the insulae Britannicae, but a divine archetype, as anyone who has studied ancient historical symbolism could have told you. Britannia is concerned with the origin of the British Isles (which includes the island of Ireland), not recent unwanted developments, since the unasked for mass invasion of our islands since 1948! The native populations of these islands are Germanic, Celtic and a Celto-Germanic mix, a Europid population with a common Indo-European ancestry. It is and never has been native African!

The 'credit' for this unholy creation belongs to an 'Irish children's book illustrator' P.J. Lynch, which the article states:

'who was among a wide and diverse group invited to submit designs and renderings to be judged anonymously.' 

I am not surprised that the judging was 'anonymous'! The Royal Mint's 'advisory committee' appears to be as equally 'diverse'. Once again, nobody has asked the native peoples of the United Kingdom what they think! I trust that all right-thinking people, such as my readers, will vote with their pockets and refrain from purchasing this highly politicised creation! I wish to emphasise that I am not criticising the model who posed for this coin but its creators, designers and commissioners!