3 SPECIAL GODS WORSHIPPED BY ANCIENT BRITONS REVISITED
Today we are going to take a closer look at 3 important ancient British isle Gods/Goddesses.
Yes, we will revisit these 3very important energetic Deities and your mission will be to study and come up with your own research and eventual ways to incorporate these 3 into your magick and /or daily, monthly rituals.
These 3 British Isle Gods/Goddesses have been worshiped and celebrated by our ancestors in Ancient Britain, for many centuries and millennia… It is important for us to re-connect with our ancient roots and keep those vital links alive.
ABANDINUS
Abandinus means Defender of the river, and this God is, as a matter of fact, a merging of a Celtic Deity with a Roman one of similar characteristics.
He is a rather obscure God whose presence is marked by a single altar stone at the old Roman town of Godmanchester (Cambridgeshire)in the United Kingdom.
A group of bronze votive feathers was also found at the site, one of which was dedicated to Abandinus, which may suggest some sort of avian / bird connection.
His name may also be connected to the river Abona, and as there was also a well near to the shrine it is possible he was a local water god.
Alternatively, it has been suggested that his name comes from the words abon meaning “river” and din or dun meaning “fortification”, giving a meaning of something like “Defender of the River” as previously mentioned.
Boadicea formed a huge force of Celtic tribes that banded together in a Revolt against the Romans, theses Celtic tribes burnt Godmanchester when they stormed it during their rampage towards the main Roman forces in what is now London.
Interestingly enough the wells and rivers and streams were not affected and continued to supply fresh water to the area, this enabled Godmanchester to recover quickly from the attempted total destruction by Boadicea…
It is said that this attack led the locals of Godmanchester to call upon the God Abandinus to haunt Boadicea’s Celtic tribes in revenge, which and you can read this anyway you like, either coincidentally or magically contributed to Boadicea and her armies to finally suffer a complete crushing defeat at the hands of the Romans.
This Mysterious Celtic God of Roman influence was most definitely a God of protection for the locals, keeping rivers, lakes, and wells protected against calamities, evil spirits, and invaders.
If you want to reconnect with Abandinus you can create a statue or painting of a feathered bird-like god with wings, a human torso, and human legs with bird feet.
You can be creative and come up with your own rendition and interpretation of Abandinus.
OFFERINGS
Offerings can be any type of fish as well as wine/water, feathers, and native wildflowers from the riverside placed at a particular natural site like riverside or lakeside or near a well, on a Monday.
The purpose of this God it seems is to protect the natural water resources and keep them clean and pure, further enhancing the nearby towns’ ability to flourish and farm without the worry of ever suffering from an insufficient water supply.
You can call upon Abandinus to keep your natural water spots pure and protected and also for health and prosperity.
ABRAXAS
ABRAXAS’ Known Period of Worship was from the 2nd-13th century CE.
Believe it or not…as Mr. Ripley used to say, or should that really be Jack Palance? sorry I digress…Abraxas was originally an Egyptian God, also known as Abrasax, which was soon accepted by the Greeks as well as a solar God.
The Gnostic solar god Abraxas was proposed by the Alexandrian Basilides in the early second century CE, as the Supreme Being.
The name was created by using the first letters of the Greek names for the visible seven planets, which significantly added to 365, the number of days in the year.
He is subsequently referred to by Tertullian in the third century CE in his work Against All Heresies.
He is shown with a cockerel head and snake legs, bearing a whip in his right hand and shield in the left.
He is depicted in this manner on a jasper ring from Thetford (Norfolk) and another from Silchester (Hampshire), both dating to the third century CE.
The Gnostic word IAO is inscribed on the back of both rings.
Amulets of Abraxas were still being used in Britain during the thirteenth century CE for good fortune and protection against evil.
The name “Abraxas stone” eventually came to be incorrectly applied to any stone with a Gnostic image on it, including those bearing the word Abracadabra and being used as a protection from the plague.
Abraxas is a conception of God that incorporates both Good and Evil in one entity. Therefore, in Gnostic terms, he is both God and Demiurge. Abraxas represents a mono-theistic God but at the same time he is quite different from the omnibenevolent God found in later Christianity.
In his depiction, he has a Roosters head (cockerel), a man’s torso, and two snakes for legs. He is also often shown carrying a shield and a whip.
The shield represents protective wisdom and the whip driving power.
The roosters head symbolizes wakeful vigilance and the announcement of a new dawn, the snakes may be considered symbolic of the Goddess, it is an animal closely associated with Isis and Demeter, two important conceptions of the Goddess in antiquity.
Also, the snake in India represents the Shakti or female energy which is thought of as a sleeping serpent lying dormant within all of us.
In this way Abraxas would truly be a juxtaposition of the fundamental polar opposites of Female and Male and as described earlier the combining of Good and Evil.
The image of Abraxas was often used to decorate good luck charms, seals, and amulets in ancient times gone by.
These ancient Abraxas artifacts were quite common and many still exist today in museums and private collections.
Later on, in history, the order of the Knights Templar put the image of Abraxas on their most important seals which were used to bind the most secret documents, and it is speculated they also worshipped Abraxas secretly to ensure good fortune and protection for their order members.
KYMIDEU KYMEINVOLL
The Goddess KYMIDEU KYMEINVOLL, Her name meaning Pregnant in Battle, she has been attributed as Originating in Ireland.
Several Literary references, The Red Book of Hergest, and White Book of Rhydderch where Kymideu Kymeinvoll is referred to in the tale of Branwen the Daughter of Llyr.
From the description given of her, it is likely that she is one of the primal Fir Bolgs .
The Fir Bolgs in medieval Irish myth, (also spelled Firbolg and Fir Bholg) are the fourth group of people to settle in Ireland.
They are descended from the Muintir Nemid, an earlier group who abandoned Ireland and went to different parts of Europe.
Those who went to Greece became the Fir Bolg and eventually returned to Ireland after it had been uninhabited for several decades.
After ruling Ireland for some time and dividing the island into provinces, they are overthrown by the invading Tuatha Dé Danann.
Kymideu Kymeinvoll,Her Husband, and sons were captured by the powerful sorcerors who cast a powerful entrapment spell using a magick enormous cauldron given to them by a rival Goddess el tel Cythian.
They were placed in it and imprisoned in an iron house, where The Tuatha De Danann set around it a forest worth of dried wood on fire and heated it to white heat, the result killing all her sons but not her or her husband.
They escaped to Wales with the cauldron and gave the cauldron to Bran, who subsequently (and unfortunately) returned it to the Irish.
Her subsequent sons were scattered around Wales as soldiers. That even the iron house could not contain her shows that Kymideu Kymeinvoll was divine rather than a fairy being.
The magickal property of her cauldron was that any man who was slain could be thrown in the cauldron and he would be restored to life the next day, except unable to speak.
The cauldron was destroyed by Bran’s step-brother Evnyssien who worshipped a rival Goddess el tel Cythian.
The Goddess el tel Cythian gave Evnyssien a potion to drink.
He then pretended to be dead and was thrown inside by Bran, and burst the cauldron from the inside, using the remaining drops of potion…killing himself in the process.
Kymideu Kymeinvoll later tracked down rival Goddess el tel Cythian and a powerful battle of the goddesses took part in the heavens, whereby Kymideu Kymeinvoll summoned her dead sons’ spirits to distract el tel Cythian, allowing her to draw a lightning bolt of energy from the atmosphere and sent it through El tel Cythian…Pulverising her earthly form and sending her back into the spirit world.
KYMIDEU KYMEINVOLL …Her attributes were as of an unkillable hideous giant woman bearing a cauldron of rebirth that fit with her being a war goddess from earlier times.
The meaning of her name is “pregnant in battle”, referred to her ability to instantly produce full-grown warriors from conception within six weeks.
She is described as rising from the waters of a lake, after her cauldron-bearing husband Llassar Llaesgyvnewid, who is a giant, though she is twice his size.
She could produce a child every month, who would grow in two weeks to be a full-grown skilled warrior.
Such were the powers of this earth-bound Goddess Giant.
This ability she lost once the cauldron was destroyed.
She continued to be worshipped by warrior men and women through the ages, and for restoring health during times of illness.
So there we have it…3 very important Gods of Olde Briton…
Incorporate them any way you wish…they are as powerful today as they were back in ancient times!
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