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Post by nellie on Feb 18, 2011 21:39:00 GMT -1
This has been tugging at me for some time but I wasn't sure this was the place... but it keeps tugging.
From what I can dig up the evidence for Nehalennia only comes from one site on the continent - is that right? Is there any reason to believe that She might have been worshipped on this side of the water also? If traders were heading over here on a regular basis and asking Nehalennia to safe guard their passage across the north sea would they not have thanked Her when they reached these shores safely? Having grown up in what was once primarily a fishing port and having had that history taught to me from a young age it seems almost a given that fishing communities would have prayed for safety on the dangerous seas. Could the ancient Brits have been praying to Nehalennia? Would She have been seen solely as a protector and seperate entity or would She have been seen as the north sea Herself I wonder?
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Post by redraven on Feb 20, 2011 16:37:03 GMT -1
I presume that this piece... www.livius.org/ne-nn/nehalennia/nehalennia.html is the main source of your info? You may think that as an island peoples, there would be much evidence to the deities associated with the sea, yet this is patently not the case. Why would this be? Well, to put it simply, the shifting topography around the coasts caused by coastal errosion would, in all probability, result in many physical representations being claimed by the sea unlike the more stable inland. However, it is my belief that the practice of votive offerings into rivers may have originated through coastal communities doing a similar thing for safe passage, so although we may have little in the way of evidence for coastal deities, it is my belief that practices originating in coastal areas were taken up by inland peoples when dealing with their local and area specific deities. RR
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Post by nellie on Feb 21, 2011 14:22:57 GMT -1
I had read somewhere before about our apparent lack of sea deities, but it just seems so odd to me having grown up a stones throw from the north sea. I can't imagine living next to the sea and having to go out on it without asking for the protection of somebody big! Is it stupid to think that lack of evidence might be down to something as simple as erosion? It would make sense that any places that were special to coastal deities would have been on the shore, or maybe offerings actually made at sea. I don't know how big a problem coastal erosion is in other parts of Britain, but where I come from it's huge and land is being lost to the sea all the time. Could this account for a lack of evidence? It's an interesting thought about the votive offerings though. Water was so important elsewhere it just seems so odd that the sea would be ignored when it's such a huge presence.
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