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Post by Heron on Oct 11, 2016 15:58:08 GMT -1
I have given the website Rigantona.net a new look and also edited down some of the longer pages and made it a bit leaner, with a new Home page title 'The Horse Goddess' There is also a link to the shrine for dedications should anyone wish to add one.
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Post by gruffudd on Oct 12, 2016 18:49:32 GMT -1
Hi Heron.
I like the website but had a question if I can? For a while now I've been wondering, (many a sleepless night haha) what are people's ideas on the differences between Rigantona and Matrona?
I ask because in literature, as mentioned on the website, Rigantona has motherly attributes if she is indeed depicted by Rhiannon. Not saying any motherly attributes suddenly denotes a mother diety but it's so central to the story of Rhiannon. I've even read of Pryderi being a depiction of Maponos which ties in even more with the divine mother figure.
Do you (or anyone with an opinion) think they could be attributes of the same deity? I've scoured through many threads and online "sources" and have some ideas but nothing I can confidently settle with in my mind.
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Post by Heron on Oct 14, 2016 13:55:42 GMT -1
Hi Heron. I like the website but had a question if I can? For a while now I've been wondering, (many a sleepless night haha) what are people's ideas on the differences between Rigantona and Matrona? I ask because in literature, as mentioned on the website, Rigantona has motherly attributes if she is indeed depicted by Rhiannon. Not saying any motherly attributes suddenly denotes a mother diety but it's so central to the story of Rhiannon. I've even read of Pryderi being a depiction of Maponos which ties in even more with the divine mother figure. Do you (or anyone with an opinion) think they could be attributes of the same deity? I've scoured through many threads and online "sources" and have some ideas but nothing I can confidently settle with in my mind. Yes Gruffudd. Matrona ('Divine Mother') and Maponos ('Divine Son') become Modron and Mabon in medieval Welsh and Mabon was taken from his mother as a baby just as Pryderi was taken from Rhiannon. So the same story is told about both. Rigantona ('Divine Queen') is a similar epithet and it may be that both were descriptive terms of a goddess who had particular names in different tribes but was recognised by her attributes and her mythology as 'the same' goddess across the Brythonic tribes. W J Gruffudd says that 'Rigantona is Matrona on horseback'. But we must be careful here. Gods manifest their identities in different ways to the ways people manifest their identities. To different tribes, who might have had their own name for her, she may appear differently than to other tribes. Or she may not have had a 'human' identity at all to the earlier peoples who worshipped the 'Horse Goddess' as the practice of representing deities with human identities is thought by some to be a habit of the Greek and Roman worlds that may not have been the case with other tribal peoples before they came under the influence of these dominant cultures.
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Post by gruffudd on Oct 15, 2016 6:59:04 GMT -1
Thanks for that, much clearer now. "Rigantona is Matrona on horseback" seems to sum some problems up very nicely haha
To be honest I was worried I was falling into a modern trap of looking for an earth mother type goddess as Ronald Hutton put it in Pagan Britain. But I disagreed, I can't see how a mother goddess and an earth goddess would not be one and the same. It seems like natural instinctive thinking to me.
I haven't had much experience with Her but would like to seek Her out starting with understanding. Thanks again.
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Post by lorna on Oct 15, 2016 12:19:53 GMT -1
Thanks for the heads-up. This is a valuable resource. I haven't thought too much about the Rhiannon/Modron Pryderi/Mabon links before but will be doing so!
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