Gods of Gaul: Belisama, Brixta, Sirona
In his book about "Celtic Mythology", Yann Brekilien claims that, outside of the worship of a central Great Goddess, the other goddesses were of a "secondary" nature, existing as local cults. They were entities embodying specific areas of the landscape, such as water-streams, rivers or mountains... Sirona and Damona, for example, were the manifestations of the thermal springs of the same name, and Arduinna was the holy patron of the Ardennes forest. If not local deities, goddesses were "secondary" out of being merely the paredra of greater gods - such as "Nantosuelta for Sucellos or Rosmerta for Lug", with Brekilien noting they usually were forces of fertility and life holding symbols of abundance or riches - noting how Rosmerta held a caduceus and Nantosuelta a small house. [For those of you who are curious, I made a post about Rosmerta here]
Brekilien separates these "small goddesses" to the big one, that for him manifested in different ways. One was the "Great Queen", the "Rigantona", an evolution of the old mother-goddess, that he believes he can see in Epona the horse-goddess (that he connects to the way the moon used to be called "the white mare" in Ireland). Another was the triple-Brigit, which he sees as a manifestation of the Mother Goddess in her role as a fertility deity - and Brekilien wrote a development to prove that this Celtic triple goddess was to be equated with the legendary figures of Boann, Eithne and Etaine.
And then, there is one goddess of Gaul that he singles out. Belisama. "The Very Shining" or "The Most Shining One". She is described as presiding over "arts and craftsmanship", as well as "female activities - such as weaving", while also being the patron of various thermal springs and thus having power as a healer. According to Brekilien, she was assimilated by the Romans to their Minerva, "though she was closer to the Athena of the Greeks" - because while she often appeared in Gallo-Roman works next to Mercury and Vulcan, she sometimes was depicted holding weapons while standing next to Mars. It seems her cult was widespread, because her name can be found in many different places of France. There's a Bellême, two Balesmes, two Blesmes, one Blismes, one Beleymas...
Now, this is what Brekilien says and while he is often treated as a reference he is not always accurate and sometimes has some very personal opinions.
For example it is quite funny to see Brekilien separate Belisama from "mere paredras" because... Belisama was a paredra. Her very name is very clearly a female version of... Belenos. Yes, Belenos, the famous sun god of Gaul who was also associated with healing through thermal springs. It is also interesting to see Brekilien separate Belisama from Sirona because others rather consider her an alternate entity of Belisama, since Sirona is also a thermal waters goddess that was considered the "paredra of Apollo", and given Belenos was Apollo...
Belisama's name, being a female form of Bel, the womanly counterpart to Belenos, is usually translated as "the very shining", as said above, or more poetically "like a flame", since the concept of being "shinng" evoke sun and fire. Now there's an etymological debate as to whether the root of the word truly refers to "light" or "shine" as everybody said, or if it isn't rather about the color "white"... But let's be honest, be it one or the other it doesn't change the result because the color white was used to denote light and shining in the old world, so we're going in a loop here.
Now you might ask "Wait, if she is a female counterpart of the sun god and seems to be a light spirit, why is she a goddess of arts and crafts?". Well there's an explanation for this. She was syncretized with Minerva because she was a goddess seemingly presiding over the "works of the house" and indoor activities, notably the female-coded practice of weaving, while also being the patron of craftsmen, and sometimes holding weapons (revealing some sort of war function). Yet, many people pointed out a more accurate syncretism would have been with Vesta... Because it becomes obvious that Belisama was first and foremost a goddess of fire - domesticated, human-used fire.
Indeed, the craftsmen she presided over were mainly metal-workers and glass-makers, aka fire-wielders. This explains why she appeared holding weapons by the side of a war-god: she was a weapon-making goddess of blacksmiths. This is why in some dictionnaries, she is classified as "goddess of fire and the forge", or "patron of fire-workers". It might also very well be why she was associated with domestic tasks and female (indoor) activities - because like Hestia, she might have embodied the fire of the hearth, the indoor flame of the house.
People noted that her involvement in both thermal springs (and thus healing through heat and water) and war activities (weapon-giving, weapon-forging) reflected the inherent duality of Celtic deities - who usually took lives as killers and warriors, but then gave them back as healers or through birth/resurrection. It has also led Belisama to be compared to Brigantia/Brigit, who was famous in her "triple role" to be both the patron of healers and of smiths - uniting the "health and forge" aspects Belisama was known to represent.
[I also found one source linking Belisama with the Ribble river, in Lancashire, of which she would have been the patron goddess - records connecting it to Belisama, but under the more complete name "Rigabelisama", which would add a royal concept to the goddess, implying A Most Shing Queen, or a Very Luminous Queen, or a Great Brilliant Queen - with then some poets and authors linking the fact this river used to be connected to a Celtic goddess with how in folklore various water hags, of Jenny Greenteeth-type, inhabited the stream]
Connecting Belisama with Brigit will inevitably bring another goddess of Gaul. A very small, very minor, very obscure goddess yet a fascinating one... Brixta, also known as Bricta and Brixia. At Luxeuil-les-Bains, known as Luxovium in Gallo-Roman times, a god presided over the waters: Luxovios, to which the thermal sanctuary was dedicated. And Luxovios had a wife, Brixta.
We don't know anything about Brixta beyond her name - yet! Everything is within her name... Which comes from the Celtic "brixtom/brixta", which means "magic". "Brixtia", "brixta", "brixtom" meant "spell" or "enchantment" and remained in such a use in the old Breton language (before, apparently, in the 11th century Middle-Breton appeared and magic became "hud").
So Brixta might have been a goddess of magic... Which makes sense, since all these "boiling springs and thermal sources" the tribes of Gaul and then the Romans obsessed over were deemed healing and miraculous out of being infused with magic, as much as blessed by goddesses. Healing and medecine, in Old Gaul, was as much sorcery as science, using in equal measures incantations and herbs. This is the line between magic and physics that the druids blurred and crossed over constantly, for example. So it is no surprise to know that a goddess presiding over a healing sanctuary had a name literaly meaning "magic".
But then... In the thermal sanctuary of Luxovium, another goddess shows up. One we saw before... Sirona.
Who is this Sirona that keeps appearing across this post?
Sirona or Sironia, also known as Dirona, sometimes as Thirona, sometimes as Serana... She has such various spelling because the first letter of her name was a "tau gallicum" - a letter that started as the Greek theta, but evolved into a more Gallic pronunciation and became a unique part of the Gallo-Roman alphabet, so that the letter can be written in many ways. While "S" is the more common one, many rather defend the use of Ð, though TH, Θ or S can all be accepted too.
Sirona was a famous goddess, known in the north, east and center of Gaul, and present all along the shores of the Danube. She was a healing goddess presiding over fountains and appearing in many thermal bath-establishments. She was common associated to the god Grannus/Grannos, deity of health and the sun (often considered the same as Belenos), who later became syncretized with Apollo. As a result, Sirona became the "official" paredra of the "Gallic Apollo", and their couple was presented as a religious symbol of the Gallo-Roman union, the same way the couple of Rosmerta and Mercury was shown as the perfect fusion of the cultures. As a result, however, Sirona became commonly associated with Diana, Apollo's twin sister. As a moon goddess, the idea can be defended: Sirona was a water and medecine deity, and we all know how the moon is often interconnected with these two concepts. Plus, as people analyzed the word "Sirona" they concluded her name etymologically meant "Star" or "The Great Star", which strengthens the idea of her being a night-time deity... Though with nuances. For example, in a famous inscription in Augsbourg, she was listed as "holy Sirona" alongside both Diana and "Apollon Grannus", hinting she might have embodied the "Star" to Apollo's Sun and Diana's Moon... For truly, she bore little actual ressemblance to Diana - nothing involving the hunt, for example. But as a "star" goddess, Sirona remains a "shining one" or "luminous one"... just like Belisama.
However, it is possible that Sirona was never a night goddess... The etymology for "star" could have meant merely a "celestial body" (an "astre" en français), and she might have started, just like Belisama, as merely a "minor, female version" of her husband, the solar god, and thus herself a goddess of daylight before the Romans projected a lunar/stellar symbolism on her... But it is just a theory that nothing truly proves.
Another theory presents Sirona as starting her "divine career" as the "mere" personification of the Suran river in the Jura region, which was dedicated to Sironia and whose source was considered to have miraculous healing properties. Which would be no surprise: the people of Gaul had a big, big worship of running waters and considered many bodies of water both feminine and sacred, with a lot if not most of their goddesses being the spirits of specific rivers or fountains.
Of all the goddesses, Sirona was however the closest to and the strongly assimilated with the Roman Salus, originally the Greek Hygeia. The two are so close it is hard to distinguish one from another... As such, the sanctuaries of Sirona and Grannus worked in a very similar way to those of Hygieia and Asclepios/Salus and Esculapius, as both mystical healing places (where the gods could visit you in your dream to help you) and as big social centers (in Gaul, the Sirona sanctuaries were frequent meeting places just like inns, shops or theaters, and in fact sometimes plays were performed in them). And Sirona, just like Hygeia, was strongly associated with the snake. When the snake is not just by the side or wrapped around Sirona, she can be seen feeding him eggs... As snakes were symbols of health and healing, eggs were also symbols of birth and life - if not of rebirth. Eggs and snake go a long, long way in Gallic beliefs (like the "snake egg" that was part of the druidic tasks and quests). Some people tried to defend the Sirona=Star theory by presenting the "snake surrounded by eggs" as a stellar motif, maybe the symbol of a constellation... Though the explanations remain quite fragile, let's say.
Furthering the idea that the "snake and the eggs" are here to symbolize "regeneration" is the fact Sirona was, other times, depicted holding in her arms fruits, ears of wheat or a cornuccopia... Meaning she doesn't just represent the health of humans but of nature too, that she ensures the healing of people and the growth of the harvest... Yet it should be recalled that the cornuccopia was a very common attribute for many, if not all of the goddesses of Gaul, as by default female deities of these tribes were fertility ones and reflected life and/or abundance, the same way all of the Gallic gods somehow reflected war or battle at one point or another. So these fruits and this wheat might not have been something specific to Sirona, they were maybe just a traditional womanly symbolism...
In some areas you find zero traces of Sirona, nothing at all... But there is a goddess bearing the same attributes, and fulfilling the same function, known as Damona. And she too is a goddess of springs and rivers, connected to various places (like today's Bourbonne-les-bains, Rivière-en-Charentes, Bourbon-Lancy)... And she too is a paredra... The paredra of Borvo, god of healing sources and hot waters, who is sometimes considered the same as Grannus. But Damona's name means "Cow", or "The Great Cow", which is very interesting as it suggests that maybe the "star" root of Sirona is rather meaning "cow" (we know that in old Irish sometimes the two meanings were confused).
Borvo/Borvon was known to have a local variation known as "Bormanus", who also had a female counterpart in the shape of "Bormana". And then there's the case of Acionna (also written Axiona, Exona), who had a worship in the upper region of Orléans, to whom the river Essonne was dedicated... And the upper part of Essonne, taking its roots in the Orléans forest, is commonly called "L'Oeuf"... The Egg. Like the egg that Sirona was known to commonly hold or collect in her patera... [Mind you, this might be an entire coincidence, as another just as likely explanation is a misreading of maps. In the Middle-Ages, the Essonne might have been abriged on maps as "Ess", but given it was always written in caps and the S looked awful like an F, people read EFF, which they interpreted as "oeuf", "egg" in French.]
