~ Rigantona ~
(Information provided by Amethyst)
(Information provided by Amethyst)
Rhiannon, also known as Rigantona (Great Queen), is a Cymric and Brythonic goddess known from the Mabinogi of Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed where she is Pwyll's wife, who is mistakenly punished for infanticide and the Mabinogi of Manawyddan fab Llyr. She is associated with horses and has otherworldly birds in her posession. She may represent the psychopomp aspect of the goddess Epona.
Rhiannon's name is derived from the Brythonic Rigantona (Great Queen). Continuaton of the name would indicate the existence of a Brythnoic goddes known as Rigantona, though no trace of her (save for the name of Rhiannon) has been left to us. Whether this Rigantona was an independent deity or represented an aspect of Epona (who is ocasionally referred to in the plural and may be a triple-goddes) may not be known for certain though the surviving tales of Rhiannon would suggest the later interpretation. Thus there may once have been an insular Brythonic deity known as Rigantona Epona. If this is the case, and the Epona aspect of the goddess is fairly clear, what does the Rigantona aspect represent.
When we come to consider Rhiannon, the character at the centre of the First and Third Branches, there are signs of a similarly archaic ritual background. As has been demonstrated by the 'literary archaeology' of W. J. Gruffydd (aspects of which have been discussed on pp. 18-19 above), the legend of Rhiannon bears the stamp of two important Gaulish cults: that of the Horse Goddess Epona on one hand; and Matrona, the Great Mother, on the other. Rigantona 'Great Queen', as Rhiannon would have been known in Romano-British times, is best considered a local variant of this composite figure. What then might we say about the cult of Rigantona? When and in what manner would she have been worshipped? How did she fit into the wider landscape of native pagan belief? What, if anything, can the Mabinogi tell us about her original magico-religious aura?
The cult of the horse, as we have seen (re: pp. 191 ff.), had deep roots in the Indo-European world, and there is no reason why a form of it might not have persisted in South Wales in the Late Iron Age or even the Romano-British period. Comparative evidence would suggest that in its most traditional manifestation this had involved a tribal ceremony with distinctly totemistic overtones: in which a royal figure symbolically copulates with an equine; which is then sacrificed, dismembered and devoured by the ritual celebrants. The medieval testimony of Gerald of Wales (p. 193 above) suggests that at least the memory of such customs persisted in a certain district in Ulster well into the late twelfth-century.
There is no need to emphasise the primitive nature of this gruesome ritual complex. Its probable origins are to be located amongst the early horse-riding warrior-pastoralists of the Pontic Steppe region who evidently played an important part in the spread of Indo-European culture during the third and second millennia BC. However, it is likely that by the end of the pagan period - in the Romano-Celtic world at least - the cult had evolved some way beyond these savage roots. K. M. Lindoff offers a compelling body of evidence to suggest that the cult of Epona was popularised by Gallo-Brittonic cavalry units on the Roman frontier (in North-East Gaul and the Rhineland in particular). It was probably in this form that it was imported (or perhaps re-introduced) into Britain, where it seems to have become a popular alternative amongst the Romano-British military conscripts to eastern mystery religions such as Mithraism and Christianity. But as with these oriental mysteries (notably Christianity), it would appear that the more archaic, bloodthirsty elements remained latent within the cult-legend of Epona. The bizarre horse-mutilations and hippomorphic penances in the First and Second Branches hint at the primitive literalism of the sacrificial horse-cult described on p. 193 above. But of equal importance is the strange sense of redemption and transcendence surrounding the ordeals of Branwen and Rhiannon (e.g. p. 247-248 above). If the crucifixion and the Last Supper might be regarded as a sublimation of a sacrificial or even a cannibalistic attitude towards the deity-proxy (c.f. p. 611); it seems quite possible that there was once a mysterium representing Epona as a saviour-victim of a similar type. Perhaps, as Gruffydd implies at one point, the two goddesses had been one and the same from the outset, Rigantona merely being one of many titles for this powerful and multifaceted Gallo-Brittonic goddess.
The name appears to be derived from the Proto-Celtic root rigani meaning "queen" in combination with the augmentive suffix -on. The Romano-British form of this name, if it had existed at that stage, would likely have been Rigantona. This is supported by a number of academic authors.
According to Professor Proinsias Mac Cana of University College Dublin and Visiting Professor of Celtic Studies at Harvard University Rhiannon derives 'from Rigantona Divine Queen'. Dr Anne Ross gives Rhiannon's derivation as, "Welsh Riannon from Rigantona, great queen". Professor Miranda Green of the University of Wales gives two meanings, combining the above derivations: "Her name may derive from that of a pagan goddess Rigantona ('Great - or Sacred - Queen')".
