Talk:Epona

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Someone had edited the page 12.73.152.31 (Epona is Celtic goddess, not Roman.) I reverted it back to Roman - there is no Celtic mythology about Epona (in contrast to other, related deities such as Rhiannon) - the name Epona is Celtic as the article already stated (and I made that clearer). --Nantonos 17:16, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have completely rewritten this page, using cited historical sources, rather than the unverified material that was there before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NantonosAedui (talk • contribs) 26 December 2004

I see (April 2007) yet again a reference to 'Epona in Celtic Mythology'. I am once more going to change it back to Gallo-Roman religion. if anyone can cite some "Celtic Mythology" about Epona I would be very interested, not to say astounded. --Nantonos 19:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

yes alright but put the Link's horse reference back in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.47.38.130 (talk • contribs) 11 January 2005

I had? I went back through the page history and copied out the Legend of Zelda material that was the longest and had the most links to other pages. Since then, the Link stuff has been moved to a separate page.

"Roman" in the first line is misleading. To judge from the find-sites of reliefs and mold-cast terracottas, the cult spread wherever mounted troops from Gaul, especially northeast Gaul, were stationed: Epona is not found in the "Greek" section of the Empire, nor in North Africa. Epona is less "Roman" than Isis. --Wetman 01:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wetman, if you look at the timeline of the evidence, it does not spread our from Gaul - it starts off spead out and then concentrates in Gaul. See http://www.epona.net/timeline.html Also, if you look at the places where Gaulish troops were stationed (such as Egypt and Arabia), you find that Epona is missing from many of them. And, there is in fact one Epona from North Africa. --Nantonos 19:28, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you show me a source that says that Epona was not a Celtic goddess though? And Nantonos all your source proves is that the first solid evidence is from Gaul. http://druidry.org/obod/druid-path/myths/creation.html this link puts Epona as an integral part a Celtic Creation Story.

There's no "timeline" for the scattered inscriptions and carvings, all with broadly overlapping possible date ranges. The closer we stick to published material, even quoting mainstream published material, the better this article will be. The current article begins "In Gallo-Roman religion..." Surely that's acceptable: www.epona.com says of the lack of early testimony, "A theory that Epona is a pre-conquest Celtic goddess must explain this gap. An alternate theory that Epona is a post-conquest, fusion Celtic-Germanic-Roman goddess is not troubled by this gap." It's all quite syncretic by the second century, even Christianity.... --Wetman 04:18, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Corrections

1) "Side-saddle" is not the same as "sitting sideways". See http://www.sidesaddle.org/ for example.

Yes, true, but the modern forwards-facing sidesaddle seat was not invented at the time; and the literature on Epona refers to the 'side-saddle form' so that is the term used here. --Nantonos 19:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

2) The sentence starting "The hobby-horse riders on festive occasions" just stops. The rest of the sentence appears to be missing.

John Hasler 23:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point. I completed it, with references. --Wetman 00:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] pre-conquest Epona

I removed this claim:

the Great Mare^[1] was a great goddess ^{[citation needed]}, who in Gallo-Roman religion became simply ...

because there is no evidence cited for it and (having looked) there is no evidence for it that I can tell. The 'great' is not part of the etymology, and evidence for any pre-conquest deity is scanty at best. The idea of a descent to a lowly protector of stables is very out of date; it was common in the 19th century, when they were mainly going on references in Classical literature; but does not sit well with the epigraphic evidence where Epona is invoked as protection for the Emperor, to protect a city (civitas Leucorum), and so on. --Nantonos 19:28, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Is that acceptable now?--Wetman 21:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phantom dispute

I removed the phantom "dispute" from the following: "H. Hubert[1] suggested that the goddess and her horses were leaders of the soul in the after-life ride, with parallels in Rhiannon of the Mabinogion; this interpretation is disputed.[attribution needed]" The passive of non-attribution, "is disputed" does not tell by whom, where (publication) and why. These are essential for any assertion that a published statement "is disputed". Otherwise we suspect that it is simply not liked by some Wikipedian.--Wetman 02:52, 24 June 2007 (UTC)