Talk:Epona/Archive 1

[Untitled]
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)

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)

pre-conquest Epona
I removed this claim:


 * the Great Mare was a great goddess, 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)

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)

Pronunciation
I've removed [e'ponə] as the pronunciation for the name this goddess, because I suspect it was added by someone who didn't understand IPA and/or English phonology well. (I do beg their pardon if I'm wrong in this suspicion.) Now, the English pronunciation one is most likely to hear has the stress on the second syllable, giving what I should write as /ɪˈpɵwnə/ (but /ɪˈpəʊnə/, etc, would also be acceptable).

Of more interest, however, is the Gaulish pronunciation. Gaulish has no /ə/; the final syllable should be /aː/. The other two vowels are short, if I'm not mistaken.

It's often asserted that Gaulish stress was always on the penultimate. [However, I have my doubts, given the antepenultimate stress betrayed by ethnic/place names such as Santones:Saintes, Redones:Rennes, Turones:Tours, Senones:Sens, Lingones:Langres (to choose only names with an -on- in them). Latin influence? Maybe, but the same happens when the penult is assuredly heavy, as in Biturīges:Bourges. And what of the famous doublets (including Redon and Berry) – a sure sign of Gaulish penultimate stress in the countryside? Maybe, but might the same effect not be caused by a now-vanished suffix?]

So the Gaulish pronunciation would be /eˈponaː/ [or, in my pet theory, /ˈeponaː/]. Q·L·1968 ☿ 17:35, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Which is correct: proto-Celtic *epōs as formerly, or proto-Celtic *ekwos as in the current text?--Wetman (talk) 15:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Proto-Celtic lost almost all inherited *p (which you'll also sometimes see written as *ɸ); Gaulish p in a name like Epona practically has to derive from *kʷ. Q·L·1968 ☿ 20:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * How exactly is Gaulish pronunciation relevant to this article? Epona is a Latin name and is attested only in Latin documents. Rwflammang (talk) 19:36, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

First sentence in the lede has syntax problem
I am not sure what the author meant, but it looks the sentence must be fixed, perhaps by putting a full stop before ears of corn.Aldrasto11 (talk) 03:47, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed. The error's been there for 2 or 3 years! Haploidavey (talk) 09:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you.Aldrasto11 (talk) 10:59, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Icona loiminna
I will leave a note on the talk page of Lusitanian language, it is important to note the different word and the attribute: Juan J. Moralejo interprets it as luminosa, apparently from a word meaning light cognate to Latin lumen, but I have my doubts and think it could be related to Greek loimneuomai to harm. Anybody wishes to contribute his own views?Aldrasto11 (talk) 03:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Maggi (1983) seems to have suggested Iccona = Epona, but Prósper and Villar suggest the name may be derived from PIE *yeH1k- instead. Who else is still saying Iccona is simply the Lusitanian or Celtiberian form of Epona? Paul S (talk) 11:36, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not that I have a firm opinion, but Witczak (2010) Lusitanian Personal Names with the Equine Motivation seems rather confident about this identification.--Froaringus (talk) 15:39, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Is Epona a Gaulish or Celt goddess?
I perused all the linked epona.net and as a result I believe now she was not peculiarly a Celt goddess. My impression is she may also be Greeek-Italic or whatever. As far as her connotation is concerned it is very poorly documented. What the article states looks speculative.Aldrasto11 (talk) 11:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)


 * As stated in the article, her name is linguistically Celtic - that's pretty solidly established. --Nicknack009 (talk) 12:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, it seems overwhelmingly so. For further context (and a likely source for further article development), try Miranda Green's Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art (1989). It includes a distribution map on p. 17, which should be of interest. Haploidavey (talk) 13:13, 15 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Let us not stick to outward impressions. As I wrote above I read attentively all the epona.net content. If one reads without prejudice it appears that the cult of Epona is documented in Gaul as spread only at the times and in the areas occupied by the Roman legions, with three major concentrations, in Burgundy, the Agri Decumates and another to the east, thence not in Gaul only. Yes this was an area settled by Celts, but how can one explain the fact that all documents are from after the late I century and mostly from military camps?


 * As for the etymology Epona is Oscan equally well as Celtic (Epidios etc.). And consider most importantly the toponym Hippo Regius (Hippone) in Numidia. I doubt this can have anything to do with the Celts. The toponym is ancient and probably predates Roman colonisation. I also draw your attention to the inscription from Portugal I inserted in the article, where she is named Icona loiminna. It would be interesting if any scholar had reaserched this epithet. I wrote above that Moralejo (following others) sees here Lat. luminosa. I am no expert in Celtic philology, can IE eu/ou (*leusm/ousm-) give Celtic oi? Is it attested? Yes Luistanian may not be Celtic, though I supposed a better interpretation could come from Greek loimos plague. Just a guess based on the terrible, horrific association of the figure in the Greek myth of Poseidon, Demeter and their Daughter.Aldrasto11 (talk) 04:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC) Regardless of the epithet loiminna one should also consider the literary testimonies of Juvenal, Apuleius, Fulgentius etc. It looks odd that the consul Lateranus (in 91 CE) would worship a Gaulish goddess, that an African would compare her to Isis and that Fulgentius number her in a list exemplifying the semones along with Priapus and Vertumnus. The only eplanation would be that this guy did not know any longer what he was talking about, given that the semones are a category of deities of the ancient Italics.Aldrasto11 (talk) 04:51, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * This is all very interesting, Aldrasto, and I'm particularly glad to have you point out the inscription from Portugal. However, while I'm not well-versed in the Celtiberians, I've read material that explores the continuities between inscriptions pertaining to their deities and those from Gallia. Also, the presence of cavalry auxiliaries from Hispania and Gallia could explain the distribution. If I recall (and I do so only vaguely), the calendar that records a feast of Epona on December 18 is from an area in Cisalpina where Celts had settled. And isn't some of the earliest representational evidence from the territory of the Aedui? Given the Aeduan role in the establishment of the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls, I'd be hesitant to discount the contribution of Gallo-Roman theology in the dissemination of her cult. Robert E.A. Palmer, "Silvanus, Sylvester, and the Chair of St. Peter," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 122.4 (1978), makes some interesting connections among Epona, Silvanus, and Hercules, the latter of whom has a highly distinctive Gallo-Roman mythology. I'm not making any particular point about origins. Just noting that "syncretic" or internationalized deities are characteristic of the Imperial period, and that Gallo-Roman religion (regrettably only a stub) in particular is its own thing. I don't want to discount the linguistics, but Italic and Celtic have a certain number of inherent similarities, and the -ona ending is found with other Gallic goddesses such as Sirona. It's not uncommon in the Empire for Roman officials to make dedications and offerings to local deities; see for instance Vagdavercustis. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:38, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Epona → Pony ?
Why is Pony ← Epona etymological derivation never mentioned as prima facie or at least conjectural? This question is in reference to Wikipedia ``Pony″ articles in several/ all languages.

I would welcome comments/ contributions from knowledgeable authors. Most Wikipedia articles are excellent sources of deeply grounded knowledge. In my own area (mathematics) I can attest to this and I often consult such to remind myself of things I once learned or that I am ignorant about. This pony etymology example may be one of a small number of lacunae that on occasion may make Wikipedia articles seem uninformed, I could cite others. Does Wikipedia have a global instrument for requesting remedies in such cases? hgwb (talk) 18:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The content of Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. A folk etymology can be notable enough for encyclopedic inclusion (because sometimes what people believe to be true can have an influence beyond the factual), but sources are still required to the effect that such-and-such represents a folk/false etymology. Or a conjectured etymology. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:09, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Epona. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20150202155236/http://www.mackinacislandlilacfestival.org/ to http://www.mackinacislandlilacfestival.org

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 04:11, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Q. Does the word Equine come from Epona?
Q. Does the word Equine come from Epona? 86.162.253.158 (talk) 00:14, 19 February 2016 (UTC)