CEL TI C MY TH OLO GY IN G ALI CI AN PLA CE- NAME S

Abstract: In the heart of the province of Lugo, place-names reveal the whole mythical cycle of the Celtic New
Year; the beginning of the dark half of the year and the tryst between the Goddess, as Lady of
Darkness and War, and the God of the Lower World.
Key words: Escadevas, Scotia, Guitiriz, Coventena, Lavandeira.

Abstract: In the province of Corunha, six place-names seem to offer an answer to the enigma of the Indo-
European and Celtic myths concerning the war of the gods: there were two battles of the gods at the
beginning of time; a creational one and another one of a social nature.
Key words: Avegondo, Mavegondo, Culhergondo, Betanços, Guísamo, Bergondo.

Abstract: In peninsular Barbança, the Atlantic shore bears six place-names that remind us of one of the ways
ancient people imagined the vogage of souls to the Other World.
Key words: Baronha, Nebra, Noal, Porto de Ozom, Ró, Róis.

THE GODDESS OF THE SHADOWS

I had one of the biggest surprises of my life when I analyzed the name of the river which flows
through Guitiriz1, the Escadevas. When I reconstructed the etymon, I found two con-verging
paths: a) *(RĒNOS) SKĀTÓDĒWĀS 2“(river) of the Goddess-of-the-Shadows”, a two-member
compound of *SKĀTON (neut. sg.) “shadow; reflection; ghost”3 and DĒWĀS gen.; or b) *(RĒNOS)
SKĀTON DĒWĀS, with SKĀTON gen. pl., almost the same but built in a different way. The
Goddess of Darkness is certainly the Lady of the Nether World, *MORIRĪGANĪ.
The whole district of Vilalva, and particularly Guitiriz, shows marked traces of devotion to the
celtic Goddess as Lady of the Nether World: A provincial divide is the Serra da Loba4, where the

1
Guitiriz, town in Lugo, is from a Germanic-Latin hybrid *Wītirīcī “of the White Leader”. Germanic colonization means
former wild ground. So Ceçar, from Celt.-Lat. hybrid *cētiāriī “those of the wood”.
2
IS SKĀTÓDĒWĀS with article > proto-romanic *escadó’evas > Escadevas.
3
Gael. scáth n., mod. Welsh ysgawd, old Corn. scod, old Bret. scot, mod. skeud. Celtic had long Ā in the root, from IE Ō
(Gk. σκότος “darkness”, Goth. skadus, Eng. shadow). Let us consider the unknow etymon of Scotland. Old Gael. scot
“Irish”, pl. scuit, dat. pl. scottaib, is from low Lat. scottus or scotus (circa 400). From scottus are Eng. scot [skòt], OHG.
scotto (Ger. Schotte), Middle Dutch Schotte, mod. Schot. And also Sp. escueto, Port. escoteiro (*scottariu-), cf. Coromines
(DCECeH, escueto). There is no Latin etymon. Before and after the popular scottus, the regular form in the texts was
scōtus, whence old Fr. escot and It. scoto. Why did they alternate? Perhaps some-thing in the original language prevented
rendering it into low Latin spoken Latin of the 1st cent. A.D. did not distin-guish long from short vowels and substituted
instead the opposition between those with close timbre for the former long ones and open for the short ones. Scottus and
scōtus were two attempts to reflect a non-Latin long open O. So scōtus also had the difficulty of the close long Latin O.
Scottus avoided it with short Latin O, with open timbre, and geminate T lengthened the syllable, achieving acoustic equi-
valence with the long vowel I see in the original. Indeed, I see the etymon *skōtu- with open Ō. How to explain it? In the
first millennium Scottus-scōtus designated the Irish; only later the Caledonians, after the arrival of the Irish founders of the
kingdom of Dál Riada,who brought over the Gaelic tongue around the year 500. Scottus-scōtus was born in bilingual
Celtic-Latin Britain, which received inva-sions of the Irish on the West coast a long time ago. In short, it was born in
British Celtic and from it passed over into local Latin, from this into continental Latin and the Germanic languages. We
may date the loans between the 1st cent. A.D. and around 400, the date of the first texts. It is in the 1st cent. A.D. that
British turns Ā into open Ō. Is there a Celtic word with this profile? There is: *SKŌTO-, the British form of *SKĀTON,
etymon of the above-mentioned neo-Celtic terms. Besides “shadow”, all metaphorically mean “ghost”. The pagan pirates
of Ireland, hirsute brothers of the semi-Romanized British, now Christian, were called by them “shadows, ghosts”, either
because of the horrifying attacks or perhaps due to the war paint they still used, as they themselves years before.
4
“Mountain of the She-Wolf”. Lupa is the latin name of the hell Goddess.
river Lavrada has its source5. Lupa is the Latin name of the Goddess of hell. And in the extreme
South of the municipality is Negradas: *Nigrātās “blackened”, a metaphor for “in mourning”.
The spa of Guitiriz –which I didn’t see– was described to me as paradisiacal, only with the
inconvenience of the smell of sulphur, always linked with the Nether World 6. And at Curveiros, in
Trás-Parga, near Guitiriz, there was found (in 1910) a plaque dedicated to COVENTENA7, which
Luís Monteagudo thought was put there by a Gallaecus soldier who could have brought this cult
from Britain, where in Vallum Hadriani there are epigraphs dedicated to KOWENTĒNĀ8. I analyze
KO(M)-9, the IE root *wen- “desire; wish” and the desinence -ĒNĀ. It could be “that of the love
tryst”. In order to see what it is about, we need to put it in a mythical context.
The Celtic year began on the 1st SAMONIS (“gathering”), similar to our 1st November. Its
echoes survive in All Saints (and the Deceased) and in Hallowe’en. SAMONIS gave old Gael.
samuin, samain, today samhain [sãuň]. The Celts, and others, began cycles by the dark side: the
day started at sunset and the year at the beginning of (boreal) winter10. The month (and festival)
was SAMONIS “gathering, meeting”. Which meeting? The love one, at the banks of a river in the
Nether World, of the sole Celtic goddess, as Lady of the Beyond and of War (*MORIRĪGANĪ
“Queen of spectres”), with Teutatis, god of the tribe, Father of men and Lord of the Beyond.
They were the Irish Morrigain and Dagda, Gaulish Sucellos and Herecura and Hispanic
Endovellicos and Ataicina. This love tryst had the important sequel that after-wards the goddess
gave her lover the secrets for winning in the next mythical battle.
We see the coherence of this *SKĀTÓDĒWĀ KOWENTĒNĀ, Goddess of the Shadows and the
partner of the Love Tryst. The vicinity of Guitiriz and Trás-Parga also consolidate, integrate, the
facts; between them and with Negradas, with the smell of sulphur and with the Serra da Loba
“Mountain Chain of the She-Wolf”. The pagan ancestors projected in the Escadevas the scene of
the mythical nuptials.
A brook that springs in Friol and flows into the Parga is the Lavandeira, a Latin name
repeated countless times in streams, the meaing of which was lost. In all countries which formed
part of the Celtic world there endures, more or less alive, the folk memory of a supernatural

5
Lavrada does not come from lavrar “to plough”. It may be a variant of *LABRONĀ “divine Sayer”, name of a river in
several Celtic lands, wound up in the folk etymology of laborare; or perhaps from the participle *LABRATIĀ, “spoken”
(in the active sense of “female sayer”).
6
Attributed to the biblical memory of the valley of Ge-Hinnon, it could be an universal symbolism due to the smell.
7
Read COnVETENE. The first N was added when Celtic declined, for folk etymology conventus. -E is for -AI of dat. s. See
my Dos três Lugoves Arquienos... in Grial, Vigo, nº 59, and Agália, nº 31, 1992, § 9. 2.
8
At the Carrowburgh spring, in Hadrian's wall, it is COVVENTINA, an early occurrence of the spelling VV for waw sound
(2nd or 3rd centuries A.D.). The relief shows the goddess lying on a leaf of floating water lily (Museum of Newcastle
upon Tyne).
9
Prefix and prep. for company; in Celt. the nasal fell before W. The root *wen- (cf. lat. venus, venēnum [< *venes-nom
“love potion”]) is Celt.: *WENIĀ “kinship; family”, Venta a British theonym and toponym (V. Icenorum Caister, V. Silurum
Caerwent, V. Belgarum Winchester).
10
The festival fell in the cold season when, having done the harvest, they prepared the next sowing. Let us remind
ourselves that the festival was associated with air. The four elements of water, fire, earth and air did not only belong to the
pre-Socratic Greeks; they were categories for perceiving reality of the Indo-Europeans and other cultures. *AMBÍWOLKĀ
(“circum-purification”), around 1st February, referred to water. *BELTONIOS (“[month] of death [of the dark year]”) around
the fires of spring, 1st May. *LUGUNĀSTADĀ (“marriage of Lugus”) celebrated the wedding with the Earth on 1st August.
So SAMONIS had something to do with the air,i. e., with the spirits.
female figure washing by night at the river, either the clothes, or the weapons, or the bodies, of
those soon to die. In Scotland they say they are women who die in child-birth, compelled to
wash all the time that they should have lived, but that is secondary. That washerwoman echoes
Morrigain. These Lavandeiras were the Lamias that the peasants “apellant in fluminibus”
according to Saint Martin of Dume. In Gaelic it is the bean-nighe “woman of washing” who
washes in the lonely streams.

THE MYTHICAL BATTLES

AVEG O ND O, MA VEG OND O, CU LHERG ON DO, BET ANÇ OS , G UÍ S AM O e BERG ON DO
For a long time these place names fascinated me, not being able to believe what I saw. They must
be seen together and in that order for semantic reasons.
On the way that descends from Meijão (Mesom) do Vento to Betanços, we see a place with
an enigmatic name, Avegondo, the etymon of which I shall give straight away, as it is part of a
pattern which explains itself: Celt. *AD-WE-GÓNITON “towards the underside of Battle or
Slaughter”. It is the preposition AD, close to the Latin one; the preposition and prefix WE “sub”,
Hispanic variant of WO (IE *upo); and GONITON, deverbal of GONI- “to bring down, hurt; to kill,
fight”, documented in Galiza, of the root *gwhen- “beat, fight” 11, cf. Gmc. *gunþiō “battle”, Gk.
φόνος “slaughter; homicide”, Lat. (dē)fendō, (of)fendō. In Gael. there is guin (*GONI) “wound,
destruction”, noun and verbal noun of gonim “I hurt, I knock down”.
Four kilometers on we reach Mavegondo. It comes from *MAWEGÓNITON. Gael. ma is a
conditional conjunction. Conditionals usually come from affirmative adverbs: Lat. sei-ce > sīc,
Gk. εἰ (< *sei). The affirmative sense, which is sup-posed in the old language, is seen in enclitic
particle of Sanskrit -sma or -smā “certainly” of sanskrit, and perhaps in the -met of Lat. egomet.
So *MA-WEGÓNITON was “just below the Battle”.
Once in the right place, we must look around. Two cardinal points were thought to be “down”:
both North, etymologically “inferior; infernal”, and West, where the Sun descends. “Up” were
the meridian South and the East of the Sun rising. Perpendicular to the right hand, to the South-
east, is Culhergondo, from *KUKLEUROGÓNITON “the famous Battle” (= “which has been
heard of”).
Between Mavegondo and Culhergondo we see Meangos (*mediānicōs), reinforcing the
pattern. The border of Avegondo municipality makes a detour to include Culhergondo, which
otherwise would stay outside. This the traditional persistence of an old border. Beyond this there
is the locality of Cins, which is the hybrid *cinīs, Lat.ablative-locative of Celt. *KINĀ “that of
this side” (with respect to Culhergondo). Continuing on this way from Mavegondo, at the end is
Betanços, romance plural version of Celt. *WEÞANTION “substantium, that is (further) down”
of an IE *upo-sthantiom. Now we see what it is further down from. It is a coherent pattern which
tries to keep the memory of a Battle of singular importance. Before searching for the meaning
of these vestiges, let us look at another similar case, nearby, with which perhaps it is linked.
Beside the Atlantic motorway, in the municipality of Bergondo, about six kilometers to the
West of Betanços, there is Guísamo. There is no native romance word with such initial syllabe. It
is not Germanic, and the desinence is of a Celtic superlative. Whence could Gui- come? From
*GONI-, dropping the N, mutation of O for I and with elision of the diphthong arising. So we
arrive at a *GONÍSAMON. What does it mean? “Greatest Battle, Slaughter”, or “the Mother of all
Battles”. Adding desinences of adjective to a noun is not strange; it happens often when looking
for expressiveness. Beyond Guísamo, to the North, we arrive at Bergondo, which was *WERGÓ-

11
Pokorny 491-493.
NITON, “beyond the Battle”, with WER “on, over” as Lat. super- in super-tamaricos. It is another
pattern.
In the area there was the memory of two battles: “the greatest” and “that of great re-nown”.
What is all this? Suffice it to read any manual of Celtic mythology to see that the Gaelic people
spoke of two mythical battles, the first and the second Battles of Mag Tuired (Engl. Moytirra). It
was debated whether they were one, afterwards twinned, or one histor-ical and another
mythicall; and there were even more opinions. We see two mythical ones.
In the first battle, Cét-cath Maige Tuired, the gods recently arrived conquer Ireland. It is the
last stage of the creation myth, or the beginning of the world (they did not conceive of a creation
ex nihilo); the battle of the gods versus the giants of chaos.
In the second of the battles, Cath Dédenach Maige Tuired or Cath Tánaiste Maige Tuired, it
is the gods of the first and second functions of Dumézil against those of the third, which ends in
armistice and coexistence, and then a Celtic parallel of the battle of the Nordic Æsir and Vanir.
It is not necessary to expand; read the works by Dumézil.
It was said that the Irish location of the battles in real geography was an effect of euhemer-
ization. However, from the oldest records, only lately altered, the Irish place both in the parish
of Kilmactranny, in lakeArrow, Sligo. I invite you to look over the map of Ireland. It is astonish-
ing to see the similarity of this place with that of the pattern we have just dis-covered. The
sound between Connacht and Ulster resembles that of the rias of Corunna, Betanços, Ares and
Ferrol, both facing Northwest. The Calaic12 record – unmistakable in the old tongue supporting it
– decides the mythologic question and situates in panceltic time the myth of the two battles and
the manner of placing them. A manner which is used every-where: Styx, Avernus, etc.
Our reading of the Calaic case doesn’t end there. It posits the perspective of someone coming
from the South to Betanços or Corunha, which encompasses a good part of the Artabrian Calaics.
If it were a pattern only of the Brigantes, it would come from the centre, from Brigantium. If from
distant brigantes on a pilgrimage to the centre, it would come from the West. If it were a reflec-
tion brought over by Irish in modern times (incompatible with the toponymy), it would be a static
pattern, as in the Gaelic tradition (but in Scotland, conquered by Irishmen, I do not see it reflected).
Therefore the perspective from the South points out to it being patrimonial to all Artabrian. The
Calaic pattern, more complex than the Gaelic (it puts both battles in the same place), has a look
of autochthony and appears older than the insular one. It may point to a loan from South to North,
but don’t let us proceed where only the Irish seem to be interested.
What about the Gaelic equivalent of *GONÍSAMON “the biggest slaughter”? The first,
creational, which ended in the total rout of the Fir-Bolg-Giants, would be that of Guísamo,
situated by the sea, a place of landing. The second, more developed in Ireland, better known and
more told of (which goes with “famous”), should be that of Culhergondo, the most
Mediterranean.

11
Pre-roman galician.
 BARONHA, NEBRA, NOAL,
PORTO DE OZOM, RÓ and RÓIS
Mela situates the port of Ebora beyond the Tamaris. Before identifying, it behoves us to trans-
late. ÉBORĀ is “that of the yew”, from *EBOROS “yew”, Latinized eburus. The yew, long-lived
and perennial, most sacred for the Celts, was associated with funeral rites as a symbol of ressur-
rection13. In the North it fulfils the role of the cypress in the Mediterranean. Where was ÉBORĀ?
In Nebra (N- of the Celt. Prep. EN), which is not a port; ÉBORĀ was a yew grove, a sacred wood,
the port of which would be Porto de Ozom (written Porto do Som). Ozom was *OKIONON
“Divine Border”14.
It is clear we are at the sacred Western bank, where it was believed the souls embarked
following the course of the Sun, in one of the ways of conceiving of the Beyond, dominant over
others because of the geography. Between Nebra and Porto de Ozom there is Noal “of Nōna” (<
Lat. *Nōnāle-). Nōna was one of the three Parcae15. Ebora was sacred wood of yews, *Nonalis
would be a place of sacrifices and rituals, and *KAUNOS OKIONĪ “Port of the Sacred Shore”
(Porto de Ozom), real and mythical jetty.
A nearby place, to be integrated in the ensemble, is Baronha, a castrum enlightened by the
Gael. báire m. “course; voyage; purpose” (< *BĀRIOS), in its turn from IE *bhōr-io-, long
inflected form of *bher- “to carry”. *BĀRIONIĀ was thus “that of Divine Course [to the Beyond]”.
Put in context, let us remember that the ria of Noia receives the waters of the Tambre (Tâmaris-
Tâmara “Tenebrous”), river of the black waters of the dead. I always believed that this notion is a
trivial consequence of the myth of the impassable river, frontier between cosmos and chaos. But
here there is a special emphasis, as it receives without apparent affront the approval of the
riparians themselves. It must be that, beyond the river of rapids and cascades, it flowed in the
East as the Sun and emptied into the Western sea where the setting Sun was venerated and
where it was supposed the souls embarked for the World Beyond. Tamara links with ÉBORA-
Nonalis-OKIONON-BARIONIA. And also with the village of Ró (Noia) and the municipality of
Róis, in the East of this land, both from Celt. ROUDO- “red”, colour of blood, which was that of
mourning in prehistory to the end of antiquity16.

12
For the Welsh, man lives for 81 years, the stag 243, the blackbird 729, the eagle 2187, the salmon 6561, the yew 19683
and the whole world 59049. A geometric progression that indicates the value of the tree and explains Ebora.
13
Ozom, Oza, Ozão, comes from *OKIĀ “border; edge”, and “angle, corner” (> Gael. hapax ochae “armpit”). Ochair (<
*OKRIS f.) “border” has Graeco-Latin relatives meaning “hill, top”. The root is *ak- “acute, sharp”. In Galiza it is
“boundary” or “bank”.
14
Latin feminine daemones of birth: Nona “of nine months”, Decuma “of the tenth, first month of life” and Morta “distribu-
tor of goods”. Later assimilated to the Greek Moiras. Nona took the value of hora nona, the hour of going to bed; Decuma, of
the end of the series; Morta, of death, with which she had nothing to do before.
15
Ró was *ROUDO-; Róis < *ROUDĪS (Latin hybr. in ablative-locative; in Celt. *ROUDOBO). Paradoxical as it may sound, it
was life in death (ressurrection), amongother values. In the mesolithic they dyed the dead with red, and also in neolithic. Later
the paint was replaced by a cloth. Hector ‘s body was wrapped in purple tunics. Roman women in mourning put on their heads
the rica, a red cloth. It had been forgotten that to dye in red the face of the triumphator was the beginning of the funeral rite
to prevent harm from the spirits of the enemies killed in battle. Even today a red cloth is set at a funeral mass for a Pope.