Goddess of Glastonbury

The Goddess of Glastonbury

by Monica Sjoo

For the long ages of the palaeolithic era before 30,000BCE, the Goddess reigned alone. She was the Origin, the Virgin Void out of which She was Self-created. She was present in all forms of life. Her arching Body was the star-filled Sky. She was the Sun, the Moon and the Stars and the Space between. She was Mother Nature, Mistress of the animals and the plants. The Earth was Her Body. The rivers and oceans were Her blood and life fluids. The plants, trees and vegetation were Her hair. She was the Mother of Time. In ancient Britain the pattern of life was determined by the cycle of Her seasons. Through the turning of the year Her body was visibly transformed from the fresh green Maiden, to the vibrant Lover, to the radiant Mother and the slowly dying Crone. Through the aeons this cycle of transformation repeated itself, interrupted only by the Ice Ages in which the British Isles were completely covered in glaciers and sheets of ice.

In ancient Britain the Goddess was the One who expressed Herself through the Many. She was the great Void, the Beginning of all things. She was the Source of Life, the Creatrix, Continuer and Destroyer of all that exists. She was the Matrix, the Great Mother, Spinner of the Thread of Life and Destiny, Weaver of the Web of Continuity and Cutter of the Thread at death. All souls were born from Her sacred Womb, lived for a span upon Her Body the Earth, then returned to Her Tomb/Womb at death. She was Mother of the Stars in the Heavens and of all Nature. She was the Tree of Life.

She was the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone; the Virgin, the Lover and the Whore. The Holy Grael of Immortality, the Chalice of Love and the Cauldron of Transformation were all in Her keeping, reflecting Her Triple nature. She was the Three, Nine and Nineteen Sisters, Ladies, Maidens, Mothers, Faerie Queens, Crones or Hags, who expressed themselves through the fourfold cycle of Her seasons.

One of the earliest figurines of the Goddess in Brigit’s Isles was found preserved in the peat of the Somerset Levels. She dates from 3250 BCE and is 6″ tall and carved out of ash wood. Although claimed by archaeologists to be a hermaphrodite god doll, She has typical large breasts and a lower protrusion, which is on her left side, like a leg rather than in any central phallic position. She was found beneath the Bell Track, one of the ancient wooden trackways which once crisscrossed the watery Levels, where nomadic people fished and hunted throughout the mesolithic and neolithic eras. Perhaps she is the earliest representation of the Lady of the Lake.

Hail to you, Brigit Anna

Hail Great Queen of Brigit’s Isles

Hail Sovereignty, Our Lady Britannia

Hail Goddess of ten thousand names

May you be honoured and adored forever !

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