EPONA

Swift traveller, your hair streams behind you

Like a mane. Epona, lady of the stable,

Carry us with you, when you open the door

And fly through to the Otherworld

 Epona is a Gaulish goddess whose name gives us our word 'pony' and derives from Epos, the Celtic word for horse. She is usually portrayed riding side-saddle, or standing between two foals, feeding them from her basket with corn and apples and other fruit. She is the protectress of horses, asses, mules, oxen, other animals, riders and stables. She is also the sovereign goddess of the land, the fruitful mother, and the guardian of holy wells and streams.

Among the Celts horses were status symbols, and were never used as lowly beasts of burden; rather they were the mounts of chieftains and warriors. Eating their flesh was taboo, as it still is in Britain. It is no exaggeration to say that the domestication of the horse changed the face of the world. Horses were invaluable creatures that enabled people to travel much further and improved communication between distant places. The Celts were expert cavalrymen, and the horse no doubt aided them in their westward journey of conquest across Europe.

Epona had a shrine in almost every stable of the Roman Empire, and more than 343 inscriptions have been found dedicated to her. She was worshipped throughout Gaul, and found as far afield as Britain, Spain, Rumania and Yugoslavia. The Romans conscripted cavalry troops from Gaul and from there, her cult spread throughout the Roman army. She was the only Celtic goddess to have her own temple in Rome, awarded the feast day of the 18^th December. The Romans worshipped her as Epona Augusta or Epona Regina. She was invoked to protect the Emperor and had a shrine in the barracks of the Imperial Bodyguard. Epona existed in other guises throughout the Celtic world, becoming Rhiannon in Wales and Macha in Ireland. 

Horse cults existed in Britain long before the coming of the Celts. A Stone Age carving found in Derbyshire [Central England] shows a man in a horse mask. There are several chalk horse hill-figures in Britain, the oldest being the one at Uffington in Oxfordshire [Central England] dating from 1400-600 BCE. The horse represented the spirit of the land itself. The oldest horse figures are all female and represented the sovereign goddess, whom the sacred king must marry in order to rule.

In early Ireland, a white mare was instrumental in the bestowing of kingship. An account as late as the twelfth century CE described the making of a minor king and how he must be symbolically reborn from a white mare. Stripped naked he had to crawl on all fours to the mare, like a foal. The mare was then slaughtered and cut up, the pieces boiled in a cauldron. The king got into the cauldron to eat pieces of the meat and drink the both. Finally he stood on the inauguration stone, was presented with a white wand and turned three times to the right, then three times to the left 'to honour the trinity'- in the original rites the trinity honoured would have been the triple sovereign goddess of the land

For the non-military sections of society, Epona was a mother goddess, an emblem of fertility, shown with mare and foal. As representative of the land, she would have been responsible for the harvest. As goddess of animals, she would have been responsible for their welfare and breeding.

Images of Epona have been found in Celtic graveyards, dedicated by relatives of the deceased, showing that she was also a protector and guide of the dead. She carried a key which unlocked both the stable door and the gates of the Otherworld.[1] She is the Queen of the Dead who rides between the worlds at will, to carry souls to the afterlife. The Celts believed that the dead rode to the hereafter on horseback, accompanied by blackbirds and larks.

Epona is the goddess who holds the key that opens the doors between the worlds, and allows journeys between them in the form of a shamanic journey. The shaman visualises riding on a horse's back as it gallops between the realms. Sometimes too, the drum the shaman uses to induce trance is made of horse-skin, and this is another meaning of 'riding the horse'.

In her dark form, Epona is the nightmare that preys on sleepers, bringing bad dreams, insomnia and anxiety.
 

NB: This short article is not from my more comprehensive Goddess Encyclopaedia