Catubodua

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Catubodua ("battle-crow") is a Gaulish goddess known from a single inscription in Haute Savoie, eastern France. She appears to be identical to the Irish goddess, the Badb. Nicole Jufer and Thierry Luginbühl provisionally link Catubodua with other apparently martial goddesses attested elsewhere, such as Boudina, Bodua, and Boudiga, whose names share roots meaning either 'fighting' or 'victory'.^[1] She would therefore be comparable to the Roman Victoria and the Greek goddess Nike and possibly the Nordic goddess Sigyn.

[edit] A related Roman legend?

A story of the Roman wars against the Gauls of the 4th century BC, recorded by Livy, Aulus Gellius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, may preserve a reference to her. A Roman soldier, Marcus Valerius, accepted a challenge to single combat with a Gaulish champion. When the fight began, a crow landed on Valerius's helmet and began to attack the Gaul, who, terrified by this divine intervention, was easily beaten. Valerius adopted the cognomen "Corvus" (crow), and as Marcus Valerius Corvus went on to be a famous general and politician of the Roman Republic.^[2]

[edit] Name and etymology

Etymological lexical forms reconstructed in the University of Wales' Proto-Celtic lexicon, suggest that the name is likely to be ultimately derived from the Proto-Celtic *Katu-bodwā, a word that could be interpreted as ‘battle-fighting’.^[3] Nonetheless it is this second element *bodwā which appears to be the Proto-Celtic root of the later form of the name Badhbh.^{[citation needed]} The later Irish meaning of ‘scald-crow’ may well have developed out of the association of flocks of crows scavenging on battlefields in the aftermath of armed conflict (as well as vultures, wolves, dogs, and other carrion-eaters or scavengers), especially given that no word similar in form and meaning to Badhbh and can be confidently reconstructed for the Proto-language. The masculine form *bodwos ('fighting') developed in Gaelic into Bodb.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

1. ^ Jufer, N. and T. Luginbühl (2001). Répertoire des dieux gaulois. Paris, Editions Errance.
2. ^ Titus Livius. Periochae. Book 7:10.
3. ^ Proto-Celtic—English lexicon. University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. (See also this page for background and disclaimers.)