Corn dollies are still made today, but more or less as a picturesque wall decoration with little or no symbolic value. In past centuries, the corn dolly was a powerful fertility symbol associated with the agricultural year.
It was once believed that the spirit of the grain harvest resided in the corn itself. When the harvest was gathered, the corn was cut down and the corn goddess became homeless. Farmers made a crude image of her out of the last stalks of the harvested crop, as a dwelling-place for her. She overwintered in the farmer’s house, waiting to be returned to the plowland in the spring. When the fields were plowed, the dolly was taken out and plowed back into the soil: the goddess was returning to the earth.
The custom of making corn dollies was widespread and each area had its own design. They are always stylized, and many of them are quite abstract, looking nothing at all like goddesses.
CORNUCOPIA
Iron Age goddesses are often shown bearing a long, straight, cone-shaped container brimming with fruit. This is the horn of plenty, often referred to by its Latin name, cornucopia, and representing the boundless riches of the Earth. It is the most common symbol of abundance, particularly in relation to food.
A Gallic image shows the goddess Rosmerta offering a cornucopia and a small offering-dish, a patera. On other sculptures, where a goddess is accompanied by a god, she may hold both or just the cornucopia, while her male partner holds the patera. Another image from Gaul shows a triad of goddesses, all holding a cornucopia, but only the middle one holding a patera: maybe this is to show that the middle goddess is a little more important than the other two.
A relief from Aquitaine shows a goddess with a crown holding a cornucopia of fruit and vine leaves, to show the fertility and productivity of the region. The stone image is dedicated to Tutela, a “Fortuna” goddess who was the patroness of a town, possibly Massilia. When the deities appear in couples, male and female, it is usually the female who holds the cornucopia, held upright like a sceptre (at Dijon, Pagny-la-Ville, Alesia, and Glanum). The frequency of the association of the horn of plenty with a divine couple suggests that the “plenty” is thought of as a product of a divine marriage.
There are carvings showing the horse-goddess Epona carrying a cornucopia while riding her horse. It is a symbol of productivity; some images abbreviate the cornucopia to a single apple, as on the fine Epona sculpture from Kastel, but the symbolic thrust of the image is exactly the same.
Sometimes, as with other religious symbols, the cornucopia stands on its own. A stone altar dedicated to the goddess Nehalennia has a cornucopia carved onto its front (see Basket of Fruit; Religion: Altar).
CRANE
A well-carved relief from Trier shows the god Esus chopping at a willow tree that contains a bull’s head and three egrets. A completely separate image of Esus shows him hacking down a willow, while on an adjacent scene another willow is shown associated with three egrets and a bull. The bull here is mysteriously named Tarvostrigaranos. Some of this symbolism is straightforward: egrets favor willows, and they also eat the ticks off the backs of cattle. But it is less obvious why egrets, bulls, and willows should be important in association with a particular god. One idea is that Esus is chopping down the willow as a form of sacrifice and the willow is a Tree of Life; perhaps what we are seeing is the laying-low of life in winter in preparation for the coming spring.
The birds may represent human souls, as in other cultures. Chopping down the willow causes the birds to fly away, so the image may be a metaphor for death and the flight of the soul to the Otherworld.
Cranes, like willows, are associated with water and wetland. Both lake and marsh were foci for ritual offerings, so cranes were birds that frequented sacred places. Cranes and other waterbirds were often shown on coins. The crane and the crow were both symbols of the Otherworld, and heralds of death.
It may be significant that in Irish folk-tales, which contain a good deal of ancient material, cranes can represent women. In that context, the Maiden Castle bull, with its three female riders, suddenly finds its meaning; the three women can shapeshift, in true Celtic style, into three birds (see Rule of Three). This is therefore a similar image to the one associated in Gaul with Esus. In both Irish and Welsh literature there are magic birds, sometimes appearing in threes. Cliodnu, an Irish goddess, has three birds nourished by everlasting apples; the birds are able to sing sick people to sleep. The sweetly singing birds of Rhiannon are able to bring joy and forgetfulness for seven years (see Myths: Blackbirds).
World History
