I have a profound level of ignorance in these matters, as She knows. As usual, this doesn’t inhibit me from offering my tuppence worth, which is this:
First, a Pan-European Mother Goddess, or thousands of local deities? Doesn’t the former pre-suppose a sustained Pan-European culture involving a high level of communication or even control, sufficient to stifle the natural human tendency to splinter locally? Could such a thing have existed? If so, apart from the obvious lack of evidence of a power centre and means to sustain close control, why is there evidence that other aspects of culture varied greatly? A Pan-European theocratic dictatorship imposed on self governing communities? A Pope of the Stones?
Secondly, local deities tend to be similar, and female – why? It’s possible to dismiss this as evidence that they were local variants of a universally held belief, by substituting another thought – that “folks are just folks”. Doesn’t the earth hold itself up as female in every way – creator, sustainer, protector? Wouldn’t this be self-evident to people everywhere? Wouldn’t the thought be reinforced by the fact that landscape itself is self-evidently female?
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