Celtic Gods: The Gaulish Goddess, Adsagsona, She who Inquires
Adsagsona
A Gaulish goddess: She who Inquires

This deity is known from a two inscriptions from Aquitaine, France and is possibly a goddess of justice or revenge.

Synonyms:
Gaul: ?She who Inquires

Adsagsona is known from a single Gaulish inscription upon a broken lead plate known as the Le plomb du Larzac. This was discovered in August 1983 in Hospitalet-du-Larzac, Aquitaine, France. The plate has sixty lines of text written in Gaulish cursive; the same text was also found on a funerary urn in a Gallo-Roman necropolis.

The sentence mentioning Adsagsona reads TIGONTIAS.SO.ADSAGSONA.SEUE and is interpreted to mean: ‘O Adsagsona, look twice at Severa Tertionicna, their sorceress of string and of writing’ though this interpretation is by no means certain.

In his book La Langue Gauloise Pierre-Yves Lambert postulates that Adsagsona may be a derivative of the reconstructed proto-Celtic form *ad-sag-, (meaning ‘to inquire, to look into’). Because of this she is assumed to be a goddess of justice or revenge.

However, some have taken the meaning of the inscription dedicated to her to mean that she was a patroness of magic; but this seems unlikely. However, it might be that in her function as a goddess of justice she might also have been a protectress of righteous spell-casters, but this can only be speculation, based on the paucity of evidence.



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