Arduinna is known from an inscription found in Rome, Italy, where she is invoked along with Camulus, Jupiter, Mercury and Hercules. The same goddess, invoked as Ardbinna is also known from Düren, Germany (the sounds b/v/w are notoriously interchangeable in Latin transcriptions of Celtic). Toponymically it seems likely that the Ardennes forest in France was named after this goddess.
The archetypical image of Arduinna is that of a young woman wearing a short tunic who rides side-saddle upon the back of a boar (as shown above). However, this statue (discovered in the 19th Century) bears no inscription and it seems that the discover simply seems to have assumed that the statue represented Arduinna, possibly because the symbol of the Ardennes is a wild boar.
The goddess, Ardbinna, known from a single inscription at Düren, Germany may also represent this goddess. The 'b', and 'v' sounds in Celtic were very similar and were often substituted in Latin inscriptions with the letter 'u'.
Etymologically Arduinna's name is probably derived from the reconstructed proto-Celtic roots *ardwo- (heights) along with the deictic particles īm and the feminine ending -a. Thus Arduinna is the 'Goddess of the Heights'. The old interpretation of her name as 'Lady of the Forests' comes from an incorrect assumption that 'Ardennes' meant 'woodland'. However, during Roman times the many wooded areas were known known as: arduenna silva 'the wooded heights' and they may all have been sacred to the goddess Arduinna. Indeed, the cult of Arduinna seems to have been so prevalent that in 565 CE St Wulfilaïc preached to the population of Villers-devant-Orval, to convince them to forgo the worship of Arduinna.
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