Coventina
Also called Covventina.
The British goddess of Carrawburgh's well, shown pouring water from an urn, whose cult reached Spain and Gaul before Rome demoted her to a nymph.
At a glance
- Tradition
- British folklore
- Region
- Northern England (place of origin)
- Trait family
- The Water-Beckoners
Near this figure
and 3 more
Traits
Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.
Defensive powers
- Water guardianship
why
The carvings show her lying back and tipping water out of a jar, or upright among growing things and emptying the vessel across them — imagery that makes her a goddess of the water's use rather than merely of its presence, which is a meaningful distinction for a deity attached to a spring.
Utility powers
- Healing
why
Like other Celtic water deities she may have had a healing aspect, though the sources put that forward as a likelihood by analogy rather than as something the Carrawburgh evidence establishes on its own.
Roles
Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.
- Water carries
2 citations
- Carol Rose, Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins, s.v. "Coventina."
- Patricia Monaghan, The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore, p. 101.