Francine Nicholson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>My impression is that deities throughout Europe were frequently
euhemerized or absorbed into the figures of saints. For example....The healing
river goddess Sequanna became the masculine St. Seine, reputed founder of a
monastery at the source of the river...The fact that these traditional
associations were maintained suggests that the association between figure and
patron function was maintained during the changover from pre-Christian to
Christian veneration.
something of the same sort at Chartres, too, where the Roman [and now the
modern] cemetary on a hill southeast of the city became the site of an abbey
dedicated to an apparently mythological saint, Cheron.
(cf. www.centrechartraine.freeservers.com/abbeys/s-cheron/s-cheron.html
--under construction, obviously)
(before his death a few years ago the noted local scholar, l'abbé Guy Villette
did a thorough and quite interesting study of the would-be St. Cheron which
was, i believe, published in c. 1970 in a French folklore journal --the
reference to it which i have is itself burried on my inaccessible, dead hard
drive [man, i hate it when that happens!].)
at least i *think* this is the sort of thing you are talking about.
if so, must have been very, *very* common practice; and, only makes
sense, after all.
best from here,
christopher
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