Blog No. 13 Sennen Area - Who owned what in 1838

Blog No. 21 The Serpent Goddess

The Serpent Goddess

On Sunday the 13th of February 2023 Rachel Richards posted the above photo on the Sennen Community Website along with the following text.

"Yesterday, after watching the whales travel offshore and towards Lands End, then admiring the forming sunset, I saw this figure in the sky. To me it looks like a person kneeling, cradling a baby looking down at Sennen and following the whales. It stayed without shifting shape for quite a while. The peaceful scene brought to mind Tanith, goddess and protector of the moon (last night was the Snow Moon) skies and water, known as the Serpent Lady."

 

Rachel's photo and words struck a chord with me and I have written the following poem. and appended words I wrote back in 2004 for a website on Cornish Legends.

O Tanith of Carthage you were spotted in the sky,

watching the whales as they slowly passed by.

Spotted as the sun sank slowly in the west,

Waiting for the Snow moon was that your quest?

 

Or was it as Goddess of fertility and Moon

You held a new baby making sure it came soon,

here to Sennen where its ancestors came,

To trade with the Cornish the Phoenicians their name.

 

Tanith the Serpent Lady in Carthage for that is your name

its carved-on walls in order to spread your fame

chief goddess of Carthage, consort to Ba'al.

Your Snake shape is what alerted Rachel to your call.

 

When the Phoenicians first came to Cornwall they must have learnt to converse in order to barter.  When the trading day was finished, the traders and buyers probably sat around the fire enjoying the local hospitality and exchanging tales. The Cornish had their stories of Giants, Knockers and other spirits, and the Phoenicians probably told of their great sea journeys and to add a little excitement claiming to have met the “tritons” as they called the mermen and other strange creatures. 

  They may even have traded a vase showing a typical floral pattern and the triton motif similar to the one above, found by archaeologists in Etruria one of the Phoenician city-states and which is believed to have been made around the year 540BC. 

 The Phoenicians would have set up makeshift alters in order to worship their gods El and Baal and the goddess Astarte / Asherar-yam, our lady of the sea. Little figurines such as the Bull would have been used like the one found in StJust in Penwith and in the case of the goddess the symbol may have been as simple as a coin.  Coins found at one of the ancient Phoenician sites have a Mermaid on them and this is believed to have been a representation of Astarte who was also linked with mother goddesses of neighbouring cultures, such as Tanith of Carthage in her role as combined heavenly mother and earth mother. Cult statues of Baal and Astarte in many forms were left as votive offerings in shrines and sanctuaries as prayers for a good harvest and by the infertile wishing for help. It may be that the tossing of coins into fountains and Wells is a result of the goddess being put on a coin by the Phoenicians. 

 Blog No. 21 The Serpent Goddess