Germanic paganism
Matronae

Collectives of three goddess known as matronae appear on numerous votive altars from the Roman province of Germania inferior, especially from Cologne, dating to the third and fourth centuries CE. The altars depict three women in non-Roman dress. About half of serving matronae altars can be identified as Germanic because of their bynames; other have Latin or Celtic bynames. The bynames are often connected to a place or ethnic group, but a number are associated with water, and many of them seem to indicate a giving and protecting nature. Despite their frequency in the archaeological record, the matronae receive no mention in any written source.

The matronae may be connected to female deities attested in collectives from later times, such as the Norns, the disir and valkyries; Rudolf Simek suggests that a connection to the disir is most likely. The disir may be etymologically connected to minor Hindu deities known as dhisanās, who likewise appear in a group; this would give them an Indo-European origin. Since Jacob Grimm, scholars have sought to connect the disir with the idisi found in the Old High German First Merseburg Charm and with a conjecturally corrected place name from Tacitus; however, these connections are contested. The disir share some functions with the Norns and valkyries, and the Nordic sources suggest a close association between the three groups of Norse minor female deities. Further connections of the matronae have been proposed: the Anglo-Saxon pagan festival of modranicht (" night of the mothers ") mentioned by Bede has been associated with the matronae. Likewise, the poorly attested Anglo-Saxon goddesses Eostre and Rheda may be connected with the matronae.
change_case:capital_word_frequency[6]