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In ancient Gallo-Roman religion Angerona or Angeronia was an old Celtic goddess adopted by Romans, whose name and functions are variously explained. She is sometimes identified with the goddess Feronia.
Dumézil pointed out that the Roman goddesses whose name ends with the suffix -ona or -onia to discharge the function of helping worshipers to overcome a particular time or condition of crisis: instances include Bellona who allows the Roman to wade across war in the best way possible, Orbona who cares for parents who lost a child,Cicero. De Natura Deorum III 63; Arnobius. Adversus Gentiles, IV 7. Pellonia who pushes the enemies away,Arnobius Adversus Gentiles IV 4. Fessonia who permits travellers to subdue fatigue.Augustine. De Civitate Dei, IV 21.
Angerona's feriae named Angeronalia or Divalia took place on December 21 – the day of the winter solstice. On that day the pontiffs offered a sacrifice to the goddess in curia Acculeia according to VarroVarro. De Lingua Latina, VI 23 or in sacello Volupiae, near the Porta Romanula, one of the inner gates on the northern side of the Palatine.Macrobius. Saturnalia, I 10, 7. A famous statue of Angerona, with her mouth bandaged and sealed and with a finger on the lips in the gesture that requests silence,Solinus. De Mirabilibus Mundi, I 6 was placed in Angerona's shrine, on an altar to Volupia.Macrobius. Saturnalia, I 10, 8. Dumézil sees in this peculiar feature the reason of her being listed among the goddesses who were considered candidates to the title of secret tutelary deity of Rome.Macrobius. Saturnalia, III 8, 3-4.
Dumézil considers this peculiar feature of Angerona's statue to hint to a prerogative of the goddess which was well known to the Romans, i.e. her will of requesting silence. He remarks silence in a time of cosmic crisis is a well documented point in other religions, giving two instances from Scandinavian and Vedic religion.
Among the Scandinavians god Viðarr is considered the second strongest after Thor. His only known act is placed at the time of the "Dusk of the gods", the great crisis in which the old world disappears, as the wolf Fenrir swallows Oðinn and the sun. Völuspa 53;
Edda Snorra Sturlusonar (Snorri's Edda) p. 73 F. Jónsson (1931), cited by Dumézil (1977) p. 298. Then Viðarr defeats Fenrir permitting the rebirth of the world with a female sun, the daughter of the disappeared one. The eschatological crisis in which Fenrir devours the sun is seen as the "Great Winter" Fimbulvetr and the god who kills Fenrir, Viðarr, is defined the "silent Ase": Edda Snorra Sturlusonar p. 33, cited by Dumézil (1977) p. 298. Silence must be associated with his exceptional force and his feat as savior of the world. Angerona too discharges the function of saving the sun in danger, thanks to her silence and the concentration of mystical force it brings.
Dumézil (1956) proposes that the association between Angerona and Volupia can be explained as the pleasure that derives from a fulfilled desire, the achievement of an objective. Note that the meaning of the archaic adjective volup(e) does not refer to 'pleasure' in the carnal sense of the later word voluptas. }} Thence the description θεός τῆς βουλῆς καί καιρῶν "goddess given in a Latin-Greek glossary.
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