In Romano-British religion, Cocidius was a deity worshipped in northern Roman Britain. The Romans equated him with Mars, god of war and hunting, and also with Silvanus, god of forests, groves and wild fields.[F. Guirand ed., New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (London 1968) p. 237] Like Belatucadros, he was probably worshipped by lower-ranked Roman soldiers as well as by the Britons for whom he was probably a tribal god[F. Guirand ed., New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (London 1968) p. 243] - a genius loci.[William Atkins, The Moor (London 2014) p. 323]
Etymology
Rivet and Smith note that the name may be related to British Celtic
cocco-, 'red' (compare
Welsh language coch and
Cornish language kogh), suggesting that statues of the god might have been painted red.
[A.L.F. Rivet and C. Smith (1979), Place Names of Roman Britain.] A figure discovered in the 1980s in the Otterburn Training Area and is known as the Red One.
[William Atkins, The Moor (London 2014) p. 322]
Representations and dedications
Fanocodi was a
Ancient Rome place-name mentioned in the Ravenna
Cosmography for a location close to the
Solway Firth; the name has been derived from
Fanum Cocidii, or temple of Cocidius, and the place identified with
Bewcastle.
There are dedications to Cocidius around Hadrian's Wall and
Cumbria, including the forts at
Birdoswald and
Bewcastle. Another inscription, at
Ebchester, refers to him as
Cocidius Vernostonus, Cocidius of the
alder tree. A 2000-year-old carving of Cocidius was found in 2006 near
Cilurnum on Hadrian's Wall.
[ Carving of 'northern god' found BBC NEWS Online, Published Saturday, 11 March 2006. Accessed Online May 14, 2015] This was dubbed the
little man and shows a figure with its arms flung wide and legs braced firmly against the ground. Although the gender is not depicted, the shape and accessories are seemingly male, with a shield in the left hand, a sword in the right, and a scabbard hanging from the belt around his tunic. This is one of at least nine representations known in the Hadrian's Wall corridor, and a further 25 or so inscriptions dedicated to him. Most of these are along the western portion of the Wall, the most spectacular being found at Yardhope, where a figure in bas-relief brandishes spear and shield on a vertical rock-face at the entrance to a small shrine.
[Barnett, T. (2006). Gods on the Rocks. Current Archaeology 204: 618.]
In literature
William A. Young suggests that the characters of the 'Dark Man' in the
Celtic Britons romance
Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain, the guardian of the chapel in Guillaume le Clerc's
Fergus of Galloway, and the Brown Man of the Moor in
John Leyden's
The Cout o' Keeldar (1802) have their origins in Cocidius.
[Young, William A. (2022), The Ghosts of the Forest: The Lost Mythology of the North, Inter-Celtic, pp. 336 - 339, 431 - 459, ]
See also
Further reading
-
Young, William A. (2022), The Ghosts of the Forest: The Lost Mythology of the North, Inter-Celtic, Edinburgh,
