Litavis
# Litavis

Litavis (Gaulish: Litauī 'Earth', lit. 'the Broad One') is a Gallic deity whose cult is primarily attested in east-central Gaul during the Roman period. She was probably originally an earth-goddess. In medieval Celtic languages, various terms derived from *Litauia came to designate the Brittany Peninsula.

## Epigraphic evidence

Her name is found in inscriptions found at Aignay-le-Duc and Mâlain of the Côte-d'Or, France, where she is invoked along with the Gallo-Roman god Mars Cicolluis in a context which suggests that she might have been his consort. Also, a Latin dedicatory inscription from Narbonne (which was in the far south of Gaul), France, bears the words "MARTI CICOLLUI ET LITAVI" ("To Mars Cicolluos and Litavis").

## Name

### Etymology

The Gaulish divine name Litauī ('Earth', lit. 'the Vast One') likely stems from Proto-Celtic *flitawī ('broad'; cf. Old Breton litan, Middle Welsh llydan, 'broad'), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European $*Pleth_2-wih_1$ ('the Broad One'; cf. Sanskrit Pṛthvī, Greek Plátaia; also Old Norse fǫld, 'earth').

The Gaulish personal name Litauicos ('sovereign', lit. 'possessor of the land') is also cognate with the Welsh Llydewig, meaning 'pertaining to Brittany', pointing to a Proto-Celtic term *Litauī-kos, here attached to the determinative suffix -kos.

### Medieval terms

The medieval or 'neo-Celtic' names for the Brittany Peninsula (cf. Old Irish Letha, Old Welsh Litau, Old Breton Letau, Latinized as Letavia) all stem from an original *Litauia, meaning 'Land' or 'Country'. In the Irish Lebor Bretnach (11th c.), Bretain Letha means 'Britons of the Continent or Armorica, i.e. Bretons.' Linguist Rudolf Thurneysen proposed a semantic development from an Ancient Celtic term meaning 'broad land, continent' into the Insular Celtic names for the part of the Continent nearest the British Islands.

