We all know about Andraste, I'm sure - the Prophetess who gave her life to found the Chantry? No news there. Well, check this!
Apparently, Andraste was a goddess of War, or a goddess of Victory, that was called upon by the famous Celtic warrior-queen Boudica (or Boudicca, or Boadicea - the spelling varies). We only have the word of the Roman historian Dio Cassius for this. Although he is frequently melodramatic, and tends to ascribe Roman values to Celtic peoples, I think we can trust him to get names right, because he lived during the same era as Boudicca.
(Note: although I refer to Boudicca as Celtic, she was technically Icenic - i.e. she was queen of the Iceni, a pre-Roman tribe who lived in East Anglia, in south-east England. The Iceni were adherents of the Celtic culture, but they had little to bind them to other Celtic peoples, apart from the Druid religion that was widespread throughout England at the time. Nevertheless, inter-tribal warfare was fierce, which enabled the Romans to play the tribes against each other - divide and rule. Nevertheless, Boudicca is famous because she took on the Romans at the peak of their power, and managed to beat them and defy them - at least for a little while. She did this precisely because the Romans abused the relationship that they built up with the Celts, took away their land, enslaved the Celts, disarmed their warriors and flogged Boudicca herself. In the generations after Boudicca's defeat, though, the Romans and the Celts came to understand each other better - and although the relationship between Romans and Celts remained as one between ruler and ruled, nevertheless the Romans understood that they could not abuse the relationship again).
Whoops... sorry for digressing. Hope I didn't bore you!
