Verbeia of the River Wharfe

This is the River Wharfe in Boston Spa, West Yorkshire and is my new favourite place to wild swim. I was recently informed that there is a Goddess associated with this river so I felt compelled to learn more. Her name is Verbeia and she is a Romano-Celtic Goddess known from a single altar-stone dedicated to her at Ilkley, a town also within West Yorkshire that straddles the River Wharfe. A stone image of a woman, also from Ilkley may represent the goddess and is depicted with a large head, wearing a long, pleated robe and grasping two large snakes, one in each hand (a symbol commonly associated with running water). Her correspondences are unknown, but she is likely to represent both beauty and danger, life and death akin to the river she is associated with.