Larzac tablet

The fragmentation of the tablet may also be intentional, performed by its original authors, as part of the ritual "burial" of the curse to send it on its way to the underworld.

The magic invoked is clearly malicious, of a nature well attested from other parts of the Celtic world, notably Irish mythology.

Sisterhoods of sorceresses or witches are also known to have existed in ancient Gaul on the authority of ancient ethnographers; thus, Pomponius Mela (III, 6, 48) records a college of nine priestesses capable of invoking tempests and adopting animal form among the Osismii, while Strabon (IV, 4, 6) is aware of a convent of women of the Samnitae possessed by Dionysus, installed on an island of the Loire estuary.

A total of eleven or twelve names of women who were to be cursed alongside Severa Tertionicna have been preserved; most of these are identified by their given name plus a specification of a relation, identified either by one of their parents ("daughter of"), or one of their children ("mother of"), or as dona (of unclear significance, apparently "lady of", but Lambert suggested "wetnurse of" and Lejeune suggested "heiress of").

The Celtic forms ultimately go back to a Proto-Indo-European root *bhergh- perhaps originally meaning "to make light" with further cognates in Old Norse bragr "poetic talent", and Sanskrit brahmán- ‘priest’ and bráhman- "prayer.

What the semantic nuances are between this form and duχtir is unclear, but one presumably is the literal biological meaning, and the other likely expresses the relationship within the community (similar to Father and Brethren in the Catholic church).