Last night I did a little reading about Boadicea, also spelled Boudicca. She was this Celtic warrior queen who lead an almost successful revolt against the Romans around about the time 60 A.D.

The Romans most disliked the terrifying war spirit of the Celts, especially the fact that women fought alongside the men, indistinguished in honor and strength. The Roman Diodorus Siculus wrote of Celtic women, saying, “Among the Gauls the women are nearly as tall as the men, whom they rival in courage.” The historian Plutarch stated this while describing a battle in 102 B.C. between Romans and Celts: “the fight had been no less fierce with the women than with the men themselves… the women charged with swords and axes and fell upon their opponents uttering a hideous outcry.” Because Boudicca — a woman, a Roman subject, and a Britannic royal — led the rebellion, Rome felt even more disgraced and outraged.

This other site also has a cool ass picture of a statue of her by the British House of Parliament. Also, Enya has a song on her album, The Celts, called Boadica. In fact, the song was recently sampled on Mario Winans/P. Diddy’s hit single, “I don’t wanna know.”

P. Diddy is getting flack from fans of the UK female singer, Enya, for sampling her 1986 song “Boadecia” in Mario Winans’ new hit song, “I Don’t Wanna Know.” While a few say the Bad Boy track exposes the Enya to an urban audience, hard-core fans have knocked Diddy for using “Enya’s super innocent voice in a song about being played and getting it on.” Diddy reportedly paid six figures for the use of the Enya sample, which was previously used by The Fugees in “Ready Or Not.”

Oh, and I almost forgot, Mel Gibson’s putting together a movie on her, called “Warrior.” I guess they’re calling it that rather calling it “Boadicea” or “Boudicca” since those aren’t as easy to pronounce.

I remember, I had originally learned about Boadicea as a kid, from some book about the Celts, back when I was reading a lot of European and military history stuff. The book had a lot of nice colored paintings of Celtic war costumes and stuff. I’ll try to find it later and link to it.