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| Hecate by Iren Horrors |
Here are a few an how I see them through the lens of a Goddess of the Witches.
Ereshkigal
The world's first goth-girl. I talked a lot about her during my wrap-up of the Babylonian, Sumerian, and Akkadian myths. She is the goddess of the underworld and the magic associated with that. Ereshkigal is often considered to be the dark half of her sister Innana/Ishtar.
Isis
Isis is the earliest Goddess of Magic of Egypt.
With Osiris and Horus (the divine child) they make up a Holy Trinity. She is the Goddess of marriage, motherhood, fertility, magic, healing, reincarnation, and divination, to name but a few. Isis is the patroness of priestesses. One myth has Isis poisoning the Sun God Ra, offering to save him only if he would reveal his secret name. At last, at the brink of destruction, Ra gives Isis his heart, with the secret name it held, and his two eyes (the Sun and the Moon). Isis quells the poison and ends up with Ra’s supreme power. In time the great Eye was passed along to her son Horus. Proclus mentions a statue of her which bore the inscription “I am that which is, has been and shall be. My veil no one has lifted”. Hence, to lift the veil of Isis is to pierce the heart of a great mystery.
Hecate
Hecate got her own OMG post a while back.
Hecate is, in Greek mythology, the Goddess of darkness, magic, and witchcraft. She is the daughter of the Titans Perses and Asteria. Unlike Artemis, who represented the moonlight and splendor of the night, Hecate represented its darkness and its terrors. On moonless nights she was believed to roam the earth with a pack of ghostly, howling dogs. She was the Goddess of sorcery and witchcraft and was especially worshiped by magicians and witches, who sacrificed black lambs and black dogs to her. As Goddess of the crossroads, Hecate and her pack of dogs were believed to haunt these remote spots, which seemed evil and ghostly places to travelers. In art Hecate is often represented with either three bodies or three heads and with serpents entwined about her neck.
Of all the deities who have covens, Hecate’s covens are the most widespread and well known. Hecate was once a fairly benign goddess in early Greek times. She later became the dread Greco-Roman Goddess of ghosts, a close confidante of Persephone, and a patron of witches. The brutally wronged Hecuba of Troy was reincarnated as one of Hecate’s black dogs, which accompanied her on her night walks. When Hades kidnapped Persephone in the later Greek myth, farseeing Hecate was the only one who witnessed it. Hecate was worshiped at three-way crossroads at night even by ordinary Greek families and could ward off ghosts if properly propitiated. But Romans also believed She had more sinister worshipers; the witches and sorceresses who could coerce even the gods to do their will.
Freyja
Freyja is associated with magic, but mostly with seiðr. What is seiðr? Well, it is a bit of an odd translation but it usually refers to a pre-Christian pagan form of magic. Today we would shorthand it and call it "witchcraft" but that is not exactly right.
I hope to cover her more when I finally get to Norse myths.
Ceridwen
Celtic Goddess of wisdom, intelligence, magic, divination, and enchantment. She is the Goddess of the cauldron. Popular among the Celtic Classical and Craft of the Wise Traditions.
Cerridwen’s cauldron has the power to return the dead to life.
Áine
Another Celtic Goddess is the Irish goddess Áine. She is also the Goddess of Summer.
I want to get back to Celtic myths soon.
Coyolxāuhqui
I forgot to mention Coyolxāuhqui last week when I did Central American myths. She is the sister of Huitzilopochtli (the God of War in the D&DG). She is most often depicted as the Goddess of the Moon when she was beheaded by her brother and he tossed her head into the sky.
Huitaca
Also known as Xubchasgagua she is the Goddess of arts, dance and music, witchcraft, sexual liberation, and the Moon. That is quite the portfolio. Like many Goddesses, she is associated with the owl as her animal. She is described as a "rebel Goddess." She is really the archetypical witch.
She is associated with the religion of the Muisca which is now Columbia in South America.
From D&D
Wee Jas
Wee Jas also got her own post a while back. Wee Jas is what Hecate would be if she were a Suel god. Or more to the point the D&D version of Hecate, the Goddess of Magic, Witches, Ghosts, Necromancy and the Crossroads. It is said that Wee Jas guards the doorways to the dead and the same is true for Hecate. In fact, I have used them rather interchangeably for years.
I think for my own version of Wee Jas, I would start with the Dragon 88 version, add a little bit of what we saw in D&D 3.x, and then change her "Death" portfolio to "Spirits" ("Wee Jas" = "Ouija"). She can summon undead, and her priests may do so as well, but no raise dead spells. I rather liked the Raven Queen from D&D 4 and 5, so pass off Wee Jas' control of Death (save for spirits) to the Raven Queen. Since the Raven Queen is described as a young or new Goddess, it could even be that she is the daughter of Wee Jas. Ioun was one of Wee Jas' first students.
Mystra
Mystra is the Forgotten Realms Goddess of Magic. I have not talked much about her here because my knowledge of the Realms is limited. But I have always wanted to explore the Mystra-Mystara connection. Is there one? Likely not, but there should be at least in my games!
I am sure there are more, lots more even, but this is good for now.
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