Hecate

Hecate/

Pantheon: Olympian

  

 

 

 

^{There was a fane sacred to Hecate in the precincts of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, where the eunuch priests, megabyzi, officiated. Hesiod records that she was among the offspring of Gaia and Uranus, the Earth and Sky. In Theogony he ascribed to Hecate such wide-ranging and fundamental powers, that it is hard to resist seeing such a deity as a figuration of the Great Goddess, though as a good Olmpian Hesiod ascribes her powers as the “gift” of Zeus:}

 

“Hecate whom Zeus the son of Cronos honoured above all.
He gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the
unfruitful sea. She received honour also in starry heaven, and is
honoured exceedingly by the deathless gods…. The son of Cronos
did her no wrong nor took anything away of all that was her portion among the former Titan gods: but she holds, as the division was at the first from the beginning, privilege both in earth, and in heaven, and in sea”.

Her gifts to humans are all-encompassing, Hesiod tells: 

“Whom she will she greatly aids an advances: she sits by worshipful kings in judgement, and in the assembly whom her will is distinguished among the people. And when men arm themselves for the battle that destroys men, then the goddess is at hand to give victory and grant glory readily to whom she will. Good is she also when men contend at the games, for there too the goddess is with them and profits them: and he who by might and strength gets the victory wins the rich prize easily with joy, and brings glory to his parents. And she is good to stand by horsemen, whom she will: and to those whose business is in the grey discomfortable sea, and who pray to Hecate and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes it away as soon as seen, if so she will. She is good in the byre with Hermes to increase the stock. The droves of kine and wide herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep, if she will, she increases from a few, or makes many to be less”.

 

Hecate was carefully attended:

“For to this day, whenever any one of men on earth offers rich sacrifices and prays for favour according to custom, he calls upon Hecate. Great honour comes full easily to him whose prayers the goddess receives favourably, and she bestows wealth upon him; for the power surely is with her”.

 

Hesiod emphasizes that Hecate was an only child, the daughter of Asteria, a star-goddess who was the sister of Leto, the mother of Artemis and Apollo. Grandmother of the three cousins was Phoebe the ancient Titaness who personified the moon. Hecate was a reappearance of Phoebe, a moon goddess herself, who appeared in the dark of the moon. 

His inclusion and praise of Hecate in Theogony is troublesome for scholars in that he seems fulsomely to praise her attributes and responsibilities in the ancient cosmos even though she is both relatively minor and foreign. It is theorized that Hesiod¡¯s original village had a substantial Hecate following and that his inclusionof her in the Theogony was his own way to boost the home-goddess for unfamiliar hearers.

 

As her cult spread into areas of Greece it presented a conflict, as Hecate¡’s role was already filled by other more prominent deities in the Greek pantheon, above all by Artemis, and by more archaic figures, such as Nemesis. 

There are two versions of Hecate that emerge in Greek myth. The lesser role integrates Hecate while not diminishing Artemis. In this version, Hecate is a mortal priestess who is commonly associated with Iphigeneia and scorns and insults Artemis, eventually leading toher suicide. Artemis then adorns the dead body with jewelry and whispers for her spirit to rise and become her Hecate, and act similar to Nemesis as an avenging spirit, but solely for injured women. Such myths where a home deity sponsors or ¡®creates¡¯ a foreign one were widespread in ancient cultures as a way of integrating foreign cults. Additionally, as Hecate¡¯s cult grew, her figure was added to the later myth of the birth of Zeus as one of the midwives that hid the child, while Cronus consumed the deceiving rock handed to him by Gaia. 

The second version helps to explain how Hecate gains the title of the “Queen of Ghosts” and her role as a goddess of sorcery. Similar to totems of Hermes¡ªherms¡ª placed at borders as a ward against danger, images of Hecate, as a liminal goddess, could also serve in such a protective role. It became common to place statues of the goddess at the gates of cities, and eventually domestic doorways. Over time, the association of keeping out evil spirits led to the belief that if offended Hecate could also let in evil spirits. Thus invocations to Hecate arose as the supreme governess of the borders between the normal world and the spirit world. 

The transition of the figure of Hekate can be traced in fifth-century Athens. In two fragments of Aeschylus she appears as a great goddess. In Sophocles and Euripides she has become the mistress of witchcraft and the Keres. 

Eventually, Hecate¡¯s power resembled that of sorcery. Medea, who was a priestess of Hecate, used witchcraft in order to handle magic herbs and poisons with skill, and to be able to stay the course of rivers, or check the paths of the stars and the moon. 

Implacable Hecate has been called “tender-hearted”, a euphemism perhaps to emphasize her concern with the disappearance of persephone, when she addressed Demeter with sweet words at a time when the goddess was distressed. She later became Persephone’s minister and close companion in the Underworld.  

Although she was never truly incorporated among the Olympian deities, the modern understanding of Hecate is derived from the syncretic Hellenistic culture of Alexandria. In the magical papyri of Ptolemaic Egypt, she is called the she-dog or bitch, and her presence is signified by the barking of dogs. She sustained a large following as a goddess of protection and childbirth. In late  imagery she also has two ghostly dogs as servants by her side. 

In modern times Hecate has become a prevalent figure in feminist-inspired Neopagan religions, and a version of Hecate has been appropriated by Wicca and other modern magic-practising traditions. 

Hesiod considered Hecate to be a daughter, with Leto, of Perses and Asteria, two pre-Olympian Titans. As in most cultures with multi-generational deities, the preceding Titans were originally the only deities worshipped by the earlier Greek cultures while the later Olympians were the deities worshipped by later invaders who conquered Greece Some readers of mythography find elements of cultural history reflected in myth: as Hecate was one of the only Titans who kept power and status after the Titans lost their war with the Olympians¡ª she was always regarded as having great favor with Olympian Zeus and it seems likely that Hecate’s cult was so strong that it could not be suppressed by the invading new religions.As with many ancient mother- or earth-goddesses she remained unmarried, had no regular consort, and often is said to have reproduced via parthenogenesis.

 

 

Element: Earth

Sphere of Influence: Abundance and Magic

Preferred colors: Green, Black, Silver, Red Henn

Associated symbol: Knife, Torch

Animals associated with: Raven, Owl , Snake, Frog, Dog

Best day to work with: Wednesday

Best Moon phase: New Moon

Best time to work with: Midnight

Strongest around Samhain

Suitable offerings: Honey, Pomegranate

Associated Planet: Moon, Mercury

 

In another aspect she is the mother of many monsters, such as Scylla, who represented the dreaded aspects of nature that elicited fear as well as awe.

Chthonian (Earth/Underworld goddess)

Crataeis (the Mighty One)

Enodia (Goddess of the paths)

Antania (Enemy of mankind)

Kurotrophos (Nurse of the Children and Protectress of mankind)

Artemis of the crossroads

Propylaia (the one before the gate)

Propolos (the attendant who leads)

Phosphoros (the light-bringer)

Soteira (“Saviour”)

Prytania (invincible Queen of the Dead)

Trioditis (gr.)
Trivia (Latin: Goddess of Three Roads)

Kl¨ºidouchos (Keeper of the Keys)

Tricephalus or Triceps (The Three-Headed)

 

  

Goddess of the crossroads

Hecate had a special role at three-way crossroads, where the Greeks set poles with masks of each of her heads facing in different directions.

The crossroad aspect of Hecate stems from her original sphere as a goddess of the wilderness and untamed areas. This led to sacrifice to assure safe travel into these areas. This role is similar to lesser Hermes, that is, a god of liminal points or boundaries.

Hecate is the Greek version of Trivia “the three ways”  in Roman mythology. Eligius in the 7th century reminded his recently converted flock in Flanders “No Christian should make or render any devotion to the gods of the trivium, where three roads meet, to the fanes or the rocks, or springs or groves or corners”.

Hecate was the goddess who appeared most often in magical texts such as the Greek Magical Papyri and curse tablets, along with Hermes.

 

 Goddess of sorcery

In the so-called “Chaldean Oracles” that were edited in Alexandria, she was also associated with a serpentine maze around a spiral, known as Hecate’s wheel (the “Strophalos of Hecate”, verse 194 of Isaac Preston Cory’s 1836 translation). The symbolism referred to the serpent’s power of  rebirth, to the labyrinth of knowledge through which Hecate could lead mankind, and to the flame of life itself: “The life-producing bosom of Hecate, that Living Flame which clothes itself in Matter to manifest Existence” (verse 55 of Cory’s translation of
the Chaldean Oracles).

The goddess of sorcery or magic is Hecate’s most common modern title.

 

 Queen of ghosts

Queen of Ghosts is a title associated with Hecate due to the belief that she can both prevent harm from leaving, but also allow harm to enter from the spirit world Hecate thus has a role and special power in graveyards and at crossroads She guards the “ways and paths that cross”. Her association with graveyards also played a large part in the idea of Hecate as a lunar goddess.The leaves of the black poplar are dark on one side and light on the other, symbolizing the boundary between the worlds. The yew has long been associated with the
Underworld.

 

 Animals

The bitch is the animal most commonly associated with  Hecate. She was sometimes called the ‘Black bitch’ and black dogs were once sacrificed to her in purification rituals. At Colophon in Thrace, Hecate might be manifest as a dog. The sound of barking dogs was the first sign of her approach in Greek and Roman literature.  

The frog, significantly a creature that can cross between two elements, also is sacred to Hecate.As a triple goddess, she sometimes appears with three heads-one each of a dog, horse, and bear or of dog, serpent, and lion.  

Ii was asserted in Malleus Malificarum (1486) that Hecate was evered by witches who adopted parts of her mythos as their goddess ofsorcery. Because Hecate had already been much maligned by the late Roman period, Christians found it easy to vilify her image.  Thus were all her creatures also considered “creatures of darkness”; however, the history of creatures such as ravens, night-owls, snakes, scorpions, asses, bats, horses, bears, and lions as her creatures is not always a dark and frightening one. (Rabinovich 1990)

 

  

Plants and Herbs

The yew, cypress, hazel, black poplar, cedar, and willow are all sacred to Hecate. The yew has strong associations with death as well as rebirth. A poison prepared from the seeds was used on arrows, and yew wood was commonly used to make bows and dagger hilts. The potion in Hecate’s cauldron contains ‘slips of yew’. Yew berries carry Hecate’s power, and can bring wisdom or death. The seeds are highly poisonous, but the fleshy, coral-colored ‘berry’ surrounding it is not.  

Many other herbs and plants are associated with Hecate, including garlic, almonds, lavender, thyme, myrrh, mugwort, cardamon, mint, dandelion, hellebore, yarrow and lesser celandine. Several poisons and hallucinogens are linked to Hecate, including belladonna, hemlock, mandrake, aconite (known as hecateis), and the opium poppy. Many of Hecate’s plants were those that can be used shamanistically to achieve varyings states of consciousness.

 

  

Places

Wild areas, forests, borders, city walls and doorways, crossroads, and graveyards are all associated with Hecate at various times.

 

 

It is often stated that the moon is sacred to Hecate. This is argued against by Farnell (1896, p.4): 

Some of the late writers on mythology, such as Cornutus and Cleomedes, and some of the modern, such as Preller and the writer in Roscher‘s Lexicon and Petersen, explain the three figures as symbols of the three phases of the moon. But very little can be said in favour of this, and very much against it. In the first place, the statue of Alcamenes represented Hekate ¦¥¦Ð¦É¦Ð¦Ô¦Ñ¦Ã¦É¦Ä¦É¦Á, whom the Athenian of that period regarded as the warder of the gate of  his Acropolis, and as associated in this particular spot with
the Charites, deities of the life that blossoms and yields fruit. Neither in this place nor before the door of the citizen’s house did she appear as a lunar goddess. We may also ask, why should a divinity who was sometimes regarded as the moon, but had many other and even more important connexions, be given three forms to mark the three phases of the moon, and why should Greek sculpture have been in this solitary instance guilty of a frigid astronomical symbolism, while Selene, who was obviously the moon and nothing else, was never treated in this way? With as much taste and propriety Helios might have been given twelve heads.

However in the magical papyri of Greco-Roman Egypt there survive several hymns which identify Hecate with Selene and the moon, extolling her as supreme Goddess, mother of the gods. In this form, as a threefold goddess, Hecate continues to have followers in some neopagan religions.

 

 

Festivals

Hecate was worshipped by both the Greeks and the Romans who had their own festivals dedicated to her. According to Ruickbie (2004:19) the Greeks observed two days sacred to Hecate, one on the 13th of August and one on the 30th of November, whilst the Romans observed the 29th of every month as her sacred day.