Hecate:  Ancient Earth and Moon Goddess

She is the dark aspect of the moon and the bowels of the earth.  The ending yet the beginning, she is renewed as Artemis/Persophone, coming to fruition as Selene/Demeter.  Her treasures are all things in, of and over the earth.  Her many arms encircle and encompass the diversity of nature and peoples.

 

 

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Index

  Early Origins

  Greek Origins

  Great Mother Goddess

  Hecate's Aspects

  Queen of the Witches

  Modern Metaphors

  In Closing

  Sources, Printed

  Sources, World Wide Web (WEB)

Early Origins

There are those who theorize that Hecate is as old as the early Egyptians.  She possibly evolved from the Egyptian midwife goddess know as Hequit, Heket or Hekat, a goddess with Nubian roots.  It is said that this goddess took her attributes from the "heq" ("heka") or tribal matriarch of pre-dynastic Egypt.  This wise woman was believed to command the "hekau" or "(M)other's Words of Power", giving power to the sacred word.
 
 

"....  - for the emanations of Hek Ka, the mighty
energies of a million hearts, are contained within her...."

 

The goddess Hekat birthed the sun each morning and was called the "most lovely one" - a title of the moon.  Her totems was the frog, a symbol of the fetus
 

"....  Oldest of the Old, amphibian being that swims in the
water, yet walks upon the dry land...."

 

This goddess, in turn, was connected to the goddess Nut.  She was the sky and the heaven and was invoked with many names.  The Great Deep,  The Starry One,  Cow Goddess,  Mother of the Gods,  Mother of the Sun,  Protector of the Dead,  Guardian of the Celestial Vault.  These titles all relate to Hecate in her association with the moon, the night sky and the underworld.

The worship of Hecate may also have passed through the fertile crescent of the Israelites and Sumerians.  Hecate may have been related to the Sumerian Goddess of Death and Magic.  She may have influenced or been influenced by the legends of Lilith, the first wife of Adam who was demonized as "the accursed huntress" and the dark phase of the moon - also attributes of Hecate.

Hecate had elements in common with other female manifestatitions/elements of this region.  The feminine spirit of knowledge, Sophia, has been depicted with three heads as was Hecate who as the Crone is considered the Wise Woman.  Hecate has even been linked to the Virgin Mary through Mary's indirect link to Lilith (as the second Eve) and through the association of both with the holy day of August 15.  This is the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin when Mary is petitioned to avert storms so that the fields can ripen.  A festival for Hecate was held on August 13.  She too was invoked for help in preventing storms so that the harvest could be gathered.

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Greek Origins

These are interesting speculations that may have some basis in fact.  However, it is generally believed that Hecate originated in Thrace and Anatolia.  Specifically, she was worshipped in the western Anatolian costal areas and the island of Samothrace, both areas associated with myths of the Amazons.  A shrine at Colchis, where it is thought that Egyptians settled, may have been consecrated to Hecate.  With many of her aspects already established, she and her worship then traveled into Greece as one of the original Titans who were themselves eventually overcome by the greek Olympian gods.

Her Greek lineage is in dispute.  Some sources giver her parents as Nyx (Night) and Tartarus (Underworld).  Some state that her parents were the Titans Asteria, creatress, Queen of Heaven, and Perces embodying the Planetary Powers.  Others claim that she had only one parent.
 

".... born of a virgin, she arrives fully formed, mighty in
heaven, on earth, and in the sea."

 

When the Olympians defeated and imprisoned/swallowed the rest of the Titans, only Hecate was still revered.  Zeus loved her and allowed her to keep her share of the three worlds.  She was call "supreme" in heaven and in hell.  She alone with Zeus shared the power of granting or withhoilding from humanity anything she wished.  This power included producing or withhlding rain and storms and providing or witholding good luck for sailors by calming storms, for fishermen by increasing their catch and for huinters by increasing the herds. She had lovers among the other gods including Triton and Hermes with whom she birthed the Three Graces and Circe.  Medea, the sorcores who could move rivers and the stars, may have been her daughter or her priestress.

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Great Mother Goddess

With all of her powers over heaven, earth and water and other threefold aspects, Hecate, perhaps more than any other Greek goddess, exhibited the traits of a Great Mother Goddess.  She was usually depicted with three heads or three melded bodies and multiple arms (a relationship to Kali).  As Hecate Trevia, she guarded the way where three roads crossed and thus could see in all directions.  In classical times Hecate was seen as the goddess of the waning, dark moon.  One theory says that she was at one time the goddess of all aspects of the moon but eventually this dominion was split into three with Persephone/Artemis as the virgin/new moon and Demeter/Hera/Selene as the mother/full moon.

She was connected to all three of the life stages.  She was there at the time of fertilization and birth.  She could open the womb of all living creatures.  As the mistress of gates, doors and the abyss she was the symbol of the feminine womb.  She was the guardian of women in child birth.  She was a nurse of the young.  She had associations to growing and the harvest through her relationship to the phases of the moon and her suppression of storms.  She was the goddess of healing and magic.  And at the end of time she was the Queen of Night, Mistress of the Lower Way, Opener of the Way to Death.  As the queen of death she ruled the powers of regeneration as represented by her association with the serpent.

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Hecate's Aspects

Hecate's three heads were sometimes envisioned as various animals including the serpent and the dog.  She is considered a Lady of the Beasts.  The serpent represented her link to rebirth.  She was sometimes called "snake-entwined".  Hounds connected her to the hunt, an aspect she shared with Artemis.  Cerberus the three-headed dog of the underworld was Hecate's minion, not Hade's.  Vessels and figurines used in her worship were shaped as dogs.  Black hounds may have been sacrificed to her.  Other animals were associated with her or sacrificed to her including frogs and lambs.

As goddess of the crossroads, of the way and of night terrors Hecate was invoked to protect homes from evil.  Statues of her were erected over doorways.  Spirits were thus advised that friends of Hecate lived inside and were not to be bothered with noises and apparitions.

Hecate played a major part in the original mythology of Persephone and Hades but her role diminished as time passed.  She is the only one who knew of the abduction, having heard the struggle, and being "tenderhearted" she informed Demeter.  She then went to Persephone in the underworld to comfort her and stay with her as companion.

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Queen of the Witches

Far from an evil, ugly, dark, hooded hag, Hecate was originally depicted clothed in light.  She carried torches to light the way, and swords and wore a bright shimmering headdress.  She had brilliant eyes that saw in the dark and all things not visible.

However, as time passed Hecate became more and more associated only with her darker aspects.  There appears to have been an Iron Age tendency to split dark aspects from the full cycle and stand the dark in opposition to the light.  For example, in later Greek mythology Hecate became associated with the Empousa, vampire-like spirits who would entice young men and then eat them after making love.  During the third century she was described as "...lover of darkness", "...rejoic(ing) at warm blood spilled", "...walk(ing) among phantoms and tombs" and "...strik(ing) chill in mortal hearts".  By the Middle Ages Hecate was the Queen of the Witches.  She was associated with midwives and wise women (who were often accused of being witches) because of her dominion over childbirth and healing.  She was then demonized by church authorities who considered these women dangerous.

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Modern Metaphors

Modern feminist spirituality and Wicca have reclaimed Hecate.  She most often represents the Crone aspect/metaphor of the sacred trilogy; sometimes she is venerated in her earlier visages as a Great Mother.

 

"As a harbinger of rebirth, the Crone's appearance signals
a call to profound transformation and healing."

 

"...the function of the old wise woman...(is) assistance in times
 of difficult passage..."

  "As midwife to the psyche she is constellated in 'emergency'
  situations where a spirit, a song, an alternative, a new being
 is emerging..."
 

"...(she) can represent...the power...to do what is right,
 for the benefit of future generations and of the earth itself..."
 

 "Darkness is not necessarily evil as it is the ground from
which light emerges and in this sense it is unmanifest light
 and pre-natal darkness."

 

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In Closing

Wherever the goddess called "Hecate" originated, the aspects and attributes of her godhead and the elements of her worship were obviously conceived of and developed long before the Greeks named her.  To this day Hecate continues to be venerated in her multitude of forms.  She can be considered as the goddess of balance - light with dark, life with death, joy with sorrow.  She is, therefore, the manifestation and epitome of life itself.

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Sources, Printed.

The following are sources used in this essay.
 

 Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood, by Merlin Stone, Beacon Press, 1979.
 

 The Book of Goddesses and Heroines, by Patricia Monaghan, Llewellyn
   Publications, 1990.
 

 The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft (2nd edition), by Rosemary Ellen
   Guiley, Checkmark Books, 1999.
 

 The Feminist Companion to Mythology, ed. by Carolyne Larrington,
 Pandora/Harper Collins, 1992.
 

 Goddesses In World Mythology, by Martha Ann & Dorothy Myers Imel,
   Oxford University Press, 1993.
 

 The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, by Erich Neumann,
   Princeton University Press, 1955, 1963.

 Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, by Mary Daly,
   Beason Press, 1978.
 

 Lady of the Beasts, by Buffie Johnson, Harper San Francisco, 1988.
 

 The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, by Ann Baring and
   Jules Cashford, Viking Arcana, 1991.
 

 The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, by Barbara Walker,
   Harper & Row, 1983.
 

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Sources, World Wide Web (WEB).
 

 
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