20-Day Deity Challenge courtesy of @broomsick : LINK
Didn’t have a lot of free time to delve terribly deep into this today, but there were a few snippets I found:
1.) HECATE, PERSEPHONE, & DEMETER
Hecate’s depiction in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter is perhaps her most well-known literary appearance. In the hymn, Hecate and the sun god, Hyperion, hear Persephone’s cries when Hades abducts her. After Demeter had searched for her daughter for nine days, Hecate came to her on the tenth with a torch in her hands.
The goddess told Demeter all she had heard but did not know who had taken her daughter. Once Persephone was reunited with Demeter, Hecate embraced the girl. She would become Persephone’s companion in the underworld when the girl returned to Hades each year. A standard iconographic reference to this myth is Hecate carrying a torch.
I feel this myth highlights Hecate’s compassion and willingness to guide others. She did not have to tell Demeter anything, nor does she have to escort Persephone in and out of the Underworld every year or stay to keep her company - yet she chooses to, because she enjoys it.
These three have also been assigned the Maiden, Mother, and Crone aspects of femininity - reflected in a lot of Hecate’s iconography. The triple-deity aspect is not unique here, however. In fact it’s common in many pantheons. There’s something deep and primal that us humans have been keying in on and calling by different names.
Hecate is just one of those names.
The name of Hecate or Ἑκατη means “worker from afar” from the Greek word hekatos. The masculine form Hekatos is a common epithet used for Apollo. According to scholars, this Apolline epithet links Hecate to Artemis, a goddess with similar spheres of influence. The goddesses were characterized in much the same fashion.
Both goddesses were generally portrayed as wearing hunting boots, carrying torches, and accompanied by dogs. They were often conflated to make a dual goddess, for example in Aeschylus’ Suppliants. In Aeschylus’ play, the two goddesses are called to as one by the chorus. This consolidation of the goddesses occurs again in Aristophanes’ Frogs (1358f), in which the character of Aeschylus invokes the goddesses.
On top of Maiden/Mother/Crone aspects, Hecate has been conflated with other moon deities such as Artemis and Selene.
It has been theorized that Artemis was separated from the whole to focus on more ‘positive’ aspects of the goddess, while darker aspects were given to Hecate. I found this very interesting…as someone deeply interested in Hecate, but not so much in Artemis on her own.
When making the decision to conceive, I knew that my child would be connected to the moon. Sure enough, it didn’t happen until I was fertile on a full moon, and her due date is on another one - a full lunar eclipse, actually. I knew immediately, without a shred of doubt, what her name would be: Artemisia.
And she will, without a doubt, become the brighter part of me.
3.) HECATE AND SACRED ANIMALS:
Ancient authors, such as Ovid and Pausanias indicate that dogs – particularly black dogs – were sacrificed to the goddess. Scholars have also suggested that Hecate’s association with dogs points to her role as a goddess of birth. This is because dogs were also the sacred animals of other birth goddesses, such as Eileithyia and Genetyllis.
In later antiquity, Hecate’s dogs became associated with the restless souls of the dead who accompanied the goddess. The myth of Queen Hecuba’s metamorphosis into a dog is linked to the goddess Hecate. According to the legend, Odysseus received Hecuba as his captive after the fall of Troy. But the Trojan queen murdered a Thracian king on her voyage to Greece. As punishment, Hecuba was transformed into a black dog and became the companion of Hecate.
I’m not entirely convinced that Hecate taking Hecuba on as a transformed companion was a punishment. Her home had fallen, she was now a prisoner, and was certainly going to be punished at the hands of her captives. (I’d murder a man, too. This woman was angry.) Companion animals, especially dogs, are typically treated fairly well and honestly I’d rather be an animal at the side of a goddess than a subjugated queen in the hands of men.
It was probably a mercy, but that’s my own projection on the matter.
Another sacred animal of the goddess Hecate was the polecat or weasel. According to the myth told by Antonius Liberalis, Alcmena’s midwife Galinthias had deceived the gods during the birth of Heracles. While seeing Alcmena in labor pains, Galinthias went to the goddess of childbirth, Eileithyia, and the Fates – who prolonged the labor as a favor for Hera – told them the child had been born. In retribution for deceiving the gods, Galinthias was transformed into a polecat. Hecate pitied her transformation and appointed Galinthias as her servant and companion.
Here we see another act of compassion from Hecate - taking on unfortunate souls as companions. She has a deep association with the marginalized, vulnerable, and those outside of the mainstream for very good reasons.
A lovely article that highlights her timeless relevancy and modern resurgence can be found HERE
