What Makes Witches Different?

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Casting spells and wearing pentacles? No. It's deeper than that, more powerful,

more revolutionary. It's the Goddess.

 

Witchcraft is one of the many religions that recognizes divinity in feminine as well as masculine form.

Witches are not monotheistic; they do not believe there is only one god who live somewhere upstairs.

To Witches, divinity is multiple: God and Goddess. God in the sky, Goddess in the running water; God

in the stag of the forest, Goddess in the birds of the air. Witches find divinity everywhere.

 

In creating rituals and art and spells and poems, Withes draw from the great reservoir of human wisdom

called mythology. For untold generations, people have created stores that describe how they perceive the

Goddess. There are innumerable Goddesses, so many they cannot be counted. Goddesses of the sky and sun,

of the moon and stars; Goddesses of the rivers and the ocean; Goddesses of birth, death, love, war; Goddesses

of the doorstep and the harvest and the spinning wheel.

 

So naturally there are Goddesses of magic, for magic is one of the most ancient spiritual tools of the human race.

Here is a short primer of Witch-Goddesses from various lands. You can use their names, their emblems, their stories

in your own witchcraft. But don't stop here for there are many more: Goddesses who are shapeshifters, shamans,

prophets, midwives, healers, herbalists - al specialists in arts that the Witch might practice.

 

Witchy Goddesses

Adsagsona: Continental Celtic Goddess (from France or Germany), called  "the weaver of spells." In Celtic lands,

words were power; finding the right words was a magical act.

Arianrhod: Welsh Goddess whose=name means "silver wheel" and who lived on a magical island, either

in the sky or in the ocean, where she was served by innumerable maidens.

Carman:  Powerful Irish Witch who could destroy anything she chose by chanting secret spells.

Cerridwen:  Welsh Goddess who could brew magic in her cauldron and knew the secrets of all plants. She was

also a shapeshifter, able to change her form at will.

Circe:  One of the most famous mythic Witches, the Greek Circe ("circle") lived on a magical floating island in

the middle of the ocean , surrounded by wild animals - lions and wolves and bears - who did her bidding. With

magical herbal mixtures, she was able to turn people into animals when they deserved it.

Dahut: this passionate magician-princess lived in Brittany, the westernmost part of France. She built the worlds

most beautiful city, the crystal -walled Y''s, with the help of the fairies of the sea - the Korrigans.

Hecate: Famous Greek Goddess of Witches, she was worshipped a the dark of the Moon at places where three

roads met, for it was said she was the only being in th eworld who could look three ways at once because

she had three heads: serpent, horse, and dog. In her honor, "Hecate suppers" were held, when her followers

would feast together and share their witchy knowledge. After dinner, they left the remnants of their food outdoors

as offering to the hounds that accompanied their Goddess on her night journeys.

Heith:  The Scandinavian Witch or shaman specialized in casting spells what were subtle that no one knew she

had spoken at all - although the thoughts she desired her targets to think appeared magically in their minds.

Hekt: This Egyptian frog-Goddess ruled not only human magic but that of the earth as well, especially the

magical transformation of seeds into plants.

Louhi:  A fierce, canny Finnish Goddess, she was so powerful she was able to steal the Sun away from the sky,

and hide it in her house at North Farm. she owned the sampo, a magical tool that created abundance, which was stolen from her by a Finnish hero.

Marinette:  Among the followers of Haitian Voudoun, Marinette is the spirit of sorcery, causing her followers to wave their arms like owls and screech. She haunts the woodland at night in the form of an owl.

Medea; Great enchantress of Greek myth, Medea, was able to create dangerous potions that could either bring love, sleep, or death. She was able to fly through the air in a dragon-powered chariot. She had several human husbands, none of whom were faithful to her, so she eventually transformed herself into the Goddess of snakes.

Meroe: She was a Witch of Greek legend who could bring the sky down to ceiling height, turn people into beavers and teleport wherever she wished to go.

Morgan Le Fay:  In the legends of Britain and Wales, this is the name of a great Witch who had the blood of fairies in her veins. She was a student, perhaps the lover, of the great magician Merlin.

Nimue:  This is the Welsh name for the mysterious sorceress called, in legends of King Arthur and Camelot, the Lady of the Lake. That lake protected her magical world, Avalon, from human sight. There she lived in perpetual summer in a land where there was only beauty.

Pamphile:  A legendary Greek Witch, Pamphile could change her shape into anything she desired, merely by anointing herself with an ointment she made from special secret herbs. To return to human form, she bathed in water in which bay leaf and anise were steeped.

Thorgerd:  A Scandinavian woman, she was so powerful at sorcery that she became a Goddess when she died. One of her skills was divination - using magickal tools to see the future.

Viviane:  This Welsh Witch was one of the lovers of the great magician Merlin, and was the only one of his students who became more powerful than he. She entrapped Merlin in a tree where he still sleeps today.

Yaoji:  A Chinese Goddess of sorcery she reveals her closely guarded secrets to us in dreams.

 

There are other Goddesses that Witches honor. Some look for Goddesses that represent their ethnic heritage; other for Goddesses that rule a certain area of life, such as love or money. There is no one right way to honor these Goddesses, but rather many different rituals and chants that call them into our lives. Some claim, in fact, that Goddesses are really parts of each woman, and the rituals of witchcraft allow that part to manifest itself. Whether to the Goddess is within us or without, she is real, and waiting to come to the side of any Witch who calls on her

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By Patricia Monagahan

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