The goddess Litavis or Litavi presents us with a dilemma. If we follow the etymology, her name connects to the Hindu earth-goddess Prithivi, and means something like ‘the Vast One, the Broad One’. On the other hand, the Romans may have equated her to Bellona, the fierce companion of Mars.
So the other day I was thinking about the colors of the rainbow when something I had read in the Prose Edda came back into the back of my mind and began to nag and eat at me. The Prose Edda says that the Bifröst has three colors. Three colors. Three. That just did not compute for a hot minute. I sat there stumped thinking about how a rainbow on even a meagre day has more colors than that.
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This reblog is a chance for me to post another cool picture of the aurora borealis.
The Austrian goddess Noreia, like the British goddess Brigantia, has always been dogged by the suspicion that she was a Roman invention rather than a native deity. They both share their name with a Roman province, and worshippers with Roman or Romanized names made offerings to them.
Although Hekate is frequently described in contemporary Pagan texts as a “Dark Goddess” literature and iconography has linked her, for nearly 3000 years, with light. Curiously however, claiming that Hekate is a Goddess of Light can sometimes awaken an almost irrational reaction from individuals who describe her as a Dark Mother, Goddess of the Underworld, Queen of Hell or even as a Goddess of Darkness. However, her most iconic images, even today, depict her with two torches aloft, illuminating the darkness!
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The goddesss Icovellauna’s cult extended across Gaul from Lorraine to the Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany, both in the valley of the Moselle river. We know her from six inscriptions, five from a holy well at Metz, and one from Trier.
I reblogged an article on Nemesis, the goddess of rebalancing, last week, but I’m still really intrigued by this goddess, so fearsome and yet widely worshipped. The Greeks built temples to honour her, and the Romans took her cult to the ends of the Roman Empire, from Dacia to Scotland.
Nemesis is a Greek goddess of revenge and retribution. In particular, she is invoked against those whose hubris and arrogance got the better of them, and serves as a force of divine reckoning. Originally, she was a deity who simply doled out what people had coming to them, whether good or bad.
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Áine is the Celtic Goddess of love, the sun, fertility, water, summer and sovereignty. She is honored for her ability to grant abundance and fertility over the land. Being a Goddess of the sun Aine is said to have been given the nickname “bright”.
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From Bronze Age images through the goddesses of the Eddas to the maiden Menglod (necklace-glad) in the story of Svipdag, jewellery was more than an adornment to supernatural women of Norse myth. Although we don’t know all the lore about goddesses and their necklaces, some does survive.
We Are Star Stuff 