HECATE I AM
Hecate I am, Dark Mother, the Crone.
My face is wrinkled like the ancient stone.
My eyes pitch black, my hair snowy white.
I am the moonless dark night.
I lead the Wild Hunt with my dark power
Through winter time at midnight’s hour
My reign begins in the Samhain night
and lasts till the day of Imbolg’s Light.
For the witches, I am their holy Queen
Their leader for centuries uncounted I’ve been
I teach them magickal power so strong
I teach them to tell the right from the wrong.
But if they do wrong, my wrath they shall feel
And my vengeance their fate on Earth shall seal.
Cause I’m Justice, I’m Death, I’m vengeance, Dark Moon
I’m wisdom and Love and Evil’s doom.
I guard the crossroads everywhere
Who travels with evil their, they should beware!
I strip away their souls and make them insane
That they will never chance to cross my path again.
I’m terrible, gentle, inexorable, too.
What you see in me, that is all up to you.
When your time has come, I will call you to me
To ride the Wild Hunt till reborn you shall be.
So come, my Witch Daughter
Follow my path
Of magical power, Fear not my wrath.
If you have the courage, my Priestess then be
The choice is yours, what you choose we will see.
| Hecate from Goddesses and Heroines | Exerpt from Goddess & Heroines by Patricia Monaghan [Used by permission. This text is NOT included in the Goddess Oracle] |
At night, particularly at the dark of the moon, this goddess walked the roads of ancient Greece, accompanied by sacred dogs and bearing a blazing torch. Occasionally she stopped to gather offerings left by her devotees where three roads crossed, for this threefold goddess was best honored where one could look three ways at once. Sometimes, it was even said that Hecate could look three ways because she had three heads: a serpent, a horse, and a dog.
While Hecate walked outdoors, her worshipers gathered inside to eat Hecate suppers in her honor, gatherings at which magical knowledge was shared and the secrets of sorcery whispered and dogs, honey and black female lambs sacrificed. The bitch-goddess, the snake-goddess, ruled these powers and she bestowed them on those who worshiped her honorably. When supper was over, the leftovers were placed outdoors as offerings to Hecate and her hounds. And if the poor of Greece gathered at the doorsteps of wealthier households to snatch the offerings, what matter?
Some scholars say that Hecate was not originally Greek, her worship having traveled south from her original Thracian homeland. Others contend that she was a form of the earth mother Demeter, yet another of whose forms was the maiden Persephone. Legends, they claim, of Persephone's abduction and later residence in Hades give clear prominence to Hecate, who therefore must represent the old wise woman, the crone, the final stage of woman's growth-the aged Demeter herself, just as Demeter is the mature Persephone.
In either case, the antiquity of Hecate's worship was recognized by the Greeks, who called her a Titan, one of those pre-Olympian divinities whom Zeus and his cohort had ousted. The newcomers also bowed to her antiquity by granting to Hecate alone a power shared with Zeus, that of granting or withholding from humanity anything she wished. Hecate's worship continued into classical times, both in the private form of Hecate suppers and in public sacrifices, celebrated by "great ones" or Caberioi, of honey, black female lambs, and dogs, and sometimes black human slaves.
As queen of the night, Hecate was sometimes said to be the moon-goddess in her dark form, as Artemis was the waxing moon and Selene the full moon. But she may as readily have been the earth goddess, for she ruled the spirits of the dead, humans who had been returned to the earth. As queen of death she ruled the magical powers of regeneration; in addition, she could hold back her spectral hordes from the living if she chose. And so Greek women evoked Hecate for protection from her hosts whenever they left the house, and they erected her threefold images at their doors, as if to tell wandering spirits that therein lived friends of their queen, who must not be bothered with night noises and spooky apparition
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