does anyone know a myth about the goddess hecate?

Question

like a story about how something happened our a link to a good greek/roman mythology website thanx

Answer 1

Hecate is the Greek goddess of the crossroads and is believed by some to be descended from the Titans. She was a Greek goddess with two quite distinct aspects to her personality - In the day she was supposed to have a benign influence on farming, but during the hours of night and darkness she was involved in witchcraft, ghosts and tombs.

Very like the vegetation goddess Demeter, Hecate combined fertility with death as a power of the earth, making her a feared and revered figure. Her most famous disciple is Medea, who married Jason after helping him get the Golden Fleece using magical spells and incantations. The powerful witch Circe, known as the seductress and tormentor of Odysseus, was another of Hecate's followers.

She is most often depicted as having three heads; one of a dog, one of a snake and one of a horse. She is usually seen with two ghost hounds that were said to serve her. The Athenians were particularly respectful towards her, and once a month they placed offerings of food at crossroads, where her influence was strongest.

Hecate is most often portrayed as the goddess of witchcraft or evil, but she did some very good things in her time. One such deed was when she helped to rescue Persephone (Demeter's daughter, the queen of the Underworld and the maiden of spring), from the Underworld. She eventually became Persephone's attendant in the Underworld, once Persephone married Hades. Hecate is said to haunt a three-way crossroad, each of her heads facing in a certain direction and appears when the ebony moon shines.

The following is from The Book of Demons
by Victoria Hyatt & Joseph W. Charles

The Greeks often called Hecate, Agriope, which means 'savage face.' She is said to have three faces, which symbolized her powers over the underworld, earth, and air. She is known as the lady of the underworld, of chthonic rites, and of black magic.

Her Hebrew name was Sheol, and the Egyptians knew her as Nepthys. She was the daughter of the titan Perses and of Asteria, although sometimes it is said that Zeus himself fathered her. The Thracians were the first people to worship her in the moon-goddess aspect, though soon her worship spread to the Greeks, who linked her with the moon-goddesses Artemis and Selene. She was also associated with Lucina and Diana. At times she was benign and motherly and would act as midwife, wet-nurse, and foster-mother, while keeping an eye on flocks and crops. Greek kings asked for her help in administering justice, knowing that with Hecate on their side they would attain victory and glory in battle.

But the other side of her nature, most apparent when the moon was dark, gradually superseded her kinder side. Although Homer did not mention her in his poems, by the time Hesiod was chronicling the events of his world, her powers were already very great. She had become an infernal deity, a snake goddess with three heads: a dog's, a horse's, and a lion's. She was portrayed with her three bodies, back to back, carrying a spear, a sacrificial cup, and a torch.

Having witnessed the rape of Persephone, torch-beasing Hecate was sent by Zeus to help Demeter find her. When they found Persephone in Hades, Hecate remained there as her companion. During her stay in the underworld, Hecate wore a single brazen sandal, and she was the protector and teacher of sorceresses and enchanters. Her high priestess was Medea, who was worthy of her mistress, and cruelly murdered her own two children after her husband left her for another woman.

Hecate's influence was long lasting, and the medieval witches worshipped the willow tree which was sacred to her. The same root word which gave 'willow' and 'wicker,' also gave 'witch' and 'wicked.'

Thus Hecate became key-holder of hell and queen of the departed, dispatching phantoms from the underworld. At night she left Hades and would roam on earth, bringing terror to the hearts of those who heard her approach. She was accompanied by her bounds and by the bleak souls of the dead. She appeared as a gigantic woman bearing a sword and a torch, her feet and hair bristling with snakes, her voice like that of a howling dog. Her favourite nocturnal retreat was near a lake called Amaramtiam Phasis, 'the lake of murders.'

To placate her, the people erected statues at crossroads. There, under the full moon, feasts called 'Hecate's suppers' were served. Dogs, eggs, honey, milk, and particularly black ewes were sacrificed at that time. The most powerful magic incantations of antiquity were connected with Hecate, and her rites were described at length by Apollonius Rhodus in his Argonautica:

'...and he kindled the logs, placing the fire beneath, and poured over them the mingled libations, calling on Hecate Brimo to aid him in the contest, And when he had called on her he drew back: and she heard him, the dreaded goddess, from the uttermost depths and came to the sacrifice of Aeson's son; and round her horrible serpents twined themselves among the oak boughs; and there was the gleam of countless torches; and sharply howled around her the hounds of hell. All the meadows trembled at her step, and the nymphs that haunt the marsh and the river shrieked, all who dance round that meadow of Amarantiam Phasis.'

In one of her incarnations she was Hucuba, the wife of Priam, King of Troy, and mother of Cassandra, Hector, Helenus, and Paris. While pregnant with Paris, she had a dream in which she gave birth to a flaming torch which consumed Troy. Understanding the awesome foreboding of this omen, she left the infant exposed on Mount Ida. But the Fates had ordained differently, and years later Paris returned to Troy, bringing with him the war that was to be the end of that great city.

When Polymnestor, a Thracian king, murdered her son Polydorus, her vengeance was terrible: she slew Polymnestor's two children and gouged his eyes out. Although acquitted by the Greeks, she was changed into a dog at which the Thracians threw stones. Trying to escape her punishment, she jumped into the sea at Cynossema, which in translation means 'tomb of the dog.'

Hecate, powerful in heaven, earth and hell, possessed all the great dark knowledge, and is rightfully called the mother of witches. She was the great goddess of magic, and she outstripped Circe, her daughter, in importance. Yet another of her daughters also achieved hellish fame:

'...and let them not fall in their helplessness into Charybdis lest she swallow them at one gulp, or approach the hideous lair of Scylla, Ausonian Scylla, Scylla the deadly, whom night-wandering Hecate, who is called Crataeis, bare to Phorcys...'

The extent of her powers can be judged by the great numbers of animals, plants and emblems that were sacred to her. Weasels were her attendants. So were owls in their silent flight, with the carrion-smell of their nests and their eyes shining in the dark. Hound, knife, lotus, rope, and sword are other emblems of Hecate. Shakespeare knew that hemlock and the yew tree were sacred to her. In Macbeth, 'slips of yew sliver'd in the Moon's eclipse' were contained in the witches' cauldron. The yew, sacred to the goddess of the underworld, still grows in cemeteries.

Answer 2

Hecate used to be the Goddess of Mystery, Magic and Crossroads. She labored at the back of the scenes and, you're correct, she is not featured in a number of the myths. Her position within the Greek variation of Persephone and Hades is customarily probably the most outstanding of her reports. She used to be a Chtonian Greek Triple-Earth-Goddess, representing the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone - all points of the Mother Goddess. Her origins are in Asia Minor, in which she used to be worshipped because the most important mom goddess. Later changed right into a Goddess of Magic, Moon and Night, Ruler of Ghosts, Underworld-goddess, Protectress and Patroness of Magicians, Fortunetellers and Witches. In reality, Hecate isn't a Greek 'goddess'. She isn't an Olympian. Hecate is a Titaness, daughter of Perses and Asteria, and the effective protectress of Medea, a province of Greece. The supply underneath appears to be an overly well one for know-how approximately this triple goddess that used to be 'forgotten' in myths, however nonetheless very a lot adored by means of the Grecian folks.

Answer 3

http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/greekpanth/p/hecate.htm

Answer 4

http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Hekate.html
http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/greek-mythology.php?deity=HECATE

are good to check out.