Minerva

Minerva, while a well known Roman goddess now, and often viewed as the same as the Greek Athena, actually has a vague background. She may have come from the Etruscan Goddess Menarva or Menrva, and may have originally been a Crone aspect of the goddess. She was a patron of the handicrafts and arts. The imposition of the Greek Athena on her meant the addition of war to her domain.

Her name does derive from the ancient root for "mind", and Minerva's domain was intellectual (more so than Athena's). She is wisdom incarnate, and the goddess of the application of intellect to everyday work, thus of commerce and crafts. She invented music, and the instruments on which it is played. Her totem animal, like that of Athena, Lilith, and Blodeuwedd, is an owl, which consequently became known as the bird of wisdom and of witches.

Romans celebrated her from March 19-23 during the Quinquartrus, the artisans' holiday which was also a festival of purification. The "goddess of a thousand works" was pleased to see scholars and schoolmasters join in spring vacation with those who labored with their hands.

Dactyls

Dactyls were ten little women born with no father to the Greek woman Anchiale, they were fabulously inventive and brought to us all we know of metalwork and smithcraft. The Dactyls represent the ten fingers of the human hands; their legend suggest that women were the discoverers of metal and its working.

Yhi

Yhi is an Australian aboriginal creation and light goddess. She was asleep in the Dreamtime, but when she awoke and opened her eyes she flooded the world with light. She wandered the bone-bare, windless mountains. With each step, plants sprang from her footprints. She walked the world surface until she had stepped everywhere and every inch was covered with green. She then rested on the treeless Nullarbor Plain.

She saw that the plants could not move or dance. In search of the dance, she descended beneath the earth, where evil spirits tried to sing her to death. Yhi's warmth melted the darkness, and butterflies, bees, and insects became a dancing mass that she led into the sunlit world. She then spread her light into dark caves, melting the ice there. Fish and lizards swam out of the darkness. Birds and animals appeared, and the earth was dancing with life.

Yhi then told the creatures that she was returning to her world, but she blessed them with changing seasons, and the knowledge that when they died they would join her in the sky. She then turned herself into a ball of light and sank below the horizon, and the earth was in darkness. The creatures were afraid and there was sorrow and mourning until they finally slept. But Yhi never intended to abandon her creation, and soon there was the first dawn.

For eons of Dreamtime, the animals lived in peace, put then they began to feel a vague sadness, and no longer delighted in what they were. Yhi felt sorry for them, so she returned to earth and asked what was wrong. Wombat wanted to wiggle along the ground. Kangaroo wanted to fly. Bat wanted wings. Seal wanted to swim. And the confused Platypus wanted something of every other animal. Yhi gave them what they wanted, then swept herself up to the the sky again.

She had one other task yet to complete: the creation of woman. She had already created man and set him wandering the earth. But he was different from the plants, insects, and animals, and he was lonely. Yhi went to him one morning as he was dreaming near a grass tree. When he awoke, he saw the flower stalk on the grass tree shining with sunlight. He was drawn to the tree, as were all the earth's other creatures. Reverent and astonished, they watched as the power of Yhi concentrated itself on the flower stalk. It began to move rhythmically-to breathe. Then it changed form, softened, became a woman. Slowly emerging into the light from which she was formed, the first woman gave her hand to the first man.