Her Story

Historically, mythologically, artistically and metaphorically, Hecate is a figure standing in the shadows and very little has ever been written about Her.  She was born a  Titan, the daughter of Perses and the star goddess Asteria, and after the Titans had been defeated  and replaced by Zeus and the Olympian pantheon, She remained a goddess.  Although Zeus recognized Hecate as his own kin and acknowledged Her power, She never became one of the Olympian deities and never made a home on Mount Olympus, preferring solitude, caves on earth, and travels in the underworld  to the companionship of the predominantly masculine deities on Olympus. 

Writing in the Theogony around 700 B.C.E., the Greek scribe Hesiod said that Hecate's name meant "She who has power far off", that She was more honored than other deities, and that She had been granted power over the earth, sea and sky by Zeus himself.  It is important to note here that although Hecate was never officially appointed the deity or ruler of earth, sea or  sky or granted them as Her province,  She exercised great power over them all and She did so from a considerable distance, a clear indication of Her strength and Her formidable arcane abilities.

Mythology

There is some evidence that the mythology of Hecate originated in the Karian culture of Asia Minor and was integrated into Greek mythology around the sixth century BCE, but there are also traces of Her to be found everywhere in Asia Minor.  She has also been linked with the frog headed Egyptian goddess of midwifery, Hekat, who presided over the birth of the Sun every day and was also associated with the germination of corn in the Nile delta. In ancient Egypt, the matriarch and wise woman of a tribe was always known as a 'heq', so it is possible that Hecate also has links with the matriarchal cultures of ancient Egypt.  Her name has several meanings other than that used by Hesiod in his Theogony and has also been translated at various times as meaning "She who works Her will", "the distant one" and "the most shining one".

There are few early images of Hecate and they show Her not as the withered and mysterious crone She came to be much later, but as a young goddess of beauty and grace.  She was once worshipped as the female form of "Hekatos", an obscure expression used in ancient times to describe the glorious young god Apollo.

As a daughter of Asteria, Hecate is a goddess of the moon and stars, and was sometimes depicted wearing  a diadem of stars and bearing a flaming torch in each hand.  At times, She was portrayed as a majestic column or Hectarion standing at a crossroads, possessing three faces and gazing in three different directions at once.  Sometimes She was shown having three arms and carrying  three torches (rather than two), or as holding a dagger, a key and a rope.  The dagger is symbolic of Hecate's ritual power, the key represents the arcane mysteries of which She is mistress, and the rope symbolizes the umbilical cord of rebirth.

Greek deities were often associated with animals, and Hecate has always been associated with dogs, particularly large black dogs - She was sometimes addressed as a "blacck bitch".  When black dogs howled after sunset and especially in the depths of a moonless night, Hecate was thought to be invisibly present and bearing witness to the events which were taking place. There were also times when She was represented as a composite of three animals, the dog, the snake and the lion, or variously the dog, the horse and the bear, but always there have been dogs......

As one aspect of the triple goddess, Hecate is allied with Persephone and Demeter, and it was Hecate who accompanied the distraught Demeter in searching for her daughter after Persephone was forcibly abducted by Hades and transported to the Underworld. On her return to the land of the living from Hades, the young goddess was first greeted by Hecate, and Hecate was her invisible companion and guardian ever after.    That is why Hecate was revered in Demeter's ancient temple near Troy, and why She was exalted as the guide and companion of initiates into the Eleusinian Mysteries.

In later Greek mythology, Hecate was often misrepresented as a daughter of Zeus and the goddess of the Underworld.  In time, the Greeks began to ignore Hecate's wisdom and compassion and emphasize Her more sinister qualities, calling Her Goddess of the Dead and Queen of the Witches, and affirming that She roamed the earth on moonless nights, attended by wailing black hounds, the vengeful spirits of murder victims and the souls of those who had not been interred with proper rites.  When the Romans  appropriated Hecate for their own pantheon, She became one aspect of another triple goddess,  Diana Triformus, consisting of  Diana (Earth), Proserpina (Heaven), and Hecate (the Underworld.)