| BENSOZIA: see BENZOZIA. BENTEN, BENZAITEN, BENZAI-TENNYO: Japanese goddess of love, eloquence, music, luck and wealth. The only female member of the Seven Deities of Luck, who are said to sail into harbour on New Year's Eve in the Takara-bune, or Treasure Ship. Pictures of the Treasure Ship are sold in the streets at New Year. Originally a Hindu river goddess. Patroness of merchants, gamblers, actors and geishas. She rides a dragon which she is said to have captivated and married to stop it devouring children. She plays the biwa (a kind of guitar); her messenger is the snake. Depicted as very beautiful, ornately dressed, sometimes carrying a sword and the jewel that grants desires. Sometime shown as eight-armed, doubtless betraying her Hindu origin. Japanese women often carry charms in her form to make themselves beautiful and accomplished. BENZOZIA: A Basque mother goddess. As Bensozia, also a medieval witch goddess name; may mean 'good neighbour', a common name for the fairies. BERA PENNU: see TARI PENNU. BERCHTA: ('White Lady') Teutonic, goddess of marriage and fecundity, south German equivalent of HULDA. Christianity turned her into a bogy to frighten children. BERECYNTIA: Another name for CYBELE, but seems also to have been used by the Gauls as a name for BRIGHID. BERUTH: Phoenician primordial mother goddess, wife of Eliun ('the All-Highest') and in one version the mother of Uranus and Ge (Gaia). Originally from Byblos, she became the goddess Berith, the modern Beirut. BESTLA: Teutonic. Daughter of Ymir (father of all the giants) or of Bolthorn ('Evil Thorn') and wife of Bor, by whom she was the mother of Odin, Vili and Ve. BETHULTA: Hebrew name for the constellation Virgo. Associated with abundance at harvest. Assigned by the Rabbis to the tribe of Asher, of whom Jacob had said, 'His bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties' (Genesis xlix:20) (see also ASHERA). BHAIRAVI: Hindu, 'the terrible'. See PARVATI. BHARATI: A Hindu goddess of speech, identified with SARASVATI. BHATTA: A Hindu goddess of sorcery. BHAVANI, BHOWANI, PARASU-PANI: Hindu and Tantric-mother goddess, known as the Triple Universe. Depicted with the Sun and Moon at her breasts, or as a young woman crowned, containing within her body a landscape showing the sea, the Sun and the Moon. Other depictions show her as a dark form of PARVATI, with a necklace of skulls. Festival: Diwali, the Feast of Lamps, on the New Moon of Kartik (October/November). 777: Tarot, Threes; gems, star sapphire, pearl; plants, cypress, opium poppy; animal, woman; mineral, silver; perfumes, myrrh, civet; magical weapons, yoni, Outer Robe of Concealment. BHUMI: Hindu Earth goddess, conceived of as one of seven sisters, following the Vedic view that there are three Heavens, three Earths and a fourth Earth which is Bhumi. The mother of all living. Also mother of the planet Mars. Associated, along with LAKSHMI, with Vahara, the boar avatar of Vishnu. Sometimes equated with PRIVTHI. BIBI MIRIAM: ('Lady Mary') In some parts of India the VIRGIN MARY is regarded as a goddess and included in the Hindu pantheon under this name. Kipling refers to 'a goddess called Mary'. BIL: Nordic. One of the ASYNJOR. Seems to be the origin of Jill of the nursery rhyme. Hjuki and Bil were returning from the spring with a bucket of water when the Moon god Mani seized them, and they have followed him ever since, visible from Earth. May recall a pair of asteroids between the Moon and Earth which have long disappeared. BINAH: ('Understanding') Hebrew. The Supernal Mother, third Sephirah of the Cabalistic Tree of Life. She takes the raw directionless energy of Chokmah, the Supernal Father (the second Sephira), and gives it form and manifestation; she is thus both the Bright Mother, AlMA (nourishing) and the Dark Mother, AMA (constricting). The first Heh of the Tetragrammaton, in polarity with the Yod of Chokmah. She represents the female potency of the cosmos, as Chokmah represents the male. Cabalistic symbols: the yoni, the kteis, the Vesica Piscis, the cup, the Outer Robe of Concealment. Tarot: Threes. Magical image: a mature woman. BIRRAHGNOOLOO: Australian Aborigine, High Plains and South-East. One of the wives of Baiame, the All-Father, whom he elevated to be Mother-of-All, to live with him in the sky for all time. Each of them had a totem for each part of the body, so that no one totem-clan might claim them exclusively. But his most important co-creator was YHI, the Sun goddess. BIRRA-NULU: Australian aborigine, High Plains and South-East. One of two young wives whom Baiame, the All-Father, married while he was resting on Mount Oobi-oobi in Bullima after creating the world; the other was Kunnan-beili. They were flightly and disobedient and caused him a lot of trouble. BLACK ANNIS: Leicestershire; possibly Scandinavian origin. She lived in the Dane Hills and ate children. She was concerned with a May Eve hare-hunt, later transferred to Easter Monday, 'and therefore must have been nymph as well as hag' (Graves, The White Goddess, p.370). Graves also suggests that she derives from ANU. See also GODIVA. BLACK HAG: see WHITE HAG. BLATHNAT: Irish. Daughter of Midir, King of the Gaelic Underworld. She helped Cuchulainn steal her father's magic cauldron. BLODEUWEDD: ('Flower Face') Welsh. Made from flowers of oak, broom and meadowsweet by Math and Gwydion as a wife for Lieu, who could not have a wife 'of the race that is now on earth'. She was unfaithful to him with Gronw, lord of Penllyn. She was changed into an owl, in which form she still mourns her lover. A type of the man-made image of woman who rebels against the imposed stereotypes; cf. EVE. BOANN: Irish. Goddess of the River Boyne, mother of Aengus mac Óg by the Dagda. 'Mac Óg' means 'Son of the Virgin' - in the old sense of one who is an independent woman or goddess in her own right, and not a mere consort. Her mating with the Dagda was on 1 November, doubtless a memory of a Samhain fertility ritual involving the chief or king; the Dagda also mated with the MORRIGAN in the River Unius in Connacht on 1 November. One source gives Boann as daughter of Delbaeth son of Elada, and wife of Nechtan son of Nama. Perhaps originally a titular priestess of the Boyne's source, which was said to be a pool where the Salmon of Knowledge fed on nuts dropping from the nine hazel trees surrounding it. BONA DEA: ('Good Goddess') Roman Earth goddess of fertility, worshipped only by women; even statues of men were covered where her rites took place. Festivals: 1 May, the night of 3-4 May and 3 December. Day: Wednesday. 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