HABONDIA, DAME HABONDE, ABUNDIA: A medieval witch goddess name, doubtless implying 'abundance'.

HAGAR: Hebrew. Second wife of Abraham and mother of Ishmael. The Bible says she was Egyptian; Rabbinic writings call her an Egyptian princess; Arab tradition says that Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael came to the place where Mecca now is (then a goddess site -see AL-UZZA). Occult tradition links her with the Moon. Graves (The White Goddess, p.278) suggests that Ishmael and his twelve sons personify a federation of goddess-worshipping tribes of the southern desert.

HAINUWELE: Indonesia, Ceram I. A PERSEPHONE-type goddess, whose rape, death and ascent to the heavens as the Moon guaranteed the Earth's fertility.

HAKEA: Polynesian, Hawaii. Goddess of the land of the dead.

HAKINI: see DAKINI.

HAMADRYAD: Greek. Another name for a DRYAD, especially one presiding over a specific tree.

HANENCA: Polynesian, Hawaii. Creatress of the first man.

HANlYAMA-HIME: Japanese goddess of Earth or clay (as substance). Formed from the excrement of the creator goddess IZANAMI-NO-KAMI.

HANI-YASU-NO-KAMI: From her head sprang the silkworm and mulberry tree, and from her navel the five cereals -hemp, millet, rice, corn and pulse. One of those invoked to control the fire god Ho-Masubi.

HANNAHANNAS: Hittite mother goddess, to whom bees were sacred. She sent one to find the fertility god Telepinus, whose absence was bringing drought and famine to the Earth, and the bee brought him back when other methods had failed.

HARIMELLA: Imported to Scotland by the Tungrians, who worshipped her at Blatobulgium (Birrens, Dumfriesshire).

HARITI: Indian, a mother suckling five hundred demons, said to have been converted to Buddhism by Buddha himself. Wife of Kubera, god of dark spirits, or of Panchika. Connected with the northern quarter. Probably a relic of ancient agricultural rites. MacQuitty (Buddha, p.53) suggests that she was an Indianization of ISIS, who was brought to north-west India by the Greeks in the fourth century AD. See also KWAN- YIN and KWANNON.

HARMONIA: ('Harmony') Greek, daughter of Zeus by Atlas's daughter ELECTRA - or, according to Hesiod, of Ares and APHRODITE. An attendant of Aphrodite, along with HEBE, the HORAE and the CHARITES. Cadmus, King of Thebes, was allowed to marry her; she brought a divine dowry, including a necklace made by Hephaestus containing irresistible love-charms. Cadmus and Harmonia eventually left Thebes and became King and Queen of Illyria, and were turned into great serpents - i.e., were identified with Illyrian snake-gods.

HARPIES: Greek. Frightening creatures with the bodies of birds and heads of women; originally storm-wind goddesses. Daughters of Thaumas and ELECTRA. They contaminated the food of their victims, meted out divine punishment and bore away the souls of the dead.

HATHOR: ('House of the Face' or 'House of Horus') Egyptian, an ancient sky-goddess; Ra's daughter by NUT, or his wife (bearing him Ihy the god of music); sometimes the wife or mother of Horus the Elder, Goddess of pleasure, joy, love, music and dancing. Protectress of women and embodiment of the finest female qualities; in the later period, while dead men were still identified with Osiris, dead women came to be identified with Hathor. She supervised women's toilet - a goddess of make-up - and bronze mirrors often had Hathor handles. She suckled the living, including the Pharaohs (queens often identified with her) and the dead; as 'Queen of the West' and 'Lady of the Sycamore' she welcomed them to the afterlife and offered them nourishment. Patroness of the Sinai mining area (possible relevance to 'golden calf' episode in Exodus xxxii). But she could be fierce; SEKHMET was in some ways her other self, and the legend of Sekhmet's destructive orgy when mankind rebelled against Ra was sometimes told of Hathor instead. She could also be uninhibited; when Ra (her father in this instance) walked out from a meeting of the gods and sulked, she went to his house and displayed her genitals to him till he cheered up and rejoined the meeting. (Cf. AMA NO UZUME.) Sovereign of Dendera, and as wife of Horus the Elder, her sacred marriage was celebrated annually by carrying her image from Dendera to this temple at Edfu. Their son was sometimes said to be Horus the Younger; when, as was more usual, he was regarded as the son of Osiris and ISIS, Hathor was his nurse. Depicted as a cow (often star-spangled), as a woman with a cow's head, as a woman with a broad sistrum-shaped face and cow's ears, or as a normal woman wearing a solar disc between cow's horns - as was Isis as she increasingly absorbed Hathor's attributes. Undoubtedly the Golden Calf of Exodus xxxii. Of all the Egyptian deities, she is the most often depicted full-face. Her favourite instrument was the sistrum, which banishes evil spirits. She ruled the month Athyr, 17 September to 16 October, third month of the Inundation season. 'The Hathors' were seven young 'fairy godmothers' who prophesied the destiny of young Egyptians at birth. Their predictions could be favourable or unfavourable but were inescapable. 777: Tarot, Sevens, Empress; gems, emerald, turquoise; plants, rose, myrtle, clover; animals, lynx, sparrow, dove, swan; perfumes, benzoin, rose, red sandal, sandalwood, myrtle, all soft voluptuous odours; magical weapons, Lamp, Girdle.

HAUMEA, HAUMIA: Polynesian, Hawaiian goddess of wild food plants. Regarded elsewhere in Polynesia as a male god, though with the same function.

HAYA: ('Goddess of Direction') Assyro-Babylonian; a title of NINLIL.

HAYA-AKITSU-HIME-NO-KAMI: Japanese sea goddess, who swallowed all the sins cast into the sea.

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©1987 Janet & Stewart Farrar