| RE: Phoenician Moon goddess. According to Thomas Moore's History of Ireland, the Moon was also worshipped in pagan Ireland under the name Re - still a Gaelic word for Moon. (Do not confuse with Re, alternative spelling of the Egyptian Sun god Ra.) REINE PEDAUQUE, LA: Medieval French, 'the queen with the bird's foot, a mysterious figure of legend who flew by night at the head of a crowd of phantoms, something like the Wild Hunt' (Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present, p.225). Cf. LILITH. REMATI: Tibetan form of KALI. Associated with Tantric secret doctrines. RENENET: Egyptian goddess of suckling, who gave the baby his name, personality and fortune. She also appeared, with the destiny god Shai, at death when the soul was weighed and judged. Also represented nourishment in general, sometimes as a harvest goddess with the title 'Lady of the Double Granary'. Depicted with two long plumes on her head (or sometimes the disc and horns of HATHOR), as a woman, a lioness-headed woman, a cobra-headed woman or a uraeus. RENNUTET: Egyptian snake goddess of the Harvest, regent of the month Pharmuthi. Daughter of the early Sun god Atum, and sister of TEFNUT and Shu. Seems to overlap with RENENET. RENPET: Egyptian goddess of the year, of springtime and youth. Known as 'Mistress of Eternity'. Depicted crowned with a long palm-shoot, curved at the end. RHEA: Cretan and Greek. Her name probably means 'Earth'. Originally almost certainly the name of the Cretan mother goddess, the island's supreme deity, who bore children to the annually sacrificed god (a role faithfully copied by her high priestess and the annually chosen male consort/sacrifice). In classical mythology she was the daughter of GAIA by her son Uranus; wife of her brother Cronus, and mother by him of Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, HESTIA, DEMETER and HERA. She hid the infant Zeus in the Diktean Cave on Crete, when his father Cronus was determined to kill him; she was helped in this by AMALTHEA. 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. RHIANNON: ('Great, or Divine, Queen'). Welsh fertility and otherworld goddess, cult-animal a horse. In the Mabinogion, daughter of Heveydd the Old, wife first of Pwyll, and mother of Pryderi. She had to undergo punishment for allegedly killing her infant son, who afterwards turned out to have been kidnapped. After Pwyll's death she married Manawydan (Manannan). The Mabinogion story is 'but a shadow of what once constituted a powerful Celtic goddess of Epona-Macha type' (Anne Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain, p.316). Among the hints of this: Pwyll was 'Head of Annwn' -i.e., the happy otherworld; and the songs of the three Birds of Rhiannon 'wake the dead and lull the living to sleep'. She could ride her white horse faster than any man could catch her, though it seemed to go at a steady pace -which suggests the Moon. RIRIT: see TUARET. RHODE: Greek, daughter of AMPHITRITE and Poseidon, mother of seven children by the Sun god Helios. The island of Rhodes was named after her. ROBIGO: ('Rust, Mildew') Roman goddess invoked to spare crops from blight and turn her attention to weapons instead. A goddess of farmers, who were more interested in fertility than in war. Festival (the Robigalia): 25 April. ROCK-MAIDEN, THE: see BANANA-MAIDEN. RODASI: Hindu. An early Vedic lightning and storm goddess. Wife of storm god Rudra. ROHINI: A Hindu cow goddess invoked to cure jaundice. Variously associated with the constellations Scorpio and Hyades, and with the stars Antares and Aldebaran. RONA: Maori. ROSMERTA: Gaulish, appears as consort of Mercury, especially in eastern Gaul; sometimes carries a caducaeus. RUKMINI: ('Adorned with Gold') Hindu. A wife of Krishna, sometimes regarded as an incarnation of LAKSHMI. RUTBE: Water goddess of the Guaymi Indians of Costa Rica. Mother by Nancomala of the Sun and Moon, who were the ancestors of mankind. [BACK] [NEXT] This document can be re-published only as long as no information is lost or changed, credit is given to the author, and it is provided or used without cost to others. ©1987 Janet & Stewart Farrar | 
