| THALATTH: see TIAMAT. THALIA: see CHARITES and MUSES. THALNA: An Etruscan mother goddess, often confused with CUPRA. THEIA: Greek Titaness, daughter of Uranus and GAIA. By her brother Hyperion, mother of SELENE (the Moon), Helios (the Sun) and EOS (Dawn). Often identified with TETHYS. THEMIS: Greek Titaness, daughter of Uranus and GAIA. According to Aeschylus, mother by her brother Iapetus of Atlas and Prometheus. Second wife of Zeus, to whom she bore the HORAE and the MOERAE. Personified the Law which regulates both the physical and the moral order. Though replaced by HERA, she remained Zeus' adviser, respected by the other Olympians. She was nurse to Apollo, feeding him ambrosia and nectar, and gave him the oracle at Delphi which she had inherited from her mother Gaia; she herself was an oracular goddess, as well as being goddess of justice and sound counsel. Worshipped throughout Greece and had a temple in the citadel of Athens. Her attribute was a pair of scales. Festival: 28 September. THETIS: Greek NEREID, daughter ofNereus and DORIS. Wife ofPeleus (see ERIS) and mother by him of Achilles, to whom she tried to give immortality by dipping him in the STYX. This made all of him invulnerable, except for the heel by which she held him. THEVADAS, THE: Cambodian. A general name for their many goddesses, depicted in the temples of Prah-khan and Angkor Vat. Their priestesses are girls selected for their beauty. THIRST GODDESS: see DELIGHT GODDESS. THO-OG: Tibetan. Space, the Eternal Mother, infinite, without cause. THREE MOTHERS, THE: Hebrew, Cabalistic. A female trinity representing Air, Water and Fire, and corresponding to the three Mother Letters of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph, Mem and Shin. Possibly an archetype of the worship, surviving in Provence, of the Three Maries (VIRGIN MARY, MARY MAGDALENE and Mary Cleopas). They are said to have landed there at Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, accompanied by their servant Sara, whose semi-official shrine in the crypt of the town church is a place of pilgrimage for gypsies. Sara's image, according to Sykes (Everyman's Dictionary of Non-Classical Mythology, p.249) is a demoted ISIS, like so many 'Black Madonnas' which were originally dark-complexioned statues of Isis and Horus. THRUD: ('Strength') Teutonic. Daughter of Thor and SIF. TIAMAT: Assyro-Babylonian primordial sea mother goddess, the mass of salt waters, who with her mate Apsu (the sweet waters) begat the original chaotic world and who also symbolized it and ruled it. 'When above the heavens had not been formed, when the earth below had no name, Tiamat brought forth them both.' Sometimes envisaged as a dragon or serpent. 'The unconscious in its most primitive disorganised state and therefore in need of attention' (Chetwynd, A Dictionary of Symbols, p.76). The younger gods under sky god Anu fought to bring order and fruitfulness to the chaos. Ea, the god of wisdom and of water, gained control of Apsu; and Ea's son, the storm god Marduk, fought and slew Tiamat, dividing her body in two to form the Sky and the Earth. She thus remained the Great Mother womb, the belly of the unconscious which so disturbs patriarchy. Kingu was her son/lover, the male generative principle which the Primordial Mother produces from within herself. Tiamat appears under many names, including Thalatth, Omoroca, Tiawthu, Nammu, Nana, Zerpanitu, Me-abzu, Zi-kum and Zi-kura; and she has affinities with the Biblical Leviathan. The Hebrew word for 'waters' in Genesis i:2 is 'tehom', acknowledged to be a corruption of 'tiamat'. APSU, her consort, was in the original Akkadian version a goddess, identical with TIAMAT; she changed her sex with the advance of patriarchy. TIAWTHU: see TIAMAT. T'IEN HOU: Chinese. Empress of Heaven (not to be confused with WANG-MU YIANG-YANG), sea goddess, protectress of sailors, fishermen and lifeboat crews, and helpful in capturing pirates. Originally a mortal girl who saved three of her brothers from death at sea by appearing to them in a vision and warning them of a coming storm. Widely worshipped, including in Hong Kong and among the Chinese in California. TIEN MU: ('Mother Lightning') Chinese. Produces the lightning by mirrors held in her hands. Works with thunder god Lei-Kung. TIL-BU-MA: ('She who Holds the Bell') Tibetan goddess of stern justice. With her husband Amrita-Dhari, Door-Keeper of the North. TILLIL: A Chaldaean goddess apparently corresponding to the Egyptian NEPHTHYS. TISIPHONE: see ERINYES. TITANIA: Shakespeare's Queen of the Fairies is actually DIANA; Ovid uses Titania as a name for Diana (Metamorphoses, iii: 173). TI-YA, TI-MU: Chinese earth mother, wife of Thien-lung. Ancestress of the World. Durdin-Robertson says (Goddesses of India, p.274): 'The veneration of the earth, often seen personified as a goddess, is a basic feature of Chinese civilisation. One of the ritual duties of the Emperors in their role as Chief Priests was associated with the soil.' Chinese farmers still make figures of the Earth Goddess and set them up on their farms or in wayside shrines. [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 |
