EOSTRE, OSTARA: Teutonic goddess, the Maid aspect of Earth, who gave her name to Easter. May be from the same source as ISHTAR, ASTARTE etc.

EPINOIA: ('Power of Thought, Inventiveness') Gnostic. An AEON, and one of the first female manifestations. Referred to as the 'Principle' and thus linked to ALEITHEIA.

EPONA: Horse-totem goddess of the British and Continental Celts, adopted by Roman cavalry units as their patroness. In fact a form of the ancient Celtic mother goddess, with much wider implications than her horse-totem.

ERATO: see MUSES.

ERCE: The Old English name for Mother Earth. Harrison (The Roots of Witchcraft, p.133) suggests that 'Old English erce (pronounced airchay) is nothing more or less than Basque (that is, Western European Neolithic) erche (pronounce it airshay), "bowels, belly, intestine, womb" ...That fruitful womb from which all blessings flow.'

ERDITSE: ('Giving Birth') Basque goddess of childbirth. Evidence of her worship, at least as early as Roman times, has been found at Toulouse.

ERESHKIGAL: ('Queen of the Great Below') Assyro-Babylonian goddess of the Underworld, sister of ISHTAR (INANNA). Known as 'Star of Lamentation', or sometimes simply as Allatu ('The Goddess'). Also named Ninmug. Wife of Nergal, who first dethroned her and then married her (another patriarchal demotion). Envisaged as throned, naked and black-haired. Her palace, of dark lapis lazuli, had seven walls, each with a gate, and one had to cross the River Hubar to reach it.

ERINYES, THE: Greek goddesses of vengeance and justice, born of the blood of the castration of Uranus where it fell on the ground (see GAIA). Also called, in propitiation, the Eumenides ('Kind Ones'). They were Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone. They attended PERSEPHONE. Adopted, with the same legend, by the Romans, as the Furiae ('Furies').

ERIS: Greek goddess of discord. Uninvit.ed to the marriage of Peleus and THETIS, she drew a golden apple marked 'For the Fairest' (The Apple of Discord) into the wedding feast. This led to the Judgement of Paris, and thus to the Trojan War.

ERIU, ERIN: Irish, one of the three queens of the Tuatha De Danann, daughters of the Dagda, who asked that Ireland be named after them. Wife of Mac Greine, Son of the Sun, or 'the Sun his god'.

ERNMAS: ('Murder') Irish. 'The She-Farmer', mother of BADHBH, MACHA, ANU and the MORRIGAN (who in many contexts is a collective name for the other three), by Delbaeth, son of Oghma, Grianaineach; or in another version, mother of BANBHA, FODHLA and ERIU. Either version makes her the mother (original form?) of the basic Irish Triple Goddess; the first (and her name) in the dark sense, and the second (and her title of 'She-Farmer') in the beneficent sense.

ERNUTIT: see RENENET.

ERYTHEIS: see HESPERIDES, THE.

ERZULIE: Haitian Voodoo goddess of love, wife of the sea god Agwe and lover of (among others) Ogoun, god of war and fire; regarded as innocently exuberant and generous rather than promiscuous. For the poverty-stricken Haitian, she expresses his dreams of luxury and wealth, of things as they ought to be; and her rituals dramatize this. Known as 'Maîtresse', and often identified with the VIRGIN MARY. A triple goddess; the main one is Erzulie Freda Dahomey, but there is also Gran Erzulie, who is old and arthritic, very maternal and protective, and La Sirene, whose colour is blue and whose voice hisses like the sea.

ESHARRA: Chaldaean Earth and war goddess. Wife of the war god Nergal (or sometimes of Bel): See also LAZ.

ÉTAIN, ÉDAIN: Insh. Known as Étain Echraidhe ('horse-riding'). Wife of Midir; symbol of reincarnation. Outstandingly beautiful; described in enthusiastic detail in the Ulster Cycle; 'All who might before have been thought beautiful are as nothing beside E tain; all blondes cannot match her.'

ETERNA: Chinese. Sorceress, daughter of AUNT PIETY. She had an incarnation on Earth, during which her heavenly mother secretly helped and taught her.

EUNOMIA: see HORAE.

EUPHROSYNE: see CHARITES, THE.

EURONYME: Greek. One of the OCEANIDS, and mother by Zeus of the three CHARITES. Also (or originally) the Greek rendering of a pre-Greek Moon and creator goddess name; the Pelasgians claimed to be born from her mating with the cosmic snake Ophion. Her statue at Phigalia in Arcadia showed her as a mermaid.

EUROPA: Greek. Daughter of Agenor, King of Tyre, and Telephassa, abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull and carried to Gortyna on the southern shore of Crete, where he seduced her. She bore three sons, Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. Asterius, King of Crete, married her and, being childless, adopted her sons as his own. The allusion to the Cretan bull-cult is interesting; Crete's greatest king, Minos, was the son of a god in the shape of the cult animal.

EURYALE: see GORGONS.

EUTERPE: see MUSES.

EVE: Hebrew. The Genesis story is a patriarchal revision of earlier Middle Eastern creation myths, and also of Hebrew tradition itself.

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©1987 Janet & Stewart Farrar