GADDA: (Perhaps 'She-Goat') Chaldaean, Babylonian. With her husband Gad, a deity of fortune.

GAIA, GAEA: ('Earth') The 'deep-breasted', the primordial Greek Earth Mother, the first being to emerge from Chaos. She was regarded as creating the universe, the first race of gods, and mankind. She gave birth to Uranus, the sky, and Pontus, the sea; then she mated with her son Uranus to produce the twelve Titans, the Cyclops and finally three monsters. Uranus, horrified at his offspring, shut them in the depths of the Earth. Gaia, furious, persuaded the youngest male Titan, Cronus, to castrate Uranus as he slept beside her. The blood dropping on the Earth gave birth to the ERINYES, to giants and to the ash-tree nymphs the Meliae; and the blood dropping on the sea produced APHRODITE. The Oracle of Delphi, before it passed to Apollo (see PYTHIA), belonged to Gaia, who was pre-eminent among prophetesses. She presided over marriages, was invoked in oaths (with the sacrifice of a black ewe) and was offered the first of fruit and grain.

GANDIEDA: see GWENDYDD.

GANGA: Hindu, goddess of the River Ganges. The god Shiva divided her into seven streams so that she could descend to Earth without causing a catastrophe. Said to be the wife of Vishnu, Shiva and other gods, and also of a mortal King, Santanu. Depicted as a beautiful young woman, with her waters flowing about her.

GARBH OGH: Irish. 'An ancient ageless giantess, whose car was drawn by elks, whose diet was venison milk and eagles' breasts and who hunted the mountain deer with a pack of seventy hounds with bird names. She gathered stones to heap herself a triple calm and "set up her chair in a womb of the hills at the season of heather-bloom"; and then expired' (Graves, The White Goddess, p.192). Graves (ibid., p.217) says she is a form of the goddess who sacrifices the antlered king.

GARMANGABIS: Imported to Britain by the Suebi, Roman auxiliaries who worshipped her at Longovicium (Lanchester, Co. Durham).

GASMU: ('The Wise') An ancient Chaldaean sea goddess, wife or daughter of Ea. Became associated with ZARPANITU.

GA-TUM-DUG: Local Babylonian mother goddess name; equated with BAU.

GAURI: Hindu. Fertility and abundance aspect of PARVATI; the Fair, the Harvest Bride. Sometimes represented by an unmarried girl and by a bundle of wild balsam dressed up as a woman; both girl and balsam are worshipped to ensure a good rice crop.

GAYATRI: Hindu goddess of the morning prayer; second wife of Shiva.

GENDENWITHA: Amerindian, Iroquois. The morning star; originally a human girl, put in the sky by Dawn and tied to her forehead.

GERD, GERDA: Teutonic. DaughterofthegiantGymir,and wife of Frey, god of fertility, who won her only after a desperate battle with the giants and after threatening to turn her from a beautiful young woman into an old one.

GERFJON, GEFJON: Teutonic giantess, one of the ASYNJOR; particularly honoured in the island of See land, which she created by a magical feat with a plough. Protectress of girls who died unwed.

GESTINANNA, GESHTIN: ('Lady of the Vine') Sumerian. Daughter of NINSUN and sister of Dumuzi (possibly also of Gilgamesh). Plays an important part in the mourning for, and rescue of, Dumuzi. Record-keeper of Heaven and the Underworld, spending six months of the year in each; also an interpreter of dreams. (See also BELIT-SHERI.)

GHE: ('Earth') Phoenician form of GAIA.

GHUL: ('Seizer') Arabic, pre-Islamic. Female spirits who attacked travellers, especially in the desert, eating them and occasionally seducing them. Root of the modern word 'ghoul'.

GJALP: Teutonic water giantess, who stood astride rivers and caused them to swell.

GLAISRIG, GLAISTIG: A Scottish undine, beautiful and seductive, but a goat from the waist down (which she hides under a long green dress). She lures men to dance with her and then sucks their blood. Yet she can be benign, looking after children or old people or herding cattle for farmers.

GNA: Teutonic. The messenger of the ASYNJOR. Her horse was called Hofvarpnir.

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©1987 Janet & Stewart Farrar