LACHESIS: see MOERAE.

LADY OF THE LAKE: Arthurian. In some versions, VIVIENNE or Viviane. In others, Vivienne was the daughter of the Lady of the Lake by Dylan, son of ARIANRHOD and Gwydion. In Thomas Mallory, the Lady of the Lake is called NIMUE. See also GWENDYDD.

LADY HORSE-HEAD: Chinese. Patroness of the breeding of silkworms. One of the concubines of the August Personage of Jade.

LADY MENG: Chinese. Prepares the Broth of Oblivion. She lives just inside the exit from Hell, and all reincarnating souls must drink her broth on their way to a new incarnation. It makes them forget their former life, their existence in Hell and their speech.

LADY OF GOOD SIGHT: Chinese. Protects children from eye maladies.

LAHAMU, LAKHAMU: Chaldaean. First daughter of TIAMAT. She and her brother Lukhmu personified the primeval sediment. They were invoked on the completion of a building.

LAKINI: see DAKINI.

LAKSHMI: Hindu goddess of good fortune and plenty, and the personification of beauty. Born, radiant and holding a lotus, from the churning of the sea. Wife of Vishnu, and mother of Kama, god of love. Said to have assumed the personality of the wife of Vishnu in each of his ten avatars (incarnations). Probably an early mother and Earth goddess, and possibly once Vishnu's mother. She forms a triad with SARASVATI and DEVI. 777: Tarot, Tens; gem: rock crystal; plants: willow, lily, ivy; animal: sphinx; mineral: magnesium sulphate; perfume: dittany of Crete; magical weapons: Magic Circle, Triangle.

LALITA: Hindu. Defined by Crowley (777, Col.xxii) as a sexual aspect of SHAKTI. 777: Tarot, Empress; gems: emerald, turquoise; plants: myrtle, rose, clover; animals: sparrow, dove, swan; perfumes: sandalwood, myrtle, all soft voluptuous odours; magical weapon: Girdle.

LAMIA: (1) Originally a Libyan snake goddess, with orgiastic priestesses; in later Greek legend, a queen of Libya loved by Zeus and robbed of her offspring by jealous HERA; she became (in the plural, Lamiae) beautiful demonesses who seduced and vampirized travellers and preyed on children.

LAMIA: (2) Greek name for NEITH.

LASYA, LASEMA, SGEG-MQ-MA: Tibetan goddess of beauty. Depicted holding a mirror.

LAT: see AL-LAT.

LATIS: British goddess 'of the pool' or 'of beer', worshipped at Birdoswald on the Roman Wall. Latis fell in love with a salmon, and out of pity for her the other gods and goddesses turned him into a handsome young warrior. But every winter he turns back into a salmon, and Latis weeps for him till his springtime return as her manly lover. The Winter rains are her tears.

LATONA: see LETO.

LAUDINE: see LUNED.

LAUFEY: ('Wooded Isle') Teutonic. Mother of trickster god Loki, who was originally a fire demon; she furnished his firewood.

LAVERNA: Roman goddess of thieves and trickery. Remembered in Tuscan witch lore - see Leland's Aradia, pp.89-98).

LAZ: Assyro-Babyloman. A prehistoric goddess of Cuthac, and wife of the Underworld god Nergal in early legends - a place later taken by ERESHKIGAL.

LEANNAN SIDHE: Irish fairy lover, succubus. Dinneen's dictionary defines her as a familiar figure, an endearing phantom, also figuratively of a delicate person... used sometimes like "muse" as a source of poetical inspiration'. Those inspired by her lead brilliant but short lives. In the Isle of Man she is malevolent and vampiric.

LEBIYAH: ('Lioness') Hebrew. 'Personification of Israel, the Mother of Israel; see Ezekiel xix.

LESHACHIKHA: Slavonic forest (les) goddess, wife of the forest god the Leshy and mother of the Leshonki. The Leshies died in October and revived in Spring. They were jealous of their territory, leading those who entered it astray - but almost always releasing them in the end. The spell against them was to take your clothes off under a tree and put them on again backwards.

LETO: Greek. Daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, mother by Zeus of Apollo and ARTEMIS. Born in 'the land of the Hyperboreans' beyond the North Wind, sometimes identified with Britain and later with Ireland. An orgiastic goddess. Her sacred tree was the palm. Called Latona by the Romans.

LEUCOTHEA: ('Milk-White Goddess') Greek. As a mortal woman called Ino, she looked after the infant Dionysus. She jumped into the sea with him to escape her husband Athamas, and a dolphin carried them to the Isthmus of Corinth, after which she became a sea goddess under her new name. As such she helped Odysseus when a storm destroyed his raft. Mother goddess of the Centaurs.

LEVANAH: Chaldean, Hebrew. A name for the Moon goddess. The word used for 'moon' In Song of Solomon vi:l0 is the Hebrew form Lebanah: 'Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and temble as an army with banners?' Durdin-Robertson (Goddesses of Chaldaea, p.94) notes that 'the knowledge available concerning Levanah has come down mainly through occult sources'. Dion Fortune (The Sea Priestess, p.223) says the Moon is called 'by the wise, Levanah, for therein is contained the number of her name. She is the ruler of the tides of flux and reflux. The waters of the Great Sea answer unto her; likewise the waters of all earthly seas, and she ruleth the nature of woman'.

LEWA-LEVU: ('Great Woman') Fijian predatory goddess, who lived at the entrance to a gloomy defile, ready to pounce on any man who took her fancy, living or dead; the ghost of a bachelor had to take special precautions to avoid her.

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©1987 Janet & Stewart Farrar