LI: Chinese. Daughter of Ch'ien and K'UN. Personification of the solar feminine aspect; 'Fire, the Middle Daughter, the Clinging, the Lucid, the Bride'. In the I Ching, the trigram Li, 'The Clinging' (two Yang lines separated by a Yin line). Associated with midsummer and noon. Symbols, the pheasant (fire-bird) and the cow (nourishing, life-giving).

LIBAN (1): ('Beauty of Women') Irish, mermaid associated with Lough Neagh. King Ecca had put a woman in charge of a magic well within his fortress on a plain, with orders to open the door only when the people of the fortress needed to draw water. One day she forgot to close the door, and the plain was flooded, forming Lough Neagh. Ecca and all his people were drowned, except for his daughter Liban, who lived under the lough for a year and a day with her little dog and then took the form of a salmon but keeping her own face and breasts. Liban and the woman in charge of the well are probably the same. The Christian ending to the story is that after 300 years St. Congall rescued her, baptizing her Muirgen, 'born of the sea'. A Submerged Princess archetype, like DAHUD.

LIBAN (2): Irish goddess of healing and pleasure. With FAND, she appeared to Cuchulainn in a dream in which they beat him with horsewhips - but only to teach him a lesson which ended in happiness.

LIBERA: ('Free') Roman, an early goddess of wine and fertility, later identified with PERSEPHONE. Female partner of Liber (another name for Bacchus), both of them being honoured at the Liberalia festival on 17 March, when slaves were permitted to speak with freedom.

LIBITINA: Roman goddess of funerals; whenever anyone died, a piece of money had to be brought to her temple. Undertakers were known as 'libitinarii'. Also a love and fertility goddess, originally perhaps an agricultural deity.

LILITH: Hebrew version of LILITU. In Hebrew legend, she was Adam's first wife, who would not subordinate herself to him and was turned into a demoness. Cabalistic ally, sometimes named as the Qlipha, evil counterpart, of MALKUTH (see also NAHEMA).

LILITU: ('Night-hag') Sumerian. Brought nightmares and other nocturnal menaces; probably originally a storm goddess. The name was only later applied to LILITH, Adam's first wife.

LILWANI: Hittite Earth goddess, connected with the important Spring festival of Purulli.

LISSA: Dahomey mother goddess, mother of the Sun god Maou and the Moon god Gou. Her totem was the chameleon.

LITAE, THE: see ATE.

LIVING GODDESS, THE: Nepal. In Katmandu there is a Temple of the Living Goddess, where a young virgin of Brahmin caste is installed for a set period to be worshipped in the flesh, and offerings made to her, as the Goddess's manifestation. At the festival which concludes her term she comes to the door of the temple, scattering flower petals and distributing wine 'from her mouth all day, making drunk and merry many of her followers below'. Her successor then takes over and she returns to ordinary life.

LOLA: ('Lightning') India. A goddess of fickle fortune.

LORELEI: German. A beautiful siren who sat on a cliff above the Rhine, luring boatmen to their death with her songs.

LOSNA: An Etruscan Moon goddess.

LOVIATAR: Finno-Ugric. The most terrible daughter of Tuoni and TUONETAR. From her union with the Wind were born pleurisy, colic, gout, phthisis, ulcers, scabies, canker, plague and a nameless 'fatal spirit, a creature eaten up with envy'. Also called Louhi.

LUCINA: Roman. A goddess of birth and midwifery.

LUKELONG: Micronesian, Caroline Islands. In the beginning she created first the heavens and then the Earth.

LUNA: The Roman Moon goddess, identified with DIANA and the Greek SELENE.

LUNED, LAUDINE: Aurthurian. She befriended Owain and brought about his marriage with the Lady of the Fountain. In her sovereignty aspect she is called Laudine.

LUONNOTAR ('Daughter of Nature') or ILMATAR ('Mother of the Waters'): Finno-Ugric creation goddess, daughter of the air god Ilma. Weary of her lonely celestial virginity, she floated on the sea for seven centuries. Eventually an eagle (or a duck) nested on her knee and laid eggs. These rolled into an abyss and were changed into the Earth, the heavens, Sun, Moon and stars. She gave birth to the first human being, the bard Vainamoinen. In the Kalevala epic she was impregnated by the East Wind.

LUST GODDESS, THE: see DELIGHT GODDESS, THE.

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©1987 Janet & Stewart Farrar