A concise history of the goddess-like figures who evade both Christian and pagan traditions, from the medieval period to the present day In this riveting account, renowned scholar Ronald Hutton explores the history of deity-like figures in Christian Europe. Drawing on anthropology, archaeology, literature, and history, Hutton shows how hags, witches, the Fairy Queen, and the Green Man all came to be, and how they changed over the centuries. Looking closely at four main figures—Mother Earth, the Fairy Queen, the Mistress of the Night, and the Old Woman of Gaelic tradition—Hutton challenges decades of debate around the female figures who have long been thought versions of pre-Christian goddesses. He makes the compelling case that these goddess figures found in the European imagination did not descend from the pre-Christian ancient world, yet have nothing Christian about them. It was in fact nineteenth-century scholars who attempted to establish the narrative of pagan survival that persists today.

Although men dominated early Irish society, women dominated the supernatural. Goddesses of war, fertility and sovereignty ordered human destiny. Christian monks turned these pagan deities into saints, like St. Brigit, or into mortal queens like Medb of Connacht. The Morrigan, the Great Queen, war goddess, remained a figure of awe, but her pagan functions were glossed over and her role was obscured. Rosalind Clark juxtaposes early Irish texts with Anglo-Irish treatments of the same themes by Lady Gregory, James Stephens, and W. B. Yeats. She shows the fall in status of the pagan goddesses, first under medieval Christianity and then under Anglo-Irish culture, where the once-powerful goddess of the land evolved into a weak, melancholy victim, romanticized, unreal, and lacking sexual power or into a hag, the dispenser of death. The human loss only begins to be restored in Yeat's The Death of Cuchulain. Irish Literary Studies Series No. 34.

The contemporary search for the feminine face of God is requiring a re-examination of the relationship of Christianity to the pagan world in which it came to birth. Stephen Benko approaches this study as both an historian and a Christian believer. Inquiring into extra-biblical sources of Marian piety, belief and doctrine, he proposes 'that there is a direct line, unbroken and clearly discernible, from the goddess-cults of the ancients to the reverence paid and eventually the cult accorded to the Virgin Mary.' Chapter by chapter he seeks to establish his conclusion that 'in Mariology the Christian genius preserved and transformed some of the best and noblest ideas that paganism developed. Rather than being a 'regression' into Paganism, Mariology is a progression toward a clearer and better understanding of the feminine aspect of the divine and the role of the female in the history of salvation.' This publication has also been published in hardback, please click here for details.

PRE-CHRISTIAN EUROPEAN & MEDITERRANEAN RELIGIONS. In pre-Christian Britain the Great Goddess was worshipped either as an equal to the Gods or as an individual deity. From the Palaeolithic 'Earth Mother' to the Celtic goddesses of Boadicea and the Brigantes, this land once revered the divine feminine. Investigations into the history of the Great Goddess presents many questions. Over the past five years Simon Brighton and Terry Welbourn set out to discover what happened to the Goddess after she was evicted from her elevated position. Travelling throughout Britain, they have uncovered traces of the divine feminine: from holy wells and shrines, lost underground chambers to folklore, legends and fairy tales. Between them they have researched and photographed hundreds of sites.

In 1948 Robert Graves published The White Goddess. His study of poetic mysticism and goddess worship has since become a founding text of Western paganism. As Wicca emerged from what Graves called, a few hopeful young people in California, to over two million strong, The White Goddess has achieved near liturgical status. This rising appreciation brings all the problems of liturgical texts. Many pagans consider Graves' work like the goddess herself; awe inspiring but impenetrable. Stalking The Goddess is the first extensive examination of this enigmatic text to come from the pagan community and guides readers through bewildering forests of historical sources, poems, and Graves' biography to reveal his unorthodox claims and entrancing creative process. Relentlessly perusing each path, it explores the uncharted woods and reveals the hidden signposts Graves has posted. The hunt for the goddess spans battlefields, ancient manuscripts, the British museum, and Stonehenge. En route we encounter not only the goddess herself but her three sacred animals; dog, roebuck, and lapwing. Perhaps the muse cannot be captured on her own grounds, but now at least there is a map.

While much work has been done on goddesses of the ancient world and the male gods of pre-Christian Scandinavia, the northern goddesses have been largely neglected. Roles of the Northern Goddess presents a highly readable study of the worship of these goddesses by men and women. With its use of evidence from early literature, popular tradition, legend and archaeology, this book investigates the role of the early hunting goddess and the local goddesses who were involved in all aspects of the household and the farm. What emerges is that the goddess was both benevolent and destructive, a powerful figure closely concerned with birth and death and with destiny of individuals.

While much work has been done on goddesses of the ancient world and the male gods of pre-Christian Scandinavia, the northern goddesses have been largely neglected. Roles of the Northern Goddess presents a highly readable study of the worship of these goddesses by men and women. With its use of evidence from early literature, popular tradition, legend and archaeology, this book investigates the role of the early hunting goddess and the local goddesses who were involved in all aspects of the household and the farm. What emerges is that the goddess was both benevolent and destructive, a powerful figure closely concerned with birth and death and with destiny of individuals.

Throughout the literature of the Middle Ages, references are made to mysterious folk-traditions, concerning night-travels and pagan goddesses. These accounts are so uniform, so cross-referential, so widely dispersed over region and time, they cannot possibly be accidental or anomalous. They must indicate a wide-spread, well-fixed mythology. The origins of this belief-system clearly lie in a pre-Christian, pagan world-view.A great goddess sits at the head of this immense nexus of beliefs. She is given a bewildering number of names, but remains essentially the same wherever she is found. This goddess is a combination of the old mother-goddesses of Europe, who were not forgotten by fickle worshippers after the introduction of Christianity, but who continued to be remembered and worshipped by the women of Europe for centuries after, and who, in return, continued to participate in her followers? lives.

European civilization between 6500 and 3500 BC long before Greek or Judaeo-Christian civilizations flourished had a distinct culture with its own unique identity. The mythical imagery of this era tells us much about early humanitys concept of the cosmos, of human relations with nature, of the complementary roles of male and female. Through study of sculpture, vases and other cult objects, Gimbutas sketches the village culture that evolved there before it was overwhelmed by the patriarchal Indo-Europeans. The Goddess incarnating the creative principle as Source and Giver of All, fertility images, mythical animals and other artifacts are analysed for their mythic and social significance in this beautifully illustrated study.