- Looks after
- A goddess honoured at crossroads, doorways and in night rites
- Often shown with
- Torches, keys, dogs
Hecate
Ἑκάτη
Hecate is a Titan's daughter whom Zeus honoured above the other gods, and who later became a goddess of crossroads and witchcraft.
Hesiod gives Hecate the longest hymn of praise in the Theogony. She is the daughter of the Titans Perses and Asteria. When Zeus took power he did not take away the honours she had held under the Titans, and she keeps a share of earth, sea and sky. She helps those who call on her, in assemblies, in war, at the games and with the herds.
In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hecate hears Persephone's cry as she is carried off and goes with a torch to tell Demeter. She afterwards stays as Persephone's attendant in the underworld, which links her with that realm.
Later writers give her other parents and turn her into the goddess of crossroads, ghosts and magic. That is the Hecate of Greek magical papyri, and of the witches who invoke her in English literature.
In later art and language
Shakespeare brings Hecate on stage in Macbeth as the patron of the three witches.
Ancient sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 404-452
- Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter 24-25, 51-61, 438-440