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Goddess 1

Goddess 1, best known as the goddess of love, is in any culture unmistakable, and Botticelli’s Venus is merely our most familiar example of her. Whether she is called Freya, Sri Lakshmi, Flora, the Hawaiian Laka, the “Peach Blossom Girl” of China, Persephone or Bast, she is young, beautiful, carries flowers or verdure, and wears her hair in a tall hat, topknot or long sometimes wild flowing locks.
Not so obvious, however, is her identity as Wild Woman companion to the Wild Man, a fierce huntress or forest dweller known in Gaul, Germany, Greece, Indochina, Japan, and everywhere in America. In keeping with the duality of the underworld, however, she has two faces and can turn from lovely Holda to the “loathly lady” of medieval tale, Goddess 3.
She does not often appear as a warrior but she may. And she is simultaneously virgin and harlot--a tricky mixture. In practice, when the young man wins her, she is virgin, but theologically speaking she is also mate to husbandly God 2 and the priest god of winter: in fact, a “scarlet woman”--a color she often wears.
As huntress she often appears, like Artemis or Atalanta, accompanied by wild animals. And even in her tamer form she often has at her side a pet dog or cat (a pussycat, but the pussy may be a lion, tiger or other feline.) Curiously the dog, though tamed by at least 15000 BC, in art always remains a wild/underworld animal.

“Mummy, why is that lady sitting in the wet grass?” “Because she’s the goddess of spring, my dear, and not quite ready to sit on a throne het.” Indeed, if the fact that she represents April in the Grimani Loabors of the Months is not enough, she is dressed in rose, sits by water, her province, has a little dog, and that white object he is barking at is a cat.
And behind her, of course is the Fool (in this case the Old Fool, God 3) who carries in his left hand (too small to be shown here) a frog, while his right is raised in a gesture of forbiddance. The reason for this is that, to the left of Spring, stand a group of people prominent among whom is a young man, his sword held at a distinctly phallic angle, one feather in his bonnet, who eyes her with interest. If we recall all the old tales about the marriage of May and December and the young man who steals May away, the sense of the picture is perfectly clear. The old god of winter is about to lose his companion to the young man of spring.
And to underline all this festival symbolism, in the background we see a boat on a river ready to transport the young people on their initiatory rite of passage.
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This lady, taken from a 15th century set of German playing cards, is the Wild Woman, wild-haired and furred, accompanied here by the unicorn with single horn which represents her young initiate lover. (See ANIMALS, Unicorn, and ACTION, Initiation.)

A late Venus, complete with flower, leafy coronet, wild hair, and a heart emblem, comes from playing cards created in Munich about 1500


The huntress goddess of Scythia, counterpart of Diana and Artemis. Behond her arms are a dragon and a lionlike figure, while at her feet a small forest animal and a bird adore her. (For more about these underworld animals see ANIMALS) She wears on her head the ‘calathos’, which means ‘basket’, specifically a winnowing basket for grain, so perhaps here she is more Goddess 3 than Goddess 1. Note, however, her leafy costume.


Astarte, with flower and staff. Israeli Dept. of Antiquities, Jerusalem.

A Venus in her “Christian” medieval form as Luxuria. Her hair, long-flowing, bears flowers; greenery surrounds her; and she is lying, however improbably, on her water element, as the fish makes clear. The awkwardness of this representation is the medieval artist’s, not the copyist’s, so it should perhaps be explained that the object she carries is a mirror, symbol of transitiona. Vatican Library MS Palat. lat. 1726 fol.435

The mirror also adorns this maiden figure from early Mesoamerica. The hair, cheeks and nipples of the figure are rouged, which would certainly have convinced the Middle Ages she was Luxuria.

The commonest love-spring goddess of Mesoamerica is, however, Chalchihuetlicue, goddess of the Jade Petticoat, who in other images often carries flowers. This clay figure is from Faijin, ca 4-9th centuries AD. Note that she, like April above, wears a tall hat--with a knot on it, emblem of transition.

A tall hat is also worn by this seductive lady, with her old man companion, who appears on many early figurines from Jaina Island in Mesoamerica. Chances are she is the counterpart of April, but with her aged lover.

Uzume, the Japanese goddess of mirth and pleasure, however, again has a bow on her bonnet like Chalchihuetlicue; the gentleman she is attempting to lure into her bath is Susano-o, Japanese Wild Man. Her ‘bath’ is an idiom like April’s pond or Venus’ rising from the sea.

Lakshmi, too, sits by a pond garnished with flowers, carries flowers, and sits on the lotus. Her hat is, naturally, a tall one. She is attended not by cats, dogs or unicorn but by elephants. (See ANIMALS, Elephant). This portrait from about `1775 is in Kangra style.

And this 6th Century carving from the Deccan is perhaps an earlier form of her, with flower for head.

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