Hecate
Hecate is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Her iconography most often includes her holding a pair of torches, a key, or snakes, or accompanied by dogs. In later periods, she was depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied in association with the phases of the moon.
She is variously associated with crossroads, night, light, ritual magic, protection from witchcraft, recreational drugs, death, and ghosts.
Name
A Greek word suggested as the origin of the name Hecate is Ἑκατός Hekatos, an obscure epithet of Apollo interpreted as "the far-reaching one" or "the far-darter." Though often considered the most likely Greek origin of the name, this theory does not account for her worship in Asia Minor, where her association with Artemis seems to have been a late development, and the competing theories that the attribution of darker aspects and magic to Hecate were themselves not originally part of her cult. Dutch linguist R. S. P. Beekes rejected a Greek etymology and suggested a Pre-Greek origin.
In Early Modern English, the name was also pronounced disyllabically (as /ˈhɛk.ɪt/) and sometimes spelled "Hecat." It remained common practice in English to pronounce her name in two syllables, even when spelled with final "e," well into the 19th century. Webster's Dictionary of 1866 particularly credits the influence of Shakespeare for the then-predominant disyllabic pronunciation of the name.
Origin
Evidence suggests that Hecate originated among the Carians of Anatolia, the region where most theophoric names invoking Hecate, such as Hecataeus or Hecatomnus, the father of Mausolus, are attested, and where Hecate remained a Great Goddess into historical times, at her unrivalled cult site in Lagina. In particular, there is some evidence that she might be derived from the local sun goddesses based on similar attributes.
If Hecate's cult spread from Anatolia into Greece, then it possibly presented a conflict, as her role was already filled by other more prominent deities in the Greek pantheon, above all by Artemis and Selene. This line of reasoning lies behind the widely accepted hypothesis that she was a foreign deity who was incorporated into the Greek pantheon. Other than in the Theogony, the Greek sources do not offer a consistent story of her parentage or of her relations in the Greek pantheon.
Egyptian
A possible theory of a foreign origin for the name may be Heqet (ḥqt), a frog-headed Egyptian goddess of fertility and childbirth, who, like Hecate, was also associated with ḥqꜣ, ruler. The word heka in the Egyptian language is also both the word for "magic" and the name of the god of magic and medicine, Heka.
Iconography
Hecate was generally represented as three-formed or triple-bodied, though the earliest known images of the goddess are singular. Her earliest known representation is a small terracotta statue found in Athens.
A 6th century fragment of pottery from Boetia depicts a goddess which may be Hecate in a maternal or fertility mode. Crowned with leafy branches as in later descriptions, she is depicted offering a "maternal blessing" to two maidens who embrace her. The figure is flanked by lions, an animal associated with Hecate both in the Chaldean Oracles, coinage, and reliefs from Asia Minor.
In artwork, she is often portrayed in three statues standing back to back, each with its own special attributes (torch, keys, daggers, snakes, dogs).
In Egyptian-inspired Greek esoteric writings connected with Hermes Trismegistus, and in the Greek Magical Papyri of Late Antiquity, Hecate is described as having three heads: one dog, one serpent, and one horse. In other representations, her animal heads include those of a cow and a boar.
Function
Hecate was associated with borders, city walls, doorways, crossroads and, by extension, with realms outside or beyond the world of the living. She appears to have been particularly associated with being "between" and hence is frequently characterized as a "liminal" goddess similar in function to Anubis.
Thanks to her association with boundaries and the liminal spaces between worlds, Hecate is also recognized as a chthonic (underworld) goddess. As the holder of the keys that can unlock the gates between realms, she can unlock the gates of death, as described in a 3rd-century BCE poem by Theocritus. In the 1st century CE, Virgil described the entrance to hell as "Hecate's Grove," though he says that Hecate is equally "powerful in Heaven and Hell." The Greek Magical Papyri describe Hecate as the holder of the keys to Tartaros.
By the 1st century CE, Hecate's chthonic and nocturnal character had led to her transformation into a goddess heavily associated with witchcraft, witches, magic, and sorcery.
Goddess of the moon
Hecate was seen as a triple deity, identified with the goddesses Luna (Moon) in the sky and Diana (hunting) on the earth, while she represents the Underworld. Hecate's association with Helios in literary sources and especially in cursing magic has been cited as evidence for her lunar nature, although this evidence is pretty late; no artwork before the Roman period connecting Hecate to the moon exists.
Worship
The earliest definitive record of Hecate's worship dates to the 6th century BCE, in the form of a small terracotta statue of a seated goddess, identified as Hecate in its inscription. Her cult became established in Athens about 430 BCE.
Worship of Hecate existed alongside other deities in major public shrines and temples in antiquity, and she had a significant role as household deity. Shrines to Hecate were often placed at doorways to homes, temples, and cities with the belief that it would protect from restless dead and other spirits.
Home shrines often took the form of a small Hekataion, a shrine centred on a wood or stone carving of a triple Hecate facing in three directions on three sides of a central pillar. Larger Hekataions, often enclosed within small walled areas, were sometimes placed at public crossroads near important sites – for example, there was one on the road leading to the Acropolis. Likewise, shrines to Hecate at three way crossroads were created where food offerings were left at the new moon to protect those who did so from spirits and other evils.
Hecate's most important sanctuary was Lagina, a theocratic city-state in which the goddess was served by eunuchs.
Legacy
Shakespeare mentions Hecate in conjunction with witchcraft in his plays Macbeth and King Lear.
The 1920s new religious movement known as the Blackburn Cult (also called "The Cult of the Great Eleven") conducted rituals to worship Hecate. Their idiosyncratic practices included necromancy and dog sacrifice.
As a "goddess of witchcraft," Hecate has been incorporated in various systems of Neopagan witchcraft and Wicca.