goddess

Such deities may correspond to earthly and celestial phenomena or to human values, pastimes, and institutions, including love, marriage, hunting, war, and the arts. While some are capable of being killed, many are immortal. Although they are always more powerful than humans, they are often described…

…distinguish clearly between the individual goddesses and these mother-goddesses, matres or matronae, who figure so frequently in Celtic iconography, often, as in Irish tradition, in triadic form. Both types of goddesses are concerned with fertility and with the seasonal cycle of nature, and, on the evidence of insular tradition, both…

…West, especially those associated with female deities who were either worshiped in frenzied rites of self-mutilation (e.g., the Phrygian Cybele, brought to Rome in 204 bc; the Syrian Atargatis; or the Cappadocian Ma-Bellona) or in adoring contemplation of their beneficence and gentle rites of divine rebirth (e.g., the Egyptian Isis,…