Artemis by Marjabella La Fey

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo.  She is a nature goddess but also a goddess of the hunt and wild animals, she is often depicted with a stag or a hunting dog.  She was the huntress of the gods and the protector of the young, and like her brother Apollo she hunted with silver arrows.  Artemis was a virgin goddess and a goddess of chastity, but later in her guise as the Roman goddess “Diana”, she was not so chaste.  As Artemis, she presided over childbirth, which may seem at odds with her being a virgin but the association goes back to her birth, for while she herself had been born pain free, her brother Apollo caused Leto great suffering.  No sooner had she been born then Artemis served as midwife for the birth of Apollo and so became known as the protector and helper of women.  Throughout the ages women have traditionally preyed to her to ease the hardship of childbirth.

As a youth she had a boyish sense of adventure and was fiercely independent.  She requested and was granted from her father a bow and quiver of arrows similar to that of her brother Apollo, but Zeus, the concerned father, also gave her a band of nymph maidens and a pack of hounds to follow her.  To aid her running and to ensure her chastity, he also gave her a short tunic so she could run forever through the wilderness.  She came to protect all wildlife and animals, and any humans who asked for her aid, particular women who had been raped or victimized by men, in which cases she was quick to punish offenders. 

Her punishment of men is recorded in legend.  Actaecon, a hunter who spied on Artemis and her nymphs as they bathed nude in a forest pool, was turned into a stag and torn to pieces by his own hounds.  In another legend she sent a boar to ravage the countryside of Calydon as punishment to King Oeneus because he forgot to pay tribute to her in the first sacrifice of the fruits of the harvest.  He sent out some of his bravest warriors in Greece but none could slay the beast, it took another woman “Atalanta” to kill it. 

Her most famous legend concerns the death of Orion, who she killed with an arrow through the head.  Orion was a great and handsome hunter who won the affections of Artemis, but her brother Apollo didn’t like him and accused him of distracting her from her duties.  Apollo then tricked Artemis into shooting him with the arrow.  When she discovered the trick the grieving Artemis honored Orion in the sky, after whom the star constellation "Orion the Hunter " was named.  In another version, Artemis killed him because of his arrogance and out of jealousy over his feelings for Dawn. 

The worship of Artemis was prolific and flourished throughout the Mediterranean regions as far back as the Bronze Age.  Later Greek colonists at Ephesus in Asia Minor built a famous temple to her.  The early Greek settlers found the Asian inhabitants worshiping a many-breasted nature goddess who they identified with their Artemis.  So together they raised a shrine to her, this was rebuilt and enlarged as time went by.  The fourth temple to be built was known as “The Temple of Artemis”, and became famous as one of the “Seven Wonders of the then World”.  Made of marble except for its tile-covered wooden roof, it was built by contributions from all the great cities of Asia.  Dedicated about 430 BC, it had taken some 120 years to complete.  According to legend it was set on fire and destroyed on the night Alexander the Great was born in 356 BC.  Someone called Herostratus started the blaze merely so his name might be remembered in history. 

Later as Greece became absorbed into the Roman Empire, many of the Greek gods were renamed to suit the Roman culture of gods, and so Artemis became better known as Diana.  Diana retained many of the attributes of Artemis, such as being a virgin goddess and a maiden warrior-goddess of the hunt, but she differed in that she was not so chaste.  It was rumoured among the gods that she had many lovers such as:  Hippolytus, Endymion, Virbius and Dianus, and by some accounts she even took her brother Apollo as a lover.  Diana also became associated with the moon.  As a moon goddess she shared a lunar trinity with Selene and Hecate, but representing power over the earth she became revered as the patroness of witches.  Diana personifies the positive aspects of the moon, the main source of a witch’s magickal power, as well as woman’s independence, self-esteem and aggressiveness, she was the eternal feminist, owned by none and beholden to none.  As a favorite among rural people, Diana was also goddess of vegetation and attended by her nymphs, she supervised the waters to produce lush wild growth. 

Well into the fifth and sixth centuries Dianic worship flourished among European pagans, but with the onslaught and growth of Christianity, Diana became associated with the Devil and Satan.  She was thought to have been the patroness of Sorcery and to have lead witches processions and evil rites.  As such she also became associated with Herodias, the wife of Herod Antipas, who was the son of Herod the Great.  Herod Antipas was tetrarch (governor) of Galilee, and it was he who questioned Jesus before the crucifixion.  Earlier he had divorced his wife and married his niece Herodias, but John the Baptist denounced his marriage, so Herod had him imprisoned.  Later that year on Herod's birthday, his stepdaughter Salome danced before him and his guests.  Herod was so delighted he told her she might ask for anything she wished.  At the urging of her mother Herodias, she asked for the head of John the Baptist.  Herod immediately had him executed, and his head was given to Salome. 

After this event Herodias took on aspects of a demon, and was condemned to wonder through the sky forever, only allowed to rest in treetops from mid-night till dawn.  In Italian lore the name Herodias became Aradia, who according to Charles Godfrey Leland was the daughter of Diana and her brother Lucifer.  It was Diana as goddess of the witches, who sent Aradia to earth to teach the witches their craft. 

The Canon Episcopi, an ecclesiastical law written about circa. 900, also speaks of a devil Diana, one who lead the witches: 

“It is not to be omitted that some wicked women, perverted by the Devil, seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and profess themselves, in the hours of the night, to ride upon certain beasts with Diana, the goddess of pagans, and an innumerable multitude of women, and in the silence of the dead of the night to traverse great spaces of earth, and to obey her commands as of their mistress, and to be summoned to her service on certain nights”.           

British anthropologist Margaret A. Murray believed that an organized cult of Dianic witches existed throughout the Middle Ages and the Witch-hunt era, but no other evidence survives to support these claims.  It is thought that Murray relied heavily upon the above Canon Episcopi in developing her ideas.  Despite this Gerald B. Gardner adopted her theories when he started the revival of modern day witchcraft in the 1950’s. 

In contemporary witchcraft most modern witches no longer believe in Murray’s Dianic cult theories, though a great many still revere Diana as a pagan goddess and archetype of women.  In the triple goddess aspects of the moon, Diana holds sway over the new and waxing moon, a period auspicious for magick related to new beginnings, growth and achievement, at which time she is also invoked as a nurturer and protector, particularly of women.  At the full moon she then turns her power over to Selene.  As an archetype she serves as a role model for the feminist tradition of witchcraft called Dianic Wicca, to many of whom she is a free spirit and achiever who knows what she wants, and who is neither dependant nor subjugated by men.  Although Diana is a lunar goddess, she still walks the earth with her bow and arrow, protecting and defending her domain of the wild.  Her tree is the cypress and all wild animals are scared to her, especially the deer.