return to Home Page
or move on to Goddess Amaterasu-Omikami, next chronologically,
or use Her Cyclopedia Index
Alcyone, Queen-of-Who-Wards-Off-Evil. (1)
*LKÜONA
Alternate meanings: Princess-Who-Averts-Evil, Queen-Who-Wards-Off,
Queen-Who-Wards-Off-[Storms], Sea-Hound.
[to Whom the twelth day of January, day 011, is dedicated]
Geography/Culture: Greek: Pre-Hellenic Aeolian.
Linguistic Note: Greek orthography alpha-lambda-kappa-omikron-nu-eta, (Alcyone), the queen who wards off evil, or Hal-cyon, sea-hound.
Description: Goddess of the sea, the moon, conjugal happiness and tranquility; She Who is life in death (at the Year End Solstice), and death in life (at the Mid Year Solstice); She Who protects sailors from rocks and rough weather; Eponym of the Alcedinidae family (kingfishers) and the Halcyon Days which She brings; She for Whom the winds cease to blow when Her time comes to brood.
To Whom Sacred: thorns of the sea-needle (with which the ancients said the kingfisher built her nest and launched on the sea -- in fact kingfishers make no nests but lay their eggs in holes beside the water); kingfisher (into which, some say, both She and Ceyx were transformed -- kingfishers are Her messengers and portend calms); diver-bird (into which some say She was transformed); sea-mew (into which some say Ceyx was transformed); razor-bill (into which some say Ceyx was transformed); dove; the numbers 7 (She was one of 7 sisters and had seven brothers, see also festival) and 87, the number of species of Alcedinidae in the world; suicide (She drowned Herself at the death of Her consort); the constellation Pleiades.
Festival: the Halcyon Days, said to start 7 days before the Year End Solstice, and to continue 7 days after. (But rather than annual, perhaps just once every Great Year, ie of 100 lunations when solar and lunar times roughly match, refering to the length of a sacred king's reign.)
Male Associates: consort, Ceyx, Sea-Mew, of Trachis, son of the morning star; son, Hippasus. She was Daughter of Aeolus, guardian of the winds.
Archippe
, Dominant-Mare.
Halcyone
.
Geography/Culture: Greece.
Male Associates: sons, Hyrieus (who may have been fathered by Lycus), Anthas and Hypernor by Poseidon.
Geography/Culture: Greece.
Description: She and Her consort were probably originally a version of the Titans in charge of the seven celestial bodies.
Male Associates: consort, Aeolus, {Earth-Destroyer}, god of the winds; sons, Athamas, Crethus, Deion, Macareus, Happy, Perieres, Salmoneus and Sisyphus.
Aegeale
, She-Who-Wards-Off-the-Hurricane, (presumed variant: Aegiale
, possibly variant Aegialeia
, Of-the-Sea-Shore).
Arne
.
Calyce
.
Canace
, Barking (variant: Canache
).
Peisidice
.
Perimele
.
Tanagra
.
Geography/Culture: Greece.
Linguistic Note: from Greek alpha-eta-nu-eta a(eta)n(eta), stillness of the sea, calm.
Description: Goddess of fair-weather.