return to Home Page
or move on to Goddess Thou, next chronologically,
or use Her Cyclopedia Index

Pomona, Apple-Queen.
P0MON1
[to Whom the fifth day of July, day 186, is dedicated]


Geography/Culture: Roman. (41 52 n x 12 37 e). She had a sacred grove, the pomunal {of fruit trees, presumably, if not precisely apple-trees}, near Ostia. A 1st century BCE statuette of Her has been found near Padua.
Linguistic note: from Latin pomum, 'apple, fruit'. Derived words: French pomme, 'apple', pomme de terre, 'apple of the earth', (a potatoe); English: pomology (the science of fruit culture); pomaceous; pommel, 'a knob' (as on a sword); pomegranate (apple filled with hard seeds); pomander (a ball made of perfumes such as ambergris).
Description: Goddess of fruits, particularly those that grow on trees, and of those especially apples; She Who watches over orchards and gardens; Matron of gardeners and horticulturists; She Who makes Her appearance in the autumnal season of mists and mellow fruitfulness; She Who is robust, and as handsome as an apple on a tree.
To Whom are sacred: pomaceous fruits of all kinds, especially apples; {cider; apple-jack; calvados}; the month of September; pruning hook; spade; grafting (the art of which She may have taught); ladder (for picking fruit).
Her priest is the flamen Pomonalis.
Icon: She is represented as a beautiful maiden with fruits in Her bosom and a pruning knife in Her hand. She wears a brown dress and leaves about Her head.
Male associates: counterpart Pomunus, ----, who may have been identical with Her consort, Vertumnus, Changer, shape-shifting God of orchards, gardens and the turning year. She was courted by: Pan, ----, Picus, ----, (who, some say, was Her consort), Priapus, ----, and Silenus, ----. Also by Sylvanus, ----, and many Satyrs, ----. Source: Colum MW 119-121; Encyc Amer v22 343; Encyc Brit v22 48; Howe HCM 229; Carlyon GG 199; Kaster PCMD 173; Kravitz WWGRM 197; Skeats EDEL. Image: New Larousse EM 218.
printed July 6, 1990 -- worked on: July 1990; August 1991; June 1995.
Return to the top of this document.