Symbol Dictionary Crone Destroyer Goddesses
Crone/Destroyer Goddesses Crone: The Pagan deity of the Triple Goddess appears in three phases, the Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The Crone being the third aspect of life includes wisdom, death, and rebirth. According to Barbara Walker, in her book, The Woman’s Encyclopedia Of Myths And Secrets (1983), throughout the world the Crone has had different forms, “exemplified by such figures as Kali the Destroyer, Cerridwen the death-dealing Sow, Atropos the Cutter, Macha, Hecate, Hel, Eresh-Kigal, Morgan, Queen of the Ghostworld, Queen of the Underworld, Queen of the Shades, Persephone ‘the Destroyer.’” The Crone exemplifies the cycle of life that includes old age, winter, death, the waning moon, and doomsday that makes room for the rebirth and new beginnings of the Maiden. The Crone also represents the last phase of a women’s life in which “women became very wise when they no longer shed the lunar ‘wise blood’ but kept it within, the Crone was usually a Goddess of Wisdom… Minerva, Athene, Metis, Sophia, and Medusa” (Walker, 1983).
Hag: Originally Hag was a revered title for a Holy Woman who represents the third phase of the Triple Goddess, the Crone. A Hag was a wise woman or priestess. It comes from the Egyptian haq and hekau, the title of a powerful matriarchal ruler. Barbara Walker in her book, The Woman’s Encyclopedia Of Myths And Secrets (1983), describes her transformation in Greece as Hecate, “the Crone or Hag as queen of the dead, incarnate on earth in a series of wise-women or high priestesses.” In Norse myth, hagi means a sacred grove of Iron Wood. In Northern Europe stone idols such as the Stone of Scone represented the Hag and are considered sacred. Hag did not become a derogatory term until Christian ministries ordered the idols shattered and according to Walker (1983) recite “once I was the Goddess and now I am nothing at all.”
Mara: Ancient title for the Crone-Goddess, Mara was a death-bringer and her name has traveled all over the world. Buddhists recognize her as “Fear-of-Death;” Hindus created legends about her entrapping huntsmen in mirrors of death, a story that was retold in Pelasgian of Dionysus; Slavs knew her as Mora, who “drank the blood of men;” Semitics knew her as Marah, the “passive weight and darkness” of the Underworld; the New Testament called her Maralah and her shrines “a place of trembling”; as another face of Kali, Kel-Mari was Mara in Egypt; in Hebrew she was Mariamne, Miriam, and Mary; other names include Mari-Amma and Mari (Walker, 1983). Barbara Walker, in her book, The Woman’s Encyclopedia Of Myths And Secrets (1983), asserts that Mara is an “Exceedingly ancient name of the Goddess-as-Crone, the death-bringer. The name and its variants may be found from India to northern Europe.”