Hecate is the Olympian Goddess of Magic, Crossroads, Ghosts, the Moon, Sexual Deviancy, Necromancy, and Witchcraft and due to this has long been the primary goddess worshipped by witches and sorceresses.
While worshiped as a protective goddess who offered her followers magical power and warded away evil spirits and ghosts, Hecate is also a necromancer god who could summon and control spirits, ghosts and demons and possessed control over Tartarus as one of the wives of Hades.
While respected even by the likes of Zeus, Hecate disliked the opulence of Olympus and seldom resided there, instead she preferred the company of spirits and monsters and lived within the Underworld where she could practise her magics in peace.
Background[]
Daughter of the Titan Perses and the Titaness Asteria, during the Titanomachy war between the Titans and the Olympian Gods, Hecate sided with the Olympian Gods and as a reward for her allegiance Zeus offered to granted her one wish in exchange for her continued loyalty whereapon Hecate wished for the power to grant unto any mortal anything they desired.
After she transformed Cronus' dead body into a gnarled tree in Limbo, Hecate cast an additional spell to hide the newly anointed gods from wandering eyes, reasoning that the Olympians were greatly weakened after usurping power from Cronus and she feared that other gods in the universe would take advantage of their weakness and seize Earth for themselves.
In a myth regarding her and Hera, the young Hecate was said to have grown curious regarding child birthing. While Hera refused to teach her, as she believed such knowledge would corrupt a virgin goddess, Hecate's curiosity would not abate and she secretly spied on Hera while she aided a woman in delivering her child.
When Hera began gathering the other gods in an attempt to overthrow Zeus, Hecate warned Zeus of their scheming. When Hera drugged Zeus and the other gods bound him to a couch, Briareus, one of the Hecatoncheires, snuck in and quickly untied the knots that held Zeus in place. Zeus then sprang from the couch and grabbed his thunderbolts. As the other gods fell to their knees begging and pleading for mercy, he seized Hera and hung her from the sky with gold chains. She wept in pain all night, but none of the other gods dared to interfere. Her weeping kept Zeus up, so the following morning, he agreed to release her if she swore never to rebel again. As a reward for her warning, Zeus wed Hecate to Hades and gave her partial power over Tartarus.
After he became the messenger of the gods, one of the young Hermes' new duties was to direct the souls of the dead down to the mouth of the Underworld where the much older Hekate would sometimes be receiving them or sometimes be in the process of leading them back up to the mortal realm as ghosts. Due to this the pair frequently met as they went about their duties and, eventually, Hecate became interested in hermes' youthful virility and enthusiasm. Eventually desiring the childish boy, Hecate seduced the second-youngest of the Olympian Gods into sleeping with her by offering to show him her more mature body and to teach him everything she knows about sex; additionally letting him take the virginity of one her three forms in exchange for her taking his virile seeds of creation on the banks of the Thessalian Lake Boibeis. As the two gods continued to have sexual liaisons, Hecate sometimes fell pregnant and has given birth to at least three unnamed daughters due to her liaisons with Hermes.
When Hades later became enthralled with the goddess Persephone and kidnapped her in an attempt to court her, Hecate "helped" Demeter, Persephone's overbearing mother, in her search for Persephone by holding torches for Demeter at night as they traveled despite already knowing where Persephone was, having witnessed Persephone's abduction by her husband. After Demeter and her daughter finally reunited, Hecate became a close friend of Persephone as she became Hades' second wife. However, over time it became apparent that Persephone was Hades' favorite and Hecate's role in Hades' court was soon relegated to that of a handmaiden as Persephone became Queen of the Underworld.
Hera, resentful of Zeus' respect for her and her role in disrupting her attempted coup, forbade any Olympian from aiding Hecate in restoring her station.
Reasoning that they were now powerful enough to fend for themselves thanks to the mortal's newly established worship of them as the Heroic Age of Greece began, Hecate lifted the spell of concealment she had placed upon the Olympians and joined the other gods in guiding the race and teaching her ways to the mortals; creating a strong following amongst the mortals beginning in Thrace.
Possibly as part of a plan to create powerful children in the mortal world, Hecate once took on the guise of the Oceanid Perseis to sleep with Perseis' husband, the sun god Helios. Impregnated with Helios' seeds, Hecate gave birth to Aeëtes, Circe, and Pasiphaë. While her two daughters displayed a natural affinity to the study and practise of magic and herbology, her son, Aeëtes, gained rulership of the island of Colchis and created a new kingdom on the island alongside his sisters before having a daughter, Medea, who would also display an aptitude for magic like her aunts and fall into a tragic love with the hero Jason of the Argonauts.
When Pasiphaë was given in marriage to King Minos of Crete she quickly discovered that her new husband had a tendency to sleep with any woman he found desirable. Seeking to end this behaviour, Pasiphaë cast a spell so that her husband ejaculated serpents, scorpions, and centipedes into his lovers' wombs; killing them. As Pasiphaë herself was immortal, this meant that she was the only maiden her husband could sleep with without killing. However, this also meant that they could not have children as she could not conceive with her husband's "creature ejaculate".
Minos was later cured of his "affliction" by the Athenian girl Procris who he had seduced into wanting to have sex with him despite his curse. Offered the dog Laelaps and the javelin-that-never-missed (gifts originally given to his mother, Europa, by Zeus) if she did so and herself possessing a small desire for suicide due to the perceived failure of her marriage, Procris agreed to sleep with the king but took the precaution of giving him the "Circaean root" moly to drink so that he might not harm her when he ejaculated. As the moly's properties dispelled Pasiphaë's curse, on the climax of their union where Procris was expecting to receive Minos' poisoned creatures and die, her womb instead received his life-giving seeds. While Minos was overjoyed and continued sleeping with her, Procris soon deduced that Minos' affliction had actually been a curse inflicted on him by Pasiphaë to stop his philandering and left Crete, fearing Pasiphaë's revenge, taking Laelaps and the javelin with her.
With her husband no longer cursed, Pasiphaë had a number of children by him, such as Ariadne, Androgeus, Glaucus, Phaedra and Xenodice, until she was cursed by Poseidon into desiring intercourse with a majestic white bull that her husband had cheated the god into giving him, and giving birth to Asterion; The Minotaur.
While assisting the gods in their war with the Gigantes; where she personally slew Clytius, Hecate began to grow weary of the prejudice she suffered from the other gods, who looked down on her secretive ways and tendency to associate and sexually procreate more with creatures and Tartarus-borne deities rather than with the Olympians. They did not see why Zeus held her in as such high regard as he did. Becoming angry and bitter as the mortals outside of her worship also began viewing her as a dark god (views that the other Olympians encouraged) and treated her followers with suspicion and mistrust, when her other daughter, Circe, was exiled from Colchis for killing her husband and isolated on the island of Aeaea, she heard her daughter's prayer for more power so that she may enact her vengeance. Deciding that her daughter could enact vengeance for the both of them, she traded her soul with Circe's; giving her godly power on the condition that she would retrieve her soul upon the completion of the following prophecy; "Upon the death of witch and the birth of witch, Hecate, by name and choice, shall repossess her soul".
Now bestowed with the incredible power of a god, Circe first used her new-found power to destroy Colchis before turning to use her influence in fanning mistrust between the men and women of Greece to appease Hecate's wishes for retribution.
When the New God Uxas of Apokolips came to Rome after its creation following the Trojan War, he spread tales of the great Olympian gods and their following grew tremendously. In order to tend to the needs of two countries of worshippers, the Olympians all followed Aphrodite's example and created avatars of themselves to serve as their Roman representatives; with Hecate creating Trivia; the Roman Goddess of Sorcery and Witchcraft. While the effort meant that the gods could receive the power of faith from two countries, Uxas knew that the pantheon would be less powerful divided than it ever could be together.
As the centuries passed, Hecate became remembered not as a protective Goddess of sorcery but as a dark Goddess who, at night, sent out spirits and phantoms into the world, taught magic and sorcery to brave mortals, and generally wandered about after dark with the souls of the dead accompanied by the baying of dogs and hellhounds. The Greece and Roman faiths began to wane under the rise of the Faith of the One God, however, while most other mythological pantheons faded to near extinction as their followers declined in number, the Olympians' power was buoyed by the faith of the Amazons of Themyscira, as the goddess Artemis had designed. In addition, Hecate's power remained buoyed thanks to her worship amongst the secretive magic users that had learned to hide themselves from public prosecution long before the Fall of Rome.
After the turn of the twentieth century, Circe learned of the Amazonian hero Diana of Themyscira, aka Wonder Woman, she believed that Diana; who had the same name as moon goddess that was closely associated with Hecate; The witch, could be the "witch" that Hecate's prophecy was referring to.
Fearing that Diana would steal Hecate's soul and power from her, Circe decided to destroy the hero before she destroyed her, however, while she successfully imprisoned the hero on Aeaea, she was thwarted by the sudden intervention of Hermes; who saved the hero and teleported Circe off of her island.
When she incited the War of the Gods incident shortly thereafter, Circe believed that she was acting upon Hecate's desires for vengeance by destroying Gaia and, in so doing, destroying the planet that had now cast her as a malevolent witch goddess. However, Hecate had come to realize that, in pursuing her vengeance and destroying Gaia, she would be destroying herself as well and so no longer wished to pursue revenged. Circe, however, wished to continue. During the incident, Wonder Woman was killed and subsequently reborn in the womb of Gaia, inadvertently fulfilling the "Upon the death of the witch and the birth of the witch" part of the prophecy. Completing the rest of the prophecy by repossessing her soul, Hecate temporarily took away Circe's power at a critical moment and the sorceress was seemingly destroyed.
While her daughter remains rogue, Hecate resumes her position in Olympus as the Goddess of Magic, watching over her followers; both benign and malicious, in this new age of heroes and villains.
Involvement[]
- Hecate is the second boss in the Olympus raid.
- Hecate appears in the JLDC: Cursed Themyscira solo challenge.
- Ethereal Hecate is the second boss in the JLDC: Cursed Themyscira 8-player operation.
- Hecate is the thrid and last boss in the JLDC: Cursed Themyscira 8-player operation.
Villains[]
- Hecate appears as Circe's mentor and gives her strength after the arena fight in God of Monsters.
Associated Equipment[]
- Enhanced Emblem of Hecate
- Emblem of Hecate
- Witch-Mother Bracers
- Witch-Mother Emblem
- Hecate Statue
- Hecate Statue (League Halls)
- Hecate's Elixir
- Vengeance of Hecate Costume Style
- Statue of Triumph: Hecate
Trivia[]
- Hecate first appeared in Superman Family #218 (May 1982).
- Hecate is considered as one of the Trinity Goddesses of the Moon, alongside Demeter and Artemis.
- Hecate has three faces/forms, one of a young maiden, a mother, and a crone. While she has had affairs with mortals, gods, spirits and monsters of varying genders, because of her ability to switch between her three forms she is also considered a virgin goddess as one of her forms still remains a virgin.
- Hecate once had a threesome with the ancient monstrous brother and sister sea-gods Phorcys and Ceto. Desiring to use the goddess to make a child, as a god who mothered mythical monsters Ceto enticed Hecate into her embrace by offering the goddess her breast milk during a chance meeting. Once she was within reach, Ceto disrobed the younger goddess and made love to her nude body; feeding on the goddess' exposed breasts and genitals and allowing the goddess to feed on hers. Pliant and readily seduced, when Ceto's brother/husband approached the fornicating pair Ceto offered both herself and Hecate to his desires and she held the willing goddess in her arms as Phorcys impregnated them both. As a result of their liaison, Hecate gave birth to Scylla; a beautiful sea nymph who was turned into a crab-monster by another of her daughters, Circe, when the sea-god Glaucus chose Scylla to love instead of her.
- Another of Hecate's children was Empusa, a vampiric demigoddess. Empusa was the beautiful daughter of Hecate and the vampiric female spirit, Mormo. Empusa was born when Mormo beseeched the goddess to give her a child despite her being a spirit, whereupon Hecate removed her robes, exposing her fertile body, and made love to the vampiric ghost; allowing Mormo to gain entrance into her genitals to corrupt an egg with her ghostly essence and impregnate her womb. Empusa feasted by seducing young men into having sex with her until they ejaculated, after which she would drink their blood and eat their flesh as they slept. One night she spotted a man sleeping on the side of the road and feeling hungry she attacked him. This man, however, was the Olympian god Zeus who, after overpowering her with his sexual prowess until she ejaculated like her victims had done, visited his wrath upon her and killed her.
- Lampads are the nymphs of the Underworld. Given to Hecate as companions by Zeus for Hecate's loyalty in the Titanomachy, they carry torches and accompany Hecate on her night-time travels and hauntings. Some accounts tell of how the light of their torches have the power to drive one to madness.
- Hecate's familiar, the black dog, was once Queen Hecuba, who leaped into the sea after the fall of Troy. Hekate saved her from death by turning her into a black dog and made her her familiar. Her other familiar, the weasel, was once the mortal Galinthais; when Alkmene was giving birth to Herakles, Hera told Eileithyia not to release the birth. But Alkmene's nursemaid Galinthais saw Eilithyia and yelled "The baby has arrived!," Eileithyia was so shocked that she lost her focus, allowing the actual birth to occur. When Hera realized that Eilithyia had been tricked she turned Galinthais into a weasel. Hekate, however, took mercy on Galinthais and made her an attendant.
- While she did enjoy men, Hecate was also known to kidnap young girls and maidens to have sex with as well as to have them assist her in her spells. This was probably due to the thought in magic theory that sex and intercourse, in its various forms, was a reliable font to create pure, primal magic and that a woman's body, as a life-bearing vessel, was a wellspring for contained energies (particularly in their mouth, breasts, and vagina/womb). Naysayers and witch hunters say that Hecate and her followers would draw these energies out of the girls' bodies during sex to maintain their youth and power and that the act of tribadism was used by worshippers of Hecate to draw a girl or woman's soul out of their bodies via their vagina and suck it into their own vaginas to eat. These kidnapped women are said to later became nymphs.
- As with all celestial gods, Hecate's power and life force depends on mortal faith. If mortals were to stop giving faith to her and indulging in her "realm of power" (in this case any and all forms of magic) she would lose her godhood, her immortality and, eventually, her life and cease to exist.
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