From the time long lost, the practices of witchcraft, sorcery and necromancy, have been
dreaded as the dark ways, the dark arts, a path only a few dared to follow, and even
fewer excelled. In the Greek myths, there were 4 figures whose skills and mastery in
these arts earned them great reverence, whose vast knowledge and power of the dark ways,
caused great fear in the lands.
1).Hecate. Queen of the night, the one before the gate,
Hecate was the goddess of witchcraft, magic, necromancy, crossroads, creatures of the night,
and the moon. A goddess capable of both good and evil, she was the only child of Perses
- Titan of destruction, and Asteria - Titan of the stars, and grand daughter to the elder
Titans - koios and Phoebe. When invoked for sexual crimes against women,
Hecate answered. When justice failed to come from all other sources, Hecate came forth.
She produced healing when all solutions had failed, she banished ghosts or manifested
them, she protected dogs and against dogs, she restored the fertility of female children,
and granted swift and painless death. Hecate was a powerful shapeshifter who could
take on any form, from a black dog to a full grown woman, from a tiny cat to a huge dragon,
from an ugly tattered old hag to a beautiful flawless young lady. As the guardian of crossroads,
Hecate is usually represented as having three faces, and carrying a torch, to show her association
with the dark nights, or holding a skeleton key that unlocks the gates of all realms.
Also strongly associated with hounds, she was always accompanied by them. She was the
three-headed goddess of the moon, who could grant any wish, a companion to the furies
- spirits of vengeance, and the mother of the Empusae, female demons of seduction.
2).Circe. Well versed in the arts of herbs, potions,
spells and incantations, Circe was the powerful enchantress daughter of the god - Helios and
the nymph - Perse, and the sister to Pasiphae - queen of crete, and Aeetes - keeper of the
golden fleece. Though the beautiful sorceress used her powers for healing and purification,
she had one peculiar habit, she enjoyed turning people into animals.
She turned Odysseus' men into pigs when they came upon her island, and were it not for
the Molly herb given to Odysseus by Hermes, the king of Ithaca would have equally fallen
victim to her spells. However, he did become her lover, and the two had three children. It
is said that Circe possessed the power to hide the sun and moon, if she willed. She
was attended to by nymphs, and when in need of guidance or spiritual assistance, she invoked
the presence of “dark” deities like Chaos, Nyx and Hecate. The mansion she lived in,
was surrounded lions, tigers and wolves, but these animals were all harmless. Why? Because
they were once men, they were victims of her magic.
3).Pasiphae. Pasiphae was the queen of crete, the daughter
to Helios and Perse, the sister to Circe and Aeetes, the wife to the cretan king - Minos,
and the mother of the Minotaur. She was an adept of black magic and witchcraft, and like
Circe, she had great knowledge of magical herbs, spells and concoctions. When she discovered
that her husband, the king, was unfaithful to her, sleeping with other women, and having
other children, Pasiphae cast a powerful spell on him, that if he slept with any other woman
aside her, he would ejaculate snakes, worms and scorpions, instead of semen. And that
was it, she then had the king all to herself.
4).Medea. Medea was a princess of Colchis and a devoted
priestess of hecate. She was the daughter of King Aeetes of Colchis, and the Oceanid
- Idyia, the granddaughter of Helios, and the niece to Circe and Pasiphae. Being closely
related to two powerful witches, sorcery indeed ran in her bloodline, and her skills almost
equalled those of her aunts. Medea married Jason, the leader of the Argonauts,
and greatly aided him in his quest for the golden fleece. King Aeetes was bent on keeping
the fleece in Colchis, and so sent Jason on deadly tasks. But in each of these tasks,
Medea was there to help her husband and ensure his success. When Jason encountered the great
spartoi warriors born from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus, it was Medea who showed him
how to turn the warriors against each other. She protected him from the firebreathing bulls
of Aeetes, and put the colchian dragon to deep sleep, to make sure he safely retrieved
the fleece. She went further to murder her half brother, Aspyrtus, so the Argonauts could
sail away. Were it not for her help, the Argonauts would never have succeeded.
However, after the quest, when Jason betrayed her for another woman, Medea turned dark and
vengeful. She killed her husband's newfound lover, then killed her own children, the children
conceived with Jason.