50 Fun Facts About Goddesses

NASA's program to return astronauts to the Moon is named after which Greek goddess, the twin sister of Apollo?

Artemis was chosen because the program follows Apollo, the 1960s Moon landings named after her twin brother. NASA announced the name in 2019.

Which planet, the hottest in the Solar System, is the only one named after a goddess rather than a god?

Venus takes its name from the Roman goddess of love and beauty, and all but three of the features mapped on its surface have female names too.

Which Greek goddess, a loving mother in Disney's Hercules, sends snakes to kill the baby hero in the usual myth?

Hera was his stepmother and sworn enemy: Hercules was Zeus's son by the mortal Alcmene, and the infant is said to have strangled both snakes with his bare hands.

Roman poets such as Virgil addressed a goddess by the title Trivia because she was the guardian of which places?

Crossroads, especially where three roads met: Trivia comes from the Latin trivium, 'triple way'. The same root gave English the word 'trivial'.

Which winged Greek goddess of victory is the subject of a headless marble statue atop the Louvre's main staircase?

Nike had already lost her head and arms when a French diplomat dug the statue up on the island of Samothrace in 1863. The sportswear brand borrowed her name.

Which Hawaiian volcano goddess is blamed for a curse that makes tourists mail stolen lava rocks back to the islands?

Pele is said to live in a crater of Kīlauea, but the rock curse is probably a 20th-century invention. One story credits a park ranger fed up with souvenir hunters.

Which cat-headed Egyptian goddess had a temple city where pilgrims left mummified cats as offerings to her?

Bastet began as a fierce lioness goddess and softened into a house cat over the centuries. Families who could afford it had their own dead cats embalmed.

Which Norse goddess of love rides a chariot pulled by two cats and claims half of the warriors slain in battle?

Freyja takes her share of the fallen to her field Fólkvangr, while the other half go to Odin's Valhalla. She also owns a cloak of falcon feathers.

Which Greek goddess must spend part of every year in the underworld after eating pomegranate seeds offered by Hades?

Persephone's yearly absence was the Greeks' explanation for the seasons: her mother Demeter lets the earth go barren while she is away, and it blooms on her return.

Justitia, the Roman goddess seen on courthouses as Lady Justice, holds a sword in one hand and what in the other?

A set of scales lets her weigh the evidence on each side, a symbol of justice that goes back to ancient Egypt. Her blindfold only became common in the 16th century.

Which Greek goddess of wisdom was born fully armed from the forehead of her father Zeus?

Athena had an odd start even by Greek standards: in Hesiod's telling, Zeus had swallowed her pregnant mother Metis, so the child was born from him instead.

Which Greek goddess of love was born from sea foam, according to Hesiod, with Cyprus claiming to be her birthplace?

Aphrodite sounded to Hesiod like aphros, the Greek word for foam, so he read her name as 'risen from the foam'. Most modern scholars call that a folk etymology.

Which Egyptian goddess brought her murdered husband Osiris back to life and bore his heir, the falcon god Horus?

Isis began as a goddess of ancient Egypt, yet her worship later spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, with devotees found all across the Roman Empire.

Which fierce Hindu goddess is usually shown with a lolling tongue and a necklace of skulls or severed heads?

Kali, in one famous telling, sticks out her tongue to catch the blood of the demon Raktabija, because every drop that reached the ground grew into a copy of him.

Which Hindu goddess of prosperity, usually shown on a lotus, do families welcome with lights at Diwali?

Lakshmi is believed to visit her devotees on the festival's main night, and a happier visit means more blessings. Her four arms stand for the four goals of human life.

Which Shinto sun goddess, claimed as an ancestor by Japan's emperors, once darkened the world by hiding in a cave?

Amaterasu was coaxed out by a noisy party: the goddess Uzume danced on an upturned tub until the other gods roared with laughter, and the curious sun came to look.

Which Roman goddess of the dawn lends her name to the shimmering lights seen in the night sky near the poles?

Aurora was said to travel from east to west each morning announcing the Sun, and Galileo was writing of an 'aurora borealis', a northern dawn, by 1619.

NASA named its Jupiter orbiter after which Roman goddess, who could peer through the clouds her husband hid behind?

Juno was married to Jupiter, king of the Roman gods, who drew a veil of cloud around himself to hide his mischief. The probe was sent to look beneath the planet's clouds.

Which Greek goddess of strife, left off a wedding guest list, threw in a golden apple marked 'For the fairest'?

Eris set three goddesses quarrelling over the apple, the feud that led to the Trojan War. The dwarf planet that cost Pluto its planet status was named after her in 2006.

Which Norse goddess, a daughter of Loki with a half-blue body, rules an underworld realm that shares her name?

Hel drove a hard bargain when the beloved god Baldr died: she would release him only if everything in the world, alive or dead, wept for him. One giantess refused.

Which Greek goddess of retribution punished the vain Narcissus by making him fall in love with his own reflection?

Nemesis punished hubris, arrogance before the gods, and her name lives on in English as the word for an arch-rival. In some traditions she was the mother of Helen of Troy.

Which winged Greek goddess carried messages for the Olympians and was the personification of the rainbow?

Iris shares her name with the colored ring of the eye: both come from the Greek word for rainbow, a nod to the many colors the eye can take. In ancient art she carries a herald's staff and a pitcher of water.

Which Greek earth goddess, mother of the Titans, gave her name to James Lovelock's theory of a living planet?

Gaia was suggested to Lovelock by his neighbour, the novelist William Golding, who was living in the same Wiltshire village at the time.

Which Greek goddess of witchcraft appears in Shakespeare's Macbeth to scold the three witches for acting without her?

Hecate's scolding scene is believed to be a later addition that Shakespeare did not write himself. Later Greek art typically shows her with three bodies.

Which nine Greek goddesses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, did poets such as Homer call on for inspiration?

The Muses each looked after an art or science, and a shrine to them was a mouseion in Greek, which is where the word 'museum' comes from.

Which Roman goddess of agriculture shares her name with the dwarf planet that orbits inside the asteroid belt?

Ceres also reaches the breakfast table, because the word 'cereal' comes from her name. So does the metal cerium, discovered two years after the dwarf planet.

Which Roman goddess of the hearth had a sacred fire in the Forum tended by six priestesses sworn to chastity?

Vesta's priestesses served for at least thirty years, and the stakes were high: letting the fire go out meant a whipping, and breaking the vow meant being buried alive.

Earl Spencer's eulogy for his sister, a princess, noted she shared her name with which Roman goddess of hunting?

Diana, her brother said, was 'the most hunted person of the modern age', which he called the greatest irony about a girl named after the ancient goddess of hunting.

Which Roman goddess of luck is addressed in the thunderous opening chorus of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana?

Fortuna is scolded in the 13th-century poem Orff set to music as the fate that rules gods and mortals alike. Romans drew her with a wheel, a ship's rudder and a horn of plenty.

Which Norse goddess, the wife of Odin and mother of Baldr, gives the English weekday Friday its name?

Frigg made every object on earth vow never to hurt her son after he dreamed of his own death, all except the mistletoe. Old English called her day Frigedaeg.

Which Norse goddess kept the apples that stopped the gods from aging, until Loki lured her away to a giant?

Idun's absence made the gods grow old and grey, so they forced Loki to bring her back. He set out to find her in the shape of a falcon.

Which Norse goddess of skiing and winter had to choose her husband by looking only at the gods' feet?

Skadi picked the most attractive feet, sure they belonged to handsome Baldr, and got the sea god Njord instead. The marriage was her compensation after the gods killed her father.

Which Egyptian lioness goddess stopped slaughtering humanity only after drinking a lake of beer dyed red like blood?

Sekhmet mistook the beer for blood and drank until she gave up the massacre. The sun god Ra had sent her to punish people who plotted against him.

Which Egyptian goddess of truth supplied the ostrich feather against which a dead person's heart was weighed?

Maat's feather decided everything: a heart no heavier than it earned its owner paradise, while an unworthy heart was devoured by Ammit, who sat waiting for the result.

Which Egyptian sky goddess, shown as a star-covered woman arching over the Earth, was said to swallow the Sun at dusk?

Nut carried the Sun through her body overnight and gave birth to it again at dawn. Her partner was her brother Geb, the Earth she arches over.

Taweret, the Egyptian goddess who protected mothers in childbirth, was shown standing upright as which animal?

A hippopotamus guards its young fiercely, which made it the right shape for a protector of mothers. Taweret also had a lion's paws and a crocodile's back and tail.

Which Hindu goddess of learning and music is shown with a book in one hand and the stringed veena in another?

Saraswati began as a river goddess in the Vedas, tied to a sacred river of the same name. Only later did speech, poetry and music become her main concerns.

Which Hindu warrior goddess rides a lion or tiger and is celebrated for slaying the buffalo demon Mahishasura?

Durga carries a weapon in each of her many arms, and her victory is retold every autumn at festivals such as Navaratri.

Which Hindu river goddess was caught in the matted hair of Shiva to break her fall from heaven to Earth?

Ganga came down as a favor to the royal sage Bhagiratha, who wanted her waters to purify the souls of his ancestors. She rides a crocodile-like creature called the makara.

Which Mesopotamian goddess of love and war gave her name to Babylon's blue-glazed gate, partly rebuilt in Berlin?

Ishtar's gate was built on the orders of King Nebuchadnezzar II as an entrance to the inner city. Her own symbols were the lion and the eight-pointed star.

Which Babylonian goddess of the primeval sea was slain by Marduk, who built the heavens and the earth from her body?

Tiamat did not go quietly: before Marduk defeated her she conjured an army of monsters with poison instead of blood. The story is told in the epic Enuma Elish.

Which Chinese Moon goddess, the wife of the archer Hou Yi, gave her name to China's series of lunar probes?

Chang'e shares the Moon with a pet rabbit called Yutu, the 'Jade Rabbit', so the rovers carried by the Chang'e 3 and Chang'e 4 missions were named Yutu and Yutu-2.

The camera maker Canon takes its name from the Japanese form of which East Asian goddess of mercy?

Guanyin is Kannon in Japanese, and the company's 1934 prototype camera was called the Kwanon. Her full Chinese name means the one who perceives the sounds of the world.

Which Andean mother goddess, shown bearing potatoes or coca leaves, is honored with a toast before festivities?

Pachamama's shrines were sacred rocks or the trunks of legendary trees, and priests sacrifice llamas, guinea pigs and miniature burned garments to her.

Which Inuit sea goddess lost her fingers as she clung to a boat, and saw them become seals, walruses and whales?

Sedna is said to live at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, which is why astronomer Mike Brown gave her name to a remote world he found very far from the Sun.

Which Yoruba river goddess of love is honored each year at a sacred grove in the Nigerian city of Osogbo?

Oshun is the patron of the river that flows past the grove and bears her name, and the forest sanctuary is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tradition makes her a queen of Oyo.

Which Irish goddess of poetry, healing and smithcraft shares her name and her 1 February feast day with a saint?

Brigid's day was the festival of Imbolc before it was the saint's, and it has been argued that the saint is simply the goddess in Christian form.

Which Irish goddess of war and fate, whose name means 'great queen' or 'phantom queen', often appears as a crow?

Morrígan foretells who will die in battle and hounds the hero Cú Chulainn: in one tale she attacks him mid-combat as an eel, then a wolf, then a red-eared heifer.

Which Celtic goddess of horses, adopted by Roman cavalrymen, shares her name with Link's horse in The Legend of Zelda?

Epona spread with the Gauls who rode in Rome's cavalry, and she has been called the only Celtic deity ultimately worshipped in the city of Rome itself.

A Madeline Miller novel retells the life of which Greek witch-goddess, who turned the crew of Odysseus into pigs?

Circe is a daughter of the sun god Helios in most accounts. In the myth Odysseus talks her into turning his men back, then stays on her island for a year.