Greek mythology · deity · magic, crossroads, the moon's dark
Goddess of witchcraft and the crossroads, honored by Zeus above all in Hesiod, torch-bearer in the search for Persephone. She walks the night with hounds and the restless dead, invoked at every threshold between worlds.
Gathering flowers, Persephone is swallowed by the opening earth and carried to the underworld by Hades. Demeter's grief starves the world until Zeus relents; but Persephone has eaten pomegranate seeds below, and Hecate's torches light her yearly passage between the dead and the spring.