FataleVrouwen

Mythology

Eve

the first woman.

TheGraeae

Mythica:Graeae
The three “old women” or “gray ones” from Greek mythology. They are the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, sisters and guardians of the Gorgons. They were gray-haired from birth and have only one eye and one tooth, which they share among them. They are Enyo (“horror”), Deino (“dread”) and Pemphredo (“alarm”).

TheFates

WikiPedia:Moirae
In Greek mythology, the white-robed Moirae or Moerae (Greek Μοίραι — the “Apportioners”, often called the Fates) were the personifications of destiny (Roman equivalent: Parcae, “sparing ones”, or Fatae; also equivalent to the Germanic Norns). They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal and immortal from birth to death (and beyond). Even the gods feared the Moirae. Zeus himself may be subject to their power, as the Pythian priestess at Delphi once admitted. The Greek word moira (μοῖρα) literally means a part or portion, and by extension one’s portion in life or destiny.

The three Moirae were:-

• Clotho ( pronounced in English [‘kləʊθəʊ], Greek Κλωθώ — “spinner”) spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle. Her Roman equivalent was Nona, (the ‘Ninth’), who was originally a goddess called upon in the ninth month of pregnancy.
• Lachesis ([‘lækəsɪs], Greek Λάχεσις — “alotter” or drawer of lots) measured the thread of life with her rod. Her Roman equivalent was Decima (the ‘Tenth’).
• Atropos ([‘ætrəpɒs], Greek Ἄτροπος — “inexorable” or “inevitable”, sometimes called Aisa) was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner of a person’s death. When she cut the thread with “her abhorred shears”, someone on earth died. Her Roman equivalent was Morta (‘Death’).
  

TheFuries

In Greek mythology the Erinyes (Ερινύες) or Eumenides (or Furies in Roman mythology) were female personifications of vengeance. When a formulaic oath in the Iliad (iii.278ff; xix.260ff) invokes “those who beneath the earth punish whoever has sworn a false oath.” The Erinyes are simply an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath” (Burkert 1985 p 198). They were usually said to have been born from the blood of Ouranos when Cronus castrated him. According to a variant account, they issued from an even more primordial level—from Nyx, “Night”. Their number is usually left indeterminate. Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto (“unceasing,” who appeared in Virgil’s Aeneid), Megaera (“grudging”), and Tisiphone (“avenging murder”). Dante followed Virgil in depicting the same three-charactered triptych of Erinyes. The heads of the Erinyes were wreathed with serpents (compare Gorgon), their eyes dripped with blood, and their whole appearance was horrific and appalling. Sometimes they had the wings of a bat or bird, or the body of a dog.
WikiPedia:Erinyes

TheMuses

According to Pausanias there were three original Muses: Aoide (“song”, “voice”), Melete (“practice” or “occasion”) and Mneme (“memory”) (Paus. 9.29.1). Together, they form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice. In Delphi three Muses were worshipped as well but with other names: Nete , Mesi and Hypate which are the names of the three chords of the ancient musical instrument lyre

In later tradition, the fourth Muse, Arche, was also considered.

The canonical nine Muses are:

1. Calliope (epic poetry)
   
2. Euterpe (music)
   
3. Clio (history)
   
4. Erato (lyric/love poetry)
   
5. Melpomene (tragedy)
   
6. Polyhymnia (sacred poetry)
   
7. Terpsichore (dancing)
   
8. Thalia (comedy)
   
9. Urania (astronomy)
   
10. Sappho (some would say)
    

WikiPedia:Muse

Sappho

left fragments of poetry
WikiPedia:Sappho

BabaYaga

When a visitor enters her hut, (not too often) Baba Yaga asks them whether they came of their own free will, or whether they were sent. (One answer is the right one!)

Psyche

Persephone

Kali

Ophelia [the page Ophelia also exists]

http://boingyboingy.com/jump/ophelia.html

DEATH OF OPHELIA (IV.7)

QUEEN GERTRUDE: There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

woman floating in water (like Ophelia)
one of the Seven Wonders of Leuven
[Margrietje wordt door rovers meegenomen] buiten de stad waar zij haar (wellicht na een poging tot collectieve verkrachting) doden en in de Dijle werpen.
Haar lichaam zinkt echter niet. Vissen dragen het lichaam zodat het boven water blijft. Tegen de stroom in en omgeven door een wonderbaarlijk licht drijft het lichaam terug richting Leuven. [...]
Naar aanleiding van de legende is er een hele Margaretha-cultus ontstaan. Pelgrims treffen elkaar aan de in een transkapel van de St.-Pieterskerk ingebouwde Margaretha-kapel. Deze kapel is eveneens van buitenaf te bewonderen. ( http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiere_Margrietje )

Queen of the Night

from Mozart’s The Magic Flute

Nut

Mythica:Nut
The ancient Egyptian sky-goddess, one of the Ennead of Heliopolos. She is the personification of the sky and of the heavens, the daughter of Shu and Tefnut.
Nu was the barrier separating the forces of chaos from the ordered cosmos in this world. The god Re was said to enter her mouth after setting in the evening and travel through her body during the night to be reborn from her vulva each morning. She also swallows the stars and have them reborn later. In the death cult she plays a part in the resurrection of the dead; she is portrayed on the inside of the lids of the sarcophagi. The pharaoh was said to enter her body after death, from which he would later be resurrected.
As sky-goddess Nut was portrayed as a naked woman covered with painted stars, held up by Shu. Thus she forms the firmament above her husband Seb, the earth. Her fingers and toes were believed to touch the four cardinal points or directions. The principal sanctuary of Nut was at Heliopolis.

Delphic Oracle

Hecuba

Hecuba of the Amazons?

Mythica:Hecuba
http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/hecuba.html
http://www.stanford.edu/~plomio/hecuba.html
gave birth to the death of Troy
After the war, Hecuba was given to Odysseus.

Robert Bell writes of Hecuba’s encounter with Polymestor after the fall of Troy:

The body of Polydorus washed up on the shore of the plain of Troy near the tents of the captive women. Still a boy at the start of the war, Polydorus had been sent to his half-sister Iliona, who had married Polymestor, king of the Chersonese. Polymestor had received part of the Trojan treasury to be held in trust for Polydorus. When Polymestor saw the way things were going, he decided to appropriate the treasure for himself and killed Polydorus, throwing the body into the sea. Hecuba quickly sent a message to Polymestor, who was unaware of her discovery, telling him she knew where more treasure was hidden and that he should recover it for her son. When Polymestor arrived with his two sons, Hecuba’s companions murdered the boys while Hecuba tore out the eyes of Polymestor. (Bell, 222).

There are different variations as to the death of Hecuba. Some say she was stoned to death by Greeks angry with her for killing Polymestor, others say that she jumped overboard off of Odysseus’ ship. One possible end, which Robert Bell calls “symbolic of her total descent” is that she was turned into a dog as she fled from Polymestor’s companions (222).

Lamia

( Mythica:Lamia, Img:Lamia, Gog:Lamia )
She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d;
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolv’d, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries—
So rainbow-sided, touch’d with miseries,
She seem’d, at once, some penanced lady elf,
Some demon’s mistress, or the demon’s self.

Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne’s tiar:
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!
She had a woman’s mouth with all its pearls complete:
And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there
But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair?
As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air.
Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake
Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love’s sake,
And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay,
Like a stoop’d falcon ere he takes his prey.

Judith

( Img:Judith )

• Nabuchodonosor, King of Nineveh, sends his general Holofernes to subdue the Jews. The latter besieges them in Bethulia, a city on the southern verge of the Plain of Esdrelon. Achior, the Ammonite, who speaks in defense of the Jews, is maltreated by him and sent into the besieged city to await his punishment when Holofernes shall have taken it. Famine undermines the courage of the besieged and they contemplate surrender, but Judith, a widow, upbraids them and says that she will deliver the city.
  
  She goes into the camp of the Assyrians and captivates Holofernes by her beauty, and finally takes advantage of the general’s intoxication to cut off his head. She returns inviolate to the city with his head as a trophy, and a sally on the part of the Jews results in the rout of the Assyrians. The book closes with a hymn to the Almighty by Judith to celebrate her victory.
  

Salome [the page Salome also exists]

Bible:Salome
( Mythica:Salome, Img:Salome, Gog:Salome )

Sphinx

( Mythica:Sphinx, Img:Sphinx, Gog:Sphinx)

Lorelei (Siren)

( Mythica:Lorelei, Img:Lorelei, Gog:Lorelei )
Related:
Mythica:Gua Langsuir1

Harpy

( Mythica:Harpy, Img:Harpy, Gog:Harpy )

Jaël

Yael received the fleeing Sisera at the settlement of Heber on the plain of Zaanaim. Yael welcomed him into her tent with apparent hospitality. She ‘gave him butter’ (i.e. ‘lebben’, or curdled milk)‘in a lordly dish’. Having drunk the refreshing beverage, he lay down and soon sank into the sleep of the weary. While he lay asleep Yael crept stealthily up to him, holding a tent peg and a mallet. She drove it through his temples with such force that it entered into the ground below. And ‘at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he bowed, there he fell down dead’.
( Mythica:Jaël, Img:Jaël, Gog:Jaël )

Medea

child killer and great lady.

Medusa

In Greek mythology a Gorgon is a monstrous feminine creature whose appearance would turn anyone who laid eyes upon it to stone. Later there were three of them: Euryale (“far-roaming”), Sthenno (“forceful”), and Medusa (“ruler”), the only one of them who was mortal. They are the three daughters of Phorcys and Ceto.

The Gorgons are monstrous creatures covered with impenetrable scales, with hair of living snakes, hands made of brass, sharp fangs and a beard. They live in the ultimate west, near the ocean, and guard the entrance to the underworld.

A stone head or picture of a Gorgon was often placed or drawn on temples and graves to avert the dark forces of evil, but also on the shields of soldiers. Such a head (called a gorgoneion) could also be found on the older coins of Athens. Artists portrayed a Gorgon head with snake hair, and occasionally with a protruding tongue and wings.

Circe

http://www.geocities.com/medea19777/circe.html
changed men into animals using potions.
shapeshifting.

Clytaennestra

La Belle Dame sans Merci

Cleopatra

Nymph

Lillith

The first wife of Adam?
strong willed, left the garden and founded her own.
another child killer WikiPedia:Lillith
associated with Lamia also.

Helen (of Troy)

Delilah, Samson and

LadyMacbeth

Related

Keats apparently wrote about many of these women.

Real Women

hm.
WikiPedia:Phoolan_Devi
WikiPedia:Elizabeth_Báthory

AP Oct. 17, 2008 LUCKNOW, India - A woman chopped off the head of a man who allegedly tried to attack her and then paraded it through a market in northern India, police said Friday. Police arrested the woman late Thursday after receiving calls from frightened witnesses who reported a blood-soaked woman holding a severed head while walking through the village, said police officer Ram Bharose. The woman, 35, told police she had gone to a nearby forest to cut grass for fodder for her cattle when a man attacked her from behind. No regrets "In a bid to save her dignity she beheaded him with a sickle," Bharose said, adding that the woman had bite marks on her neck and cheek. The woman also told police that the man had been harassing and stalking her for three months and she had no regrets about killing him, Bharose said, adding that she would probably be charged with culpable homicide. The incident took place in Makkapurva village, some 125 miles southeast of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.

Slightly Related

http://pages.infinit.net/cadieux3/fairytail.html
ArmlessMaiden