Nordic Wiccan: Mother Goddess

Mother Goddess

Mother Goddess is a term used to refer to a Goddess who represents motherhood, devotion, fertility, nurturing mature love, creation or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. For male witches, the God would be Father. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such Goddesses are sometimes referred to as Great Goddess, Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. The ability to forgive and provide for her children and put them before herself is the essence of a good mother. She is described as Mother Earth, Mother Nature or the Creator of all life.

Many different Goddesses have represented motherhood in one way or another and some have been associated with the birth of humanity as a whole. Others have represented the fertility of the Earth. The Mother Goddess is a composite of various feminine deities from past and present world cultures, worshiped by modern Wicca and Neopagan. She is sometimes identified as a Triple Goddess, who takes the form of Maiden, Mother and Crone. She is also associated with the full moon M, summer, Earth and sea.

Several small, corpulent figures have been found during archaeological excavations of the Upper Paleolithic, the Venus of Willendorf, perhaps, being the most famous. This sculpture is estimated to have been carved 24,000–22,000 BC. Some archaeologists believe they were intended to represent Goddesses, while others believe that they could have served some other purpose.

Mother Goddesses are also present in the earliest images discovered among the archaeological finds in Ancient Egypt. An association is drawn to the early Goddesses of Egypt with animals seen as good mothers—the lioness, cow, white vulture and cat—as well as, to the life-giving waters, the sun, the night sky and the Earth herself.

From 5500-2750 BC the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture flourished in the region of modern-day Romania and Ukraine, leaving behind ruins of settlements that practiced agriculture and domesticated livestock. They also left behind many ceramic remains of pottery and clay figurines. Some of these figurines appear to represent the mother Goddess.

In the first century BC, Tacitus recorded rites amongst the Germanic tribes focused on the Goddess Nerthus, whom he calls Terra Mater, 'Mother Earth'. Prominent in these rites was the procession of the Goddess in a wheeled vehicle through the countryside.

In Norse mythology, Jord is a female giant (jotunn). She is the personification of the Earth. Jord is sometimes considered a Goddess, like other giants who coupled with the Gods.

Freya was a Norse Goddess of abundance, fertility and war. She is still honored today by some Pagans and is often associated with sexual freedom. Freya could be called upon for assistance in childbirth and conception, to aid with marital problems or to bestow fruitfulness upon the land and sea.

In skaldic poetry, Odin's wife, is a common designation for the Earth. Frigg was the wife of the all-powerful Odin and was considered a Goddess of fertility and marriage within the Norse pantheon. Like many mothers, she is a peacemaker and mediator in times of strife.