GIRLS OF MYTHOLOGY: TOP 10

 

That’s right – I can find Fantasy Girls in anything.

Of course, this is something of a personal novelty top ten list, as my Girls of Mythology don’t tend to have the same art or cosplay as my usual Fantasy Girls in popular culture – the holy trinity of comics, video games and anime of course, but also animation or fantasy and SF.

Although you may be surprised – my Girls of Mythology probably have more name recognition or adaptations in popular culture than those from other areas of culture (which I’ll similarly feature in novelty top ten lists – such as my Girls of History or my Girls of Poetry and Literature). And perhaps even more surprisingly, since some of them do pop up in popular culture – even in comics or video games – they do feature in art and cosplay. Of course, it helps to have video games in which gods and goddesses are playable characters, such as the game Smite.

And they’re reasonably diverse – mostly goddesses of course, but a few mortal girls or at least semi-mortal. You know how mythology is – sometimes the lines of the divine feminine are blurry. Also, they come from a range of my favorite mythologies. My classical mythology girls get top billing of course (and potentially their own top ten) – after all, I’m in it for the nymphs. However, the top ten is reasonably spread throughout different mythologies – including a surprisingly high billing for Biblical mythology, which reflects a surprisingly high prevalence of high profile Biblical bad girls (who will also potentially get their own top ten).

Anyway, counting down my Top 10 Girls of Mythology.

 

 

(10) AFRO-AMERICAN (VOODOO): ERZULIE FREDA DAHOMEY

 

Erzulie (or Ezili) Freda Dahomey is the voodoo love goddess, or more precisely, loa – and one of the few female figures in our top ten who is the subject of actual worship by substantial numbers of people today. Like many mythologies, voodoo gets a little messy with its pantheon- the Erzulie are apparently a family of loa associated with femininity and fluidity (or water), or perhaps different aspects of the same loa. Here we are concerned with Erzulie Freda, often titled more expansively as Maitres (also Metres or Mistress) Mambo Erzulie Freda Dahomey (or Daome) – goddess of love, but also beauty, dancing, flowers, jewelry, luck, luxury and more.

She is very much the flirtatious and sensuous party girl, so much so that she has three husbands and one ring for each of them, but can also be coquettish, vain or prone to jealousy and other flaws. In Catholic iconography – usually important in Haitian voodoo due to its history of camouflage for their deities – she is identified with the Mater Dolorossa, which reflects her characteristic depiction of never being able to attain her heart’s desire and prone to tears of longing or regret.

 

RATING:

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(9) NATIVE AMERICAN (LAKOTA): WHITE BUFFALO CALF WOMAN

 

White Buffalo Woman is the sacred or ‘wakan’ woman of the native American Lakota nation. She came to the Lakota in a time of famine, appearing as a beautiful young woman in white, teaching them their sacred rituals and promising to return. Hers will be an apocalyptic return or ghost dance, in which evil will be swept from the world, and all the buffalo, ancestors and lost tribes will return.

 

RATING:

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(8) HINDU: KALI

 

Kali is the original bad girl goddess – and as a goddess of Hinduism, one with more actual live worshippers than any other female figure in my top ten.

In general, female figures in Hinduism are some of the few which appear attractive to modern eyes in their traditional artistic depictions, most notably their voluptuous temple sculpture (some of which would not look out of place in Playboy, or even an adult film in the more steamy temples). Indeed, there’s pinup style art by Elias Chatzoudis – inspired by Kali – would not be out of place there.

Good girl goddesses such as Lakshmi and Parvati might seem sweeter, but ultimately Kali is more iconic, although she is traditionally depicted as a fearsome or terrifying black or blue-skinned destructive figure (yet still often naked and voluptuous). Although Kali is sometimes identified as an aspect of Parvati as divine mother goddess – Hindu mythology can get convoluted in its polytheism. It’s complicated – and so is Kali.

Like Shiva – who tends to be identified as her consort – Kali is the destroyer (within the cycle of creation, preservation and destruction), but hers is a righteous destruction. Again like Shiva, she tends to destroy demonic or evil forces – “she destroys evil to protect the innocent” or as divine protector to bestow liberation. Even her image as destroyer can be seen as merely a form of a supreme goddess figure and mother of the universe (devi) or divine feminine force (shakti) – who is herself creator, preserver and destroyer

 

RATING:

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(7) CELTIC (ARTHURIAN): MORGAN LE FAY

 

Morgan or Morgana Le Fay (there are other variants) is characteristically the bad girl of Arthurian legend – an enchantress who seduces Arthur’s knights away from Camelot (such that they are mostly dead or lost or compromised) and plots to overthrow the kingdom.

Or not. Her early appearances in Arthurian legend “do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a goddess, a fay (or fairy), a witch, or a sorceress, generally benevolent and related to King Arthur as his magical savior and protector”. Her prominence increased over time, as did her moral ambivalence or outright villainy, particularly in Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, which was in many ways the codification of Arthurian legend.

She is variously portrayed as Arthur’s sister (or more precisely half-sister), even conflating her with another traditional character (and her sister) Morgause as his lover and mother by him to Mordred, usurper and adversary to Arthur in his fatal last battle (as in the film Excalibur, which remains my favorite cinematic adaptation of Arthurian legend). Yet she moves in mysterious ways and is one of the retinue of maidens who take Arthur to Avalon after his final battle.

 

RATING:

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(6) NORSE: FREYA

 

Freya (or Freyja or Freja) is the Nordic love goddess, blonde and blue-eyed, most beautiful of the goddesses and ogled lustfully by the giants – more than one Norse myth has a giant unsuccessfully claim Freya as their prize. She was also goddess of war and queen of the Valkyries, taking half of all heroes slain in battle into her heavenly field in Asgard (the other half going of course to Odin’s hall in Valhalla).

More broadly, she was the goddess of love, beauty, fertility, s€x, war, gold and magic – goddess of the golden necklace or torc Brisingamen, goddess of the falcon-feathered flying cloak and goddess of the cat-pulled chariot.

Above all, she was the lady of Friday, the day named for her. All hail Lady Friday, goddess of the weekend!

 

RATING:

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(5) BABYLO-SUMERIAN: ISHTAR INANNA

 

Babylonian goddess Ishtar (Sumerian Inanna) is the sensual goddess of love and war, personification of the morning star, and mistress of the mysteries of death and rebirth. Her most famous myth is her descent into the underworld for her lover Tammuz (Sumerian Dumuzi), where she had to take off one of her seven veils at each of the seven gates of the underworld (the dance of the seven veils) so that she came naked to the heart of hell.

Ishtar was above all associated with s€xuality – the rites of the sacred marriage (hieros gamos) and her cult of temple pr0stitution. As such, she may have been the original model for the Biblical Wh0re of Babylon. Certainly, she and her sister goddesses repeatedly seduce the Israelites away from their Biblical faith – the prophet Ezekiel lamented her rituals of “the women weeping for Tammuz” at the very “door of the gate of the Lord’s house” in Jerusalem. Yet she has also been seen as the model for Esther, the beautiful and virtuous Biblical heroine of the Babylonian exile. Such are the mysterious ways of this good and bad girl goddess, who dances with stars and descends into the underworld.

Her counterpart in the pagan borderlands of Biblical Israel was Astarte or Asherah, who recurs through the Old Testament as a constant temptress of the Israelites – even worshipped as the pagan goddess of Israel, the consort of Yahweh and Queen of Heaven. Her sacred figures or asherim – poles, trees or groves – were found throughout Israel and her worship maddened the prophet Jeremiah as the people of Jerusalem gathered “to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her”. (Those Biblical prophets sure knew how to spoil a good party)

 

RATING:

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(4) EGYPTIAN: ISIS

 

Outside of Hinduism, ancient Egyptian female figures are perhaps the other female figures that appear attractive to modern eyes in their traditional artistic depictions, particularly their monumental statues and paintings. Lithe and svelte in their tight, form-fitting dresses, with their golden skin and painted eyes, they would not look out of place as supermodels on a modern catwalk.

Isis is the most iconic and famous of Egyptian goddesses – throne goddess of the pharaoh, goddess of magic who seduced the secret name from the sun god Ra, lover of Osiris who resurrected him after he was dismembered by his evil adversary Set and mother of the divine hero Horus. She enchanted the Greek and Roman conquerors of Egypt, so much so that that she loomed as a goddess of the Roman Empire to rival even Christianity and it is tempting to think how the empire could have gone the way of the ankh and not the cross. In the words of her apostle, Lucius Apuleius:

“You see me here, Lucius, in answer to your prayer. I am nature, the universal Mother, mistress of all the elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead, queen also of the immortals, the single manifestation of all gods and goddesses that are…Though I am worshipped in many aspects, known by countless names … the Egyptians who excel in ancient learning and worship call me by my true name…Queen Isis.”

 

RATING:

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(3) BIBLICAL: EVE

 

“When the apple reddens

Never pry

Lest we lose our Edens –

Eve and I”

 

Few mythic female figures are as iconic, as evocative as Eve – the original Biblical bad girl and primal woman. And few have as many faces. She has posed as the definitive femme fatale and temptress of Western art and literature, the Bible’s original sinner and siren of paradise lost. As such, she has been the focus and symbol of much misogyny – although without her role in it, there’d be no Bible. The words Margaret Atwood gave her fairy tale villainess could well be said by Eve – “I’m the plot, babe, and don’t ever forget it.”

Of course, as the iconoclastic Camille Paglia has noted, the Biblical story of Eden at least gave her a male accomplice in the serpent. However, even this has been reversed in Western art (notably during the Renaissance), which has even given the serpent Eve’s face – and breasts! That’s some deep Freudian kind of mixed-up right there. Although there’s something else equally as mixed up (albeit not quite so much in the Freudian sense) that’s easily overlooked which is implicit in the very bible narrative itself – the serpent had legs! (God curses it to crawl on its belly as punishment for its crime). If I came across a walking talking snake, I’d listen to whatever it said too – and quite frankly, the whole Garden of Eden set up smacks of a classic two-man con played by God and the serpent.

She has also posed as s€xual temptress, the naked woman for all seasons. Religious tradition saw Eve and Adam as models of physical perfection, befitting those shaped by God’s hand as opposed to those born into this world (or the reality of our ancestral African hominids). And although the Garden of Eden is a tangled jungle of symbolism (that deserves its own list), let’s not forget the steamy sexual symbolism of original sin. There is the temptation itself – Eve is tempted by the phallic serpent and Adam is tempted by the lush fruit offered to him by Eve (in the words of John Milton, “emparadis’d in each other’s arms”). And then there are the consequences – consciousness of their naked state of nature, Eve is punished by the pains of labor, and Adam is punished by the pains of a different labor, working the earth to feed his family. To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, it all smells of apple juice…

Finally, she has posed for those who would reclaim her as a figure of female power or even divinity – Promethean heroine plucking the knowledge of humanity from divinely imposed ignorance or goddess of paradise and mother of life. Some have seen the myth of a fall from paradise as an echo of each of our own experience of prenatal bliss (or at least childhood) – we all fall from the womb into the world. All hail Eve, God the Mother! She is the goddess and this is her body.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

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(2) CLASSICAL: HELEN OF TROY

 

When it comes to girls of mythology, for me every other mythology is simply outgunned by classical mythology – and foremost among the female figures of classical mythology is Helen of Troy. I mean, come on – they fought a war for her! Greece’s greatest heroes fought the Trojan War for ten years – and in the end Troy burned – for her. Also, as an acronym, she’s H.o.T.

Apart from Eve, she is the other definitive femme fatale of Western art and literature – without her, there would be no Iliad or Odyssey, the epic heart of classical literature and rosy-fingered dawn of Western literature. And at the end of the war, when her husband Menelaus went with sword in hand to kill her for ten years of adultery, he had only to gaze at her as she dropped the robe from her shoulder and the sword fell from his hand.

Her legend has continued to enrapture throughout history, even occasionally tempting Christianity. The apostles had to compete with the cult of Simon Magus, who toured with his showgirl Helen of Troy, posing as an incarnation of the eternal feminine. And Christopher Marlowe’s Faust famously marveled at his Helen of Troy, one of hell’s temptations to seal the demonic pact for his soul – “Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?” Of course, he burned for her as well. Such is Helen of Troy

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

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(1) CLASSICAL: APHRODITE VENUS

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Is there any contest? Greek Aphrodite (Roman Venus) is the archetypal goddess of love and beauty – born of the morning star, the sea’s foam and the world’s desire. Her very name gives us aphrodisiac and her planetary sign for Venus is the universal symbol for the female sex. And there’s a reason that female figures in art are often labeled Venus – and that Aphrodite or Venus herself has been the predominant female figure in art, particularly for nudes, with perhaps the most iconic being that by Botticelli.

The Olympian goddesses Athena and Hera were foolish enough to compete against her for the prize of the golden apple inscribed “to the most beautiful”. No contest – the gods appointed Trojan prince Paris as the judge and he awarded it to Aphrodite. (He then took Helen as his reward and the rest is mythic history – the Trojan War).

In addition, Aphrodite and her Roman counterpart Venus had a plethora of aspects denoted by epithets which could well be a top ten all of their own – with the dualism of the ‘higher’ Aphrodite Ourania and the ‘lower’ (or dirtier) Aphrodite Pandemos being perhaps the most well known. Although I’ll always have a soft spot for Aphrodite or Venus Kallipygos – the Aphrodite or Venus “of the beautiful buttocks”. Baby got back!

Mighty Aphrodite! She is the goddess!

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

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