She was often called Hecate Agriope, which means 'savage face.' She is said to have three faces, which symbolized her powers over the underworld, earth, and air. She is known
as the lady of the underworld, of chthonic rites, and of black magic.

Watcher over the crossroads, Hecate usually is shown holding two huge torches to light the way and direct. Hecate represents a coming together of three at a point. The crossroads which she guards have a past, a present, and a future. Where will you go, where have you been, where are you now? The crossroads can also represent her domains of the sky, land, and the underworld. In addition the crossroads were looked at as a ghostly place at night.

The Athenians were especially respectful towards Hecate, and once a month they placed food offerings at the crossroads, where her influence was said to be felt. Her aspect of threes
is also noted when she is sometimes referred to as a triple goddess. These three goddesses include, Persephone, Demeter, and Hecate. Demeter represents the old crone woman, Persephone the wife woman, and Hecate is the Maiden. It is said that Hecate was the only one watching when Hades kidnapped Persephone into the great underworld, and that it was Hecate that supplied her with the seeds of the pomegranate.

Her Hebrew name was Sheol, and the Egyptians knew her as Nepthys. She was the daughter of the titan Perses and of Asteria, although sometimes it is said that Zeus himself fathered her. The Thracians were the first people to worship her in the moon-goddess aspect, though soon her worship spread to the Greeks, who linked her with the moon-goddesses Artemis and Selene. She was also associated with Lucina and Diana. At times she was benign and motherly and would act as midwife, wet-nurse, and foster-mother, while keeping an eye on flocks and crops. Greek kings asked for her help in administering justice, knowing that with Hecate on
their side they would attain victory and glory in battle.

But the other side of her nature, most apparent when the moon was dark, gradually superseded her kinder side. Although Homer did not mention her in his poems, by the time Hesiod was chronicling the events of his world, her powers were already very great. She had become an infernal deity, a snake goddess with three heads: a dog's, a horse's, and a lion's. She was portrayed with her three bodies, back to back, carrying a spear, a sacrificial cup, and a torch.

During the middle ages, Hecate became known as Queen of the Witches. Catholic authorities said that the people most dangerous to the faith were those whom Hecate patronized - midwives, healers and seers. They also saw the simple peasants practicing folk religion as "devil worshippers" and Hecate was portrayed as an ugly hag leading covens of witches in these practices.

However, Hecate's influence was long lasting, and the medieval witches worshipped the willow tree which was sacred to her. The same root word which gave 'willow' and 'wicker,' also gave 'witch' and 'wicked.'  Today she is the crone, the hag, the worker of evil curses.

This is not known very well, for most of Hecate's myths were related orally, but before Homer, Hecate was regarded as benign. She helped with agriculture and gave life to dying crops. During the day she was supposed to have a benign influence on farming, but during the hours of darkness she was interested in witchcraft, ghosts, and tombs. In ample ways she was similar to the vegetation goddess Demeter/Ceres. Hecate uncomfortably combined fertility with death as a power of the earth. Her presence in the land of the underworld allows for the pre-Hellenic hope of re-birth and transformation as opposed to Hades, who represented the inevitability of death.

According to the myths surrounding her, after having witnessed the rape of Persephone, torch-bearing Hecate was sent by Zeus to help Demeter find her. When they found Persephone in Hades, Hecate remained there as her
companion. During her stay in the underworld, Hecate wore a single brazen sandal, and she was the protector and teacher of sorceresses and enchanters.

Thus Hecate became key-holder of hell and queen of the departed, dispatching phantoms from the underworld. At night she left Hades and would roam on earth, bringing terror to the
hearts of those who heard her approach. She was accompanied by her bounds and by the bleak souls of the dead. She appeared as a gigantic woman bearing a sword and a torch, her feet and hair bristling with snakes, her voice like that of a howling dog. Her favorite nocturnal retreat was near a lake called Amaramtiam Phasis, 'the lake of murders.'

To placate her, the people erected statues at crossroads. There, under the full moon, feasts called 'Hecate's suppers' were served. Dogs, eggs, honey, milk, and particularly
black ewes were sacrificed at that time. The most powerful magic incantations of antiquity were connected with Hecate, and her rites were described at length by Apollonius Rhodus in
his Argonautica:

'...and he kindled the logs, placing the fire beneath, and poured over them the mingled libations, calling on Hecate Brimo to aid him in the contest, And when he had called on her he drew back: and she heard him, the dreaded goddess, from the uttermost depths and came to the sacrifice of Aeson's son; and round her horrible serpents twined themselves among the
oak boughs; and there was the gleam of countless torches; and sharply howled around her the hounds of hell. All the meadows trembled at her step, and the nymphs that haunt the marsh and the river shrieked, all who dance round that meadow of Amarantiam Phasis.'

In one of her incarnations she was Hucuba, the wife of Priam, King of Troy, and mother of Cassandra, Hector, Helenus, and Paris. While pregnant with Paris, she had a dream in which
she gave birth to a flaming torch which consumed Troy. Understanding the awesome foreboding of this omen, she left the infant exposed on Mount Ida. But the Fates had ordained
differently, and years later Paris returned to Troy, bringing with him the war that was to be the end of that great city.

When Polymnestor, a Thracian king, murdered her son Polydorus, her vengeance was terrible: she slew Polymnestor's two children and gouged his eyes out. Although acquitted by the Greeks, she was changed into a dog at which the Thracians threw stones. Trying to escape her punishment, she jumped into the sea at Cynossema, which in translation means 'tomb of the dog.'

Hecate, powerful in heaven, earth and hell, possessed all the great dark knowledge, and is rightfully called the mother of witches. She was the great goddess of magic, and she
outstripped Circe, her daughter, in importance. Yet another of her daughters also achieved hellish fame:

'...and let them not fall in their helplessness into Charybdis lest she swallow them at one gulp, or approach the hideous lair of Scylla, Ausonian Scylla, Scylla the deadly, whom night-wandering Hecate, who is called Crataeis, bare to Phorcys...'

The extent of her powers can be judged by the great numbers of animals, plants and emblems that were sacred to her. Weasels were her attendants. So were owls in their silent flight, with the carrion-smell of their nests and their eyes shining in the dark. Hound, knife, lotus, rope, and sword are other emblems of Hecate. Shakespeare knew that hemlock and the yew tree were sacred to her. In Macbeth, 'slips of yew sliver'd in the Moon's eclipse' were contained in the witches' cauldron. The yew, sacred to the goddess of the underworld,
still grows in cemeteries.

Later, studies show Hecate with three heads and six arms, or merely as a pillar called a Hecterion. Hecate was shown holding three torches, a key, a rope, and a dagger. With the key, she unlocks the deep mysteries, the rope is a symbolical umbilical cord, the dagger, which has become the athame of Witchcraft, cuts through illusion to true power. But Hecate was also known as the most lovely one, a name for the Moon. It was said that she wore a shimmering headdress and was second to none in her powers. A statute from the 8th century BCE shows Hecate with wings and holding a snake.

Today we can relate to Hecate as a guardian figure in our unconsciousness, holding the key to the dark realms within us and bearing torches to light our way into the depths of our inner being. Our patriarchal civilization has perhaps taught us to fear this figure, this terrible hag, but if we trust in her ancient energies we will find her a kindly guardian. She stands at the triple crossroads that exists at all levels of our being, manifesting as spirit, soul and body. We must visit and come to terms with the dark unconscious side of our "inner nature" for, if we avoid this realm, we create polarity and eventually develop a dualistic world view. We have to face up to our inner Hecate, make a relationship with her as guardian of our unconsciousness, our dark side, and, trusting Her stewardship, allow ourselves to grow into an awareness of the rich realm of our personal underworld. Only through this can we become integrated beings.