From A Domestic Goddess to Fairy Butter

Via Lammas, A Feast for a Goddess of the ‘Between’ & the Revenging Dead, Cake Divination and Pantry Guidance from the 18th Century

Hello gentle reader,

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few days thinking about goddesses, reading a lot about harvest festivals will do that to a woman.  The harvest festival (Lammas) research was fascinating.  I’ve always enjoyed the wheat harvest which takes place at this time of year and had really fond memories of living in the countryside and having it happen around me with warm sun on my skin and the feeling of so much potential in the air.  I had lost touch with that part of myself until I began my reading which only goes to show that words have power.  The memories were almost visceral and I had to go an bake a loaf to celebrate the festival to see if it would bring any of those feelings back and it did.

Photo by Nitin Bhosale on Unsplash

I think it helped that the loaf was a gorgeous, glossy, braided monster of a Challah loaf and every time I cut into it, I felt just that little bit in touch with the part of me that used to revel in the harvest and the link to the land.  Its all gone now, eaten with vintage cheddar and pickled onions (yes I know, cheese people but sometimes its necessary), toasted and eaten with last year’s damson jam (made by a friend for connection) and finally turned into fluffy eggy bread (the trick is in leaving it to soak in the egg mixture for longer).  I strangely miss its foil wrapped bulk on the counter and have returned to eating my more usual pre-sliced granary loaf but the longing to have even that small connection to the land hasn’t gone away.

Challah Loaf - 📷 writer’s own

Having made that connection to something that feels more and more important to me through my kitchen, I wondered if there were alternative ways or if I would need to do all my own bread baking from now on.  I live in a city but I do have a small garden, in which however, I can’t grow edible things as its soil is poisoned by heavy metals from the former hospital site which once sat behind it.

I could use pots but I have no car and having to import bags of compost and big pots doesn’t appeal except for about 2 days in the early spring when I get over-excited and over ambitious for many herbs and hanging basket cherry tomatoes.  So it looks as though I’m going to have to make that connection through the kitchen after all, through making nutritious food to keep me in touch with the seasons (not always bread as I have a full time job, a podcast and a reading habit that is frankly out of control).

Anyway back to Goddesses, all this reflection about the spirituality of the kitchen has made me think about Hestia, the Ancient Greek Goddess of the hearth and the home.  You may recognise her more as Vesta, the Roman Goddess of hearth, home and family, keeper of the sacred flame.  I used to have a baking business and I called my business after her as it felt like an acknowledgement of the fact that I was selling something special that was made in my home.  I kept the website name and it is now the home of my other writings and podcast rather that a business that no longer exists but it means I have a very soft spot for her in my heart. I decided to refresh my knowledge on the mythology surrounding her but got distracted by another Goddess who just precedes her alphabetically which is very on brand for me.

The Triple Hecate, sketch by William Blake, Scottish Museum of Art

Have you heard of Hecate? Did you know that she is another Greek household Goddess alongside Hestia or do you find that as surprising as I did? I had heard of her but thought she was connected with magic and the underworld.  I hadn’t put her anywhere near the household but I knew about the witchcraft from an earlier podcast and that she was very keen on garlic being placed at three way crossroads in tribute to ensure the safety of travellers. I also knew she was a triple goddess which I had mistaken for the Maiden, Mother and Crone aspects but apparently this is not the case.

In most of the art or statues the figures of her triple aspect (unless she in her animal forms) are all the same age, young and beautiful although she latterly took on more aspects of the hag as she became more closely connected with with witchcraft in the eyes of the world.  At the height of her powers and worship in Ancient Greece she was often pictured much as the goddess Artemis, as a virgin maiden wearing a knee-length skirt.  Her triple aspect is considered to be because she has dominion over land, sea & sky, oversees the transitions of birth, life & death as well as seeing the past, present and future

Hecate, sketch of statue - British Museum

So what is her connection to the household then? Why was she so honoured?  Well, its because she was originally associated with boundaries, borders, crossroads, doors and walls.  Her role as a household Goddess was to avert harm to the households from breaches of those boundaries.  One of her sacred animals is the dog, possibly as a watchdog and her presence was often indicated by the howling of dogs in the wind.  She was also goddess of the liminal spaces between the worlds, hence her association with the underworld.

This handily meant that she could protect the household from angry ghosts and spirits as well as those in the mortal world. You could say she was considered the goddess of the ‘between’.  She was also associated with the Moon goddess Selene and was also known (amongst others) as Apotropaia or the One that Turns Away.  You might recognise that name from the word ‘apotropaic’ that we use to describe marks that are made on buildings or caves or even furniture to protect the owners from harm (often in the form of the evil eye or witchcraft).

The reason that she captured my imagination in particular was that she was apparently honoured by a monthly feast to honour her so she didn’t suddenly stop protecting the household from all those inconvenient thieves, murders and angry ghosts because of what people in the house had done in the last month that might have offended her.  The meal was also to placate any angry ghosts that she might have with her.  The offering was known as the Deipnon (also the word for the main evening meal in Greek) and was offered during the new moon on the evening of the day before the first sliver of sunlit moon is visible (known as the Noumenia) when the Goddess Selene would also be honoured.

Photo by Lenstravelier on Unsplash

The offering (as mentioned in most primary sources) would consist of some or all of the foods associated with Hecate: garlic, eggs, leeks and/or onion, oily fishes, cake and bread.  In addition it is also suggested that in addition she would be honoured with the standard items offered to Gods and Goddesses who are connected to the underworld: honey, oil, wine and water.  This was usually placed on a shrine just outside the home to form a temporary three-way crossroads formed of the doorway to the home and the street.

They did not look back once they had placed the meal as it was considered that the spirits would be offended to be watched and might send you mad. It also seems that Hecate encouraged the poor to take these food offerings to her and only really demanded this offering from those who could afford it:

"From her (Hekate) one may learn whether it is better to be rich or to go hungry. For she says that those who have and who are wealthy should send her a dinner each month, but that the poor among mankind should snatch it before they put it down.' For it was customary for the rich to offer loaves and other things to Hekate each month, and for the poor to take from them." - Suda Epsilon 363, C10th CE, trans. W. Hutton

I think you can see why I find this Goddess so fascinating and I definitely want to learn more about her. She might not have the kitchen, hearth and flame focus of Hestia but she clearly earned her household Goddess status.

I now need to pull you away from interesting Goddesses and Ancient Greece so we can consider some cake folklore, Dumb Cake in fact.  If you have been in the vicinity of wedding cake recently and still have a piece and have any curiosity at all in identifying a possible husband then follow these instructions:

“take two pieces of wedding cake,-a cakey bit and a sugary bit, one for the man and one for the woman, and put them under your pillow, then getting into bed backwards,saying :

“I put this cake under my head,

To dream of the living, not of the dead,

To dream of the man that I shall wed,

Not in his best or Sunday array,

But in the clothes that he wears every day."

Whatever happened you must not speak afterwards, or you would spoil the charm.” - Violet Mason, Folklore , Dec. 31, 1929

Apparently this wasn’t date specific so could be done whenever wedding cake was available.

As we have been a bit kitchen focussed I thought you might like this list of things that every family should have in the kitchen from The Complete Housewife or Accomplished Gentlewoman’s Companion - E Smith

It’s not as outdated as you were expecting is it, for a book printed in around 1773?

So we move to our recipe from The Experienced English Housekeeper by Elizabeth Raffald (1786). I definitely chose it because I was intrigued by the name, but if I’m honest I think the sugar and egg mixture would defeat me. I like all the ingredients separately just not together. I can only think this was part of an afternoon tea table but it’s too early for that really. She did however produce the first written recipe for crumpets so maybe this might work with a lovely hot, crisp crumpet.

So, with such a charming and frivolous concept, we come once again to an end, gentle reader. If you have enjoyed this and would like to read further such nonsense, please don’t hesitate to subscribe for free at the button below. You’d be very welcome and it would be a joy to write to you.