Juno Covella - Goddesses of Noon

Reproduced By Permission.

Juno Covella

Perpetual Calendar

of the Fellowship of Isis

compiled by

Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, M.A. (Dublin)

Baron Robertson of Strathloch

Priest of Isis

"The Sun Ascends" by Olivia Robertson

Excerpt from Section VII

Goddesses of the Hours of the Day

NOON

11 a.m. to Noon

Egyptian: AHABIT. (Budge, Gods of Egyp. Vol. I. p. 302) “The Goddesses and Gods of the Twelve Hours of the Day. Goddesses … Hour VI. Ahabit”. Note: In the Book of the Dead, chap. cxlv (p. 459) an address is made to Aakhabit, Power, Lady of flame”.

NITAUQRIT, NITOCRIS, Queen of Egypt, The Spirit of the Southern Pyramid. (L’Egypt de Murtadi, trans. By Vattier, 1666, p. 65, cited by Maspero, Dawn of Civil. p. 440) “It is said that the spirit of the Southern Pyramid never appears abroad except in the form of a naked woman, who is very beautiful … whose manner of acting is such, that she desires people to fall in love with her … she smiles upon them, and immediately they draw near to her, and she attracts them towards her, and makes them infatuated with love … Many have seen her moving round the pyramid about midday and towards sunset.’ It is Nitokris still haunting the monument of … her magnificence.”

Greek: MESEMBRIA, Midday. (Montfaucon, Antiq. Supple. p. 23) “Mid-day was also represented under a human Form, as we may gather from the Passage of Antiochus’s Procession (i.e. from Athenaeus). Nothing is there said, ‘tis true, about the Form. We may affirm nevertheless, without hazard, that as mesembreia, Mid-day, is of the feminine Gender, so the Greeks pictur’d her as a Woman.”

THE NYMPHS. (Callimachus, Hymn V, to Demeter, 37) on the great poplar at Dotium in Thessaly: “Now there was a poplar, a great tree reaching the sky, and thereby the nymphs were wont to sport at noontide.”

Chinese: LI, THE MIDDLE DAUGHTER. (Durdin-Robertson, Goddesses of India, p. 353) “Li appears in the I. Ching … In the Inner-World Arrangement Li is the place of Summer in the South; the time is given as noon. Wilhelm writes of the Midsummer: ‘Then comes the high point of the year, midsummer, or , in terms of the day, noontide. Here is the place of the trigram Li, the Clinging, light’ ”.

Japanese: AMA-TERASU-O-MI-KAMI, OHO-HIRU-ME-NO-MUCHI, THE SUN-GODDESSES; WAKA-HIRU-ME-NO-MIKOTO. (The Nihongi, I. 11) “the Sun-Goddess … was called Oho-hiru-no-muchi (Aston: ‘Great-noon-female-of-possessor’) … In one writing she is called Ama-terasu-oho-hiru-me-no Mikoto (Aston: ‘Heaven-illumine-great-noon-female-of-augustness’). The resplenden luster of this child shone throughout all the six quarters (Aston: ‘North, South, East, West, Above, Below’). Waka-hiru-me no Mikoto “Young-noon-female-of-augustness” is, according to Aston, a younger sister of Amaterasu. Note: (Hepburn, Dict.) “Hiru, Noon; day-time.”

Russian: THE POLUDNITSA. (Alexinsky, New Larousse, p. 291) “In the north of Russia the Polevik (i.e. a god of the fields) was sometimes replaced by the Poludnitsa (Poluden or Polden means noon). She was a beautiful girl, tall in stature and dressed entirely in white. In summer, at harvest time, she would walk in the fields and if she found aman … working at midday she would seize him by the hair and pull it mercilessly”.

Irish: THE WHITE WOMAN OF THE FORTH. (Lady Gregory, Visions and Beliefs, W. Ireland, p. 260) The author quotes Maurteen Joyce: “When I was a young chap myself I used to see a white woman walking about sometimes at midday … and she would always g back into a forth, the forth of Cahir near Clonmore and disappear into it”. According to this account midday is the hour most open to influences from the Other World.

Jewish: THE VIRGIN MARY. (Pancarpion Marianum, cap. 41, cited by Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 381) “O Mary, Dawn … Thou art clear like the midday light”. For the Ave Maria said at noon see under 6 p.m. *(see below)

Roman: FLORA. (Brewer, Dict.) Flora’s Dial … I. Dial of flowers which open … Noon. Ice Plant … II. Dial of closing flowers … Noon. Field Sowthistle

(*) Note from 6 P.M. - Jewish: THE VIRGIN MARY. (Bridgett, Our Lady's Dowry, p. 216) on the Ave Maria: "It had for centuries been the custom to ring a bell called the curfew (or cover fire) at sunset, when Pope John XXII. in 1327 granted an indulgence to all who should say, during the ringing of this bell, three 'Hail Marys'. (footnote: 'St. Bonaventura in 1269 had exhorted the Friars Minor to propagate the evening Aves'). This evening salutation of Mary soon became popular throughout Europe. In England, not three but five 'Hail Marys' were said ... This we learn from a constitution of Archbishop Arundel in 1399, in which the same form of devotion is extended to the morning. He informs us that he does this at the request of King Henry IV.

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