Hekwona
“Horse Goddess.” Another possible name would be Medhuna “Intoxicator” (“Goddess of Mead”). This is a fairly well-reconstructed name found in Ireland (Medb), Gaul (Meduna) and India (Ma:dhavi:).
Ekwona is the goddess who provides sovereignty through mating with the one who would be king. If refused or mistreated, though, she can be vicious in her reprisals. The Irish Cú Chulainn, having rejected the mare goddess Morrígain, was sent to his death. Even not refusing her can be no treat, since she often appears in the form of a hag who demands sex. Those who give her what she wants are delighted when afterwards she turns into a beautiful women who gives them the kingship. In the story of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the hag he encounters is described in horsy terms, her hair like a mane.
Gerald of Wales (102) describes a ritual involving this goddess. According to him, in northern Ireland a king was inaugurated by having intercourse with a mare. The mare was then killed and cooked. The king bathed himself in her broth and drank it without using his hands. There are parallels with the Vedic Ashvamedha, a horse sacrifice performed to make a king a universal sovereign. "Ashvamedha" is cognate with the name of a prince, Epomeduos, found in a Gaulish inscription" (Puhvel, 1955).
As well as being the granter of sovereignty, Hekwona is an erotic goddess. She gives sex on her own terms, granting power and inspiration in return.
A figure who preserves the characteristics of Hekwona is the Indian Ma:dhavi: (from *medhu-), whose story is found in the Maha:bharata. There was a rule in India that after “graduating” from his training, a disciple was to offer a gift to his teacher. When Ga:lava asked his teacher Vishvamitra what he wanted, the teacher asked for eight hundred horses, each white but with one black ear. In despair over where to find so many of such a rare kind of horse, Ga:lava asks advice from Yaya:ti. He doesn’t have the horses, but he gives her his daughter Ma:dhavi:. Ga:lava brings her to a king named Ayodhya, who has such horses. He offers the king Ma:dhavi:, but Ayodhya has only 200 of the horses. Ma:dhavi: then pipes up and says that she has the magic power of restoring her virginity, which means that she can bear this king a son, but still be qualified to marry other kings. The deal is made, and after a son is born Ga:lava and Ma:dhavi: make the same deal with two other kings. Now with 600 horses, Ga:lava is appalled to learn that that is all there are. He returns to Vishvamitra, and offers Ma:dhavi: to him as a substitute for the missing horses (we have, after all, already learned that she is equivalent to 200 of them), for his own conception of a son. Vishvamitra replies that if only Ga:lava had brought her to him in the first place, he would have engendered four sons, and they would have been even. Ma:dhavi: is returned to Yaya:ti, who gives her the choice of a final husband. Turning down the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men, sages, spirits, and even animals, who present themselves to her, she chooses instead to “marry” the forest, and disappears into it to live as a sage (Dumézil, 1973, pp. 70-78).
Even with the elements inserted by later patriarchal society, the identity of Ma:dhavi: as a horse goddess shines through. Although Ga:lava comes up with the idea of trading her for the horses, it’s she who suggests only giving the first king a son, and then regaining her virginity so she can do this more times. As well as showing that she has control over her own sexuality (no matter how limited is the degree to which society can allow her this), her serial marriages are, for Hindu society, downright promiscuous. Add in the facts that not only is she the equal of 800 rare horses, but that she is, through bearing kings, the founder of royal dynasties, and then topping this with the source of her name in *medhu-, and we have clear reflex of Hekwona.
The sequential matings are also found in the Irish Medb (also < *medhu-), a wife and mother of kings, who never had a man without another in his shadow. The Irish story of the “Cattle Raid of Cooley” (Táin Bó Cuailnge) tells of a war she starts a war to gain an especially fine bull. Her nemesis in this war is Cú Chulainn, whom we have already seen having troubles with a mare goddess. At the end of this war, one of her men complains that they’d lost the war because they had followed a mare. We are also told that wherever she plants a horse goad, a bile grew. A bile was a sacred tree which mythically symbolized a territory and the right of its king to rule, and ritually a common spot for inauguration rituals. That we have here a goddess who isn’t just Irish, but pan-Celtic is shown by the Meduna in Gaul, about whom we would dearly love to know more.
Hekwona is not exactly a one-man woman, then. She is partial to warriors, whom she makes into kings. On a divine level, her natural mates are the warrior Perkwú:nos, with whom she conceived the Twins in some versions of the myth, or the kingly lawgiver Dyé:us Pté:r, the father of the Twins in others, or, of course, both.
The Mare Goddess has both benevolent and malevolent sides. In her malevolent aspect, she is a bitch goddess, in both senses of the word. There is, for instance, the Irish Morrígain, with her love/hate relationship with Cú Chulainn ("Hound of Culann").
Her malevolent side is due to the untamed nature of her sexuality. Sexual force is dangerous, both to individuals and to society, if it is not channeled into constructive outlets. With the Mare Goddess we are dealing with pure power, which is beyond our ability to control. It is only by playing according to her rules that her power can be harnessed.
Hekwona overlaps the sun goddess Sawelyosyo Dhukté:r somewhat to the point that in some of the later descendant traditions they have become identified with each other. Sawelyosyo Dhugté:r is connected with horses(especially through the Diwós Su:nú), and Ekwona is described with solarimagery. Ekwona is particularly solar in her power and the danger of approaching her. In Proto-Indo-European times, they seem to have been different goddesses, though.
Horse goddesses are often accompanied by or in some other way associated with birds. The Welsh horse goddess Rhiannon had birds which could wake the dead and lull the living to sleep (“Culhwch and Olwen,” The Mabinogi, p. 139); she also have a bad relationship with horses, since she has puppies' blood smeared on her face by her maids so they can accuse her of eating her son. The Dioscuri and Helen of Troy were conceived when Zeus raped Leda in the form of a swan; she then gives birth to an egg from which her children hatch.
Although primarily connected with sex separated from motherhood, Ekwona’s descendants nonetheless sometimes do have children. When she does become a mother, she is a dark one. She may conceive through rape, as with Leda, or she may destroy her children, as Rhiannon was accused of doing, or simply abandon them, as Ma:dhavi: did.
She may also have conceived through rape. Demeter of Phigalis was lusted after by Poseidon. To escape him, she changed herself into a mare and ran away. He changed himself into a stallion, followed her, and raped her. Because of her rage over this she was given the name "Fury." The Hindu Samjña: left her husband the sun, leaving behind a double. When her husband eventually figured things out, he went after her. She turned herself into the form of a horse and ran, but he caught up with her and ejaculated into her mouth. She vomited the semen out through her nose, giving birth to the Ashvins who, as we have already seen, are forms of the divine twins, associated with horses.
It is common to interpret such myths as a reflection of the conquest of goddess worshiping peoples by the Indo-Europeans. The goddess worship aspect of the pre-Indo-Europeans has been greatly exaggerated, though, and there are other myths in which the pre-Indo-European goddesses are assimilated peacefully. Perhaps the rape versions arose in areas where the Indo-European migrations were particularly violent, or were invented later to support patriarchal institutions. The story of Ma:dhavi: makes me think that it was the latter;in her story we see a transition from a woman who chooses her own husband to one who is treated as property to be traded for horses.
Whatever the reason for it, the rape myth adds emphasis to Ekwona’s insistence that sex will always be on her terms, making her a deity to pray to for defending against or punishing sexual abuse of any kind. "Never again" might be her motto.
The Demeter/Poseidon connection illustrates another association, with the sea. Waves are called "horses" throughout Europe, the Irish Macha is daughter of "Nature of the Sea," and Rhiannon is married to Manawydan, the Welsh version of the Irish sea god Manannan. India, as usual, has developed the connection into a complex image, involving a fiery mare that must be kept submerged lest she destroy the world. Eventually, she will do just that.
Because of her immense power and ambiguity of motivation, Ekwona is not a "fun" goddess, and is not one to be lightly approached. Her approval is vital in inauguration rituals, but in general she is better propitiated than invoked.
Hekwona, great and powerful,
Wielder of power great and dangerous,
Giver of gifts, giver of kingship,
Provide the power to protect the just.
Dexter, Miriam Robbins. The Hippomorphic Goddess and her Offspring. Journal of Indo-European Studies 18:3-4 Fall/Winter, 1990), pp. 285 - 307.
Dumézil, Georges. The Destiny of a King. tr. Alf Hiltebeitel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis). The History and Topography of Ireland. tr. John O'Meara.Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1982 (1951).
Grottaneli, Christiano. Yoked Horses, Twins, and the Powerful Lady: India, Greece, Ireland, and Elsewhere. Journal of Indo-European Studies 14: 1 - 2 (Spring/Summer, 1975), pp. 125 - 152.
Herbert, Maire. Goddess and King: The Sacred Marriage in Early Ireland. Cosmos 7 (1992), pp. 264 - 275.
The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales. tr. and ed. Patrick K. Ford. Berkeley, CA: University ofCalifornia Press, 1977.
O Maille, Tomas. Medb Cruachna. Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 17 (1978), pp. 129 - 146.
Puhvel, Jaan. Vedic Asvamedha- and Gaulish IIPOMIIDVOS. Language 31:2 (1955), pp. 353 - 354.
--Aspects of Equine Functionality. In Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans. ed. Jaan Puhvel. Berkeley,CA: University of California Press, 1970.
--Comparative Mythology. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Press, 1987.
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