Tag: Moon Goddesses

Luna, the Roman goddess of the moon: her silver chariot, her temples, her bond with Selene and Diana, and the months she ruled

Luna is the moon itself in Roman religion, the bright one who drove her chariot across the night and was said to rule the months. Here is who the Luna goddess is, what the Roman writers really tell us about her, how she differs from Selene, and the crystals and gentle practice people use to honour her in the waning light after the Hunter’s Moon. She is the fourth of our seven moon goddesses this week.

Who Is the Luna Goddess?

Luna is the Roman goddess of the moon. Her name is the ordinary Latin word for the moon, and it comes from an old root meaning bright, the same root that gave Latin its word for light, lux. When a Roman looked up and said luna, there was no gap between the silver disc in the sky and the goddess who lived in it. She was not a goddess who looked after the moon. She was the moon.

That sets her apart from the other goddesses in this series. Diana, whom we met yesterday, was a huntress who became linked with the moon over time. Luna never had another job. She is the night light of Rome, paired with Sol, the sun, side by side in Roman art for centuries.

People come to the Luna goddess today for a sense of rhythm, the comfort of a steady light in the dark, and a simple way into moon work. Her gift is the month itself, the reliable turning from new to full and back again.

The Story of Luna and Her Silver Chariot

The chariot across the night

The Romans pictured Luna crossing the sky each night in a chariot. The sun drove four horses, the quadriga. Luna had a lighter two horse chariot, the biga. Isidore of Seville, writing in the seventh century, explained that the moon runs a twin path with the sun, seen both by night and by day, and that one of her horses was black and one white.

On Roman coins of the late third and early second centuries BC, Luna in her biga was one of the most common designs, often with a crescent above her head. In other art and in later poems the horses are sometimes swapped for a pair of white oxen or bulls. It is easy to see why: their curved horns echo the crescent moon.

Luna and Endymion

The best loved moon story in Rome was first told of Selene. The moon fell in love with Endymion, a shepherd, and visited him every night on Mount Latmus while he slept. In most versions he was given eternal sleep and eternal youth, so he would never grow old.

Roman writers knew the tale well. Cicero jokes in his Tusculan Disputations that Endymion has slept so long on Latmus he is surely not awake yet. Roman families chose the scene for their marble coffins, a gentle picture of death as a long and loving sleep. A beautiful example in the Metropolitan Museum shows the moon stepping down from her chariot, while a figure stands over Endymion holding a bunch of sleepy poppies.

She did not wake him. She simply kept coming back, which is exactly what the moon does.

This is a myth, told as a story rather than history, and Romans borrowed it from Greece along with much of Selene’s imagery. If you would like the Greek telling, our post on Selene covers it in full.

Luna, Diana and the goddess of three ways

Over time Roman poets blended Luna with Diana and with Hecate. In his hymn to Diana, the poet Catullus calls her Trivia, goddess of the crossroads, and Luna, named for her borrowed light, and says that her monthly journey measures out the year. Later the commentator Servius explained the three formed goddess as one power with three names: Luna in the sky, Diana on the earth and Proserpina below. That threefold idea runs straight on to Hecate, who closes our series on Samhain night.

The Honest History of Luna

What the old sources say

Roman tradition held that Luna was one of the gods brought to Rome by the Sabine king Titus Tatius, who ruled alongside Romulus. The scholar Varro, writing in the first century BC, lists her among the gods Tatius vowed altars to, and also names her among the twelve gods every farmer should call on, because the sun and moon decide the times for sowing and harvest.

Her main temple stood on the Aventine Hill, and Romans credited its founding to King Servius Tullius. Its feast fell on 31 March, and Ovid marks it in his calendar poem, the Fasti, with a lovely line: the moon rules the months, and so this month ends with her worship on the Aventine. Livy records that in 182 BC a storm tore off the temple doors and flung them against the temple of Ceres below, and Tacitus lists the shrine among the old buildings lost in the great fire of AD 64.

Varro also mentions a shrine on the Palatine to Luna Noctiluca, the Night Shiner, which he says glowed at night. Scholars still debate what he meant. In 17 BC, at the great Secular Games of Augustus, a choir of boys and girls sang the poet Horace’s hymn, in which the girls call on Luna, the two horned queen of the stars, to hear them.

What is modern

Beyond these lines, little is known about how Luna was worshipped. No ritual or list of offerings for her survives. The Victorian Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology put it plainly well over a century ago: further details of her worship are not known.

So anything you read about Luna’s crystals, colours or place as maiden, mother or crone comes from modern practice. Her link with cypress trees and poppies is also a modern reading, built on Roman art: poppies stood for sleep, as on the Endymion coffins, and the dark cypress was a Roman tree of mourning and the world below. The pairing of the moon with silver as a metal is best known from the medieval alchemists, who simply called silver luna. None of this makes modern practice less meaningful. It simply tells you which layer you are standing on.

Luna Symbols and What They Mean

The crescent

A crescent on her brow or behind her shoulders is the surest way to spot Luna in Roman art.

The biga and the white oxen

Her light two horse chariot says she is always moving and always on time. The oxen, horned like the young moon, suit a goddess of slow and steady cycles.

The torch

The light carried into the dark, which ties her to Diana Lucifera, the light bringer, and to Hecate’s torches.

Silver, cypress and poppy

Silver is the colour of moonlight. The cypress and poppy are a modern pairing, for stillness, sleep, dreams and remembrance.

Luna and the Roman Month

When Ovid said the moon rules the months, he meant it quite literally. The earliest Roman calendar followed the moon. On the first day of the month, the Kalends, a priest watched for the new crescent and then called out to the people how many days were left until the Nones. The Nones fell at the first quarter, and the Ides at the full moon. The days after the Ides were counted down towards the next Kalends. You can read how the dates worked in the Dickinson College Commentaries. The three names outlived the lunar calendar itself.

Her day, Monday, comes from the Roman seven day week, where each day belonged to a planet. The day of the moon was dies Lunae, still heard in lunedì, lundi and lunes.

Luna in the Week of the Hunter’s Moon

The Hunter’s Moon was full at 4.12am GMT on Monday 26 October, in Taurus with the Sun in Scorpio. That is Luna’s own day, which feels fitting. By Wednesday 28 October the moon is a waning gibbous, still more than nine tenths lit, and early that morning it moves into Gemini, the sign of the twins.

It is a gentle match. Luna’s two horses, one dark and one light, ran a twin path with the sun, and Gemini is the sign of pairs. The moon now rises a little later each evening and rides high through the night. In Roman terms we are past the Ides, in the waning days that count down towards the next new moon, with Samhain waiting at the end of the week.

The waning gibbous is a time for gratitude: a good night to look back over the month, notice what has come to fullness, and choose what you will let thin away. Many people also make moon water under these bright waning nights.

Crystals for Luna

No Roman text gives Luna a crystal. The stones below are modern correspondences, chosen for her story and symbols: the white oxen, the silver light, Endymion’s sleep, the poppies, the cypress groves and the torch carried into the dark. Each is one we stock.

Howlite, for the white oxen

Howlite is a soft white stone with fine grey veins, often kept by the bed for calm. Its quiet whiteness suits the patient oxen that pull Luna’s chariot. Try a howlite tower on a bedside table.

Amethyst and silver, for Endymion’s sleep

Amethyst is a favourite stone for sleep and dreams, and set in silver it carries the Endymion story beautifully. Our twisted silver wand with amethyst makes a lovely tool for opening a moon practice.

Almandine garnet, for the poppies

Deep red garnet holds the colour of the poppies at Luna’s feet. As remembrance poppies appear across Britain in the weeks before Remembrance Sunday, it also makes a thoughtful stone for honouring those we miss. See our almandine garnet sphere in matrix.

Moss agate, for the cypress groves

Moss agate carries green, branching patterns that look like tiny trees caught in stone. It brings the dark cypress groves into your space. A moss agate tower sits well beside a window.

Clear quartz, for the torch

The Romans believed rock crystal was ice frozen so hard it could never melt. A point that gathers and spreads light suits Luna Noctiluca, the Night Shiner, and her torch. A clear quartz point is also the easiest stone to begin with.

Agate moon, for her face on your altar

Agate forms slowly, layer upon layer, a fitting picture for a goddess who measures time. Our crazy lace agate moon on a stand gives you Luna’s crescent to keep in view all month.

A Simple Practice for Luna’s Night

The Romans left no ritual for Luna, so this is a modern practice built from what the old sources do tell us: her month, her light and her name spoken aloud. It suits Wednesday 28 October or any waning night. You need a white chime candle, a pen and paper, and one of the stones above, ideally near a window.

• Set your space. Place the candle in front of you with the stone beside it.
• Light the candle. Say aloud, in Horace’s words or your own: Luna, two horned queen of the stars, hear me.
• Look back over the month. Write three short lines. What began at the new moon? What came to fullness at the Hunter’s Moon? What are you ready to let thin away before Samhain?
• Give thanks. Read the second line aloud and thank Luna for it. Gratitude is the old work of the waning gibbous.
• Sit with her light. Hold the stone and rest for a few minutes in the glow of the candle or the moon. If you like, breathe slowly and let a soft hum ride on each out breath. Silence works just as well.
• Close. Thank Luna, put out the candle, and keep your paper until the next new moon.

If you are not sure Luna is the goddess reaching for you, our guide to which goddess is calling you has some simple ways to find out.

The Seven Moon Goddesses Film

Luna is one of seven moon goddesses in our short film, which follows the moon from the Hunter’s Moon to Samhain night.

Questions People Ask About Luna

What is the Luna goddess known for?

Luna is the Roman goddess of the moon, known for driving her chariot across the night sky and for ruling the months. She was honoured at temples on the Aventine and Palatine hills in Rome.

Is Luna the same as Selene?

They are closely linked. Selene is the Greek moon goddess and Luna the Roman one. Rome borrowed Selene’s stories, including Endymion, but Luna had her own temples and festival.

Is Luna the same as Diana?

Not at first. Diana began as a goddess of woods and wild places, while Luna was the moon itself. Roman poets later blended them, and Diana was often called Luna.

What are the symbols of Luna?

The crescent, her two horse or two ox chariot, the torch and silver. In modern practice people also add cypress, poppies and moon stones.

What day is sacred to Luna?

Monday, the day of the moon, called dies Lunae in Latin. Her temple on the Aventine celebrated its birthday on 31 March.

How do you honour Luna?

No Roman ritual for her survives, so modern practice keeps it simple: a white candle, her name spoken aloud, a stone and a little time with the moon.

Bring Luna home

The Luna artwork from this series now comes on a 13oz white ceramic mug and a 20oz skinny tumbler wrapped all the way round in crescents, stars and moonflowers. Each one comes with a printed card telling her story, so it is ready to keep or to give.

Luna Goddess Mug 13oz
£9.99Luna Goddess Tumbler, 20oz Skinny with Straw
£19.99

See all the goddess tumblers

Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt and the moon: her grove at Nemi, the Festival of Torches, her three faces and her night in the Hunter’s Moon week

Diana is the Roman huntress of the woods, the guardian of wild places and women, and, by the light she borrows, the moon. Here is who the Diana goddess really is, where her story comes from, and the crystals and simple practices people use to honour her today. She is the third goddess in our moon goddesses week, from the Hunter’s Moon to Samhain.

Who Is the Diana Goddess?

Diana is one of the oldest goddesses of Italy. Long before Rome was powerful, the Latin towns around it shared a sanctuary to her beside a lake in the woods. She ruled the open country beyond the farms, its forests, mountains and animals, and she protected women in childbirth, the young, and people with little power of their own.

Her name is usually traced to an old word for divine, which shares its root with the Latin for day and the bright sky. Cicero explained it his own way: as the moon, she made a kind of day in the middle of the night.

As Rome came to know Greek culture, Diana was matched with the Greek huntress Artemis, and gained a twin brother, Apollo, a mother, Latona, and a father, Jupiter. If you read yesterday’s post on Artemis, some of this will feel familiar, but Diana kept a character of her own, rooted in the Italian landscape.

The Story of Diana Goddess of the Hunt

Born on Delos

In the story the Romans borrowed from Greece, Latona, pregnant by Jupiter, was turned away from every land until the floating island of Delos took her in. Diana was born first and then helped her mother deliver her twin, Apollo, which is one reason women in labour called on her.

Diana and Actaeon

The best known Roman telling of a Diana myth is in the third book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The hunter Actaeon stumbles on Diana bathing in a hidden pool with her nymphs. She splashes him with water and he becomes a stag, and his own hounds run him down. The story is harsh on purpose. It is about the boundary between the human world and the wild.

Diana does not live in the town. To meet her, you walk out past the last of the fields and into the trees.

A prophecy for Britain

Around 1136, Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote in his History of the Kings of Britain that Brutus, a descendant of the Trojans, found a ruined temple of Diana on an empty island. He poured wine at her altar, slept before her image, and dreamed she told him of an island beyond Gaul, in the western sea, where he would found a second Troy. That island was Britain. It is legend rather than history, but Diana has been part of the story Britain tells about itself for almost nine hundred years.

Lake Nemi, Diana’s Mirror

The heart of Diana’s worship lay about eighteen miles south east of Rome, near the old town of Aricia, where a small round lake fills a volcanic crater ringed by wooded slopes. The place was called Nemus, the grove, and the goddess was Diana Nemorensis, Diana of the Wood. The lake is still known as Diana’s Mirror, because on a still night it holds the moon perfectly.

In his Fasti, Ovid writes of a lake in the vale of Aricia ringed by dense woods, where the hedge was hung with threads and thank you tablets, and where a woman whose prayer was answered would walk out from the city carrying lighted torches. You can read his lines in the Fasti, Book Three. The Greek geographer Strabo describes the temple in its sacred grove, with the lake in front of it, in his Geography, Book Five.

Strabo also records the strangest custom of all. The priest of the grove, the King of the Wood, was a runaway slave who had killed the priest before him, and he kept a sword in his hand, waiting for the next challenger. Historians are unsure how literally to take it.

The Nemoralia, the Festival of Torches

Diana’s great festival fell on the Ides of August. The poet Statius, writing in the first century AD, describes the grove on that night with torches shining across the lake and hunting dogs crowned with garlands, since no animal was hunted while the goddess was being honoured. The same day was kept as a festival of Diana at her temple on the Aventine Hill in Rome. Plutarch, in his Roman Questions, notes that on this day enslaved people kept a holiday and women took care to wash their hair.

The Honest History of Diana

Diana is so loved in modern witchcraft that it helps to know which layers are ancient and which are recent.

What the ancient sources say

Diana was worshipped in Roman and Latin religion for many centuries, and her sanctuary at Nemi is well attested in writing and archaeology. The historian Livy credits King Servius Tullius with founding her temple on the Aventine, though modern historians debate the date.

Her link with the moon is old too, but it grew over time. Rome had a separate moon goddess, Luna, who is tomorrow’s goddess in this series. By the first century BC, poets were blending the two. Catullus wrote a hymn to Diana that calls her Lucina for women in childbirth, Trivia of the crossroads, and Luna for the light she borrows.

A silver coin struck in Rome in 43 BC shows the cult statue of Diana of Nemi as three linked figures before a grove of cypress trees. You can see one in the British Museum collection. Much later, the commentator Servius summed it up: the same goddess was Luna in the sky, Diana on earth and Proserpina below.

Her most famous statue, the Diana of Versailles in the Louvre, shows her striding forward, reaching for an arrow, with a deer at her side. The Theoi Project has photographs.

What came later

In the early tenth century a church text, the Canon Episcopi, complained of women who believed they rode out at night with Diana, goddess of the pagans. That line shaped later ideas of witches and their night journeys.

In 1890 James Frazer opened The Golden Bough with the King of the Wood at Nemi. Most of his grand theory has since been set aside, but it made Nemi famous. In 1899 Charles Godfrey Leland published Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, presenting Diana as Queen of the Witches. Scholars doubt it records an old tradition, yet it fed straight into modern witchcraft, and in the 1970s Dianic Wicca grew up around her.

One London correction: a Roman altar found in 1830 while Goldsmiths’ Hall was being built was long called the altar of Diana, but Goldsmiths’ Hall now says recent scholarship identifies the figure as a hunter god.

And when old Bibles speak of Diana of the Ephesians, the famous temple at Ephesus belonged to the Greek Artemis. The translators simply used her Roman name.

Diana and the Moon: The Three Faces

A triple Diana is one of the few pieces of triple goddess imagery with genuinely ancient roots. Roman poets called her triformis, three formed, and her statue at Nemi had three parts.

The lower face is the one most people now call Hecate, who closes this series on Samhain night. Statius even calls Diana’s August festival the Hecatean Ides. If you are drawn to these three faces as patterns in your own life, our guide to lunar goddess archetypes and crystal grids explores them further.

The Diana Goddess in the Week of the Hunter’s Moon

The Hunter’s Moon was full at 4.12am GMT on Monday 26th October, in Taurus, with the Sun in Scorpio. By Diana’s evening on Tuesday 27th October the moon is just past full, still in Taurus and still almost round, rising a little later than the night before. It has just begun to wane.

That makes this a good night for the huntress. A hunter does not chase everything. She chooses one quarry, follows it patiently and lets the rest go by. The first nights of the waning moon ask the same question: of everything you set out to do this year, what are you really aiming for? The moon in Taurus, an earthy, steady sign, suits the Diana who lives on earth, and favours slow, rooted choices.

Her own festival falls in high summer, near Lammas, but this week she walks the darkening nights towards Samhain.

Crystals for Diana

No ancient text links Diana with any crystal. The stones below are modern correspondences, chosen for her story: the green grove, the crescent, the moon on the lake, the torches, the arrow and her care for the vulnerable. Each one is in stock, so you can find it in the shop.

Green aventurine, for the grove

Green aventurine has a soft shimmer, like sunlight through leaves, and the colour of Diana’s woodland. A green aventurine tower on a windowsill brings a little of the grove at Nemi indoors.

A carved crescent, for the moon on her brow

Diana is so often shown with a crescent on her forehead that the shape has become her sign. A crystal moon carving makes a simple focus for her altar in the nights after the Hunter’s Moon.

Labradorite, for Diana’s Mirror

Labradorite looks dark until the light catches it and blue flashes across the surface, much like moonlight on a still lake. A blue labradorite freeform suits quiet reflection as the moon begins to wane.

Citrine, for the torches

Golden citrine carries the warm colour of torchlight, for the Nemoralia and for courage when you walk out into the dark. A natural citrine point can sit beside your candle.

Black obsidian, for the arrow

Obsidian is volcanic glass that breaks to a fine, sharp edge, and people made arrowheads from it for thousands of years. Hold an obsidian sphere as you name the one thing you are aiming for.

Black tourmaline, for the guardian

Black tourmaline is one of the stones most often chosen for protection. It suits Diana as the guardian of women, children and wild creatures. Try a black tourmaline merkabah by the door.

A Simple Practice for Diana’s Night

This is a gentle practice for the evening of Tuesday 27th October, or any night as the moon begins to wane. It borrows two images from Nemi, the torch and the lake, but it is a modern practice, not an ancient rite. You need a white or green chime candle in a safe holder, a small bowl of water, a short length of natural thread or ribbon, a pen and journal, and one of the stones above.

• Set your space. Place the bowl of water in front of you with the candle just behind it, so that when it is lit the flame shows in the water. Put your stone beside the bowl.
• Light the candle. Say her name aloud three times: Diana, Diana, Diana. You might add the closing words of Catullus’s hymn: be holy, under whatever name pleases you.
• Name your quarry. In your journal, write the one aim you most want to follow through the coming season. Only one. Underneath, write two things you are willing to let go by so you can follow it.
• Tie a knot. Hold the thread and tie a single knot in it as you say your aim aloud. This echoes the threads Ovid saw hanging in the grove. Keep the thread somewhere you will see it, or tie it loosely to a branch outdoors.
• Look into the mirror. Sit for a few minutes with the flame in the water. If you like, rest your fingertips on the surface, or simply breathe slowly and listen to the room. Either is fine.
• Close. Thank Diana, put out the candle, and pour the water onto the earth or a plant.

Never leave a lit candle unattended. If you enjoy working with water at the full moon, our guide to moon water and lunar elixirs has more ideas.

The Seven Moon Goddesses Film

Diana is one of seven moon goddesses in our short film, which follows the moon from the Hunter’s Moon to Samhain night. Each goddess has her own day this week.

Questions People Ask About Diana

What is Diana the goddess of?

Diana is the Roman goddess of the hunt, wild animals and the woods. She also protected women in childbirth and was honoured as a goddess of the moon.

Is Diana the same as Artemis?

Not quite. Diana was an Italian goddess in her own right, with her own sanctuary at Nemi. The Romans later matched her with Artemis and took on her myths.

Is Diana a moon goddess?

Yes, though that side of her grew over time. Rome also had a separate moon goddess, Luna, and by the first century BC poets were calling Diana by Luna’s name.

What are the symbols of Diana?

The bow, arrows and quiver, the crescent moon, the torch, hunting dogs, deer and the cypress tree. Lake Nemi, known as Diana’s Mirror, is closely tied to her too.

What is the Nemoralia?

The Nemoralia, or Festival of Torches, was Diana’s festival on the Ides of August, 13th August. Worshippers carried torches to her grove at Nemi and hunting dogs were garlanded.

Who are Diana’s parents?

In the Roman retelling of the Greek myth, Diana is the daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and the twin sister of Apollo, born on the island of Delos.

Bring Diana home

The Diana artwork from this series now comes on a 13oz white ceramic mug and a 20oz skinny tumbler wrapped all the way round in oak leaves, torches and deer. Each one comes with a printed card telling her story, so it is ready to keep or to give.

Diana Goddess Mug 13oz
£9.99Diana Goddess Tumbler, 20oz Skinny with Straw
£19.99

See all the goddess tumblers

Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and the moonlit woods: who she is, her stories, her symbols, and how to honour the Artemis goddess at the Hunter’s Moon

Artemis is the huntress of the Greek hills, the twin sister of Apollo, the one who runs with her hounds through the cypress groves and keeps the wild places for herself. Here is who the Artemis goddess really is, how she came to be linked with the moon, and the crystals and simple practices people use to honour her at the Hunter’s Moon. She is the second goddess in our week of moon goddesses, from the full moon to Samhain.

Who Is the Artemis Goddess?

Artemis is one of the twelve Olympian gods of ancient Greece. She is the goddess of the hunt and of everything that lives beyond the edge of the town: the mountains, the forests, the marshes and the animals that live there. Homer calls her the mistress of animals, and the Greeks pictured her as a young woman who never married, who ran with a pack of hounds and a band of nymphs, and who could bring down a deer with a single arrow.

The Greeks did not see her as a goddess of killing. The hunter who knows the woods is also the one who protects them, and Artemis looked after young animals, young girls and women giving birth.

She is very old. Her name has been read on clay tablets from the Mycenaean palace at Pylos, written more than three thousand years ago, and no one knows for certain what it means.

The Stories of Artemis

Born on an island

In the story, Leto was carrying twins by Zeus, and Hera, his jealous wife, made sure no land would let her rest. At last the small floating island of Delos took her in. Some tellings say Artemis was born first, on the nearby island of Ortygia, and then helped her mother deliver Apollo. That is one reason women in labour prayed to her.

A girl who asked for everything

The loveliest picture of young Artemis comes from the poet Callimachus, writing in Alexandria in the third century BC. In his Hymn to Artemis, the little goddess sits on her father’s knee and asks for her wishes. She wants to stay unmarried forever. She wants many names, so that her brother Apollo cannot outshine her. She wants a bow and arrows, a hunting tunic that falls only to the knee, a choir of nymphs and all the mountains of the world. Zeus laughs and gives her all of it, and more.

In the same poem the Cyclopes forge her bow, the god Pan gives her hunting dogs, and in Arcadia she catches four deer with golden horns on foot to draw her golden chariot.

She did not ask her father for a crown. She asked for the mountains, and the right to keep them wild.

Actaeon, Callisto and Orion

The stories also show her fierce side. The hunter Actaeon came upon her bathing, and she turned him into a stag, chased down by his own hounds. Her companion Callisto, after Zeus came to her, was turned into a bear and placed in the sky as the Great Bear.

The giant hunter Orion was her friend on the hunt. In one telling he boasted he would kill every creature on earth, the earth sent a scorpion against him, and Artemis set him among the stars. These are myths, told differently across the Greek world, and they read best as stories about respect for wild things rather than as history.

The Honest History of Artemis

It helps to know which parts of her picture are ancient and which came later.

What the ancient sources say

In Homer she is the archer and the mistress of animals. The short Homeric Hymn to Artemis opens with the line “I sing of Artemis, whose shafts are of gold”, and shows her hunting across the shadowy hills before she goes to her brother’s house at Delphi to lead the dancing.

Her worship was real and widespread. At Brauron, on the coast east of Athens, young Athenian girls served her as little bears, wearing saffron coloured dresses, a custom the playwright Aristophanes mentions in Lysistrata. At Sparta she was honoured as Artemis Orthia. At Ephesus, on the coast of what is now Türkiye, her great temple was counted among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, and the site is now on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The goddess of Ephesus looked quite different from the slim huntress, a reminder that Artemis was worshipped in many forms.

Her most famous statue today is the Diana of Versailles in the Louvre, a Roman copy of a Greek bronze. She strides forward in a short tunic, reaching for an arrow.

How Artemis became a moon goddess

In Homer and the early hymns, Artemis is not the moon. The moon was Selene, a separate goddess who drove her own silver chariot across the night sky. Over time Greek writers began to treat Artemis and Selene as one, much as Apollo came to be linked with the sun, and by Roman times the huntress with a crescent on her brow was a familiar figure.

There were moonlit threads in her worship long before that. At the Mounichia festival in Athens, held on the sixteenth day of the spring month Mounichion, close to the full moon, people offered her round cakes set all around with small lit candles. Plutarch tells us the festival remembered the Greek victory over the Persians at Salamis, when, he says, the goddess shone with a full moon on the Greek fleet. So a candle on a round cake for Artemis is a genuinely ancient gesture.

What is modern

Calling Artemis the maiden of a triple moon goddess, alongside a mother and a crone, is a twentieth century idea, made popular by Robert Graves and then by modern witchcraft. The same goes for her crystals and her place in the zodiac. None of this is in the ancient texts. That does not make it less meaningful; the young huntress is old, the triple goddess is new, and you are free to love both.

Artemis Symbols and What They Mean

Ancient art gave Artemis a clear set of signs, so anyone could recognise her on a vase or a coin.

• The bow and arrows. Her most iconic symbols. Her arrows were said to be golden.
• The deer. Her sacred animal, from her golden horned chariot deer to the doe beside her in the Louvre.
• The hound. Her hunting companions, the gift from Pan.
• The bear. Linked with the girls of Brauron and with Callisto.
• The cypress. The tall dark tree of her sacred groves.
• The torch. She was sometimes called the light bringer, and torches were carried for her at night.
• The crescent moon. Worn as a diadem or a pendant in later art, once she had come to be seen as a moon goddess.

Callimachus has her ask for many names, and the Greeks gave them to her. Together they show how wide her care reached.

Artemis and the Hunter’s Moon

Her day in our series falls on Monday 26th October 2026, the morning of the Hunter’s Moon. The moon is full at 4.12am GMT, so the night to watch is Sunday 25th, when the moon rises low and golden in the east as the light fades. UK clocks go back that same weekend, at 2am on Sunday, so the evenings suddenly feel darker. Our guide to the Hunter’s Moon 2026 has the timings and the folklore of the name.

The sky adds its own echo of her story. The Sun is in Scorpio, the sign of the scorpion that brought Orion down, and on autumn nights Orion himself climbs into the late evening sky in the east. The full moon is in Taurus, the bull, and Artemis had a bull name too: the playwright Euripides calls her Tauropolos at her shrine at Halai, near Brauron. These are modern pairings, not ancient teaching, but they give the week a lovely shape.

From Monday the moon begins to wane, shrinking a little each night towards Samhain on the 31st. In modern moon work this is the time to finish, gather in and release. For Artemis that is the hunter’s rhythm: the chase is over, and now the catch comes home. It is a good week to look at one goal you have been chasing and decide what it needs from you now.

Crystals for Artemis

No ancient text gives Artemis a crystal. The stones below are modern correspondences, chosen for her story, and each one is in stock.

Moss agate, for the wild groves

Moss agate holds green, branching patterns that look like a tiny forest caught in stone. A moss agate tower on a windowsill brings a little of her grove indoors.

Clear quartz, for the arrow’s aim

A clear quartz point has a natural tip, like an arrowhead of light. A clear quartz point laid towards the moon is a simple way to set your aim for the coming month.

Tiger’s eye, for the hunter’s sight

Tiger’s eye has a golden band of light that moves as you turn it, like the eye of an animal in the dark. It speaks of sharp sight and patience, and its gold recalls her arrows. Try a tiger’s eye tower.

Howlite, for the white stag

Howlite is soft white with fine grey veins, the colour of the pale deer that so often walk beside her in art. It is a calming stone for quiet evenings. A howlite tower suits a bedside altar during the waning week.

Carnelian, for the swift stride

Warm orange carnelian is a stone of energy and courage, a good match for a goddess who caught golden horned deer on foot. A carnelian wand is lovely to hold while you speak your aim aloud.

Rainbow moonstone, for the crescent

Rainbow moonstone shows a blue sheen that seems to float under the surface, like moonlight through leaves. It stands for the crescent she wears in later art. Our rainbow moonstone tower makes a gentle centre for a small moon altar.

A Simple Hunter’s Moon Practice for Artemis

This practice borrows a gesture from her ancient worship: a round cake and a small flame under the full moon. Do it on Sunday 25th as the moon rises, or on Monday 26th as it begins to wane. You need a white chime candle, a small round cake or biscuit, a pen and paper, and one of the stones above.

• Set your space. Place the cake on a plate with the candle beside it, and the stone in front.
• Light the candle. Say her name aloud three times: Artemis, Artemis, Artemis. You might add, “Lady of the wild places, huntress of the moon, I honour you tonight.”
• Name your aim. Write one clear goal on the paper, the thing you have been chasing this year. One line, as sharp as an arrow.
• Name what you are bringing home. Underneath, write one thing you have already achieved towards it.
• Make your offering. Break off a piece of the cake and set it aside for her. Later, leave it outside for the birds.
• Sit with the light. Hold the stone and watch the flame. Some people like to breathe slowly and count each breath, or step softly on the spot as if walking through the woods. Others simply sit quietly. Any of these is fine.
• Close. Thank Artemis, put out the candle, and keep the paper under the stone until Samhain.

If you enjoy making moon water, the Hunter’s Moon is a fine night for it, and our guide to moon water and lunar elixirs explains how.

Signs the Artemis Goddess May Be Calling You

• You feel most yourself outdoors, in woods, on hills or by wild water.
• Deer, dogs or bears keep appearing in your days or dreams.
• You guard your independence and your own space.
• You have a clear goal and the patience to follow it through.

If you are not sure, our guide to which goddess is calling you has some simple ways to find out, and lunar goddess archetypes and crystal grids shows how to build a grid around her.

The Seven Moon Goddesses Film

Artemis is one of seven goddesses in our short film for this week, which follows the moon from the Hunter’s Moon to Samhain night.

Questions People Ask About Artemis

What is Artemis the goddess of?

Artemis is the Greek goddess of the hunt, wild animals and the wilderness. She also protected young girls and helped women in childbirth, and in later times she became a goddess of the moon.

Is Artemis a moon goddess?

Not at first. In the earliest Greek sources the moon is Selene. Artemis came to be identified with Selene over time, and by the Roman period she was widely seen as a moon goddess. Most people who work with her today honour her at the crescent and full moon.

What are the symbols of Artemis?

The bow and arrows, the quiver, the deer, the hound, the bear, the cypress and the torch, with the crescent moon added in later art.

Who is Artemis’s twin?

Her twin brother is Apollo, god of music, prophecy and light. Their parents are Zeus and Leto, and they were born on or near the island of Delos.

What is the Roman name for Artemis?

The Romans honoured Diana, who came to be treated as the same goddess. You can read her own story, with the torchlit festival at Lake Nemi, in our post on Diana.

How do you pronounce Artemis?

Say AR te miss, with the stress on the first syllable.

Bring Artemis home

The Artemis artwork from this series now comes on a 13oz white ceramic mug and a 20oz skinny tumbler wrapped all the way round in bows, white deer and hounds. Each one comes with a printed card telling her story, so it is ready to keep or to give.

Artemis Goddess Mug 13oz
£9.99Artemis Goddess Tumbler, 20oz Skinny with Straw
£19.99

See all the goddess tumblers

Selene, the Greek goddess of the moon: her silver chariot, her love for Endymion, her symbols and a simple practice for the eve of the Hunter’s Moon

Selene is the moon itself in Greek myth, the shining goddess who bathes in the Ocean at dusk, yokes her white horses and drives her chariot across the night sky. Here is who the Selene goddess is, what the oldest Greek sources really say, the story of Selene and Endymion, and the crystals and gentle practice people use to honour her today. She opens our week of moon goddesses, on the night before the Hunter’s Moon.

Who Is the Selene Goddess?

Selene is the Greek goddess of the moon, and in the oldest stories she is not simply linked with the moon, she is the moon. When the Greeks looked up at its light, they saw her face and her chariot. Her name comes from selas, an old Greek word for brightness or gleaming light, and it has never left the language: Greeks still call the moon selini today.

The poet Hesiod, writing around 700 BC, places her in a family of light. Her parents are the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and her brother and sister are Helios, the sun, and Eos, the dawn. The three of them share the sky. Helios drives his chariot across the day, Eos opens the gates of morning, and Selene takes the night.

Unlike the great Olympians, Selene had very few temples. She was honoured more as a living presence in the sky than as a goddess with priests and festivals. You do not need a temple to find her, only a clear night.

The Story of Selene and Endymion

The sleeper on Mount Latmos

The best known Selene story is a love story. On Mount Latmos, above what is now Lake Bafa in western Turkey, a beautiful young man named Endymion lay asleep in a cave. In most tellings he is a shepherd. Driving across the sky, Selene saw him sleeping in the moonlight and fell in love.

Night after night she stepped from her chariot and lay beside him while he slept. The poet Apollonius of Rhodes, writing in the third century BC, has her confess that she often slipped away to the Latmian cave to be with him.

The gift of endless sleep

Endymion was mortal, and mortals grow old. In the version told in the Library, a handbook of Greek myth from the Roman period, Zeus offered Endymion a wish and he chose to sleep forever, never ageing and never dying. Other tellers, among them the Roman writer Cicero, say the moon sent him to sleep herself, so that she could visit him undisturbed. Either way the ending is the same. He sleeps on Latmos still, and the moon still comes to him.

She could not stop him growing old. She could only stop the clock, and keep coming back.

The travel writer Pausanias, in the second century AD, adds that Selene bore Endymion fifty daughters. Some scholars suggest the fifty stand for the fifty lunar months between one Olympic festival and the next, which would make them the moon’s own months. It is a lovely idea, but a modern guess.

Selene’s other loves

She has two other partners in the stories. With Zeus she had a daughter, Pandia, whose name means all bright, and the poet Alcman names another daughter, Ersa, the dew. The Roman poet Virgil tells a stranger tale, that the woodland god Pan won the moon by tempting her with a snow white fleece. These are stories, told and retold by poets.

What the Selene Story Means

Read slowly, the Endymion tale is about faithfulness. The moon cannot stay. Every month she wanes away to nothing, yet she always comes back, and her love for Endymion is that rhythm turned into a story. It is also a story about rest, since sleep and night belong together. That is why so many people turn to Selene for calm evenings, peaceful sleep and dreams, and for a love that does not need to hold on tightly.

The Honest History of Selene

It helps to know which parts of Selene are ancient and which are recent.

What the old sources say

The most beautiful early picture of her is the short Homeric Hymn 32 to Selene, a poem of about twenty lines whose exact date no one knows, though it is usually counted among the later hymns in the collection. It describes her bathing her lovely skin in the waters of Ocean, putting on shining robes, yoking her bright horses and driving out in the evening in the middle of the month, when her great circle is full and her light is strongest. It calls her full moon a sure token and a sign to mortal men. That is the closest thing we have to an ancient description of Selene in her own right.

Pausanias saw a stone image of Selene at Elis with horns rising from her head. In Theocritus’s second Idyll, written in the third century BC, a young woman named Simaetha calls on Selene by moonlight as she works a love charm. The idea that witches could draw down the moon was familiar enough for Aristophanes to joke about it in his comedy The Clouds in 423 BC. You can read many of these passages gathered together at Theoi Greek Mythology.

Where you can still see her

Selene drives across some of the finest sculpture of the ancient world. On the east pediment of the Parthenon in Athens, carved between 438 and 432 BC, the sun’s horses rise at one corner and the moon’s horses sink at the other. One of those horse heads, its nostrils flared and its mouth open after a night of hard driving, is in the British Museum in London as the horse of Selene. The museum notes the driver may be Selene or Nyx, the night.

The Romans loved the Endymion story so much that they carved it on coffins. On these sarcophagi Selene steps down from her chariot towards the sleeping young man, her veil swelling in an arch above her head like a sail. The Metropolitan Museum’s Selene and Endymion sarcophagus from the early third century AD shows exactly this, with the sun rising in his chariot at one end and the moon sinking in hers at the other.

What is modern

Over time the Greeks blended their moon goddesses. By the Roman period Artemis, Hecate and Selene were often treated as faces of one lunar power, and Selene was matched with the Roman Luna. The triple goddess of maiden, mother and crone is newer still, popularised in the twentieth century by Robert Graves. Modern pagans often place Selene as the mother, the full moon. That is a meaningful modern layer, but it is not how the ancient Greeks arranged their gods.

Selene Goddess Symbols

Each Selene goddess symbol below comes from ancient poetry or art.

• The chariot. Her silver chariot carries the moon across the sky, just as her brother’s carries the sun. Later art often decorates it with stars.
• White horses. Usually a pair, pale as moonlight. Some poets give her oxen or bulls instead, and Pausanias mentions a mule.
• The crescent. Worn as a crown or diadem on her brow, or rising like horns from her head.
• The arching veil. A cloak or veil billowing over her head in a curve, which Roman artists used to show her drifting through the night.
• Silver and white. Her colours are the colours of moonlight itself.

Selene and the Hunter’s Moon

Selene’s day in our series is Sunday 25th October 2026, and the timing could hardly suit her better. It is the night the clocks go back. At 2am UK clocks fall from BST to GMT, and that evening the dark arrives an hour earlier than the night before. Sunday is named for the sun, her brother, so his day hands over to her night.

On Sunday evening the moon is a bright waxing gibbous, almost round, rising in the east around sunset. It slips into Taurus overnight and becomes the full Hunter’s Moon at 4.12am GMT on Monday 26th October, with the Sun in Scorpio opposite. Astrologers call the moon exalted in Taurus, the sign of the bull, a happy match for a goddess some poets gave a team of bulls. This is the full moon of the hymn.

For lovers of numbers, the digits of the 25th add up to seven, the number of goddesses in this series. From here the moon begins to wane, night by night, towards Samhain on Saturday 31st October, when Hecate closes the week.

Crystals for Selene

No ancient text gives Selene any crystal. The stones below are modern correspondences, chosen for her story: the moonlight, the white horses, the starry chariot, the sleeping Endymion and a love that keeps returning. Each is one we stock, and any of them can also be bought as a single tumblestone.

Selenite, the stone that carries her name

Selenite takes its name from the Greek for stone of the moon, after Selene herself, for its soft pearly glow. A selenite moon bowl makes a simple altar centre, and a selenite wand sits well beside a white candle.

Moonstone, for the full moon

Moonstone has a gentle sheen that seems to move across its surface, like moonlight on water. Our moonstone sphere echoes the round full moon itself.

Howlite, for the white horses

Howlite is white with soft grey veins, the colour of her pale horses. It is widely used as a calming stone before sleep, which ties it to the quiet hours she drives through. Try a howlite tower on a bedside table.

Amethyst, for Endymion’s dreams

Amethyst has long been a stone of rest and clear dreaming. With Selene it speaks to the sleeper on Latmos and the dreams the moon watches over. A dream amethyst sphere suits a dream journal kept by the bed.

Clear quartz, for the stars on the chariot

Clear quartz scatters light, much as the moon reflects her brother the sun, and stands for the stars on her chariot. A clear quartz cluster catches candlelight beautifully on a moon altar.

Rose quartz, for a faithful love

Rose quartz is the classic stone of tender love. With Selene it carries the side of her story that keeps coming back, a love that is patient and does not grasp. Hold a rose quartz palm stone while you think of someone you hold dear.

A Simple Full Moon Practice for Selene

A gentle practice for the evening of Sunday 25th October, or any night near the full moon. You need a white chime candle, a small bowl of water, a pen and a journal, and one of the stones above. If you have a moon cycles charging plate, it makes a lovely base for your stone.

• Find the moon. Look for her rising in the east around sunset, or set your space by a window that faces her.
• Light the candle. Place the bowl of water in front of it, so the flame and the moonlight both catch on the surface. Say her name aloud three times: Selene, Selene, Selene.
• Speak to her. Say a few words of greeting in your own way. You might borrow the spirit of the old hymn: Hail, bright Selene, who drives the night. Thank you for your light.
• Write what you keep returning to. In your journal, write one thing in your life that is worth coming back to, again and again, like the moon to Endymion.
• Rest with the light. Hold your stone and sit quietly for a few minutes. Some people like to hum softly, or simply notice the slow rhythm of their breathing, as the night settles. Others sit in silence. Either is fine.
• Close. Thank Selene, put out the candle, and pour the water onto a plant or the earth outside. Keep your journal page private, just for you.

For a fuller altar, our guide to lunar goddess archetypes and crystal grids shows how to lay stones around a centre, with a crystal moon carving at its heart. Not sure Selene is the goddess for you? Our guide to which goddess is calling you may help.

The Seven Moon Goddesses Film

Selene is the first of seven moon goddesses in our short film, each painted in moonlight and following the moon from full to waning across the week of Samhain.

Questions People Ask About Selene

What is Selene the goddess of?

Selene is the Greek goddess of the moon. In the oldest sources she is the moon itself, driving it across the night sky in her chariot.

What is the story of Selene and Endymion?

Selene fell in love with Endymion, a young man who slept in a cave on Mount Latmos. He was granted endless sleep and eternal youth, and the moon visits him every night.

Is Selene the same as Artemis?

No, they began as separate goddesses. Selene was the moon itself, while Artemis was the goddess of the hunt. In later times Artemis took on moon symbolism and the two were often blended.

What is Selene’s Roman name?

The Romans called her Luna, and they told the Endymion story of Luna just as the Greeks told it of Selene.

Who are Selene’s parents?

Hesiod names the Titans Hyperion and Theia, which makes her the sister of Helios and Eos. One of the Homeric Hymns gives her father as Pallas instead.

What are Selene’s symbols?

Her chariot, her pair of white horses, the crescent crown, the arching veil, and the colours silver and white.

Bring Selene home

The Selene artwork from this series now comes on a 13oz white ceramic mug and a 20oz skinny tumbler wrapped all the way round in white horses, poppies and moons. Each one comes with a printed card telling her story, so it is ready to keep or to give.

Selene Goddess Mug 13oz
£9.99Selene Goddess Tumbler, 20oz Skinny with Straw
£19.99

See all the goddess tumblers