Celtic and Egyptian Goddesses, Forged of Greed : Immortal Monday

If you have been following my blog regularly, you may have noticed I’ve been a little quieter than usual. Thank goodness for Immortal Mondays! Right? I love getting out here and talking to you, meeting new people. But I’ve had a few project deadlines as of late. Both mine (hit the send on my submission over the weekend) and my kid’s (helping him carry that beast of an undertaking in this Monday morning). Of course, that won’t be the end of it. With my MS now out to beta readers for the final round, I am started to get focused. There are projects in the works for my bio, queries to be written, follow-ups with betas and so much more. I hate thinking about it all and I really don’t want to bore you.

I’m so lucky to have someone like Angela Orlowski-Peart to help me out on a day like today. She has graciously agreed to step in and talk to you about some pretty spectacular goddesses that inspired her while writing her debut novel, Forged of Greed. I trust you’ll find both them and the excerpts of her book as fascinating as I did. And when you’re done here, make sure to stop in at Lisa Hall-Wilson’s Blog at some point today. Thor arrived in Canada last week and he’s been getting into some real mischief. She’s going to give us the 411. Don’t miss out!  Thor – World Tour 2012!

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I have this crazy fascination with mythology. No matter if it is Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Egyptian, or any other, I always find mythology enthralling.

I can’t decide on one favorite deity in any mythology. But Celtic Morrigan and Egyptian Bastet intrigue me enough to make them the main forms of the two Goddesses in my newly released Young Adult paranormal romance/urban fantasy novel, Forged by Greed.

The Winter Goddess, Crystal and The Summer Goddess, Amber are the ancient deities in my story. Crystal’s favorite form is the Morrigan, while Amber, when not in the Human World, prefers to be seen as Bastet. But both of them actually have more than one identity.

There are many images of the Morrigan, each different from the other. You can see my own interpretation of how the Morrigan looked like in the excerpt below. 

The Morrigan is the Irish goddess of war, fertility, and vegetation. She is intimidating, powerful, and rather deadly. She can also change her shape into various animal forms. While in the guise of a raven, the Morrigan can predict the outcome of battle. As Carrion Crow she is known to be a harbinger of death, flying above the battlefield, while casting spells to tilt the scale of victory to one side.

The Morrigan is sometimes believed to be part of a triad of separate aspects: Badb, Macha, and Nemain—a triple goddess, Morrigna.

This is how you will find the Morrigan (the Winter Goddess, Crystal) looking in my book, Forged by Greed:

Bogdan leaned over the book again, his gloved hands carefully turning a few pages.

“See? Here is our Crystal again. This time as the Celtic goddess Morrigan. And I personally believe this to be her favorite identity.” Andy pointed to a large picture.

The image depicted a young woman. Long, thick tresses fell around her beautiful face covered in dark-brown tattoos. Six lines ran from her hairline to the bridge of her nose. The middle two continued down to the very tip of her nose and then curved to the sides, following the dark wavy lines that thickly framed her large eyes. The outer lines resumed the same path, but just above her brows. Thin, elongated half-moons were outlined on her cheeks.

Two large ravens sat on her shoulders. The Goddess wore a long, black cloak made out of the raven’s feathers. A tight fitting, red bra-like top revealed the crowns of her perfectly round breasts. There was another half-moon tattoo right above her navel. Thick gold bracelets encircled her arms. A short leather skirt tautly hugged her hips. Dark-brown leather boots laced up all the way to her knees completed the warrior-Goddess’s look.

The Egyptian goddess, Bastet was the daughter of Re, the sun god. She was usually considered as his instrument of retribution. But other sources list her as the eldest daughter of Amun, the Egyptian supreme creator god.

For copy right purposes an image of the Egyptian god could not be embedded. But follow the link straight to the image in the Louvre museum website.

*Fun fact: This is the actual bronze statue described in Forged by Greed

Bastet was a feline goddess, first—from around 3000 BC—depicted as a fierce lioness or a woman with a lioness’s head. She was believed to be the protector goddess, the defender of the pharaoh, often slaughtering his enemies. But from circa 1000 BC onward, Bastet was viewed as a peaceful goddess, and portrayed as a cat, or a woman with cat’s head. During that era in Egypt, domesticated cats became very popular as pets. The cat was considered sacred and its death would often leave a family in mourning. Cat cemeteries, holding mummified animals, have been found at various locations in Egypt.

And because Bastet plays a major role in Forged by Greed, right next to the Morrigan, here are three excerpts from the book:

Andy gingerly flipped a few pages and pointed to an image of a tall slim woman with the head of a cat. She wore a close-fitting long dress and held an arched, musical instrument—sistrum, a lion-headed aegis, and a small cylindrical basket.

“This is a drawing of the actual bronze statuette of the Egyptian goddess, Bastet, presently on a display in the Louvre. I’ve seen this particular statuette a few times there,” Andy explained. “Like with most of their spiritual images, the humans can’t get it right. At first they had insisted on picturing Bastet with a lion’s head and associating her with the Sun. But after one thousand BC the image changes to that of a cat-headed goddess and her connection changes to the Moon. This, we know, is impossible, since our Goddess has been always representing the Moon, and Amber, as the Summer Goddess, represents the Sun.”

 AND

Behind Morrigan’s soaring frame materialized an equally tall and a very slim woman with the head of a lion—Amber in the form of the Egyptian goddess, Bastet.  Her narrowed feline eyes swept over the battle field, stopping at Morrigan’s face. She smiled viciously, exposing close-packed, sharp teeth.

 AND

 A growl escaped Bastet’s lion lips. Her thick mane, the tip of her nose, and her shoulders were covered in soft white snow. She stomped her foot, making the ground shake again.

“You!” she roared, pointing finger at Morrigan. “You think you can ever defeat me?” She slammed her right fist into her left palm. A thick blinding ray of light shot out from between her hands. It looked like liquid fire. One end quickly coiled itself around Bastet’s palm and wrist. The other end danced in front of her as if mimicking a swaying cobra. The Goddess drew her arm back and forward, lashing the burning whip at Morrigan. The Winter Goddess expected the attack. Her two swords came forward in an “X”, cutting the whip into three sections. The two pieces fell onto the ground and disappeared into the soil. The third part, which Bastet was still holding, grew out like a vibrant vine, swaying to the sides in front of her.

The Summer Goddess lashed her shortened whip with a flick of her wrist. A wave of excruciating heat washed over the area, once more melting the snow and ice. She shook her mighty lion-mane, roaring and snarling, her teeth bared.

I hope you enjoyed reading about the Morrigan and Bastet, the mythological deities that are partially responsible for the creation of the Winter and the Summer Goddesses in The Forged Series.

•••••••~Ooh! I don’t know that much about either of those goddesses, but you have me very intrigued, Angela! I will have to read Forged by Greed! Guess it’s a good thing I already stared it. Huh? 😉

What about you, readers? Are you familiar with the Morrigan or Bastet? What do you think of a story that brings them together? Creatively fabulous, right?

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Angela Orlowski-Peart was born and raised in Poland. She describes herself as “European born, American by choice”. She was just seven-years-old when she decided to learn English to translate her favorite Polish fairytales.

Angela is a Young Adult fiction writer. She published her first YA paranormal romance/urban fantasy novel, Forged by Greed, in September of 2012. This is the first book in The Forged Series. Angela writes in multiple genres, including paranormal, fantasy, urban fiction, sci-fi, and short stories. She is a member of Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Western Washington Chapter, and several authors’ and readers’ networking groups on Linkedin and Goodreads.

Connect with Angela:

www.angelapeart.com

Facebook : AngelaOrlowskiPeart

Goodreads : Angela-Orlowski-Peart

Twitter : @Angela_Peart

Pinterest : angelapeart

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Reminders: It’s never too late to jump on the Thor Tour.  All you need to do is drop me a line. While Thor’s been away there’s been no one around to keep Loki in line. Check in later in the week to see what trouble he’s gotten into!

Also, this blog will be relocating to a self-hosted site at some point at the beginning of November. I hope you’ll follow us to the new digs. My fabulous designer, Laird Sapir, and I have some pretty amazing ideas (I think) and I hope you’ll enjoy what we create there.

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