Persephone: There is a lot of information about Persephone, and I won't be able to put it all out here. Wikipedia gives some good info here. A Greek Maiden Goddess, Persephone was abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld. Her mother, Demeter, pleaded with the Olympian gods for her return. Persephone was to return if she did not ingest any food while in the underworld. Hades managed to feed her one (some versions say it was six) pomegranate seeds. Thus she had to remain in the underworld for one-third (some versions say it was half) of the year. Because Demeter was an Earth Goddess, the vegetation growth depended on her happiness. When her daughter was with her in the spring and summer (and some of autumn), life flourished. When Persephone had to return each late autumn to Hades, life withered with Demeter's sadness.

Rhea: Rhea is an Earth Mother Goddess from the area of Greece. I used milk and dark chocolate browns for the earth/soil itself and two or three shades of deep greens for the vegetable life that springs from the earth. "In late Greek legend she was a vague motherly figure - the Titan who gave birth to the Olympian gods. But earlier, Rhea was the primary goddess, the great mountain mother (called Ida as goddess of Mount Ida), the earth who gave birth to the creatures of her wild and fruitful surface. Rhea's name is Cretan. In the art of that island, Rhea was depicted as a huge stately woman surrounded by worshipful animals and small, subservient human males....She was invoked with these words: 'Earth sends up fruits, and so praise Earth the Mother!'....Rhea was incorporated into Greek legend as a Titan, one of the second generation of deities. It was said that she was the wife of Cronos ("time") and the mother of the most powerful god and goddesses, among them Hera.....Even in late legend, the earlier identity of Rhea as goddess of the living earth was subtly acknowledged."

Sarah: the "greatest of the ancient Hebrew matriarchs". She was "brilliantly beautiful and ageless...from her face an unearthly radiance shone...and acknowledged to be a more gifted prophet than her husband (Abraham)." Because of the mystical, "wise" qualities of the colour purple (as I mention for the colourway "Sophia"), and the incredible shine of this base yarn, this Goddess-like figure of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures seemed apt.

Sedna: "Beside the Arctic Ocean, there once lived an old widower and his daughter, Sedna, a woman so beautiful that all the Inuit men sought to live with her. But she found none to her liking and refused all offers. One day, a seabird came to her and promised her a soft life in a warm hut full of bearskins and fish. Sedna flew away with him. The bird lied. Sedna found her home a stinking nest. She sat, sadly regretting her rejection of the handsome human men. And that was what she told her father, when she listed her complaints when he visited her a year later.  Anguta ('man with something to cut') put his daughter in his kayak to bring her back to the human world. Perhaps he killed the bird husband first, perhaps he just stole the bird's wife, but in either case the vengeance of the bird people followed him. The rising sea threatened the escaping humans with death. On they struggled, until Anguta realized that flight was hopeless.  He shoved Sedna overboard to drown. Desperate for life, she grabbed the kayak with a fierce grip. Her father cut off her fingers. She flung her mutilated arms over the skin boat's sides. Anguta cut them off, shoving his oar into Sedna's eye before she sank into the icy water.  At the bottom of the sea, she lived thereafter as queen of the deep, mistress of death and life, "old food dish", who provided for the people. Her amputated fingers and arms became the fish and marine mammals, and she alone decided how many could be slaughtered for food. She was willing to provide for the people if they accepted her rules: for three days after their death, the souls of her animals would remain with their bodies, watching for violation of Sedna's demands. Then they returned to the goddess, bearing information about the conduct of her people. Should her laws be broken, Sedna's hand would begin to ache, and she would punish humans with sickness, starvation and storms. Only if a shaman traveled to her country, Adlivun, and assuaged her pains would the sea mammals return to the hunters, which, if the people acted righteously, they did willingly."

Sekhmet: is another Sun Goddess of Egypt - the sister/opposite of Bast, the Sun Cat. "Once, long ago, the lion-headed sun goddess of Egypt became so disgusted with humanity that she commenced a wholesale slaughter of the race. Her fury terrified even the gods, who deputized Ra to calm down the goddess. She refused to be restrained. 'When I slay men,' she snarled, 'my heart rejoices.' Ra, attempting to save the remnant of humanity from the bloodthirsty goddess mixed 7000 vats of beer with pomegranate juice. He set the jugs in the path of the murdering lioness, hoping she would mistake them for the human blood she craved. Indeed she did, and she soon drank herself into a stupor. When she awoke, she had no rage left. The intoxicating red drink was henceforth prepared and consumed on feast days of Hathor, so some say that Sekhmet was the negative side of that pleasure-ruling goddess. Others say that she was the opposite of Bast, the cat embodying the sun's nurturing rays; the lion, her destructive, drought-bringing potential.

Selene: Selene is a Greek Moon Goddess. "Also called Phoebe and perhaps Helene, this early Greek full-moon goddess was the daughter of Thea (Titan of light) and spouse (or sister, or both) of the Sun. Winged and crowned with a crescent, she drove the lunar chariot across the night sky, whose goddesses Leto and Hecate were her daughters; this radiant chariot was drawn by two white horses or oxen. When she was not visible, Selene was said to be in Asia Minor, visiting her human lover Endymion, for whom she had won the prize of eternal life and youth. Some legends say that he had to pay a price for this: he slept perpetually, even when his eyes were open, in his dark cave bed. In a fragment of poetry by Virgil, Selene was said to have been seduced by the wilderness god Pan, who used a beautiful white sheep's fleece to lure her into his woodland home."

Sheila Na Gig: the Crone Goddess common to Ireland and other parts of Britain. She has also been seen in various parts of Europe. "Smiling lewdly out from rock carvings, this goddess of ancient Ireland can still be seen in surviving petroglyphs: a grinning, often skeletal face, huge buttocks, full breasts, and bent knees....she holds her vagina open with both hands. She is the greatest symbol of the life-and-death goddess left in Ireland, where her stones have in some cases been incorporated as 'gargoyles' in Christian churches. Her name means 'hag'; her grinning face and genital display are complicated by the apparent ancientness of her flesh." In my brief time in Ireland, in 1996, I was fortunate enough to have just such a carving of Sheila outside of my bedroom door in a small 16th century castle.

Sophia: She is Wisdom, and part of The Midwife Series. I associate the colour purple with the concept of Wisdom, thus Sophia is several shades of purple, with some subtle dark blue to accent it. The "sophy" or "sophic" in many words, like philosophy, mean wisdom or knowledge, and come from Sophia. "The personification of Wisdom in the Judaic scriptures, Sophia moved beyond metaphor to becoming truly personalized in later Hebraic, Gnostic, Kaabalistic and European philosophic text. In her original manifestations - in the biblical Proverbs, Wisdom songs and Sirach - she appears as Jehovah's companion, sometimes seen as opposed a Lilith-like figure called the Foolish Woman. Created first after Jehovah (or sometimes at the same time as him, thus his equal), Sophia built her own house, one with seven pillars; she invites the faithful to dine at her heavy-laden table. Many images are used of her: she is a fruit-bearing tree, she is a garment that shrouds and protects us, she is a working craftswoman of great skill, she is veiled, she is open. Full of contradiction and mystery, Sophia remained a potent mythic symbol through many centuries and many countries, and continues to inspire the faithful of patriarchal regions today with a sense of feminine divinity."

Styx: is a Greek Goddess who lived in the Underworld. “Under the earth, the Greeks said, la the land of the dead and between the two worlds wound the seven tributaries of the River Styx. The goddess of this sacred river was Styx herself, the ‘hated one’ who prevented the living from crossing into the realm of Persephone without first undergoing death’s torments….(She) was much feared. Because she sided with the Olympian gods in their battle with the land’s earlier divinities, the Greeks said, Styx was honoured as the source of all oaths. Even among the Olympians, an oath taken on the name of Styx was held inviolable; if broken, it meant the sinner was deprived of Hebe’s ambrosia and nectar, the food and drink that kept the gods young and immortal.”

Tacoma: the "great earth goddess of the Cascade Mountains." She "was embodied in the snowy peaks of Mt. Rainier. Among the Salish, Nisqualli, Puyallup, Yakima, and other peoples of that area, Tacoma was the protector of the country's fresh waters, which brought nourishment upriver in the form of spawning salmon. Many legends were told of her, usually connecting her with the other mountains of the Cascades and Olympics."

Tanit: In The New Book of Goddesses & Heroines, Patricia Monaghan writes: "When the conquering Romans saw the image of this goddess - just before they destroyed the Carthaginians who worshiped her - they named her Dea Caelestis or simply Caelestis ("heavenly goddess") for she seemed to rule the sky. Indeed, the winged goddess with a zodiac around her head and the sun and moon in either hand was the sky goddess of the Punic people. Her children called her "mother", seeing the sky as their source, just as other peoples have called themselves earth's children. Although the Carthaginians of history are a Phoenician people, Tanit may well have been an indigenous goddess of the Berbers whose identity meshed with the arriving Astarte to form the sky-queen of historic times."

Tara: the Star Goddess of India. Her symbol is the Star, "a beautiful but perpetually self-combusting thing; so Tara is the absolute, unquenchable hunger that propels all life." She is the fierce Green Tara, and the enlightened White Tara of meditation.

Tethys: is "the most ancient pre-Hellenic sea goddess, (and) she was part of a trinity of world creators with Nyx, the primeval darkness, and Gaia, the fertile earth; all together they mothered the world we inhabit."

Turquoise Woman: also known as Estsanatlehi. She was "the Navaho sky goddess, wife of the sun. She lived in a turquoise palace at the western horizon, where each night she received her luminous husband. Sister (or twin or double) of Yolkai Estsan (White Shell Woman), the moon's wife, Estsanatlehi was able to make herself young each time she began to age, thus her name, which means the "self-renewing one."  There is a nice creation story that goes with this goddess to be added soon.