h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

there have been numerous ships named after Greek heros, Agamemnon, Achilles etc

Hecate - my dad was on that one

Deb

Lately the frigates and destroyers have been named after towns and cities, Richmond, York, Newcastle, etc and the merchant ships are named after the Knights of the round table, Sir Tristram, Sir Galahad, etc. in fact the last ship I remember being called after a character in Greek Myth was HMS Hermes, the flagship of the Falklands task force.

I live on Portsmouth Harbour, I see these ships nearly everyday, infact if you are ever in Gosport go to a pub called the Castle the have loads of Ships crests on the wall

I find it very bizarre that they named a ship after Hecate. They might as well go the whole hog and have an HMS Scylla and an HMS Charybdis! Hermes makes more sense.

The American Navy have named some of their ships after greek hero's in the past, I think

During WWII, the RN ran out of the more traditional names. Like a local council naming new streets on a housing estate, they had to come up with various new schemes, one of which was flowers. This is how we ended up with a ship called 'HMS Pansy'.

True story!

And how many Matelot's admitted to serving on HMS Pansy

My dad told me Hecate was the Goddess of the crossroad or something like that - something innocuous and non-witchy anyway.

Deb

Also, a quick search on the words "Hecate" and "crossroads" brings up plenty of results, mentioning she was the goddess of crossroads and one saying she is more properly worshipped at a crossroads where 3 roads meet.

Deb

Interesting. Could this possibly be reflected by the more modern belief that one meets the devil at crossroads...as in the legendary proto-Blues guitarist Robert Johnson.

I'm sure that lots of ancient beliefs survive in mutated form.

I've heard that story about Robert Johnson, did anyone see the film 'Crossroads' with Ralph Macchio (from Karate Kid) that was VERY losely based on that story, the only good thing about the film was the soundtrack, Ry Cooder and Steve Vai

No...but in 'O' My Brother Where Art Thou' they picked up a musician at a crossroads.

That film is, of course, also full of references to The Oddysey (a blind seer, sirens, a cyclops, George Clooney returning home to find his wife re-married etc. etc.)

Oh...and the song 'A Man of Constant Sorrow'....that's a quote from Homer.

'D'oh!'....that's another one....Which brings us full circle to the RN because Homer Simpson is a cult figure amongst them.

I used to work with a soldier who was a dead ringer for Bart Simpson

Hecate taught sorcery and witchcraft, and was associated with the dead.
Sacrifices were made to her at vrossroads, no idea why.
In Macbeth she is the Queen of the Witches.

Maybe that's where the legend of meeting the devil at the crossroads comes from

Morning from the Gulf,

Hecate, daughter of the Titan and of Asteria. Zeus liked her. She combined the attributes and came to be identified with: Selene, Artemis and Persephone. Sometimes represented as triple Goddess with the heads of a horse,dog and a boar. In the lower world she was the Goddess of ghosts, magic and witchcraft. Dogs and black lambs with honey were sacrificed to her at crossroads. Shakespeare's reference to her triple character in Midsummer Night's Dream:

And we fairies that do run
By the triple Hecate's dream
V, ii.
Isn't mythology fab? I'm having a morning coffee (8:20am here) behind closed doors as it's Ramadam and it wouldn't be the done thing to be seen in daylight with a drink! ,

How's life in the Gulf, my BF works for the Navy as a civilian, he says they have to serve food at midnight for the Muslim Officers, I remember many years ago when Ramadan was in the summer, that must have been hell

Hello, well at the moment summer's nearly all but gone and I'm looking forward to the winter which is great here. How's the autumn treating you there?

Wet wet and wetter