From The Epic of Ba’al (Ugaritic Mythology)
Anat was one of the chief deities of the Canaanites, people of Syria and Palestine in the ancient Near East. A goddess of love, fertility, and war, she was the sister and wife of the god Baa. In the Ugaritic mythology, Anat appears as a fierce, wild, and furious warrior in a battle, wading knee-deep in blood, striking off heads, cutting off hands, binding the heads to her torso and the hands in her sash, driving out the old men and townsfolk with her arrows, her heart filled with joy.
‘Anat is a violent war goddess, a virgin who is the sister and, according to a much-disputed theory, the lover of the great god Ba‘al Hadad. Ba‘al is usually called the son of Dagan and sometimes the son of El, who addresses ‘Anat as “daughter”. ‘
In the 14th century bc Ugartic text The Epic of Ba’al, She defends Her brother the storm-God Ba’al. But Mot triumphs against Ba’al and sends Him to the land of the dead; Anat, with help from the sun Goddess Shapash, Who has access to the Underworld, brings Him back to life. Anat then takes revenge on Mot, cutting Him up into tiny pieces, winnowing Him like grain, grinding Him up, and then sowing Him in the fields. Before Anat goes into battle She anoints Herself with henna and ambergris. She dresses in saffron and purple-dyed clothing. She then proceeds to slaughter the enemies of Ba’al, across west and east, hanging severed heads from Her back, and affixing hands to Her belt. Laughing and rejoicing, She wades to Her knees in the blood of soldiers, “to Her thighs in the gore of quick warriors.” When the slaughter is finished, She then washes in the rainwater of Her brother Ba’al and again adorns Herself with ambergris.
Goddess Loviatar, From the Finish Epic Kalevala
The goddess of death, disease, and desolation of Finnish mythology. She is the blind daughter of Tuonetar and Tuoni, Goddess and God of the Underworld. She is mentioned in the 45th rune of the Finish Epic Kalevala. The epic describes her as the most wretched daughter with the blackest of hearts bent on unleashing the most wicked and terrible illnesses upon the mortal lands. She is known for being blind, ugly, and old, a virgin.
Loviatar is credited as the mother of the most horrifying evils in the world. Each of her nine sons is the most appalling disease. The epic Kalevala provides a description of Loviatar’s impregnation and the birth of the nine terrible children. Loviatar is made pregnant by the east wind. She is greatly distressed and burdened by their weight. She travels “by the mountain springs and fountains, by the crystal waters flowing, by the sacred stream and whirlpool, by the cataract and fire stream”, all the while blind and in great pain over her labor. When she went into labor, Loviatar went to Louhi, the Goddess of sorcery, who helped her to give birth to nine sons. The first eight of these sons she named Pistos (consumption), Ähky (colic), Luuvalo (gout), Riisi (rickets), Paise (ulcer), Rupi (scab), Syöjä (cancer), and Rutto (plague). The ninth, who personified envy, was not named. Thus due to the birth of such nine dreadful children, Loviatar is the most violent of the goddess.