Amma
From MeiLinWiki
AMMA pron. AH-mah
Amma is a goddess in the serial An Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom. She is the Mother, the first of the gods though not the ruler. That is Pagg the Father, her husband. Some say they are siblings, some say Pagg is Her Son; it depends on which tradition you're raised in.
The Far Isles are also called Amma's Footprints; it is said they were the first places Amma stepped when She made the earth, the soil rising up to meet Her feet from the ocean floor. Amma is thus considered the patroness of the Far Isles, and some scholars (whose work is circulated in secret among the like-minded) say that the story of Pagg's conquest of Amma is actually the story of the repeated conquest of the matrifocal islands by the patrifocal cultures of Sairland and Tremont.
Amma and Pagg are monogamous to one another. Together, they are referred to as The Parents. Their children, in order of birth, are:
- Eddin the Wise One
- Venna the Sister
- Farr the Warrior
- Harla the Bloody One
- Nerr the Lover and his twin Neya the Beloved
There are folk tales of Amma's children before Her marriage to Pagg, but these are not considered official in any form by the Mother's Temple.
Amma's bailiwick is agriculture, domestic animals, the sea and sailors, weaving, and children. She is the Star of the Sea and the Patroness of all sailors. She weaves the thread that Venna spins, and Harla cuts the cloth from Amma's loom. (Neya sings for their delight.) An offering to Amma might be a pair of hens for the Mother's Temple coops, or the first breads, cheeses and wines of the harvest. It is traditional for a girl to bring her first presentable weaving to the Temple, and in the old days, Amma's priestesses regularly made house calls to bless new looms. In these days of store-bought cloth, while girls still observe this ritual, it's usually the last weaving they ever do unless they're in rural areas and rely on their own production for cloth. Amma dislikes direct blood sacrifices, though She accepts already-slaughtered domestic meats for Her priestesses.
Services at Mother's Temple are on Ammaday, our Monday. Her holiday is Winter's End, our Candlemas, and it is celebrated with a blessing of domestic animals–everything from pet cats to draft horses–and gifts to mothers. Her priestesses are called Mothers, and Her high priestess is called the Little Mother.
King Brinnid of Sairland is a devotee of the Mother.
Symbolism
Amma's colors are blue and white. Her symbols are the shepherd's crook and the loom; Her animals are sows and sheep. It's traditional at the presentation of a royal child for the Little Mother to present the baby with a loom if it's a girl, or a shepherd's crook if it's a boy.
Amma is based on every mother goddess, but a good deal influenced by Frigga, though her spinning aspect was moved to Venna.
