In the Old Religion of Italy the feminine aspect of Deity is viewed as having four individual aspects. Since the Old Religion is a lunar cult, each of these aspects is associated with one of the four phases of the moon. These are the names used by most Hereditary Italian Witches: Umbrea, Diana, Losna, Manea.
Umbrea is the name of the goddess within the Underworld. She is the wife of the god Dis, who is the god of the dead. She is goddess of shadows and secrets and all things that are hidden and obscure.
When the moon is dark and unseen (for 3 days) we associate this phase with the goddess Umbrea, whose name means Shadow. When the moon is new, a waxing crescent, we associate this phase with the goddess Diana. When the moon is full we associate this phase with the goddess Losna, who is the moon as the Great Mother. When the moon is a waning crescent, we associate this phase with Manea (who is a goddess of night spirits, and of departed souls).
Diana is the most common name associated with Italian Witchcraft. She is the goddess of the poor and oppressed. She is the goddess of outcasts and all those who are rejected by Society (those who do not "fit in" within the mainstream of Society). Diana is a moon goddess and is viewed as the chaste maiden aspect of feminine divinity. She is the huntress, and the Amazon warrior. An entire cult of witches, devoted exclusively to Diana, flourished in Italy up through the Middle Ages. They viewed her as the only goddess and acknowledged three aspects within her. She was the maiden, mother, and crone. In each aspect they pronounced her name differently in order to evoke a separate aspect:
Maiden- Die-anna
Mother -Dee-ah-nah
Crone -Dea-nah.
The Romans believed that Diana was present at all births and they called her the "Opener of the Womb." Through this association with the lunar goddess Diana, the Great Mother aspect became linked to the moon. Porphyry wrote that Hekate was Artemis (Diana) on the earth, and Hesiod tells us in the Theogony that Hekate rules over the three great mysteries: Birth,
Life and Death. The Great Goddess was also associated with the moon due to the swelling of the moon and its subsequent decline, reflecting the changes in a woman's body due to pregnancy.
Losna is an old Etruscan name for the Moon Goddess in mother form. The Etruscans also knew her as Tana and Leukothea. Losna was literally the moon itself, and the early Etruscans believed it to be a living goddess. Therefore Losna is the moon as a living entity, rather than a goddess of the moon. Leukothea was an aspect of the moon goddess associated with the ocean
and the tides. Therefore, Leukothea is a goddess of the power of the moon, or the light of the moon (which, to the Etruscans, was the same thing).
When the moon is full we associate this phase with Losna. Tana is the name used to denote the Great Goddess who encompasses all aspects. Therefore, Tana is the universal aspect of the Goddess. In early Etruscan times she was called Uni, which means "The One Goddess."
Manea is the goddess of night spirits and spirits of the dead. In classical Roman mythology she is the goddess of the dead, and the mother of the Lares and the Manes. The Lare are collective ancestral spirits, and the Mane are individual ghosts of the dead. Manea is the crone aspect of the goddess and rules over decline and death. When the moon begins to wane, following the full moon, we associate this phase with Manea.
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