Aradia (goddess)
In both Stregherian and Wiccan tradition, Aradia was the daughter of Diana and Lucifer. Some believe Her to have been the Roman equivalent of the Greek Hera Dea, the daughter of Artemis and Phosporus, however there is very little evidence that such a character existed in Greek mythology. Oddly, there exist Celtic inscriptions in Italy reported by Carlo Ginzburg to have been dedicated to a goddess named Hera Dea. Another theory, popularized by Charles Godfrey Leland in his 1899 publication of Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches, is that the name "Aradia" is a corruption of "Herodias". In Greek, herodias is the word for "heron", the bird; in Latin the same bird is ardea. Aradia is believed by most Streghe to have been incarnated into a woman named Aradia de Toscano in the early 1300's.
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