A Dictionary of World Mythology

"I am Nature, the universal Mother, mistress of all the elements, sovereign of all things spiritual....I am worshipped in many aspects, known by countless names, and propitiated with all manner of different rites, yet the whole round earth venerates me." With these words, Isis—the mother goddess of Egypt—reveals herself to her devotee, Lucius Apuleius, in his novel The Golden Ass. Just as this great goddess claimed to be universal, mythology itself exists in all cultures around the globe an...