Goddess of Weaving and Women's Craft

Abkhaz ⟨Ерыш⟩ Erəš. A craft-patron goddess; the comparison to Pallas Athena is the encyclopedia's, marking her as the Abkhaz divine personification of weaving. SOLITARY: no kin, spouse or other named relationship survives for her — the tradition expressly notes that the tales and songs about Erysh are lost, leaving only her craft-function attested (Mythological Encyclopedia; Inal-ipa).

Domains

• weaving and textile craft
• womens domestic crafts

Powers

• guides and prospers the weaver's hands at the loom
• watches over the milking and the women's dairy work

Sources

• Erysh is the Abkhaz female deity of the weaving craft — patroness of the loom and of women's textile work, also named as goddess of milking — likened in the scholarship to Pallas Athena as goddess of spinning and weaving; the songs and stories once dedicated to her have not been preserved.: Mythological Encyclopedia (Мифы народов мира / Мифологическая энциклопедия), article on Caucasian-Iberian mythology, s.v. Erysh; drawing on Sh. D. Inal-ipa's Abkhaz ethnography. (secondary); Hewitt, George (ed.). The Abkhazians: A Handbook. Curzon Press, 1999 (Erysh, goddess of weaving and milking in the Abkhaz pantheon). (secondary)