Prende, goddess of dawn and love

Prende is the Albanian goddess of dawn, love, beauty, fertility and the protectress of women, worshipped especially by women in the northern highlands until recent times. Her byname Afër-dita ('the day is near', 'dawn') links her to the cult of Venus as the morning and evening star, and her name endures in the Albanian weekday e premte / e prende ('Friday'). Albanian tradition makes her the daughter of the sky god Zojz, preserving the ancient Indo-European pattern in which the dawn goddess is the Daughter of Heaven. Her feast fell on 26 July, and after Christianization she was assimilated to Saint Veneranda (Shën Prende).

Parentage

• Zojz, the sky-and-lightning father god

Domains

• dawn
• love and beauty

Powers

• to kindle love and beauty among mortals

Epithets

• Zonja e Bukuris
• Afër-dita

Sources

• Elsie, Robert, A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology and Folk Culture, Hurst & Co., London, 2001, s.v. 'Prende'.
• West, M. L., Indo-European Poetry and Myth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007, pp. 217-227.