Lamaria is the Svan goddess of the hearth and of the women's world, her name taken from the Virgin Mary but her office rooted in an older domestic mother-goddess. She keeps the fire at the centre of the tower-house, guards women through pregnancy, labour and the perilous days after birth, and protects the cattle of the household. Called in Svan the 'eye of the earth', she is the tutelary of everything within the home as the hunting gods are the powers of the wild without. She is closely bound to Barbal, and the two goddesses of hearth, harvest and feminine fecundity are sometimes spoken of as a single power.