Kamrusepas - The Divine Witch: Goddesses and Gods

The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Complete A-Z for the Entire Magical World - Judika Illes 2005

Kamrusepas
The Divine Witch: Goddesses and Gods

Kamrusepas, Hittite Spirit of Healing and Magic, represents the goddess as a powerful and talented practitioner of witchcraft. The Hittites were an ancient people who at the peak of their power in the second millennium BCE controlled much of Anatolia and the Middle East. Comparatively little is known about Hittite mythology: only fragments survive and have been translated. Kamrusepas plays a pivotal role in one though: in a flood myth, reminiscent of Noah’s Ark, Earth is saved by a witch.

Telepinu, the Divine Farmer, grew so disgusted with Earth and her inhabitants that he decided to leave, which leads to spiraling disaster. As a result of his departure:


Image logs won’t burn


Image burnt offerings can’t be made


Image prayers fail to reach the deities


Image deities and people alike begin to starve.


Hannahanna, Supreme Mother Goddess, goes to Telepinu’s father, Spirit of Weather, and demands that he bring his son back. He searches for him in the guise of an eagle but can’t find Telepinu.

Exasperated, Hannahanna decides to send her own sacred creature, the bee, after him, although the Weather Spirit scoffs: if an eagle can’t find Telepinu, how can a humble bee? The bee, in fact, locates Telepinu asleep in the wilderness. She stings Telepinu’s hands and feet and smears beeswax over his eyes.

Hannahanna thinks this will do the trick and bring him back, but it only further enrages Telepinu, causing a flood: houses, people, and animals are swept away. Finally Kamrusepas, Spirit of Witchcraft is called. She arranges a ritual and stands atop a mountain with twelve rams as a sacrifice. She hangs a ram’s fleece on a wooden cross and surrounds it with grain, wine, and cattle, and then cries out to the Gatekeeper of the Spirit Realm:

Draw back the seven bolts! Open the seven doors! Into your seven bronze cauldrons receive all Telepinu’s fury and anger and keep them! Never let them out!

Telepinu emerges riding on an eagle, sees the offerings, and is appeased.