Dominion: love, beauty, desire, lust, passion, sex, pleasure, fertility, flowers, springtime, prosperity, prostitution, victory

Title: Lady Love

Sacred Symbol: conch shell, mirror, girdle

Sacred Colours: red, pink, white, violet, sea green, and pale blue

Sacred Animals: dove, sparrow, falcon, swan, goose, duck, cat, hare, boar, fish, tortoise, dolphin, bee, butterfly, sea snail

Sacred Plants: red rose, anemone, narcissus, violet, meadowsweet, milkwort, lettuce, watercress, fennel, myrtle, myrrh tree, pomegranate tree, apple tree

Sacred Jewel: pearl 

Day of Worship: Friday

High Feast Days: 23rd of April, 19th of August, and 25th of October

Festival: The Spring Festival (first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox)

Devotees: the wealthy and elite, warriors, prostitutes, those who live as the other sex, sailors and navigators, fisherfolk, exporters and those who trade across the sea, gamblers and gamesters, gardeners, viticulturalists and winemakers, those working in the beauty industry, those working in bath houses and gymnasiums, those who work to purify water and clean sewers 

Invoked for: easy military victory, love and romance, beauty, sexual success, fertility, birth control, good fortune, luck in gambling, prosperity, a fair voyage by sea 

Temple: The major Temple of Venus in Lindensea is to be found in the town of Springhead in the Shorelands district. The Temple of Venus in Camden lies just inside the East Gate of the city, on the Eastgate High Street.

Initiation: The details of initiation into the Temple of Venus are a strictly guarded secret, which is probably for the best. There are some very salacious rumours about it. 

Merged with: Anna, the Tirathic goddess of summer and Frigg, the Saxon goddess of love

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Venus is a much-loved goddess who encourages the pleasures of the world and the flesh, reminding us of the richness and beauty to be savoured in life. She presides over the Spring Festival, a time of joy that the warmer weather has arrived, and her high feast days celebrate wine and good food.

As the goddess of love, Venus is said to help people find their perfect partner. Girls and women pray to her for a sweetheart, and on reaching puberty, young girls make a donation to Venus in hopes of growing up beautiful. 

The goddess plays an important role at betrothal parties and on the wedding night. While Juno's pink roses are carried during the wedding ceremony, it is the red roses of Venus, interspersed with myrtle blossoms, which have pride of place at the betrothal party. It is said that a new bride who wears a crown of myrtle to the bedchamber on her wedding night will have a sweet experience. 

Venus also helps gamblers and gamesters, and they call upon her under the name of Lady Luck rather than Lady Love. To roll a six with the dice is considered very fortunate, and is called "getting a Venus". However, it is said that those who gain the favour of the goddess at the gaming table will not find true love, and "lucky at cards, unlucky in love" is a common saying.  

There are relatively few temples to Venus in Lindensea, with nearly all of them being in the Shorelands district. She is a great favourite in this area because of the heavy concentration of market gardens here - indeed, the Shorelands is known as "the Garden of Lindensea". 

The main temple at the town of Springhead is beside the River Fleet, and is a square building of white limestone with mosaic floors and slender, delicate columns decorated with leaves and spiral scrolls. The portico is light and airy, allowing groups of people to feely enter, and the temple has pools for bathing and healing.   

The Temple of Venus in Camden was built inside the East Gate of the city, so that it is the first thing that travellers see when they arrive from that direction, and often stop to make a donation. On the Eastgate High Street can also be found the ale houses and brothels built to tempt the weary traveller, and Venus protects them. However, the ostensible reason for the temple's location here is that so she may watch over the market gardens on the eastern outskirts of the city.     

Worship of Venus merged with that of Anna, the Tirathic goddess of early summer, and later with Frigg, the Saxon love goddess. It is because of the latter that Friday is the day of worship for the Temple of Venus. It is a tradition to dress up and wear your nicest clothes on a Friday, and as it begins the weekend, many a person has said feelingly, "Thanks be to Venus it's Friday!"  

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅