Goddesses in diverse cultures were associated with the craft of weaving. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the goddess Neith rose from the primordial waters and created the world and the origins of gods and man. She was the patron goddess of all weavers and could transfer her divine powers to the dead through the wrappings woven around their bodies. Amaterasu, the Japanese Shinto sun goddess, ruled heaven and created weaving as well as all the rice fields. Whenever she left heaven, the world became dark and was ruled by demons.
In Greek mythology, weaving was often involved in tales of divine vengeance. Athena, goddess of weaving, punished her servant Arachne, a superb weaver, by turning her into a spider. Prideful, Arachne challenged to Athena to a weaving contest, and her tapestry depicted the infidelities of Zeus, the most powerful of gods. After Athena destroyed her tapestry, Arachne killed herself from shame. The goddess brought her back as a spider, forever to weave webs.
Penelope was the wife of King Odysseus, a Greek hero of the Trojan War. She daily wove a shroud for Odysseus' father and unraveled it every night as a trick to keep at bay the many persistent suitors who believed her husband dead because he had not returned from the war for a decade. They refused to leave her home until she relented and chose from among them. When Odysseus finally returned, he killed them as punishment.
One of the most remade tales taken from the mythology of weaving is the story of Philomela. A Greek princess and weaver, she was raped by her brother-in-law, King Tereus, who cut out her tongue to conceal his crime. Voiceless, she used her loom to weave a tapestry that told her story. After sending the tapestry to her sister Procne, Philomela was avenged in grisly fashion when Procne fed the unwitting Tereus their son. When Tereus tries to kill the women, the gods turned them into songbirds.