Anyone who has paid attention to old lore often being recycled today in some of the mainstream books and movies seen today there is a common theme in this subject most apparently do not catch on to.
This is the image of a Warlock and Three Witches. This is often echoed in the image of the Devil with three consorts or Witches and sometimes the Warlock is made out to be the so-called Devil himself. This connection also applies to Vampire lore in which it was often claimed that one becomes a Warlock, Witch or vampire if they refused baptism or rejected the Orthodox "Church."
This theme is repeated in Bram Stoker's Dracula, later adaptations of Vanhelsing, the Witches of Eastwick, Hokus Pokus and more. Even in Shakespeare's time the concept of Three Witches representing the weird Sisters (Wyrda Ostara) and Puck, Robin Goodfellow, etc. as an Elf or sometimes a Warlock or form of the Devil, was well established.
It's also notable that at times that the Warlock is made out to be a sort of Incubus and the Witches as Succubae. But no one ever digs enough and try more or less drop it in the lap of Pan and three Nymphs or some other Greek and Roman source. While its not entirely wrong it is not the whole picture and first you have to understand the theological mindset behind this all.
1) Since the Pope is considered the stand in for God on Earth as his ultimate representative, the Anti-Pope would then be proclaimed the Warlock and the stand in for the Devil on Earth.
2) The Image of the Devil called Satan was also given to have three consorts originally from another set of Hebrew names as Naamah, Igrath, and Mahalath. Samael and Lilith were their own pair associated with Pazuzu and Lamashtu originally from Babylonian sources.
3) It was claimed this pairing of the 'Devil' with three wives was a perversion and mockery of the Catholic Trinity which doesn't really make much sense but seldom Popes had to since they have always been their own little emperors giving out Papal bulls at whim.
In any case this became a theme in the Medieval period onward so that any representing involving a God with three Wives was proclaimed "Satanic."
To begin with this, I bring you to the figure of Loki often represented with three wives and the oldest lore associates him with Spring, and specifically the month of April. All older lore does not present him as a "demonic" figure. But by the 12 and 13th century there was again word games going on and things were being distorted without any interest in consistency. If one does a trace on the words for Lock, Luck, Look and Light the find they are all cognizant as Lok for both Lock and Look, while Luck and Light are tied to Luc also rendered Luk and Lik later to become Lich in such as German and does not mean a reanimated corpse.
Its well-known ancient artwork always portrays higher beings in triple forms. It is also well known that the triplicate symbols were later inclusions into Catholicism and there was no like symbolism till after it was taken from such as European sources and absorbed later. It's here we see them sometimes carried on in other forms such as Hernan literally Horned One though represented by Antlers and as a Huntsman, also considered to be the Greenman and a sort of Forest Ghost said to haunt Windsor Forest and Great Park in the English county of Berkshire. and the three Beten.
The cult of the Beten likely has pre-Christian roots, as worship at wells, in forest groves, and near unusual stones was common in Celtic and Germanic religions and given each the names of Ainbeth, Borbeth, and Wilbeth to name but a few variations. The name "Beten" is derived from the modern German word for "to pray", which may indicate that the act of worshiping the Bethen was so important that it influenced the word for praying to them. The most common list of names for them include:
Einbet(h), Ambet(h), Embet(h), Ainbeth, Ainpeta, Einbede, Aubet...
Worbet(h), Borbet, Wolbeth, Warbede, Gwerbeth...
Wilbet(h), Willebede, Vilbeth, Fürbeth, Firpet, Cubet...
Terracotta relief of the Matres (the Vertault relief), from the Gallo-Roman settlement of Vertillum (Vertault) in Gaul, matching many other variations throughout many regions. Although many depictions of groups of three women (e.g. the Germanic and Celtic Matrones) have been found in Gallo-Roman culture, the names of the Beten did not appear in pre-medieval contexts, nor in Celtic literature of the British Isles. The Matres (Latin for "mothers") and Matronae (Latin for "matrons") were female deities venerated from the 1st to 5th centuries CE in Northwestern Europe, of whom relics are found dating from the first to the fifth century AD. They are depicted on votive offerings and altars that bear images of goddesses, depicted almost entirely in groups of three, that feature inscriptions (about half of which feature Continental Celtic names and half of which feature Germanic names) and were venerated in regions of Germania, Eastern Gaul, and Northern Italy.
Often where their diverse representations are, there is also present the triple face male deity Lugos (Gaulish) or Lugus (Latin), from older Logos in Ancient Greek meaning thought or concept and later was used figuratively for "word" in the sense of expression, and also is known by other names, is a god of the Celtic pantheon. Of course, it's also linked to Log and lag, as source fords for law. This example is such a tricephalic god identified as Lug, discovered in Reims.
Julius Caesar in his De Bello Gallico identified six gods worshiped in Gaul, giving the names of their nearest Roman equivalents rather than their Gaulish names and hence his statements of Mercury being the most revered: patron of trade and commerce, protector of travelers, and inventor of all the arts. However, one must be cautious to simply accept those things as "always true" as it was often Romans, like the Greeks, that had, and still have, a tendency to equate things under their own definitions, and many modern Academic circles that still present these old biases which the Roman Catholic church, through colleges, tended to perpetuate.
We see how some couldn't yet sort out if the three faced male deity should be represented as the Devil or as the Trinity such as these two examples from Old Catholic Sources express. The Lug and Logos bit is fairly obvious in that case, and of course the alternative versions of the "Devil" with three devouring faces and mouths also play into this slow decent of reducing the One God into the more or less Evil and Devilish. Yet these triples faced figures have been used many times over and are all well known to remakes of far more ancient images and concepts, regardless how "divine or diabolical" they were portrayed.
This 15th century carving from Cornwall is a prevalent Celtic image going back to pre-Christian Celtic Europe. Several tri-cephalic images have survived in Cornwall and the surrounding area but are rare in Britain. As Celts mixed with Romans, the triple head was associated with Mercury, the god of prosperity.
Many Celtic gods and goddesses existed as a triad, especially because of calendar connections. But many does not mean all as some will jump foolishly to such conclusions. The head itself was greatly revered by the Celts as the seat of the life force and in mythology the severed head had powers of prophecy. The number three had magico-religious significance and bestowed great power in many instances.
As a strange oddity to all this, such examples as this Three Faced Trinity concept by an anonymous artist occurs centuries later in 17th century onward. In Latin it is also called vultustriformis or vultustrifons though it goes back further.
Basically its a visual expression of a theological concept and among some of the more strange concepts that have occurred throughout human history. However, as can be gathered by now it is not so unusual or even all that unique as far as the various artistic expressions of such concepts go.
Lucifer. Anonymous, 14th century. Divine Comedy, Codex Altonensis, Hamburg. The three-faced and the three-headed Trinity were frowned upon by theologians and other watchers of the Christian canon, considering it a monstrosity of nature.
This led to the rejection by Jean Gerson (chancellor of the University of Paris), St. Anthony (archbishop of Florence) or Joannes Molanus (professor at the University of Leuven), among others.
In medieval times, this artistic typology also clashed with the polycephalous image of the devil, which was obviously totally antithetical, and which, in the 16th century, was a source of ridicule among Protestants as another "invented devil image."
More Widespread than Appreciated
Its far more deeply ingrained that most realize and yet it's one of the most suppressed concepts and representations around. It is something that has been to one degree or another preserved mostly in India as part of the overall culture.
This example is based on the Hindu Trimurti of the One God, before whom his three wives the three Goddesses as Devis in Hindi. Yet we also have this presence of concepts not just in the far east, or far west, but also other regions throughout the world. Suffice it to say we did not make this up or invent it all from nothing.
As an example of this, the following video was added which defines the same basic concept when referring to Brahma, the Deva of Creation and the three Devis named Savitri, Sarasvati, and Gayatri.
Thanks for reading and watching!