In The Inheritors, William Golding tells the story of the last Neanderthals.
For Golding's Neanderthals, Earth is goddess. They call her Oa.
Oa.
Novelist William Golding (1911-1993) is probably best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. Pagans might perhaps be aware that it was also he who named the Gaia Hypothesis.
It turns out that scientist James Lovelock was expostulating to his longtime friend and neighbor concerning his ideas about Earth as a self-regulating system.
His Earth-as-single-being needed a name. “What about 'Gaia'?” suggested Golding.
It's hard not to see metaphor here: Science and Literature as friends and neighbors, grabbing a pint together down at the local, maybe.
