Brewer's: Queen of Heaven

with the ancient Phoenicians, was Astarte; Greeks, Hera; Romans, Juno; Trivia, Hecate, Diana, the Egyptian Isis, etc., were all so called; but with the Roman Catholics it is the Virgin Mary.

In Jeremiah vii. 18: “The children gather wood, ... and the women knead dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven,” i.e. probably to the Moon, to which the Jews, at the time, made drink-offerings and presented cakes. (Compare chapter xliv. 16-18.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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