Her name means “little dove” in Italian, so she shares the symbol of the dove with another Great Mother, the goddess Ishtar. Traditionally, she is depicted as a beautiful raven-haired clown, wearing a white costume with black pom-poms. As lore has it, both she and Harlequin are invisible to the eyes of mortals.

Although they appear now as light-hearted clowns, further research reveals a much darker history of the two lovers. In ancient England and Europe, Columbina was the undying Earth Mother, while a new Harlequin (or “Herle King”) was chosen each year and sacrificed to ensure the fertility of the land and its inhabitants, and the continuation of the seasons.