Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
---|---|---|
Goddess name "Vor" | Nordic / Icelandic | Goddess. Of Germanic origin, one of the AESIR goddesses listed by Snorri in Prose Edda. He suggests that Vor may be concerned with the making of oaths and of marriage agreements, punishing those who break them. Possibly also Var(a), though Snorri lists her as a separate Aesir goddess.... |
"Väinämöinen" | Finland | The old and wise man, who possessed a potent, magical voice. The central character in Finnish folklore and he is the main character in the Kalevala. |
God name "Waraleen Olmai" | Lappish / Finland | Tutelary god. Revered as a creator and guardian deity.... |
King name "Wayland" | Scandinavian | Wayland the Scandinavian Vulcan, was son of the sea-giant Wate, and the sea-nymph Wac-hilt. He was bound apprentice to Mimi the smith. king Nidung cut the sinews of his feet, and cast him into prison, but he escaped in a feather-boat. |
Spirit name "White Lady" | Ireland | White Lady Of Ireland the banshee or domestic spirit of a family. |
Spirit name "White Lady" | Scotland | White Lady Of Avenel, a tutelary spirit. Scotland |
"Widenostrils" | French | A huge giant, who subsisted on windmills, and lived in the island of Tohu. When Pantagruel and his fleet reached this island no food could be cooked because Widenostrils had swallowed "every individual pan, skillet, kettle, frying-pan, dripping-pan, boiler, and saucepan in the land," and died from eating a lump of butter. French |
God name "Willow Pattern" | s | The tradition. The mandarin had an only daughter named Li-chi, who fell in love with Chang, a young man who lived in the island home represented at the top of the pattern, and who had been her father's secretary. The father overheard them one day making vows of love under the orange-tree, and sternly forbade the unequal match; but the lovers contrived to elope, lay concealed for a while in the gardener's cottage, and thence made their escape in a boat to the island home of the young lover. The enraged mandarin pursued them with a whip, and would have beaten them to death had not the gods rewarded their fidelity by changing them both into turtle-doves. The picture is called the willow pattern not only because it is a tale of disastrous love, but because the elopement occurred "when the willow begins to shed its leaves." |
Supreme god name "Wonajo" | Melanesia | The supreme god and the leader of the mythological snake people. Rossel Island, Melanesia |
Ghost name "Wraith" | Scotland | The ghost of a person shortly about to die or just dead, which appears to survivors, sometimes at a great distance off. Scotland |
God name "Wu" | Ewe / Benin, West Africa | Sea god. His priest, the Wu-no, invokes the god whenever the weather is too severe for the fishing boats to land. He is propitiated with offerings delivered from the spéñïś and in past times was occasionally appeased with human sacrifice taken out to sea and thrown overboard.... |
Goddess name "Wuruntemu" | Hatti land | 'Sun Goddess and mistress of the Hatti lands, the queen of heaven and earth. |
God name "Xil Sga'nagwai" | Haida Indian / Queen Charlotte Island, Canada | Medicine god. Said to appear as a raven.... |
King name "Yagrenat" | Hindu | Yagrenat "Land of the king of the world," an Avatar of Vishnu. Hindu |
"Yeng-Wang-Yeh" | China | Greatest of the Lords of death he judges all souls newly arrived to the land of the dead and decides whether to send them to a special court for punishment or put them back on the Wheel of Transmigration. China |
God name "Yng" | Nordic / Icelandic | Creator god. Progenitor of the earliest Swedish kings. Also, in Germanic tradition, ING, the father of the Baltic coastal tribe, the Ingwaeones.... |
Spirit name "Yobin-Pogil" | Yukaghir / southeastern Siberia | Forest spirit. The apotheosis of the woodlands and their guardian deity.... |
God name "Yspaddaden Pencawr" | Celtic / Welsh | God. Possibly the counterpart of the Irish deity Balor and the Icelandic Balder. In the legend of Culhwch and Olwen, Olwen is identified as his daughter. He sets Culhwch several difficult tasks before he can obtain Olwen's hand. Culhwch retaliates by wounding him severely, but he cannot be killed until Olwen marries. This is presumably a distorted fertility legend, the original meaning of which is lost.... |