Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
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God name "Abandinus" | Celtic | An obscure Celtic deity, possibly a river-god. He is currently known only from a single inscription from Godmanchester in Cambridgeshire, England: a bronze votive feather is dedicated to him with the fragmentary text "to the god Abandinus, Vatiaucus gave this from his own resources" inscribed on a plaque. |
Goddess name "Ala" | Ibo / eastern Nigeria, West Africa | Chthonic fertility goddess. A popular deity who is also goddess of the underworld linked with a cult of the dead (which rest in her womb). Her temple is the Mbari which contains a cult statue depicting the goddess seated with a child in her arms and adorned with the crescent moon. She is flanked by attendant deities. She enjoys a profusion of local shrines which are well supplied with votive offerings. Serious crimes including murder are considered to be offenses against her. An annual yam festival is celebrated in her honor. Also Ale, Ana, ANI.... |
Deities name "Alcis" | Germanic / possibly Icelandic / Nordic | Unknown status. The Alcis are twin deities (brothers) known only as sons of the sky gods. From Germanic times we have a La Tene urn with pictures of paired men on horseback and linked by a wooden beam. Tacitus describes the worship of twin gods by the Naharvali tribe, their priests dressed in effeminate costume (see also the Phrygian deity ATTIS). They may have been worshiped in Forest sanctuaries along the northern coast of Europe.... |
Goddess name "Aranyani" | Hindu / Vedic | Minor goddess of woodlands. Possibly having evolved from a primitive animistic guardian spirit of animals, Aranyani is an elusive, rarely seen, deity who is recognized in the sounds of the trees, particularly at dusk. She is a benign figure, sweet-scented and unwilling to destroy unless severely provoked.... |
Goddess name "Axo-Mama" | South American Indian / Peru | Goddess of potato crops. A model of this minor deity was made out of parts of the plant as a harvest fetish and kept for a year before being burned in a ritual to ensure a good potato harvest.... |
God name "Ayiyanayaka" | Singhalese / Sri Lanka | Plague god. A deity of fields and woodlands who is still revered as a guardian of crops and a protector against plague.... |
Goddess name "BAAL (lord)" | Western Semitic / Canaanite / northern Israel, Lebanon / later Egypt | vegetation deity and national god. Baal may have originated in pre-agricultural times as god of storms and Rain. He is the son of DAGAN and in turn is the father of seven storm gods, the Baalim of the Vetus Testamentum, and seven midwife goddesses, the SASURATUM. He is considered to have been worshiped from at least the nineteenth century BC. Later he became a vegetation god concerned with fertility of the land. From the mid-sixteenth century BC in the Egyptian New kingdom, Baal enjoyed a significant cult following, but the legend of his demise and restoration was never equated with that of OSIRIS. In the Greco-Roman period, Baal became åśśimilated in the Palestine region with ZEUS and JUPITER, but as a Punic deity [Carthage] he was allied with SATURNUS, the god of seed-sowing.... |
Goddess name "BRAGI (poet; leader)" | Nordic / Icelandic | God of poetry. A Viking deity, said by Snorri to be a son of OTHIN and consort of IDUNN, the goddess who keeps the apples of immortality for the gods of Asgard. Bragi is possibly also a pseudonym for Othin himself. Often found in company with AEGIR. The cup over which oaths were sworn was known as the cup of Bragi and he was seen as a poet and orator in the hall of the slain, Valhalla.... |
Goddess name "BRIGIT (exalted one)" | Celtic / Continental / European / Irish | Fertility goddess. A major Celtic pastoral deity, described as a wise woman, the daughter of the DAGDA, Brigit became Christianized as St. Brigit of Kildare, who lived from AD 450-523 and founded the first female Christian community in Ireland. She was originally celebrated on February 1 in the festival of Imbolc.... |
God name "BUDDHA" | Buddhist / India | The founder of Buddhism. The deity is regarded as having been an historical figure, born at Kapilavastu near Gorakhpur. He died at Kusinagara in circa 486 BC. His father was SUDDHODANA of the Sakya clan, his mother was MAYA and his wife YASODHARA. Buddha is, in certain respects, the equal of the Hindu god VIS NU. H... |
Deity name "Belatu-Cadros aka Belatucadros" | Britain | Belatucadrus, "fair shining one" or "fair slayer", a deity worshipped in northern Britain, particularly in Čú𝔪berland and Westmorland. He may be related to Belenus and Cernunnos, equated with Mars. |
God name "Camulos" | Celtic / British | war god. Probably the deity from which the name of Camulodunum [Colchester, England] derives. Known from inscriptions and coinage bearing the symbol of a boar.... |
Goddess name "Candra" | Hindu / Epic / Puranic | (1) Planet god. Personified by the moon and also seen as a dikpala or guardian of the northern direction. Consorts include KAUMUDI, TARA and the NAKSATRAS or astral goddesses. His son is BUDHA. He drives in a chariot drawn by ten white horses. Color: white. Attributes: club, lotus, sacred rope and prayer wheel. The term candra usually refers to the cup containing the sacrificial yellow beverage SOMA, often a synonym for the deity. Candra is also the apotheosis of the pale yellow moon disc. 2. Planet god. Buddhist. Attended by a goose. Color: white. Attributes: moon disc on a lotus.... |
God name "Chang Hs'iien" | Chinese | Guardian god of children. According to tradition he was the mortal king of Szechuan killed by the founder of the Sung dynasty. His wife was captured and forced to become a concubine in the imperial palace. She was discovered by the emperor kneeling before a picture of her deceased husband which she identified as a local deity, the immortal Chang who gives children. This triggered the cult which began locally in Szechuan circa AD 100. Chang Hs'ien is depicted holding a bow made of mulberry wood and either aiming an arrow at the star Tien Kou, the socalled celestial dog which threatens the earth, or aiming the empty bow at a rat (see ERH LANG).... |
Goddess name "Coca-Mama" | South American Indian / Peru | Goddess of the coca plant. Minor goddess who oversees the harvest of the coca crop. Models of the deity were made from the leaves of the plant and kept for a year before being burned in a ritual to ensure a good coca harvest.... |
God name "Contrebis" | Roman / Celtic / British | Local god. Identified from an inscription at Lancaster in conjunction with another deity, IALONUS.... |
Goddess name "Coyolxauhqui (golden bells)" | Aztec / Mesoamerican / Mexico | Astral goddess. A deification and incarnation (avatara) of the moon. According to tradition she is the half-sister of the Sun god HUITZILOPOCHTLI. The god sprang, fully armed, from his decapitated mother, COATLICUE, and engaged all his enemies who, by inference, are the 400 astral gods, his half-brothers. He slew his sister and hurled her from the top of a mountain. Alternative tradition suggests his sister was an ally whom he was unable to save, so he decapitated her and threw her head into the sky, where she became the moon. She was represented in the Great Temple at Tenochtitlan, where she was depicted in front of successive Huitzilopochtli pyramids. She is also a hearth deity within the group clåśśed as the XIUHTECUHTLI complex.... |
God name "Cromm Cruaich" | Ireland | Ancient deity, a harvest, death and sacrificial God. It is thought human sacrifices were once made to him at Samhain. Ireland |