Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
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God name "A'ra" | Pre - Islamic northern Arabian | Local tutelary god. Known from inscriptions at Bostra [near Damascus]. The name implies an altar or holy place, but its Arabic root also means to dye, suggesting that the altars were stained with the blood of sacrifices, probably children.... |
"Achlys" | Greek | According to some ancient cosmogonies, the eternal night, and the first created being which existed even before chaos. According to Hesiod, she was the personification of misery and sadness, and as such she was represented on the shield of Heracles: pale, emaciated, and weeping, with chattering teeth, swollen knees, long nails on her fingers, bloody cheeks, and her shoulders thickly covered with dust. |
God name "Ahriman" | Zoroastrian / Farsi Per sian | Chthonic god of darkness. The antagonist of AHURA MAZDA, god of light, and his attendant, MITHRA. The name is a modern derivation of the original Avestan title ANGRU MAINYU. Ahriman is said to have tried to persuade his attendant animals, including the scor pion, ant and snake, to drink the blood of the bull slain by Mithra in the primeval legend of dualistic conflict (see Mithra); if he had succeeded he would have prevented life from forming on earth. In another legend he tried to thwart Ahura Mazda by sending a flood to destroy the world. Also recog nized in Roman Mithraism. Rituals included ani mal sacrifice. Also ARIMANIUS (Roman).... |
Goddess name "Anat" | Phonecian | major Goddess of battle, bloodshed, and hunting, renowned for her hot temper and excitability. She killed the God Mot (temporarily) for her brother's sake. Daughter of Baal, sister of Aleyin. She appears as a maiden who rides a lion and carries shield, spear, and axe. Phonecian |
God name "Arebati" | Bambuti / Congo, West Africa | Creator god. Worshiped by a pigmy tribe living along the banks of the river Ituri. He is considered to have created mankind from clay and blood, covered with skin.... |
Goddess name "Asase Yaa" | Ashanti / Ghana, West Africa | Chthonic fertility goddess. A major deity revered over a wide area of Akanand Fante-speaking Ghana. She has no temples or priests but days (Thursdays) are set aside in her honor and no ploughing is permitted. By tradition a farmer sacrifices a çõçkerel to her each year to ensure a good harvest, sprinkling the blood on the ground. As the womb of the earth, she represents the goddess of the dead and she is also goddess of truth. Also Asase Efua (Fante).... |
God name "Baetylus" | Greek | The name of a peculiar kind of conical shaped stones, which were erected as symbols of gods in remarkable places, and were from time to time anointed with oil, wine, or blood. Greek |
Goddess name "Bellona" | Roman | Goddess of war and mother goddess Roman the goddess of war among the Romans. It is very probable that originally Bellona was a Sabine divinity whose worship was carried to Rome by the Sabine settlers. She is frequently mentioned by the Roman poets as the companion of Mars, or even as his sister or his wife. Virgil describes her as armed with a bloody scourge. (The Aeneid Book VIII) |
Goddess name "Bellona" | Roman | Mother goddess and goddess of war. She becomes syncretized with the Cappadocian mother goddess MA. The first known temple dedicated to Ma-Bellona by the Romans is dated to 296 BC. Bellona was attended by Asiatic priests who performed frenzied dances and gashed themselves with swords, offering the blood on the goddess's altars. Because of its violent nature, Rome refused officially to recognize the cult until the third century AD.... |
King name "Bereguni" | Slavic | River nymphs accused of stealing newborn children. Probably a variation of the Hebrew Lilith myth. Driven by an insatiable hunger of envy, Lilith stalks the world by night raping men in their sleep and sucking their blood, or stealing their newborn children from their cots and eating them. Slavic |
God name "Bhairava (terrible)" | Hindu / Puranic / later | Minor frightful form of the god SIVA. Guardian deity of doorways. A so-called ugra aspect, generally depicted in similar style to Siva but with up to five heads and ten arms and said to have been born from Siva's blood. Attributes: hook and noose. Aspects and epithets include Kalaratri, KSETRAPALA and MAHAKALA. Also Bhairon, linked with the cult of dogs and BHAIRAVA, one of a group of MAHAVIDYAS personifying the SAKTI of Siva.... |
Deities name "Chiccan" | Mayan / Chorti, Mesoamerican / eastern Guatemala | Rain gods. Giant reptilian deities whose blood is cold and who evolved from snakes. They form a quartet, each living at the bottom of a deep lake situated in the four cardinal directions. They are believed to churn the waters which rise as clouds. The AH PATNAR UINICOB gods then beat the Rain from the clouds with stone axes.... |
Goddess name "Chicomecohuati" | Aztec / post Mesoamerican | Maize goddess. [Mexico]. Her festival was held in September when a young girl was sacrificed having taken on the role of the deity for a period of time during the celebrations. She was decapitated on a heap of maize fruits and her blood was collected in a large bowl before being poured over a wooden figurine of the goddess. Finally the victim's skin was flayed off and worn by a dancing priest.See also XILONEN.... |
Goddess name "Cihuacoatl-Quilaztli" | Aztec | Creator goddess who helped Quetzalcoatl create the current race of humanity by grinding up bones from the previous ages, and mixing it with his blood. Aztec |
Goddess name "Cihuacoatl-Quilaztli" | Aztec / Mesomerican / Mexico | Creator goddess. Using a magical vessel, she grinds bone fragments obtained from previous generations of mankind in earlier world ages into a powder. The gods then commit self-sacrifice, allowing their blood to drip into the vessel. From the resulting mix, the human race of the fifth Sun is formed.... |
"Deianira" | Greek | wife of Hercules, and the inadvertent cause of his death. Nessos told her that anyone to whom she gave a shirt steeped in his blood, would love her with undying love; she gave it to her husband, and it caused him such agony that he burnt himself to death on a funeral pile. Deianira killed herself for grief. Greek |
"Dragon's Hill" | Britain | Berkshire is where the legend says St. George killed the dragon. A bare place is shown on the hill, where nothing will grow, and there the blood of the dragon ran out. Britain |
God name "Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl" | Aztec / Mesoamerican / Mexico | Primordial god. A syncretization of EHECATL and QUETZALCOATL, one of four gods who support the lowest heaven at each cardinal point. He is perceived as residing in the west (codices Borgia and Vaticåñuś B). He is the deity who rules over the ninth of the thirteen heavens, Itztapal Nanatzcayan (where the stone slabs crash together). In a separate tradition, EhecatlQuetzalcoatl executed the monstrous god XOLOTL when he declined to offer his blood in self-sacrifice for the creation of mankind.... |