Creation
Originally Eros was a minor
deity, a Lord of Lust, Love and Fertility, spun off from Aphrodite. However Eros was promoted by Elusian and Orphic mystery cults to a different role. As they told the history, Eros was another
name for Phanes, Lord of Creation, who hatched
himself from the world egg at the start of time, and from whom the Royal
Sceptre was passed to Nyx, Lord of Night, then Ouranos, Lord of Sky, then Kronos.
Lord of Time then Zeus, Lord of Storms who proceeded to eat Phanes,
absorbing his power. Symbol: Winged Hermaphrodite
Destruction
Rudra started out as the Vedic Lord of Storm and
Hunt. Winning some attributes from
another Vedic god, Agni, Lord of Fire, Travel & Rebirth, he increased his
prominence, before, in the Puranic period, being
conflated with Indra, chief god and Lord of Storms
and War. As a new pantheon swept in to
that area of southern India, Rudra deftly transferred
to the new religion, Hinduism, under the name of Shiva, Lord of Destruction,
where he is one of the three prime contenders for chief god – a battle still
being fought by contesting traditions. Disease and natural Disaster also come
under Destruction. Symbol: serpent
Fire
Under the rule of the Titans, man was happy. Then Prometheus persuaded man to use fire, that was reserved only for the use of gods. The gods threw Prometheus down, to punish him. And to punish man they had Vulcan, god of fire, forge from clay the first woman, Pandora, who was given a box and told not to open it. She did, and that is where all the ills of mankind come from. Vulcan himself was later also thrown down (for releasing the chief god’s wife after he tied her up), crippling him. To make up for this, the goddess of beauty was forced to be his wife against her will. Volcanoes are what we get every time he finds out she has been unfaithful to him again. Symbol: anvil
Death
There are many aspects of
death. There are incarnations of death
who free the spirit from the body, guides who lead the spirit to the
underworld, judges who then decide its destiny and rulers who control the land
in which the spirit then ends up.
There’s even the Norse goddess Hel, who pulls out their fingernails to
make a ship to sail in for Ragnarok. However perhaps the pushiest of them all is Atropos, who not only cuts the life thread, she also
chooses the specific time and method of death for each mortal. Symbol: shears
Chaos
Set, Lord of Chaos and Storms was
originally the chief god of Upper Egypt.
As the two Egypts warred with each other and
were then repeatedly conquered from outside, the conflict (and the flooding of
the Nile) was mirrored by the relative status and relationships of the gods in
the pantheon. Set was allied with Ra and
opposed to Osiris (who he slew) and Horus (who castrated him). Finally, after a period as chief god of all
Egypt, Set was nearly demonised but survived because an isolated cult retained
faith in him. He remains a god but is
chained in the cold northern heavens, married to a hippo. Outside Egypt he lived on as the cythonic Typhon, and serpents Jormungand and Tiamat. Symbol: crocodile
Poetry
Odin, chief God of the Norse
pantheon was Lord of Wisdom, War, Death, Magic, Valour, Poetry, Prophecy and
Hunting. The Norse pantheon fought on
well into the 12th century before an infiltrated ruling class
converted their land to Christianity, and Odin retained his primacy and
attributes throughout that time, unlike the more unstable southern
pantheons. The one exception is Poetry,
which was nabbed by an enterprising bard named Bragi,
who wrote and spread a tale in which he claimed to be Odin’s son. Symbols: cup and harp.
Order
Apollo is the god of the Sun,
lightness, music, and poetry, while Dionysus is the god of wine, ecstasy, and
intoxication. In the modern literary usage of the concept, the contrast between
Apollo and Dionysus symbolizes principles of individualism versus wholeness,
light versus darkness, or civilization versus primal nature. Paglia claims that the
Dionysian is dark and chthonic, and the Apollonian is light and structured. The
Dionysian is associated with nature and women and sex, and the Apollonian is
associated with clarity and solidity, and sexless goal oriented progress. An old and successful god, supported by
oracles. Symbols: many
.
Storms
Ba’al, Lord of Storms and War, became chief of the Ugaritic pantheon of Gods after supplanting Dagon, Lord of
Plants and chief of the Philistine pantheon.
He was later conflated with Teshub, Hurrian Lord of Storm and Sky; with Haddad, Semitic Lord of
Storm and Plants; and with Ramman, the Akkadian Lord of Storms.
His attributes and story were eventually taken by Zeus, Lord of Storm
and Sky who became chief God of the Greek pantheon. Finally he was demoted to demonhood by the Canaanites. Symbol: the bull.
Judgement
Judgement often goes in hand with
Law and sometimes even Justice. Shamash, the Babylonian sun god, had
attributes of Law and Justice. He is
credited by King Hammurabi with inspiring the code by which he ruled; the first
example of systematic written law in the world.
Gods of Judgement are frequently judges of the dead and of other gods,
so this is almost always the attribute of a major or chief god within a
pantheon. Symbol: mace
Power
Not physical power, such as
exemplified by Bia, Kratos
and Magnus. Rather this is force of
will; political power or leadership. As
such it is almost never mentioned explicitly, except in the chief of a
pantheon, but some exemplify it more than others. The chief god of the Taoist pantheon, the
Yellow Emperor, is a good example, being credited with being a near perfect
mortal ruler before his ascension (largely because little was actually known,
so various philosophers rewrote his history to exemplify how they thought a
ruler should behave).
Stories
In the bardic
tradition, long before stories were written they were passed on orally. The power of stories is the power of
eloquence and speaking to move the minds of men. Though many heros
have this power, such as Heracles, Odysseus, Väinämöinen
and Taliesin, fewer gods are credited with it - they have other ways to
influence mortals. However one example
is Ogma, Lord of Eloquence and Runes in the Irish
pantheon. Symbol: pierced tongue
Time
Kronos, as befits the Lord of Time, is a survivor. Originally a demon from the Ayyavazhi pantheon, he transferred to Greece, displacing a
primitive Sky god, who got recast as his father, to head the pantheon of
Titans. When that pantheon was over
thrown in bloody war by the new Greek gods headed by Zeus, he fled to Italy, where
he changed his name to Saturn and displaced the pre-classical archaic cult of
Janus from pre-eminence who had in turn devolved from Anu,
Lord of Sky and chief of the Sumerian pantheon.
He later gained Lordship of Plants, Strength and Judgement, but remained
Father Time. Symbol: sickle
Fertility
The name of the oldest known god
does not survive, only her image, which dates back more than 20,000 years, and
continues in an unbroken succession of the sacred feminine through Cybele, Gaia
and Rhea, all the way to the iconography of the Virgin Mary. While conception and childbirth remain
sources of uncertainty, there will always be prayers to fertility deities. Symbol: wide hips
Plants
Viridius, the Green Man, is an iconic figure in British
Mythology, most likely deriving from the spring-summer half of the paired
season gods who slays the winter half at the mid-winter festival: the Holly
King and the Oak King. This is a story
independently invented many times: Gilgamesh in Sumer, Balor
in Ireland, John Barleycorn in England.
The Lordship of Plants is sometimes divided into Lord of the Wild, and
Lord of Cultivation (agriculture and grain crops in particular). It is also sometimes combined with Animals
and Fertility into a Lordship of Nature, just as Animals is sometimes divided
by species. Symbol: greenery
Animals
Pan started off in Greece as Lord
of Animals, Hunting and Nature. However,
on spreading to Italy he took the aspects of Lust and Fertility from Inuus, a god with similar appearance whose worship then
died off, and claimed the name Pan Priapus, later
Faunus, while his goat’s horns morphed to the more phallic horns of a
stag. Surviving a take
over attempt by Dis Pater, he spread into
Celtic lands via France, defeating a (now nameless) serpent shaped god with
rams horns to become the unquestioned lord of the forests, Cernunnos. In the Middle ages he briefly took on the
aspect of Prosperity before being almost totally demonised by the Christians
who used his image for that of Satan. He
has since been revived by the Wiccans, where he enjoys being half of a twin
chief God. Symbol: Antlers
Peace
& Forgiveness
Freyr was the chief god of the Vanir, an individual pantheon based in Norway and central Sweden around Lake Vänern associated with health, wealth, luck, fertility, magic and elves. The encroaching gods of the southern Sweden and Denmark, the warlike Aesir, battled the pantheon, threatening to drive out their worship. Instead Freyr brokered a peace involving an exchange of hostages, then forgave the Aesir when it was betrayed, saving his pantheon and accepting a subservient position to Odin, losing many of his original attributes: Plants, Storms, Fertility & Ecstacy. Symbol: flying sword
Endurance,
Healing
Brigit, in the Irish pantheon,
was originally a Triple Goddess, revealed as three sisters whose aspects are
Healing, Crafting and Poetry. Crossing
over into northern England and France as Brigantia,
she took over some aspects from the greek Minerva and
other more localised minor deities such as Bricta:
Wisdom, Fire, High places, War, Domesticity, Fertility and Agriculture. The later Romans, under Hadrian, used her as
the basis for transforming Britannia from a personification of the British
Isles into an actual individual divine figure, adding in iconography from
Victoria, Roman goddess of Victory. The
Christians took many of the tales associated with her, and transferred them to
a Saint who shared the same name and attributes. From there she crossed into Voodoo as Maman Brigitte.
Symbol: Shield
Wisdom
Tanit started out as a virginal war goddess of the
Berber tribe in North Africa. Spreading
to Phoenicia and Egypt as Neith, she gained
attributes of: Moon, Wisdom, Fertility and Hunting. From there she was adopted as patron of
Athens, defeating the sea god Poseidon for the job and gaining major status in
the greek Pantheon.
Surviving numerous attempts by other gods to remove status from her by
rape, she instead politicked and sponsored heros with
skill; gaining horses, olive trees and other minor attributes, rewriting the
story of her parentage each time to fit in the new bits. At one point she incorporated as a title the
name of a god she absorbed, Pallas, as a compromise with his followers. Symbol: helmet
Light
Light is very prone to metaphor,
often standing for all that is pure, good and true. The Christian view of Lucifer, the “Light
Bringer”, is anomalous in this respect, and is probably a mistranslation of the
word “הילל” which could also have referred to a
specific Babylonian king. The Greek
titan Theia is a better example, being the cause of
the illumination not only of the sun and moon, but also gems and precious
metals. Symbol: wide open eyes
War
In Benin, Africa, the god Gu is Lord of War and Crafting. He travelled via Nigeria over to Haiti where,
as Ogun, he also took on the attributes: Fire,
Hunting, Power, Magic and Prophecy. From
there he spread widely through South America, especially Cuba and Brazil, and
was fused with various Christian figures such as Saint Peter and Saint
George. Interestingly, in the Yoruba Orisha cult he has been split into multiple aspect figures,
including a female one that gets identified with Saint Sebastian (patron of gay
men).
Valour
Hanuman, the Monkey King, a strong and noble warrior, is Lord of Valour in the Hindu pantheon. However in the 1500s a Chinese scholar Wu Cheng’en published a book “Journey to the West” which used the Monkey King as a character, Sun Wukong, which cast him as a demon and a far less noble personality (though just as strong and good at magic). Luckily, by the end of the book, he attains godhood, with a net result that he is now one of the most well known Hindu gods in the west because of the popularity of the TV series, Monkey! Symbol: staff and wind cloud
Music
The Dagda was chief of the Tuatha Dé Danann pantheon, who displaced the Firbolg and the Fomori, and who were in turn displaced by the Milesians. Now seen as less than a god, he used a club of death, a cauldron of life, a harp that controlled season, ever plentiful trees, and he could make the sun stand still for 9 months. Companion of Lugh, he slept with the Mórrígan and had a penis that dragged along the ground when he walked (later to become the Cerne Abbas giant). Symbol: harp
Strength
Herecles the Greek is a wonderful example
of the grey area between gods and heros. The story goes that he started off half
mortal but, upon his death his mortal half was burnt away, leaving him fully
divine and welcomed as a god to Olympus.
In fact the original tales had him end up in the underworld, however
pressure from his cult among the soldiers of the Roman empire led to the tale
being changed and his being granted fully divine status. Symbol: lion skin
Hunting
Ullr, Lord of Hunting, was chief of Germany’s
prehistoric pantheon. However, by the 12th
century he had been euhemerized into a mere hero Ollerus
who, while a powerful wizard and ruler of Sweden for a brief period when Odin
was absent, was just a human and died a mortal death. Euhemerization is
more radical than demonization – it is a retrospective rationalisation to
re-explain a myth in terms of non-divine historic events. Symbol: the bow
Secrets,
Magic & Prophecy
Veles was the Slavic Lord of Earth, Sea, Death, Wealth,
Magic, Music, Animals, Rebirth and Trickery.
He achieved this mix by taking on aspects from the similarly named Vala, Vethes and Volos. Enemy of the Slavic thunder god, when slain
he always returned. However after defeat
by Christianity his aspects were split up, with his main identity being
conflated with the devil, and stories of his benign aspects being attributed to
various saints, including Saint Nicholas, who went on to become Sinter Klaus
and Father Christmas. Symbol: dragon.
Agony,
Sacrifice & Rebirth
There is a story that is repeated
again and again. A beloved figure
dies. Another travels to the underworld
to free them, but a condition is set (can’t look, must not eat) which they fail
at. A compromise is reached, which
allowed the beloved one to return for part of the year, or when needed. Baldr in Scandanavia, Persephone in Greece and Izanami
in Japan all fit this pattern. This was
the central theme of the Eleusinian Mysteries, an initiatic
cult teaching the symbolism involed. The cult accepted any Greek speaker who was
not a murderer, and by crossing class boundaries provided major long lasting
support for Persephone.
Agility
& Dance
The Great Goddess of the Middle East, often consort of the chief god, is known by many names in many lands: Baalat, Aserah, Ashtart, Astarte, Venus, Aphrodite, Ishtar, Hathor, Demeter, Eostre and Kali. Most of these were associated with dance as well as love and fertility, even Hathor the cow, but it worth noting that dance is often a metaphor for the cycle of creation-destruction and that many of these were among the most blood thirsty warriors in their pantheon. Symbol: breast milk
Love,
Betrayal & Vengeance
In Wicca all goddesses are seen
as aspects of a single Goddess. Some are
maidens – unmarried. Some are mothers –
attributes of Love, Fertility and Passion.
And some are crones, dealing in wisdom, death and revenge. One such goddess is the Mórrígan,
the revenge aspect of the celtic triple goddess of
war, who haunts battlefields in the shape of a crow. She possibly originated as a Mesopotamian bird
shaped screeching spirit of winds and the night named Lilith. Her symbology
persisted long past her original worshippers, shaping the portrayal of both
Morgan le Fey (from the Welsh Arthurian cycle) and The Queen of Air and
Darkness, queen of the Fairies, later named Titania.
Beauty,
Lust & Ecstasy
Many pantheons class Beauty with
Love and leave Lust out entirely, but Sexual Desire and Sexual Intercourse are
distinct attributes. A good example is
the Norse goddess Freyja who traded sexual favours
with dwarves in return for a necklace, and who was said to inspire irresistible
lust in all who saw her. Consort of Freyr, but mainly concentrated on bringing happiness to
others, when not fighting or leading the Valkyries. Symbol: cat
Lies,
Poison & Corruption
In order to be seen to shine,
every hero need a villain; every pantheon needs a fall guy to explain why the
world is not perfect. Sometimes the fall
guy is a god (eg Apep in
the Egyptian pantheon), sometimes they are painted as being less than a god (eg Loviatar in the Finnish
mythology) - but they can’t be much less, else they don’t make a convincing
fall guy. Either way, for the story to work
right, they are usually destined to come to a bad end. If a god ends up with this reputation, they
better have a saving grace or a really good justification for being pissed
off. Izanami
is your archetype here – she blamed it all on her husband for daring to look at her when told not to. Symbol: comb
Trade
& Prosperity
In about 500 BC a fat zen monk named Angida lived in
India catching poisonous snakes. Rather
than kill them, as was usual, he defanged them so they could live in
peace. The story spread, and soon he was
being worshipped in Japan as a figure of contentment and good health as Hotei, one of the seven lucky gods of fortune, from where
he gained the attribute: Prosperity. His
story then travelled back into China, where he became Budai,
the laughing Buddha, god of happiness.
Opportunity,
Change & Progress
Ganesha started off as a demon in Sri Lanka, but his
distinctive elephant head made him a favourite among artists and story tellers
in India, where he became Lord of Progress (through the power of elephants to
remove obstacles in the path) and from there became Lord of Wits, Wisdom,
Crafting and Knowledge in the Hindu pantheon.
Travel,
Messages & Boundaries
Gods of travel, messages and
boundaries such as gates have traditionally be characterised as guides for the
souls of the dead – psychopomps. Often psychopomp
gods start off as demons, angels or valkyries, and
only take on godhood later as their story gets fleshed out or they move to a
new pantheon. Charon
the ferryman is one such example, who attained godhood on spreading from Greece
to subsume a similar Etruscan deity, now only known as Charun. Symbol: hammer or pole
Wits,
Trickery & Theft
Hermes was originally the Greek
Lord of Travel, Messages, Music, Wits, Trickery, Theft, Agility, Trade,
Prosperity, Opportunity, Progress, Fire and Stories. However the Sun god in his own pantheon,
Apollo, overtook him in popularity and the transfer of the attribute Music was
justified by a story in which Hermes stole Apollo’s cattle and was forced to
surrender his Lyre in return. Symbols:
Rooster (also Petasus, Caduceus and winged sandals)
Memory
& Writing
Enki start off as chief god of a single city, where he
was Lord of Sea, Crafting, Wits, Creation, Fertility, Wisdom, Magic and
Peace. When the city was conquered, he
joined the Sumerian pantheon, losing several attributes to other gods, before
appearing in the Babylonian pantheon, where he appeared twice, in two different
aspects: Ea and En-Ki. He started to re-gain attributes, however,
by featuring in a series of strong stories.
It was Enki who rescued mankind from The Flood
(later taken as the story of Noah & the arc). It was Enki who
invented writing, splitting the tongue of the gods (which all understood) into
the tongues of men (later taken as the Tower of Babel). Symbol: rivers on his shoulders
Knowledge
& Crafting
Thoth started off as a major
deity in the Egyptian pantheon, as Lord of Knowledge, Crafting, Writing, Travel,
Peace and Magic. He narrowly survived an
attempt by Hermes to subsume him, ending up with the name Hermes Trismegistus, but a separate identity. Later, as Idris or
Enoch he was a heavy influence upon Jewish and Islamic mysticism. Symbol: Ibis
