Innholdsfortegnelse for Ancient Gods i Ancient Gods

Across the Roman world, strange underground temples have been discovered dedicated to the little-known god Mithras. Part of the reason Mithras is so little known is because members of his cult were sworn to secrecy about his worship. To reconstruct what took place in his cave-like temples historians must rely on the scant clues left in archaeological record. A Mithraeum temple mostly follows exactly the same layout. Usually Mithraea were created from existing caves or constructed so as to look like caverns with a single entrance leading into a long chamber that ends with an altar or stone relief. Along the sides of the chamber are two banks of seats. The most striking feature is the carved image of Mithras found at the heart of every temple. Known as the…

Mesopotamia literally means ‘between rivers’ and in the ancient world the Tigris and Euphrates were given to spectacular and devastating floods. It is no surprise then that floods should have seeped into local myths. In Sumerian texts the god Enlil decided to flood the entire earth and wipe out humanity. When the flood narrative was written down by later civilisations, the reason given for this deluge is that humans were too noisy and they disturbed the god’s sleep. In all versions of the tale a hero is chosen to ride out the storm, when the god Enki tells him to build an ark. For the Sumerians this was Ziusudra, to others he was Atrahasis or Ut-napistim. Whatever his name, the hero does as instructed and builds a massive boat as…

Erreshkigal is the older sister of the goddess Inanna. While her sister is goddess of the somewhat contradictory domains of aggression and love, Ereshkigal is the goddess of both death and birth. Whereas Inanna gets to be Queen of Heaven, Ereshkigal is the Queen of Kur – the Sumerian underworld. Ereshkigal once had a husband called Gugalanna, but he seems to have died. When Inanna descends to the underworld, she says she is coming to commemorate his death. Some have suggested that Gugalanna was the Bull of Heaven that the hero Gilgamesh fought and slew, and that this explains how the god came to die. When Inanna visits her sister she goes to her palace at the gates of the underworld. This palace is guarded by seven gates, which are…

Think of the Near and Middle East, and sooner or later the icons and iconographies of the Religions of the Book – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – will come to mind. The three faiths are powerfully and intimately connected to the lands that birthed them, especially to the thrice-holy city of Jerusalem. But they are not the only religions that rose from the deserts and fertile oases, the mountainous uplands and mighty rivers of what is traditionally known as the cradle of civilisation. Egypt, ancient Sumer and the Akkadian and Babylonian civilisations that followed it all clustered around the ancient Near and Middle East and had an influence on its social, moral and religious thought. Anthropologically, the Hilly Flanks and Fertile Crescent of the region have long been thought of…

Her most common epithet is “She who treads on the sea”, conjuring images of a graceful, powerful figure with the elements entirely at her command. Her other titles include “Lady Day”, “Queen of Heaven” and simply “Goddess”. For several centuries she was venerated in homes and temples from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Oman. Whether known locally as Asherah, Ashtoreth or Athirat, she was worshipped as the great mother goddess and as the adored consort of the supreme god El (or occasionally, Ba’al). Many later sculptures and images represent her as a beautiful woman, but Asherah’s most commonly used sacred symbols, heavily used at the time her worship was at its height, have not survived the rigours of time, thanks to both the material they were…

As early as 17,000 BCE, carvings of wild cattle alongside strange hybrid creatures at the site of Qurta in southern Egypt suggest an early belief in the hidden forces of nature. With Egypt’s earliest stone sculpture at about 7,000 years old believed to represent a cow, it is clear this was an animal that played an important role in the lives of the early Egyptians. So too did their desert environment, in which the dominant Sun was worshipped as a variety of gods, much like the River Nile, whose annual life-bringing floodwaters were likewise venerated as divine. As these aspects of the natural world gradually developed into individual gods, each region of Egypt also had their own local deities whose characters evolved through stories and myths. One of the key…

Each successive pharaoh was regarded as a child of the gods, and as the gods’ representative on Earth, was also the supreme high priest of every temple. However, with so many different temples throughout Egypt, the pharaoh’s duties had to be delegated to each temple’s high priest, who was often a royal relative selected by the king to guarantee their loyalty. Within large temples like Karnak or Memphis, the power of the priests was considerable, since the temples owned much land and the temple treasuries were very wealthy. The priests also controlled the gods’ cult statues, which functioned as oracles, whose pronouncements were interpreted by the priests, and could pass judgment in legal cases and even influence royal succession. At times when the crown was weak, the high priests’ powers…

Women were priestesses to both goddesses and gods, undertaking similar roles to their male counterparts and receiving the same pay. The most common priestess title was ‘chantress’, with some women impersonating goddesses in rituals and the wives of high priests holding the title ‘leader of the musical troupe’. Although most high priests were men, as were the lector priests who read out sacred texts, women held both these offices at times. Yet the most important priestess was the ‘God’s Wife’, a title held by a succession of royal women acting as the human consort of the god Amun at Karnak. The God’s Wife led sacred processions with the king or his deputy the high priest, and like them could enter the innermost shrine to make offerings to keep the gods…

The Greeks believed that the dead needed help in crossing the boundary between the world of the living and Hades, the gloomy realm of the dead. Those left behind sought to bury the dead as quickly as they could, or else the unburied dead would be condemned to roam for many years along the banks of the Styx, the river that marked the boundary between them and Hades. The retrieval of the bodies of the dead and their proper burial was of tremendous importance to the living. In 405 BCE, ten Athenian admirals won a great naval victory at Arginusae but failed to collect the corpses of their slain sailors on account of a storm that came up suddenly. On their return to Athens they were put on trial for…

With the torso of a man and the legs and horns of a goat, Greek god Pan was the original faun. But even though Pan has featured in masses of artwork and literature, he is not considered to be one of the major gods of ancient Greece. A god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, mountain wilds, fields, groves, woodland glens and sex, Pan is associated with fertility and the season of spring. The fact that he was first worshipped in the rural areas of ancient Greece (namely rustic Arcadia) as opposed to the larger, more populated cities meant that he was one of the few gods that didn’t have temples and monuments built in his honour. Instead, he was worshipped in nature, usually in caves and grottoes, with…

CATHA Lunar or solar, Catha was an important Etruscan divinity A daughter of the Sun, Catha was worshipped as a Sun goddess by the Etruscans, often in the same cult as Śuri at Pyrgi, an ancient Estrucan port in Latium, central Italy. However, as well as being associated with the Sun, Catha’s influence also stretched into fertility, with her being invoked to protect young mothers and infant children, and to ensure hereditary succession. Furthermore, she has been credited with taking the spirits of the dead into the afterlife. Apart from this, little is known about the goddess. It’s hard to know what she really looked like to the Etruscans as very few images of her have been identified, and even her status as a solar divinity has been questioned. Arguments…

Meet the gods and goddesses worshipped, revered and feared by the Ancient Romans JUNO MORE THAN JUST JUPITER’S WIFE If you were a woman in Ancient Rome, especially a married one, Juno was your goddess as she kept an eye over all aspects of women’s lives. She even enjoyed her own festival, the Matronalia, on 1 March each year during which husbands gave gifts to their wives during a time of renewal and the reawakening of nature. In one of her many guises, Juno was also tasked with overseeing childbirth as Juno Lucina, and a temple was dedicated to this version of her on the Esquiline Hill. Juno has the privilege of being one of the oldest Roman gods as one of the three originals – the Capitoline Triad –…

Appearing in Irish mythology as a member of the supernatural race known as the Tuatha Dé Danann, Brigid was the daughter of the Dagda and the wife of Bres, with whom she gave birth to a son named Ruadán. She also had two sisters, Brigid the healer and Brigid the smith, which has led many to see her as a triple deity. Brigid — and her continental counterpart Brigantia — is often thought to be the Celtic equivalent of the goddesses Minerva from Roman mythology and Athena from Ancient Greece, thanks to her embodying the same concept of elevated state. As a goddess of such things as fertility, healing, poetry, smith craft and the season of spring, Brigid was great and noble, and adored by poets everywhere. In the historical…

Used almost exclusively in Celtic mythology, the term ‘sovereignty goddess’ refers to a goddess who, personifying a territory, grants sovereignty upon kings by either marrying them or having sex with them. Over time, the tradition has become one of the most well-known and studied thematic elements of Celtic myth. One of the most famous figures to be read as a sovereignty goddess is Guinevere, the wife and queen of King Arthur of Welsh Arthurian legend. Her character varies greatly, depending on where you look, with her being portrayed as everything from a villain and an opportunistic trailer to a noble and virtuous but complex lady. Another is the Cailleach of Gaelic mythology, known in Scotland as Beira, Queen of Winter. She is said to be the mother of all gods…

Odin is most well-known for being one of the primary gods of the Norse pantheon: the ruler of the Æsir gods. He is the husband of Frigg, and the father of many children including Thor and Baldr. Also known as Wodan, Woden, or Wotan in some regions, with a long history of being worshipped by the Germanic peoples, Wednesday is said to bear his name. Most of what we know about him comes from 13th century texts written in Old Norse, mostly originating from Iceland. While most view him as a force for good, he does have a dark side, and this makes him one of the most complex gods worshipped by the Vikings. He is both a god of magic, wisdom and healing, but also a god of death.…

Within Ancient Rome, not everyone was a genius – but everyone did have a genius watching over them. This wasn’t their intellectual prowess looking out for them but a spirit that had only your best interests at heart. It would bless the head of the household, ensuring a fertile marital bed, so long as it was worshipped and celebrated, particularly on the husband and father’s birthday, with flowers and incense. Religion played a major part in the culture of ancient Rome. There were the 12 big gods and as more territory was conquered, the republic and empire became a melting pot of different cultures with new deities either standing on their own or adding colour to those that already existed in the Roman pantheon. But they were the gods that…

38,000 BCE Lion (wo)Man Discovered in a cave in Germany this statue of a half-lion, half-human is the earliest known example of figurative art. The Löwenmensch figurine is carved from mammoth ivory and may represent an early spirit or deity. 9000 BCE The first temple? Around 9,000 years ago at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, hunter-gatherers came together to erect one of the world’s first religious monuments. For around 2,000 years the site was used and added to before being abandoned and deliberately buried. 3000 BCE Sumerians write it down We know complex religions existed before the invention of writing because as soon as the Sumerians created cuneiform they wrote down stories of deities as elaborate as any that would come later. 2400 BCE Pyramid Texts In Egyptian pyramids, long spells…

Iceland is fertile ground for the human imagination. With its wild and uninhabited areas it is easy to conjure up spirits everywhere. In fact many modern Icelanders do strongly believe that elves and other forces dwell on their island. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that the Norse gods of their Viking forebears are undergoing a rebirth today. Ásatrú, the name for the reborn Norse faith, is Iceland’s fastest growing religion. Since 1973 it has been officially recognised by the state and so licenced to perform weddings. Despite the opposition of some Christian bishops, Ásatrú has established itself on Iceland and for the first time in 1000 years the Norse gods are being celebrated again. At present there is no temple for followers of Ásatrú to congregate at, but one…

Inanna, goddess of love and strife, was worshipped from at least 4000 BCE and remained an object of veneration for millennia. Given her record of fickleness it is not surprising that she should have changed over the centuries. Inanna, or Ishtar as she became known to the Akkadians, was a popular deity in myths because of her combative nature. She features in more surviving tales than any other god. As Ishtar, the Akkadians may have softened Inanna’s more outrageous behaviour. As the goddess of war as well as fertility she apparently killed too many men, so the god Ea created a rival goddess of discord from the dirt beneath his fingernails. When Ishtar saw this mockery of her she promised to give up her violent ways. For the Assyrians under…

Enki (later known as Ea) was the Sumerian guardian of the gifts of civilisation known as ‘Me’. These included things like kingship, various crafts, and law, but he also had control over wisdom, purification, and the exorcism of demons. Some of these gifts he devolved to other gods, but as the holder of most of them he was among the most important Sumerian deities. As the master of magic Enki featured in many rituals, as the Sumerians believed that ill health and bad luck were caused by demons and Enki was the god who might be able to drive them out. In his iconography Enki is often shown surrounded by a stream stocked with fish. This is because in one myth he used his magic to put Abzu, the freshwater…

The brilliant light of the Sun represented the power of Utu. Utu could therefore be both a beneficial protector by shining his light forth to make plants grow, but also a terrifying enemy if he brought a drought. From his chariot, which drove the sun across the sky, he also administered justice, morality, and truth, as no one could hide from his gaze. In hymns to Utu he is described as having a beard of blue lapis lazuli and radiant beauty, but also amazing power. “As my king comes forth, the heavens tremble before him and the earth shakes before him.” At the end of each day Utu passed out of the world through a long tunnel in the West and entered the heavenly domes. In the morning he returned…

For many years, Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition all agreed that the adoption of monotheism by the previously polytheistic peoples of the ancient Near and Middle East was a return to what they conceptualised as variants of the world’s ‘original’ and ‘correct’ monotheistic religion, an idea that folklorist Andrew Lang referred to as the ‘Urreligion’, and a similar concept to the one that the occultists of the Western Esoteric tradition referred to as “the ancient wisdom religion” and “the secret doctrine”. Proto-Indo-European myth can provably connect gods and their stories across continents. Anthropologists used to favour the idea that religion had ‘progressed’ from animism to polytheism to monotheism. We now know that that’s not the case, and that the Religions of the Book were far from the only monotheistic faiths…

With a name that literally means ‘god’, El can be a confusing deity. It’s easy for him to be conflated with lesser deities that bear the title as an honorific, or are described as an ‘el’. Like his Sumerian predecessor Enlil though, El is keen to be known and adored as the supreme god of his pantheon – sometimes as the only god at all. As a supreme god he plays the traditional role of father and creator of gods, humans and animals. In clay tablets discovered at the ancient Canaanite city site of Ugarit (Ras Shamra in modern-day Syria), he is referred to by various epithets, including bātnyu binwāti (creator of creatures), ‘abū ‘adami (father of man) and abū banī ’ili (father of the gods). Ugarit, however, did not…

Ra God of the Sun Ra was Egypt’s most important Sun god, also known as Khepri when rising, Atum when setting and the Aten as the solar disc. As the main creator deity, Ra also produced twin gods Shu and Tefnut. Geb God of the Earth As the grandson of Ra and the son of Shu and Tefnut, green-skinned Geb represented the Earth and was usually shown reclining, stretched out beneath his sister-wife Nut. Nut Goddess of the sky As granddaughter of Ra, Nut was the sky goddess whose star-spangled body formed the heavens, held above her brother Geb by their father Shu, god of air. Horus God of Kingship When his father Osiris became Lord of the Underworld, Horus succeeded him as king on Earth, and became the god…

With access to Egypt’s temples restricted to royalty and clergy, the temples’ outer walls sometimes incorporated shrines featuring images of ‘listening ears’. These allowed the gods to hear prayers from the general population, with the Amun of Karnak praised as a god ‘who comes at the voice of the poor’, while the goddess Hathor ‘listens to the petitions of every young girl who trusts in her’. People also worshipped at home within small domestic shrines, containing small busts of deceased ancestors and statuettes of favourite gods and past monarchs. The deified queen, Ahmose-Nefertari, and her son, Amenhotep I, were more popular than Amun at the workers’ village Deir el-Medina. Families within the home also used magic.…

Greek religion had no formal set of beliefs or practices to which all had to conform or accept. The Greeks had their mythological stories, many of which were shared all over their country, but they did not develop a rigorous system of beliefs about them. The Greeks, for example, had no one sacred text, such as the Bible, at the core of their religion. Often Greek myths differed from place to place, as well as the particular stories that were told about the gods and heroes. Sometimes these stories were wildly contradictory of others. Several gods had clearly overlapping areas of authority that could not be reconciled. Greek mythology was the product of centuries of unregulated storytelling by some of history’s most creative and innovative people. Their myths explained the…

Zeus Lord of Olympus Mighty Zeus was the lord and king of the Olympian gods, and father of many gods and heroes. His domain was the sky and he was master of the weather. His animal was the eagle, the greatest of all birds. Zeus was the most powerful of all the gods – perhaps even stronger than all of them put together – yet he was not invincible, and he could not defy the wishes of his divine brethren with impunity. Zeus oversaw oaths and hospitality, while his divine radiance was enough to burn mere mortals to ashes. He also had a roving eye and would have many amorous trysts with nymphs and other women who were not his wife. Through Danaë he would father the hero Perseus, slayer…

The Roman mind was an odd one; hard-nosed pragmatism was meshed with deeply held superstition. While the legions of the Empire marched across the world people felt that the might of Rome was supported not so much by their fearsome military prowess but by the goodwill of the gods. It is impossible to understand Rome without knowledge of their pre-Christian faith. The foundational myth of Rome shows the importance they placed on divine signs. When Romulus and Remus wanted to found a city they marked out the sky and waited for the gods to send them a message. Remus saw six eagles, but Romulus saw a full dozen and that is why we study ‘Roman’ paganism and not ‘Reman’. The ancient gods worshipped by the Romans were all clearly and…

The forests, hills, and plains of Europe were terrifying for the ancient Greeks and Romans. The primordial gloom of woods where no civilised person set foot was the location of human sacrifice and dark rites. The north, east, and west of the continent was the home of barbarians, and these people they called the Celts. While the classical world tended to think of them as a single society, the reality was a patchwork of tribes and peoples. The Celts may have shared much linguistically and culturally but they were never one nation. From Spain to Bulgaria, the wilds of Scotland to the Mediterranean, and over a thousand years many local differences in their religion evolved. Celtic paganism is a difficult faith to firmly grasp. Relying on hostile sources such as…

Associated with war, destiny and fate, Irish mythological figure the Morrígan brings with her a sense of foreboding. She is known for foretelling doom, death and victory, and her name roughly translates to ‘queen of phantoms’. As a shapeshifter, she frequently appeared in the form of a black crow known as the badb, which became an ominous sign for those that saw her before marching into battle. However, as well as foretelling death, she could also incite warriors to battle and help them win victories. She would encourage soldiers to do brave deeds and strike fear into the hearts of their enemies, and is often depicted washing the bloodstained clothes of those who were fated to die. Like many other gods, the Morrígan is sometimes believed to be a trio…

Before the worlds of the Norse were nine in number, there were just two of them: Muspelheim, the place of fire, and Niflheim, the place of cold, where the snake-haunted spring Hvergelmir rose to feed the bitter waters of the Élivágar rivers. Where the two bordered each other was Ginnungagap, the primal void. As the ice-rime winds of Niflheim met the spark-flashing breezes of Muspelheim in the soft, warm-wet centre of the void, fog brewed. Here, amid weather as mild as a Nordic dream of summer, the sleeping giant Ymir was formed: “Of old was the age when Ymir lived;Sea nor cool waves nor sand there were;Earth had not been, nor heaven above,But a yawning gap, and grass nowhere.” So says the third stanza of Völuspá, the great prophecy-poem in…

Loki is a god, yet also an individual who stands very much apart from the rest of the pantheon. Rootlessly moving between many groups, he is a trickster – a shape-shifter, and gender-switcher – who creates his own rules and morality throughout the Norse myths. First attested to in the Prose and Poetic Eddas of the 13th century, he is a character that is difficult to pin down. With questionable parentage, Loki is husband to the goddess Sigyn, yet he is the father of many children; the most famous are those he sired with the giantess Angrboða. These three grew up in Jötunheimr, the realm of the giants. The gods convened to decide the fate of the hellish offspring, decreeing that no good could come of them, as they were…

The Lacnunga is a collection of Anglo-Saxon medical texts and charms that gives us a glimpse at how the Anglo-Saxons may have used their faith to heal themselves. Many of the cures offered in the Lacnunga are simply various mixtures of plant and animal bits that may do some good if nothing better is on offer. Yet several charms call on powers beyond the mere ingredients of the medicine, and one remedy has even been proven to kill the antibiotic-resistant MRSA bacteria. One gives examples of rituals to be done by mothers in various situations. A mother who cannot nurse her infant must step three times over a dead person’s grave. If that does not work she must take a sip of cow’s milk and spit it in running water…

St Brigid, one of the patron saints of Ireland, is not the sort of person one would associate with pagan religion. A holy nun born in the 5th century, she was notoriously charitable, and miraculous events followed her throughout her life. When a pagan attempted to feed the infant Brigid the child rejected the impure milk, but a mysterious cow appeared to feed her (presumably pure) milk. It was Brigid who is said to have helped found monasticism in Ireland. That is, if she ever existed. St Brigid shares an uncanny number of similarities to an ancient Celtic goddess who also happens to be called Brigid. Both are associated with holy wells. Both are celebrated on 1 February: St Brigid on her feast day, and Brigid at Imbolc, the pagan…

The very earliest Sumerian texts make no reference to where An (or Anu) came from. He is simply assumed to have always been the chief god of the Sumerians. An was so associated with the sky that his name came to be used for it and it is not always clear in sources whether they are referring to the sky or the deity. According to Sumerian myth, the heavens were three stone domes over the top of the world and it is in the outermost, and most beautiful, that An resides. In later myths An is the son of the primordial sea-goddess Nammu, who also gives birth to a daughter called Ki. While An is the sky, Ki is the Earth. Their child Enlil, god of storms, wind, and rain,…

Inanna, known as the ‘Lady of Heaven,’ was the Sumerian patron deity of love, sex, fertility, and beauty. She also had another aspect as the deity in charge of war, aggression, and justice. The planet Venus, which appears sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening, became associated with her changeable nature. Both aspects of her divinity were amply explored in the myths associated with her. In the earliest myths Inanna is a vegetative goddess associated with the growth of crops and fertility of the fields. Her symbol, a reed tied into a loop at the top, appears in the very earliest Sumerian texts and she was listed amongst the chief gods. Later legends attached to her to produce the fearsomely potent goddess who would play a starring role…

Goddesses in Near and Middle Eastern polytheism have a lot of symbols and titles in common. Lions, snakes, flowers and stars are common motifs; frequently used epithets, aside from ‘mistress’, ‘lady’ and ‘queen’, often include references to the heavens and the sea. Triple goddess iconography is common, although rather than the maiden, mother and crone traditional in the West, Near and Middle Eastern trinities instead tend to invoke a belligerent goddess of war or an inexorable goddess of death as the third member of their triad. Between them they embody youth and energy, sexuality and motherhood, and fate and death. Rulership is a common motif in their iconography; they are usually presented as sovereign queens in their own right, rather than consorts. Their roles are not always ‘traditional’ feminine ones…

Like ‘el’, ‘ba’al’ was a generic word in Northwest Semitic languages, meaning ‘lord’, ‘master’, or ‘husband’ (within the context of one who carefully looks after a house, farmstead and livestock), although similar sounding words still mean husband (as in partner) in both modern Hebrew and Arabic today. Frequently applied to the most important sons of El, it eventually became closely associated with one of his favourite sons, rain and storm god Hadad, usually addressed as Ba’al Hadad. He is sometimes conceptualised as the son of Dagon, not El – one mythfrom the Syrian city of Ugarit features a complicated story in which El gives a pregnant concubine to Dagon as a gift, thereby making her son the child of both gods, legally at least. In regions that were largely dependent…

The Egyptians greatly respected the natural world, particularly animals whose spirits were worshipped as divine. With Egypt’s earliest known art representing animals alongside humans, various creatures were placed in human burials as early as c. 4000 BCE, and the relationship was a fundamental part of Egypt’s evolving religion. Gods could be portrayed entirely as an animal, or in human (anthropomorphic) form with an animal’s head, as imitated by masked priests. Many deities also had a sacred creature, which was worshipped in life then mummified at death. The most important of these was the Apis Bull of Memphis. Believed to house the soul of the creator god Ptah when alive, it was then worshipped as the underworld god Osiris after its death when the next bull was selected to continue the…

The Opening of the Year (New Year’s Day) Month 1, day 1 (19 July) The Egyptian New Year began with the start of the annual Nile flood, which brought water to the desert landscape and allowed crops to grow. With the floodwaters repeating the moment of creation, it was a time of national rejoicing when hymns claimed ‘the whole land leaps for joy’ and people threw flowers, offerings and even themselves into the water. Opet Festival Month 2, days 15-26 (September) The Opet Festival began as an 11-day event when the cult statue of Amun was taken out of Karnak, accompanied by musicians, dancers, soldiers and the public. The procession travelled five kilometres south to the temple of Luxor, where the god’s statue was joined by the pharaoh in secret…

Hades Ruler of the underworld As the brother and equal of Zeus and Poseidon, and the lord of the underworld and king of the dead, Hades was among the grandest of the Olympian gods, but he was not often worshipped or invoked, and he rarely took centre stage in stories. In fact, Greeks disliked even saying his name, which was thought to be unlucky. They used all sorts of alternatives and euphemisms to avoid it. Among other things, he was Pluto (‘the rich’) because as a god of the earth he helped make crops grow, hoarded precious metals and minerals, and was a creator of wealth, while with some bitter irony he was Polydegmon (‘the hospitable’) as all humankind came to him eventually, and he was Pylartes (‘the gatefastener’) as…

At sites across the Roman Empire strange monuments have been found underground. In domed caves, statues depict a young man in the act of slaying a bull. Known as the Tauroctony these sculptures are the remains of the cult of a god known as Mithras. Mithraism was just one of many ‘mystery cults’ that flourished during the Roman Empire. These cults were often foreign imports that offered followers access to secrets hidden from outsiders. Some promised to reveal the secrets of the afterlife. We know very little of what the followers of Mithras believed but some clues are found in his temples. Mithras is sometimes shown as being born from a rock, dining with the god Sol, or with a lion-headed figure surrounded by snakes. The central image of the…

Celtic paganism was absorbed into Roman religion in many areas, but in the relatively un-Romanised Ireland it was Christianity that submerged it. Medieval Irish texts that preserved Celtic tales were sometimes glossed by the scribes who copied them to suggest that paganism prefigured the coming of Christianity. The replacement of Celtic polytheism was not total though and some aspects ended up within Irish Christianity. The Horned God Cernunnos appears to have influenced the image of St Ciaran who is said to have lived in the forest and whose first followers were animals. This syncretism may have smoothed the adoption of Christianity for the Irish Celts. St Brigid is one of the most important saints of Ireland, yet there are some scholars who doubt her historical existence because St Brigid shares…

The cosmic ash tree, Yggdrasil, metaphysically connects the nine worlds of Norse cosmology: the worlds of ice and fire, of humans, elves, giants, and dwarves, of the two families of gods, and of the dead. The tree itself is populated by deer and dragons and birds; a squirrel called Ratatoskr runs up and down it, gnawing its bark and branches and sowing dissent among its highest and lowest denizens. Beneath it, the three Norns (analogous to the Fates) weave the destinies of gods and men. The name of the tree is said to mean ‘Odin’s Horse’, but it’s not referring to his eight-legged steed Sleipnir, son of Loki. In this context, ‘horse’ is a back-kenning for ‘gallows’. A kenning is a metaphor in Norse; a common kenning for gallows was…

Often thought of as the ‘mightiest’ of all the gods, Thor is the most famous of Odin’s children. A god himself, he is husband to the goddess Sif, yet lover of a giantess named Járnsaxa, and has sired a number of children. First mentioned by the Romans as a Germanic god, Thor is Thursday’s namesake, and usually depicted as large, red-haired, red-bearded and incredibly muscular! He is most often considered a god of thunder, lightning, storms and the sky in general, as well as warriors, and – strangely – fertility; it’s said that sacrifices were often offered up to him in times of famine and even plague. An archetypal warrior, Thor is a force that battles chaos, valiantly defending the Æsir gods from the giants, or jötnar, their notorious ancient…