Dionysus (Greek)

Dionysus (Greek)

Alternative Names:
Διόνυσος, Διώνυσος, Dionysus, Dionysos, 디오니소스, Bacchus

Dionysus is the god of the vine. He invented wine and spread the art of tending grapes. He has a dual nature. On the one hand bringing joy and divine ecstasy. On the other brutal, unthinking, rage. Thus reflecting both sides of wines nature. If he chooses Dionysus can drive a man mad. No normal fetters can hold him or his followers.

Dionysus is the son of Zeus and Semele. He is the only god to have a mortal parent. Zeus came to Semele in the night, invisible, felt only as a divine presence. Semele was pleased to be a lover of a god, even though she did not know which one. Word soon got around and Hera quickly assumed who was responsible. Hera went to Semele in disguise and convinced her she should see her lover as he really was. When Zeus next came to her she made him promise to grant her one wish. She went so far as to make him swear on the River Styx that he would grant her request. Zeus was madly in love and agreed. She then asked him to show her his true form. Zeus, was unhappy, and knew what would happen but, having sworn he had no choice. He appeared in his true form and Semele was instantly burnt to a crisp by the sight of his glory. Zeus did manage to rescue Dionysus and stitched him into his thigh to hold him until he was ready to be born. His birth from Zeus alone conferred immortality upon him.

Dionysus problems with Hera were not yet over. She was still jealous and arranged for the Titans to kill him. The Titans ripped him into to pieces. However, Rhea brought him back to life. After this Zeus arranged for his protection and turned him over the mountain nymphs to be raised.

Dionysus wandered the world actively encouraging his cult. He was accompanied by the Maenads, wild women, flush with wine, shoulders draped with a fawn skin, carrying rods tipped with pine cones. While other gods had temples the followers of Dionysus worshipped him in the woods. Here they might go into mad states where they would rip apart and eat raw any animal they came upon.

Dionysus is also one of the very few that was able to bring a dead person out of the underworld. Even though he had never seen Semele he was concerned for her. Eventually he journeyed into the underworld to find her. He faced down Thanatos and brought her back to Mount Olympus.

Dionysus became one of the most important gods in everyday life. He became associated with several key concepts. One was rebirth after death. Here his dismemberment by the Titans and return to life is symbolically echoed in tending vines, where the vines must be pruned back sharply, and then become dormant in winter for them to bear fruit. The other is the idea that under the influence of wine, one could feel possessed by a greater power. Unlike the other gods Dionysus was not only outside his believers but, also within them. At these times a man might be greater then himself and do works he otherwise could not.

The festival for Dionysus is in the spring when the leaves begin to reappear on the vine. It became one of the most important events of the year. It's focus became the theater. Most of the great Greek plays were initially written to be performed at the feast of Dionysus. All who took part writers, actors, spectators were regarded as scared servants of Dionysus during the festival.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus

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Greek mythology | Dionysus | Agricultural gods | Fertility gods | Greek gods | Life-death-rebirth gods | Nature gods | Offspring of Zeus | Roman gods | Thracian gods | Wisdom gods

Sataere (Norse)

Sataere


Some books list Sataere as a Germanic god of agriculture and suggest that the name is another name for Loki. Guerbers' Myths of the Norsemen is one of these books, stating:

Loki was confounded with Saturn, who had also been shorn of his divine attributes, and both were considered the prototypes of Satan. The last day of the week, which was held sacred to Loki, was known in the Norse as Laugardag, or wash-day, but in English it was changed to Saturday, and was said to owe its name not to Saturn but to Sataere, the thief in ambush, and the Teutonic god of agriculture, who is supposed to be merely another personification of Loki.

Of course, Guerber does not provide us with a source. If we look at the Norse sources there are no references to Sataere or Saturn. Jan De Vries lists the Old English word Sataere as being derived from the word Saturn, thus not a separate diety, and it seems that Njord not Loki is the Norse god that more closely resembles Saturn. Could an association between Njord and Saturn be the cause of Scandinavians using Laugurdag -- bath or wash day -- in place of Saturday?

Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology reasons that Saturn was originally a Germanic deity and this is probably Guerber's source. Prof. E.G. Stanley in The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism states that Saturn is erroneously included among the gods of the Anglo-Saxons by some scholars (Grimm included) because of his appearence in an early Old English poem Solomon and Saturn. Moreover, Stanley relates the opinion of other scholars that the Saturn appearing in the poem represents the Chaldean god Saturn and not some Germanic deity.

Freyr (Norse)

Freyr

Freyr (sometimes anglicized Frey, from *frawjaz "lord") is one of the most important gods of Norse paganism. Freyr was highly associated with farming, weather and, as a phallic fertility god, Freyr "bestows peace and pleasure on mortals". Freyr, sometimes referred to as Yngvi-Freyr, was especially associated with Sweden and seen as an ancestor of the Swedish royal house.

In the Icelandic books the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, Freyr is presented as one of the Vanir, the son of the sea god Njörðr, brother of the goddess Freyja. The gods gave him Álfheimr, the realm of the Elves, as a teething present. He rides the shining dwarf-made boar Gullinbursti and possesses the ship Skíðblaðnir which always has a favorable breeze and can be folded together and carried in a pouch when it is not being used. He has the servants Skírnir, Byggvir, and Beyla.

The most extensive surviving Freyr myth relates Freyr's falling in love with the female jötunn Gerðr. Eventually, she becomes his wife but first Freyr has to give away his magic sword which fights on its own "if wise be he who wields it". Although deprived of this weapon, Freyr defeats the jötunn Beli with an antler. However, lacking his sword, Freyr will be killed by the fire jötunn Surtr during the events of Ragnarök.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freyr

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Mythological kings of Sweden | Indo-European deities | Fertility gods | Agricultural gods | Nature gods | Sky and weather gods | Solar gods | Love and lust gods | Mythological kings | Vanir

Faunus (Roman)

Faunus (Roman)

Alternative Names (異題):
Faunus, 파우누스, 파투우스, Pan(Greek), 판-

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In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the horned god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan.

Faunus was one of the oldest Roman deities, known as the di indigetes, and according to the epic poet Virgil, he was a legendary king of the Latins, who came with his people from Arcadia, and whose shade was consulted as a god of prophecy, under the name of Fatuus, with oracles in the sacred grove of Tibur, around the well Albunea, and on the Aventine Hill in ancient Rome itself

Marcus Terentius Varro asserted that the oracular responses were given in Saturnian verse. Faunus revealed the future in dreams and voices that were communicated to those who came to sleep in his precincts, lying on the fleeces of sacrificed lambs. W. Warde Fowler suggested that Faunus is identical with Favonius, one of the Roman wind gods (compare the Anemoi).

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Consorts and family

A goddess of like attributes, called Fauna and Fatua, was associated in his worship. She was regarded sometimes as his wife, sometimes as his sister. As Pan was accompanied by the Paniskoi, or little Pans, so the existence of many Fauni was assumed besides the chief Faunus. In fable Faunus appears as an old king of Latium, son of Picus, and grandson of Saturnus, father of Latinus by the nymph Marica. After his death he is raised to the position of a tutelary deity of the land, for his many services to agriculture and cattle-breeding.

Faunus was known as the father or husband or brother of Bona Dea (Fauna, his feminine side) and Latinus by the nymph Marica (who was also sometimes Faunus' mother). Fauns are place-spirits (genii) of untamed woodland. Educated, Hellenizing Romans connected their fauns with the Greek satyrs, who were wild and orgiastic drunken followers of Dionysus, with a distinct origin.

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Festivals

The Christian writer Justin Martyr identified him as Lupercus ("he who wards off the wolf"), the protector of cattle, following Livy, who named his aspect of Inuus as the god who was originally worshiped at the Lupercalia, celebrated on the anniversary of the founding of his temple, February 15, when his priests (Luperci) wore goat-skins and hit onlookers with goat-skin belts.

Two festivals, called Faunalia, were celebrated in his honour—one on the 13th of February, in the temple of Faunus on the island in the Tiber, the other on the 5th of December, when the peasants brought him rustic offerings and amused themselves with dancing (Peck 1898).

A euhemeristic account made Faunus a Latin king, son of Picus and Canens. He was then revered as the god Fatuus after his death, worshipped in a sacred forest outside what is now Tivoli, but had been known since Etruscan times as Tibur, the seat of the Tiburtine Sibyl. His numinous presence was recognized by wolf skins, with wreaths and goblets.

In Nonnos' Dionysiaca, Faunus/Phaunos accompanied Dionysos when the god campaigned in India.

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Equation with Pan

With the increasing Hellenization of literate upper-class Roman culture in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the Romans tried to equate their own deities with one of the Greeks', applying in reverse the Greeks' own interpretatio graeca. Faunus was naturally equated with the god Pan, who was a pastoral god of shepherds who was said to reside in Arcadia. Pan had always been depicted with horns and as such many depictions of Faunus also began to display this trait. However, the two deities were also considered separate by many, for instance, the epic poet Virgil, in his Aeneid, made mention of both Faunus and Pan independently.

Later worship

Faunus was worshipped across the Roman Empire for many centuries. An example of this was a set of thirty-two 4th-century spoons found near Thetford in England in 1979. They had been engraved with the name "Faunus", and each also had a different epithet after the god's name. The spoons also bore Christian symbols, and it has been suggested that these were initially Christian but later taken and devoted to Faunus by pagans. The 4th century was a time of largescale Christianisation, and the discovery provides us with evidence that even during the decline of Roman paganism, the god Faunus was still worshipped. In Gaul, Faunus was identified with the Celtic Dusios.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faunus

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Roman mythology | Roman gods | Horned deities | Agricultural gods | Animal gods | Nature gods | Oracular gods | Mythological kings

Deities of agriculture

Deities of agriculture, corn, grain and/or harvest

Acca Larentia (Acca Laurentia)	Roman	♀	a mythical woman, later goddess, in Roman mythology
Athena	Greek	♀	the goddess of the city, handicrafts, agriculture, and wisdom
Ceres	Roman	♀	the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Demeter
Demeter	Greek	♀	the goddess of grain and fertility, the pure nourisher of the youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of marriage and the sacred law
Minerva	Roman	♀	the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Athena

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Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deities_by_association

Acca Larentia (Roman)

Acca Larentia

Alternative Names (異名): Acca Larentia, Acca Larentina

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Acca Larentia or Acca Larentina was a mythical woman, later goddess, in Roman mythology whose festival, the Larentalia, was celebrated on December 23.

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Foster mother

In one mythological tradition (that of Licinius Macer, et al.), she was the wife of the shepherd Faustulus, and therefore the adoptive mother of Romulus and Remus, whom she is said to have saved after they were thrown into the Tiber on the orders of Amulius. She had twelve sons, and on the death of one of them Romulus took his place, and with the remaining eleven founded the college of the Arval brothers (Fratres Arvales). She is therefore identified with the Dea Dia of that collegium. The flamen Quirinalis acted in the role of Romulus (deified as Quirinus) to perform funerary rites for his foster mother.

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Benefactor of Rome

Another tradition holds that Larentia was a beautiful girl of notorious reputation, roughly the same age as Romulus and Remus, during the reign of Ancus Marcius in the 7th century BC. She was awarded to Hercules as a prize in a game of dice, and locked in his temple with his other prize, a feast. When the god no longer had need of her, he advised her to marry the first wealthy man she met, who turned out to be an Etruscan named Carutius (or Tarrutius, according to Plutarch). Larentia later inherited all his property and bequeathed it to the Roman people. Ancus, in gratitude for this, allowed her to be buried in the Velabrum, and instituted an annual festival, the Larentalia, at which sacrifices were offered to the Lares. Plutarch explicitly states that this Laurentia was a different person from the Laurentia who was married to Faustulus, although other writers, such as Licinius Macer, relate their stories as belonging to the same being.

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Prostitute

Yet another tradition holds that Larentia was neither the wife of Faustulus nor the consort of Hercules, but a prostitute called "lupa" by the shepherds (literally "she-wolf", but colloquially "courtesan"), and who left the fortune she amassed through sex work to the Roman people.

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Connection to Lares

Whatever may be thought of the contradictory accounts of Acca Laurentia, it seems clear that she was of Etruscan origin, and connected with the worship of the Lares, from which her name may or may not be derived. This relation is also apparent in the number of her sons, which corresponds to that of the twelve country Lares. T.P. Wiseman explores the connections among Acca Larentia, Lara, and Larunda in his books Remus: A Roman Myth and The Myths of Rome.

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Functions

Like Ceres, Tellus, Flora and others, Acca Laurentia symbolized the fertility of the earth, in particular the city lands and their crops. Acca Larentia is also identified with Larentina, Mana Genita, and Muta.

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Tag

Roman mythology | Roman goddesses | Agricultural goddesses | Courtesans of antiquity |