The Complete A–Z Index

All 227 entries in the Codex, alphabetically. Narrow by tradition or by kind; the two combine.

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227 entries

A

Aegir and RanLord and Lady of the SeaAegir brews ale for the gods in a hall lit by gold; Ran drags the drowned down in her net. Together they are the Norse sea, hospitable and lethal.Deity · Norse Aengus (Oengus, Angus Og)God of Love and YouthThe young god of Brú na Bóinne — conceived in a stolen day, owner of a house won by a pun, and the lover who followed a dream into a lake of swans.Deity · Celtic AeolusKeeper of the WindsKeeper of the winds on the floating island of Aiolia. He gave Odysseus a leather bag holding every gale but one — and the crew opened it.Deity · Greek The Aesir-Vanir WarThe First War in the WorldVoluspa calls it the first war in the world. Gullveig burned three times, Odin cast the first spear, and the truce reshaped the Norse pantheon.Event · Norse AmaterasuGoddess of the SunThe sun goddess who shines in heaven — ruler of the Plain of High Heaven, ancestor of Japan's imperial line, and the kami enshrined at Ise.Deity · Japanese AmmitDevourer of the DeadDevourer of the dead — the crocodile-lion-hippopotamus hybrid who crouched beside the scales and swallowed the hearts that failed the weighing.Creature · Egyptian AnuFather of the GodsFather of the gods — the Mesopotamian sky, whose written sign meant "god" itself; the source of all authority, and almost never the one who uses it.Deity · Mesopotamian AnubisGuardian of the DeadGuardian of the dead — the black jackal god who embalmed Osiris, watched over the necropolis, and weighed the heart against the feather of truth.Deity · Egyptian AphroditeGoddess of Love and BeautyBorn from sea foam or fathered by Zeus — the goddess of desire, whose power over gods and mortals starts wars as easily as marriages.Deity · Greek ApolloGod of Prophecy, Music and the BowTwin of Artemis, lord of Delphi. God of prophecy, music, healing and plague — the far-shooter whose arrows bring both the cure and the sickness.Deity · Greek Apollo in Roman ReligionThe God Rome Kept GreekThe one great Greek god Rome adopted without renaming him — plague-healer, oracle-giver, and the personal patron Augustus built into the imperial order.Deity · Roman Apophis (Apep)The Serpent of ChaosThe great serpent who attacks the sun boat every night — Apophis is Egypt's embodiment of chaos, repelled again each dawn but never finally destroyed.Creature · Egyptian AresGod of WarThe Greek god of war as slaughter rather than strategy — hated by his own father, beaten by Athena, and worshipped anyway on the edges of the Greek world.Deity · Greek ArtemisGoddess of the Hunt and the WildVirgin huntress, mistress of animals, twin of Apollo. Protector of the young and the wild — and a goddess whose arrows kill without warning.Deity · Greek AsgardRealm of the AEsirThe stronghold of the AEsir. A walled citadel of halls at the top of the world tree, reached by the rainbow bridge and built on a bargain the gods broke.Realm · Norse AthenaGoddess of Wisdom and WarGoddess of wisdom, strategy and craft, born fully armed from the head of Zeus. Patron of Athens, of heroes, and of Odysseus above all.Deity · Greek AvalonThe Isle of ApplesThe isle of apples: the healing island where Excalibur was forged and where the wounded Arthur was carried, neither dead nor returned.Realm · Arthurian

B

Baba YagaThe Witch of the WoodThe witch of the wood — the iron-toothed old woman in a hut on chicken legs, who eats some visitors and hands the others exactly what they need.Creature · Slavic BaldrGod of LightGod of Light. The most beloved of the Aesir, made immune to all harm but one plant — and killed by it, which set the world's ending in motion.Deity · Norse BansheeHerald of DeathHerald of death — the "woman of the mound," heard rather than seen, whose keening outside a house announces that someone of the family is about to die.Creature · Celtic Bastet (Bast)Cat Goddess of BubastisEgypt's cat goddess — a lioness of the Eye of Ra who softened into the guardian of the home, honoured at Bubastis with the loudest festival in Egypt.Deity · Egyptian Bifrost (The Rainbow Bridge)The Burning Bridge to AsgardThe burning rainbow bridge from earth to Asgard. Strongest thing ever built, guarded by Heimdall - and fated to shatter under the riders of Ragnarok.Concept · Norse BragiGod of Poetry and SkaldshipNorse god of poetry and eloquence, husband of Idunn, who greets fallen kings at Valhalla's door and may have begun as a real ninth-century skald.Deity · Norse BrahmaThe CreatorThe four-faced creator from whom the worlds issue at the dawn of each cosmic day — immensely powerful in myth, and almost never worshipped in temples.Deity · Hindu Brigid (Brigit, Brighid)Goddess of Poetry, Smithcraft and HealingGoddess of poetry, smithcraft and healing — a triple Brigit in the glossaries, a saint at Kildare, and the figure Imbolc still belongs to.Deity · Celtic BrisingamenNecklace of FreyjaFreyja's necklace. A torc famous enough to reach Old English verse — worn by Thor in disguise, stolen by Loki, and fought over by Heimdallr as a seal.Artifact · Norse

C

CalypsoNymph of OgygiaImmortal nymph of the hidden island of Ogygia. She kept Odysseus for seven years and offered him deathlessness; he chose a mortal wife and a rocky island.Deity · Greek CamazotzThe Death BatThe death bat — the snatching bat-demon of the K'iche' underworld who takes off a hero's head in the dark, and the long Mesoamerican cult behind him.Creature · Mayan CamelotArthur's Chief CourtArthur's chief court: a place named almost by accident in one French poem, which grew into the most famous city that never existed.Realm · Arthurian The Celtic Otherworld and the SidheThe Land Beyond the MoundNot an afterlife but a parallel country — the sid mounds, the islands west of the sea, and the aos si who kept Ireland after they lost it.Realm · Celtic CerberusThe Hound of HadesThe many-headed hound who guards the gates of the underworld. He fawns on everyone who enters and devours anyone who tries to leave.Creature · Greek CernunnosThe Horned GodThe horned one — an antlered Gaulish god known from images alone, whose name survives on exactly one damaged stone and who has no surviving myth at all.Deity · Celtic ChaacGod of Rain and LightningThe rain god who splits the clouds with a lightning axe — one god and four, the most frequently depicted deity in the surviving Maya books.Deity · Mayan Chang'eGoddess of the MoonThe moon goddess who swallowed the elixir of immortality and rose beyond reach — honoured each Mid-Autumn Festival with mooncakes and lanterns.Deity · Chinese CirceEnchantress of AiaiaGoddess-enchantress of the island of Aiaia. She turned Odysseus' crew into swine, then became the one guide who told him how to reach the dead.Deity · Greek CoatlicueShe of the Serpent SkirtShe of the Serpent Skirt — the Mexica earth mother who conceived Huitzilopochtli from a ball of feathers, and the colossal monolith that carries her name.Deity · Aztec CoyolxauhquiShe Painted with BellsThe dismembered sister of Huitzilopochtli, often read as the moon — and the carved disc whose discovery in 1978 uncovered the Templo Mayor itself.Deity · Aztec Cu ChulainnThe Hound of UlsterThe Hound of Ulster — a boy-hero who holds an entire army at a ford, warps into a monster when he fights, and dies standing up, tied to a stone.Hero · Celtic The CyclopesThe Round-Eyed OnesThe round-eyed ones — three divine smiths who forged Zeus's thunderbolt, a race of lawless one-eyed shepherds, and the builders of walls no man could lift.Creature · Greek

D

The DagdaThe Good GodThe good god — not morally good but good at everything: the club-bearing, cauldron-owning father figure of the Tuatha De Danann, and their crudest comedian.Deity · Celtic DanuMother of the Tuatha De DanannThe mother goddess of the Tuatha De Danann — and the most famous Irish deity who may never have existed under that name.Deity · Celtic The Death of BaldrThe First TragedyThe first tragedy. A god made invulnerable by oath, killed by the one plant nobody asked — the murder that starts the clock on Ragnarok and cannot be undone.Event · Norse DemeterGoddess of the Grain and the HarvestGoddess of grain and the mother who stopped the world's harvest to get her daughter back. Founder of the Eleusinian Mysteries.Deity · Greek DianaGoddess of the Hunt and the MoonRoman goddess of the hunt, wild places and the moon, whose oldest sanctuary at Lake Nemi was guarded by a priest who held office by killing his predecessor.Deity · Roman DionysusGod of Wine, Ecstasy and the TheatreTwice-born god of wine, madness and the mask. He dissolves the boundary between god and beast, and destroys the cities that refuse him.Deity · Greek DiyuThe UnderworldThe Chinese underworld — a bureaucracy of ten courts where the dead are tried, serve sentences for what they did, and are then sent back into rebirth.Realm · Chinese Domovoi (Slavic House Spirit)Master of the HouseThe Slavic house spirit who lives behind the stove, guards the family and its livestock, and turns hostile if the household forgets to feed him.Creature · Slavic DraupnirThe Dripping RingThe dripping ring. Odin's gold arm-ring, which sheds eight more of its own weight every ninth night — burned on Baldr's pyre, and sent back from Hel.Artifact · Norse The DuatThe UnderworldThe Egyptian underworld — the night country crossed by the sun in twelve hours and by every dead Egyptian hoping to come out reborn at dawn.Realm · Egyptian DurgaThe Invincible GoddessThe warrior goddess assembled from the massed light of all the gods, lion-mounted slayer of the buffalo demon Mahishasura.Deity · Hindu

E

The Eight ImmortalsThe Baxian of Daoist LegendEight Daoist immortals — a beggar, a drunk, a girl, a courtier, a flute player — who cross the sea by their own strange powers instead of by boat.Concept · Chinese ElysiumThe Blessed FieldsThe blessed fields — an afterlife of light and ease that began as a plain at the world's edge and ended as a district of Virgil's underworld.Realm · Roman EnkiGod of WisdomGod of wisdom and the sweet water under the ground — the craftsman-trickster who made humankind, taught the crafts, and warned one man about the Flood.Deity · Mesopotamian EnlilLord of the WindLord of the moving air — the Sumerian executive of the gods, whose word carried out destinies, who split heaven from earth and sent the Flood.Deity · Mesopotamian EreshkigalQueen of the UnderworldLady of the Great Earth — the Mesopotamian queen of the dead, elder sister of Inanna, who rules the land of no return by rules even the gods obey.Deity · Mesopotamian Erlang ShenThe Three-Eyed Warrior GodThe three-eyed god of Guankou who tamed the floods and was the only celestial general able to beat the Monkey King in a fair fight.Deity · Chinese ExcaliburThe Sword of King ArthurThe sword of King Arthur: a Welsh blade called Caledfwlch that became the weapon drawn from a stone, given by a lake, and returned to the water.Artifact · Arthurian

F

FenghuangThe Vermilion PhoenixThe radiant bird of Chinese myth — ruler of all birds, marked with the five virtues, whose rare appearance announces a just reign and an age of peace.Creature · Chinese FenrirThe Bound WolfThe Bound Wolf. Loki's son, raised among the gods and chained by a trick that cost Tyr his hand — until Ragnarok, when he devours Odin.Creature · Norse Finn McCool (Fionn mac Cumhaill)Leader of the FiannaWarrior-poet, leader of the Fianna, and the hero who burned his thumb on the Salmon of Knowledge — Ireland's most widely told legend.Hero · Celtic