Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Poseidon pōsīˈdən [key], in Greek religion and mythology, god of the sea, protector of all waters. After the fall of the Titans, Poseidon was allotted the sea. He was worshiped especially in conne...

(Encyclopedia) Hades hāˈdēz [key], in Greek and Roman religion and mythology. 1 The ruler of the underworld: see Pluto. 2 The world of the dead, ruled by Pluto and Persephone, located either underground or in the...

(Encyclopedia) Woden ōˈdĭn [key], in Germanic religion and mythology, the supreme god. His cult, although widespread among the Germanic tribes, was sometimes subordinated to that of his son Thor. With his brother...

(Encyclopedia) monsters and imaginary beasts. The mythologies and legends of ancient and modern cultures teem with an enormous variety of monsters and imaginary beasts. A great number of these are composites of diff...

(Encyclopedia) Orpheus ôrˈfēəs, ôrˈfyo͞os [key], in Greek mythology, celebrated Thracian musician. He was the son of Calliope by Apollo or, according to another legend, by Oeagrus, a king of Thrace. Supposedl...

(Encyclopedia) Beowulf bāˈəwo͝olf [key], oldest English epic, probably composed in the early 8th cent. by an Anglian bard in the vicinity of Northumbria. It survives in only one manuscript, written c.a.d. 1000 b...

(Encyclopedia) Guaraní gwäränēˈ [key], indigenous group living in the eastern lowland area of South America, related to the Tupí of the Rio São Francisco and the Tupinambá on the Atlantic coast. The Guaraní...

(Encyclopedia) Achilles əkĭlˈēz [key], in Greek mythology, foremost Greek hero of the Trojan War, son of Peleus and Thetis. He was a formidable warrior, possessing fierce and uncontrollable anger. Thetis, knowin...

(Encyclopedia) Aphrodite ăfrədīˈtē [key], in Greek religion and mythology, goddess of fertility, love, and beauty. Homer designated her the child of Zeus and Dione. Hesiod's account of her birth is more popular...

(Encyclopedia) Herder, Johann Gottfried von yōˈhän gôtˈfrēt fən hĕrˈdər [key], 1744–1803, German philosopher, critic, and clergyman, b. East Prussia. Herder was an enormously influential literary critic ...