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A Small Dictionary of Pagan Gods and Goddesses
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by D.W. Owens
Copyright 1994. This work may be reproduced without permission, in its entirety and without alteration, togther with the other four parts which make up the entire work, for free distribution. For any other distribution, please contact the author.
CONTENTS
Pt. 1 : Contents / Foreword / AFRICA / AZTEC / CELTIC
Pt. 2 : CHINA / EGYPT / GREECE
Pt. 3 : GREECE (Continued) / JAPAN / MESOPOTAMIA / NORSE
Pt. 4 : NORSE (Continued) / NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN / OCEANIA (PACIFIC ISLANDS AND AUSTRALIA)
PT. 5 : ROME / SANTERIA / SLAVIC / SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICAN INDIAN / Sources
FOREWORD
Some time ago, for no particular reason, I started spending odd moments in the public library browsing through reference works about ancient religion. I started taking notes, more or less at random, about the gods and gradually accumulated information about some 330 pagan gods and goddessess. Not wanting all that work to go to waste, and not knowing what else to do with the information, I decided to make a small dictionary and place it on several bulletin board systems, in hopes that others will find this little work interesting and useful.
There is no pretense of original or exhaustive research here. The information is drawn from popular books and standard reference works such as can be found in any library. There have been many thousands of pagan deities, of course, and a truly complete listing of them is probably impossible. This little listing of only a a few hundred gods does not pretend to be any more than a random sampling of the riches of the pagan religious genius. Many will disagree with my choices -- why this god and not that one? Why was this pantheon ignored altogether? The answer is that the choices are almost completely arbitrary, being those gods I thought important or interesting enough to make a note of. I remind the reader that this is a little piece done in spare moments, and not a major scholarly work.
One caveat. Sources sometimes disagree with each other, and the pagan pantheons were quite fluid, changing all the time. One god would split into several, or several gods would merge into one, and often one god was considered an aspect or form of another god. The pagans borrowed deities from each other quite freely, and the various cults went in and out of fashion much the same way that rock groups go in and out of fashion in our own day. With that explanation (or excuse), I accept all blame for any truly glaring errors.
Blessed be.
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