Bulfinch's Mythology
by
Thomas Bulfinch

Part 19 out of 19



PERSEUS, son of Jupiter and Danae, slayer of the Gorgon Medusa,
deliverer of Andromeda from a sea monster, 116 122, 124, 202

PHAEACIANS, people who entertained Ulysses

PHAEDRA, faithless and cruel wife of Theseus

PHAETHUSA, sister of Phaeton, 244

PHAETON, son of Phoebus, who dared attempt to drive his father's
sun chariot

PHANTASOS, a son of Somnus, bringing strange images to sleeping
men

PHAON, beloved by Sappho

PHELOT, knight of Wales

PHEREDIN, friend of Tristram, unhappy lover of Isoude

PHIDIAS, famous Greek sculptor

PHILEMON, husband of Baucis

PHILOCTETES, warrior who lighted the fatal pyre of Hercules

PHILOE, burial place of Osiris

PHINEUS, betrothed to Andromeda

PHLEGETHON, fiery river of Hades

PHOCIS

PHOEBE, one of the sisters of Phaeton

PHOEBUS (Apollo), god of music, prophecy, and archery, the sun
god

PHOENIX, a messenger to Achilles, also, a miraculous bird dying
in fire by its own act and springing up alive from its own ashes

PHORBAS, a companion of Aeneas, whose form was assumed by Neptune
in luring Palinuras the helmsman from his roost

PHRYXUS, brother of Helle

PINABEL, knight

PILLARS OF HERCULES, two mountains--Calpe, now the Rock of
Gibraltar, southwest corner of Spain in Europe, and Abyla, facing
it in Africa across the strait

PINDAR, famous Greek poet

PINDUS, Grecian mountain

PIRENE, celebrated fountain at Corinth

PIRITHOUS, king of the Lapithae in Thessaly, and friend of
Theseus, husband of Hippodamia

PLEASURE, daughter of Cupid and Psyche

PLEIADES, seven of Diana's nymphs, changed into stars, one being
lost

PLENTY, the Horn of

PLEXIPPUS, brother of Althea

PLINY, Roman naturalist

PLUTO, the same as Hades, Dis, etc. god of the Infernal Regions

PLUTUS, god of wealth

PO, Italian river

POLE STAR

POLITES, youngest son of Priam of Troy

POLLUX, Castor and (Dioscuri, the Twins) (See Castor)

POLYDECTES, king of Seriphus

POLYDORE, slain kinsman of Aeneas, whose blood nourished a bush
that bled when broken

POLYHYMNIA, Muse of oratory and sacred song

POLYIDUS, soothsayer

POLYNICES, King of Thebes

POLYPHEMUS, giant son of Neptune

POLYXENA, daughter of King Priam of Troy

POMONA, goddess of fruit trees (See VERTUMNUS)

PORREX and FER'REX, sons of Leir, King of Britain

PORTUNUS, Roman name for Palaemon

POSEIDON (Neptune), ruler of the ocean

PRECIPICE, threshold of Helas hall

PRESTER JOHN, a rumored priest or presbyter, a Christian pontiff
in Upper Asia, believed in but never found

PRIAM, king of Troy

PRIWEN, Arthur's shield

PROCRIS, beloved but jealous wife of Cephalus

PROCRUSTES, who seized travellers and bound them on his iron bed,
stretching the short ones and cutting short the tall, thus also
himself served by Theseus

PROETUS, jealous of Bellerophon

PROMETHEUS, creator of man, who stole fire from heaven for man's
use

PROSERPINE, the same as Persephone, goddess of all growing
things, daughter of Ceres, carried off by Pluto

PROTESILAUS, slain by Hector the Trojan, allowed by the gods to
return for three hours' talk with his widow Laodomia

PROTEUS, the old man of the sea

PRUDENCE (Metis), spouse of Jupiter

PRYDERI, son of Pwyll

PSYCHE, a beautiful maiden, personification of the human soul,
sought by Cupid (Love), to whom she responded, lost him by
curiosity to see him (as he came to her only by night), but
finally through his prayers was made immortal and restored to him,
a symbol of immortality

PURANAS, Hindu Scriptures

PWYLL, Prince of Dyved

PYGMALION, sculptor in love with a statue he had made, brought to
life by Venus, brother of Queen Dido

PYGMIES, nation of dwarfs, at war with the Cranes

PYLADES, son of Straphius, friend of Orestes

PYRAMUS, who loved Thisbe, next door neighbor, and, their parents
opposing, they talked through cracks in the house wall, agreeing
to meet in the near by woods, where Pyramus, finding a bloody veil
and thinking Thisbe slain, killed himself, and she, seeing his
body, killed herself (Burlesqued in Shakespeare's "Midsummer
Night's Dream")

PYRRHA, wife of Deucalion

PYRRHUS (Neoptolemus), son of Achilles

PYTHAGORAS, Greek philosopher (540 BC), who thought numbers to be
the essence and principle of all things, and taught transmigration
of souls of the dead into new life as human or animal beings

PYTHIA, priestess of Apollo at Delphi

PYTHIAN GAMES

PYTHIAN ORACLE

PYTHON, serpent springing from Deluge slum, destroyed by Apollo

Q

QUIRINUS (from quiris, a lance or spear), a war god, said to be
Romulus, founder of Rome

R

RABICAN, noted horse

RAGNAROK, the twilight (or ending) of the gods

RAJPUTS, minor Hindu caste

REGAN, daughter of Leir

REGILLUS, lake in Latium, noted for battle fought near by
between the Romans and the Latins

REGGIO, family from which Rogero sprang

REMUS, brother of Romulus, founder of Rome

RHADAMANTHUS, son of Jupiter and Europa after his death one of
the judges in the lower world

RHAPSODIST, professional reciter of poems among the Greeks

RHEA, female Titan, wife of Saturn (Cronos), mother of the chief
gods, worshipped in Greece and Rome

RHINE, river

RHINE MAIDENS, OR DAUGHTERS, three water nymphs, Flosshilda,
Woglinda, and Wellgunda, set to guard the Nibelungen Hoard, buried
in the Rhine

RHODES, one of the seven cities claiming to be Homer's birthplace

RHODOPE, mountain in Thrace

RHONGOMYANT, Arthur's lance

RHOECUS, a youth, beloved by a Dryad, but who brushed away a bee
sent by her to call him to her, and she punished him with
blindness

RHIANNON, wife of Pwyll

RINALDO, one of the bravest knights of Charlemagne

RIVER OCEAN, flowing around the earth

ROBERT DE BEAUVAIS', Norman poet (1257)

ROBIN HOOD, famous outlaw in English legend, about time of Richard
Coeur de Lion

ROCKINGHAM, forest of

RODOMONT, king of Algiers

ROGERO, noted Saracen knight

ROLAND (Orlando), See Orlando

ROMANCES

ROMANUS, legendary great grandson of Noah

ROME

ROMULUS, founder of Rome

RON, Arthur's lance

RONCES VALLES', battle of

ROUND TABLE King Arthur's instituted by Merlin the Sage for
Pendragon, Arthur's father, as a knightly order, continued and
made famous by Arthur and his knights

RUNIC CHARACTERS, or runes, alphabetic signs used by early
Teutonic peoples, written or graved on metal or stone

RUTULIANS, an ancient people in Italy, subdued at an early period
by the Romans

RYENCE, king in Ireland

S

SABRA, maiden for whom Severn River was named, daughter of Locrine
and Estrildis thrown into river Severn by Locrine's wife,
transformed to a river nymph, poetically named Sabrina

SACRIPANT, king of Circassia

SAFFIRE, Sir, knight of Arthur

SAGAS, Norse tales of heroism, composed by the Skalds

SAGRAMOUR, knight of Arthur

St. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, precipitous pointed rock hill on the coast of
Brittany, opposite Cornwall

SAKYASINHA, the Lion, epithet applied to Buddha

SALAMANDER, a lizard like animal, fabled to be able to live in
fire

SALAMIS, Grecian city

SALMONEUS, son of Aeolus and Enarete and brother of Sisyphus

SALOMON, king of Brittany, at Charlemagne's court

SAMHIN, or "fire of peace," a Druidical festival

SAMIAN SAGE (Pythagoras)

SAMOS, island in the Aegean Sea

SAMOTHRACIAN GODS, a group of agricultural divinities, worshipped
in Samothrace

SAMSON, Hebrew hero, thought by some to be original of Hercules

SAN GREAL (See Graal, the Holy)

SAPPHO, Greek poetess, who leaped into the sea from promontory of
Leucadia in disappointed love for Phaon

SARACENS, followers of Mahomet

SARPEDON, son of Jupiter and Europa, killed by Patroclus

SATURN (Cronos)

SATURNALIA, a annual festival held by Romans in honor of Saturn

SATURNIA, an ancient name of Italy

SATYRS, male divinities of the forest, half man, half goat

SCALIGER, famous German scholar of 16th century

SCANDINAVIA, mythology of, giving account of Northern gods,
heroes, etc

SCHERIA, mythical island, abode of the Phaeacians

SCHRIMNIR, the boar, cooked nightly for the heroes of Valhalla
becoming whole every morning

SCIO, one of the island cities claiming to be Homer's birthplace

SCOPAS, King of Thessaly

SCORPION, constellation

SCYLLA, sea nymph beloved by Glaucus, but changed by jealous Circe
to a monster and finally to a dangerous rock on the Sicilian
coast, facing the whirlpool Charybdis, many mariners being wrecked
between the two, also, daughter of King Nisus of Megara, who loved
Minos, besieging her father's city, but he disliked her disloyalty
and drowned her, also, a fair virgin of Sicily, friend of sea
nymph Galatea

SCYROS, where Theseus was slain

SCYTHIA, country lying north of Euxine Sea

SEMELE, daughter of Cadmus and, by Jupiter, mother of Bacchus

SEMIRAMIS, with Ninus the mythical founder of the Assyrian empire
of Nineveh

SENAPUS, King of Abyssinia, who entertained Astolpho

SERAPIS, or Hermes, Egyptian divinity of Tartarus and of
medicine

SERFS, slaves of the land

SERIPHUS, island in the Aegean Sea, one of the Cyclades

SERPENT (Northern constellation)

SESTOS, dwelling of Hero (which See also Leander)

"SEVEN AGAINST THEBES," famous Greek expedition

SEVERN RIVER, in England

SEVINUS, Duke of Guienne

SHALOTT, THE LADY OF

SHATRIYA, Hindu warrior caste

SHERASMIN, French chevalier

SIBYL, prophetess of Cumae

SICHAEUS, husband of Dido

SEIGE PERILOUS, the chair of purity at Arthur's Round Table, fatal
to any but him who was destined to achieve the quest of the
Sangreal (See Galahad)

SIEGFRIED, young King of the Netherlands, husband of Kriemhild,
she boasted to Brunhild that Siegfried had aided Gunther to beat
her in athletic contests, thus winning her as wife, and Brunhild,
in anger, employed Hagan to murder Siegfried. As hero of Wagner's
"Valkyrie," he wins the Nibelungen treasure ring, loves and
deserts Brunhild, and is slain by Hagan

SIEGLINDA, wife of Hunding, mother of Siegfried by Siegmund

SIEGMUND, father of Siegfried

SIGTRYG, Prince, betrothed of King Alef's daughter, aided by
Hereward

SIGUNA, wife of Loki

SILENUS, a Satyr, school master of Bacchus

SILURES (South Wales)

SILVIA, daughter of Latin shepherd

SILVIUS, grandson of Aeneas, accidentally killed in the chase by
his son Brutus

SIMONIDES, an early poet of Greece

SINON, a Greek spy, who persuaded the Trojans to take the Wooden
Horse into their city

SIRENS, sea nymphs, whose singing charmed mariners to leap into
the sea, passing their island, Ulysses stopped the ears of his
sailors with wax, and had himself bound to the mast so that he
could hear but not yield to their music

SIRIUS, the dog of Orion, changed to the Dog star

SISYPHUS, condemned in Tartarus to perpetually roll up hill a big
rock which, when the top was reached, rolled down again

SIVA, the Destroyer, third person of the Hindu triad of gods

SKALDS, Norse bards and poets

SKIDBLADNIR, Freyr's ship

SKIRNIR, Frey's messenger, who won the god's magic sword by
getting him Gerda for his wife

SKRYMIR, a giant, Utgard Loki in disguise, who fooled Thor in
athletic feats

SKULD, the Norn of the Future

SLEEP, twin brother of Death

SLEIPNIR, Odin's horse

SOBRINO, councillor to Agramant

SOMNUS, child of Nox, twin brother of Mors, god of sleep

SOPHOCLES, Greek tragic dramatist

SOUTH WIND See Notus

SPAR'TA, capital of Lacedaemon

SPHINX, a monster, waylaying the road to Thebes and propounding
riddles to all passers, on pain of death, for wrong guessing, who
killed herself in rage when Aedipus guessed aright

SPRING

STONEHENGE, circle of huge upright stones, fabled to be sepulchre
of Pendragon

STROPHIUS, father of Pylades

STYGIAN REALM, Hades

STYGIAN SLEEP, escaped from the beauty box sent from Hades to
Venus by hand of Psyche, who curiously opened the box and was
plunged into unconsciousness

STYX, river, bordering Hades, to be crossed by all the dead

SUDRAS, Hindu laboring caste

SURTUR, leader of giants against the gods in the day of their
destruction (Norse mythology)

SURYA, Hindu god of the sun, corresponding to the Greek Helios

SUTRI, Orlando's birthplace

SVADILFARI, giant's horse

SWAN, LEDA AND

SYBARIS, Greek city in Southern Italy, famed for luxury

SYLVANUS, Latin divinity identified with Pan

SYMPLEGADES, floating rocks passed by the Argonauts

SYRINX, nymph, pursued by Pan, but escaping by being changed to a
bunch of reeds (See Pandean pipes)

T

TACITUS, Roman historian

TAENARUS, Greek entrance to lower regions

TAGUS, river in Spain and Portugal

TALIESIN, Welsh bard

TANAIS, ancient name of river Don

TANTALUS, wicked king, punished in Hades by standing in water
that retired when he would drink, under fruit trees that withdrew
when he would eat

TARCHON, Etruscan chief

TARENTUM, Italian city

TARPEIAN ROCK, in Rome, from which condemned criminals were
hurled

TARQUINS, a ruling family in early Roman legend

TAURIS, Grecian city, site of temple of Diana (See Iphigenia)

TAURUS, a mountain

TARTARUS, place of confinement of Titans, etc, originally a black
abyss below Hades later, represented as place where the wicked
were punished, and sometimes the name used as synonymous with
Hades

TEIRTU, the harp of

TELAMON, Greek hero and adventurer, father of Ajax

TELEMACHUS, son of Ulysses and Penelope

TELLUS, another name for Rhea

TENEDOS, an island in Aegean Sea

TERMINUS, Roman divinity presiding over boundaries and frontiers

TERPSICHORE, Muse of dancing

TERRA, goddess of the earth

TETHYS, goddess of the sea

TEUCER, ancient king of the Trojans

THALIA, one of the three Graces

THAMYRIS, Thracian bard, who challenged the Muses to competition
in singing, and, defeated, was blinded

THAUKT, Loki disguised as a hag

THEBES, city founded by Cadmus and capital of Boeotia

THEMIS, female Titan, law counsellor of Jove

THEODORA, sister of Prince Leo

THERON, one of Diana's dogs

THERSITES, a brawler, killed by Achilles

THESCELUS, foe of Perseus, turned to stone by sight of Gorgon's
head

THESEUM, Athenian temple in honor of Theseus

THESEUS, son of Aegeus and Aethra, King of Athens, a great hero of
many adventures

THESSALY

THESTIUS, father of Althea

THETIS, mother of Achilles

THIALFI, Thor's servant

THIS'BE, Babylonian maiden beloved by Pyramus

THOR, the thunderer, of Norse mythology, most popular of the gods

THRACE

THRINA'KIA, island pasturing Hyperion's cattle, where Ulysses
landed, but, his men killing some cattle for food, their ship was
wrecked by lightning

THRYM, giant, who buried Thor's hammer

THUCYDIDES, Greek historian

TIBER, river flowing through Rome

TIBER, FATHER, god of the river

TIGRIS, river

TINTADEL, castle of, residence of King Mark of Cornwall

TIRESIAS, a Greek soothsayer

TISIPHONE, one of the Furies

TITANS, the sons and daughters of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea
(Earth), enemies of the gods and overcome by them

TITHONUS, Trojan prince

TITYUS, giant in Tartarus

TMOLUS, a mountain god

TORTOISE, second avatar of Vishnu

TOURS, battle of (See Abdalrahman and Charles Martel)

TOXEUS, brother of Melauger's mother, who snatched from Atalanta
her hunting trophy, and was slain by Melauger, who had awarded it
to her

TRIAD, the Hindu

TRIADS, Welsh poems

TRIMURTI, Hindu Triad

TRIPTOL'EMUS, son of Celeus , and who, made great by
Ceres, founded her worship in Eleusis

TRISTRAM, one of Arthur's knights, husband of Isoude of the White
Hands, lover of Isoude the Fair,

TRITON, a demi god of the sea, son of Poseidon (Neptune) and
Amphitrite

TROEZEN, Greek city of Argolis

TROJAN WAR

TROJANOVA, New Troy, City founded in Britain (See Brutus, and
Lud)

TROPHONIUS, oracle of, in Boeotia

TROUBADOURS, poets and minstrels of Provence, in Southern France

TROUVERS', poets and minstrels of Northern France

TROY, city in Asia Minor, ruled by King Priam, whose son, Paris,
stole away Helen, wife of Menelaus the Greek, resulting in the
Trojan War and the destruction of Troy

TROY, fall of

TURNUS, chief of the Rutulianes in Italy, unsuccessful rival of
Aeneas for Lavinia

TURPIN, Archbishop of Rheims

TURQUINE, Sir, a great knight, foe of Arthur, slain by Sir
Launcelot

TYPHON, one of the giants who attacked the gods, were defeated,
and imprisoned under Mt. Aetna

TYR, Norse god of battles

TYRE, Phoenician city governed by Dido

TYRIANS

TYRRHEUS, herdsman of King Turnus in Italy, the slaying of whose
daughter's stag aroused war upon Aeneas and his companions

U

UBERTO, son of Galafron

ULYSSES (Greek, Odysseus), hero of the Odyssey

UNICORN, fabled animal with a single horn

URANIA, one of the Muses, a daughter of Zeus by Mnemosyne

URDUR, one of the Norns or Fates of Scandinavia, representing the
Past

USK, British river

UTGARD, abode of the giant Utgard Loki

UTGARD LO'KI, King of the Giants (See Skrymir)

UTHER (Uther Pendragon), king of Britain and father of Arthur,

UWAINE, knight of Arthur's court

V

VAISSYAS, Hindu caste of agriculturists and traders

VALHALLA, hall of Odin, heavenly residence of slain heroes

VALKYRIE, armed and mounted warlike virgins, daughters of the gods
(Norse), Odin's messengers, who select slain heroes for Valhalla
and serve them at their feasts

VE, brother of Odin

VEDAS, Hindu sacred Scriptures

VENEDOTIA, ancient name for North Wales

VENUS (Aphrodite), goddess of beauty

VENUS DE MEDICI, famous antique statue in Uffizi Gallery,
Florence, Italy

VERDANDI, the Present, one of the Norns

VERTUMNUS, god of the changing seasons, whose varied appearances
won the love of Pomona

VESTA, daughter of Cronos and Rhea, goddess of the homefire, or
hearth

VESTALS, virgin priestesses in temple of Vesta

VESUVIUS, Mount, volcano near Naples

VILLAINS, peasants in the feudal scheme

VIGRID, final battle-field, with destruction of the gods ind
their enemies, the sun, the earth, and time itself

VILI, brother of Odin and Ve

VIRGIL, celebrated Latin poet (See Aeneid)

VIRGO, constellation of the Virgin, representing Astraea, goddess
of innocence and purity

VISHNU, the Preserver, second of the three chief Hindu gods

VIVIANE, lady of magical powers, who allured the sage Merlin and
imprisoned him in an enchanted wood

VOLSCENS, Rutulian troop leader who killed Nisus and Euryalus

VOLSUNG, A SAGA, an Icelandic poem, giving about the same legends
as the Nibelungen Lied

VORTIGERN, usurping King of Britain, defeated by Pendragon 390,
397

VULCAN (Greek, Haephestus), god of fire and metal working, with
forges under Aetna, husband of Venus

VYA'SA, Hindu sage

W

WAIN, the, constellation

WELLGUNDA, one of the Rhine-daughters

WELSH LANGUAGE

WESTERN OCEAN

WINDS, THE

WINTER

WODEN, chief god in the Norse mythology, Anglo Saxon for Odin

WOGLINDA, one of the Rhine-daughters

WOMAN, creation of

WOODEN HORSE, the, filled with armed men, but left outside of Troy
as a pretended offering to Minerva when the Greeks feigned to sail
away, accepted by the Trojans (See Sinon, and Laocoon), brought
into the city, and at night emptied of the hidden Greek soldiers,
who destroyed the town

WOOD NYMPHS

WOTAN, Old High German form of Odin

X

XANTHUS, river of Asia Minor

Y

YAMA, Hindu god of the Infernal Regions

YEAR, THE

YGDRASIL, great ash-tree, supposed by Norse mythology to support
the universe

YMIR, giant, slain by Odin

YNYWL, Earl, host of Geraint, father of Enid

YORK, Britain

YSERONE, niece of Arthur, mother of Caradoc

YSPA DA DEN PEN'KAWR, father of Olwen

Z

ZENDAVESTA, Persian sacred Scriptures

ZEPHYRUS, god of the South wind,

ZERBINO, a knight, son of the king of Scotland

ZETES, winged warrior, companion of Theseus

ZETHUS, son of Jupiter and Antiope, brother of Amphion. See Dirce

ZEUS, See JUPITER

ZOROASTER, founder of the Persian religion, which was dominant in
Western Asia from about 550 BC to about 650 AD, and is still held
by many thousands in Persia and in India






 


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