Encyclopedia of Mythology

Zeus

Mighty Zeus, the “cloud-gatherer,” lord of the skies, and hurler of lightning, commanded gods and mortals during his long but turbulent reign as king of the Greek gods.

Hera

The goddess of marriage and family, Hera was the paragon of faithfulness, yet she was also tragically fated to battle endlessly with her husband Zeus’s infidelities and to seek vengeance, always fruitlessly, against his lovers.

Poseidon

The lord of all waters, a god as unruly as the seas he commanded, Poseidon meddled constantly in the affairs of mortals and once challenged Zeus for control of the Olympian pantheon.

Demeter

Bounteous Demeter was the Greek goddess of fertility and agriculture, a paragon of motherly love, and a figure whose constancy in myth testified to the predictability and abundance of farming.

Athena

Apollo

The Dagda

In Celtic mythology, the Dagda, or “good god,” was the club-wielding chief of the Irish Tuatha dé Danann. He was the god of life and death, agriculture and fertility.

The Morrígan

The Morrígan is the Phantom Queen, the shapeshifting Irish goddess of death and battle. The keeper of fate and purveyor of prophecy, she knows all and sees all.

Brigid

Brigid is the Exalted One, the flame-haired Celtic goddess of fertility, of dawn, and of poetry. She is the Goddess of the Wells, and one of Ireland’s most prominent deities.

Lugh

Lugh, of the Long Arm, is the Irish god of kings, justice, and rulership. Master of all arts, he is chief Ollam of the Tuatha Dé Danann, a trickster, and wielder of Assal, the lightning spear.

Aengus

Aengus is the Young One, an Irish deity of love and poetry and youth. He is a skilled magician and lover of birds, who dreams of beautiful women and seeks them out.

Cernunnos

Cernunnos is the horned god, the master of wild places and things. He is a mysterious Gallic deity, whose name is now used to refer to many nameless horned deities of the Celtic world.