The Mysteries of All Nations: Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together with Strange Customs, Fables, and TalesGrant, James (Archaeologist)
History
The Mysteries of All Nations: Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together with Strange Customs, Fables, and Tales
Grant, James (Archaeologist)
Occultism; Superstition; Trials (Witchcraft)
Besides others, there are in the infernal regions the following
monsters:--The Centaurs, whose upper parts are human, but whose bodies
and legs are those of a horse. They were begotten of a cloud by Ixion.
Gorgon is a monster with three heads. The Harpies, born of Oceanus and
Terra, have the faces of virgins, and the bodies of birds with claws.
Their names are Ocypete, Aello, and Celeno. The Gorgons are Medusa,
Stheno, and Euryale, daughters of Phorcys and Cete. They have heads
covered with snakes instead of hair, which so terrifies beholders that
they immediately turn into stones. The Lamiæ and Empusæ have each only
one eye and one tooth. They have faces, necks, and breasts like women,
but their bodies are covered with scales, and they have the tails of
serpents. The Chimœra is a monster that vomits fire, and has the
head and breast of a lion, the belly of a goat, and the tail of a
dragon. The Sphinx, begotten of Typhon and Echidna, has the head and
face of a virgin, the wings of a bird, and the body of a dog. A riddle
she put forth being explained by Œdipus, so enraged her that she
threw herself from a rock and was killed.
The most famous of the condemned in the place of punishment are the
Giants; they are great in stature, and have horrible feet, like
dragons. They make war against the celestial gods, but never prevail,
and are struck down to hell by Jupiter's thunder-bolts and the arms of
the gods. The principal offenders are Typhon, Ægæon, Alœus, and
Tityus; and, to prevent them rising again, the Island of Sicily is
fixed on Typhon, and Mount Ætna on Ægæon, and Tityus is doomed to have
a vulture always gnawing his liver, which grows afresh every month.
Phlegias fired Apollo's temple at Delphi, for which he was sentenced
to have a great stone hung over his head, ready every moment to fall
and crush him to pieces. Ixion, for an assault on Juno, was struck
down to hell, and tied to a wheel, which kept continually turning.
Sisyphus is a notorious robber, condemned to roll a stone up to the
top of a hill, which is made to roll down again immediately; and as he
has to begin and roll it up again as soon as it comes down, his labour
is perpetual. The Danaides are fifty virgins (sisters), who all but
one, by the command of their father Danaus, slew their husbands on
their wedding night. For this they were condemned to draw water out of
a deep well, to fill a tub whose bottom was full of holes like a
sieve. Tantalus invited the gods to a feast, and, to improve their
divinity, he killed, boiled, and served up Pelops on the table before
them to eat. They refused to partake of this horrid dish, and
condemned Tantalus to stand in water which he could not drink, and to
have meat placed before him which he could not taste, though suffering
the pangs of hunger and thirst--a punishment he was to endure for
ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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