From which god did the Egyptian pharaohs claim to be descended?
The Egyptian pharaohs claim to be descended Ra, the sun-god.
Ra is sometimes represented with the disk of the sun on his head and surrounded by Uraeus, the sacred flame-breathing asp.
One reason spilling salt is considered bad luck is because salt was once valuable and difficult to obtain. According to an old Norwegian superstition, a person is doomed to shed as many tears as it takes to dissolve the spilled salt. Another reason is the belief that spilled salt refers to the devil. In the…
Nereids were 50 nymphs of the sea, daughters of the sea-god Nereus, often came to the aid of sailors in trouble.
Yes, according to legend, Mother Goose was real. She was Elizabeth Goose, a New England widow who married Isaac Goose, adopting a family of 10, and later bore 6 children. In 1719, her book of rhymes, Mother Goose’s Melodies for Children, was said to have been published by her son-in-law. No copy of the book…
Quetzalcoatl was the Aztec god of the atmosphere and of civilizing influences. Besides ruling the wind and sun, he invented agriculture, the calendar, and many arts and crafts. Sometimes represented as a feathered serpent, sometimes as a bearded man, he was also identified as a priest-king who had sailed away, promising to return.
The practice of people crossing their fingers may have evolved from the sign of the cross, which was believed to ward off evil.
The Greek Adonis, the Babylonian Tammuz, the Sumerian Dumuzi, and the Egyptian Osiris are all forms of the same god. After being carried off to the underworld, Tammuz, god of crops and vegetation, was rescued by his lover Ishtar. All life on earth withered between his dying (in winter) and his rising (in spring).