Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard

314 Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard

hidden things, thievery. He is the

patron god of all Wizards. Sym-

bol: caduceus. Planet: Mercury.

Hestia (Roman Vesta)—Goddess of

hearth and home.

Poseidon (Roman Neptune)—Ruler of

the seas: waves, tides, sea-

monsters; also horses and earth-

quakes. Wife: Amphitrite. Symbol:

three-pronged trident. Planet: Neptune.

Zeus (Roman Jupiter)—King of all the

gods, ruler of the sky, clouds,

thunder, lightning, judgement, authority. Wife: Hera.

Symbols: thunderbolt and eagle. Planet: Jupiter.

Some Other Important Greek Gods

Dionysos (Roman Bacchus)—God of the grapevine,

wine, intoxication, and inspiration. Son of

Persephone and Hades.

Eros (Roman Cupid)—God of love and the primal force

of attraction in the Universe. Originally born of

Chaos, he later incarnated as the son of Aphrodite.

Hephaestus (Roman Vulcan)—Smith god, son of Zeus.

He is the great artisan, forging all the weapons and

tools of the gods.

Pan—One of the most ancient gods, representing the

wildness of all Nature. He is half-man and half-

goat, and his symbol is the syrinx, or panpipes.

Persephone (Roman Proserpina)—Daughter of

Demeter and Zeus, wife of Hades, and Queen of

the Underworld. Her symbol is the poppy.

There are many other beings in Greco-Roman myth:

the Muses, the Fates, monsters, nymphs, and half-

human beings such as centaurs, satyrs, and mermaids.

The Clash of the Titans

The Titanomachia (“battle of the giants”) was led

by Zeus between the Olympian gods and the titans. It

began when Zeus castrated and dethroned his father,

Kronos. After ten long years of war, Zeus asked Gaea

for help. She told him to release from Tartarus the

giant one-eyed Cyclopes and hundred-handed

Hecatonchires. The three Cyclopes (“round eyes”)

were giants with a single eye in the middle of their

foreheads. They are the makers of thunder, lightning,

and meteors. The three Hecatonchires (“hundred-

handers”) each had 100 arms and 50 heads,

more fierce and powerful than

even the mighty Cyclopes.

With the assistance of the

Cyclopes and their meteoric

thunderbolts, Zeus overthrew

Kronos and the titans and

became ruler of the cosmos.

The defeated titans were

bound in Tartarus where

they are guarded for

eternity by the Hecatonchires. In gratitude for the

Cyclopes’s help, Zeus allowed them to stay on

Olympus as his armorers and assist Hephaestus, god

of smiths. They also built the massive “cyclopean”

walls of Tiryns and Mycenae.

After the victory, Zeus was acclaimed King

over all the gods, and the three Olympian brothers

drew lots to divide up rulership of the worlds. Zeus

became ruler of the Sky, with Hera as his queen.

Poseidon ruled the Seas, with his queen Amphitrite.

And Hades ruled the Underworld, eventually gaining

Persephone as his wife and queen.

Lesson 5: The Norse

The Norse, or Teutonic peoples, originally lived in

Germany and Scandinavia. In the 5th century CE the

Anglo-Saxons moved to Britain, and later, in the Vi-

king Age, Scandinavians raided and settled in Ireland,

northern France, and Russia. Norse explorers also

settled Iceland and Greenland. Our best source for their

myths is the Icelandic Eddas and sagas that were trans-

mitted orally until the 13th century. Northern lore is

most familiar today through Richard Wagner’s epic

opera, the Ring of the Nibelungs.

In the Beginning...

In the beginning, there was only a bottomless

chasm called Ginungagap (“emptiness”), and a realm

of ice and snow called Niflheim, from which ran eleven

rivers (the Elivagar) that filled the deep, freezing solid.

Warm winds blew from Muspelheim, the southern region

of fire, melting some of the ice into water and mist. Out

of the mist appeared the first giant, Ymir, and a cow,

Audhumbla, whose milk nourished Ymir. She sustained

herself by licking salt and hoarfrost from the ice.

Out of the melting ice came the giants Bor and

Bestla, parents of the first gods: Odin, Vili, and Ve.

They slew Ymir and formed the worlds from his body.

His blood became the sea, his bones the mountains,

his hair the trees, his skull the heavens, and his brain

the clouds. His eyebrows became Midgard, the future

home of humanity. All of this was supported by the

great ash tree, Yggdrasil.

Odin placed the Sun and the Moon in the sky.

The gods made the first man, Aske, from an ash tree,

and the first woman, Embla, from an elm. Odin gave

them life and soul, Vili gave them reason and motion,

and Ve gave them senses and speech.

The Vanir and the Aesir

There are two races of Norse gods, the Aesir and

the Vanir. Some say that the Aesir attacked the Vanir,

but it is also possible that the Vanir may have been the

gods of a more advanced grain-raising people who

moved into the territory of the worshippers of the Aesir,

who mostly lived by herding cattle. In any case, after a

Hermes

Zeus

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