The Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch (autobiographies to read TXT) 📕

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