Friday, June 8, 2012

Exotica or Xotica Part One




The Three Fates




No, I will not be talking about a strip club.



Origin:  Greece



Description:  The Exotica is a pantheon of Modern Greek spirits.  The word Exotica means “things beyond” or “things outside.”  They are pre-Christian spirits living in a Christian world and considered wicked.



A few examples:



Charos – Personification of death



Gello – Killer ghost.  A woman who died before having a child and therefore could not become an ancestral spirit.  With nothing else to do, she takes pleasure in killing other women’s children.



Gorgon – Hello, Medusa and her repulsive sisters.



The Moirai – The three fates.



The Strange Hour – A kind of a demon that possesses humans and sometimes is a disease demon.



There are many more.  I’ll save them for another post.

4 comments:

  1. It's odd how language changes over time. I didn't know that definition of exotica!

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    1. The more I learn, the more I realize there is so much out there to learn. It's exhausting. I am working on a scene in The Dark Man where the main character is doing a lecture. I decided to use the Exotica as her subject. And being the lazy person I am, I decided to use it for Faerie Friday for the next couple of weeks.

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  2. Hmmm, never knew about Charos. I'd always thought Thanatos was the one personification of death. (And of course, by "always" I mean, since I got into Greek mythos, not, like, from the womb, or anything.) ;-)
    Some Dark Romantic

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    1. Yes and no. Thanatos was the personfication of death, but in Modern Greek folklore it is Charos. Charos used to be called Charon, the ferryman. Once Hades left the underworld, Charon took over and changed his name.

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