A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

CAIT SITH - (Celtic) The black cat of the fairies. It has a white spot on its chest.

CARRIE - (Literary) from the book of the same name by Stephen King. An emotionally and socially outcast girl who developed dangerously powerful telekinetic powers.

CALLISTO - (Greek) Callisto was an attendant nymph of the moon goddess, Artemis. The king of the gods, Zeus, saw Callisto's beauty and, as was his habit, raped her. When it became apparent that she was pregnant, either Hera, the jealous queen of the gods, or Artemis, who as a virgin huntress did not allow any hanky-panky to go on in HER hunting parties, cursed Callisto, changing the poor girl into a she-bear. Her son, however, was born human, and was raised as a hunter. One day the hunter met a she-bear in the woods, and was about to kill her when Zeus took pity on the pair and flung them up into the stars as a pair of constellations - Ursa Major (the Greater Bear, the Big Dipper, aka Callisto) and Ursa Minor (the Lesser Bear, or Callisto's son).

CAMAZOTZ - (Mayan) A Mayan god that took the shape of a giant bat and terrorized the Mayan people before it was defeated by the gods.

CATH PULUC - (Celtic) A giant cat which was cast adrift at birth and then raised by the Sons of Palug on Anglesey.

CATOBLEPAS - (Greek) A monster 'sighted' by Pliny in his travels between Ethiopia and Egypt. It looked like a bull with scales, a long shaggy mane, and small eyes that always look at the ground (Catoblepas = "that which looks at the ground"). It only ate poisonous plants. Those who saw it died instantly, either because of its poisonous breath or because its eyes had the power to kill - the ancients weren't too sure on that particular point, and nobody wanted to scientifically test their theory. (It was almost certainly a gnu, for what it's worth.)

CERBERUS (KERBEROS) - (Greek) The three-headed, snake-tailed dog that guarded the gates of the Underworld. His job was to keep the living out and the dead inside. He could be appeased by throwing him a sop of bread soaked in honey, or, if you're the poet Orpheus, by playing such beautiful music that the dog goes to sleep. The twelfth labor of Herakles was to bring Kerberos to the surface of the earth, and he basically strangled the beast into submission and hauled the unhappy dog upto the surface before releasing it again. Cerberus is one of the children of the legendary monsters Typhon and Echidna.

CHARON - (Greek) Charon was the ferryman of the dead who carried souls in his boat across the river Styx into the underworld. He demanded a fare from each soul; those who could not pay him a coin were doomed to wander on the near bank of the Styx forever, unable to rest in peace. For that reason, the dead were always buried with a coin under their tongue. Charon's policy was to never carry the living in his boat, but he did so on a few occasions: (1) the legendary musician, Orpheus, managed to charm his way across the Styx with the beauty of his music; he was trying to find the spirit of his wife, Eurydice (2) When Herakles had to get the three-headed guard dog of the underworld, Kerberos, he bullied Charon until Charon ferried him across out of fear, and (3) the Athenian king Theseus and his friend managed to get across the Styx as well. I don't remember how they did it, though.

CHERUB - (Judeo-Christian) Cherubim were winged creatures that support the throne and chariot of God, according to the Old Testament. They are also mentioned as the guardians of the Garden of Eden. They were usually depicted as angels with four wings and four faces - human, lion, bull and eagle. They originated from the Babylonian winged, human-headed bulls (also named cherubim), that guarded the gates of the royal palace.

CHINPIRA - A minor member of a group of thugs. They gather into groups, and commit violence and blackmail against people who are visibly weaker than they are.

CIZIN - (Mayan) A Mayan god of death, who burns the dead in the underworld

COCKATRICE - (European) If a toad sits on the egg laid by a rooster and hatches it under the Dog Star, a cockatrice is born. It looks like a rooster with four reptilian legs, and its gaze can petrify or kill people. It is so poisonous that it wilts plants around it.

CROM CRUACH - (Celtic) The Celtic equivalent of the Greek Cronus and the Roman Saturn, Crom Cruach, ("The Dark, Bent One") was the ancient acricultural god that delivered the grain from the fields and the bounty of the harvest from the Underworld. He was called the "Bent One" because he carried the first sheaf of the wheat harvest on his back from the fields to the table. Crom had a immortal bull, and so sacrifices of cattle were made to Crom Cruach to mark the beginning of Samhain.

CRONOS - (Greek) The eldest of the Titans and a son of Ouranus and Gaia. With Gaia's encouragement, he took a sickle and castrated his father in a particularly painful coup d'etat. After that he became the ruler of the world, and took his sister Rhea as his wife. Cronos was a god of agriculture (not to be mistaken with Chronos, the god of time), and his rule was considered the Golden Age of humanity. Like the Roman god Saturn, he was usually depicted as an old man with a sickle. Anyways, Cronos got paranoid that his children might one day depose him the way that he deposed his father, so he swallowed each of his children whole as soon as they were born. Rhea, of course, grew tired of this after five children of hers got swallowed, so she conspired with Gaia to hide a child from Cronos. When the god Zeus was born, Gaia hid him in a cave on Crete, while Rhea gave her husband a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. Cronos swallowed it, none the wiser, and Zeus grew up in secret until he was finally old enough to attempt to take on his father for the rulership of the world. Firstly, he needed to release his trapped brothers and sisters, so he got his mother Rhea to slip Cronos an emetic in his food. Cronos threw up all five of the gods that he'd already swallowed - Hades, Demeter, Poseidon, Hera, and Hestia - as well as the stone. (The stone eventually because known as the omphalos - the navel-stone - and where it landed was a holy spot, the center of the world from which all distances were measured, or something.) With his five siblings to help him, Zeus fought with his father and relatives in a massive war known as the Titanomachy. Cronos lost and was banished, and Zeus became the King of the Gods.

CROWLEY - (historical - now corrected!) "Aleister Crowley did create his own Tarot card deck called the Thoth, widely believed to be the most potent of the contemporary Tarot decks because of its incorporation of themes and symbols from world mythology and spirituality. Aleister Crowley was a member of the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn, which at the turn of the Century, was a pseudo-occult country club -if you will- frequented by W.B. Yeats, Dion Fortune, and other famous literaries of the era. He was kicked out of the Order because of some of his rather extreme beliefs, and shortly thereafter became obsessed with Tantric Yoga (a form of sexual spirituality) as well as Heroin according to his autobiography, "Diary of a Drug Fiend." He adopted the name "The Beast," took many wives and at least one male lover, "vandalized" historical sites, and was generally considered a despot by everyone with a modicum of sense. Crowley was also famous for the spread of Thelemic philosophy which is often characterized by its most famous commandment, "Do what thou wilt." After leaving the Golden Dawn, Crowley started his own group called A. A. (or Astron Argon, the silver star) which later adopted the members of a German occult society the Ordo Templis Orientis, or the O. T. O." (thanks, ryland thomas!)

CU CHULAINN - (Celtic) A legendary warrior and hero, also known as the Hound of Ulster.

CUPID - (Roman) A minor love god, similar to the Greek Eros.

CU SITH - (Celtic) The 'fairy dog' of the Celts, the Cu Sith was the size of a calf with long shaggy dark green fur (green being the color of the fairies). It usually hunted in silence, but its barking could be heard for miles.

CWN ANUN - (Celtic, European) (was: Cu Anun) The black hounds that run through the sky with the famed Wild Hunt. They are pitch black, with flames coming out of their eyes and mouths. (The wild hunt - also known as the Furious Host, the wutendes heer, was probably originally a myth about the undead army of the Norse god Odin (Wotun) or his shield maidens, the Valkyries, charging through the sky with ravens and hounds.)

CURSED TAXI (NOROI NO TAXI)

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