Peleus is presented as the son of Aeacus (king of Aegina) and the mountain-nymph Endeïs. In the mythic narratives he kills his half-brother Phocus (accounts vary on circumstances) and flees Aegina; he is purified in Phthia by that city's ruler (Eurytion). He later marries the sea-nymph Thetis; their wedding, attended by gods, produced the sequence of events that ultimately connects to the Trojan cycle. Narratives preserve several variants of his story: he is said to have accidentally killed Eurytion (accounts link this to the Calydonian boar hunt) and been purified at Iolcus by Acastus; in other episodes he is betrayed (Astydamia/Astydameia), abandoned on Mount Pelion and rescued by figures variously named (Chiron, Hermes, or Hephaestus), and later sacked Iolcus in revenge. These episodes are presented in the epic and mythographic tradition as part of his career as a mortal ruler whose life intersects with divine actors.
Textual sources give no fixed physical portrait; literary and cultic representations present Peleus as a conventional epic/kingly figure associated with Phthia. He appears in epic narrative contexts (Homeric poems, later tragic and Hellenistic references) and in visual art connected to his wedding to Thetis (scholars have proposed scenes on objects such as the Portland Vase). Such representations typically show him in the role of a heroic husband/king rather than as a supernatural apparition; no specific bodily measurements or a canonical descriptive formula is preserved in the cited texts.
Peleus is chiefly a mortal warrior-king and hero: participant in martial ventures (listed among the Argonauts in later summaries), leader of a polity (king of Phthia), and progenitor of Achilles. He is associated with martial prestige and the transmission of prized war-equipment and horses into Achilles' possession (sources cite divine gifts at his marriage—e.g., immortal horses from Poseidon in some accounts—and divine attendance at the wedding). He undergoes exile, purification for homicide, and violent acts of revenge (the sacking of Iolcus and punishment of Astydamia in certain traditions). The sources attribute no intrinsic supernatural powers to Peleus; his exceptional status arises from rank, heroic deeds, and his marriage into the divine (Thetis) rather than from inherent magic.
Weaknesses
- conditionmortality (vulnerable to death and normal human harms)
- ritualrequires ritual purification after homicide (as attested: purified by Eurytion in Phthia and by Acastus in Iolcus)
Wards
None recorded.
Tengu
Proud, warrior-like mountain spirits of Japan, associated with martial arts, pride, and the wild mountains. Neither fully good nor evil — they test and train warriors and monks, but punish the arrogant.
Kitsune
Fox spirits of Japanese mythology — intelligent, long-lived beings who gain additional tails (up to nine) as they age and grow in power. They serve as messengers of the god Inari and as powerful tricksters.
Kappa
A water-dwelling imp of Japanese folklore with a bowl of water on its head. Mischievous but bound by strict codes of politeness; dangerous near rivers.
Chandalika
A Dayan witch who has reached approximately 1600 years of age — the final threshold, beyond which she has become more force than person, capable of destroying entire lineages and withstanding divine invocations.
Djinn
The class of supernatural beings created from smokeless fire in Islamic cosmology — a parallel civilization to humanity, capable of belief or unbelief, with their own prophets, society, and judgment before God.
Jann
The weakest class of djinn in Islamic tradition, associated with desert winds and taking the form of snakes or whirlwinds, dwelling in empty wilderness and posing little threat to those who know the proper invocations.
Shaitan
A class of corrupted djinn who follow Iblis and dedicate themselves to leading humans astray — distinct from Iblis himself, the Shayatin are a species of evil djinn who whisper doubts and temptations into the minds of the living.
*Péh₂usōn (reconstructed)
Péh₂usōn is a hypothetical Proto‑Indo‑European pastoral guardian reconstructed by comparative scholars from parallels in Greek and Vedic traditions. Proposed as a Graeco‑Aryan ancestor‑figure, the reconstruction describes a protector of flocks, roads, and travellers rather than an attested historical cultic personality.
Aba (disambiguation / name-form)
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Abarbarea
Abarbarea is a name attested in classical Greek and Roman sources for freshwater nymphs (naiads). The name appears for at least two individual mythic figures — a naiad wife of Bucolion and a naiad counted among ancestors of the Tyrians — and Hesychius records plural forms that may indicate the name was also used as a class-name (Abarbareai / Abarbalaiai).
Abas
Abas (Ancient Greek: Ἄβας, gen.: Ἄβαντος) is not a single mythic being but a recurring personal name borne by multiple mortals and minor mythic figures in Greek epic and genealogical traditions — kings, founders, seers, warriors, attendants, a centaur, and a youth transformed by a goddess. The name is glossed in the sources as 'guileless' or 'good-hearted' and appears across Argive, Theban, Trojan, Euboean, and other local cycles.
Abderus
Abderus (Ancient Greek: Ἄβδηρος, romanized Ábdēros) is a mortal heroic figure in Greek myth closely associated with Heracles, remembered as the youth left in charge of the Mares of Diomedes who was killed by them. He functions as an eponymous local/divine-hero ancestor for the city of Abdera and received funerary commemoration and athletic agones at his tomb.
Abomination of Desolation
An apocalyptic prophetic phrase originating in the Book of Daniel designating a profaning thing or act that renders the Jerusalem Temple cult desolate; later reused in the Synoptic Gospels as an eschatological sign prompting urgent flight. The term denotes ritual/cultic impurity (Hebrew shiqquts) and is variously interpreted as pagan offerings or altar, a foreign cult statue, or (in some New Testament readings) an acting agent.
Absyrtus
Absyrtus (Ancient Greek: Ἄψυρτος) is a Colchian prince in the Greek Argonautic cycle, son of King Aeëtes and brother or half-brother of Medea. He appears in variant traditions either as a companion taken by Medea during her flight with Jason and murdered/dismembered to delay pursuit, or as a pursuer sent by Aeëtes who is overtaken and slain by Jason; his death functions as a key narrative device in the escape from Colchis.
Acacallis
Acacallis (Ancient Greek: Ἀκακαλλίς; also Acalle) is a mythological princess of Crete in Greek tradition, daughter of King Minos and Pasiphae. She functions primarily as a dynastic and etiological figure: in varying accounts she is mother, by gods such as Hermes (Mercury) or Apollo, of eponymous or founder-figures like Cydon (founder of Cydonia), Miletus, or Lydon/ Lydus.
Acacus
Acacus (Ancient Greek: Ἄκακος) is, in Arcadian Greek tradition, a mortal eponymous founder-king of Acacesium and is remembered as the foster-father who reared the infant Hermes (Mercury) in that local tradition. He is presented in genealogies as a son of Lycaon and functions as a local ancestral/onomastic figure rather than a supernatural spirit.
Academus
Academus (Greek: Akádemos / Hekádemos) is an Attic hero-eponym tied to a sacred grove (Akademeia) on the Cephissus near Athens. In myth he revealed where Helen was hidden to the Dioskouroi, an act said to have saved the city, and the place bearing his name became a long-lived sacred precinct, later the site of Plato's Academy.
Acamas
Acamas (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάμας) is a personal name recurrent in ancient Greek narrative traditions applied to multiple human characters (warriors, princes, suitors), once to a Cyclops, and once as a hound's name. Rather than a single supernatural entity, bearers of the name appear episodically across the Trojan War, Theseid, and Theban cycles as mortal actors whose deeds intersect with gods and fate.
Acantha
Acantha (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάνθα, 'thorn') is a late or secondary mythological figure known from modern retellings as a nymph transformed into the acanthus plant. The tale that she scratched Apollo and was changed into a spiny-leaved plant is not attested in surviving classical corpora and appears to be a modern compilation or invention rather than a firmly documented ancient myth.
Community Record
- [1]Peleus - Wikipedia. Wikipedia article 'Peleus'wiki
- [2]Wikidata: Peleus (Q178641). Wikidata entry Q178641other
- [3]The Iliad by Homer (selected books). Homer, Iliad (references to Peleus and Achilles' inheritance)literary
- [4]The Iliad, Book XVI and XIX (online translations). Translation of Iliad books (mentions of Peleus and his relation to Achilles' arms and horses)literary
- [5]Portland Vase (discussion / image archive). Image and scholarly discussion suggesting depiction of Peleus and Thetis' wedding scenesother
- [6]Callimachus fragment (as reported) / Greek Anthology summaries. Summary reporting a Callimachus fragment about Peleus' tomb at Ikos and annual 'return of the hero' celebrationwiki