Hermes

Hermes Europe
In Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and the nymph Maia. A popular deity, Hermes was the messenger of the gods who often led men astray. As a psychopompos, ‘leader of souls’, he escorted the dead to the underworld, the realm of Hades. This function explains the later identification of the Germanic god Odin with Mercury, the Roman version of Hermes: Odin was father of the slain.

Hermes was looked upon as the patron of good luck and fortune, the patron of merchants and thieves. Winged sandals helped him steal the cows belonging to his half-brother Apollo, while winged thoughts saved him from Apollo's rage, for he gave as a trespass-offering his invention, the lyre. He was also the god of roads and a god of fertility, aspects that were included in the hermeia, quadrangular pillars with a bust of the god set on top and a phallus carved below. In their earliest form these wayside shrines of his were just heaps of stones, and...

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