Myth Marsh

Greek & Norse myth family trees and god finders

Greek · Roman · Norse

God finder

Who was the god of the sea, of smithing, of the harvest? Search by domain or symbol across three pantheons, with the ancient passage for every answer.

Results

14 gods match “sea”: 12 Greek, 1 Roman, 1 Norse.

How the god finder works

Type a domain (the sea, war, the harvest) or a symbol (an owl, a trident, a hammer). The finder matches the words you type against the domains and symbols on each card and highlights the lines that match; with two words, such as “love arrows”, a god must match both. Untick a pantheon to leave it out, or search domains or symbols only. Pressing a suggestion fills in the search for you, and the address bar keeps your search so you can share it.

Every domain and symbol on a card comes from a passage you can open: Hesiod, Homer and the Homeric Hymns for the Greek gods, Ovid, Virgil, Livy, Horace, Catullus and Cicero for the Roman ones, and the Poetic Edda and Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda for the Norse gods. If a well-known attribute is missing, it is because no passage used here states it; later art and modern books add many more. The Norse texts were written down in Iceland in the 13th century, about two centuries after the island became Christian, so they are late witnesses to older beliefs.

Sources

The Roman cards name the Greek god each Roman one was identified with. Those identifications were real, but never exact: Mars mattered far more at Rome than Ares did in Greece, and Janus had no Greek match at all. The name converter explains more.

Each card links its passages to these editions. Norse chapter numbers follow Brodeur's 1916 translation of the Prose Edda, and stanza numbers follow Bellows' 1923 Poetic Edda; other editions number a few stanzas differently.

Greek texts

Latin texts

Old Norse texts

Reference works

Questions

Who is the Greek god of the sea?

Poseidon, who in the Iliad says he won the grey sea when the three sons of Cronus drew lots. Older sea powers stand beside him: Pontus, the sea itself in Hesiod; Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea; Oceanus, the river around the world; and Amphitrite, Poseidon's wife, whose name Homer uses for the waves.

Which god has an owl?

Athena. In Aristophanes' Birds (lines 514–516), Zeus is shown with an eagle on his head, his daughter with an owl and Apollo with a hawk.

Is Thor the same god as Zeus or Jupiter?

No. Both are thunder gods, and English Thursday, “Thor's day”, translates the Latin Iovis dies, Jupiter's day, so early Germanic speakers matched them. But Thor has his own myths, family and character, and the finder keeps the pantheons apart.

Why is a god I know missing a symbol?

The cards only list what a cited ancient passage says. Many familiar symbols come from vase paintings, statues, coins or much later art rather than from a text, and those are left out rather than given without a source.