Lexicon of Paganism, Mystery Religions, And Magical Creatures
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Glossary of Terms K - M
Kappas:
These creatures live in lakes and rivers and pull people down in the water.
They are also called kawako meaning “child of the river.” They
are from Japanese legends and are monkeylike with webbed hands. Kappas enjoy
human blood, but a human can escape if he or she knows that their vitality
is drawn from a depression on its head. It must stay filled with water.
If one bows to the kappa, the kappa will bow back, letting all the water
fall out of the depression on the head. Then the kappa is defeated. If a
human were to offer a cumcumber to a kappa, for they love cucumbers as much
as they like the taste of humans, they will befriend the human and teach
secrets about medicine.
Kelpie: This is a Celtic water demon that is a horse with
a mane of green rushes. It lures people to ride its back and then takes
them into deep water.
Labyrinth: Labyrinths, or mazes, were meant to test the
skills of a hero. A labyrinth was built on the island of Crete by Daedalus,
an inventor. It was built to hold the Minotaur, a monster with a bull’s
head and human body. Every year, Athens had to pay tribute to Crete, and
the tribute was seven young men and seven young women. They were put in
the labyrinth and could not escape because it was confusing. The Minotaur
ate them. One year Theseus was one of the offerings. His lover, Ariadne,
gave him a sword to kill the beast and a ball of thread so he could find
his way back. He succeeded in killing the Minotaur.
Magic: Egypt is typically considered the origin of the
arts of magic by most scholars. Egyptian music and magic were linked. The
Egyptian gods let humans play with magic, unlike the god in other cultures,
who reserved magic only for themselves. Even in Greek mythology, mankind
had to trick the gods into giving up fire, played out by the hero Prometheus.
In Egyptian religion, magic took the form of Heka, a god which came soon
after the creation of the world. Heka became the word that meant magic.
In Greece, the word became mageia, the basis for the word in the English
language today. Thoth, another Egyptian god (who incidentally was granted
god-status after being an exceptional advisor and teacher as a human) is
most well known for being associated with magic. He was skilled in the healing
arts, wizardry, astronomy and mathematics. He wrote secret books, revealing
truth about science and alchemy. He is usually pictured with a pen and a
tablet. Egyptians were very secure in believing in charms and magic spells.
They thought that speaking aloud was very powerful and could bring things
into manifestation just by the sound of the spoken word and music. These
incantations were spoken over a figurine, akin to the voodoo doll. These
incantations were mostly used for healing purposes, but sometimes they were
used for more malevolent purposes. For instance, one wizard became a ruler
by sinking miniature figures of his enemies’ fleets, and then the
actual ships themselves sank. Egyptian magic was mostly concerned with holiness,
rather than earthly riches. Where a person went after death was far more
important that what he or she accomplished on the Earth.
Magic Forests: Magic forests were a common theme in many
legends, for the forest was thought to be alive with its own agendas and
sometimes malevolent toward man, especially because it did not like having
its trees cut down for firewood or houses. Not only were the trees magical
and alive, but magical creatures like the unicorn lived in it. Forests are
supposedly wiser than humans, older than humans, and are only benevolent
to humans who are kind to the forests, the Druids being one of the types
of humans that forests favored.
Manticore: The manticore is a frightening creature that
was half man and half beast with a nasty manner and sharp teeth. The word
manticore comes from the Persian word martikhora, meaning “maneater.”
It lived throughout ancient Asia, especially India. In India it was called
a manticoras. The manticore can sting with its tail or bite with its three
rows of teeth on upper and lower jaws. It kills everything but an elephant.
It shoots stingers off its tail that are a foot long. It likes to kill men,
and wants to kill more than one, having no fear of groups. Hunters try to
find the young and kill them before they grow up to be deadly, and their
scream is so loud it is unbearably piercing.
Mirrors: Mirrors at one time were rare objects indeed,
and were thought to hold magical properties. In some legends they were tools
of the Devil, capturing souls as people looked into them. In the middle
Ages, wizards used them to divine the future and find answers to perplexing
questions. This was called scrying. The tale of Snow White engages a magical
mirror. One of the uses of mirrors was to use them as portals to other worlds
and dimensions. They are also considered reflection of the self, pleasant
or unpleasant. Sometimes this could drive someone mad if they did not like
what they see.
Merpeople: Mermaids and mermen are half human and half
fish, having fish tails instead of legs. Almost every culture has legends
about merpeople. Contact with merpeople symbolized the lure of the sea,
causing one to never return to the land and become lost in the world of
the sea.
Multiverse: A term descriptive of the many states of being that
constitute the universe.