Anubis is called in the texts Sekhem Em Pet, and is said to be the son of Osiris, and Ap-uat bore the title Sekhem Taui, and was a form of Osiris himself. When, therefore, we find the two jackals upon sepulchral stelae, we must understand that they appear there in character of openers of the ways of the deceased in the kingdom of Osiris, and that they assure to the deceased the services of guides in the northern and southern parts of heaven; when they appear with the two Utchats thus, they symbolize the four quarters of heaven and of earth, and the four seasons of the year.

After referring to the view that Anubis was born of Nephthys, although Isis was his reputed mother, he goes on to say, "By Anubis they understand the horizontal circle, which divides the invisible, to which they give the name of Isis; and this circle equally touches upon the confines of both light and darkness, it may be looked upon as common to them both--and from this circumstance arose that resemblance, which they imagine between Anubis and the Dog, it being observed of this animal, that he is equally watchful as well by day as night. In short, the Egyptian Anubis and the Dog, it being observed of this animal, that he is watchful as well by day as night. In short, the Egyptian Anubis seems to be of much the same power and nature as the Grecian Hecate, a deity common both to the celestial and infernal regions.

Theirs again are of opinion that by Anubis is meant Time, and that his denomination of Kuon does not so much allude to any likeness, which he has to the dog, though this be the general rendering of the word, as to that other signification of the term taken from breeding; because Time begets all things out of it self, bearing them within itself, as it were in a womb. But this is one of those who are initiated into the worship of Anubis. This much, however, is certain, that in ancient times the Egyptians paid the greatest reverence and honor to the Dog, though by reason of its devouring the Apis after Cambyses had slain him and thrown him out, when no animal would taste or so much as come near him, he then lost the first rank among the sacred animals which he had hitherto possessed." Referring to Osiris as the "common Reason which pervades both the superior and the inferior regions of the universe," he says that it is, moreover, called "Anubis, and sometimes likewise Hermanubis {i.e., Heru-em-Anpu}; the first of these names expressing the relation it has to be superior, as the latter, to the inferior world. And for this reason it is, they sacrifice to him two Cocks, the white one,as a proper emblem of the purity and brightness of things above, the other of a saffron color, expressive of that mixture and variety which is to be found in these lower regions."

Strictly speaking, Anubis should be reckoned as the last member of the Great Company of the gods of Heliopolis, but as a matter fact his place is usually taken by Horus, the son of Isis and of Osiris, who generally completes the divine part; it is probable that the fusion of Horus, with Anubis was a political expedient on the part of the priesthood who, finding no room in their system for the old god of the dead, identified him with a form of Horus, just as they had done with his father Set, and the double god possessed two district and opposite aspects; as the guide of heaven and the leader of souls to Osiris he was a beneficent god, but as the personification of death and deacy he was a being who inspired terror. From an interesting passage in the "Golden Ass" of Apeleius {Book xi.} we find that the double character of Anubis was maintained by his votaries in Rome even in the second century of our era, and in describing the Procession of Isis he says, Immediately after these came the Deities, condescending to walk upon human feet, the foremost among them rearing terrifically on high his dog's head and neck----that messenger between heaven and hell displaying alternately a face black as night waving aloft the green palm branch. His steps were closely followed by a cow, raised into an upright posture----the cow being the fruitful emblem of the Universal Parent, the goddess herself, which one of the happy train carried with majestic steps, supported on his shoulders. By another was borne the coffin containing the sacred things, and closely concealing the deep secrets of the holy religion."

CRONUS: Father of the Gods and one of the TITANS. He's known as the Castrator, definitely a no-no.

His mighty father URANUS was terrified of the great ugly kids pregnant GAIA was producing and had them banished to the bowels of the Earth. In other words, GAIA's bowels.

She found this so painful (and not just emotionally) that she enlisted the aid of youngest son CRONUS to put an end to URANUS's machinations.

With a well-aimed swipe of a sickle, CRONUS cut his father off in his prime. With URANUS out of the way, CRONUS became Top God and ruled a Golden Age of peace and prosperity. With his wife RHEA he fathered all the other Top Gods.

But it was a case of like father, like son. He was so fearful of his own powerful children, he gobbled them all up and only baby ZEUS escaped to save the day.

God of Death who rules MICTLAN, the lowest level of the Aztec Underworld.

He is very skeletal with big staring eyes, and guards the bones of those who've passed on.

He is also depicted as a grinning maniac with his liver dangling from his chest. Now here's a God that loves his work! He almost looks like an over-the-top game show host.

And ratings for MICTLANTECUHTLI's Supreme Sacrifice Show were unbeatable. He was never short of contestants - and with such a genial host it's no wonder that victims were queuing up to be sacrificed. Death was considered a much better prize than some boring old million-dollar check.

With his bats, spiders and owls, MICTLANTECUHTLI is also very popular in a Halloweenish sort of way.

His wife is MICTECACIHUATL, who's equally at home with the bones.

ZHU-RONG: God of Fire and Heavenly Executioner.

His domain is the southern quarter of Heaven, where he rides a tiger and presides over Universal Order.

Legend tells that he was so proud of helping to establish Heaven and Earth that the authority went straight to his head. When GONG-GONG came along boasting of supreme magnificance it was more than his ego could bear.

After much bickering and insult-throwing, the two of them elected to settle their differences in true Godly fashion. They decided to fight it out.

The battle raged across Heaven for days, causing great uproar. Finally both ZHU-RONG and GONG-GONG fell overboard and plummetted to Earth.

GONG-GONG admitted defeat and slunk away to kill himself, while ZHU-RONG returned to Heaven in triumph. No-one messes with the God of Fire.

<big><center><b>10th Top Star LINEMAN</b> in Faction <i>Active</i>
<b>4th Top Blocker LINEMAN</b> in Faction <i>Active</i></center></big>
The Egyptian personification of Fortune. Her name and that of Shai (Fate) are usually found coupled. They are said to be in the hands of Thoth, the divine intelligence of of the gods. Rameses II boasted that he himself is "lord of Shai and creator of Renenet." According to the Pyramid Texts, she was the goddess of plenty, good fortune, and the like; subsequently there was no distinction made between these deities and the abstract ideas the represented.

Renenet is accompanied by Meskhenet, who acted as midwife and presided over the birth-chamber.

<big><center><b>4th Top Star HIGH ELF</b> in Faction <i>Active</i>
<b>3rd Top Scorer HIGH ELF</b> in Faction <i>Active</i>
<b>2nd Top Passer LION WARRIOR</b> in Faction <i>All-Time</i>
<b>2nd Top Star LION WARRIOR</b> in Faction <i>Active</i>
<b>3rd Top Scorer LION WARRIOR</b> in Faction <i>Active</i></center></big>
The Japanese god of fire and lightning. Later he became a god of war and general of Amaterasu. He helped to prepare the rulership of Ninigi on earth.

<big><center><b>10th Most Valuable HIGH ELF</b> in Faction <i>All-Time</i>
<b>10th Top Star HIGH ELF</b> in Faction <i>Active</i>
<b>5th Top Star LINEMAN</b> in Faction <i>All-Time</i>
<b>7th Top Blocker LINEMAN</b> in Faction <i>All-Time</i>
<b>7th Most Valuable LINEMAN</b> in Faction <i>All-Time</i>
<b>10th Top Passer LINEMAN</b> in Faction <i>Active</i></center></big>
Hestia is the Greek goddess of the hearth fire, hence presiding over domestic life. She is the eldest sister of Zeus and the oldest daughter of Rhea and Cronus.

She was a virgin-goddess, and when wooed by Poseidon and Apollo, swore by the head of Zeus to remain a virgin. She had no throne, but tended the sacred fire in the hall on the Olympus and every hearth on Earth was her altar. She is the gentlest of all the Olympians.

Hestia also symbolized the alliance of the Metropolis ("mother-city") with the smaller settlements which were founded in the colonies. The colonists took fire from the hearth in the prytaneion and kept it burning in their new towns. The Romans called her Vesta, and build a temple for her in the Forum.

LOKI: God of Hokey Pokey and one of the world's major Trickster Gods.

In his early days LOKI was a rascal; crafty, sneaky, silly and malicious - a Loki The Lad. The son of two Giants, he was so outrageously mischievous that he even sneaked his way into becoming a God. He was the first Anti-Hero, quick-witting his way out of the tight corners and confrontations caused by his misdeeds. But as time wore on he became increasingly nasty.

His first escapade was a very rampant romp. When the Gods were struggling to build ASGARD, they found they'd run out of funds. Which is not surprising as money and banks hadn't been invented yet. All the basic construction had been completed but they needed a large protective wall to keep the riff-raff out.

LOKI came up with the plan of contracting a Giant to do the job. As payment, the Giant asked for the Sun and Moon and also the Goddess FREYA if the work was completed to schedule. The Gods were not too sure. "Don't worry," advised LOKI. "He'll never manage it on his own, even if he works night and day - and the deal will be off. We'll let him keep the wheelbarrow or something."

Alas, the Giant was not on his own. He had a huge stallion called Svadilfari, which could haul boulders like there was no tomorrow. With three days to go, FREYA was in distress and the Gods aghast.

Now LOKI, like fire and smoke, was a shape-changer from the word go. A talent he'd developed to make him the shiftiest transmogrifier of all time - from flea to fish to fast flying feathers in 0.3 seconds. So he changed himself into a mare and seduced the Giant's stallion. By whinnying and prancing off into the woods, Svadilfari was led far away from the stone pile.

With his horse missing, the Giant didn't quite make the schedule. Seething with rage, he tried to take FREYA by force - until THOR cracked his skull with his hammer.

Meanwhile LOKI was having a fine old time frolicking in the fields. In fact he became pregnant, and decided to sample the joys of motherhood. He gave birth to a fine baby boy stallion with eight legs. He gave this as a gift to ODIN and it was called SLEIPNIR.

LOKI was now well in with top God ODIN and his son THOR, with whom he shared numerous adventures. THOR, the perfect fall guy, was persuaded to appear in drag as the prospective bride of a giant and other embarrassments. THOR could always be relied on to supply the muscle when corners became too tight for trickery.

LOKI had many run-ins with the dwarves, which he cheated at any opportunity until they stitched him up. Literally. They stitched his mouth shut, which kept him quiet for quite some time.

LOKI never missed an opportunity to take advantage of any Goddess, despite already having had three wives. The first not many folk know about, and it is only by assiduous research we have discovered GLUT, who bore two daughters EINMYRIA and EISA.

Next was ANGRBODA, a giantess who spawned FENRIR the Giant Wolf, JORMUNGAND the Earth-encircling Serpent, and HEL the Underworld Goddess. Finally there was his wife SIGYN, who produced their ill-fated sons NARVI and VALI(2).

For further LOKI adventures, click your way to ANDVARI, FAFNIR, GEIRROD, THIASSI and BALDUR. And check out our Loki Trickster Wearables! We are still investigating the mysterious theft of FREYA's precious necklace Brisingamen when a flea was seen to flee the scene. As a well-known God of bed-hopping, fingers of suspicion are already pointing at you-know-who.

As the most scandalous God of all time, LOKI was seldom out of the Nordic News or the Sunday Runes. But his tricks came to an end after causing the death of BALDUR. Now he's trapped in eternal punishment until RAGNAROK rolls around.

QUAOAR: All-singing, all-dancing Creator God of the Tongva tribe.

In the beginning was chaos. Then along came QUAOAR with a spring in his step and a song in his heart. He danced and whirled and sang the Song of Creation, and thus the Universe began.

First to be created was WEYWOT, God of the Sky. He joined in the dance routine and helped to create CHEHOOIT, Goddess of the Earth.

With complicated three-part harmonies now possible, the song grew ever more creative - so TAMIT the Sun and MOAR the Moon soon popped into existence.

For a grand finale, the quintet sang into being plants, animals, people, stars, paperclips, clouds, agrophobia, comets and everything else that exists. Not forgetting further deities MANISAR, MANIT, PAMIT, TOLMALOK and TUKUPAR-ITAR. And the audience roared.

His work done, QUAOAR settled back for a well-earned rest. They don't write songs like that anymore.

GILGAMESH: Famous Sumerian and Akkadian Hero who was two thirds God, or was it one third?

His mum was NINSUN, a Cow Goddess, and his father (or fathers) was (or were) a demon (or demons) impersonating his father, who was the King of Uruk at the time.

Look, the Sumerians invented writing not mathematics, and it is the writing we are concerned with here — as GILGAMESH is the long-running epic superhero featured in the Akkadian Tablets. Get the full set. There are twelve of them. Not so much a case of 'couldn't put it down', but 'having immense difficulty in picking it up'.

It's called The Epic Of Gilgamesh and, no, it's not a murder mystery. In fact it's a roller-coaster adventure with the Gods, containing fantasy, love, bloodshed and allegorical insights into the human condition.

It was first produced in clay tablet form — we had to wait several thousand years for the paperback edition. There's also five Sumerian poems in case you've missed anything. These were all published in utmost antiquity 10,000,000,000 years ago (give or take a few billion years), but still top the mythological charts.

Also known as CHULYEN, HEMASKAS, GUGUYNI, NANKIL'SLAS, KWEKWAXA'WE, KWEKWAXAWE, TXAMSEM, WE-GYET, YHEL

RAVEN: Famous Native American Creative Trickster God, known by many tribes under many names.

There is more to RAVEN than meets the eye. And how many of you have met the eye of a raven? They've always been associated with Godliness. Few people know that the first bird out of NOAH's ark was a raven. It just didn't return. It didn't feel the need. ODIN relies on his two ravens to fly round the world every day and keep him informed. Edgar Allan Poe's raven shrieked 'Nevermore' but what that has to do with anything only Poe knows.

In the beginning, RAVEN was first and foremost a Creator and Trickster God - especially of the Haida tribe, who claim he discovered the first humans hiding in a clam shell and brought them berries and salmon.

A bit of a tricky God himself, he's also the long-suffering victim of arch-rival in trickery, COYOTE. His brother LOGOBOLA is also a bit of a tricky customer, but, despite what you may have heard, absolutely no frogs are involved.

<big><center><b>10th Top Passer LINEMAN</b> in Faction <i>All-Time</i></center></big>
In Egyptian mythology, Sobek (also spelt Sebek, Sochet, Sobk, Sobki, Soknopais, and in Greek, Suchos) was the deification of crocodiles, and was originally a demon, as crocodiles were deeply feared in the nation so dependent on the Nile River. His worship began as an attempt to pacify crocodiles so as to reduce the danger they posed.

Gradually, Sobek, as a major one of its residents, also came to symbolise the produce of the Nile, thus the fertility that it brought to the land, and so his status quickly became more ambiguous. Sometimes the ferocity of a crocodile was seen in a positive light, Sobek in these circumstances being considered the army's patron, as representative of their strength and power. When Neith took on the characteristics of a goddess of primal waters, Sobek became, as a watery creature, of both good and evil, to be considered her son.

Sobek's cult originally flourished around Al Fyyum, where some temples still remain; the area was so associated with Sobek that one town, Arsinoe, was known to the Greeks as Crocodilopolis. In Arsinoe, they kept a tamed crocodile, ornamented with jewelery, and hand fed with meat, which the Greeks referred to as Petsuchos, meaning he of Suchos [i.e. Sobek]. The Petsuchos was seen as the current incarnation of Sobek. Sobek-worship flourished in and after the Twelfth Dynasty, with other major centres developing in Kom Ombo and Thebes. However, in other areas of Egypt, crocodiles were dealt with simply by hunting and killing them.

Sobek's ambiguous nature lead some to say he was a repairer of evil that had been done, rather than a force for good in itself, for example, going to Duat to restore damage done to the dead as a result of their form of death. He was also said to call on suitable gods and goddesses required for protecting people in situation, effectively having a more distant role, nudging things along, rather than taking an active part. In this way, he was seen as a more primal god, eventually becoming regarded as an avatar of the primal god Amun, who at that time was considered the chief god. When his identity finally merged, Amun had become merged himself with Ra to become Amun-Ra, so Sobek, as an avatar of Amun-Ra, was known as Sobek-Ra.

In art, Sobek was depicted as an ordinary crocodile, or as a man with the head of a crocodile. When considered a patron of the pharaoh's army, he was shown with the symbol of royal authority - the uraeus. He was also shown with an ankh, representing his ability to undo evil and so cure ills. Once he had become Sebek-Ra, he was also shown with a sun-disc over his head, as Ra was a sun god.

In myths that appear extremely late in Egyptian history, Sobek is credited with catching the four sons of Horus in a net, as they emerged from the waters of the Nile in a lotus blossom. This motif derives from the birth of Ra in the Ogdoad cosmogony, and the fact that as a crocodile, Sobek is the best suited to collecting items upon the Nile.