Furies

FURIES / ERINYES

The Furies, or theErinyes, are three cruel earth goddesses of revenge and retribution. They are terrifying-looking creatures with horrible features. Their breath burns and poisonous blood drips from their eyes. Their heads are wreathed in snakes. In greek myths the erinyes were sisters. Their names wereAlecto( The Angry One ),Megaera( The Grudging One ) andTisiphone( The Avenger ). They punished crimes such as murder and injustice, and they were reputed to continue punishing a sinner, even after his death, until he showed remorse.

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In Greek mythology the Erinnýes (Ἐρινύες, pl. of Ἐρινύς, Erinýs; literally "the angry ones") or Eumenídes (Εὐμενίδες, pl. of Εὐμενίς; literally "the gracious ones" but also translated as "Kind-hearted Ones" or "Kindly Ones"), or Furies or Dirae in Roman mythology, were female chthonic deities of vengeance, or supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath".[1] Burkert suggests they are "an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath".[2]

When the Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes emerged from the drops of blood, while Aphrodite was born from the crests of seafoam. According to a variant account, they emerged from an even more primordial level—from Nyx, "Night". Their number is usually left indeterminate. Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto ("unceasing", who appeared in Virgil's Aeneid), Megaera ("grudging"), and Tisiphone ("avenging murder"). Dante followed Virgil in depicting the same three-charactered triptych of Erinyes; in Canto IX of the Inferno they confront the poets at the gates of the city of Dis. The heads of the Erinyes were wreathed with serpents (compare Gorgon) and their eyes dripped with blood, rendering their appearance rather horrific. Other depictions show them with the wings of a bat or bird and the body of a dog.

Source(s): Percy Jackson and the Olympians - The Ultimate Guide ;;Wikipedia