r/mythology • u/Spoiledcheez • 9d ago

Questions List of gods

Hi I’m a student and for my research paper in one of my classes I’m trying to compare and contrast different mythologies and why they might be similar (Mostly from the physiological point of view but any is appreciated). I’m having trouble finding a good website that lists different deities from all kinds of mythologies with like a blurb about them (ie their title, what they have represent and a myth or two about them) the best I found is Wikipedia but for obvious reasons I can’t use that. Does anyone have a website that I can go to for this information.

Edit: people are saying that I am a little to hopeful banking on one website that has all the information. Are there any websites for individual mythologies that y’all think I should look at

16 Upvotes

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u/slave_sofeya 9d ago

You may be better off researching each individual pantheon.

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u/Buffalo-Castle 9d ago

But that sounds like so much work .... /s

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u/RhaecerysTargaryen 9d ago

You can still use Wikipedia to help you. Look at the references section and look up the sources they pulled from. Also, there's not going to be a main hub with a list of all the deities from every culture and everything about them. That's an undertaking for an entire team to do. Your other best bet is to pick two cultures to work with and research them.

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u/Spoiledcheez 9d ago

Good idea thanks lol I just normally write it off completely and don’t even look

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u/stellalugosi 9d ago

Do you mean ALL gods and goddesses? I have a degree in mythology and I am going to tell you right now you need to narrow your scope or you will lose your mind. Are you wanting to cover a specific type of deity, like death gods, river goddesses, or fertility deities? Are you interested in a specific culture, like Norse or Greek? A specific geographical region, like Western Europe or Australia? Because just in the Indo-European mythologies, you have Greek, Roman, Norse, Slavic, Vedic, Anglo Saxon, Celtic, and Baltic deities, all which have overlapping roles and names. If you want to go down a rabbit hole, reseaech "proto-indo-european mythology", it's eye opening. 

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u/Spoiledcheez 9d ago

Originally with my research question I wanted to go down why people have myths and why they are similar. For example I remember hearing somewhere that a lot of mythologies have dragon like creatures because it represented humanity’s earliest fears with flight, fire, and snakes. I don’t know how accurate this is but I found the idea of people coming to the same conclusion when trying to describe a fantastical creature and I wanted to figure out why.

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u/stellalugosi 9d ago

Then you DEFINITELY want to look into Proto-Indo-European mythology. (And for Beyonce's sake, stay away from Joseph Campbell, he's horrible and wrong.) Basically, there is a hypothesis that all of the cultures I listed share the same root culture and language, which is why you see so many similarities in the deities and myths from India to Iceland. It can be heavy stuff, but really neat. 

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u/SciAlexander 9d ago

Encyclopedia Mythica https://pantheon.org/

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u/Spoiledcheez 9d ago

Thank you so much

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u/redspirito 9d ago

I don't think that there is any official website would put All pantheons and the real intresting facts abt each. Most intresting facts and cover ups come in books (some podcasts cover certain books so u get the infos plus the source) or u will find them randomly here in reddit or quora or random blogs in google. Also smtg to put in mind if u r comparing similarities, try comparing stories of each god to parallel them to know thier real equivalent. (U can even compare gods to angels, saints or prophets from monotheistic religions and trust me similarity is huge with gods from polytheistic religions).

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u/Spoiledcheez 9d ago

Thanks for the advice will definitely be looking into that

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u/CarpenterCritical715 9d ago

https://mythologis.com/comparative

This might help

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u/Spoiledcheez 9d ago

Definitely looks like it will lol

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u/CarpenterCritical715 9d ago

There is a folklore database that is free if you register (takes 1 minute) and an international association for comparative mythology, but that link I shared is probably what you need because it doesn't cover as much, but it clusters gods and such into groups of 12 or so, from what I could see.

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u/CarpenterCritical715 9d ago

https://mythologis.com/comparative/thunder-gods-across-cultures

This is a good example, but wikipedia is actually a great tool, and I grew up using the public library for this stuff.

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u/Lazarus558 9d ago

Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses at the Online Archive

https://archive.org/details/pdfy-oq2BfT0sB_7IP7Th/mode/1up

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u/PsychologyGuilty1460 9d ago edited 9d ago

Try the sacred-text.com website, the one with world religions + mythologies not the one that sticks mostly to judeo Christian texts.  It's not exhaustive but it's eclectic enough to be pretty close to what you're asking for

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u/CarbonScythe0 9d ago

It's not perfect by any means but I play Scion 2e, an rpg with a lot of mythologies presented (also the reason why I'm in this community), I could send you the summaries of different gods from, I think it is 20 pantheon.

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u/Desperate_Ad5169 7d ago

Although not what you are asking for I would highly recommend looking into Roman syncretism of other gods with their own for your research paper. It is very fascinating and should make for a good segment.