Angels, Demons and Spirits
Angels and demons, jinn and devas, golems, fox spirits and strigoi: the beings of belief and folklore, where they come from and what people have told of them.
Beliefs of living faiths are described as those faiths teach them, and folklore as folklore.
Heavenly beings
Messengers and servants of God in the Abrahamic faiths.
Demons and adversaries
Tempters, ogres and the restless dead, from the Bible to Japanese and Romanian folklore.
- Rakshasas Rakshasas are the shape-shifting night beings of Hindu tradition, led in the Ramayana by Ravana of Lanka, a figure Jain and Buddhist tellings and many later poets saw in a different light.
- Demons How the adversary of the Hebrew Bible became Satan, the Devil of Christianity and Iblis of the Quran, and how fallen angels, Beelzebub and demons entered Abrahamic belief and art.
- Lilith From Mesopotamian wind demons and a single verse of Isaiah to Adam’s rebellious first wife, protective amulets and a modern feminist symbol, the long and changing story of Lilith.
- Strigoi Strigoi are the living witches and restless dead of Romanian folklore, warded off with garlic on Saint Andrew’s Eve, whose lore Bram Stoker’s Dracula borrowed and transformed.
- Oni Oni are the horned ogres of Japanese folklore, from man-eating demons of mountain and hell to the masked figures chased out with beans at Setsubun and the guardians on temple roofs.
Spirits and other beings
Jinn, nagas, hungry ghosts, fox spirits and the clay golem: neither angels nor demons.
- Devas and asuras Devas and asuras, the gods and their rivals of Indian tradition, from the Vedic hymns and the churning of the ocean to Buddhism’s realms of rebirth and the Zoroastrian reversal.
- Dybbuk In Jewish folklore a dybbuk is the restless soul of a dead person that cleaves to the living. Its story runs from Safed’s kabbalists to An-sky’s famous play and modern film.
- Golem The golem, a figure of clay brought to life by holy letters, grew from a word in the Psalms and a Talmudic tale into the legend of Rabbi Loew of Prague and a modern symbol of creation out of control.
- Jinn In Islamic belief the jinn are unseen beings of smokeless fire with free will like humans, a story that runs from the Quran and Arab folklore to the One Thousand and One Nights.
- Nagas Nagas are the serpent beings of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain tradition, guardians of water, rain and hidden treasure, from Shesha and Mucalinda to the festival of Naga Panchami.
- Preta Pretas are the hungry ghosts of Buddhist and Hindu belief, the restless dead fed by the offerings of the living, honoured at the Ghost Festival, Obon and rites for the ancestors.
- Kitsune Kitsune are the fox spirits of Japanese belief and folklore, messengers of the kami Inari at Fushimi Inari and shapeshifting tricksters, lovers and possessors of countless tales.
- Valkyries The valkyries of Norse myth were Odin’s ‘choosers of the slain’, who decided who fell in battle and led the chosen to Valhalla, later reimagined by Wagner and modern popular culture.