what are some Gods/Goddesses of the sea/ocean?

Question

I've done some looking around and they're a little hard to find as most sites seem to only let you search by god rather than type of god. I know about the popular ones, poseiden and neptune and i think there's one named Enki or Endi but haven't found much on him. If you could just tell me some names and maybe a bit about what they are like or point me in the direction of some good sites or books that would be great, thanks.

Answer 1

Here is a list that I compiled. I tried to leave out those figures that weren't gods or goddesses (like sea monsters and sea nymphs) and this list inexhaustible. There are some mythologies that I am more familiar with, so there are many that have been left out.

Poseidon- Greek sea god.
Oceanus- the personification of the oceans/seas, a Titan.
Thaumas- Greek sea god, son of Pontus and Gaia/Gaea.
Triton- usually depicted as a merman, the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite.
Amphitrite- Greek sea goddess, daughter of Tethys and Oceanus.
Thalassa/Thalatta/Thalath/Tethys- Greek sea goddess and Titaness.
Eurybia- minor Greek sea goddess, daughter of Pontus and Gaia/Gaea.
Doris- Greek sea goddess, daughter of Tethys and Oceanus.
Proteus- Greek sea god, called the "Old Man of the Sea".
Nereus- Greek sea god, son of Pontus and Gaia/Gaea. One of the "Old Man of the Sea" manifestations.
Pontus- Greek sea god (pre-Olympian), father of Thaumas.
Phorcys- Greek sea god, son of Pontus and Gaia/Gaea.
Glaucus- Greek sea god.
Melicertes/Palaemon- Greek god of harbors.
Neptune- Roman sea god.
Salacia- Roman sea goddess.
Portunes/Portunus- Roman god of harbors.
Aegir- Norse sea god.
Rán- Norse sea goddess, wife of Aegir.
Njord- Norse sea god, also god of winds and fire.
Nu/Nun- Egyptian god of the primordial water.
Naunet- Egyptian goddess of the primordial water.
Manannan mac Lir/Barinthus- Celtic/Irish sea god.
Fand- minor Celtic sea goddess.
Coventina- Celtic water goddess.
Llyr- Welsh sea god.
Dylan- Welsh sea god.
Ea/Enki/Nudimmud- Babylonian sea god.
Tiamat- Babylonian dragon/goddess that personifies the ocean and chaos.
Nammu- Babylonian/ Sumerian sea goddess, also a creation goddess.
Idliragijenget- Inuit sea god.
Sedna- Inuit sea goddess.
Aipaloovik- evil Inuit sea god.
Tangaroa- Maori/Polynesian sea god.
Yam/Yam Nahar- Ugaritic sea god.
Yu-qiang- Chinese sea god.
Ryo-Wo- Japanese sea god. Known as the "Dragon King"
Wata-tsu-mi- Japanese sea god.
Suitengu- Japanese child god of the sea.
Ame-No-Mi-Kumari- Japanese Shinto water goddess.
Susanowa- Japanese Shinto god of the ocean.
Isora- Japanese god of seashores/beaches.
Kanaloa- Hawaiian sea/ocean god.

Answer 2

The Norse goddess Hel is pretty bada**. She rules the underworld with an iron fist, has a face that's half beautiful and half monster, and rules over anyone who doesn't get to Valhalla after death. She is also supposed to be a key player in the beginning of Ragnarok.

Answer 3

Nereis was one of the Greek sea gods, although Poseidon was the main one.
Thetis was his daughter. She was the mother of Achilles, and was a sea goddess until she married a mortal. SHe was beautiful and elegant, calm and serene, known as thetis of the silver feet.
Mananaan Mac Lir is the sea god of Irish mythology. His white horses could travel over the sea (Probably like breakers on waves). He was very wise but very uncontrollable.

Answer 4

In Norse mythology both Aegir and Njord were both associated with the sea. Aegir was (somewhat ambiguously, I think) a member of the group of gods called the Aesir, while Njord (along with his twin children, Frey and Freyja) were members of the group of gods called the Vanir.

Answer 5

In Norse mythology, the gods of the sea were protectors and patrons of sailors and explorers. The main sea god was Ægir.
And here you can find a complete list of Greek Gods and Goddesses (and there are many:-) -http://www.theoi.com/greek-mythology/sea-gods.html
+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_sea_gods


Enjoy!

Answer 6

Neptune

Answer 7

In celtic myth the seagod was Mannanan macLir. His home was on the Isle of Man, which still bears his name.
there is a very obscure Scottish sea deity known as 'Shoney'.

Answer 8

I just typed in 'sea gods' into google. came up with a few hits before I started hitting books.

Answer 9

The ancient Greeks had a large number of sea gods. The philosopher Plato once remarked that the Greek people were like frogs sitting around a pond -- their many cities hugging close to the Mediterranean coastline from the Hellenic homeland to Asia Minor, Libya, Sicily and Southern Italy. It was natural, therefore, to develop a rich variety of aquatic divinities. The range of Greek sea gods of the classical era range from primordial powers and an Olympian on the one hand, to heroized mortals, chthonic nymphs, trickster-figures, and monsters on the other.

These gods are valuable to study for several reasons. First, because the sea loomed so large in Greek life of all periods, a great deal of moral, cosmological, and mythopoetic thought is wrapped up in its divinities. Second, the sheer variety and strangeness of the Greek sea gods seem to hold forth hints about the pre-history of Greek religion.
Some early Greek thinkers made the sea-divinities into primordial powers. Oceanus and Tethys are the father and mother of the gods in the Iliad, while the Spartan poet Alcman made the sea-nymph Thetis a demiurge-figure. Orpheus's song in Book I of the Argonautica hymns the sea-nymph Eurynome as first queen of the gods, as wife of the ocean-born giant Ophion.

The pre-Socratic cosmogony of Thales, who made water the first element, may be seen as a natural outgrowth of this poetic thinking.

The primacy of aquatic gods is reminiscent of, and may have been borrowed from, ancient Near Eastern mythology - where Tiamat (salt water) and Apsu (fresh water) are the first gods of the Enuma Elish, and where the Spirit of God is said to have "hovered over the waters" in Genesis.


Several names of sea gods conform to a single type: that of Homer's halios geron or Old Man of the Sea: Nereus, Proteus, Glaucus and Phorkys. Each one is a shape-shifter, a prophet, and the father of either radiantly beautiful nymphs or hideous monsters. Nymphs and monsters blur, for Hesiod relates that Phorcys was wed to the "beautiful-cheeked" Ceto, whose name is merely the feminine of the monstrous Cetus, to whom Andromeda was due to be sacrificed. Each appearance in myth tends to emphasize a different aspect of the archetype: Proteus and Nereus as shape-shifters and tricksters, Phorcys as a father of monsters, Nereus and Glaucus for truth-telling, Nereus for the beauty of his daughters.

Each one of these Old Men is the father or grandfather of many nymphs and/or monsters, who often bear names that are either metaphorical (Thetis, "establishment"; Telesto, "success") or geographical (Rhode from "Rhodes"; Nilos, "Nile"). Each cluster of Old Man and daughters is therefore a kind of pantheon in miniature, each one a different possible configuration of the spiritual, moral and physical world writ small - and writ around the sea.

The tantalizing figure of the halios geron has been a favorite of scholarship. The Old Men have been seen as everything from survivals of old Aegean gods who presided over the waves before Poseidon (Kerenyi) to embodiments of archaic speculation on the relation of truth to cunning intelligence (Detienne).

Homer's Odyssey contains a haunting description of a cave of the Nereids on Ithaca, close by a harbor sacred to Phorcys. The Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry read this passage as an allegory of the whole universe - and he may not have far off the mark.

Answer 10

Mermaids, mermen, sea nymphs, sirens, Poeidon, Neptune, etc....