Dictionary Of God And Godedesses

236 Ostarastrate the god’s virility. His relationship with theEgyptian kingship was crucial. Each king was thedivine embodiment of Horus in life, but becameOsiris on his death.The Osirian legend is known from pure Egyptiantextual sources and from an embellishedaccount of the Greek writer Plutarch. The latterdescribes how Osiris was persuaded by Seth tostep into an exactly fitting sarcophagus during adrunken party. The coffin was nailed tight andthrown into the Nile. It was washed ashore atByblos in the Lebanon where it became encasedin the trunk of a growing tree. Eventually, thetrunk was cut down and incorporated as a pillar inthe palace of the local ruler. After years of searching,Isis found Osiris and brought his body home.She breathed life into it and impregnated herselfwith Osiris’s semen. She bore his son Horus.Meanwhile Seth found the body and once moredestroyed it by hacking it into fourteen piecesand scattering them along the Nile valley. Withthe exception of Osiris’s penis, which Seth hadthrown to a crocodile, Isis found all the piecesand buried them at the sites of various sanctuaries.She restored the penis with a replica whichsubsequently became a focus of the Osirian cult.The scattering of the body was allegorized withthe winnowing and scattering of grain in thefields.The purely Egyptian account omits the incidentof the sarcophagus and the discovery at Byblos.Isis is sometimes represented in the form of ahawk being impregnated by the erect phallus ofthe dead god. The reference to the fate of thepenis with a crocodile is also omitted. In theEgyptian version, the god’s phallus was buried atMemphis.OstaraSun goddess. Germanic. Associated with thecoming of spring and one of the derivations of theterm Easter, she equates with the Anglo-Saxondeity EOSTRE.Ostaraki (covering)Minor goddess. Buddhist (Mahayana). An attendantof BUDDHAKAPALA.OsunRiver goddess. Yoruba [Nigeria, West Africa].The daughter of Oba Jumu and Oba Do and theconsort of the god SHANGO. The guardian deityof the river Osun, revered particularly in thetowns and villages along the banks of the riverwhere sacred weapons are kept in her shrines.Also a goddess of healing. She is worshiped particularlyby women and is honored in an annualfestival, the Ibo-Osun, during which new culticpriestesses are selected.OTHIN (all father)ORIGIN Nordic (Icelandic) and Germanic. Headof the Aesir sky gods and principal god ofvictory in battle. God of the dead.KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP Viking period (circaAD 700) and earlier through to Christianization(circa AD 1100) and beyond.SYNONYMS Odin; Sigtyr (god of victory);Val-father (father of the slain); One-eyed;Hanga-god (god of the hanged); Farmagod(god of cargoes); Hapta-god (god ofprisoners).CENTER(S) OF CULT Uppsala (Sweden).ART REFERENCES various stone carvings.LITERARY SOURCES Icelandic codices; ProseEdda (Snorri); Historia Danica (Saxo); votiveinscriptions.Othin is the chief among the Viking AESIR skygods, the lord of hosts and god of victory who