Keres (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Keres /kriz/ (), singular

Ker /kr/ (), were female death-spirits. The Keres
were daughters of Nyx, and as such the sisters of the Fates
collectively known as the Moirai, the names of the three
Moirai being Atropos, Clotho and Lachesis. Some later
authorities, such as Cicero, called them by a Latin name,
Tenebrae, or the Darknesses, and named them daughters
of Erebus and Nyx.

Though not mentioned by Hesiod, Achlys may have been

included among the Keres.[1]
A parallel, and equally unusual personication of the
baleful Ker is in Homers depiction of the Shield of
Achilles (Iliad,ix.410), which is the model for the Shield
of Heracles. These are works of art that are being described.
In the fth century Keres were imaged as small winged
sprites in vase-paintings adduced by J.E. Harrison (Harrison, 1903), who described apotropaic rites and rites of
purication that were intended to keep the Keres at bay.

Description

According to a statement of Stesichorus noted by

Eustathius, Stesichorus called the Keres by the name
Telchines", whom Eustathius identied with the Kuretes
of Crete, who could call up squalls of wind and would
brew potions from herbs (noted in Harrison, p 171).

And Nyx (Night) bare hateful Moros

(Doom) and black Ker (Violent Death) and
Thanatos (Death), and she bare Hypnos
(Sleep) and the tribe of Oneiroi (Dreams).
And again the goddess murky Nyx, though
she lay with none, bare Momos (Blame) and
painful Oizys (Misery), and the Hesperides
... Also she bare the Moirai (Fates) and the
ruthless avenging Keres (Death-Fates) ... Also
deadly Nyx bare Nemesis (Envy) to aict
mortal men, and after her, Apate (Deceit) and
Philotes (Friendship) and hateful Geras (Old
Age) and hard-hearted Eris (Strife).
Hesiod, Theogony 211, translated by Hugh
G. Evelyn-White

The term Keres has also been cautiously used to describe

a persons fate.[2] An example of this can be found in the
Iliad where Achilles was given the choice (or Keres) between either a long and obscure life and home, or death
at Troy and everlasting glory. Also, when Achilles and
Hector were about to engage in a ght to the death, the
god Zeus weighed both warriors keres to determine who
shall die.[3] As Hectors ker was deemed heavier, he was
the one destined to die.[4] During the festival known as
Anthesteria, the Keres were driven away. Their Roman equivalents were Letum (death) or the Tenebrae
(shadows).

They were described as dark beings with gnashing teeth

and claws and with a thirst for human blood. They
would hover over the battleeld and search for dying and
wounded men. A description of the Keres can be found
in the Shield of Heracles (248-57):

Hunger, pestilence, madness,. nightmare

have each a sprite behind them; are all sprites,
J.E. Harrison observed (Harrison 1903, p 169),
but two Keres might not be averted, and these,
which emerged from the swarm of lesser ills,
were Old Age and Death. Odysseus says,
Death and the Ker avoiding, we escape
(Odyssey xii.158), where the two are not quite
identical: Harrison (p. 175) found the Christian parallel death and the angel of death.

The black Dooms gnashing their white

teeth, grim-eyed, erce, bloody, terrifying
fought over the men who were dying for they
were all longing to drink dark blood. As soon
as they caught a man who had fallen or one
newly wounded, one of them clasped her great
claws around him and his soul went down to
Hades, to chilly Tartarus. And when they had
satised their hearts with human blood, they
would throw that one behind them and rush
back again into the battle and the tumult.

Keres is also used to describe a branch of paganism that

follows the goddess Nyx. When applied in this way, Keres
is taken to mean daughters of Nyx.
Among destructive personications are (not all called
Keres);
Anaplekte (quick, painful death),

As death daimons, they were also associated with

Cerberus.

Akhlys (mist of death),

1

6
Nosos (disease),
Ker (destruction),
Stygere (hateful).

Keres and Valkyries

It is possible that a connection exists between Keres and

the Valkyries of Norse myth. Both deities are war spirits
that y over battleelds during conicts and choose those
to be slain. The dierence is that Valkyries are benevolent deities in contrast to the malevolence of the Keres,
perhaps due to the dierent outlook of the two cultures
towards war. Also the Greek word keres (choice) and
the Old Norse word kyrja (to choose) from valkyrja
seem to have a common root.

See also
Valkyrie
Badb
Kerostasia

References

[1] Akhlys
[2] In the second century AD Pausaniuas equated the two
(x.28.4). Here and elsewhere to translate 'Keres by fates
is to make a premature abstraction, Jane Ellen Harrison
warned (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, The
Ker as Evil Sprite p 170. See also Harrisons section The
Ker as Fate pp 183-87).
[3] This Kerostasia, or weighing of keres may be paralleled by
the Psychostasia or weighing of souls; a lost play with that
title was written by Aeschylus and the Egyptian parallel is
familiar.
[4] The subject appears in vase-paintings, where little men are
in the scales: it is the lives rather than the fates that are
weighed, Harrison remarks (Prolegomena p 184).

Sources
March, J., Cassells Dictionary Of Classical Mythology, London, 1999. ISBN 0-304-35161-X
Harrison, Jane Ellen, Prolegomena to the Study of
Greek Religion 1903. Chapter V: The demonology
of ghosts and spites and bogeys
Theoi Project, Keres references in classical literature

EXTERNAL LINKS

6 External links
The dictionary denition of Keres at Wiktionary

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