Keres (mythology)

Ker (Greek Κήρ "Death, death fate ", plural Κῆρες Keres, German and Keren ) In Greek mythology, the personification of violent death. Sometimes the name is also used for a whole group of death and misfortune demons.

According to Hesiod were Ker or the Keren Children of Nyx:

It appears here as a single personification both Ker (collectively, with Moros ) and the Keren as a group (along with the Moirai ). And in his poem The Shield of Heracles Hesiod designs a gruesome paintings from doing the Keren:

In Homer Ker usually appears as a little personalized name for death or death doom in the form of a violent death, who drags the life, in contrast to the gracious, gentle, sleep ( Hypnos ) related Thanatos (both also children of Nyx ). Especially in the Iliad they appear as demonic life predator of the battlefield, as "the grayish Keren of death", which one but also ( at least temporarily) can escape:

In the Latin mythographers appear Letum ( "Death, Destruction"; fabulae in Hyginus Mythographus, Praefatio ) and Tenebrae ( " eclipses "; Cicero De natura deorum in 3.17) than corresponding descendants of Nox ( " night "). Hyginus also renames Erebus as the father of Letum.