![]() ![]() Ibis and Anubis - Egyptian gods of the dead - naturally become morticians. An Arabic ifrit, or jinni, whirls through Manhattan as a cab driver. Nancy, a courtly old black man with a knack for clever stories. So a goddess of love, such as the Middle Eastern Bilquis, turns tricks in Hollywood. Others took up professions vaguely associated with their traditional attributes. ![]() Without worshipers, these erstwhile lords of Nature drifted aimlessly around the country. But over time the old-world beliefs faded, and the vitalizing sacrifices to the ancient deities were abandoned. Neil Gaiman - acclaimed for his Sandman graphic novels and for the comic Good Omens (co-authored with Terry Pratchett) - imagines that all the immigrants who've ever come to America brought their gods along too. ![]() This is, in large part, the premise of American Gods. Did Zeus and the Roman Pantheon and the children of Odin simply vanish? Did all those folkloric satyrs, imps and kobolds, those leprechauns, nymphs and little people just evaporate, like dew in the sunlight of reason? Or might they, in fact, still be among us, unrecognized, somewhat diminished in power, but nonetheless here? ![]() At least since sailors of late antiquity heard a voice crying "The Great Pan is dead!," writers have wondered about the fate of the gods. ![]()
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