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Dagon(Contributed by Matt Enis)
The stories of H.P. Lovecraft made him famous and inspired modern depictions of him as a sea monster in games and horror movies, but Dagon was originally an ancient Middle Eastern god of agriculture.
Dagon's name has started popping up in a lot of titles
recently, most obviously in the Lovecraft inspired "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth." The name
also makes a few appearances in the Elder Scrolls series, such as the Daedra Lord
"Mehrunes Dagon," in
Knowledge of Dagon is fairly fragmentary, and there's still some argument over how he was depicted by his worshippers in the ancient world. The Bible mentions him several times as the principal god of the Philistines, a maritime people who were ancient enemies of the Israelites. While it is believed that his name is derived from a Semitic word for "grain" and he is believed to have originated as a deity in the area that is now Iraq, one Biblical story hints that the Philistines depicted him as something like a merman, with the head, arms and torso of a man, and lower body of a fish. |
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In that story, the Philistines have captured the Ark of the Covenant and taken it back to a Temple of Dagon in their city of Ashdod (I Samuel 5). Overnight, the statue of Dagon inside the temple is overwhelmed by the power of the Ark, and collapses in front of it. When the Philistines return, his face and hands are cut off, and only his "trunk," or "stump" remains, suggesting that the statue did not have separate legs. The text then makes an obscure reference to the Philistines being especially superstitious of the Temple in Ashdod, and afraid to pass its threshold.
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In a separate, earlier instance, the legendary
Biblical strongman and Israelite Judge Samson has been betrayed by Delilah (and arguably, his own arrogance),
and is captured and blinded by the Philistines. They take him to a Temple of Dagon in the city of Gaza
during a huge harvest festival, where God gives him the power to perform one final feat of strength. He
Religious texts from other ancient cultures in the
surrounding region also mention Dagon, but often, only in passing, describing him as the father of
Ba'al. Like Dagon, Ba'al was considered to be a benevolent god by the people who worshipped him. The ancient city
of Ugarit, uncovered in what is now northern Syria in 1928, contained a wealth religious poetry on clay
Both gods have since received rather rough treatment
in occult and popular literature, as well as games. Ba'al, for example, is often portrayed as a demon in
modern games, such as Diablo II. Since the Bible is the most widely published and read book in world
history, this is understandable. As the chief gods of the people who were the enemies of those that wrote
Back to Dagon, H.P. Lovecraft took all of these (and more!) elements of fragmentary knowledge and boiled them down into the sea monster we know and love today. In the graf from this short story below, for example, our protagonist has the unfortunate fate of stumbling upon an ancient, malevolent god worshipped by a disgusting race of fish people:
"Then suddenly I saw it. With only a slight churning "H.P. Lovecraft, "Dagon"
I'm no heathen, but as a counterpoint to our friend in purple prose above, here's a fragment of a poem attributed to Dagon's son Ba'al that I've always found to be rather fetching. (From Stories of Ancient Canaan, edited and translated by Michael David Coogan, Westminster Press, 1978).
I have a word to tell you,
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