"Earth Mother... was never without the challenge of competitors. ...These gods were so numerous that even the priests could scarcely call the names of all of them, just as a Catholic archbishop of today would be stumped if he were asked to recite a roster of the saints. The Celts alone seem to have had thousands. ...the lesser gods were often put into groups for convenience, and their individuality tended to disappear. Thus there were the oak-spirits; the niskai, who were water-spirits; and the quadriviae, who were goddesses of the cross-roads. The early Greeks, as everyone knows, had multitudes of subordinate gods and goddesses who were similarly classified... These mediatized and regimented divinities survive today as fairies, gnomes, jinns, sylphs, trolls, fays, nixies, and kobolds. Every civilized race has its battalions of them."
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Treatise on the Gods
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