Gods and Goddesses of Witchcraft:
Pan

Pan is one of the ancient Greek gods, he is considered to be one of the younger gods, compared to the older ones such as Zeus, as he was the son of Hermes and Penelope. However, even though the Greeks considered Pan to be one of the youngest gods, he was actually on of the oldest, having been worshipped as early as the 6th Century BC In Arcadia, which was a fertile plateau to the south of modern Greece, where it is said Pan was born. This is also where the ancestors of the Greek empire came from thus Pan was adopted into Greek mythology. These ancient people were mainly shepherds and therefore Pan became the God of the shepherds, among other things.

Pan was the god of goats, sheep and their shepherds, as well as being the god of music (due to his playing of the reed pipes which shall be mentioned later on), the god of bee keeping, the god of prophecy and the god of nature-, which was everything to the forests to human nature itself. Some also claim that he was a minor god of the sea.

Pan’s worship extended from Greece all the way to Egypt and he has many equivalents around the world such as Aristaeus, Priapus and Silenus. The mythical creatures called satyrs (fauns) were also based on him and had their bottom half being of a goat and their top half being of a man with slightly goat-like features.

Pan was said to be born with a human torso and face and but with goat horns, ears, legs and tail. His mother was so distraught when she first saw him that she felt panic (this was the origin of the word) and abandoned him. Hermes wrapped up Pan and carried him off to Mount Olympus.

The word panic was also derived from the fact that he often startled travellers when they saw him, particularly when he blew on a conch (shellfish). This caused them the panic.

Pan was usually depicted with a shepherd’s staff (because he was to god of shepherds) and a reed pipe. The story behind the pipes was that Pan fell in love with a nymph called Syrinx, but she spurned his love and escaped from him and came upon a river called Ladon. Because Pan was chasing her she asked the nymphs of the river to help her and they changed her form into marsh reeds so she could hide from Pan. Pan heard the sound that the air produced in the reeds and wanted to hold her so much that he formed the reeds into some pipes, which he named Syrinx after her. These pipes are also sometimes known as the Pan flute and are famous in Greek mythology and are believed o hold the power to call up Pan himself by playing these pipes of playing a certain tune which was belonging to him.

Pan was also seen to be very randy and therefore also a god of fertility. This idea of Pan has passed through the ages and even the Greek women who were seemed to have a bit of a track record with men were known as Pan girls. He was often depicted to chase nymphs through the forest while playing on his pipes. However he was not very popular with these nymphs and one called Echo ran away from him, which ended with her loosing her voice and only being able to repeat the words of others. This is where to idea of the echo came from Pan’s worshippers were very civilized compared to the other worshippers and they wrote down everything resulting in an abundance on books full of mentions of Pan and the myths surrounding him.

In Greek, both ancient and modern the name Pan means 'All, everything' and he is seen as the God of the cosmic whole. His feet are in touch with the earth, his face is the sky, and his head is wise and prophetic while also being able to create music and his horns represent the sun and the moon. He is said to be the personification of wisdom and human nature.