GREEK MYTHOLOGY - EPISODE 3

| Kêres | Κηρες |

The Keres, demon spirits (daimones) of violent or cruel death, including death in battle, by accident, murder or ravaging disease.Dark-winged death demons which haunted the battlefields of men and fed on the blood of dying men. They were pale demons with clawed hands and gnashing teeth. Another spirit, Thanatos, was the god of non-violent death.

They were agents of the Moirai (Fates), birth-goddesses who measured out the length of a man's life when he first entered the world, and Moros (Doom) the Daimon who drove a man towards his inevitable destruction. The Keres were cravers of blood and feasted upon it after ripping a soul free from the mortally wounded bodies and sending it on their way to Haides. Thousands of Keres haunted the battlefield, fighting amongst themselves like vultures over the dying. The Keres had no absolute power over the life of men, but in their hunger for blood would seek accomplish death beyond the bounds of fate. Zeus and the other gods, however, could stop them in their course or speed them on. The Olympian gods are often described standing by their favorites in battle, beating the clawing death spirits from them. Some of the Keres were personifications of epidemic diseases, which haunted areas riven by plague. The Keres were depicted as fanged, taloned women dressed in bloody garments.

The Keres may have been the evil spirits released from Pandora's jar to plague mankind. Hesiod mentions them indirectly in his account of the episode. He describes these spirits askakoi (evils), nosoi (sicknesses and plagues) and lugra (banes).

Source