N

Naiads, water nymphs

Namo, Duke of Bavaria, one of Charlemagne’s knights

Nanna, wife of Baldur

NANTERS, British king

Nantes, site of Caradoc’s castle

Nape, a dog of Diana

Narcissus, who died of unsatisfied love for his own image in the water

Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous, who befriended Ulysses

Nausithous, king of Phaeacians

Naxos, Island of

Negus, King of Abyssinia

Nemea, forest devastated by a lion killed by Hercules

Nemean games, held in honor of Jupiter and Hercules

Nemean lion, killed by Hercules

Nemesis, goddess of vengeance

NENNIUS, British combatant of Caesar

Neoptolemus, son of Achilles

Nepenthe, ancient drug to cause forgetfulness of pain or distress

Nephele, mother of Phryxus and Helle

Nephthys, Egyptian goddess

Neptune, identical with Poseidon, god of the sea

Nereids, sea nymphs, daughters of Nereus and Doris

Nereus, a sea god

Nessus, a centaur killed by Hercules, whose jealous wife sent him a robe or shirt steeped in the blood of Nessus, which poisoned him

Nestor, king of Pylos, renowned for his wisdom, justice, and knowledge of war

Nibelungen hoard, treasure seized by Siegfried from the Nibelungs, buried in the Rhine by Hagan after killing Siegfried, and lost when Hagan was killed by Kriemhild, theme of Wagner’s four music dramas, “The Ring of the Nibelungen,”

Nibelungen Lied, German epic, giving the same nature myth as the
Norse Volsunga Saga, concerning the Hoard

Nibelungen ring, Wagner’s music dramas

Nibelungs, the, a race of Northern dwarfs

Nidhogge, a serpent in the lower world that lives on the dead

Niffleheim, mist world of the Norsemen, the Hades of absent spirits

Nile, Egyptian river

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, proud Queen of Thebes, whose seven sons and seven daughters were killed by Apollo and Diana, at which Amphion, her husband, killed himself, and Niobe wept until she was turned to stone

Nisus, King of Megara

Noah, as legendary ancestor of French, Roman, German, and British peoples

Noman, name assumed by Ulysses

Norns, the three Scandinavian Fates, Urdur (the past), Verdandi (the present), and Skuld (the future)

Nothung, magic sword

Notus, southwest wind

Nox, daughter of Chaos and sister of Erebus, personification of night