They’re all tridents but some get bent in the tines when hot stuffs lean on them so they look like pitchforks.
Stereotypes. Without stereotypes, you wouldn’t recognize what it is. That’s why all cartoon santa clauses look the same.
In Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights tree is one rabbit devil, and I think he’s got a boat hook or pike. It seems to me devils just need something to prod along the herds of condemned souls.
There is a tasteless joke, however, about telling the difference between dead babies and live babies using a pitchfork.
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On the influence of Hinduism, see Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma and Kali. The two ‘destructive’ ones, Shiva and Kali, are holding a trishul - trident. Early Catholic missionaries like Francis Xavier weren’t shy about calling Hindu deities ‘demonic’; the tridents serving as a visual shorthand for the concept.
That was my first thought too. Makes sense, as agricultural tool familiar to everybody, but not the proper one, a staff, for cared-for sheep, but a goad, for things that don’t want to move (cattle?).
Hindu gods are called devas, and goddesses are devis…etymologistically, :dubious: is the english word “devil” derived from deva/devi?
Seems to come from Greek. I have no idea where the Greeks got it from.
I think it might just be coincidence; the English ‘devil’ ultimately comes from the Greek diabolos, ‘slanderer’. Sanskrit ‘deva’ apparently comes from the proto-Indo-European ‘dyeus’; roughly ‘sky’.
I thought maybe ‘demon’ might be connected although that apparently goes back to the PIE ‘dai’, ‘divide’ so again I don’t think it’s connected either.
According to wiktionary the ‘dia’ part comes from PIE ‘dis’; ‘twice’. The ‘-bollo’ part seems to be from a PIE word meaning ‘to hit’.
This would be my guess.
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Sanskrit ‘deva’ apparently comes from the proto-Indo-European ‘dyeus’; roughly ‘sky’.
I thought maybe ‘demon’ might be connected although that apparently goes back to the PIE ‘dai’, ‘divide’ so again I don’t think it’s connected either.
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The word “divine” is closely related as is the Latin “Deus”. So “heavenly being” or “celestial”?
Demon comes from “daemon”: a familiar, a spirit guide, a guardian or mentor spirit.