Angry Gods.

1. Artemis: The Angry Bathing God.

The ultimate definition of a woman scorned, Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, of nature, and of chastity, had a temper notorious even by the standards of her fellow anger-prone Olympians. the fact that she killed her follower Maera and changed another friend, Callisto, into a bear was the least of it (in both cases, by the way, the hapless ladies had committed the "crime" of losing their virginity). Along with her brother Apollo, Artemis slaughtered the children of the Theban queen Niobe, for no more than insulting their mother. On two separate occasions young men had the misfortune to stumble upon Artemis while she bathed naked in the forest; one was turned into a stag and promptly killed by his own hounds, while the other got off easy (only being turned into a woman). Artemis even killed a girl name Chione for the sin of being too beautiful - which became more of a sin when the girl's beauty was said to rival the goddess's.

2. Kali: The Badly Dressed God.

A Hindu fertility goddess, Kali is the female aspect of divine energy and the consort of Shiva, the Destroyer. As the slayer of evil spirits and the somewhat unpredictable mother of all life, she also moonlights as the goddess of death. Not a bad gig, except the uniform's a little scary. To show how many evil spirits she's slain, Kali's usually depicted wearing a necklace of human skulls and a girdle of severed arms, children's corpses as earrings, and cobras as bracelets. The outfit is pulled together, however, by her ferocious grimace and the blood smeared on her face. And in her eight arms she holds weapons or the severed head of a demon, representing both her creative and her destructive power. Some followers honored her with animal sacrifices, though a few even took things to the next level. One India-wide sect, the Thuggee, kidnapped and murdered humans as sacrifices to "the Dark Mother" until they were wiped out by British colonial authorities in the 1800s.

3. Huitzilopchtli: The Needy (in a Human Sacrificial Way) God.

Huitzilopchtli, the Aztec god of the sun and war, was worshiped with rites so horrific that they probably couldn't be shown in the most demented of horror movies today. As far as the mythology goes, he's been causing a violent ruckus since birth. Right after he was born, Huitzilopchtli killed his own sister, Coyolxauhqui, and hung her head in the sky as the moon. He then killed thousands of his other siblings and placed them in the sky as the stars and planets. Not easily appeased, Huitzilopchtli, like virtually all Aztec deities, demanded constant human sacrifice as his price for not destroying the world. And boy did he get 'em! Every day, people were slaughtered in his temples and their hearts offered to the sun. Of course, during festivals, you could count on Huitzilopchtli's wrath to make sure that thousands of people were sacrificed at a time.

4. Thor: The God of Hammer Time.

The Norse god of thunder and protector of the common man, Thor wielded a war hammer so heavy that only he could use it. In fact, the weapon was so unwieldy that he was known from time to time to fly off the handle (no pun intended). Of course, that wasn't his only unusual gimmick. Like any god who commands respect, thor enjoyed rolling around town in a pimped-out chariot drawn by - what else? - magic goats. And as if that doesn't sound tough enough, his ride also was equipped to scorch earth wherever it went. But back to his wrath; nothing could get on Thor's nerves like Loki, the divine trickster. And eventually, it was Thor's anger that became the driving force behind Loki's torturous imprisonment, strapped down to a rock under a mountain with venom dripping in his face. Not that the rascal didn't deserve it. You can't, after all, just go around stealing the hair off Thor's wife's head and expect not to have to pay. Aside from cruelty to Loki, though, Thor's anger also emerged when he treated a group of dwarves rather roughly for making advances on the goddess Freya. But then again, Thor was generally on the hunt for a good fight. What more can you expect from a god whose favorite pastime is killing giants and monsters?

5. Balor: The Never-Look-Him-in-the-Eye God.

Balor of the Evil Eye, as he was called, was the Celtic god of the underworld and king of the Fomorians, a race of giants whom myth assigned to the Emerald Isle. As the story goes, Balor's mere gaze was enough to kill anyone it fell on (though, he normally kept his eye closed). That, of course, didn't keep him from doing plenty of wrong. Among his more nefarious doings was locking up his daughter Ethlinn in a vain attempt to keep her from having her child, a prophesied savior (Her son, Lugh, eventually became god of the sun and killed Balor by throwing a spear into his eye). Balor was also pretty fond of picking wars in order to use his evil eye. In fact, in one of them, Balor was thrilled to put an end to King Nuada, the Celtic sea god, using just his fearsome gaze.

From mental_floss' book Forbidden Knowledge: A Wickedly Smart Guide to History's Naughtiest Bits, published in Neatorama with permission.

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