Cupid:God of passion and lust.

Cupid, The cherub of love and passion.

Cupid is the Roman equivalent to Eros the  Greek of Lust.

Cupid (lust or desire) and Amor (affectionate love) are to  different names for the same Roman love-god, ( in some versions cupid is a set of twins) erith was he is the son of Venus, fathered by Mercury, Vulcan or Mars (depending on which version of the story you read.) is young Childlike figure with  wings  who accompany Venus and has also been  identified as Amores, Cupids, Erotes or other forms of  Eros.

The oldest version of cupid   is Eros, whom Hesiod categories as a primordial deity, emerging from Chaos as a generative power with neither mother nor father. Eros was the patron deity of Thespiae, where he was embodied as an aniconic stone as late as the 2nd century AD. From at least the 5th century BC he also had the form of an adolescent or pre-adolescent male, at Elis (on the Peloponnese) and elsewhere in Greece,  acquiring wings, bow and arrows, and eventually divine parents in the love-goddess Aphrodite and the war-god Ares. He had temples of his own, and shared others with Aphrodite.


Fragmentary base for an altar of Venus and Mars, showing cupids or erotes playing with the war-god's weapons and chariot. From the reign of Trajan (98–117 AD)

 

 

 

 In Elis, and  Athens, Eros shared a cult with a twin, named Anteros. Xenophon's Socratic Symposion 8. 1, features a dinner-guest with eros (love) for his wife; in return, she has anteros (reciprocal love) for him. Some sources suggest Anteros as the  avenger of "slighted love".

In Servius' 4th century commentary on Virgil's Aeneas, Cupid is a deceptive agent of Venus, impersonating Aeneas' son and making Dido, queen of Carthage, forget her husband. When Aeneas rejects her love, and covertly leaves Carthage to fulfill his destiny as ancestor of the Roman people, Dido is said to invoke Anteros as "contrary to Cupid". She falls into hatred and despair, curses Rome, and when Aeneas leaves, commits suicide.

Ovid's Fasti, Book 4, invokes Venus not by name but as "Mother of the Twin Loves", the gemini amores. "Amor" is the Latin name preferred by Roman poets and literati for the personification of "kindly" love. Where Cupid (lust) can be imperious, cruel, prone to mischief or even war-like, Amor softly persuades. Cato the Elder, having a Stoic's outlook, sees Cupid as a deity of greed and blind passion, morally inferior to Amor. The Roman playwright Plautus, however, has Venus, Cupid and Amor working together.

In Roman cult inscriptions and theology, "Amor" is rare, and "Cupido" relatively common. No Roman temples seem dedicated to Cupid alone but the joint dedication formula Venus Cupidoque ("Venus and Cupid") is evidence of his cult, shared with Venus at her Temple just outside the Colline Gate and elsewhere. He would also have featured in many private household cults. In private and public areas alike, statues of Venus and Mars attended by Cupid, or Venus, Cupid and minor erotes were sometimes donated by wealthy sponsors, to serve both religious and artistic purposes.

 Cupid's roles in literary myth are usually limited to actions on behalf of Venus; in Cupid and Psyche, one of the stories within the Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)  by the Roman author Apuleius, the plot and its resolution are driven by Cupid's love for Psyche ("soul"), his filial disobedience, and his mother's envy.

 

 

 

Warai Onna, The Laughing Woman

 

 

 

 Warai onna
The Laughing Woman.


Long ago, a samurai named Higuchi Kandayū ignored the villagers’ warnings and went hunting with his retainers on Mount Tōkō on the ninth day of the month. On the trail, a beautiful woman around seventeen or eighteen years old appeared before him. She pointed a finger and laughed at him. 

As she laughed, her voice grew higher, and louder, and fiercer. Soon it seemed to Kandayū that the entire mountain was laughing at him. The trees, the rocks, the rivers, and even the wind seemed to echo her laughter. Kandayū and his retainers fled in terror, and when they finally exited the mountains, his retainers all fainted. Although he escaped successfully, Kandayū was haunted by that laughter, which echoed in his ears until he died.





The  Warai onna or Laughing Woman is a Yokai that resides in the mountains of the island of Shikoku.

The legend of the Warai onna come's from the folklore of Kōchi Prefecture. 

 

They only appear in the mountains on certain days: the first, ninth, and seventeenth days of every month. Because of this, locals will warn others to stay out of the mountains on those days.

As far as appearances, she looks just like any other average young women in her late teens or very early twenty's.

Her laughter can be heard late into the night by travelers who find themselves in the mountains after sunset.


Those that dare to tread into her mountains take thire chances and hope for the best. Those unfortunate enough to meet a warai onna run thr rist of
permanent madness or even death.

She will smile and laugh at a person when they meet. 

However her laughter is infectious, and often causes those who see her to laugh along too.

 Though, even after she leaves, the people who laughed along with her will continue to do so, to the point of sever laughter leaving them rolling on the ground laughing until
they are out of breath and unable to even stand. These is followed by  a sever  fever which, after a few days, will kill the victims.


Even those who somehow resist laughing along with her are not safe. Just hearing her laughter is enough to induce psychosis.  

 

They begin to hear a mocking laughter. Those who survive an encounter are still doomed to hear her laughter everywhere for the rest of their lives.



There is a male equivalent to the warai onna , called the warai otoko. They behave exactly the same way as warai onna.

A kerakera onna (“cackling woman”) has almost the exact same features as warai onna, except she only appears in red light districts not the  mountains.