Ever wondered what happens to the evil psychos and such like-minds whose murderous crimes never are discovered, or who bail out of life before they meet their just desserts?
    The answer is: the Erinyes.

There is some confusion in classical mythology concerning the Erinyes for most sources believe the word is merely another name for the Furies or the Eumenides (the kindly ones).
    In fact these are three separate groups of divinities, and without doubt (though the dreaded Harpies are seriously dangerous) the Erinyes are probably the most terrifying and cruel deities that exist. 

Others are fierce in the extreme and would relish to challenge the Erinyes to a test of cruelty; but these fearsome Goddesses are to our team-members' experience the most deadly. However, after several years of experience, we have found that the Erinyes can be kind and even bestow blessings. 
    But such gentleness is hard won.
    It can be done. It has. 

According to classical legend the Erinyes are three in number. Their names are fixed by mortals as Megara, Alecto and Tisiphone. Greek poets told of how the three appeared when a murder had been committed. Hair bristling with serpents and armed with whips and torches they waited at the doorway and the guilty party knew then there was no escape.

Where the Erinyes came from is not known. These Goddesses appear in literature from Homer onwards, and are described as terrible - though just - avengers of crime. Their most famous depiction is found in Aeschylus's Eumenides where he tells of how King Agamemnon was murdered by his wife and her lover; and how his son Orestes avenged the crime by slaying his mother and her lover. 

Such bloodshed caught the attention of the Erinyes who thereafter pursued Orestes. Some say he was helped by the Goddess Athena whose casting vote and diplomacy eased the Erinyes' thirst for Orestes' suffering. Another version claims he laboured to find an ancient image of Artemis and gained her help in off-setting their vengeance. Others say he bit off his own finger before their eyes in the hope this might appease them. 

Dream on Orestes. If he'd bitten off his own finger in front of the Erinyes, they would have shrieked with laughter and eaten the rest  before moving on to pains more intense for him and pleasureable for them; and thought it an hors d'oeuvre for the next few moments' entertainment.
    'They know no pity, they understand no mitigating circumstances,' wrote Aeschylus, many centuries ago. 
    It is true. 
    Only a God or a Goddesses can help you if the Erinyes lock-on.

On first encounter with them there appeared a weird black cloud, then it vanished and a voice was heard, then some mumbling in the background. "We have never had homage paid to us. This is unusual. We are not kindly, normally. Yet occasionally we relent. You can come with us," and the team member was dragged away...

    The following is her account of what happened next: 'First I saw one, then two and then, shadowy, a third. Two were identical with cracked clay faces. "We are the great Goddesses the Erinyes,'" said one of them. "We accept the homage you pay us. It has been a long time coming yet we realise there are others." 

They dragged me into a cave. The walls were running with water but there was a fire burning in the middle. I noticed dry heather on the floor, strewn about. They pushed me down and then I saw they carried thin canes, one after the other they put them into the fire so the ends caught light and then they came towards me. It was horrible, they wouldn't stop whipping me with these canes, on and on and on. It stung and burned at the same time. "How much can a mortal stand?" I heard one cackle.

    Another spoke: "She should have screamed by now!"
    Then I heard the third one say, "I told you she was special." 

I was shouting I'm not special I can't stand any more! Then I felt my hands bound behind my back and next the most excruciating pain as they set about stabbing thick metal skewers through my elbows and knees and they kept turning them. I was in serious pain. The cavern was filled with cackling laughter and then they became really vicious, whipping and cutting and skewering all over my body, slicing me down my thighs from backside to front, just slicing and I could hear the sound of the knife cutting. They were cutting both my thighs simultaneously.

    Eventually they dragged me back and I saw one had a beautiful young face. "You did well," she said. "Now you know what those who are evil will suffer for  years when they are with us. We can do what we wish. We can create what we wish. You know by now we are not the most gentle of Goddesses. We like to think of ourselves as the cruelest." She smiled sweetly and vanished.
   That was the Erinyes being gentle. You wouldn't want to know what happens if they take an interest in your case, with punishment in mind. They are ultimate terror, and they chase beyond the grave.

Festival of the Erinyes - 3rd December