Horrof Fiction From the Greeks to the Vikings Essay

Horror fiction is designed to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere which can be either supernatural or non-supernatural. Sometimes in the form of unseen paranormal things and sometimes presented in the various forms of a very human kind of evil, such as serial killers and psychopaths. These scary stories are designed to frighten, scare, and/or startle readers by provoking a response thats either emotional, psychological, or physical to cause them to react with fear and induce feelings of horror and terror. Most of our horror fiction has its roots in local folktales and religious traditions which usually focus on the unknown, death, and all things that we simply depict as â€Å"evil† beings or acts. These stories evolved and†¦show more content†¦The Romans plural the word genius into genii to mean a deity or spirit and the Muslims spell genii as jinni or djinni, which is pluralized for those words jinn or djinn. In some Islamic beliefs, the djinn or jinn are any of a class of spirits lower than the angels and are capable of appearing in human or animal forms and influencing humankind. In the original Hebrew text used in Judeo-Christian tradition the word djinn or jinn doesnt occur of the Bible, although in old Arabic translations the word jinn is often used. Modern translations instead use words like: demon, spirit, and other words like seraphim, such as the burning/fiery ones that appeared to Isaiah (Isaiah 6). In Islamic teaching the jinn are creatures with freewill that were made from smokeless fire by Allah (God) as humans were made of clay (Adam). According to the Holy Qur’an, Iblis (the father or leader of all djinn) refused to bow to Adam when Allah ordered the angels and djinn to do so. For disobeying Allah (God), Iblis and the djinn that followed him were expelled from Paradise and called Shaytan or Satan (sound familiar?). Shaytan is often simply translated as the Devil, but the term can refer to any of the djinn who disobeyed God and followed IblÄ «s. There are several classes of djinn and they arent the â€Å"Genie in the Bottle† that pop culture depicts them as. They would be more accurately depicted as