Waythe (Scrye Mythology)

Among the Scrye peoples, Waythe (pronounced wayth; "death" or "to die") is the personification of death, serving as the protector of the dead, the keeper of their spirit, and a guide in Xabyss ("Hell" or "Netherworld"). He is portrayed as a winged angelic young man who appears before the living at the moment of death, and assists the souls as they cross the threshold to the spirit world.

A rarely alluded figure, he has appeared only in three canonical texts and one of the epigraphs to the Khyal Cycle, a work of the Una Ilek. He is also mentioned in a footnote in one of the works of Laias the Elder in the 1300s AD. Some of the Scrye believe that he has more than one form (a melnee), each of them linked with a specific type of death. One of the only instances in which Waythe actually appears in person is in the story of an individual named Morsan the Black, whose death is described in both the Khyal Cycle and the Laias' Prophecies. Waythe appears to the tribal leader to explain his visions of death and the afterlife and to ask Morsan to allow his spirit to enter the afterlife without fear. Morsan agrees and the two spirits meet.

Later versions of Waythe in the Khyal Cycle refer to him by name rather than by his role as the one who sees the death of others. In the earliest known version, dated to around 500 BC, he is called Pemthe. In a later revision, the name of the figure has been changed to Thaymeenor (Thammeen, meaning "guide"). The text is not clear on the name change, which may be the result of confusion over Thammeenor's exact title as the "one who sees the deaths".

In art

Numerous pieces of artwork, both ancient and modern, have depicted Waythe in some form. The earliest dated example is a 4th-century BC marble relief discovered in the Northern Isles which shows a figure with a bird's head (identified as Waythe in later research) sitting beside a boat.