Three Underworld Queens of different religions

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The theme of Underworld is not only and always about Gods and established solely in religious beliefs, it could be also found in fairytails of many different nations. It is usually about a beautiful princess who was abducted by a horrible dragon and her father, the King, would award the brave knight who would bring his daughter back to him and even give her as a wife to the one who accomplish the task. Many knights failed but the bravest one had to go over seven seas and seven mounaines and seven valleys, and eventually even visit the Underworld to be able to find the Dragon's cave, save the princess and bring her back.

The concept of Underworld is probably as old as a humankind and is representing not just the unknown world from the other side of death but also our own subconciousness, as well as natural forces that are comming from the deep inside of Earth.

Maybe they were smarter than most of us in today's world and recognized death as the great equalizer?

Yes, that illustrates that we can't always fully protect what we cherish, but maybe because it is needed more somewhere else and the best we can is to have it half of the time. Like spring and summer or natural forces that are beneficial to all of us but occur only once on a year, a decade, a century and so on.

Also another interesting thing I have noticed in regards to both Ereshkigal and Persephone. They were both kidnapped and brought to the Underworld against their will where they were forced to become Underworld Goddesses. And yet despite how they initially hated being brought down to such a gloomy place neither one was willing to reliquinsh their position of power as an established Queen of the Dead.

Look at how Ereshkigal punished her sister Inanna when she tried to steal her throne, and Persephone herself became very comfortable with her new husband Hades after a while and it was clear that she no longer wanted to leave the Underworld for more than half the year to be with her mother. In the Underworld one could argue that she recognized that she held more power and influence as a true queen by her husband's side.

It took me some time to read the content from links you attached, I am not as educated as you regarding these specific Gods and can't comment right away. From what I red you were so right about similarities among all of them that, to me, they look as if they are the same Gods in different cultures. And, again, it imposes me a question whether these are really just mere coincidences or certain myths traveled across the globe together with portion of people who were nomads and constantly migrating..?

Yesterday I came across your comment about your ancestor who used traditional Polynesian techniques to navigate his boat across the Ocean. That's really a fascinating story and it confirms my presumptions that people, ancient people and indigenous people, who preserved ancient ways of life, always traveled across the globe, but since they were not concquerors their name was never written down in history books although they probably knew about distant shores and continents, let's say, before Columbus, Marco Polo, etc. Glad the name of your ancestor is listed at least in Wikipedia.

On the other side I can not know for sure that those similarities are really just pure coincidencies, because maybe natural forces made same spiritual and religious impacts on people's believes, both in Japan and let's say here, in Balkans (or anywhere else). For example, in a Slavic pantheon of Gods, there's a God Dabiživ who is very similar to a Japanese God Izanagi - both of them created other deities from their tears and body parts.

Otherwise, all three stories just confirmed to me what I was intuitively guessing that these specific Gods are representing natural forces, annual seasons, death and (re)birth - for ancient people it was probably easier to interpret and visualize these forces as Gods that look like human beings. I also guess all of them were later incorporated even in Christianity. But that's another (long) story.

I have found an interesting article about counterfeit ritual that worked well against Lamashtu, a truly horrific Goddess:

https://blackwitchcoven.com/lamashtu-the-demoness-that-kills-children/

It all reminds me of black and white magic of Wallachians in Eastern Serbia. They are well known after their specific skills in voodoo like magic, throwing curses, falling into trans state of mind and seeing past and future events that way, but also after their shamanic healing rituals with water and lead, forecasting future from animal liver, etc.,etc. They are mostly descendants of Dacians..

Speaking of The Exorcist, here's a youtube music video using the theme "Tubular Bells" and clips from this true horror classic.

It's often regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all time.

https://youtu.be/FN6jIvKiYOs?si=htvWEtZE2SlgwVOS

Yes, I was also confused to read that another demon, like Pazuzu, was asked to protect mothers and babies in their wounds (or newborn babies) from the Lamashtu's evil eye. Even further they did not pray to some all goody good deity but they turned to black and white magic to fight her evil influence instead.

As for the demons or evil spirits...brrr..I'm even afraid to mention them. Because I think that there is something, some kind of really bad energies that can sometimes possess people. In kabbalah/Judaism you are not even allowed to pronounce their names, at least not loud. But strangely, also the God's name is forbidden to be pronounced loudly and most of the time when Jewish people talk or write about God they would just refer to him with the "G" letter.

I never watch horror movies , I'm too scared and I easily get so scared that I have nightmares for days. But I managed to watch this video, with my eyes peaking through my fingers .

Oh no don't worry , it was just a video!!

Yeah , we would say here "They fit together as horns in a sack."