BEELZEBUB

BEELZEBUB: Evil Demon Prince of Hell, Lord of the Flies and SATAN's Bastard-in-Chief. Only for fly bastards and Philistines.

He's the cause of more superstitious dread than SATAN himself. Which is odd, because he started out as a local variant of the perfectly respectable BAAL. He was a Top God of the Middle-East and had fan clubs everywhere.

The Philistines worshipped him under the name Baal Zebub, meaning 'Lord of Flies'. Which seems like a strange thing to be Lord of — until you realise that flies carry disease and plague. Anyone who can boss flies around just has to be respected. See MYIAGROS, for example.

But the Hebrew holy men didn't like it. For a start, they were terrified of flies, which were not just dangerous pestilential plague-carriers but also detestable in the eyes of the Lord. The last thing they wanted was unclean critters buzzing around the Tabernacle.

There is a school of theological opinion which suggests that GOD created every creature except the fly — which was made by the Devil. We are inclined to agree. SATAN has a lot to answer for.