psychopomps

Noun

psychopomp (plural psychopomps)

1. A spirit, deity, person, etc., who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
   • As the souls of the departed are symbolized as rats, so is the psychopomp himself often figured as a dog. Sarameias, the Vedic counterpart of Hermes and Odin, sometimes appears invested with canine attributes; and countless other examples go to show that by the early Aryan mind the howling wind was...1872, John Fiske, Myths and Myth-Makers