Furies (in Greek mythology the Erinyes) and also called Eumenides were female subterranean deities or goddesses of vengeance.
They were probably personified curses, but possibly they were originally conceived of as ghosts of the murdered. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as 'those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath'. Walter Burkert suggests they are 'an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath'.
According to the Greek poet Hesiod they were the daughters of Gaea [pronounced Guy-a] (Earth) and sprang from the blood of her mutilated spouse Uranus; in the plays of Aeschylus they were the daughters of Nyx; in those of Sophocles, they were the daughters of Darkness and of Gaea. Euripides was the first to speak of them as three in number. Later writers named them Allecto (“Unceasing in Anger”), Tisiphone (“Avenger of Murder”), and Megaera (“Jealous”). They lived in the underworld and ascended to earth to pursue the wicked, but Grrek accounts show them to live in the underworld and help to tourment sinners in said underworld. Being deities of the underworld, they were often identified with spirits of the fertility of the earth. Because the Greeks feared to utter the dreaded name Erinyes, the goddesses were often addressed by the euphemistic names Eumenides (“Kind Ones”) or Semnai Theai (“Venerable Goddesses”).
The Erinyes live in Erebus and are more ancient deities than any of the Olympians. Their task is to hear complaints brought by mortals against the insolence of the young to the aged, of children to parents, of hosts to guests, and of householders or city councils to suppliants - and to punish such crimes by hounding culprits relentlessly. The Erinyes are crones and, depending upon authors, described as having snakes for hair, dog's heads, coal black bodies, bat's wings, and blood-shot eyes. In their hands they carry brass-studded scourges, and their victims die in torment.
These goddesses are womanly figures with wings on their backs and can be anything from made of feathers to being bat like, which is the more favoured approach. They usually have long flowing hair and long fingernails and the best depiction of these women are the vamperic forms of Dracula's brides in the movie Vanhelsing starring Hugh Jackman. The Furies are a great way for depicting three female villainous characters as they are essentially demons of the earth and heavenly blood. They are sometimes recounted as sisters or old women, such as an example of The Fates in Jason, the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece.
