I was scrolling through an electronic edition of a venerable Latin dictionary, which is a totally normal thing to do, and I was brought up short by the entry for superstitio: “excessive fear of the goas; unreasonable religious belief.”
I was stunned. A lifetime of studying the ancient world had left me unfamiliar with the goas. I knew Goa as a place name from South Asia, but not at all in a Roman context. I imagined the goae as shadowy froglike beings, made of stone, dwelling in darkness, watching those that live with cruel crystalline eyes. It was hard to say how much fear of them would be unreasonable.
Then my philological skills kicked in and I realized: “Oh. It’s just a typo for gods.” These things happen.
Still, I like those goae that my own latent superstitio conjured up. Maybe they’ll appear in a Morlock story.
