Wednesday is the first god we are officially introduced to and is Shadow’s main companion
throughout the story.
Suave and cunning, Wednesday is a witty older gentleman who has a way with the ladies.
When we first meet him, he is described as having “A craggy, square face with pale
gray eyes” (Gaiman 19) and wearing a suit “the color
of melted vanilla ice cream” (Gaiman 19).
As the story continues, we see that he keeps
himself well-kept, staying clean and always
having a fresh suit to change into.
One of his pale eyes is in fact a glass eye,
disguising the fact that the real one has
been lost.
Wednesday describes the sacrifice he made,
hanging and pierced by spears, to learn charms
that would be able to alter fate in many circumstances.
However, throughout the book, these aren’t
what Wednesday uses to complete his tasks.
We see what mostly gives him power is his 
cunning and his smooth talking.
He is a con artist.
Several times we see him use deceit to get
things to go his way.
In Chicago, he tricks folks into thinking
he works for a bank to steal their money,
on a couple of occasions he shortchanges wait
staff, and he also goes into detail about
his favorite con in a conversation with Shadow.
At the end of the book, we learn that Wednesday
had been working all along to fool the other
gods to shed their blood in order for him
to gain more power, showing just how far he
is willing to push his powers of deceit.
This lack of actual magic use is something
that is common across all the old gods we
see in American Gods.
It’s probable that, due to their lack of
worshippers and belief, their fading powers
are not as strong as they were in the past.
In Ancient Norse mythology, Odin has some
similarities to the Wednesday from Gaiman’s novel.
The idea of his self-sacrifice that becomes
such a key component in American Gods is in
fact a popular story about Odin.
We also see Wednesday as a leader figure,
another aspect that is in line with the traditional
tales of Odin.
Unlike in American Gods, Odin is not exactly
depicted as a sly, sex-driven grifter in Norse myths.
However, there is a story about him sleeping
with the daughter of a giant to steal something
he was after, so this may have been part of
what inspired Gaiman’s representation of the god.
He is also known as the all-father, as we
see in the novel, and is supposed to have
had children with many women, which also backs
up some of Wednesday’s character traits.
As for actual use of magic, Odin is much more
powerful in Norse mythology.
He is a shapeshifter, able to transform into
myriad animals, something which we do not
see of Wednesday in American Gods.
He is also said to be able to speak with the
dead, which doesn’t exactly happen in the
novel, though the line between life and death
is often blurred anyway.
Wednesday is in possession of the same familiars
as Odin.
He describes his wolves and his ravens while
at the House on the Rock, though it is his
ravens that play the most prominent role in
the story, helping to guide Shadow when he
is lost.
We first meet the Slavic god Czernobog in
the Chicago apartment he shares with the Zorya sisters.
Czernobog is depicted as a grouchy old man
who enjoys little aside from killing cattle
and playing checkers.
He agrees to help Wednesday only as a result
of a checkers match against Shadow, which
he was coerced into playing with the promise
that, should he win, he would get the chance
to smash Shadow’s skull.
We see Czernobog warming up to Shadow a bit
after Shadow risks his life in playing this
game of checkers.
Upon completion of their second match, Shadow
offers to continue, to which Czernobog simply
responds “‘I like you!” (Gaiman 54)
Later on, Czernobog is one of the party who
helps rescue Shadow after his arrest.
Czernobog initially discusses his brother
Bielebog, saying they are estranged because
of their differences of opinions.
While Czernobog focuses on darkness, Bielebog
focuses on light.
At the end of the book, it is revealed that
they are actually one being (something Czernobog
prophesized earlier), with Czernobog turning
into Bielebog at the end of the winter.
According to Old Slavic myth, the two deities
Czernobog and Bielebog are known as the Black
God and the White God.
The two were opposing forces, good and evil,
and unlike in American Gods, it’s not suggested
that they are two sides of one person, nor
even that they are brothers.
Czernobog was seen as the root of all bad
things in Slavic legends.
He was said to only appear at night, which
is contrary to what we see in Gaiman’s story,
where he exists all winter.
It’s possible that this was inspired by
the fact that parts of the Slavic world have
long, dark winters, where Czernobog would be present
for a much greater portion of time than Bielebog.
Bielebog was pictured as a man who spread
good fortune around the Slavic world.
While in the book Czernobog doesn’t exhibit
any of his actual power, again likely because
he is fading like Wednesday, in Slavic lore
he was highly feared.
As Czernobog and Bielebog were the two central
forces of good and evil in Old Slavic mythology,
they would have had great power they could
use to enact their wills upon the world.
When Mr. Jacquel is first introduced, he has
taken the form of a black dog.
Later on, when he has taken his human form,
he is described as being tall and with very dark skin.
Mr. Jacquel works in the funeral home with
Mr. Ibis.
He works dissecting the bodies that enter
funeral home, a nod towards his role in working
with the dead in Egyptian mythology.
He is shown to be quiet and calculating, tackling
his work with an efficient, systematic approach.
Jacquel and Ibis recount to Shadow their history,
how they came over with traders from Ancient
Egypt and were now some of the only remaining
gods of their Pantheon in America.
They tell how other gods died, disappeared,
or went insane.
Near the end of the book, we see Mr. Jacquel
take his true form as the gigantic jackal-headed Anubis.
He acts as the judge to decide whether Shadow
can enter his afterlife or not.
Anubis analyzes Shadow’s past, every good
and bad moment, to help him make his determination,
then he uses his scale to weigh Shadow’s
heart against a feather for the final judgment.
Anubis’s role in American Gods is very similar
to that in Ancient Egyptian mythology.
His form of a black dog clearly represents
the jackal, the animal linked with Anubis,
which we also see when he takes on his usual
jackal-headed form later in the book.
His dark skin is reminiscent of the fact that
Anubis is portrayed as having black skin.
Anubis was the god of mummification and sometimes
considered the god of death.
In one Ancient Egyptian story, Anubis worked
in the embalming and mummification of the
god Osiris, who later himself went on to become
the god of death.
Anubis does in fact use a scale with a feather
to judge those who enter the afterlife, just
as he does with Shadow.
In Egyptian tales, he also had other powers
we don’t witness in American Gods, one example
is a story in which he destroyed his enemy’s
“entire army with a single slash of his sword" (Meehan).
It’s not clear whether Gaiman’s version
of the god possesses the same sort of ability.
Shadow first meets Easter during his trip
San Francisco with Wednesday.
Her description fits that of someone who had
just stepped out of a 1950s movie screen,
red-lipped and blonde-haired.
She appears to be doing well for herself,
having an abundance of food and no worries.
Wednesday pressures Easter into working for
with him by reminding her that her wealth
of belief comes simply from the fact that
she is linked with the holiday Easter, not
because the goddess Eostre is actually being
worshipped.
But Easter is one of the few gods that is
still receiving some type of “worship”
from the population, which may be the reason
that she is one of the few we actually see using magic.
We are shown that she has the ability to make
plants grow and bloom, then, more impressively,
we see her bring Shadow back to life.
Easter breathes life back into Shadow with
a kiss.
Gaiman writes that “The wound in [Shadow’s]
side began to flow with liquid blood once
more—a scarlet blood, which oozed like liquid
rubies in the sunlight, and then the bleeding stopped” (Gaiman 294).
It is then revealed that the wound has been
healed, and Shadow is alive once more.
The origins of an actual goddess Eostre is
foggy, there is debate on whether such a figure
existed at all.
Eostre was supposedly a springtime goddess
worshipped by Anglo-Saxon tribes in Ancient
Britain.
Accounts of a goddess named Eostre are traced
back to one source from eighth century which
connected such a deity with the month April.
In the 19th century, other sources built off
of this, postulating that she might have been
related to a broader Germanic goddess that
was spread throughout Europe, but again it
is unclear whether this goddess ever truly
existed to be worshipped or whether it was
simply invented by scholars.
Given that accounts of this goddess stem from
one source, there aren’t many descriptions
of the powers she would have possessed.
There are stories, though, that crop around
surrounding her relation to the Easter Bunny.
Many of these stories suggest that she had
the power to turn a bird into a hare, which
some claim was sacred to her.
But again, it is unclear whether these stories
have any basis in actual religion.
