Please Ignore the Altar in my Office (was, The Woodpecker God)

Spirits of evil must also be propitiated by pacificatory rites, such as Robigo, the spirit of mildew; in Rome there was an altar to Fever and Bad Fortune. From the country came Silvanus, god of farms and woods, and his Fauns and nymphs with Picus, the woodpecker god who had fed the twins Romulus and Remus with berries – all these were possessed of influences and were approached with peculiar rites.

The names of these spirits were inscribed on tablets, indigitamenta, which were in the charge of the pontiffs, who thus knew which spirit to evoke according to the need. Most of these spirits were animistic in origin.