Demogorgonian

Where does it come from?

It is a deity or demon, associated with the underworld and
envisaged as a powerful primordial being, whose very name had been
taboo. Although often ascribed to Greek mythology, the name probably
arises from an unknown copyist’s misreading of a commentary by a
fourth-century scholar, Lactantius Placidus.

Genealogia deorum gentilium is a laudable 14th-century
genealogy of ancient mythological deities complied by Giovanni
Boccaccio. In it Boccaccio writes about Demogorgon, a primordial heathen
god shrouded in mystery. Thereafter, Demogorgon began to be conjured in
Renaissance writings to invoke terror and dread. In Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene,
he is “Downe in the bottome of the deepe Abysse … Farre from the view
of the Gods and heauens blis.” In Paradise Lost, John Milton speaks of
“the dreaded name Of Demogorgon.” And Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor
Faustus calls on Demogorgon in a summons for Mephistopheles. After the
Renaissance, Demogorgon began to make fewer appearances in the English
language, but he has by no means been forgotten. These days his name is
sometimes used in a more generic way of something that is bizarre or
monstrous