Archaic Roman deity Helernus, sometimes known as Alernus, was a minor underworld deity and the guardian of the beans consumed at the Lemurian celebration in May.
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The Tiber River’s mouth was not far from his holy grove (the Lucus). The Roman Pontiffs offered sacrifices to him every year on February 1st, during which a black bull was sacrificed. Carna, one of his daughters, was a goddess who guarded children’s intestines from vampires. The related (presumably chthonic) deity Hule/Horse/Huie, who appears a few times in the Umbrian Iguvine Tablets, is compared to Helernus by Poultney and others.
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