Sibyl

The sibyls were women that the ancient Greeks believed were oracles. The earliest sibyls, according to legend, prophesied at holy sites. Their prophecies were influenced by divine inspiration from a deity; originally at Delphi and Pessinos, the deities were chthonic deities. In later antiquity, various writers attested to the existence of sibyls in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor. The English word sibyl (/ˈsɪbəl/ or /ˈsɪbɪl/) comes — via the Old French sibileand the Latin sibylla — from the ancient Greek σίβυλλα. Varro derived the name from theobule (divine counsel), but modern philologists mostly propose an Old Italic or alternatively a Semitic etymology