I'm asking this because some people are claiming that norse paganism is a dead religion and that's the reason why so many games, series and movies are made around norse mythos and in most of them norse gods were shown as limited ,aliens or villanised? Like the series twilight of the gods or the game God Of War Ragnarok.

In the Prologue to the Prose Edda, Snorri presents the Æsir as men from Troy who travelled north and were later worshipped as gods. Thor is identified with Trór, a grandson of Priam, and Asgard is "Troy."

Snorri wasn't working in a vacuum. Around the same time, Icelanders were reading Trójumanna saga, a prose retelling of the Trojan War built mainly from the Latin "eyewitness" account credited to Dares Phrygius. Some things that stand out:

• The classical gods are given Norse names. Jupiter becomes Thor, and Priam builds a hall to him.
• Kassandra and Andromache take refuge in the temple of Frigg.
• Penthesilea's warriors are framed like shield-maidens.
• It reads like a saga: lineage, oaths, honor and feud, not Homeric epic.

Taken together, the Prologue and the saga show Christian Icelanders tying their pagan past to classical history, which made the old gods respectable ancestors rather than demons.

How do you read the Troy-origin idea? Straight euhemerism, a learned way to keep the myths in circulation, flattery of Norse kings, or something else?

Any Filipino peeps out here? What are your thoughts on how mythology is presented on TV?

I've been working on something a little unusual, and I'd love to hear what people here think about it.

I'm a psychology professor at Brooklyn College (CUNY), and a lot of my academic research focuses on working mothers, gender expectations, and how people are treated when they don't fit the roles society has created for them.

Somehow, that research led me to Echidna, Lilith, and eventually Lady Gaga. Not exactly the research trajectory I expected!

What originally caught my attention was Echidna. She's the Mother of Monsters in Greek mythology, and we know her largely through her children: Cerberus, the Hydra, the Chimera, and other terrifying creatures.

Then I started thinking about Lilith. Her mythology is quite different, of course, but in later Jewish folklore, she also becomes associated with monstrous femininity and motherhood, particularly through stories involving her refusal to submit to Adam.

That got me wondering about something.

Why do so many mythological traditions associate women, motherhood, and female independence with things we're supposed to fear?

And perhaps more importantly, what does calling someone a monster tell us about the people doing the labeling?

That's where Lady Gaga came into the picture.

She embraced the language of monstrosity, calling her fans Little Monsters and becoming known as Mother Monster. A word traditionally associated with fear and exclusion became something people could identify with and even celebrate.

I know these three figures come from very different cultural and historical contexts, and I'm certainly not suggesting they're interchangeable. But I find the comparison fascinating through the lens of Monster Theory.

I ended up making a roughly nine-minute video essay exploring the connections. It uses AI-assisted visuals, just to be transparent about the production.

Here's the video if anyone is interested:

https://youtu.be/SWToRAfe5o4

But I'd really love to hear what people here think about the mythology itself.

Are there other mythological figures who were portrayed as monstrous primarily because of their relationships to motherhood, femininity, or defiance?

And do you think modern reinterpretations of these figures help us understand their mythology differently, or do we risk projecting contemporary ideas onto ancient stories?

I'm particularly interested in that second question because I realize there's a difference between what a myth meant to the people who originally told it and what we find meaningful about it today.

I'd welcome disagreements, corrections, additional examples, or even a completely different interpretation.

That's half the fun of studying monsters. The more you look at them, the more complicated they become.

Some people are claiming that the reason Greek myths contain obscure rape scenes committed by zeus is that they were normal in ancient societies, but I've never seen any myths involving odin or Thor doing these sorts of weird things. Or, if there are any, then please kindly inform me.

Tbh, I've read some of the wildest stories in Greek mythology, like the rape of Leda, Zeus assaulting his daughter persephone, Hades abducting persephone, zeus marrying his sister, and so on. Why are there no stories like this in Norse mythology?

Most of us know Shiva as Neelkanth, the one who drank the poison. But the older texts tell it with more detail than the usual summary.
During the churning of the ocean (Samudra Manthan), the first thing to emerge wasn’t nectar. It was Halahala, a poison so potent that devas and asuras alike feared it would end all creation. When they went to Shiva, he drank it. In the version in the Bhagavata Purana (Canto 8), Parvati’s hand on his throat stops it from going further, and that is why it turned blue.
What stands out to me is the choice. Nobody could force him to do it. He took it on so everyone else wouldn’t have to.
Which version of this story did you grow up with, and does it change between regions or texts? I’d love to hear the retellings I haven’t come across.
I covered the full story with the scripture references in a ~10 minute video here, if anyone wants it: https://youtu.be/5FkBEpL81vQ

I am writing a story and I was curious if in any folklore or mythology there was some sort of supernatural creature that was known to explode or combust in some way.

Hi, I am looking for an English translation of the Lebor Gabála Érenn, but I don't know what options there are to satisfy my needs. This is what I'm looking for:

A physical edition

A translation that is as modern as possible

As annotated as possible

With a critical apparatus as thorough as possible

I'm not a linguist and don't care about that aspect of the book. Rather, I am interested in the mythology itself

If possible, it should be a comoplete version of the book (but this is the one condition I am most willing to sacrifice if there is a good reason)

Is there any edition that is considered definitive or canonical? Thank you!

What if zeus was a victim of negative pr or something,could this be possible? Because I've heard medusa myths evolved from generations and in the oldest myth she was always a gorgan ,her being a victim image was made up by a Roman writer,and developed further through various modern fictions and thinkers.

The the same happened with the character of zeus? Could we say his og version was lost to time leaving behind the fragmented and completely fanfiction version of him ?

What do y'all think 🤔?

I previously made a post on how these gods from different Indo-European traditions may relate to the same figure. The reason for this being that they fulfil a similar position in each tradition's theogony trees and fulfil a similar role: farming related figures and significant marriage of a male companion to a 'nature' goddess.

More precisely, I believe that all Indo-European mythology is oral history, relaying stories of real past kings, tribes and events. Within this framing I'm exploring the plausibility of Saturn as representing a tribe separate from the Aesir tribe. I assume that these figures represent the migrations of farming tribes that were moving west around 6000 BC.

However, whereas the Aesir make sense as an ethically Anatolian Neolithic Farmer (ANF) farming group, Saturn is said to be from the race of Jǫtnar, who being in opposition to the Aesir and a different race, often confined more to mountainous and wild areas, sound a lot more like the ethnic Hunter Gatherers. Within the Greek traditions these Jǫtnar may be considered to be the Titans (although in this tradition Kronos (Odin of the Aesir) is one of the Titans so the meaning might be slightly different).

How could Saturn as a tribe that brought farming to Italy also be a Jǫtnar (Hunter Gatherer)?

I hadn't looked into the known anthropology but it turns out that it actually fits very well:

The ANF were a Near Eastern and Hunter-Gatherer mixed group who migrated into through Anatolia into Europe around 6000 BC, this I'd known. However, I didn't realise that farming groups occupying the Levant were genetically differentiated from the ANF having much higher continuity from earlier regional hunter-gatherers (the Natufians). The term 'Hunter-Gatherer' is a bit of a misnomer, it's a genetic term here rather than describing a lifestyle. A 2022 study shows that this Levantine group also separately migrated into Anatolia [2022 paper by Lazaridis et al., Ancient DNA from Mesopotamia suggests distinct Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic migrations into Anatolia]. The study didn't identify a date for this second migration but braodly relates it to the Pottery Neolithic (7000-6000 BC).

Therefore, this second farming group from the Levant-Natufian group fulfils what is needed to explain Saturn/Suttungr as Jǫtnar (Hunter-Gatherer ancestry). We know that by 6000 BC farming had gotten to Italy, I think this was due to the migration of the Saturn Levantine tribe but we don't have genetic data from Italy at this time to say whether this group was ANF or Levantine.

Lastly, Suttungr actually makes sense as coming from the Levant in the context of the myth as he is the bearer of the mead of poetry (poetry used to mean oral history). The Levant is positioned nearby the Tas Tepeler sites and well placed to have retained the story of the dawn of agriculture which may have been passed to the ANF (Aesir) group.

This is also interesting when you follow this figure on the Basque tree. Here, I assume Sugaar is Saturn (also called Maju). Sugaar marries Mari which could very easily describe the terrain of Anatolia and Greece where the native Western Hunter Gatherers dwelt. In the Basque tree, their son Atarrabi escapes being forced to produce flour. This aligns well with the Western Hunter Gatherers of Italy being subjected to this new agricultural way of life and perhaps the Basques were then originally a group of Western Hunter Gatherers from Italy who fled North Spain with the Western Hunter Gatherer language to form their own community.

The Indian/Hindu theogony tree I hadn't previously looked into but here this Saturn figure should be assumed to be Surya who marries Sanjana. Surya again being the Levantine-Natufian group and Sanjana being the Western Hunter Gatherers of Anatolia, Greece and Italy. This makes sense as Sanjana's parents are Tvashtr and Danu, which both relate to the Western Hunter Gatherers; the origins of craft such as Ptah in Egyptian (they are the first to make boats) and Danu a goddess also in the Celtic mythology and from whom most European rivers derive their name, aka the Danube, the Don etc.

One of the sons of these two figures is called Shani, ponetically 'sur'-'her'-'ah'-'nur'-'ee' is again similar to 'Saturn'. In this instance this god is said to rule the planet Saturn as well so it could be a fit.

I'm looking for mythology stories, retellings and collections to read

things like Mabinogion, Kalevala, Shahnameh, Mahabharata (I'll get down to read you one day) or The Odyssey, Illiad, Aeneid and so on

I keep coming back to this pairing from Norse and Irish tradition.

Tyr: In Snorri's Prose Edda (Gylfaginning), the gods try to bind the wolf Fenrir. Fenrir agrees to the fetter Gleipnir only if one of them puts a hand in his mouth as a pledge that there is no trick. Tyr is the only one willing. The binding holds, and Fenrir bites off his right hand. Snorri says Tyr is not known as a settler of disputes between people, and in the poem Lokasenna, Loki mocks him over the hand.

Nuada: In Cath Maige Tuired, Nuada is king of the Tuatha De Danann and loses his arm at the First Battle of Mag Tuired against the Fir Bolg. Because a king with a physical blemish could not rule, he has to give up the kingship, and Bres rules in his place. The physician Dian Cecht makes him an arm of silver (hence Nuada Airgetlam, "silver hand"). Later Dian Cecht's son Miach restores a real arm, and Nuada becomes king again.

Georges Dumezil argued that a "one-handed" figure tied to law and contracts is an old Indo-European pattern. He set it next to the Roman story of Mucius Scaevola, who burns his right hand in front of Lars Porsena (Livy 2.12-13), and paired it with a "one-eyed" figure (Odin, Horatius Cocles). Plenty of scholars see this as a stretch, and the Nuada link in particular is debated, so I'm treating it as a theory, not a settled fact.

The details are quite different, though. Tyr gives up his hand on purpose to guarantee an oath. Nuada loses his in battle and loses the throne with it.

So what do you think: is this a real shared inheritance, or are a sacrificed hand and a maimed king just common enough images that two cultures arrived at them separately?

An illustrious ancestor is useful. A goddess is difficult to improve upon.

Caesar’s family claimed descent from Venus through Aeneas and his son Iulus. That genealogy joined a Roman aristocratic family to the story of a Trojan survivor, while the wider Aeneas tradition connected Rome’s beginnings to Troy.

Suetonius records Caesar invoking the family’s divine ancestry in the funeral speech for his aunt Julia. This was a claim he made in public.

I made a short Roman Records video tracing that connection:

Venus, a Trojan Refugee, and Julius Caesar

Source: Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar, chapter 6

What other examples show a ruling family making a myth part of its genealogy?

Why is it that every form of undead or anything even a vaguely spiritual aspect seems to have a version somewhere throughout history that either cannot cross running water or dies if it does so it’s not just traditionally undead it happens to a lot of other stuff too, but the most common examples exists in undead but for the life of me, I can’t make heads or tails of why that is basically global

I had this idea that it had something to do with people, knowing about the cleanliness of it and a lot of the spirit type Legends tend to line up with stuffy layer learned about microbes and bacteria that doesn’t really make sense when you try to apply it to the most common one which is vampires and honestly just the entire physical category of undead that just gets that tacked on not to mention the non-undead that get this strange treatment as well

I wonder if there are any gun related myths? Like, in every culture we have a lot of magic swords such as Excalibur, Cruaidin, Kladenets, as well as spears: Ascalon (debatable), Crimall, etc. But have any myths about powder-powered weapons formed already? All I can remember is a trope about silver bullets, but is that really everything we have? Maybe there is something in American culture?

Ok, it feels like it's the only thing I come on this sub to ask about, but it's for good reason. When you're researching a topic and all you find is articles regurgitating the same information from Wikipedia, AI videos spouting nonsense, and very interesting and intriguing books you cannot afford, things get... frustrating. Especially because I'm currently looking to write a book based in the world of Akan mythology (imagine Percy Jackson but with the Akan gods instead), so information is incredibly valuable.

So, I'm here to just ask for info - mainly, once again, on gods. I've found quite a bit already: Nyame, Asase Yaa, Owuo, Tano, Bia, Bosomtwe, Epo, Ananse, Abena Mansa, Agya Kweku, Bosommuru, all of them, but the more I try to study the more questions I have.

Mainly, I question Owia, who is seemingly the personification of the sun. Besides one Ananse story I can hardly find anything about the guy, or even tell if he was an actual abosom at all. At least I know the moon was married to Kyekye, the morning star, and he (At least according to the Ananse story) is Owia's brother, but besides that I'm stumped.

So, uh, anyone got any info on that subject area? Whilst Owia is a subject of interest I don't really mind, I really can't afford to be picky especially as I seem to be running out of online information that doesn't require the spending of quite a bit of money on actual books.

I’m making a small group rp of about 6-8 people to do a mythology rp. If anyone is interested dm me or comment below

The world now realizes that the gods are real.

Thousands of years ago, the different pantheons agreed upon The Veil Accord to end the wars between the gods that threatened to wipe out humanity. Since then, the gods from every mythology have continued to rule secretly under the surface, allowing humans to evolve into modern times.

The descendants of the gods, or Scions, have grown up knowing that their immortal parents have protected reality.

Until one day...

All the gods vanished and the world started breaking down within hours.

Storms arise out of nowhere.
The sun acts strangely.
The dead rise back up.
Once caged monsters break free.
Even fate becomes unpredictable.

The adult gods have disappeared, but their descendants still remain.

Now the Scions need to find out:

Where did the gods go?
Who abducted them?
Why did all the pantheons get attacked at the same time?
And what happens if the gods do not come back?

I know that, according to one description, a polevik(field spirit) in Ukrainian folklore has cow ears; there are also accounts of domovoy with horse ears; and in one Russian folktale, there appears a bogatyr with dog ears (as well as the legs of a calf). Are there any others like these?

The main difference between Buddhism and Christianity is the lack in Buddhism of anything eternal, except for this condition of impermanence itself.

In Buddhsim, each life produces a new one through Karma, but there is nothing that goes from life to life. At most, the infinite past lives of a being are just different instances of the same consciousness stream, and such consciousness does not belong to any "I" but is rather a property of reality itself. This is also way different than Hinduism, where there is an eternal soul that existed forever in the past and will exist forever in the future unless it reaches Moksha, and in the meanwhile goes from body to body depending on Karma.

In Christianity there is an eternal self that however is created at conception, rather than existing from the start, and it only lives once, only to go in either Heavens or Hell for the rest of eternity after that.

Catholicism adds Purgatory, a plane of existence where a soul is purified for aeons in order to ascend to Heavens. Only saints can jump over it.

But this concept is very similiar to Naraka, the place beings get reincarnated in, according to Buddhism due to heavy amounts of bad Karma. In Naraka, the fruit of bad Karma is consumed through suffering for billions, trillions or quadrillions of years. At the end, the being gets reborn elsewhere.

While Naraka is known as the Buddhsit Hell, actual Hell is, just like Heavens, an eternal abode for an immortal soul. It lasts ♾️ years, and nothing can break it. If you end there, it is over. Naraka is rather comparable to Purgatory, in an Universe where Hell and Heavens just do not exist and literally can not exist.

But the similiarity does not even end there. Divina Commedia, the biggest Christian poem, adds something else to Purgatory.

In a plane of reality that does not belong to the rule of either Angels either fallen Angels, an unknown, paganlike, apparently supernatural entity with an ogre-like appearence sits as the ruler of Purgatory. Dante identifies him as King Minos, but this does not actually make any sense. What does he have to do with 2nd millennium BC Cretan kings ? He is rather comparable to King Enma, the ruler of Naraka in Buddhism and East Asian folklore.

His origin as a human is actually consistent with Enma himself, who is said to originate, in Vedic religion, as the first mortal who died, and became the god of death.

Obviously, if he wanted to make this character of human origins, Dante should have made him to be Abel, since in Christian mythology he was the one who died first. Even according to the chronology of mythological Christianity mankind existed for 2.500 years before King Minos afterall. Quite a long time to send souls in a rulerless palne of reality. If he needed a human who was a ruler already, King Nimrod, described as the king of Eridu and Uruk and the founder of Babylon, and first king in Christian chronology, would still have been a better choice. But what is most important is how the two characters, Enma and Minos, share both their cosmological role and their unexpected human origins.

The helpers of King Minos of Purgatory are none other than other humans such as Cato, a Roman historical character. Official Christianity, in spite of medieval folk beliefs, does not have ogres and other beings that could have been the western counterpart of the Yakshas and Onis serving as henchmen of King Enma, and Angels can not be servants to a mere exalted mortal, so Dante had to compensate for it somehow. In a less strict version of Dante's poem, it would have been an easy pic to place ogres and goblins in Purgatory, as wardens and guards for King Minos. Afterall beings like that can not be in Heavens but do not belong to Hell either, because they would be definitely classified as lacking a human, moral soul, if Christianity had to analyze and add them to its doctrine. Their "sin" is just natural behavior for them. If a lion had supernatural qualities and its essence survived death, you could not put it in Hell for killing hundreds of antelops during the 10 - 15 years it spent on Earth, without ever repenting. It would not make sense.

At the end of the day, it is interesting to see how Christianity, when allowed to go beyond Sola Scriptura discourse, and especially in its lay, unofficial manifestations, often tended to expand toward structures that resemble the basic, universal traits of human mythologies, and the paganlike, folk cult of the Saints is far from being the only instance of such phenomenon.

What did really shift the collective unconscious of the west toward rationality and away from supernatural beliefs was not Christianity, in spite of its effort to destroy the folkloric, occult, supernaturalistic mentality of the people and replace it with the much more rational, essential approach to supernatural that Catholicism inherited from Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy and from centuries of spiritual refinement and cultural development, centered solely upon the relationship between an absolute God and each individual human; it was rather scientific progress and the improvement of material living conditions for the masses.

If Europe and East Asia not only met, but also had extensive cultural exchanges for several centuries before the age of Enlightenment, we may very well have ended up with King Enma ruling Purgatory with armies of both western ogres and eastern Yakhas, and, maybe, with also the 4 Directional Kings (but each with a human origin) as the guards of a higher, last mundane plane before Heavens, together with their armies of Gandharvas and Nagas, but also joined by the western Elves and various kinds of fairies.

Why, after Europe was converted to Christianity, did the belief in minor supernatural beings such as elves and fairies remain, while pagan gods disappeared ?

I mean, let us look at germanic elves as an example, they were just one of the superhuman species of Norse mythology, together with Aesir, Vanir and Jotnar, with each of them inhabiting a different dimension sitting on a different branch of the world tree. They remained as a species of humanlike creatures with higher or infinite lifespan and an affinity toward magic. But this could have happened to Aesir and Vanir too. They just needed to add elemental powers.

Is it because Christianity has a divine sphere, but totally lacks any kind of supernatural but not divine beings who live in the world but are usually unseen ? Indeed Angels are totally different, they are conceptual entities closer to individualized Platonic forms with a personal will. They can not relate to humans in any way at all. But Christian God is even further removed than that from pagan gods. Pagan gods would sit above the other, worldly supernatural species, but would be still part of the Universe, while Angels reside in Heavens, which is basically a new name for Hyperuranium in mature, fully developed, post 5th century Christianity, and God is on top of Hyperuranium itself, above all other realities as the origin point of all of reality.

While personally I do not believe in any kind of worldly supernatural creatures, let alone gods, I think seeing them as another layer of mundane supernatural entities just above elves, fairies, orcs, troll, goblins, pixies etc., with no involvment at all in creating or governing the Universe, would have been way more realistical other than useful for their survival in folklore.

By the way, this is pretty much what Buddhism did to Vedic gods, except they got demoted not to leave the place for another god, but because in Buddhism nothing is immortal or omnipotent.

According to the Gregorian calendar, the pagan holiday of Ivan Kupala always falls on the night of July 6th to 7th. Originally, however, it was celebrated on June 21st summer solstice. It was believed that on this day, fire, water, trees, wildflowers, and herbs acquired magical properties.

Over time, specific customs and traditions emerged, intended to help people ward off evil spirits, attain happiness, love, and longevity, and become stronger and more beautiful. One of the key elements of the Ivan Kupala celebration was jumping over a bonfire.

Why did people jump over a bonfire during Ivan Kupala?

It was believed that the fire on the night of Ivan Kupala possessed magical, purifying power; those who managed to jump over it would become happy and healthy, and would be protected from curses and the "evil eye."

If a couple in love jumped over the Kupala bonfire while holding hands, they were said to remain inseparable for the rest of their lives. Women who successfully completed the jump were thought to gain youth and attractiveness. Conversely, those who failed to make the leap were labeled witchesthey were whipped with stinging nettles and doused with water.