The Gaelic Cailleach accepts offerings of bread, often burnt, varying by region and time of year. In autumn, near Samhain, she accepts this gift for her time of year has begun. #WyrdWednesday
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@Godyssey@pagan.plus
hometown 4.6.8+hometown-1.3.0Mythology, History, Storytelling: the Godyssey podcast is a deep dive into our shared humanity through gods.
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In Daoist astrology, autumn is the time of the White Tiger of the West and the element of metal. It represents a movement inward, a time to reflect, to grieve, and to celebrate the good things life brings, in preparation for the harsh truths of winter. #WyrdWednesday
Modern historians have suggested that dragons were proven to premodern populations by none other than unearthed fossilized dinosaur bones. Given how close modern dragons look to these bones it is entirely possible, though dragon truthers would very much disagree. #WyrdWednesday
Aesop's Fables comments on the intelligence of crows in "The Crow and the Pitcher," which is not so much a fable on perseverance and cleverness, as it is an observable fact that crows are problem-solvers. #FairytaleTuesday
Contrary to popular belief tarot began its life as a set of cards meant for playing games. It was not until the 18th century that tarot became a divination tool. Like most decks it has four suits (the minor Arcana) but adds 22 additional cards (the major Arcana) #MythologyMonday
Found in Mesoamerican art until the Spanish conquest, the Olmec werejaguar motif is found in all manner of art and may have represented rain, sovereignty, or priestly help. Said to be born of women and jaguar, their power was summoned by warriors to defeat foes. #WyrdWednesday
Nagual are shapeshifters, human tricksters born with shamanic powers and familiars they can use for good or evil: the person must choose. Found across Mesoamerica with evidence stretching back millennias, modern Mexican naguals are often associated with brujería. #WyrdWednesday
The ancient Greeks had little agreement over the centuries regarding how to portray the seasons as gods. The most common depiction of autumn was fruitful Karpo, one of the original Horae. A goddess of harvest and ripening food, she attended to Persephone. #WyrdWednesday
Autumn sees an increase of kitsune sightings and with it, fox fire. As reapers take to the fields, they see foxes moving in and about them, not always a bad sign but always an auspicious one. #WyrdWednesday
🖼️: Jeepster
The Scorpion begged the Frog to ferry it across the pond, promising not to sting him, so he agrees; halfway across, the Scorpion stung him. "Why? Now we will both drown," he asks. "A Scorpion cannot change its nature, dear Frog." So goes the famed fable. #FairyTaleTuesday
Zoroastrian Valentines is called Jashn-e Mehr, an Iranian festival of the autumnal equinox which celebrates the ties that bind, whether platonic or romantic. Dedicated to Mithra, kings were crowned on this holy day and the festival survives Islam. #FolkloreSunday
In pre-Christian Slavic tribes, Dożynki was an autumn equinox festival, one celebrating the gifts of the earth and the hope of renewal next year, when the gifts would come once again. Holdovers from these celebrations include the baking of massive pancakes. #FolkloreSunday
Ancient Mesoamericans imagined the night's sky like that of a cave, with light glistening from each stalactite from far above. Rain is water rushing into our cave, and for that rain gods are given much prominence in Mayan and Aztec mythos. #WyrdWednesday
Mabon, a modern neopagan name for the autumn equinox, derives its name from Mabon ap Modron, himself derived from the pan-Celtic Maponos, the Great Son. Mabon is the second of the main autumn harvest festivals, after Lunasa and preceding Samhain. #WyrdWednesday
Hardly faithful to Hephaestus, Aphrodite crawled into bed with her lover Ares and the trap was sprung: god of invention, Hephaestus had created a trap to ensnare the lovers so they would be on full display for all to see, humiliating them as they humiliated him. #MythologyMonday
Founded at the onset of Santa Fe's creation, the La Fonda Hotel was where law enforcement tried and hanged outlaws. Though destroyed several times, ghosts of outlaws, businessmen, lynch victims, and one territorial judge have been reported. #SpookySunday
In autumn she is Sharada, the goddess of that season: Saraswati prefers this season, the goddess of learning blessing it in India and beyond. It is a time for music, for speech, for learning and art and create but also to regenerate and grow. #WyrdWednesday
🖼: R.R. Varma
Angels as winged humanoids becomes standard in the 3rd century during the reign of Theodosius, and as such, Islam adopted this version quite early, though Islamic angels are often shown with much more colorful wings. #MythologyMonday
The mythologies of the Aztec peoples come to us in two sources, in the same book: the Florentine Codex, the most complete work, is written on one side in Spanish, and one side in Nahuatl, recording indigenous life, but sometimes telling it differently. #WyrdWednesday
He lassos tornados. He brought a storm from California to solve a drought in Texas, only to create the Gulf of Mexico. He dug the Rio Grande to give his horse water. He is Pecos Bill, a giant of Southwestern storytelling and of proportion, too. #FairytaleTuesday
Found under the sea, Ryūgū-jō (竜宮城) is the Dragon Palace and the heart of the Kingdom of the Dragons. Central to both Japanese and Okinawan myth and culture, it has four gardens, each one in a different season, and a destination for pleasure-seekers #MythologyMonday
🎮: Okami
Cernunnos is the Celtic horned god, called the great peacemaker and master of the wild places. This figure is largely mysterious, and we only know his name from a single source, a stone pillar in Paris, yet he has captured the modern imagination of Celtophiles. #WyrdWednesday
The Crown of Justification was placed on the dead of ancient Egypt, a sign one had overcome death in the Duat and risen to the company of the gods. It could be as simple as a laurel or palm leaves or as elaborate as a jeweled crown. #MythologyMonday
Bengkala is Indonesia's Village of the Deaf, where two witches fought and deafened one another, passing that on to their descendants and creating a unique sign language, Kota Kolak. Despite its reputation, only 2% of the population has genetic deafness. #MythologyMonday
According to the Semitic cosmology, we are all of us under the sea! The Firmament protects us from the Ocean of Heaven, which the gods of Mesopotamia and the Levant famously break to flood the world when done with humanity's shenanigans. #MythologyMonday
Hunters among the Hopi and Zuni tribes revere Toho, the Cougar spirit and Guardian of the North. He teaches hunters to be clear in their goals, steadfast in their dedication, and prefer action to cunning. #FairytaleTuesday
🖼️: J. Gash
In the tale of Hoichi the Earless, Buddhist monks paint a blind musician's body with a Buddhist sutra that makes him invisible to ghosts as long as he stays still: but they forgot the ears! #MythologyMonday
Most famous of the female warriors called onna-musha is Tomoe Gozen (巴 御前), a hero of the Genpei War that began Japan's tradition of shoguns. She was fierce, skilled in bow and sword, and made a habit of bringing heads to her beloved lord. #FolkloreSunday
🖼: T. Yoshitoshi
Greek myth's most famous transgender individual is Tiresias, turned from man to woman (or intersex) by Hera and/or Zeus during a quarrel. The blind seer oversaw many tragedies and many heroes sought their wisdom. #MythologyMonday
🖼: J.H. Füssli
Red Riding Hood can be found all over the world: in Taiwan, Aunt Tiger is a version where the tiger must eat three children to gain shape-shifting powers and hopes to do so by pretending to be their aunt. A clever girl sees through his disguise. #FairyTaleTuesday
🖼 HodariNundu
The spirits of the dead come to Odysseus when he visits Hades, being comrades from the war regaling him with regrets and fates after the Trojan War, but also family who died waiting for him, including Anticlea, his mother who died of grief waiting for him. #PhantomsFriday
The creation of the water closet coincided with the a London heat wave in 1858 with an unfortunate side effect: they threw waste into the Thames, where sweltering heat made the smell intolerable and poison London's river-drinking poor. This was the Great Stink. #FolkloreSunday
“If there is a halo round the sun or moon, then we can all expect rain quite soon.” It's true, the old saying: ice crystals in clouds refract off the light, creating a halo that indicates a front is about to move through the area. #WyrdWednesday
The Horned Serpent of Muscogee Creek myth has crystalline scales and a gem imbedded in its forehead, feasting on sumac and being a magnet for wild game. Its horns are used for medicine, its scales for divination. #WyrdWednesday
🖼️: Dracarian
Both Emer and Fand loved Cuchulainn; when a wasting disease came upon him the two women put aside their differences. Fand, Queen of Tir na nOg, made her husband Manannan make it impossible for Cuchulainn and Fand to see each other, healing him. #FolkloreSunday
🖼: G. Gaudenzi
There is an open question in Arthurian canon as to what becomes of Galahad (or Percival in older traditions) when he obtained the Grail. Did he ascend with it to Heaven? Does he now defend it? Did he die? Different authors take different stances. #FairytaleTuesday
🖼: D.D. Crane
Aka Manto is the Red Mantle, a spirit that haunts school restrooms. When alone, a student will find their stall has no paper, and hear someone ask if they want red or blue toilet paper. Red leads to a bloody massacre; blue sucks the blood out. #PhantomsFriday
🖼: M. Meyer
Sailors on the Amazon River often hear tale of the boto encantado, the charming Amazon River dolphin. At night they become handsome men, seducing women on the shore. Children born without a father are said to be the children of Boto here. #FairytaleTuesday
Captain John McNeill Boyd died off Dublin's coast rescuing others at sea. When his body was recovered, his dog refused to leave his side, even after burial. Even after death by starvation, the dog remains, haunting Glasnevin Cemetery in eternal vigil. #PhantomsFriday
Replying to
@VenusianMars@cupoftea.social Hey no problem, we all deserve clarity when it comes to the nuances of culturally-bound knowledge.
While tigers are not native to most of Europe, at best coming to the Black Sea's eastern edges, tigers have been part of European art since Antiquity: Dionysus is sometimes depicted in Hellenistic art as riding a tiger or a chariot driven by tigers. #FairytaleTuesday
Replying to
@VenusianMars@cupoftea.social post lacks context because long-ass stories are hard to keep in place, told it all on Twitter once.
So the ghosts of a particular harrowing battle in the Genpei War in southern Honshu (Japan's main island) had heard that the blind monk Hoichi sang their song with such emotion that it reminded them of living. The dead Emperor Antoku and his grandmother (he was like 6 when he perished at sea during this battle) had his ghostly retainers bring him to where they were honored (a cemetery in most tellings) and every night he played until dawn. This sapped his body more and more, and those around him pondered what he did. Upon discovery, they sought answers in the sutras, with one Buddhist mystic telling them that writing the Heart Sutra on his body would render him invisible to spirits, if he did not move.
Hoichi, seeing little else, submitted himself to a day-long treatment where the Sutra was written on every inch of his body but the ears. The samurai sent to retrieve him again was surprised he could not find him, but did find his ears because they had forgotten to write on them. Using fairy tale logic that ghosts often have, he decided he would take the ears back to his masters and explain his failure, so he cut them off when they did not come of their own accord (again, spirit logic; one would think the samurai would realize they were attached to someone invisible to him) and Hoichi lost his ears. The ghosts of the Emperor and his retainers did not come again and Hoichi was free, albeit now earless. He became a famous musician in his lifetime.
Basically the story requires some logic to be thrown away for it to make sense. And no worries about the questions, I appreciate it!
Replying to
@VenusianMars@cupoftea.social I think the logic there is that CuChulainn drawing the attention of the si is dangerous for Ulster in the stories, so Emer took offense to that and did not want Fand to steal him away to one of the fairy worlds like Tir na nOg as fairy lovers often do. Have a dalliance with a noble's wife, daughter, the milkmaid, whomever, but don't threaten everyone by leaving Ulster unguarded while you seek pleasure in the Otherworld.
Basically Emer was acting in the defense of her people, if interpreted that way. Fairy lovers often end in death or worse, and she wanted to avoid that fate for Ulster. In versions where, instead of CuChulainn going into his coma, Fand is just impressed with Emer's devotion, it makes sense that she is moved by Emer's devotion to her people, to keep CuChulainn in the land of the living while she can. Not a definitive reading but an idea at least.
Replying to
@VenusianMars@cupoftea.social Have you ever had two women fight over you so hard that the psychic energy from their fighting over you put you in a coma? And the only way one of the women can fix this is to have her cool fairy husband, who is full aware of the affair and apparently down to clown with cuckoldry, agrees to save you by using his magic cloak to make it so you and the fairy baddie will never see each other again? No?
I cannot expound on the full mechanics of fairy magic, as it is a thing beyond logic, but the affair bit is simple enough. Pre-Christian Celts, and Irish in particular, seem to have little problem with polyamory as long as status and honor are maintained. CuChulainn's wife Emer did not appreciate it, and made a fuss, but Mannanan macLir did not give a damn so he let Fand do whatever. CuChulainn, being the big hero in a patriarchal society, gets away with it without judgment.
I have always interpreted the reason he goes into the sleep is their fighting over him, but there's other logic. There are also multiple versions of the story, and there are multiple examples of Emer being cool with CuChualainn having affairs... mostly with human women. So there's a lot going on with this story that doesn't make a lot of sense.
Lohengrin is the Knight of the Swan, an older medieval trope incorporated into the Arthurian cycle. The son of Percival, he rides a boat driven by swans and must never be asked his name by the maiden he rescues, or he can never return. #FairytaleTuesday
🖼️: W. Crane
The sons of Morgause of Orkney are among the most consequential in all of Arthurian lore: Gawaine faces the Green Knight; Agravaine's quarrel with Lancelot brings down the kingdom; the deaths of Gareth and Gaheris ensure war; and Mordred orchestrates collapse #FairytaleTuesday
Though the Round Table is a symbol of the Knights being equals no matter their rank, it was only added to Arthurian romances in 1155, where Arthur creates the Round Table to deal with quarrelling nobles whose violence breaks Yuletide peace. #FairytaleTuesday
Replying to
@smrms@toot.community Yeah, a mythical origin to your sign language is actually the coolest thing ever.
Dawon is Durga's battle steed, a powerful celestial tiger-lion that attacks alongside his mistress and devours the enemies of righteousness in Indian myth. #FairytaleTuesday
On Christmas Day, 1948, Ladell Allen's mother noticed she was missing and found her dying from drinking mercury cyanide over a jilted lover. Though once contained to a sealed-off room, the ghost of Ladell Allen now haunts all of Allen House in Monticello, AR. #SpookySunday