Another Icarus Post?

I just think this would have been perfect if Icarus was used instead of the hang glider. From one of my earlier posts, this really captures what I think is the spirit of the Icarus myth.

Exams

We'll get to yesterday's post about "Fields of Gold" in the next few days. Today, however, I want to share something I just found out: National Mythology Exams

I found two: The National Mythology Exam and The Medusa Exam.

The National Mythology exam is designed with 3rd to 9th graders in mind. The teacher orders the packet and gives out the test. There are prizes awarded to winning children as well. I checked on their web site and they give the test in a seven year rotation, so no past tests are posted. They do give a few sample test items. Here are a few:

The Greek and Roman names which do NOT belong together are:
a. Juno and Artemis b. Minerva and Athena c. Vesta and Hestia d. Mercury and Hermes
The item associated with Hades is:
a. a cap of invisibility b. a trident c. an anvil d. a magic wand
Aphrodite is to Venus as Poseidon is to:
a. Vulcan b. Neptune c. Pluto d. Jupiter
Arachne and Athena competed in a:
a. tug of war b. foot race c. weaving contest d. beauty pageant
The god who ruled the Underworld was called:
a. Hades b. Pluto c. Both A and B d. None of the above

You can find out more about this exam at: http://www.etclassics.org/NMExam.html

The other exam is the Medusa Exam. This is for 6th through 12th graders. Since they do not repeat their exams, they have past exams in their site. They pick a theme and go at it. Here are a few questions from their 2007 test:

1. Holding the head of Medusa, Perseus rescued ____, the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia.
a. Ariadne b. Empusa c. Andromeda d. Eurydice
2. What attendants of Dionysus, often depicted as part man and part goat, chased nymphs?
a. Dactyls b. Curetes c. Maenads d. Satyrs
3. The Sirens were infamous for their:
a. singing b. oracles c. beauty d. stench
4. What wily king was forced to roll a rock uphill as a punishment for exposing Zeus’ abduction of Aegina?
a. Aeacus b. Sisyphus c. Elpenor d. Ulysses
5. What moon goddess loved Endymion, the ageless sleeper?
a. Hecate b. Selene c. Isis d. Eos

You can find out more about them at: http://www.medusaexam.org/

Unfortunately it is too late for teachers to sign their class up for this year, but if the idea is a good one for you, then there is always next year!

Does Fields of Gold = Mythology?

I am one of the few people in the world that is not a big music fan. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it and understand that good music moves people emotionally and inspirationally. Anyone can just go to You Tube and look up "Benny Hill War Worlds" to see how everything changes with music (they show the scene of Tom Cruise's character running through the streets with the martian death ray killing people but impose the Benny Hill theme song over it - completely changes your reaction to the movie clip). The point is, I'm one that an iPod would be a waste of money. If I hear a song and like it, great. Normally I don't pay attention.

Despite this, I do like a few artists. Sting is one that I've always liked. I know he has a lot of allusions to literature in his works (being an English teacher/nerd I can appreciate that). I wonder if the following song is a mythological allusion as well:

"Fields Of Gold"

You'll remember me when the west wind moves

Upon the fields of barley

You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky

As we walk in the fields of gold

So she took her love

For to gaze awhile

Upon the fields of barley

In his arms she fell as her hair came down

Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love

Among the fields of barley

We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky

As we lie in the fields of gold

See the west wind move like a lover so

Upon the fields of barley

Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth

Among the fields of gold

I never made promises lightly

And there have been some that I've broken

But I swear in the days still left

We'll walk in the fields of gold

We'll walk in the fields of gold

Many years have passed since those summer days

Among the fields of barley

See the children run as the sun goes down

Among the fields of gold

You'll remember me when the west wind moves

Upon the fields of barley

You can tell the sun in his jealous sky

When we walked in the fields of gold

When we walked in the fields of gold

When we walked in the fields of gold

Think about what myth you think this is referring to and I'll post later on my thoughts. Feel free to leave a comment telling your ideas as I would love to hear them.

Eating Hearts and Reading Comic Books

Ah the moon! A thing of beauty, a time keeper, an eye in the sky, a regulator of tides, destroyer of enemies, eater of hearts, and giver of powers.


It is the last three that we talk about today. To do this, we need to go way, way, way back in Egyptian mythology to a god named Khonshu (with variant spellings like everything else in mythology). The Wanderer, Embracer, Pathfinder (no, not as in the movie of Vikings and Native Americans nor in the spirit of Natty Bumpoo), and Defender are just a few of his appellations.

Just as Artemis is associated with the moon and with wild animals, so is Khonshu, but he also has added benefits of helping both men and women with the act of conceiving little ancient Egyptians, healing, and cow fertility (which he is best at during the crescent moon). His weirdest name is King's Placenta. It was said that he protected Pharaohs by killing their enemies and taking their insides back to the Pharaoh. What they did with them, I don't know but eating them may have something to do with as he is also The One Who Lives on Hearts.

When shown in art, he has the head of a hawk or falcon with curved horns. The moon fits in those horns much like the sun fits on top of Ra's head.

Oh yeah, and he loves games, senet to be exact, and he is always gambling on it with Thoth. One would think that with the moon, eating of hearts, and pregnant heifers that he wouldn't have time for games, but I suspect he was also a good multi-tasker. Actually, the real reason is that people loved to worship him, just they didn't know quite what to do with him. The ancients had him as powerful, even helping with the creation, however, over time, he stopped eating hearts and lost his importance. That's how one goes from destroyer to cow fertility specialist.

Oh, and his temple is in Tanis - that's right, where Indiana Jones found the lost ark.

No matter what the Egyptians thought, he will always be one thing to me. The god of Moon Knight. Yes, you heard me, Moon Knight - the American mercenary turned Egyptian follower knock off of Batman (rich guy running around in tights fighting crime). In one run of his series his powers waxed and waned with the moon (the more full, the more powerful, and vice versa). He was my friend's favorite hero (second only to Spider-Man, of course) and had the distinction of have not just one secret identity, not two, but three secret identities. Of course, the destroyer part of Khonshu played a bigger part as I do not remember Moon Knight ever making cows fertile (but then, I didn't read all of the series).

Not so Punny

I went searching for mythological puns and could not find any. So, I branched out and came up with some and modified others. Don't worry, I'm keeping my day job for the time being.

She told me she was one of the fates, but she was just spinning a yarn.

Beowulf’s favorite bedtime story was “Hansel and Grendel.”

The other gods do not like Dionysus because when he doesn’t get his way he wines.

Hades is the most popular place in Greek mythology. People are just dying to get in.

A mummy’s favorite type of music is wrap.

Hercules went to Delphi to find out his future. The first oracle came out and was mean, gloomy, and downright grumpy. He asked the priestess if he could have another oracle. The next one was very hyper and shouted while running around foretelling his death. He didn’t like that one either. The priestess said, “Well, what do you want?” Hercules replied, “I was looking for a happy medium.”

The Vikings landed during thunder and lightning and took the city by storm.

Zeus’ appearance can be very striking.

At Ragnorak, Tyr needed someone to help out because he was short-handed.

The guy that hung around Achilles insulting everyone and doing his dirty work quickly became known as Achilles’s Heel.


Perseus had a hard time keeping from becoming hiss-terical around Medusa.

When his dad stepped out of the shower, Cronus often yelled, “I see Uranus.”

O.K., that last one is bad.

How do you say Byggvir?

I was watching Dirty Jobs and Mike Rowe was deep in a coal mine when he said, "I feel like I'm going to turn the corner and see Cerberus any minute now." One problem, he pronounced it sir-re-bus. One of the coal miners corrected his pronunciation and what followed was a funny little exchange until Mike realized that this coal miner deep in the earth knew more about classical mythology than he, the host of a famous show, did.

But sometimes you do run into names that are hard to pronounce. Take Byggvir, for example (you know, the Norse god of barley? Come on! Who doesn't know that? He's Freyr's servant and without him, how would the Norse gods get drunk?). If you are a teacher, you don't want to mispronounce them in front of the class (chances are, they won't know either, but just in case). For the purists among us, it is a matter of pride. So, where do you go to get proper pronunciations?

If you are looking for the most comprehensive guide for all world mythologies, you need to go here: http://www.pantheon.org/miscellaneous/pronunciations.html.

If that doesn't help, you can try http://www.dictionary.com/. This place will sound out the word for you if you hit the speaker button. Don't count on it to have to more obscure names, like Byggvir.

For that matter, you can also try http://www.godchecker.com/. While they do have Byggvir, they only say COMING SOON for the pronunciation guide. I checked around, they say this quite a lot for the more obscure ones.

Of course, it is hard to blame these sites for not having Byggvir's pronunciation. Spiritus Temporis, which has a page titled "Everything on Byggvir" also doesn't have how to pronounce it. http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/byggvir/

However, I did find a place called Byggvir's Big Beer Cup, http://www.rennfestbeercup.com/who-bygvvir, and they had the verse from the Poetic Edda that talks about him:

"Byggvir is my name,
all gods and men
call me nimble;
and here it is my pride
that Odin's sons drink
ale all together."

But they don't don't have how to pronounce it. I guess "everything" doesn't mean what it used to.

Ratatosk

Question for today: What do squirrels, Norwegian Forest Cats, snot, and the Red Sox have to do with each other?

Allusions to mythology are everywhere - product placement, names, references in books and movies. The following links takes you to a news story about the recent hexing attempt on the New York Yankees stadium by the Red Sox fan who buried a Red Sox jersey in the concrete.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/17/sports/JERSEY.php

He talks about the burial of Egyptians and how they (well, at least the rich ones) buried objects to help them in the afterlife. O.K., that point is somewhat close.

He also mentions the ancient Iranian art of hexing people by burying object with their name on it. O.K., that is closer. Allusions begin to fly just to have allusions. Achilles's armor is invoked. The most absurd (and what wins the author The Obscure Myth Allusion Award) is bringing in Ratatosk.

What? You don't know who/what/where Ratatosk is? Why it is every one's favorite Norse squirrel, the one that runs up and down Yggdrasil, the world tree, delivering insults to the great eagle that sits at the top of the tree from the great dragon Nidhogg, who lives in the roots of the tree (and vice versa). Along the way he spreads gossip and mischief among the gods and men. Alas, while Nidhogg will survive the holocaust caused by Ragnarok, Ratatosk is not mentioned.

Ratatosk does live on today in the publishing world. Yes, there is a business out there called the Ratatosk Publishing company that publishes such excellent works as The Snot Book. Bound to be a classic.

There is also a Ratatosk network for Scandinavian shamans. You can't underestimate the need for shamans to be able to communicate with each other. (By the way, if you are a Scandinavian shaman and have not yet joined this network, you can at http://www.multiart.nu/ratatosk/aboutratat.html - Native American shamans need not apply.)
There is also the Ratatosk Norwegian Forest Cats, a cattery for Norwegian Forest Cats. What do cats (forest or any other variety) have to do with immortal Norse squirrels? Well, according to the website (http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ridge/5176/) these cats have bushy tails that look like squirrel tails.

There is even a video game called Knights of Ratatosk. Sounds cool until you realize that it means Knights of the Squirrel.

The Limerick Dictionary

I recently found a website that is making a dictionary with every entry having a limerick and then a brief definition. It is The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form (http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php). It is written by volunteers and they have 42,000 entries (and they haven't gotten past C yet). For any mythology teachers out there, this is a lesson waiting to happen! If you just want to see the myth limericks, try this address: http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Topic=42

Here are a few myth related entries (all poems and entries are taken directly from the source):

Cerberus by OxfordVictor (Victor Kandampully)

You can lull him with musical tricks,
Or put drugs in your honeycake mix.
But three heads (and six eyes)
Mean it wouldn't be wise
To pass Cerberus, guarding his Styx.

In Greek mythology, Cerberus (SIR-bur-us), the giant three-headed dog who guarded the Underworld, was a fearsome animal with a serpent for a tail. However, several mortals contrived to enter the Underworld by passing Cerberus and crossing the River Styx. Aeneas was accompanied by the Sibyl of Cunae. Book VI of The Aeneid describes how she fed Cerberus drugged tidbits, so that they could safely pass. Orpheus played music to Cerberus so that the dog would be lulled to sleep. Harry Potter fans will realise why this story makes it reasonably certain that the dog Fluffy in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is J.K.Rowling's own tribute to Cerberus.


Achilles by Robert Holland (Robert Holland)

Brave Achilles delivered defeat
To Hector, whom no one could beat.
Then Paris, the archer,
Sealed Achilles' departure.
Now he's known for his heel, not his feat.

According to Greek myth, Achilles had only one weakness, his heel, which his mother held to dip him as a newborn into the River Styx. Achilles defeated Hector, Troy's champion, in face to face combat during the Trojan Wars. Then Paris, counseled by the goddess Aphrodite, shot Achilles in the heel. Achilles died from this wound, giving birth to the term "Achilles' heel", a fateful singular weakness or vulnerability, as well as the anatomical term "Achilles tendon", which is the largest tendon in the human body.

Argonauts by sigg (Ian Hartshorn)

The Argonauts rowed Jason's boat.
The Aegean is where they did float
As they sought the gold fleece,
Which was famed throughout Greece
'Cause it made for a premium coat.

One theory is that Jason sailed from the Aegean into the Black Sea. The inhabitants in the eastern end of the Black Sea traditionally used sheepskins to mine for gold. (They would pour stream mud/rock down a sluice lined with sheepskin and the gold fragments would get caught by the wool. After a day's mining, you might actually have golden fleece.)

and finally...

Asgard by speedysnail (Rory Ewins)

In Asgard, three Norse gods of war,
Namely Woden and Frigga and Thor,
Thought they'd all be unique,
And have days of the week
Named after them. Loki's still sore.

Asgard is the world of the Aesir, or warrior gods, in Norse mythology.

Lord of the Silver Bow

Book Review:

Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow is an excellent book for any mythology fan despite the fact that the gods are absent. The worship is there. The prayers are there. The belief is there. The gods, however, do not show. In all ways, this is historical fiction - not fantasy. Reading how people react and how the gods are such a part of their life is very compelling and leads me to believe that maybe I was born in the wrong century.

As the title suggests, this series deals with the Trojan War, but this particular book (there are three in the series) is a lead up to the war. It follows three characters that would not be the first three characters I would have thought to be chosen for such a book. Without spoiling anything, here are the characters:

Aeneas - Known to many as The Golden One and to his friends as Heliakon, this is NOT the Aeneas in the movie Troy (you know, the little sap that turns up at the end and leads the people to run away). O.K., he is the same character but man! this guy is tough. He has ticked off the Mykene king (none other than Agamemnon) and now has assassin after assassin coming after him not to mention hoards of Mykenes. In every way he can be kind, he can be equally brutal.

Andromache - The wife to be of Hector. She is not a stereotype figure. She stands on her own rights and I ended up really liking her character. Many times a writer or a movie attempts to strengthen up a female character just to make her more likable for today's times. You know the type. They always put in a female villain so our new female hero can get in a fight with her. Not so in this case. Andromache is a strong female. She refuses to kneel before kings. She has a background, a life, a character that is believable. She has faults and woes that we share. While this book focuses more on Aeneas, she has a large part and I believe, from reading the book jacket, that she plays a much larger role in the second book.

Argurious - a Mykene warrior who is renown for his heroics, fighting ability, and honor. Through a series of unfortunate events, he finds himself protecting the one man he wants to kill - Aeneas. He is the least focused on of the three major characters, but no less skillfully developed.

There are many other characters as well. Agamemnon makes an appearance. Paris and Hector. King Priam is in it quite a lot, as well as many of your other Trojan War background characters like Kassandra. Odysseus is a side character that appears quite often. True to form, he is crafty and creative. Big strong pirates can't wait for his stories. Who was notably absent? Achilles. Like I said, the war doesn't happen in this book and so Achilles is not yet needed.

You need to read this book. Barnes and Noble put it in the fantasy section, my library has it in the general fiction section. It doesn't matter which section you find it in, get it!

Five lightning bolts out of five rating.

His website is being redesigned but can be found at: http://www.davidgemmell.com/. The Troy series is his last, as he died shortly after completing them.

Jerry Springer

Thanks to Off the Mark for this one.

http://www.offthemark.com/

The Stars Tonight

Now, bear with me because I am going to skim through this story to get to the real reason for this post, which is how to find a Norse constellation tonight.

There is a famous Norse myth where a giant named Thiazi tricks Loki into giving him both Idun and her golden apples. Now for you unfamiliar with Norse mythology, these golden apples are the only things that keep the gods young and strong. Without these apples, the gods began to whither. Even the beautiful Freya lost her hair. It was not hard to put two and two together and come up with some number close to five and figure out that Loki was behind it. All in all, the story ends up with Loki racing back with Idun and her apples in tow and Thiazi giving chase. The gods easily set a trap and kill Thiazi via big fire.

His daughter, Skadi, comes for revenge and since the gods aren't feeling like more bloodshed, they offer to pay her off. She will only take a deal that involves a marriage (by which the gods make her pick a husband by looking at his feet) and laughter (she gets this after Loki tells a crude story about tying a goat to his, um..., well manhood). As an added bonus, Odin reaches in his pocket which is where, for some reason, he has kept the eyes of Thiazi. He throws them into the sky to be stars and act as a tribute to this powerful giant.

Scholars suspect that this constellation is what we call Gemini. Gemini has two fairly bright stars called Castor and Pollux, after the Greek hero twins. You can see Thiazi's eyes tonight (and pretty much every night for the next month at least). If you go out in the next week and look west (where the sun set), you will see Orion. Even if you've never star gazed before, you'll be able to recognize Orion. It has seven of some of the brightest stars in the sky. Just above and a little left of Orion is Gemini. You will probably be able to see Thiazi's eyes and a red star that looks like it could be a nose. This red star is what the Norse called the Bloody Star (which we call Mars). It just happens to be passing through the neighborhood this month. Here is how the sky will look to the southwest tonight:

Here is what you are looking at. The eye to your left is what we call Pollux. It is the brighter of the two and is about 35 light years away. The right eye is not one star, not two stars, but actually six stars spaced so close together that you can only see them as one. In fact, even with a backyard telescope you can only make out two stars. They are 50 light years aways.

Happy star hunting! I'd love to know if anyone saw them.

Icarus

I've always been fascinated by Icarus and the following he has. There is an asteroid named after him, lots of artwork, a Cirque du Soliel act, even a song by Iron Maiden. Go to Google and you will find that Icarus has 1,850,000 entries while Hercules only has 1,770,000 entries. Hercules! Come on! The strongest hero ever! He even had a TV series and an Disney movie and he still can't get as many Google hits as Icarus.

Why the big deal? It is a short myth about the folly of not listening to your father. Me being a father, I think it is a great lesson to learn. I'm thinking about reading about Icarus's fall to my sons every night.

Despite that we get paintings like this one, The Lament of Icarus, by Herbert Draper. With the three maids caring for his body it's just like any death of King Arthur picture out there. Don't get me wrong. I really like this painting. It's a good use of brown colors and the wing are pretty cool, but the title! The Lament! The moral is not to hero-worship this guy.

I think it is because we admire his spirit. His refusal to be confined. His desire to take risks. After all, we do admire those who take chances and win. Those who go against the status quo. So I guess it is only right that we have a lament. He is a reminder of the pitfalls of being wrong.

This next one is a little hard to see in this reduced state, but is by far my favorite Icarus picture out there. It is called Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter the Elder Bruegal. I show this to my class every year and see what they think. At first they want to know why I'm showing it with an Icarus lesson. Then they start looking. It usually doesn't take too long for one of them to stop looking at the sky and look where he falls.

At this point they get confused as to why nobody in the painting has noticed this guy falling from the sky. That's the point. He went out for his own glory and his fall does not deserve to be noticed or honored. Nobody cares. This is why you listen to your father. After all, father knows best, right?

I'll end with this most unusual picture by Douglass Allchin called Homo Icarus:

Achilles

Here is a poem I found by Jeffrey Hull, a pediatrician that writes poetry in a blog. He titles it, "Achilles: Reflections on, well Reflections"

Achilles would not see old age nor wife,

His sea-nymph mother Thetis had foretold;

The choice was storied glory or long life,

And fame was far more dear than growing old.

Undying life, to be forever free

Of earthly bonds of body, time and space:

To break those ties and live in memory,

A tale three thousand years could not efface.

But mortal I obediently stand

Before this cold-eyed mirror every day

And note how little worked out as I planned,

And idly note my body's slow decay.

But if Achilles lived, he lived not so—

And I've got this to do, and there to go.

© 2005 Jeffrey Hull

You can find more of his poems at: http://jwhull.blogspot.com/

Cyclops Kitty

I'm sure you've seen this already, but here it goes.

Cy the cyclopic kitten was born in the last few days of 2005 and sadly enough died in the last few days of 2005. When this first came out there was, quite reasonably, a lot of doubts about this picture. I mean, come on! In this day of Photo Shop, who wouldn't think that a possibility? Live Science and the AP regional photo editor Tom Stathis has confirmed that this in indeed a true incident.

So truth remains stranger than fiction and now we have Cy.

This kind of thing happens so much that science has a name for it: Holoprosencephaly. This condition is a birth defect in which the brain doesn't properly develop. There are different levels of severity and obviously the above case is a severe one. There have been reports of people with this condition being born with a nose on the forehead, one eye, single-nostril noses, one middle tooth instead of two front teeth, and others.

Traci Allen, the owner of Cy, spent the night and the next day feeding and caring for it, but the deformities were just too much for the kitten to survive.

So what do you do with a dead one-eyed cat? Well, her owner put it in the freezer to save for science. Imagine that nightmare ice cream run in the middle of the night.

Since this condition does exist, might it have some relation to the belief of cyclops in the past? There are better possibilities, such as mammoth skulls (seen to the right) that fit both giant and one-eyed beings, but it might have something to do with it.

If you want to read more about Cy, try: http://www.livescience.com/animals/060111_ap_cyclops_cat.html

Don't be fooled, though. While Cy is real, this Internet pic is not:

Go to Hades

Heroes spent long hours searching out the entrance to the underworld. They should have tried Hades Creek in Washington. Or maybe Elysian Fields, Texas. They could have tried Hell, Michigan, or if they are really desperate Hel (Norse version), Poland.

While we're at it, if you want to see the Parthenon but can't afford the plane trip to Greece, then try Parthenon, Arkansas.

Need to know which lottery numbers to pick? Try Oracle, Arizona or maybe just try your luck at Fortuna (Roman goddess of luck), California (if that's too far, settle for Fortuna. Missouri).

Heroes aren't too hard to find either. Try:
Ulysses in Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania
Achilles, Virginia
Ajax, South Dakota
Hector in Arkansas, California, and New York

Feeling a little curious? Stay AWAY from Pandora in Ohio and Texas.

Twenty states all have a Troy - not a one of them has a wall.

Love is in the air in Eros, Louisiana and Arizona.

Why anyone would choose to name their city Medusa, I don't know, but there is a Medusa, New York.

My personal favorite? Valhalla, NC.

There are many more. I found a lot of these at http://thanasis.com/modern/places.htm if you care to find more cities like Orion, Vesta, Minerva, Argo, and more.

Web Site Review

If you haven't tried www.wingedsandals.com, then get with it! This site has an interesting take on mythology and was created through flash to give it a smooth animation set up. Your navigator on this site is Hermes, an annoying little god that has a high pitched voice and laughs if your cursor tickles him. From there, you can watch a few of the myths animated, a little different from what you are used to, but mythologically sound. It has a few pronunciation guides as well. There are myth related game, such as the one where you keep Icarus flying high and in the shade as much as possible. There are other little venues to explore. If you are looking for a complete mythology site with every minor deity and their counterpart in Roman mythology, then you'll be sad. If you are looking for a different twist on mythology that can be enjoyed by both young and old, this is it.

Main pro - it is fun!
Main con - wish they had even more myths to explore

I give it 4.5 lightning bolts out of 5.