Tigerheart

Peter David is an excellent writer, very skilled at taking existing characters and breathing new life into them.  He started with comics (Spider-Man) and moved on to the Hulk, Aquaman, and Supergirl.  Everywhere he went, the title, once lagging in sales, blew through the roof.  He had a great novel series (well, at least two out of three) on King Arthur.  

His newest novel is Tigerheart, a tribute/continuation of Peter Pan.  Since the Peter Pan franchise is closely copyright guarded, he doesn't actually use the names.  Instead of Peter Pan, you have The Boy.  Instead of Wendy, you have Gwenny (which in real life is the name of the author's daughter).  Instead of Captain Hook, you the notorious Captain Hack (who has a hatchet for a hand).  They don't live in Neverland, but instead Anyplace.

To avoid the over cheesiness of ripping off another author , he pays tribute to Peter Pan's author by offering him thanks.  Although it is difficult to get used to. 

This is not a book written for kids, but rather for adults lamenting the loss of their childhood.  It is not unsuitable for children (I'm reading it to my 9 year old now and he likes it much better than I do).  To me, though, this is not Peter David's best work (my son, reading over my shoulder disagrees, but since he has never read any of David's other works, don't take his advice).  But the reason I thought it worth mentioning here is the mythology connection.  Peter David has always shown a penchant for mythology in his writings (both comic and prose).  In this book, he explains why Peter Pan has such a mischievous nature by having Peter claim to be the grand nephew of Loki, the Norse trickster/shape shifting god of trouble.  I think it is a good fit.  It explains the happy-go-lucky, selfish nature of Pan.

Got extra time and nothing to read?  Pick this up at your local library.  It is a good reminder of an old story.  I give it 2.5 lightning bolts out of 5.  I would love to hear from anyone who read the book and see if they agree.

Cerberus

Cerberus is the dog of all dogs. Three heads (sometimes 50, depending on who you read), snake tail (or snakes for fur, once again depending on who you read), and the ability to keep all intruders out of Hades...well, that last one is not quite true.

Several people have managed to get past Cerberus. You can bypass him all together if you have a boat like Odysseus. Hercules just grabbed him by two of his throats and walked out with him. Orpheus put him to sleep by playing a lullaby. Psyche even got past him by throwing him a biscuit. I mean, come on! Pysche! She cried over each task!

Well. It doesn't stop there. Cerberus's lack of stopping people from getting past him (them?) transcends mythology and makes it on to pop culture as well. Percy Jackson throws him a red rubber ball to get past him. Harry Potter and friends puts him to sleep also by using music - thereby not only cheapening his guard skills for falling for the same trick twice, but also making Orpheus no one special (I'm mean, even kids could do what he did).

In Cerberus's favor, there was a Mythbusters special on how to get past guard dogs. You can see all their findings here: http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2007/03/episode_74_dog_myths.html

Other times Cerberus appears:

Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs got into a row with a miner in West Virginia over the pronunciation of the dog. Mike lost.

While he doesn't get his own planet, there is a dark spot on Mars named after the tri-headed beast.

Apparently there is a movie titled after him as well. More info at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421121/

I found this news reference to Cerberus on the Internet:

Matt Brouillette of The Commonwealth Foundation, called state Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Philadelphia, a “minion” of House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Fayette.

Under DeWeese’s control, the chairwoman of the House State Government committee stalls reform legislation, Brouillette said.

“She is Cerberus, guarding the River Styx,” he said, referring to the fierce three-headed dog that is said to patrol the banks of the boundary between the Earth and the underworld in the Greek mythology.

http://christopherwink.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/greek-mythology-and-state-government-no-its-funny-i-swear/

And for those of you who want to draw the cute little thing, I found this also: http://www.drawfluffy.com/three-headed%20dog.html

Old Spice Mythology

Apparently this one's been out there for months, but I just saw it and thought I'd share it with you. It's not often you see a centaur take a shower.

You can watch it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06TBhGrzyN4

Mythology in the News

Just a few recent mythology related news headlines:

• Norse Mythology on Ice
  http://www.excal.on.ca/cms2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6161
  Disney on ice has got nothing on Thor.
  
• MSU Authors Of New Idiot's Guide
  http://www.kauz.com/news/local/28427709.html
  Next, The Idiot's Guide to Idiot's Guides. This one though is on world mythology.
  
• Whither Prometheus' Liver? Greek Myth and the Science of Regeneration
  http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/149/6/421
  I'm staying away from that. Regeneration brought Prometheus nothing but pain.
  
• Ruins of Temple of Athena Found
  http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=468940&sid=FTP
  Thought Ailia would like that one.
  
• Ancient Greek Graves Found Under Subway
  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=69317&sectionid=3510212
  I saw that in a movie once . . . wait, that was with Native American graves and a house.
  
• Witchcraft Rumor Sparks Riot at Congo Soccer Game http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D937AFGO1&show_article=1
  O.K., so that last one wasn't really mythology in the strictest sense, but we have enough pagan readers who I thought would appreciate it. Witchcraft and soccer. Makes sense to me.

Tengu

Tengu, also known as The Heavenly Dogs. So why the picture of the bird guy?  Mostly due to translation issues between Japanese characters and Chinese characters led to the transforming of cultural ideas into one creature.

Tengus (tengi?) are humanoid monsters, sometimes giant humanoid monsters.  They have a human body, glowing eyes, and the beak (usually red) and wings of a bird.  The females are especially dangerous as they have the full head of an animal and fangs and large ears and noses.  

They are highly skilled in the martial arts and also highly aggressive.  If you are a warrior, go seek one out near Mount Kurama and try to defeat them and absorb their skills.  If you are a traveller, avoid them at all costs since they will make you go insane (I'm not crazy, I'm MAD!).

As the tengu legend grew, they became more tricksters, staring fires, misleading priests,  and even kidnappers of small, well, kids.

Tengu are born from giant eggs and tend to hang around tall trees.  When they take human shape, they tend to have long noses.  It is debatable from the sources I've seen if the tengu have regular bird wings or hummingbird wings.  Tengu can communicate without opening its mouth

Outside of muythology, Tengu have appeared in Batman.  Once Bruce Wayne had lost his role as Batman and took the mask of a tengu until he could reclaim his Batman outfit.  

If you want, you can have a tengu for your computer:

This little tengu plugs into your USB port and makes faces whenever you play music.  Why it is called a tengu, I do not know...

Gwyllgi

The gwyllgi is an interesting character.  It is a huge black dog that resembles a Mastiff and haunts roads at night to scare travellers.    Almost every source I find has that much information and maybe a little something else.  From looking at various sources I have found that it is also called The Dog of Darkness, Mauthe Doog, and Barghest.  There are a lot of black dog creatures in Europe and North Europe.  The Gwyllgi is the one found in Wales.    I found a whole web site devoted to the black dog phenomena, but I won't go through it now.  I'm only interested in the gwylli today.

As I continued to search, I found most sources say that when people went back in the day time to see evidence of what they saw, nothing was there.  One source that stated when someone saw the black dog their death was imminent.  That started me thinking about Harry Potter - remember book three with The Grim?

To drive things home and make it truly interesting to me, I found a "see also" reference to another type of giant dog similar to the gwyllgi - Padfoot, the nickname of the black dog "haunting" Harry at the time.  So I know that nothing in those books are accidental, but it is still fun to find where the lesser known allusions come from.

To link this to Greek mythology, you have a similar idea, not with a dog, but with Pan.  The god was known to hide in the woods near roads and make noises to scare travellers, which is where we get the word, "panic."

Blog Love

I have been honored to be nominated for the I love Your Blog award.  Deeply impressed, I am.  I did some checking and with this great honor comes great responsibility (as Uncle Ben taught me).  I am to nominate 7 other blogs that I love.  I think you'll enjoy these too.

My nominations for the I Love Your Blog Award:

Paleotheia : Not in the least because she nominated me, but this is where I go on a regular basis to find out more about mythology.  This blog takes mythology from a female point of view and focuses on the females in myth.  Not only that, she has a FANTASTIC website that shows off much of her knowledge in this field.  Plus the nifty quizzes too.

The English Teacher Blog : I visit this blog every week day.  It is short, sweet, and chocked full of good ideas and web sites for English teachers.  This is the blog that inspired me to write mine.

That's Punny : A funny photo blogs of puns found on signs around America. Always good for a laugh.

Cake Wrecks : Another funny photo blog that shows what happens when good cakes go bad (or at least when bad cake decorators show off their mistalents).

Nixia Mythology : Mr. Mythology uses this for his class blog, so it is not a place to go to comment, but it is neat to see his take on teaching mythology and how the students are responding.  Plus he has some interesting adaptations and a great "Where's Waldo" from the Trojan War point of view.

Symbolic Meanings : A. Venefica takes on different symbols and explains their meaning, where they came from, and different takes on them.  As an English teacher and mythology lover, it is interesting to see what she has to say.  Plus it gives me more ammunition to ruin movies for my wife by pointing out symbolism as we watch it.

The Spider's Den : I just found this one and have yet to explore it fully, but it seems right up my alley.  The Lady of Spiders picks different mythology, folk lore, and pop culture creatures and ideas (werewolves, vampires, the Namarrgon (you'll need to her site to read it if you want to know)).  So far it seems to be one that I'll be checking more often.

So there you go.  I have spread the love and didn't even spend time exploring Celtic love deities.  Thanks for the honor and I hope all of you go and check these blogs out.

Hurricanes

I don't know where you are reading this, but I'm writing this on the eastern side of the country. Hurricanes occasionally come by here and just this morning we had Hurricane Hanna (well, technically it was a tropical storm by the time it hit us) come through. Behind it is Ike and behind that is Josephine. So I began to wonder about hurricanes and mythology. Once I waded through all the sites by angry people on Katrina, I found the following story from Babylonian mythology:

In the beginning was water. From this came Apsu (sweet water) and Tiamat (salt water - not to be confused with Tiamat, the five headed dragon from the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon). They do what all brother and sister gods tend to do when left to their own devices (I'm talking about holding hands) and gave birth to Mummu (waves), Lakhmu (a big serpent), and Lakhamu (another big serpent).

The serpents held hands and gave birth to the heavens and earth. And these held hands to make all the great gods. All these baby gods made so much ruckus that Apsu and Tiamat decided that maybe it would be best to destroy them all and get a good night's sleep (come on, if you are a parent, you can say that the thought hasn't crossed your mind at least once...).

One of the great gods was Ea, the all knowing. So being all knowing and all, he found out about the plan. He captured Apsu and Mummu. This thoroughly pissed off Tiamat who then created an army of freaks to teach Ea and his siblings a lesson.

Ea, being all knowing and all, realizes that things don't look so good and tries to get some of the other gods to get off their lazy rear ends and fight. They are all scared. All except Marduk.

Marduk said he would beat Tiamat if he would become the supreme god. The agreed, held a big feast, had lots of fun and gave him a scepter and a throne.

Marduk went to battle armed with arrows, lightning, wind, a net, and a HURRICANE (thus the connection here). Tiamat came riding a storm being pulled by four huge horses. They fight.

When Marduk caught her in his net, Tiamat tries to swallow him whole, but as she opened her mouth, Marduk shoved the hurricane in it. There she sat, all bloated and full of gas, and Marduk shot her in the belly. I don't know if she popped like a balloon, but she died.

Moment of silence.

Marduk then caught her army of freaks and threw them into the underworld. Tiamat's body was then cut up and used to create part of the world in which we live. He created us from the blood of Kingu, her general. All the gods, awed by his strength and power (and perhaps feeling a little guilty) gave him their powers, making him top dog of Babylonian gods.

Synchroblog: Journeys to the Otherworld

This synchroblog comes from http://mythology.ourgardenpath.com/. I'm happy to participate as this is my second time and these are fun. Check out Mahud's blog to see the other takes on this topic.


Journey to the Otherworld - When I first heard the topic, I kept hearing "otherworld" in deep, echoing words. That is until I remembered that I had watch a Genesis video and Phil Collins introduced "Home by the Sea" as a journey into the other - world (echo echo echo). Alas, I'm not doing a blog on Genesis. I would never be invited to do another synchroblog and it really doesn't have any mythology to it anyway.

Instead, I'm going with Cu Chulainn, Irish hero and all around neat guy. Now the last time I did a Celtic blog entry was about the salmon connection and no, I am NOT going to talk about fish (although Cu Chulainn can jump so high they call it the salmon leap...). I did one Cu Chulainn and his battle rage yesterday (http://bubosblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/action-figure-waiting-to-happen.html). This is his journey into the other world.

The Irish otherworld is not a distinct other location, as it is in most other mythologies. It exists all around us in a different dimension. There are places and times where/when the boundaries are weaker than others and people and otherworlders can cross between at will or by accident.



This story starts early in our hero's life. He had been in battle, but had not made a name for himself and he falls in love (right there, you know trouble is coming) with the gorgeous Emer. Her father, Fogall, does not like him and puts Cu Chulainn off by saying, "You don't have enough battle experience, kid." He was obviously thinking Cu was like any other boy who would just go and find someone else. Instead, Cu Chulainn said, "You're right," and goes off to find the best teacher in the world to make him worthy of the beautiful Emer (you know, if she had a better name, I would not have to add adjectives.

The problem is, how do you find the best warrior? Cu Chulainn decides to do so by travelling to the land of shadows and trains under the warrior-princess Xena (Ha! just joking, the warrior princess is named Scathach). He trained for a year and a day.


As you'll see from the picture, warrior princesses may be able to fight well, but often do not understand the finer aspects of armor and how it works.

During this year, Cuchulainn becomes the lover of Scathach’s daughter. Now this is O.K., because he still love Emer. Scathach warns Cuchulainn not to fight her sister, Aoifa, but Cuchulainn cannot turn down the challenge. When she enters the field to teach him a lesson, he beats Aoifa and she becomes his mistress (once again, this is O.K., because in his heart, he is faithful and true to his one love, Emer). He gives Aoifa a ring to remember him by when he leaves. After he leaves, she gives birth to his son, Conlai. Cuchulainn does not know this.

Cuchulainn returns from the shadow world to claim Emer, but Fogall puts up a fight a she never intended Cu Chulainn to have Emer. Cuchulainn, now the best warrior in all Ireland (although he doesn't officially earn that title until he defeats a Green Knight wannabe) defeats all of Fogall’s warriors and Fogall does what any sane man would do to avoid fighting Cu Chulainn, jumps to his death to avoid Cuchulainn.


And they live happily ever after.


What? The kid? Oh yeah, Conlai returns to find his father, refuses to give the king his name (an offense with a death penalty) and the king has Cu Chulainn kill him. Since the kid is wearing the ring, Chulainn knows who he must be and kills him anyway. Loyalty to one's king is a heroic trait, after all...

Here are some other participants to the synchroblog:

Faith and the Hero’s Journey (Hawk’s Cry: The voice of a witch)
Journeying to Otherworlds: Access Denied (Between Old and New Moons)
Lions at the Door (Quaker Pagan Reflections)
More Than These Words (Aquila ka Hecate)
Journeying to Otherworlds (The Dance of the Elements)
Mythology Synchroblog 4: Children’s Story for Mabo (Pagan Dad)
Underground Ruminations (Gorgon Resurfaces)
Otherworlds Synchroblog: Olympus (Paleothea: the Ancient Goddess)
Symbolic Saiho-ji and Otherworld Journeying (Symbolic Meanings)
Becoming pagan in America - an otherworld journey (Executive Pagan)
Welcome to the Otherworlds Next Door (Many Questions)