Treasure # 2

Apparently, a young man by the name of Culhwch, fell in love.  He fell in love with the daughter of a giant named Ysbaddadan, who was not interested in his daughter marring such a cocky young man (that and the fact that if she gets married, he will die).  Young love, however, is not easily deterred and Culhwch accepts a challenge to collect 39 things.  All these things are virtually impossible to find and, when found, belong to people who are not willing to give them up ro unable to get rid of them.  That does not stop our young hero, and off he goes in search of the treasures.  One of the treasures is also the second treasure of Britain.  

The Hamper of Gwyddno Long-Shank, or otherwise known as Mwys Gwyddno Garanir.  It is said that if you put food for one man in it, you'll open it up and find food for a hundred men.  

It seems this Long-Shanks fellow was lord of a place in Wales named Catref y Gwaelod, but don't break out your handy dandy map to find it just yet.  The whole place was flooded and is wiped from the face of the earth to join the sea forever.

Culhwch eventually got all the items, but not without help.  King Arthur and his knights joined the hunt and helped him out.  When Culhwch gets back to him, you might would think that Ysbaddadan tried to back out of the deal, but, with somewhat refreshing originality, the giant puts Culhwch down for not finding all the items himself.  As soon as he does, another warrior who evidently was just sitting around waiting for this opportunity, leaps up and decapitates the giant in one blow!

Now I'm hungry!

13 Treasures

Let's look at the thirteen treasures of Britain - thirteen items that when brought together will bring the gods back to England or will give the humans power to overthrow the intruding gods.  However you want to look at it, it is a fascinating idea that is lost with the King Arthur tales.  If King Arthur is Christian, then you want him going after Christian artifacts like the holy grail.  If King Arthur is pagan, well, you want him to go after less Christian things.  

These treasures according to 18th century scholar Lewis Morris,  All of the treasures were taken to Bardsey Island and placed in a glass house (which, as we all know, is NOT a good place to throw stones or feed seagulls).  The earliest written works about the treasures (also known as

 the hallows - a possible source of the Harry Potter Hallows) only mentions their names and that they are treasures "from the North."

So, here is the first treasure:

White Hilt (the Sword of Rhydderch the Generous):  Rhydderch Heal was king of Strathclyde from 540 AD to 614 AD.  It was said that he owned this treasure and was willing to offer it to anyone - thus the title of Generous.  However, this sword has a peculiar design.  When a "well born" man drew the sword, the whole blade would burst into flame (a la Thundarr the Barbarian).  Nobody, for fear that it would not burst into flame for them, ever took Rhydderch the Generous up on his, well, generous offer (just imagine the embarrassment).  This treasure is also known as Dyrnwyn, gleddyf Rhydderch Hael.  Don't ask me how to pronounce it!

Flaming sword image from: http://www.jeffhaynie.com/Faith/Faithgallery.html

Just in Case

To Marry a Goddess

Meet OBA JOSEPH ADEKOLA OGUNOYE, the Olowo of Owo in Nigeria.

The picture and the following all come from Daniel Laine’s Fantastic Work on African Kings

Six hundred years ago, Olowo, the King, fell in love with Orensen, a very beautiful woman. Unfortunately for the King, she was a goddess who could not live with a human. She was forbidden to see women pounding spices, draw water, or throw a bundle of wood to the ground.

Because of his love for the goddess, and in order to marry her, the King promised her that his other wives, in front of her would follow these same restrictions. After several years, the King’s wives became jealous and revolted. They did everything they were not supposed to do in front of the goddess, who then cast a spell upon the entire kingdom. The goddess promised that people of Owo, would die of famine or sickness if the King and his chiefs did not celebrate every year a ceremony in her honor. The drums should beg her pardon and sing her praises. One also had to offer her a sacrifice of a man and a woman.

This ceremony, Igogo, still exists, but the human beings have been replaced by a sheep and a goat.

Lord of the Cu Sith?

Darth Vader is by far my favorite anti-hero.  Everything about him always seemed so mysterious.  Now that the first three movies have been made, we know all about him, but when I was growing up, there was always that wonder of what happened to this guy to make him so evil?  Even now I'll watch Revenge of the Sith and sort of hope that he won't actually kill those little kids, even though I know he must in order to turn so evil.  And that title:  Lord of the Sith!  When I was a kid, no one knew what a Sith was, but man, wouldn't it be cool to be one?  I even remember a Marvel comic that had a Sith as an alien being and Darth Vader, as evil as he was, had done something super nice and saved their whole world, which is why they worshipped him.

Now, Sith just means jedi of the dark side, and while it is nice to have some clarity, the magic just seems to be gone.

But since I am bored today, I'll push it a little farther.  Sith, in Gaelic, evidently means fairy.  Now, while I usually think all mythology allusions to be super cool, Darth Vader - the guy named Skywalker after the Norse trickster Loki, the guy whose name is a twist on Dark Father (a little foreshadowing back then), is now the Lord of the Faeries???  Just doesn't seem right.  I wondered if it was an accident or intentional on Lucas's part.  We have talked about faeries here, some, but not enough for me to know this.  I couldn't find out, although I did find a large history of the Sith (Star Wars-style, not Gaelic) at How Stuff Works, of all places (and they do mention the faerie thing.

Pushing on along, I found a website called Cu Sith.  It seems to be a start to a collection of mythological articles.  I was not very impressed by it yet, as there are more links to buying things, progressive newsletters, and other stuff than actual myths, but it might be interesting to check back there every once and a while to check it out to see how/if it evolves.

The interesting thing about Cu Sith is the name.  A cu sith is a faerie dog.  It is huge, so huge that its paw is as big as your hand and bigger than a bull.  It foretells death, like so many other of the black dog ilk, but in this case, what separated the cu sith from those other dime-a-dozen dogs is that he's green.  Yep.  

You really got to feel sorry for the cu sith.  While he is environmentally friendly and all, from what I've learned from Kermit growing up, it's not easy being green.

The Dog Star, uh Planet, uh Whatever...

O.K., back to our journey through space.  I got a bit distracted in the process, we are finally at Pluto.  Only two more stops to go!

Now, Pluto was a planet, but is now no longer a planet for reasons we will discuss when we get to the next stop in space.  Let's just say that I am not very happy about this and my nerdy self has not yet gotten over it.  I understand why, I just like Pluto.

Pluto is almost impossible to see, which is why it took so long to find it and why it earned the moniker of the formidable god of the dead*.  Pluto (Greek - Hades) has a helmet of invisibility, so the astronomer was being rather clever when he he chose Pluto as the name.

One of Pluto's problems is that it is very small.  In fact it is less than 3/4 the size of our own moon.  It has three moons itself, despite the small size.  The first to be found was named Charon, after the ferryman of souls on the river Styx.  For a while astronomers did not know if Charon should be a moon or classify Pluto and Charon as a binary planet system since Charon is almost the same size as Pluto.  There are two other moons, both very small that are not yet officially named.  Unofficially they are Hydra (after the monster from Hercules fame - I think Cerberus would be a better name) and Nix (night - a divine being that is so powerful that even Zeus is afraid to challenge).  

* There is some argument about Pluto being the god of the dead.  Technically, Pluto is the Roman god of wealth.  Dis is the Roman god of the dead, counterpart to Hades.  Over the years, the two basically have gotten merged in our minds as one.

Disney created their famous dog character the same year that Pluto was discovered.  When the news was released that Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet, Disney issued their own press release:

 BURBANK, CALIF (Thursday, August 24, 2006) – In reaction to news today that Pluto was demoted to the status of “dwarf planet,” the Seven Dwarfs issued their own short statement:

    “Although we think it's DOPEY that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet, which has made  some people GRUMPY and others just SLEEPY, we are not BASHFUL in saying we would be HAPPY if Disney's Pluto would join us as an 8th dwarf. We think this is just what the DOC ordered and is nothing to SNEEZE at.”

    As Mickey Mouse’s faithful companion, Pluto made his debut in 1930 – the same year that scientists discovered what they believed was a ninth planet.

    Said a white-gloved, yellow-shoed source close to Disney’s top dog, “I think the whole thing is goofy. Pluto has never been interested in astronomy before, other than maybe an occasional howl at the moon.”

Tribute to the Unknown God

I know you're thinking that I don't know what I'm talking about when I include Mother Earth as an unknown god (or goddess in this case).  See, that's where you underestimate me.  I'm not talking about Gaia.  I'm talking about Erce, the Saxon goddess.  You can see her here on a nice throw pillow available at Cafe Press.  They call her the Celtic goddess of the harvest, but they are wrong.  

I set out to find some information about her after reading her name in another one of Bernard Cornwell's books (this one on King Arthur).  Turns out, not too many people know about her.  One of my standard checks for obscure deities is usually God Checker, but they didn't have her.  I then went to the goddess expert, Goddess-a-Day, and Erce wasn't there either!  I knew then that I was either onto something, or Cornwell just made it up.  Since the latter was unlikely, I continued my search.

Eventually I found this excerpt:

'Erce, Erc, Erce, Mother Earth,
Hail to thee, Earth, mother of men,

Be fruitful in Gods embrace,

Filled with food for the use of men'.

These few lines of poetry are all we have of this Saxon goddess.  This charm is pre-Christain in origin, so it gives us a rare glimpse of mythology in a pre-Christain England.  Since many of the Saxons beliefs became mingled with Norse and Christianity eventually, it is neat (to me at least) to see this.  Some scholars have compared her to other Anglo-Saxon figures, such as Nerthus, Hretha, and one I had never heard of, Frau Herke.  

Some say that since Erce is repeated three times, that she must be a triple goddess, maybe relating to the three seasons (fall didn't really exist as a separate season in most cultures until later).

Of all the references I found to Erce, the weirdest was this (obviously no relation) from 

the Urban Dictionary:   1. Erce (pronunced air-ce)  A word said to express approval, happiness,something personal or to describe something neat or cool. This word is derrived from an evolving list, begining with the word 'percy.'

Sand Castles

When I go to the beach, my sons and I always build a sand castle.  I thought we were pretty good, but then I saw this on Oddee:

I am assuming that this is Pluto and Cerberus (maybe we just can't see the third head?  Or maybe the sad two-headed version of Cerberus found on The Clash of the Titans?  And yes, that is sand he's working with.  Or how about this one:

O.K., I see Icarus (and those of you familiar with this blog know that I like the Icarus story), and I see the minotaur.  What I can't tell is the event that is going on in the corner.  I assume that it has to do with Daedalus in some shape, form, or fashion, but for the life of me I can't place it?  

How about you?  Anyone got any ideas on what is the myth in the corner?  I'll give an electronic no-prize to the person who comes up with the best possibility.

Lords of the North

I just got finished with taxes (ugh!) and while I'm waiting for the printer to spit out all those pages of forms, I thought I'd post a review here.

Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwall is the third book in the Saxon series.  It is all about King Alfred the Great, even though Alfred is not the main character.  It is seen through the eyes of Uthred, a Saxon who was raised by Danes and has a different viewpoint on Christianity and what makes England England.  I've review the first book, The Last Kingdom, already.  It took me awhile before I picked the series back up, not because I didn't like the series - far from it.  It was because some ne'er-do-well checked out the second book and kept it out for a looooong time.  I finally checked out the LARGE PRINT VERSION SO I COULD CONTINUE THE SERIES.  MUCH TO MY DISMAY, THE LARGE PRINT WAS ACTUALLY PRETTY NICE ON MY EYES...  Anyway, I thought I would share with you a paragraph from this book which shows why that even though it is historical fiction, the interweaving of mythology and Christianity makes this book a must read for anyone interested in either Norse mythology or how the early Christians handled the taking over of England.    Keep in mind that the narrator here is more inclined toward the Danes and so does not like Christians very much.

     I am no Christian. These days it does no good to confess that, for the bishops and abbots have too much influence and it is easier to pretend to a faith than to fight angry ideas. I was raised a Christian, but at ten years old, when I was taken into Ragnar's family, I discovered the old Saxon gods who were also the gods of the Danes and of the Norsemen, and their worship has always made more sense to me than bowing down to a god who belongs to a country so far away that I have met no one who has ever been there. Thor and Odin walked our hills, slept in our valleys, loved our women and drank from our streams, and that makes them seem like neighbors. The other thing I like about our gods is that they are not obsessed with us. They have their own squabbles and love affairs and seem to ignore us much of the time, but the Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for us. He makes rules, more rules, prohibitions and commandments, and he needs hundreds of black-robed priests and monks to make sure we obey those laws. He strikes me as a very grumpy god, that one, even though his priests are forever claiming that he loves us. I have never been so stupid as to think that Thor or Odin or Hoder loved me, though I hope at times they have thought me worthy of them. 

Overall, I give this a 5 lightning bolts out of 5 rating.  A must read!