Another Obscure Myth Allusion Award!

The winner of our third Obscure Myth Allusion award (the first going to a news article to subtly drop the name Ratatosk and the second, which is currently under review by the Obscure Myth Allusion Oversight Committee for not truly being obscure went to Sisyphus) is Padarn Red-Coat.  The following site quickly drops in Padarn Red-Coat right there with Hermes and Aphrodite as mythical beings who have pretty cool clothes.  

The Red Suit Enthusiasm - Their slogan is, "Kicking butt and taking names since Moby Dick was a minnow," which tells you something about them right there.  Apparently they try to get a lot of people to exercise in this spandex red suit and attribute mythical powers to it.  Check it out.

What?  Did you say you don't know who Padarn Red-Coat is?  Shame on you.  Everyone knows this guy.  He has this red coat, you see.   Actually it is more of a tunic / early sweat shirt.  This is not just any red garment, mind you.  It is the ninth treasure of England!  That's right.  Otherwise known as Pais Badarn Beisrvdd (the coat of Padarn Red-Coat) can only be worn by a noble person.  If you are of such high birth, then it would fit you perfectly.  If you were just some punk, it would not fit at all.    

This is not an uncommon idea.  Many times, like in Macbeth, we show people who do not belong in their position by the fact that their clothes do not fit.  Heck, even the Disney movie The Santa Clause does this by showing Scott Calvin not fitting into the Santa Claus suit until he fully becomes his new persona.  Watch a few movies this weekend and I'm sure you'll run across another one.  This is an especially popular image when you have a story about a king or some other nobility that is not the rightful heir.  Of course, those readers here in America are experiencing ill fitting clothes right now, but that is less of being punkish and more of eating too much turkey for Thanksgiving.  Mmmmmm......

Now, interesting enough, Padarn Red-Coat is not the only Padarn walking around.  Apparently the name Padarn was all the rage back then.  Maybe if my wife and I have another kid, we'll name him Padarn (or Padarna if it is a little girl).  I'm sure my wife will approve.  Anyway, there is a St. Padarn.  St. Padarn had established a monastery and is an actual historical figure.  His history, however, runs into mythology as many of the early saints tend to do.  This saint, just like Padarn Red-Coat, has a run in with Arthur.  This run-in involves a tunic.  So you can see that the two stories must have a common origin.  In the saint's story, Arthur tried to steal his tunic.  Some of us may see this as uncharacteristically Arthur; however, Arthur stories have been written by many people who have portrayed him in many lights.

When Arthur tries to take the tunic, Padarn causes the earth to swallow Arthur up to his neck.  Arthur then sees the error of his ways and the awesomeness of God and begs forgiveness.  Padarn, being a saint and all, forgives Arthur and the earth spits him back out.

So have a happy Thanksgiving (even if you are in a part of the world that doesn't celebrate it) and remember to only wear clothes that fit so that no one will think you a churl.

The Whetstone of Death!

First of all, what a hectic week!  Not only am I running in different directions, but my laptop has decided it has no hard drive.  I know it has a hard drive.  It had a hard drive when I last shut it down.

Anyway, sorry for the delay between posts.  Let's get back to the 13 Treasures of Britain.  Treasure number 8 is a pretty neat one.  If you look back at the previous treasures you'll find that they are pretty much ordinary things.  They are something extraordinary that could pass as ordinary.  This is a pretty universal feeling.  How many of us at one time or another fancied that we have some very valuable collectible stored away in our attic.  We just didn't know the value of it yet.

This treasure is no different.  It is a whetstone (a rockish thing used to sharpen knives or swords).  It is officially called the Whetstone of Tudwal Tudglyd (or Hogalen Tudwal Tutklyd).  Here is the deal - if a brave man sharpens his sward with it, then later uses that sword to cut a man, that man will die.  If a cowardly man  sharpens his sword with it, then later uses it to cut a man, that man will not be hurt at all.  Once again we see the emphasis on bravery with the treasures.

Other than that, I couldn't find much more on Tudwal or his whetstone.  However, this is not the only place in mythology that whetstones are used.  In Norse mythology, we have Hrungnir, the giant who had a head of stone, a heart of stone, and a shield of stone.  For a weapon, he didn't use a whetstone to sharpen his sword, he used the whetstone as a weapon!  He just threw the darn thing at his opponents.  He threw it at Thor and it got stuck in Thor's forehead.

Thor goes to a sorceress named Groa and she starts chanting a magical chant (which is a bit redundant) and the whetstone starts to move.  Thor is so excited, he decides to tell her something to make her happy.  He found her husband, who she thought was dead, carried him across a river, and her husband is on his way home.  He said that he didn't completely wrap up the guy as they were crossing the river and one part of him froze off - his toe (get your mind out of the gutter!).  Thor threw his toe up in the sky where it became a star.

No body knows the exact star the old Norse looked at and said, "Hey, that looks like a toe!" but some scholars think it is Rigel, the bottom right bright blue star in Orion (see below):

See the really bright bottom right star?  That's the toe.  Orion is pretty easy to spot in the sky.  Orion's belt is the three stars in a row in the middle of the constellation.  You can see it now.  If you are in the northern hemisphere, go outside and look east, the constellation is rising (east is where the sun normally rises, if you are unsure which direction to look).  If you are a morning person, you can see it in the west before the sun rises.  For the southern hemisphere readers, I'm not so sure where Orion is, if it is even visible at this time of year.  If anyone knows and wants to leave a comment, you'll have my thanks.

Anyway, she gets so excited about the return of her husband, that she forgets the chant!  The whetstone is stuck in Thor's head to this day.  Now, don't you go around throwing whetstones to see if it would make a good weapon for you to use.  Anytime a whetstone is thrown, it makes the one in Thor's head move and that hurts him.  You wouldn't want to make him angry, now would you?

Hopefully, this nice long post makes up for leaving you with Destroyer of Ponies! for so long.  Sorry about that...

Unicorn, Destroyer of Ponies

O.K., not a deep philosophical post today (yeah, like my others are!), but I saw this and figured it was weird enough to include here.  For the record, I always thought that the School of Science and Math here in North Carolina chose a unicorn for their mascot because they must all be wimps, but this picture might just change my mind.

Darn unicorns!  Always causing problems!

A Book of Mythic Porportions!

O.K., since I am a teacher, I get teacher junk mail from time to time.  Today, I got one that got my interest up.  I have never seen this and am wondering if any of you have.  Here is the e-mail that I opened today:

It looks like something right up my oldest son's alley.  However, I shudder to think of the bad jokes that will certainly abound in the All in the Family edition!  I get all the books except the She's All That.  Come on, a whole book on female mythic characters?  I chapter, sure, but a book?   Just kidding Alia!  I have to let my male chauvinist side out once in while.  The other thing that I want to know is, how many of you out there have already Facebooked a god?  You know you're out there.  I don't do Facebook, but I'm sure if I did, I would have been nerdy enough to have already hit the big twelve.

So, no lightning bolts yet as I haven't looked at anything other than this ad.  Help me out people.  Has anyone seen this?  At least flipped through it?  I might get it for my son if I get some good reviews.

Finados

Nov. 2nd (yes, I know that has passed us by) is the celebration of Finados.  What is Finados you ask?  good question and one that a cursory run through of the internet will not yield great answers to (unless you speak Portuguese or Spanish, which I do not (although I did take French in high school, but have yet to see any benefit here in North Carolina)).  Finados gets connected often with All Saints Day (Nov. 1), but is not really the same.  Finados is a Day of the Dead type celebration where the cemeteries are all spruced up and people bring flowers, light candles, and pray for loved ones that have passed away.  It is not a day of tears, but rather a day of celebration for the life of the loved one.

Since it takes place so close to the more Christianized holiday of All Saints Day, most people just lump them together.  But the true origins of Finados go beyond All Saints Day to possibly Mayan and Aztec times. How connected to Finados this is, I'm not rightly sure, but I do know that the Mayans kept the skulls of their ancestors to bring them out at times to honor them.  I find this both a little icky and yet at the same time pretty cool.  Skulls are pretty powerful symbols in Latin countries.  The website Symbolic Meanings has a good entry on the symbolic meaning and the skull and the snake.

This year, one Brazilian family had an amazing Finados.  It seems that poor Ademir Jorge Goncalves was killed in a car wreck this Sunday.  The body was horribly mangled, but identified by several family members.  The next day being Finados, the decided to hold the funeral for him.  Right smack dab in the middle of the funeral, in walks Ademir Jorge Goncalves!  It seems he was not out driving, instead he was out drinking with some buddies.  I'm just thinking of the irony as some of those people must have been sitting there at the service, thinking if only they could see him one more time...

The person that was identified as him was later correctly identified (we hope) and buried later. The whole story is here.  Happy Finados to you (a little late)!

I Know - It's Supposed to be Jar...